some things never change:
Steam Just Fixed a Big Refund Loophole
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All pre-release games are now covered under the two-hour refund window.
1 hour ago
OMG Wildwood NJ 1992! the documentary
7/03/2009
are we really this bad?
"well that's the thing where we live, everybody's got their nails done, so i hafta have mine done... ya know? ...ya gotta do what ya gotta do... and their all fake... maybe i got two real ones."
Chapter 1 of "Blank"
a little novel by Matheau Moore:
--------------------------------
One: The Globe
I desperately need to find a pencil. Or any thing to write with really, I suppose.
There's that lesbian; I recognize her hair. But then again, I recognize all lesbian hair, no matter what the particular style, don't we all?
No, she's pontificating. Even considering the brief, knowing smile she shoots in my direction mid-word, I cannot bring myself to interrupt her when she's going on like this.
She's seated in the lowest of the private viewing boxes. Ensconced almost like a queen holding court and her small audience of five seems to be hanging on her each pronouncement with just enough feigned attention that, even were I to interrupt her (and even though the intimacy somehow inherent in the facial expression she just sent my way seems to indicate that she recognizes me too) she would almost certainly shush me kindly. A quick but half-hearted, and almost immediately forgotten, half-raised finger; the international symbol for “your call is very important to us, please hold.”
No, there are enough people milling about here, by the front of the stage, to find a more cooperative source of a pencil. Or anything to write with really, I suppose.
I have found the friendliest and most welcoming face attached to what is also the oldest and smallest woman in the room. Her tweed dress/suit ensemble comes pre-equipped with a large handbag that must surely contain the necessary instrument.
“May I borrow a pen?” I ask, apologetically?
She seems pleased I have asked, as if she were wondering exactly when someone would have a need that might make her feel useful. She motioned with a half raised finger as well, but it was accompanied by a different look – a smiling nonverbal “thank you for asking me, I will be right back with one.”
She immediately set off on her newfound mission but her initial sense of immediacy began to fade almost instantly and she began to wander about in a more and more aimless fashion until, turning to see me following her, she looked at me and said “Is there anything I can do for you sweetie?”
I had found the only other person in the room who needed a pen and paper to remember things more than I did and I needed to start moving quickly before I lost my thoughts again.
I passed through the door at the rear right of this odd little theater and entered the lounge area. She was sitting by the bar. She was the kind of woman who didn't “do” her hair or face. Young thirties, she was wearing a slightly oversized brown leather bomber jacket. It was ancient and would surely be worn at every opportunity until it simply died of exhaustion. It's soft cool surface beckoned me and I sur[rised myself by diving into it. Sitting down next to her I laid my face against the upper right arm of the bomber and a perfectly innocent and already fatigued pleading escaped my throat. “Is there any chance you have a pencil ...or anything to write with really?” my mantra repeated itself.
She responded to my rather unorthodox introduction with the slightly intrigued eyes and quizzical mouth that told me she was a bit wary but generally “OK” with our sudden acquaintance and that she even possibly had the sort of soul that might understand my true predicament.
“Certainly.”
The inside pocket of the bomber produced a cruel parody of a writing instrument. The tiny pencil one absentmindedly takes from the mini-golf place. My hand cramped in anticipation of the torture it could soon inflict but it was something, anything, to write with.
“...and maybe a piece of paper?”
She shot me a suspicious look and I realized immediately what a fool I must look and could see her withdraw at the notion that I was about to use all of this as some sort of pickup opportunity but then she looked me over. I in turn looked at my own preposterous outfit and understood why her cold suspicion quickly reabsorbed some of the more quizzical and bemused nature of her initial expression.
“...and why?” she asked, half still protecting herself and half enjoying the absurdity of it all.
“Have you ever done LSD?” suddenly popped out of my mouth.
A wide smile arose and she leaned a bit closer and examined my eyes.
“...and why?” she repeated exactly as before.
“Well,” I said, emboldened by the near instant sense of camaraderie my question had produced between us, “have you ever forgotten completely who you are or where you are and why?”
Not that I was high at all. Her probing eyes had told her the same thing. It was simply the best analogy I could come up with for what I was experiencing at the moment.
