It was Thanksgiving but we had a ham

edit: Man blogger compresses the heck out of the video.

Sean

My sister Jordan wrote this a while ago...

Sean was my cousin. Sean was also like a brother to me - though he beat on me less than my actual siblings did. Growing up, we spent a lot of time together, as
family members, as friends. We went through a lot together, and I'd like to share a few of the moments Little Sean and I went experienced.

When we were small, Sean and I would make up dance routines to such classics as "Rock around the clock" and Barbie and the Rockers' "Born with a mic in our hands." Then we'd practice them until they were perfect, and we'd drag whatever unsuspecting adults who were around to watch us perform. Sean always had a flair for drama. He performed in plays in high school, too. He was particularly proud of his role as Fenris Ulf, Captain of the Queen's Guard, in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. During that play, Sean and Lexy and I would dance and sing even offstage, though none of us, Sean included, had much in the way of talent for singing or dancing. Whathe did have was a gift for the absurd. He once came up with a dance we called the "Mating Dance of the Whooping Crane" which mostly consisted of standing on one leg whilst bobbing your head, flapping your arms, and squawking as loudly as possible. Sean was a very good actor, a talent he must have sharpened by being a closeted gay teenager in a small, straight town.

As most everyone here probably realizes, Sean was an exchange student in high school. He went to Denmark. Sean loved Denmark. Upon his return, the phrase "When I was in Denmark..." quickly became a cliche. I know it was one of the most important experiences in his life. Away from home, out of the country, he grew up. Though he had already had a wealth of experience standing on his own two feet, his experiences in Denmark made him realize that he could make it alone. He also came to terms with some truths about himself, like that he was gay, and that he was okay with that. He learned that he loved travel, and began to see himself as a citizen of the world. This is not to say that he didn't also enjoy Denmark's rather lax laws about substances generally forbidden to 17 year olds in the United States.

Sean was so charming. He
could befriend anyone, anywhere, and he often did. He collected
interesting people, and interesting people collected him. My life,
my family's lives have been so enriched by the people who Sean
brought to us. I personally am very grateful to Sean for befriending
all of the mean girls in high school, and thus keeping them from
beating the tar out of me. I remember meals around the table, with
Sean and our friends, everyone stuffing their faces, and having
casual one-upmanship put down contests. Sean could no more resist a
good insult than he could resist a good story. But really who can?
He hardly ever meant any of his insults, and his stories may have
been exaggerated. Both were always top quality though.

Of course, along with all
of his fabulous qualities, Sean did have a few flaws. He was the
most stubborn person I have ever met. He probably inherited that,
along with the nose, from the Ryans. He could insist that something
was true, even if it was demonstrably not so. You knew that you'd
done well in an argument with Sean if you could get him to admit that
his point only should be true, but perhaps wasn't. He was also stoic
to the point of ridiculousness. In Savanna, once, when he was 12 or
13, he took a long ride down a steep hill, partially on a bicycle,
but mostly on his face after the bike's brakes failed. He didn't
admit to any pain, or cry, even though he was all torn up. There was
gravel involved. Instead, he calmly suggested a trip to the doctor.
He could be like that with his emotions, too. But that stubbornness
and stoicism served him well as battled cancer. He was determined to
survive, and he faced his illness with resolute optimism and fierce
grace. I firmly believe he survived as long as he did because of his
mule-headed, pig-headed stubbornness. It bought him years, then
months, and then days.

Clearly, since I'm here,
crying and speaking in public, both of which I hate to do, even world
caliber stubbornness will only get you so far. Which leaves me
speechless, and sort of angry. I don't know what to say, beyond: I
hope to see you again someday. Jag alskar du, Seanie. We'll miss
you so much.

Everything you ever needed to know about Glenn Beck

From Glenn Beck becomes damaged goods | Salon News:

"The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' for Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. 'A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' ' remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. 'When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby.'"

