Saturday, August 23, 2003

So I was trolling around Everything and came across this piece of shit. Even though it's just the ignorant rambling of one dumbass, it's strongly reminiscent of a lot of the pseudo-logic I've heard the religious in general, and the Christians in specific, use to justify their beliefs. You don't really need to click that link; I've repeated all its points in verbatim below. Let's get it on.

  1. Are you sure God doesn't exist? You are willing to contend, aren't you, that there is a tiny chance that God does exist? If you don't believe in him, and he DOES exist, you're screwed. You HAVE A CHOICE. When the day comes to choose who enters Heaven, it is highly doubtful you will be chosen, if you don't believe. Isn't it safer just to believe?

    This is one of the stupidest arguments for belief that I've ever heard. Mainly, because this isn't belief, it's just playing it safe. Don't you think God is going to see through your bullshit? Isn't he fucking God? If Christian mythology were true, wouldn't you get up to Heaven, and when God asks if you believe in him, and you say "Yes, of course, I professed my belief all the time!" And then God would be like "Lying asshole. That's what you said, but not what you thought. Go to Hell. Go directly to Hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200 pieces of silver."

    Also, I think that if a god does exist, he's going to recognize the fact that, yes, I do have a choice. And if I decided not to believe in him, and he really does exist, he'll understand, because I'm a fucking human, and we tend to make mistakes. Furthermore, I'd at least like to think he's not as petty and unforgiving as we are.

  2. So you have moral dilemmas? They're annoying, aren't they? What is right and what is wrong? Who knows? The law? Crap, you cross the street at a red light. God knows what is right and what is wrong. Believe, and all your moral problems are solved. If you are ever stuck again with a moral dilemma, just ask your local priest, rabbi or equivalent. He'll explain it all to you.

    In the words of George Carlin, I have this moron thing I do; it's called "thinking." Among other things, this "thinking" allows me to solve my own moral dilemmas, but thanks anyway. They may be annoying, but I'm not going to cop out and let someone else decide for me. Sure, I don't solve dilemmas with divine efficiency, but if you look at all the wars and other killing in God's name, God isn't all that good at solving moral dilemmas either.

  3. You have sinned, you know. And you DO know it. Even if you don't call it sin. So you call it "a mistake". But you can't forgive yourself. God knows you've tried. You can't forgive yourself. Well, if God can forgive you, you'll be able to forgive yourself too. All the major religions have methods of forgiveness.

    Have you ever noticed that all the things that we consider fun are also the things that get denounced as sin? Gambling, drinking, killing, fucking. You name it; if it's something we can't live without, it's a sin. This just sounds like a bullshit scam to me; a scam by the puritans to keep everyone as miserable and uninteresting as they are.

    And you know what? I'm a big enough person that I can forgive myself all on my own. Other people can forgive me, too. What difference does it make if you're fucking doggy style and you "accidentally" land in the wrong hole, and then god forgives you? Try that "Oh, honey, it's all good, God forgave me!" bullshit and watch when that doesn't erase the incident or make the person or their asshole feel any better.

  4. Can you explain infinity? I can't. I'm talking about two dimensions of infinity. Spacial and temporal. Talk quantum mechanics, and dimension folding all you like, the human mind can never grasp it. I don't think anyone can comprehend infinity. If you believe in God, no problem.

    Do you even know what things like "infinity," "spacial" (sic), "temporal," and "dimension folding" mean? And if the human mind can't grasp it, then how does God help you figure it out? Do we just pretend that he knows what it is, and since someone else knows, that's good enough for us? This argument is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard - it doesn't mean a fucking thing.

  5. You can't possibly believe that evolution theory completely. Oh, I'll agree, natural selection exists. Of course it does. Creation theory does not conflict with the belief in natural selection, don't make any mistakes. Of course, many people believe it does, but that's mostly because they are misinformed. Natural selection hardly explains Man. And where is that missing link? You can't possibly believe that Man (a conscious being) originated from the monkey, which is so far below him?