“Yes, been there mon frer.” she piped back.
“Well that's where I am right now, and the only thing I can think of to do to try to begin to fix things is to start to write everything down so I won't ever forget anything again.”
She produced a smallish, worn, generic “day-runner” type notebook from somewhere inside the bomber and handed it to me. It was partially full of notes and sketches and half crossed off to-do lists but there was still plenty of blank pages interspersed randomly between and the sight of the white lined pages almost made me feel lustful towards them.
“But it's... oh, no, I need to hold onto what I write down. I need something I can take with me.”
“I know.” she said. “Take it.”
“But promise you'll show me it next time we run into each other.” was her only precondition.
jersey guy says what? "my new haircut" - i knowssss im behind on this one but its soooo funny
7/02/2009
thanks sam. and the perfect accompaniment to the Classic that make my heart melt- the Christmas tree jersey mom and Jersey Girl Realizes.... video.
Jagger bombs, Jagger bombs, Jagger bombs - Anja would be proud of her jersey boys :)
and the iranian boys need to get their props too
Hip-Hop direct from the streets of Tehran, Iran:
i love the old guy towards the end, a real live soldier keeping it real. Also keep an eye out for this great line: "there's four reasons why we stay in the streets ... the fourth reason is a bit romantic - the leaves of autumn."
a kind of hiphop version of "imagine":
Jason Jones: Behind the Veil - The Kids Are Allah Right. Jason Jones immerses himself in Iran's youth culture by playing football with kids and teaching underground rapper Hichkas about hip hop.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Jason Jones: Behind the Veil - The Kids Are Allah Right | ||||
| ||||
badass iranian women alert (#1)
catch the quick shot of the grafiiti "happy b-day rumi" at the start of the vid :)
are there any iranians who are not drop dead beautiful?
"hunger can be a great motivator"
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Tip/Wag - Cynthia Davis & Fox News | ||||
| ||||
trult disturbing animal replaces geoducks in my bad dreams
it's called a sea pig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotoplanes
forty years since stonewall and some things never change
A gay bar opened two weeks ago is raided by police who arrest 7 patrons for public intoxication (in a bar? duh!) and when one of those arrested ends up in the hospital with a brain 
injury the Cheif of police says the 4 officers involved in the violent take down of the 26 year old, 160 pound patron were justified because the patron flirted with them? Wait, what?
The doorman describes his experience of the scene at the time:
Justin McCarty said he was working security for the Rainbow Lounge at the time of the raid early Sunday morning. He said an officer approached him and asked how much he had had to drink.
“I told him I was working and hadn’t had anything to drink, and that’s when he told me, ‘Then you need to make yourself scarce.’ So I did. I went to the back out of the way. I took that as a threat that if I didn’t, I would be arrested, too,” McCarty said. McCarty said that he saw officers throw Chad Gibson to the floor, adding that, “There were people standing there watching it happen and crying. They were scared. It was just brutal.”
To get a full sense of the irony involved in all of this taking place now and for the background on what happened exactly 40 years ago at the Stonewall riots in NYC and why June is now "Gay Pride" month all around the world as a result see wikipedia here.
BonJovi and others sing "stand by me" to iran
On June 24, Iranian Superstar Andy Madadian went into an LA recording studio with Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and American record producers Don Was and John Shanks to record a musical message of worldwide solidarity with the people of Iran.
iran: off the streets and onto the roof
the thugs may have been able to push the protesters out of the streets but come night the rooftop chanting just gets louder and louder:
A double standard for cheating politicians?
the below is excerpted from this article.
GOP hypocrisy regarding the "culture war" that Newt Gingrich declared against Democrats a couple or three marriages ago is getting to be a very old story. It's hard keeping track of the virtual parade of naughty congressmen, philandering GOP mayors and governors, polymorphously perverse right-wing preachers and Republican senators variously soliciting undercover cops, patronizing prostitutes and sleeping with the help.
Until Sanford's weepy confession, everybody was happily pretending to be shocked by the revelation that Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., carried on with a staffer whose jealous husband blew the whistle.
