Evilninja.net has started a fundraising campaign to buy our commander-in-chief a PS2 and a copy of S.O.C.O.M. - Navy Seals in order for George to fulfill his John-Wayne commando fantasies in the proper realm of virtually blowing bad guys to shreds rather than in any sort of actual military theater. I heartily endorse the rampant and violent slaughter of people in video games, but am totally opposed to it in real life. This seems like a good solution. Or maybe they should take the president for a game of paintball. Or we could just send him to Iraq, equipped with a crossbow and a snowboard to assassinate Saddam Hussein, seduce gorgeous double-agents, and fistfight with ninjas atop a freight train. I'd re-elect him for sure then.

As long as I'm on a creepy para-military trip, check this thing out. Fuck yeah. That's got so many guns on it it's ridiculous. And I really like the name, too. "Ontos" is greek for "thing", so it's "A Thing". My roomate has a Volkswagen Thing, and it's pretty cool, in its own way, but not nearly as cool as it would be with 6 106mm turret-mounted cannons on top!

Today I've been researching weapons online to determine if they are accurately represented in a game I am testing (and to make sure the developers did not use any copyrighted names). I came across an interesting fact whil looking into hand grenades. The M26 fragmentation grenade has a casualty radius of 15 meters, and can send shrapnel flying as far as 230 meters. However, the average soldier can only throw the M26 40 meters. Yipe. Maybe that's why it's obsolete.

Reading the warnings on the various obsolete hand grenades is pretty scary. "When the ABC-M25A1 grenade is employed, do not drop it because it may go off immediately." "If the fuze is loose, do not try to tighten it. This could set off the granular TNT in the grenade."

And they expect soldiers to carry these things next to their chest? Well, I'm sure whatever type of grenades are currently being employed by the army are far safer. Let's see, they currently use the M67, which says, "Fuze fragments may exit the hole in the base of the grenade body and cause injuries." Wow, and that's just for a practice grenade.

You know, I've got the itching just like every other red-blooded, hairy-testicled, American male to blow things up. Sadly, I'm afraid my fear of hand grenades has now surpassed any desire I may have ever had to throw one at something.

Hmmm... do you think black market arms dealers offer cash for returns or just store credit?

Wow... I'm... I'm not sure whether to mock this or just appreciate it.

I plan now to start my own brand of designer workboots. It will consist of form and function being merged together in such a way as to render both useless, like steel-toed high heels. I call this line:

F-UTILITY

Okay, I won't implement the blog meme of including those little icons which denote your current mood. I mean, for one thing, if people can't tell from what you're writing about what your mood is, what's the point really? And who's to say your mood hasn't changed since you wrote your entry? That's not bloody well "current" then, is it? What I demand is a peripheral device that one can attach to to one's wrist, which is a combination of mood ring, blood pressure sensor and moisture detector, which can determine, based on a combination of one's blood pressure, sweatiness, and aura what one's current mood is, then update that in real-time to one's webpage. Or better yet, to one's chat client. I mean, we are not privy to people's facial expressions or other indicators of a person's mood when communicating through chat clients. If someone's feeling depressed or peevish, we could avoid sending each other pointless messages that may ire the other party.

Don't worry, if I'm on AIM, as I rarely am. It means I'm up for chatting about whatever.

Hmmm... I've just looked through livejournal's mood image directoreis and found some surprising results. Did you know they had a little animated kaokitty for when one is under the influence of the following drugs?

- Alcohol

- Marijuana

- Ecstacy

- Nitrous

- Amyl Nitrate

- Speed

- Ketamine

- Heroin

- Acid

So apparently, those X-cam advertisements that we all know and love have decided to stop insulting our intelligence with their claims that you can protect your home from invasion of beautiful bikini-clad women and replaced them with crusty old farmers. A brilliant marketing move if you ask me.



No Grandpa, your shotgun won't work if you try to fire it with your armpit.

Ernie's dream has come true. A website has been created for gay gamers. Now, considering the rampant homophobia instrinsic to the l337 community, that's pretty ballsy. I'm sure the site moderators will have their hands full contending with the inevitable denial of service attacks and general idiocy which is going to be directed towards them.

D347|-|571(|<: j00 R all ghey
Moderator: Yes, yes we are.
D347|-|571(|<: ha ha, j00 admit it!
Moderator: We are all gay gamers. We play games and we're gay.
D347|-|571(|<: j00 R all so ghey ha ha!!!!!!11
Moderator:STFU [BAN]

I can't help but think that the forums are going to be a great place for vidiots of the homosexual persuasion to seek out a little multiplayer action.

