Naginata

Gib Lieberman Now

So, some group has come up with this list of games that parents should never, ever buy for their children. I quote:

On their "10 Worst Violent Video Games" list were "Doom 3," "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," "Gunslinger Girls 2," "Half Life 2," "Halo 2," "Hitman: Blood Money" (releases in 2005), "Manhunt," "Mortal Kombat: Deception," "Postal 2," and "Shadow Heart."

Now, here's what I think about that - none of those games are appropriate for children. It's nice to see an editorial finally get the theme right - that some games are not for children. We're not quite where we need to be yet though. The article and most of the others like it (and they're going to get worse as we get closer to X-mas) all have titles like "The games kids play today are too violent" or "Videogame report warns parents" or even "Watchdog group says almost all new games rated M".

I think it's nice that the video game makers have realized (and note I didn't say "finally realized" - they're smarter than that) that their target audience has 2 major segments - children who get money and games from their parents, and then the 20-30 year old market, that grew up with video games. Of course many of the big budget games are marketed toward an older audience these days - we've got more disposable income than 12 year olds. We did the whole "collect all the mushrooms and coins" thing growing up. We've graduated and moved on, and the industry is moving with us. Parents, if you're worried about violence in video games, do what the editorial author there suggests, and take an intrest in what your kids are playing, and check the rating labels - they're there for a reason. I'm going to go a step further and suggest you kick them out of the house every now and then, but that's crazy talk.

So, in summary, I'm repeating what I say every year about this time. To parents: raise your kids, don't let Max Payne, Gordon Freeman and John Carmack do it for you. To videogame makers: more blood for the blood god.

Airports

So, I'm sitting in Dayton Airport right now, and I give them double bonus points for having free wireless everywhere. However, they lose about half of those for having the ports needed to play games closed. I could be playing World of Warcraft RIGHT NOW, instead of sitting here reading about it :)

Update: This when I try to hit the penny arcade archive. My first attempt it showed me a list of the objectionable words. I'd try to get the list again, but I'm afraid I'd get a little tap tap on the shoulder from one of their security guy. I mean, there's only 4 laptops going in the area right now. Apparently they don't like things like "Fruit Fucker" and "Whores" showing up. Hell, they might even try to block this post for referencing it. Just to be on the save side... Allah jihad durka mohammad durka. Note that I'm not brave enough to use the B word, the last thing I want is an overzealous TSA employee putting a hand where no hand should be. They already took my lighter from me in washington. So, to the guy that's reading this post, now that my connection has been flagged as "porno freak": You can keep my lighter. I'm keeping my anal cherry.

Access to http://www.penny-arcade.com/search.php has been blocked by WebMarshal™

Your Logon: WXP0108

WebMarshal Server: PUBDCISA (Version: 3.5.2.5)

Fraud Alert

So, my former employer (I'm toying with the idea of just using their name, or picking a funny nickname for them... maybe "Spontaneous Combustion Inc" or somesuch) got their health insurance through Molloy. Recently a computer was stolen from Molloy, so now I have to place a fraud alert on my credit file.

For those of you who don't know how this works, basically, if anyone claiming to be me requests credit, they'll have to check it with me first.

If you need to do this, here's some numbers:

Equifax - 1800-525-6285
TransUnion - 1800-680-7289 (Recommended)
Experian - 18883973742

Learning is fun.

Also, if you don't get the spontaneous combustion joke, ask me out of band, and I'll explain it.

Election Fraud Myths

Lots of press is being given to those pesky florida counties that suddenly "switched sides" and voted Republican in the 2004 election. I encourage you to spend some time with this site and you'll learn that these counties mostly voted Republican in 2000, and also in 1996, and so on. These people are what we call "southern democrats". Think Zell Miller.

Specifically, enjoy these excerpts:
Election of 2000
Baker voted 5610-2392 for Bush against Gore.
Lafayette voted 1670-789 for Bush against Gore.
Liberty voted 1317-1017 for Bush against Gore.

Election of 1996
Baker voted 3684-2273 for Dole against Clinton
Lafayette voted 1126-899 for Dole against Clinton
Liberty voted 913-868 for Dole against Clinton

More Democrat Racism

Your reading assignment is right here

I'm not going to repeat everything that author said, just a little bit. I'm really not suprised by this - anyone with their head on straight knows that the democrats are the party of racism, and this is the treatment they give any minority who leaves their plantation. Personally, I'd like to see the NAACP step forward and denounce some of these cartoons... but I doubt they will.

Makes me wonder why the republicans always seem to surrender before the first shot is fired on the racism issue - anyone who looks at the facts of the matter can see the truth of the matter.

Update: Clearly I was right to hate on sfgate

Wow updates

Go Here for info on the wow guild.

Update: behold the DHE guild crest

Superbias!

This article is probably the single most biased piece of "journalism" I've read in the past month or so. It's out of control!

Also, in case you don't know, it's customary for all members of the cabinet to at least offer their resignation when the president is re-elected, so he can fire whomever he wants without, well, firing them. There's really nothing unusual about the people who have left leaving.

Housemates

So, you've all heard some about my housemates (I think), now you're going to hear some more. Apparently they've been trading angry notes back and forth for a few days now about the parking situation. The parking situation is this: we have 2 spaces in the driveway, and also enough room for another car or two on the street in front of our house. We're not on a major thoroughfare, or even a minor one, and far enough away from the big buildings that no one steals our parking to walk to the metro/office area.