People, Ensign's home is Las Vegas, whose major industries are casino gambling and prostitution. All things considered, it's probably a good thing Sanford undertook his "trade mission" to Buenos Aires; in Vegas, he might have lost his shirt along with his innocence.
Some Republicans complain of a double standard. Nonsense. They're the ones that opened Pandora's box. Washington Monthly's Steve Benen put it best: "If you help run Mothers Against Drunk Driving and you're caught drunk driving, it's going to be a bigger deal than the typical DUI."
But no, I haven't forgotten the recent John and Elizabeth Edwards show. Nor the crass behavior of New York's Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Nobody will ever forget the adventures of President Clinton and that woman, Miss Lewinsky. The panting Washington media won't allow it. During last year's presidential contest, the New York Times ran a front-page article speculating how many nights Bill and Hillary Clinton spend together. (And another insinuating that Sen. John McCain's friendship with a blond lobbyist was more than professional.)
The difference is that while Democratic politicians are equally prone to using their families as stage props, they're less given to Sunday-school homilies about other people's intimate lives.
Theologically speaking, the two parties have divided the Seven Deadly Sins as follows: Republicans oppose lust, sloth and envy; Democrats scorn gluttony, greed, wrath and pride. Little progress is reported.
tacobell's nonatural menu and fda approves depressant
7/01/2009
Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature
FDA Approves Depressant Drug For The Annoyingly Cheerful
the only "hope" for the US is a major attack from Osama bin Laden?!?!?!
thanks alot guys for the good wishes for all of us potential victims. i hope your treasonous prayers are never answered...
a census conspiracy theorist in the congress
Watch out! The 2010 census is coming. An animated response to the congresswoman's paranoia
Kathie Lee and Hoda, the remix - Video
the women are a constant source of unintentional humor.
this counts as morning news?:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/30/a-week-in-the-life-of-hod_n_223082.html
from vice magazine, a little quick art commentary
"Listen, come by like 3ish - I'm going to marinade Bruce in some olive oil, lemon, and thyme and then we'll spit roast him. Oh, and bring weed."
Free Seeds for Life - tips to save your own seeds
introduction to the basic concepts here:
http://doorgarden.com/01/heirloom-seeds-free-for-life
and a bit more detailed article here:
http://www.seedsavers.org/Content/instructions.htm
Gmail Attachment Size Upped to 25MB
this is basically summed up in the headline. But it's nice to know ahead of time wether a file you want to send - think, song or video more than little old photos - will actually make it through to your gmail friend's inbox.
New Firefox Out Tomorrow - what's new?
the following highlights come from this article.
Firefox 3.5 implements a restore feature for both tabs and windows from the History menu, which would (hopefully) also restore any text you've typed into them.
(If) you'd rather your coworker be unaware of your workday LOLcat browsing - Firefox 3.5's history browser offers a convenient "Forget this site" option, erasing your browser's memory of particular domains.
Grab a tab and drag it out a bit to create a new browser window from it. Drag windows into tabs again
What good is it to bring back all the tabs you just lost to a crash if the tab that brought everything down comes back too? Firefox's developers took a cue from the users and turned the session restore feature into more of a crash recovery tool, allowing users to select which tabs should come back. If you don't know who's the culprit, here's a hint: It's probably the one with Flash (animations) on it.
call it "Porn Mode," but this feature, already in a number of competing browsers, has uses beyond the prurient. Beyond obvious situations, like gift buying and sensitive research, logging onto a friend's browser for a quick email check or bill pay is made a lot more secure if you can get to the private mode. Likewise, anonymizing some of your searches and cookie collection on your own machine isn't a bad idea, and a private mode can do that too. You don't need it all the time, but you might be glad it's available.
On the web, most colors look the same, though, because they're filtered and optimized for quick viewing in every browser. Firefox 3.5 introduces dynamic color profiles for each picture, meaning that whatever the graphic designer or photographer saw when they were doing their work, you'll see it on their web page.