Joe Wilson at the Gettysburg Address

Let's ask doctors about health care

Poll Finds Most Doctors Support Public Option : NPR: "Most doctors — 63 percent — say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance. That's the position of President Obama and of many congressional Democrats. In addition, another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they'd like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent."

Communists... or something;)

The original Mac?

MAC PANEL computer tape (Dec, 1961)

Posted using ShareThis

Ghost Fleet

Some of the hundreds of container cargo ships of the "Ghost Fleet of Malaysia".  The ships sit at anchor of the coast of Malaysia as the global economic downturn has left them without cargo to ship.

Do not tell these men and women about green shoots of recovery. As Briton Tim Huxley, one of Asia's leading ship brokers, says, if the world is really pulling itself out of recession, then all these idle ships should be back on the move. This is the time of year when everyone is doing all the Christmas stuff,' he points out.  'A couple of years ago those ships would have been steaming back and forth, going at full speed. But now you've got something like 12 per cent of the world's container ships doing nothing.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession.html#ixzz0R6CY9JND

09:09 09/09/09

Five nines.  (First one to mention that my camera's timestamp is set an hour off gets a prize.  Unfortunately the prize is scorn.)

Health Care Reform Explained

Can The US Air Force Save Darfur?

Can The US Air Force Save Darfur? — War & Health

I don't know, but its a good question.

10 pounds of lard

Lee Ogle Spelling Bee 2/26/09

9:46 Auditorium filling quickly. No wireless so this is a non-live blog.

9:55 Guy in front of me has a point and shoot 35 MM film camera.

Henri went out on alleviate in the third round in 13^th place.

conway twitty - its only make believe

Painting

Waffles

Will Leitch's review has to be better than the movie

The Will Leitch Experience -- FRIDAY THE 13TH:

"Jason should only be about killing stuff: That’s as complicated as he needs to be. I prefer to think that when there aren’t any teenagers around, Jason just hacks at inanimate objects with a battle ax, waiting for them to start spewing blood and sighing quietly when they don’t. Walls, lamps, picture frames, pianos, whatever."

The fools who run this place

DispatchPolitics : U.S. Rep. Austria blames Depression on Roosevelt Columbus Dispatch Politics:

"'When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression,' (US Rep Steve) Austria (R-MoronOhio) said. 'He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history.'"

Shouldn't a basic grasp of a country's history be necessary to be a member of one its parliamentary houses? Further, I wonder if right this second King could pass the citizenship test administered to people trying to become naturalized citizens. I would bet against him. Honestly, just based on the above statement, I would bet against him passing it.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

My daughter asks if he has teeth.

I've always wondered what this says about Brandy.

Why do so many sailors talk about her?

Mic in track

Remember searching Napster for "Mic in Track" to find MusicMatch Jukebox recorded audio? I do, and so does this guy. The difference is he still has the mp3z, and you can download them from him. Check the link for what the page's author calls "unique examples of audio vérité."

Stark Effect - mic in track

Some neat stuff.

On the 100-0 high school basketball game

Dear Micah Grimes,

You know normally I'm supportive of my fellow namesakes, but you really screwed the pooch on this one. If this report is even remotely accurate, you seriously screwed up and got the proper punishment.

Having been a coach on both sides of debacles like this (though not this bad obviously*), you deserve your firing You were running up the score. If you can't keep your team from doing something like this, you lack the discipline and judgment necessary to coach. If you lack the coaching ability to figure out ways to prevent your team from scoring quickly, you're not innovative enough to coach. You had kids shooting treys in the fourth quarter!

This was a ten round boxing match that should've been a second round KO, but the ref was powerless to stop it. The manager, you, instead of instructing your fighter to stand over his opponent for eight more rounds, told your fighter to go out there and wallop them while they were down.

Learn your lesson. Have a good life. If you truly see the err of your ways (and not that you were fired), I wish you success in finding another coaching gig, but know that you will always be the guy that ran the score up 100-0 on a school for kids with learning disabilities.

