the predigested blog

Latest Recipes that Met with Familial Appreciation, behind the cut

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More another time, perhaps. Now, bed.

A white supremacist millionaire was building a dirty bomb just in time for the presidential inauguration, but his plans were cut short when his wife murdered him.

Unfortunately, this wonderful story wasn't reported outside of a handful of Maine newspapers.

If you peruse the 'source document', the pertinent details start around page 11.

Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes on Crowd

Wow. Bill Gates has my respect.

Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury

Now we unpack.

Chrysler wants a lot of money to avoid bankruptcy and failure.

Chrysler is owned by a parent company, Cerberus.

Cerberus "holds controlling or significant minority interests in companies around the world" and those companies "currently generate over $100 billion in annual revenues".

So why doesn't Chrysler look to its parent company for a bailout?

From Daily Images

From Daily Images

Firefox has color management turned off by default, to help improve its speed/performance. But this may wash out the colors of the graphics it displays.

You can turn on Firefox's Color Management by:

Typing "about:config" in the address bar.
Scroll down or filter to find: gfx.color_management.enabled.
Double click that until it says "true".
Restart Firefox 3.

A recent storm set off a forest fire with its lightning in the Strasburg/Fort Valley area, and a result, about 200 acres of national forest have burned. According to the latest article in the NVDaily, "the Signal Knob and Meneka Peak trails are closed, and the Massanutten Trail is closed north of the Bear Wallow junction".

So don't trek out to Shenandoah County to hike to the Knob anytime soon, and when you do in the future, you might want to call a local ranger station to check that it's been reopened.

Lost Generation.

I like it when people are clever.

I passed numerous cars on I-81 today as their drivers were receiving citations from state troopers. And I got to thinking...

A $100 speeding ticket means a whole lot more to a lower-class person than it does to an upper-class person. The rich can easily pay a $100 fine and not feel much loss (and possibly not learn as much of a lesson), whereas a poor person can be greatly affected by a $100 hit that causes debt, missed opportunities, stress, etc.

Could the system be fairer? Would a ratio or percentage system treat the rich and poor more equally?

Instead of a 10-14mph speeding ticket costing $100, perhaps it should cost a person .05% of their annual income? Reckless driving = .067% annual income. DUI = .1% and so on.

I'm not sure of the logistics of implementing such a strategy; I'm sure they'd be messy and hotly debated. But if this could somehow be pulled off, it could go a ways to leveling a certain playing field.

It's horrible. And yet, I have to link to it. How could I not, with this handle of mine?

Bernie Boston died yesterday.

I see a few of my customers pass away every year, and they typically just get the 'Dead' category tag added to them in my Outlook Contacts. But Bernie is definitely different.

I'll actually miss him. I admire his photos and like his personality. In talking to him, you could tell he'd enjoyed where his life took him, it had been one grand ol' time after another.

He wouldn't want anyone to be depressed over his passing, but it's going to be hard. He's leaving such a big empty behind him.

Everybody's favorite domain registrar is about to go down in history...

Apparently, if you whois a domain on Network Solutions, they'll
pocket it so that you can only buy it from Netsol. So you shouldn't use them to check for availability, unless you plan on buying from them. Which you probably wouldn't, since I hear they're farkin' expensive.

They also seem to be practicing in domain warehousing and domain tasting. Spread the word if you want to help them go out of business.

WeBleedDesign

Hawt, I tell you, hawt. Just scroll down.

Sorry, in yesterday's post, I left out one of the major religions. Not wanting to take sides and appear to favor one over the others, I want to acknowledge each creed that comes to light this holiday season. And so I link for you:

This ChristHanuKwanzaa, I wish everyone happiness and good times and closeness. We're about to head into a tightly-scheduled few weeks, where we and most other people will be traveling, visiting, eating, celebrating the birth of Dionysus and Osiris, socializing and generally packing as much together-time as we can into each day. In other words, we goan be busy, yo.

So before the shroud of intense hurrying and struggling to remember things drops over me and I forget to say all the typical necessary holiday niceties to everyone special in my life, I need to get something important said:

I'm not buying you anything for the holidays.

Thanks are not necessary.

Although, perhaps they are merited. You now know that you won't feel the obligation to get me anything in return for the gift you worried I might give you. You no longer have to fear receiving something disappointing, tacky, wretched or just plain offensive from me. That sour moment of Schrodinger's emotions¹ you get right before tearing off the wrapping paper of my gift: Not going to happen.

And not getting me a gift liberates you from the worry that I might not like your purchase choice. You know it would've been horribly complicated just deciding what to buy - 'I don't want to spend too little, and make him think I'm a cheapskate, but I don't want to spend more than $15, because I just don't like him that much, and I can't spend more on him than I do on so-n-so, because that would just suck of me...'

Honestly, it's best that way. The gift you would've gotten me would've ended up at the local thrift store. The chances of you finding something that I want, that I haven't already bought myself and that my wife hasn't, in her prescience, already secreted away for me, are slimmer than Keira Knightley after a bout of food poisoning. I keep the crap in this household to a minimum. I turn unwanted junk into thrift store receipts, which I later turn into tax write-offs. Some complete stranger was destined to buy the garden gnome, hand-made pottery or smelly-ass candle you were going to guilt yourself into buying for me, before you read this holiday sentiment.

You're welcome. Anytime.

Look, here's how it works. If I want something, I'll buy it for myself. If you want something, go buy it yourself. This is valid for all 365.242199 days a year. If we're going to feel good this season, let's not do it by going into debt for each other. Let's do it by hanging out, hugging and smiling at each other, playing games, eating a big meal together, playing MarioKart DoubleDash until 2AM, lighting something on fire, or seeing who can eat the most cheesecake in an evening.

Happy holidays, you all. I love you.

¹ Genuine happiness or faked happiness?