    This is like one of my all-time favorite things to hear religious people babble about. These fuckers are so narrowminded and so limited that they can't understand a concept like "millions and millions of years." They seem to think that one day, all of a sudden, a monkey gave birth to a human baby. They don't fucking understand that it has been millions and millions of fucking years of random genetic mutations and natural selection that got us from monkey to man. Also, don't get so fucking cocky about man being so much more developed than monkeys. Monkeys may fling shit at eachother, but they don't waste their lives watching "Must See TV" or watching animals fling their shit at eachother.

    Oh, and where is the missing link? It's missing, you fucking dumbass. It's very nature is defined by what we call it. Christ, a fucking monkey could figure that out.

  6. What happens when we die? Scary, isn't it? Don't you have a soul? Of course you do. You can't possibly, deep in your heart believe that we just die and disintegrate? There has to be an afterlife.

    Actually, it's not that scary. There's a good chance there's no afterlife, and if that's the case, I won't fucking care when I'm dead, because I can't. If there is an afterlife, then I'll fucking deal with it once I'm there and I have some facts to work with. Death is only scary to the living. Do I believe, deep in my heart, that I will just die and disintegrate? No, I don't fucking know what will happen. And you know what? I'm OK with that. Of course I have a soul? What is that based on? There has to be an afterlife? What is that based on? Nothing, and nothing. It's all bullshit made up by living humans just to make themselves feel better.

    People think they're so fucking important that there has to be an afterlife so they can continue all the important things they're doing here on earth, like working jobs they hate so they can buy shit they don't need. Bullshit. This world would be a lot better, I think, if more people would realize that when they die, not a fucking thing happens. The world goes on just fine without you, and save a handful of people, no one will give a shit when you're gone. End of story. Get over yourself.

  7. The bible contains predictions of the future. Many predictions have already happened, so if you are a disbeliever, you can see for yourself. No other book in the world has so many prophetic words and codes interwoven into it as the bible. Many experiments have shown this. Coincidence?

    No, taking shit out of context, thinking about it for a real long time, and then twisting it around to make it look prophetic.

    While we're on the subject, isn't there some prophecy about a certain you-know-who returning after a couple of millennia? What happened to that prediction?

  8. The world today is full of pornography and gore and is low on moral fiber. You know it's wrong. And you sure as heck don't want your children to grow up in such a society. The return to morals is the only solution, and the only way to do that is through BELIEF.

    Actually, I don't want my children to grow up in a society of such ignorance. God help you if I actually do have children, because they will have a healthy and realistic attitude about things like pornography and gore. Kids whose parents think like this, meanwhile, will be terrified to even masturbate. Also, where exactly did we abandon morals? According to this argument, we must have, otherwise we wouldn't be returning to them. I can think of a good three or four people just off the top of my head who have a good moral center. Counterexample, fuckhead. The point is nil.

  9. Most of the world does, in fact, believe in God. How could this be, if God didn't exist? If you've strayed off the path, you must return to it. Everyone was born capable of believing in God. Some haven't found Him yet, others have lost Him. He WILL take you back.

    How could this be? Maybe because people are fucking stupid? The notion that God must exist simply because people believe in him shows that God is just a human creation.

    Also, as someone else pointed out in response to this post, a lot of people in the world belive in a god or gods, and not necessarily capital-G Christian God. There's nothing I can say to the "born capable," "still haven't," and "take back" portions of this statement, because they're completely empty and meaningless.

  10. Look deep inside your heart. God is there.

    OUCH, THAT HURT YA BUTTLICKER!!!!! Looking inside my heart, all I can find is a bunch of tissue, vessels, and blood! And great, now I'm about to fucking die, so I can find out the answer to that afterlife bullshit. Thanks.
Finally, it looks like we may have an answer.
Fucking yay.

Why is it that any fucking positive sign always comes with about a million caveats and reasons why the "sign of hope" is really meaningless? It's like watching a drug commercial; "these financial results may cause bloating, constipation, headache, nausea, sexual side effects, spontaneous combustion, headache, nosebleed, dry mouth, and continued unemployment."
Good, FUCK 'EM.

Friday, August 22, 2003

I will be perfectly satisfied with the outcome if they punish Moore by shoving that monument up his ass.
So, the "Great Experiment" in advertising has already concluded. Here are the stats.

$10
2500 ad views
28 ad click-throughs (yup, 28)
~24 hours
0 Guestbook & E-Mail comments

So, this is about what I expected. Well, I figured I'd get a few more click-throughs, but oh well.