So, the problem is this, you need a parking sticker to park on the street in arlington county. I was told (or, in the interest of full disclosure, perhaps misunderstood) that I needed no sticker, since we're not in a permit area. It turns out there's 2 stickers - one for permit areas and one for everything else. I've been parking in the driveway because, and I'm not trying to be a dick here, my car is worth about twice as much as their two cars put together. It's new, it's shiny, and I didn't want to park it in the street. I also drive to work only about 2 days a week, so needless to say, I've never come home to see a blocked driveway.

Now I find out that LL is pissed off because she's the only one with a parking sticker, and has been parking in the street for "months". It's really more like 5 weeks, to my knowledge, but hey, whatever. Apparently she and A have been trading notes, angry ones, for a few days. On tuesday or wednesday, she and I had a conversation about the parking situation. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say it was tuesday. On tuesday evening I said I'd get my sticker asap. Wednesday, I couldn't get away from the office until after the office was closed. Thursday was a federal holiday. Now it's friday, and I'm planning to cut work early in part just so I can go get the sticker. I think I'm doing my job.

But in the last 24 hours our kitchen island has become ground zero. Things have been thrown by one or the other party (always when they think no one else is home), and lots of curses yelled (mostly it's A who yells, LL just writes).

On the last round, I got included. It's now A and me vs LL. How I got thrown on either side, I don't know, I think they're both being childish. I almost left a note thismorning saying "Children, you will stop passing notes this instant or I'll make you both stay after class", but that wouldn't help, I fear.

It also irks me that the last angry angry note was left on the back of a sign I attached to some muffins that identified them as "socialist muffins - free for all". What was once a sign for muffin sharing and goodwill has been turned into an emblem of hate.

Oh liberal house, I weep for you.

In other news, I'm really trying to blog more often now that I'm settled in. Seriously. And also, I'm quitting the libertarian party, I think. Future posts will be about "Liberal House", which is a fake reality show starring yours truly. If MTV wrote the commercials, it would go something like "Find out what happens when 2 liberals, 1 sick cat, and 1 ultraconservative get thrown together and have to share one TV. He likes Fox News. They like CNN. It's Liberal House."

Something like that.

They're Sorry

And yet, if I walked up to one of these people and punched them, I'd go to jail!

Look, I was going to have more comments here, but I think this site speaks for itself, no matter whether it makes you want to laugh or cry.

I guess, maybe they think their pictures will get added to Al Qaeda's "don't execute" list.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Scripts and Stuff

So I'm going to have to import 30-50 lumps of data (excel ->access) in the next 3 months or so, and of course I think "I can write a program to do that, and save a bunch of time".

The problem is that the need to do the imports is going away in 3 months, and that the data is in about 10 different formats (all excel, different column alignments and names and such).

So, the effort to write a script is either going to be huge (to make it smart about my spreadsheets) or minimal, but with a lot of by-hand preprocessing of data. If I'm going to do that much processing upfront, why bother with a script? I can just cut and paste.

This because I spent all day with classpath and/or org.apache.poi issues.

So, you know, thoughts? Would I be shunned if I didn't do it with a little program, and just spent 3 months doing it by hand, then never again?

FLASH: Extreme Left Radicals

News flash: Extreme left radicals still hate bush!

This from Evilbob over at Sunfist.

Drop over and tell him what you think.

(quote in extended entry)

as for my own thoughts: well, i'm sure anyone who reads this website knows who we were hoping would win, and at this point, it sure looks like that isn't going to happen. what can i say, except: thanks, america. thanks for standing tall to angrily protect intolerance - and refusing to accept reality. thanks for playing directly into the terrorists' hands and ensuring that "terrorizing america" will be a very profitable enterprise for at least 4 more years. thanks for saying no to science, freedom, and fiscal equality, and saying yes to stifling the arts, government-sponsored invasion of your privacy, and the continuing spiral of wealth going to the wealthy. thanks for mixing church and state, retarding education, and setting lose a conservative tidal wave that will undoubtedly alter the course of human history. thanks for everything, and although i hate to see it, you are going to get what you've asked for. i have no doubt that history will look back on this day as a day that a particular path was chosen by america - one that scared those willing to accept reality, and the rest of the world to boot. we've chosen to continue to keep our heads in the sand and to threaten to hit back first if anyone says otherwise. i cannot see this moment as anything but a victory for intolerance, ignorance, and fear, and we can only wait and see how history reflects upon the choices we've just made.

and i say thanks, america, because i feel like this total control of the world by conservatives has now hit as far as it can go: like an alcoholic reaching rock bottom, it just cannot get any worse than this. and in four years when we wake up and realize what we've done, and the destruction we've caused, i really believe that we'll have no where else to go - but up. thanks, america, for pushing that pendulum as far right as you can. all we can do now is cover our heads and wait for the rebound.

Civilization Saved from Brink of Oblivion

So (we think) Bush won the election.

The one remaining sticky point is Ohio... so let's talk about Ohio. Let me cut through the bull and give you some bullet points on what's been happening recently.

-Authorities found some guy who was being paid, in crack, by a member of the NAACP, to forge voter registrations.
-Upon some investigation, the Attorney General's office finds at least 3500 fake registrations - with addresses that don't exist or other such nonsense.
-The attorney general decides that, for the first time ever, they will require some form of ID at the voting place.

That's the core of what may or may not become a draw out appeal process - it's in Kerry's hands now.

Even if we accept the dem's figures (250000 uncounted votes in Ohio - the real number is probably smaller) and the acceptance rate from the past (90% - the rules are tighter this year, so it will probably be less), it will take a massive kerry advantage to make up for the 140k or so votes he's behind in Ohio right now.

... just flipped to the news page, looks like Kerry is going to concede. That shows some class, he doesn't want to draw this out again, it's good to see gentlemanly behavior in politics from time to time.