6h3y847: NE1 in b4y 4R34 want RPG 53XX0r?
(0(|<5UXX0R: were R U?
6h3y847: 83Rk3l3y
(0(|<5UXX0R: msg me addy
6h3y847: U 83 (l0ud, Ill 83 53Ph1R07H
(0(|<5UXX0R: swap roles, u got deal
6h3y847: K
(0(|<5UXX0R: r0XX0r

I'm not sure if that makes more sweeping generalizations about gamers or gay men. Hell, if I were gay, that's what I'd do. That'd be great. Fuck, play some Tekken, fuck some more, play Tekken some more, fuck and play Tekken at the same time. That would kick ass.

The next step: Gay video arcades. Of course the first one is going to have to be named Joysticks.

Correction time:

When I referred to those people who are missing the How-to-tell-when-a-conversation-is-over gland as being lamprey-like, I did in fact mean remoras, as was pointed out by alert reader Iain. Remoras attach to sharks, lampreys attach to smaller fish. I think that a lamprey is still a viable analogy, though, just not the one I had intended. I certainly did not mean to miseducate my reading public regarding the feeding habits of lampreys.

In order to make up for this error, I have composed the following parody verse for y'all:

When a fish hits your skin,
With its teeth digging in,
That's Remor-ay!

If it's colored dark gray,
Riding a manta ray
That's Remor-ay!

Okay, I'll stop, I don't even have the corny-fu to complete a whole verse of that.

In related news, I was blatantly rude to a co-worker who was going on and on at me yesterday, and it didn't work. He said to me, "Don't ask me how I found this out, but blah blah blah.", and I replied "Don't worry, I won't." AND IT DIDN'T WORK! My cubemate snickered at my outright diss, which went completely unnoticed by the target party. He didn't even skip a beat, just kept right on going. I felt bad enough about being rude, but it was just reflexive when faced with such dullness. Now I feel even more terrible since he didn't get it, like I kicked a puppy or some other defenseless creature. I wonder if there's some sort of guilt-alleviation medication I can take, so that I can be outright unpleasant to people without my conscience flaring up and irritating me.

Addendum: Yawning did not work. I got in 8 very obvious yawns during a "conversation" I just now experienced. Then another one of the people missing the HtTWaCiO gland showed up and they started talking to each other and then they left. I think I may be on to something.

So, who do you think would win the following fights?

• Eddie the Echo versus that "Can you hear me now?" Verizon guy
  
• Johnny 5 from Short Circuit versus Rosie from The Jetsons
  
• The Kool-Aid Man versus Snap Krackle and Pop
  
• Superman versus Jesus
  
• The U.S. and England versus the whole entire rest of the freakin' world

Interesting, if one sends oneself an e-mail through hotmail with junk mail filters on, hotmail will put your e-mail into the junk mail box. Shouldn't one's own e-mail address automatically be on the safe list?

Two of my favorite things, mind-altering substances and the writings of Carl Sagan come together in this essay, allegedly penned by the famed astronomer and skeptic himself. (Thanks to Cruel.com for the link.)

Bonus skepticism post material:

There is a shop in downtown Santa Cruz which sells crystals. Now, they are very nice people who are willing to lend out crystal balls to the Art museum for Halloween activities and such. So of course, I would never actually attempt the following prank on them, but if you have, in your community, a crystal store which is run by jerks, I recommend you try this exchange:

You: "Hi there, I'm wondering if you have a crystal that might help me with some trouble I'm having."
Crystal Peddler: "We have crystals that can suit most every need. What were you looking for specifically?"
You: "Well, people often take advantage of me, and I find myself to be too easily trusting. I'm looking for a crystal that will focus my critical thinking and skeptical energy."
CP: "Ummm... here, try this."
You: "Okay... hmm... I think it's working... Yes, A-ha! Crystals are entirely bunk! It worked perfectly, thank you!"

And then you just walk out! Isn't that great?! A crystal to focus your skeptical energy? Get it? It's ironic! This will also work for anyone who tries to sell you goods that will help you focus energies or achieve harmony with the Earth spirit or what-have-you.

Well, I'm going to have to buy Labyrinth on DVD, I only hope one of the special features of the DVD version is a version in which the Goblin King's goblin thing has been digitally erased. I mean, didn't anyone tell David Bowie that he was leaving pretty much nothing up to the imagination with that "Dance Magic" outfit? It's like a spandex-coated topographical map of his nuts!