Loch Ness Monster and Other News

Exciting new footage of the Loch Ness Monster has been taken that that afficianados say is among the finest ever taken. I think that shows just how bad all the previous footage has been. I remain unimpressed.

More interesting is the fact that a Seattle man know as the "Spam King" has been arrested on 35 counts of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and fraud in connection with electronic mail. Unfortunately I think somebody else will just step into the void he's leaving, but at least there is hope that we are beginning to win the war on spam.

Finally, this isn't news, but on the bus in to work this morning, I noticed a middle aged woman reading a book titled 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian'. I was absolutely baffled as to why anyone would be interested in Eastern European tractors. It turns out, however that this is just a dumb name for a romance novel. I would actually have been more impressed with the woman had she been reading about tractors.

Today's Game

Ok here's how this works. You get to choose one musical act (and I use that term generously) that you can kill off. You don't get to go back in time and kill them before they recorded anything and completely wipe them out of musical history, you have to kill them now. That will insure that they will never release any more music, but it doesn't have to be a current act. You can choose someone who hasn't recorded in years purely out of spite. And just to add one more twist to make this interesting, any group that was organized enough to come up with a name is fair game. So if you want a lot of bang for your buck, you can choose to kill off USA For Africa and take out a whole bunch of people at once. And whoever you choose will include all current AND former members. So let the games begin.

My intitial thought is to pick some country band since I hate country, but there are just too many to narrow it down, and I don't know who sings what anyway, or many of the band names for that matter. Fred Durst comes to mind as someone I'd like to see die, so Limp Bizkit is pretty high on the list. Ditto Marilyn Manson. Michael Jackson has got to go, but if I picked the Jackson Five I could do some collateral damage. I think I'm going to have to settle on Eminem though. I really hate that guy.

I Love's This Warm Weather

After a long, cold winter, this sunshine and warm weather is fantastic. I can't begin to explain how nice it is to go outside without a coat on. It is even hot enough now to enjoy just sitting in the shade with a cool drink watching boats and crowds go by. Which brings me to my next question. At what age does it become inappropriate to admire attractive college girls wandering about the U district, and is it too late for me already? Do I need to invest in a pair of dark shades?

Oh, and the nice weather is seriously cutting into my blogging time. It's hard to spend time behind a computer when there are outdoor activities to participate in. I will do my best to make the occasional annoying comments though.

Memorial Day

I hope you all are enjoying your Memorial Day and taking the time to remember all the people who fought and died to keep us free. I always celebrate Memorial Day by watching a war movie or 2. I am currently watching Band of Brothers on the History Channel. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It is outstanding. I usually watch Saving Private Ryan and may get around to that later today as I feel that is the best war movie I've seen.

Last night I watched To End All Wars, and was pretty disappointed. It is about P.O.W.s in Thailand during WW2 who are basically slave laborers building a railroad for the Japanese, kind of like The Bridge on the River Kwai. The difference, however, is that the point of this movie seemed to be that the best response to the Japanese cruelty and aggression during the war would have been forgiveness and turning the other cheek. I, of course, think this is ridiculous, and the best comment I read about this movie was, "if I remember history right, it was bombs, not hugs, that end Japan's cruelty."

Anyway, here is a quick list of what I consider to be the best and worst war movies for your holiday viewing:

Best:
Saving Private Ryan
Tora! Tora! Tora!
A Bridge Too Far
Patton
All Quiet On The Western Front
Gettysburg

Worst:
Pearl Harbor
Wind Talkers
The Thin Red Line
U-571

And with that, feel free to add whatever movies you thing should be on one or the other list.

Baseball Names

For a couple years now, my favorite baseball names have been Coco Crisp and Milton Bradley. This year I'm glad to add Felix Pie of the Cubs to the list. He's going to have to step it up if he wants to stay in the bigs though.

In addition, the Tacoma Rainiers have a couple of guys with pretty good names. Gookie Dawkins and Ronnie Prettyman. Unfortunately, Prettyman doesn't have a picture, but I'd be willing to bet he's pretty ugly. Let's hope those guys make it up to the majors before too long.

One guy who's name isn't that interesting, but is playing some great baseball is Wladimir Balentien. He's currently hitting .337 with 11 HR, 39 RBI, and 10 stolen bases down in Tacoma. If he can keep this up, the Mariners are going to need to find a spot for him on the roster. I still think that Ichiro will get traded by the All Star break and Adam Jones will be called up. Maybe we'll need to trade Jose Guillen or Raul Ibanez too to make room for Wladimir.

You See What Happens Larry?

You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?

Well, The Big Lebowski is on tv today, and this is the edit I heard. This has to go on my list of worst tv edits of all time, along with:
"Cassius Clay was a bad mamma jamma" in Coming To America
and
"Yippie kai aye, Mr. Falcon" in Die Hard 2.