Thanks,
Micah

*Getting beat 14-0 in soccer is pretty dang close though.

On the ongoing "debate" about Gitmo

To favor due process is to favor Terrorists'; Rights - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com:

"It's not really 'complex' to understand this: the fact that the U.S. Government accuses someone of X does not mean that they are actually guilty of X. That's true even where 'X = Terrorist.' That's why, in America, we have these things called 'trials' and 'due process.' Sometimes the Government is wrong. Sometimes it is inept. Sometimes it is corrupt and tyrannical. Therefore, these things we call 'checks' are necessary before we assume that Government accusations are true and before we allow the Government to put people into cages for life. We don't actually know that someone is a 'Terrorist' until a trial, with due process, establishes that the Government's accusations are true."

I wish I'd thought of that

BobHarris.com - Get These Motherf***ing Geese Off This Motherf***ing Plane

Bob Harris on "Sully's Splash"

Tall ships (and others)

Sailing, around the world - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Go. Look. Now.

National Journal Magazine - Hacking The Hill

National Journal Magazine - Hacking The Hill

"This past June, Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican from Northern Virginia, took to the House floor and announced that four of his office's computers 'were compromised by an outside source.'

'On these computers,' he said, 'was information about all of the casework I have done on behalf of political dissidents and human-rights activists around the world.' Wolf is an outspoken critic of China's human-rights policies.

'That kind of information, as well as everything else on my office computers -- e-mails, memos, correspondence, and district casework -- was open for outside eyes to see,' Wolf said. And then, without naming names, he added, 'Several other members were similarly compromised.'"

Interesting read on the hack of Congressional computers most likely by Chinese intelligence agents. You have to expect this stuff. As if we aren't hacking on every angle we can of China's government network. Par for the course.

The other thing I never thought I'd see

The Buzzsaw That is the Arizona Cardinals is going to the Super Bowl.

Now that's a miracle.

Welcome to the (new) White House

Welcome to the White House

Good luck Mr. President.

Let's go ahead and add Doctor Who to that list

AMC - Blogs - SciFi Scanner - John Scalzi - Boldly (and Badly) Going Where Star Trek Has Gone Before:

"I'm also reminded that for every Star Trek -- that is, every science fiction television show that has successfully made the leap to film -- there are a dozen or so Lost in Spaces that have crashed and burned in the transition."

The Doctor Who movies have all been pretty bad. In the first one they recast the Doctor, actually called him "Dr. Who", redo the origin story in a way that's not compatible with series lore, give us a third (or fourth) Dalek origin story, and generally screw up just about everything you can about Doctor Who, including actually titling the movie "Dr. Who and the Daleks". The second movie is better, but that's because it's simply a remake of the early great TV serials -- and an ending that will piss off every true fan.

And don't get me started on the 1996 Paul McCann movie. As the first comment on the imdb page says, "I don't know what it is, but Doctor Who it's not."

Now that's a circus

Lady Marmelade Gets Slaughtered Yet Again

Apparently, Guy LaLiberté regularly gets killed in ultra-high stakes online poker games. Dude can afford it, so no problem, but still 20 million a year? Losing an average of $350 a hand over 5000 tracked hands? That's not good. That's not even bad. It's worse than that, but we're talking $500/1000 NL Hold-Em played mostly at short tables.

Muddy Waters - You Can't Loose What Your Never Had

What better way to spend a snow day?

Beastie Boys - B-Boy Bouillabaisse

How did I not realize this what great poesy the first time around?

Al Jazeera just gets it

I'm not talking about their politics, though one suspects any network that has been banned by multiple Middle Eastern countries and had its offices blown to hell by the US twice is probably doing good journalism of the kind we no longer have in this country. No, Al Jazeera just gets it with things like this:

Creative Commons licensed news feeds. Raw high quality (tho not HD) news footage posted on a very open CC license.

Not cool Mr. Lawless

Player faces action over death-taunt allegation (From Bury Times):

"A FOOTBALL player is facing disciplinary action after allegedly taunting fans by mocking the death of 23 people in an air crash.

