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This clever fellow taught his computer to perform laser "gesture recognition" so that he can control Windows Media Player by drawing on the wall with a laser pointer. He even put his source code into the public domain. What a nice guy!

Bobby Lightfoot gets inspired:

Life is a way to stick your finger up Death's ass. I want to be the guy who sticks his finger the furthest up Death's ass. After all this time. If I have to think about death all th' time I want to think about Death with my finger up its ass. Twisting. Hooking around to worry and discomfit th' prostate now and then. The odd ragged fingernail getting stuck in sensitive colon flesh. Oh, don't be such a fucking whinge. It's Death's ass, man.

I'm going to learn how to sit down and organize my life in a way that doesn't just consist of a bunch of dotted lines that point to a circle in red that says SUCCESS. I'm fucking serious, man. It's like I got visited by the Ghost Of Don't Be A Fucking Knob, you know?

Rock on, Bobby Lightfoot.

Say... isn't two years too long for something called a 'surge' ? After all, two years is 50% of the time we've been in Iraq so far already. Sure, after two years, we'll have been there six years, and the 'surge' part will be down to a mere 33% of the total, but I'm not sure that makes the cut, either.

Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave.
W
June 28, 2005

Just checked my web logs, and discovered that the most popular search term bringing people to this site, for four months in a row, by a factor of 20 or so, is "garbage plate".

This is a garbage plate:

It's a bed of two of the following: cold baked beans, fried potatoes, or macaroni salad (the latter two are the default), covered with raw onions, mustard, hot dog chili, and some kind of meat (cheeseburgers, hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage patties, a pork chop, some fish, fried eggs, etc.). It comes with thickly-sliced bread on the side - because ? They're awesome after a hard night of being in college. They used to come on actual (paper) plates - (i've been informed that they still do.. must've run out, the night we got our's).

Pictured here is "sausage plate, beans, no mustard".

Here is where you get one: Nick Tahou's (black building), Rochester, NY. If you zoom out a little, you'll see that it's just three blocks east of Yack Alley. Alternatively, here (long skinny white building with the blue awning), if you like the Lyell Ave location better.

Over at Amazon UK, people are reviewing an album by Katie Price and Peter Andre. Here's a sample:

I ripped this CD into MP3, put on my iPod and as the first notes hit me, I sat bolt upright, like, like...... like a puppy that's been trodden on, and I ran, ran through the house, down the hall and straight through the closed patio doors, shards of glass embedding in me as I danced around the garden, leaping like Bambi might have done if Bambi had been shot in the butt with a .177 air pellet.

There are many more like it. Here's another:

There is one incredible moment on this album and that is the nanosecond of silence just before the first track commences. In that moment the whole universe shivers for a second. the title is literal - even eponymous. This album is not just genre defining, it represents the ending of an epoch and the opening of a whole new world.

I can only agree with other reviewers about the overwhelming emotional response I had when I knew this album had been made (well...brought to life, really, since it was something that was predestined to "BE" - like a dormant succubus aroused by cavorting nude witches). I literally retched i was so overcome. I was lightheaded with exaltation. In fact I was so delirious I crossed the road with this on my ipod and was run over by a car. Amazingly I did not feel a thing.

I have only one complaint about this meisterwerk. The Price. It's far too low. Were there to be but one copy remaining in the world, and had my own copy been mysteriously burned in a catastrophic fire in which I had been unable to risk my life rescuing it, I would gladly sell my children into slavery to buy that last remaining disc.

That reminds me a bit of the comments on this story ("Marksman called in to kill Kingston's pigeons"):

What a lot of fuss over nothing. Everyone knows pigeons can't be killed, they are immortal and immune to bullets. Where I come from we worship the pigeon deity and never look them in the eye as this can turn a man to stone. I can only warn the gunman chappy that if he should lift a finger against but one bird he will incur their never ending wrath and more than likely burn in **** for his actions.

...and...

This is preposterous! Pigeons performed a vital role in assisting communications in both World Wars and should therefore be encouraged to breed in higher numbers in order to remind us that we must never forget. Perhaps the money would be better spent erecting a large memorial of a Rock Pigeon or perhaps a Feral Pigeon - I'll leave that decision to the council. I don't think a Wood Pigeon memorial would be particularly appropriate because I don't think they did too much for us during the war. Other than food.

Both are worth reading, in full.

Just now, while trying to get some work done, I got this error from Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005:

Cripes! Grab me that shotgun, Millie! There's a zombie 'neath mah desk!

My Sex ID Test score is... 0.

I have no idea where that comes from. On the majority of the sections, I came out on the "masculine" side of their rankings.

Angles
Your score: 15 out of 20
Average score for men: 15.1 out of 20
Average score for women: 13.3 out of 20

An average man.

Spot the difference
Your score: 43%
Average score for men: 39%
Average score for women: 46%

I did better than most men, but not as well as most women.

Hands
"right brain dominant"

They don't say what that's supposed to mean.

Empathising
Your empathy score is: 6 out of 20
Average score for men: 7.9 out of 20
Average score for women: 10.6 out of 20

Less empathic than the average man, who is already less empathic than the average woman. More manly than most men?

Systemising
Your systemising score is: 17 out of 20
Average score for men: 12.5 out of 20
Average score for women: 8.0 out of 20

Much more 'systemising' than the average man, who is already more 'systemising' than the average woman. Again, more "manly" than the average man.

Eyes
Your score: 7 out of 10
Average score for men: 6.6 out of 10
Average score for women: 6.6 out of 10

There's no difference in the average. So how is this supposed to tell me anything?

Hands
Right Hand: 0.96
Left Hand: 0.96
Average ratio for men: 0.982
Average ratio for women: 0.991

Again, more 'manly' than most men.

Faces
Your choices suggest you prefer more feminine faces.

Mm k.

3D Shapes
Your score: 9 out of 12
Average score for men: 8.2 out of 12
Average score for women: 7.1 out of 12

Better than the average man, who is already better than the average woman. Again, more 'manly' than most men.

Words
Your score: 11+5 = 16 total
Average score for men: 11.4 words total
Average score for women: 12.4 words total

This one measures (kindof) the ability to make a list of synonyms for a given word and another list of words that you associate with a particular color. I wouldn't have thought this skill was particularly sex-biased. Hmmm.

Ultimatum
If you had to split £50 with someone, you said you would demand £25 (50%)
So far on the Sex ID test, men have demanded 51.6% (£25.80) of the pot and women have demanded 51.0% (£25.50), on average.

Hmmm. I'm too generous for either sex?

All that adds up to 0. I'm a zero. Sorry Mrs. Cleek.

I'm not old enough to know if the country needed "healing" or not, after Watergate. I was 5 at the time. But, I surely hope that if i'm ever convicted of a felony, that the governor will step in and pardon me of everything I've ever done, in the name of "healing" the emotional wounds of the great state of North Carolina. Because I'd surely hate that the punishment for my crime would be a burden on anyone. No, i think it'd be best if we all just had a big group hug and then let me scurry off to write my memoirs.

Anyone think I could get that deal ?

Hey, have a happy Christmas. Even if you don't dig the religion part, have a happy couple of days. You're worth it.