I'll probably give this a shot again, and have identified some things that might make it more successful next time. Keyword on might; I know that this is just one 'blog amongst millions, my opinions really aren't earth-shattering or unique, and there's no real incentive for the majority of people to drop by.


  1. Figure out a better time to run the ad; I didn't think my ad would get approved so quickly and end up starting on Thursday night, when most people care even less about 'blogs since shit like Friends is on.

  2. Find some other sites to advertise on.

  3. Ad content is pretty short - 35 character limit on the headline, 75 character limit on ad body, at least at WWDN - and I need to come up with better wording in my ads. I think the only reason I got most of my hits today was because the last iteration of my ad mentioned porn. Since I'm not selling anything, I need to come up with some other way to motivate people to actually click on the link.

  4. Find a way to make this 'blog less shitty. Probably not going to happen, but it would be nice to find a way to get people fired up about a bunch of crappy links and even crappier opinion blurbs

So I just realized that I probably should have been more careful with the links in the recent post about porn. You know, gotta protect the children. I've souped up my disclaimer and edited a couple of links to go to the "yes I'm an adult, even if I'm really not" page instead of straight to the good stuff. So, sorry, you may have to click through one or two more links now if you bother with any of them. I think you'll survive, and more important, I'm covering my ass. Of course, to have gotten in trouble, people would have to be reading this in the first place.
Battle Royale is this fucked up Japanese movie I saw a couple of weeks ago. It's about a group of high school kids put on an island and forced to kill eachother or be killed, all as part of a program to motivate lazy kids. It probably won't get released here in the States, unless the NRA decides to start a film distribution company. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out on... something. Here's some shit to go along with Battle Royale: The Chopper and Battle Royale: The GPS.

Battle Royale: The Poster
Battle Royale: The T-shirt
Battle Royale: The Sticker Sheet

Hey, from some of those items, it looks like there's a sequel!
Yeah, but just because IBM is investing heavily in Linux and Open Source doesn't mean they have to lie about things. I use OpenOffice occasionally, and it's adequate, but not all that great. The open source community needs an MS Office replacement if it hopes to make any gains. I'm sorry, but that's the reality of things. People are too used to MS if nothing else, and getting them to switch to something that "mostly works" and doesn't have as many Office-type features is going to be difficult.

Look, this isn't to bash OpenOffice developers or open source devlopers in general. They have done some impressive fucking work, and I know it takes time to catch up with big things like Office. The problem is, people get too lost in idealism and ideology. Yes, Linux and open source projects are nice, oftentimes free of monetary cost, and developed by people who really do care about software quality. The average consumer, however, has proven that he gives less than a shit about these things. He wants something simple, easy to use, and preferably something he's already using. Give him a higher version number, whether it means anything or not, and he's probably happy.
Yet another reason why this standardized testing fetish is bullshit. Let's keep it up, America, and future generations will be even more ignorant than current ones.

And fuck that supervisor from Colorado Springs, the fucking whitest most conservative place on the goddamn planet - home of the Focus on the Family Visitors' Center and the Pro-Rodeo Hall of Fame - where people will get down on their knees and suck dick at the altar of Bill Owens' CSAP tests. It has next to nothing to do with teachers being creative if they A) don't have fucking time and B) have conversations that go like this:

Teacher: Hey, everyone, let's talk about the war in Iraq
Student: Is this going to be on the state exam?
Teacher: No.
...

And that's it - end of discussion. Trust me on this one; I know what I'm talking about. That one single question - "Is this going to be on the exam?" defined my entire high school career, and had some ugly side effects that have lasted well beyond HS.
So we're going to continue the pr0n theme today. I'll warn you up front, you probably don't want to be clicking on any links in this post if you're at work, near work, or even thinking about work. You should also be of legal age wherever the hell you are to view adult materials. I will not be responsible for contributing to the delinquincy of a minor, but it's not like I can stop you, either. There's no hardcore shit involved, no, wait, yes there is, and one link doesn't even have any nudity. No matter; I doubt any of it will fall under your company's "acceptable use" policy.

As I suspected, the search for a good pr0n search engine is turning up nothing but shit. Not "shit" in the literal sense; we already know that even with my degenerate mind I shy away from German sites.