John Lawless, aged 26, who plays for Merseyside side Marine FC, was given an official police warning at half time in a match against Unibond League rivals FC United of Manchester at Gigg Lane, Bury, on December 20.

While taking a corner at the end of the ground in which most of the 2,122 spectators were gathered, Mr Lawless was seen to wave his arms to make an aeroplane gesture in an apparent reference to the Munich air disaster in 1958.

The crash killed eight players of Manchester United - the sister club of FC United. Three Manchester United staff and eight journalists also died."

Look I hate the Mancs as much as the next Scouser, but I'll make a deal with all of them. We'll leave tragedy of Munich alone, and you leave Hillsborough out of it. Pretty much everything else is fair game, ok? Good... you tossers.

Think much of yourself?

20080509 25 Roland Burris Future Grave
Originally uploaded by southbound_07

The Colbert Report ::: Remix feat Lawrence Lessig (Eclectic Method Mix)

Very Grey Today

That is all. Oh and I got a new class of seventh graders this semester... including my daughter.

Derby Time!

FA Cup - Liverpool draw Everton in Cup - Yahoo! Eurosport UK

Reds vs. Blues at Anfield in the FA Cup Fourth Round.

Some times

Forest Green Rovers FC

Facing relegation in the non-league Blue Square Premier division  Forest Green are currently up 2-0 on Championship side Derby County in the FA Cup third round.  Let me put this in baseball terms for my fellow Yanks.  It would be like the Independent League Saint Paul Saints being up 4-0 in the third over the Louisville Cardinals (St. Louis' AAA team).

Put another way:
Professional Clubs
Premier League 1-24
Championship League 1-24 << Derby is currently 18th in this League
League One 1-24
League Two 1-24
------------------------
SemiBarely-Pro Clubs
Blue Square Premier 1-24 << Forest Green is currently 22nd in this League


So if you smashed it all down into one giant division of 120 teams what we have here is #118 beating #36.

And once again matches like this are the reason that FA Cup is the greatest football tourney in the world.

Update 1/4/9 02:24 -- Derby won 4-3 in a "what could have been" match for Forest Green.

On eating 1/2/9

I had a six inch Club from Subway, a handful of chips, three light beers (only kind available), and a glass of lime-aid today.  I have no idea how many calories that is, but it ain't many.  I'm going to gain any weight eating like that.  The thing is I'm not at all hungry.  I go for days like this with one light meal a day.  I lose weight, but that's not what I want.  6'2" 10 stone 9 pounds just isn't healthy for me.

I flat out need to eat more.

Scale weight: 149 (-1) :(

New Year's Resolutions 2009

Personal:
1) Be more patient with my kids. They're great. I need to remember that. They need help and patience -- not harsh criticism and aloofness.

2) Start dressing better. I have a job that lets me wear very casual clothes (carpenter's pants FTW). I can also get away with unkempt hair and an unkempt "beard"
Like this (that's six weeks on the beard BTW):

Cute eh?  Except that I have blue jeans on instead of khaki carpenters, that's pretty much what I'd wear to work and how I'd look.  So dress pants/button downs except casual Fridays, a real hair cut, and shave three times a week.

3) Get back to my high school weight.  Gain 15 pounds to get back to 165;)

4) Make all my kids' home games.

5) Keep the dishes out of the sink.  (Yeah right).

Geek:

1) AT LEAST ONE POST A DAY!  That will probably last a week, but I really have no excuse, as I don't mean one quality post a day, just one post.  I can post from two different devices I carry on me at pretty much all times (and I always have the craptacular autoupload from the cellie).  No excuses.

2) Brush up on CSS with the overall goal of theming my own Drupal installation.

3) Comment on other blogs more.  Find more good discussions and ask questions.

4) Continue to grow http://2paws.net/ 

5) Integrate the soon to come XP Pro machines at work into the current Open Directory infrastructure.  (Ick.)