Is it really that hard to edit some language out in a way that makes at least some sense? And in case you haven't seen The Big Lebowski before, in the unedited version, John Goodman doesn't say Find or Alps.

Build Your Own R2-D2

I found this web site today - the R2-D2 Builders Club. This is the coolest damn thing I've ever seen. Guys building their own full size droids and sharing tips on how to build your own. Call me a geek if you will, but these are awesome. Did I mention that these are radio controlled too? If I had any engineering skills at all, along with the tools and plenty of extra money to play with, I'd build one of my own. Until then, here are a couple of the cooler pictures.

I never wished I was a droid so much in all my life. The picture below makes me very jealous.

I also recommend checking out this video.

Meat Wiz

I was thinking today about an exciting new product which I think will make me rich. For some reason I began thinking about cheeze wiz and began wondering why there isn't a meaty counterpart because, well, meat and cheese just go together whether it's on a cracker or on a sammich. That's when it hit me: meat wiz. A meat product in an aerosol can. I know that some of you may be thinking that it sounds odd, or maybe even downright disgusting, but I guarantee that there are people who would eat it. I know Shelvis would give it a try.

This Crazy Weather Is Killing Me

I don't know how much more I can tolerate it. I think I need to take a vacation somewhere that it will stay warm and dry the whole time I'm there. But for now, I'm shocked at how just yesterday I can be out in a deluge so horrific that I could have sworn the apocalypse had begun, and yet by this afternoon it's clear skies and sunshine. And I can't besure that the streets won't turn into rivers again by tomorrow.

Anyway, this brings me to something that has bothered me for a long time. How in the world is it possible that in this state, with as much rain as we get, there are still people who don't know how to drive in the rain? Over the weekend when I was on the roads, I was continually stuck behind people driving 10, 15, sometimes more below the speed limit, and it was pretty light rain most of the weekend. It's not like these people haven't been driving in this weather for the past 8 months. The next biggest traffic problem seems to be sunshine. There are people, I assume the same jerks that can't drive in the rain, that panic when the sun comes out and the have to slow way down. I'm convinced that the only weather that won't hinder the drivers in this state is mostly cloudy, but dry, with no wind.

I'm not even going to begin to complain about all the people I wanted to kill this weekend who would get on the freeway, immediately move to the far left lane, and then drive 5 miles an hour below the speed limit. Even though I wasn't in a hurry, this was producing some serious road rage. Particularly since these jerks seem to have a way of finding each other and driving right next to each other so that all the lanes are blocked and nobody can get by. My grandpa used to call that flying in formation. But then again he also used to call pencils writin' sticks, but I'll save all his weird quotes for another day.

Heroes - Tivo

Once again I find myself sucked in by the Heroes marathon, but there are so many episodes that I haven't seen that I feel like I should get a tivo so I can watch them all at my own leisure. I don't want something that I have to pay another monthly fee for though, so does anyone out there know if dvr's lose all their functionality without the monthly service? I've searched the internet a little and can't really figure out what exactly you get with the subscription service. The Tivo web site is absolutely worthless, but makes it sound as though your tivo won't work at all without a subscription.

Story Time

Gather 'round kiddies, because a dirty story I promised you, and a dirty story you shall have. This particular story takes place about 4 years ago, back when the Mariners were still selling out games. Well, I was leaving a sold out game one night and had just come out of the centerfield gate and was walking down Royal Brougham toward first avenue when a very drunk woman stepped directly in front of me, stopped me, and asked me what was wrong. I told her that nothing was wrong, that I was just a little tired and ready to go home. It was at that point that she changed the subject slightly and said, "I want you to lick my p*$$y." (conversation edited for your protection, she didn't actually use any asterisks or dollar signs).

Needless to say, I was a little surprised to hear this. Let me just say at this point that while she wasn't a model, she wasn't all bad looking. So after a pause of a couple seconds, I decided to play along a little and said ok. I don't think she was expecting this, because she was a little surprised, and paused a second or so before telling me to get on my knees. I looked around a little and said, "Right here? With all these people around?"

She responded, "Yes, get on your knees right now and I'll drop my pants."

I said, "There are thousands of people around, and a couple police officers 50 feet away directing traffic."

A couple more times she repeated, "Get on your knees and I'll drop my pants." Each time sounding a little more agitated.

Well, at this point I decided that fun time was over and told her that it was time for me to go home and began walking away. While I was walking away, I was verbally assaulted with as many profanities as you can possibly imagine. A lot of people then began to take notice and look at me shocked, wondering what I had done to her. I just kept walking though and ended up with nothing but a good story. In retrospect I kind of wish I had played along a little longer and gotten on my knees just to see what she would do. And I still wonder a little if there had been a hidden camera somewhere. I guess I'll never know.

Free Plug

If you aren't doing anything else Monday at around 8:00 and like crappy music, you are going to want to do yourself a favor and make your way down to the High Dive in Fremont (right across the street from Joseph Stalin) and see the Skeletons With Flesh On Them. I know that's a dumb band name, but what are you going to do. I guarantee a good time will be had by some. And with that, I feel like I have officially done my duty to promote a coworkers band.