If you type post office into a maps site, you probably don't want the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office, or post office listings from two towns over. Integrated geo-location, powered by Google's Wi-Fi triangulation and simple IP address information, looks to know roughly where you are and help you when you're looking for something local. You can disable it if you'd like, but, realistically, signing on from any IP address reveals a bit about where you are anyways. If a good number of sites pick it up, geo-location could bring to the browser what a lot of people are already enjoying on their phone.
Is America Ready for Universal Police Protection?
"...progressives argue that a single-payer, universal police plan would not only standardize methods and uniforms but also allow the government to use its dominant market power to negotiate for prices with police weapons suppliers. In Canada, which has a completely public police system, guns, tear gas, billy clubs, rubber truncheons and brass knuckles cost only half as much as in the U.S.
Other analysts argue that the fee-for-service payment system associated with America's for-profit police protection industry also contributes to the uniquely high costs of personal security in the United States. Unlike in countries where police officers are on a public payroll and have no incentive to maximize shootings, beatings and arrests, American police mercenaries get reimbursed by tax-favored crime insurance plans every time they chase or apprehend a suspect. Many analysts argue that this perverse incentive structure accounts for what is called "overbeatment" -- the high number of Americans who get the living daylights beaten out of them on the streets by soldiers of fortune.
Many progressives claim that quite apart from arguments over costs there is a moral argument for providing universal police protection. "Police protection should be a right of all citizens, not a commodity that is bought and sold," insists Hugh Topian, of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Stuff in Washington, D.C. Topian points out that America's system of tax breaks for companies that buy health insurance for their employees is heavily skewed toward the rich and powerful. A corporate executive with a "gold-plated" personal security plan might be given 24-hour police protection by a dozen mercenaries, while workers whose employers do not provide crime insurance are frequently mugged or killed while for-profit police officers are standing nearby.
Despite these arguments, many congressional leaders of police reform insist that the votes are not there for a complete government takeover of America's private warlords and militias. As a compromise, Sen. Bill Melater, D-R.I., and others have introduced a bill that would include a public plan alongside a requirement for all Americans to buy private police protection.
...Senate Minority Leader Jefferson Davis, R-Miss. : "I think we should be very careful before we start down the slippery slope of socialism or fascism or whatnot. If we make police protection a public responsibility, then where will it all end? What next? Public roads? Public schools? Hitler and Stalin had public police -- and we know where that led."
At the same time, not all business executives agree with the American Chamber of Commerce's opposition to a partial or total public takeover of policing. One dissident in the business community is Price Tosell, who runs an auto parts dealership in Cleveland. "I see these crime insurance companies and mercenaries as part of the crime problem, not part of the solution," says Tosell. Last year, after he refused to consent to his crime insurance company's 20 percent increase, Tosell was trapped in his office for three days by ax-wielding Central Asian warriors. In the end, he agreed to pay higher protection costs, but the experience has left him bitter: "These crime insurance companies prey on the small business entrepreneur."
The ultimate shape of the healthcare bill that emerges from negotiations in Congress will depend on a few swing voters like Belle Wether, D-Mo. After expressing her support for a public police option last fall, Sen. Wether changed her mind, reportedly after meeting in her office with a horde of mercenaries in horned helmets who wheeled in several wagons full of plunder. "We don't want to do anything to undermine our vigorous, free-market policeman-for-hire system," she explained the next day. "If rising police protection costs are such a big problem, then the fiscally responsible thing to do is to cut Social Security for the middle class."
full article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/30/police/
click image for full size cartoon:
Light Rail Extension from PATCO To Glassboro Moves Ahead
6/28/2009
I think this is awesome news for all the towns along this route. It will bring more people back into these towns, lower traffic for commuters to philly, lower air pollution, and is cost effective because the rail lines which carried commuter trains up until 1971 are already there. I'm hopeful that it doesn't get shot down again like it did in 1996 :( I would love to be able to hop a little train and go from Woodbury to Glassboro or to Philly much much more quickly and easily than the bus system currently allows for.
Light Rail Extension from Camden To Glassboro Moves Ahead; Will Stop in Gloucester City
and for those worried about safety issues there's this article about the affects of lightrail on crime rates: http://www.nj.com/gloucester/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1246169414256060.xml&coll=8
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