Take That Apple!

Here's a funny little story from next week's news that I found here. This really cracks me up:

Wednesday, May 23: Responding to reports that iPods interfere with pacemakers, Apple will introduce a new mini device called the iPacemaker. Implanted directly into the chest cavity, the iPacemaker will enable the user to listen to music, play videos, and prevent cardiac arrhythmia. Only downside: unlike regular pacemakers, the iPacemaker needs to be recharged every seven minutes.

And now for a completely unrelated picture:

Baseball Trivia

Who was the only baseball pitcher to notch World Series wins in three separate decades?

The first correct answer will win the satisfaction of knowing you were the first one with the correct answer.

Scarecrow

According to my sources, Scarecrow will be making another appearance in the Batman sequel, The Dark night. I thought that character was a little underused in the first movie, so I'm looking forward to seeing him a little more. I could do without the effeminate alter ego though. It looks like it will hit theaters on July 18, 2008. Since Batman Begins was possibly the best superhero movie I've ever seen, I'm really looking forward to the sequel.

Summer Comes Early

I have to say that when it is sunny and warm, the U district is a great place to be. There were many wonderful, uh, sights to see today. I must admit to being a little curious about several of the women I saw wearing orange shirts that said 'orphan' on them. No doubt it was meant to raise awareness about some stupid issue I don't give a crap about. You should all be proud to know that I did manage to suppress the urge to make any inappropriate comments of the 'who's your daddy' kind. It wasn't easy though. I've really been trying to cut back on my inappropriate comments and I hope you all appreciate it.

Anyway, I hope this nice weather stays around for a few days, and stay tuned for an upcoming inappropriate story in the near future!

Quote of the Day

"It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head."

Apparently a bicyclist had his head run over by a delivery truck and came away from the incident with little more than a broken helmet, a concussion, and a great story. That's just one more reason I'll never be a biker.

Delivery update!

Today I saw a Quiznos delivery car on the road, so make that pizza, Chinese food, and sammiches that you can have delivered. My dream of tacos and burgers one day being delivered to me lives on.

My new favorite shirt

I saw somebody wearing one of these at the Mariner game today and it is now my favorite shirt. And I'm currently lobbying to get my softball team to change their name to Jesus hates the Yankees.

I am very happy that the Mariners took two of three from the hated Yankees. The Yankee fans were pretty well behaved today (Sunday) though, so I can't be too upset. I really thought that I'd hear more Yankee fans using the word mother with something other than the word day after it, but as it turns out, they kept it pretty clean for the most part. Oh, and I hope I never see another Mariner play with a pink bat again.

Unprecedented

Something happened today that I don't think has ever happened before. I got no email today. Not even any spam. Since there have been days recently where I got 50 spam emails a day, this is shocking. I believe this is one of the signs of the apocalypse.

On a completely unrelated topic, I could really go for some tacos right about now. Unfortunately I don't have any taco ingredients, I don't feel like driving anywhere to get any, and I'm unaware of any taco delivery. What's so special about pizza and Chinese food that you can get that delivered but nothing else? Sometimes I want tacos and I want them brought to me. Is that so wrong? Well, I do have cheese, chicken and tortillas, so I'll have to be satisfied with quesadillas I guess. I really wish someone would deliver burgers too. Ok, I'll stop now before I get too carried away with all the food I wish I could get delivered to me.

This Just In.....

Ricky Williams is a moron. I know that might come as a shock to some of you, but he failed another drug test, further delaying his possible return to the NFL. I honestly think that at this point we'll never see him in the NFL again. How he can piss away millions of dollars a year because he can't stay away from pot is beyond me. Maybe it's because I've never smoked pot. Maybe some of the anonymous (or not so anonymous) pot heads can explain how you could give up everything else of value in your life because you can't stop smoking. Oh well, I guess he better get used to the CFL.

Light Rail

The Seattle Times had a story today that the light rail tunnel has now been halfway dug. This is good news since we are finally making some progress on the long overdue mass transit projects, and because these giant tunnel drills are damn cool. I'm absolutely fascinated by them, even more so that my love of giant machinery in general.

Bible Fight

I found this sacrilegious entertainment today and have to admit that it is pretty amusing. Noah kept wailing on me.

6 Legged Cow

I don't know why exactly, but I'm really interested in stories about mutant animals. That's why I was excited this morning when I came across this award winner here. This cow was born with 6 legs, both sex organs, and a "surgically supplied rectum" which I assume means that with all the extra parts, it somehow missed out on a rectum. I don't know if there are any nuclear power plants or toxic waste dumps in Nebraska, where this cow was born, but something isn't right out there.

On a side note, I believe that John Madden has driven the six legged turkey to the brink of extinction.