Before we go any further, now is as good of a time as any to post the following link that I got from a friend which I keep forgetting about. If you're a fan of fucked up Japanese porn and you like even more fucked up English descriptions of said porn, go here.

I would be happy if I could find more sites like Thumbnail Series. Updated daily with tons of links to quality thumbnail series pics. See, I'm not asking for much, just some hot, naked women, and the occasional facial.

Actually, with this developing sailor schoolgirl fetish, I don't even need nudity. But can I find much decent stuff in this genre? Hell no. Just give me a uniform and some other sexy outfits, and that just might be enough for me. Like this girl, who I am so totally in love with.

So, with my interest in Anime, this Asian thing may seem somewhat contrived and forced. You know, like those guys who run around wearing "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" t-shirts and who eat Pocky and shrimp-flavored chips only because they're into Anime. But you know what? When I get interested in something, I don't fuck around. I'm out there finding websites with news and updates, locating shit to buy, studying to get a cultural and historical context, and learning languages if need be. If worse comes to worse, I will go hunting for porn.

Furthermore, this new interest in Asian women may just be flat out confusing to some. Okay, well, one of you. Yes, I know I used to say "If I see one more naked Asian, I'm going to throw up." Well, there were a couple of reasons for this. One, I'm just an ignorant gai-jin, as we all know. Second, I think the Playboy principle was in effect. You see, those fuckers at Playboy can get hot, non-white women. The problem is, they're fucking lazy, and they don't. They're sort of decent with Latinas and some of their Asian girls, but are severely lacking when it comes to black women. They could find, photograph, and publish the attractive ones, but they don't. So what we get is some unattractive girl who's pure quota. Call me racist and cynical if you want, but this is what I see. I don't know why you would call me racist, but it seems like you're setting yourself up to be yelled at anytime race is mentioned, even if you're pointing out unpleasant truths that you want to see fixed. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the sites I come across are just pulling a Playboy when it comes to Asian women. They could find lovelies like Mihoko up there, but they don't.

So, despite these two deficiencies, I'm in recovery. I'm even going back to school, and taking some courses offered by the Asianology Department.

Finally, for this post at least, I just came across a banner ad for a product called "Power-Pax Pellet." The tag line? "Masturbate longer - Masturbate stronger!" There's no bullshit about lasting longer to better satisfy your woman, because they know people are on these sites to jerk off, and there's no one else around to satisfy. Why can't we find more honesty in advertising like this?
So I just came across a porn site called "Too Tight to Fuck." Too tight to fuck? What the hell kind of a concept is that? "Dude, you can't fuck her.... She's too tight." Without any fucking, your whole point of existing goes up in flames.

Yeah, there are plenty of things I could think of to make a site worthwhile with no fucking involved, as pointed out by my magazine concept, Chicks Masturbating, but no one ever gets things right like I would.

While we're on this subject, and since I'm sure porno won't be coming up as a topic again anytime soon, I really need to work on two things. One I sort of but not really touched on in my Firebird review was that we need a porn-friendly browser. That's right, an entire browser whose focus is on making porn downloading easier. Actually, I think I would optimize it for porn and shopping. We would make a killing - porn browsing is the #1 online activity for men, shopping the #1 activity for women. I care a great deal for both. So, why don't we just admit that these are the things people do online, and start making our lives easier.

So you're like, hey, you're a computer nerd, and you're into open source. Why don't you snag Mozilla's source code and write your own browser. Are you nuts? Do you know how fucking complicated Mozilla is? Ever tried to compile it on your own? I'd be fucking dead before I found out that my first build didn't work.

Well, there is the concept of 'extensions' for both Mozilla and Firebird, but that just doesn't seem good enough.

The other thing we need is a decent search engine that filters out all the bullshit and crummy pay sites and can locate all the good free thumbnail series sites. This probably isn't feasible wihout some sort of human intervention (like tagging paysites somehow, and I doubt online pornographers are going to put a "no real free shit here" tag on their site) or some sort of decent AI that can try and determine if a site is worthwhile or not. What would we call such a search engine? How about 'Coogle'? Sorry, that's the best I can come up with, a shitty play on 'cooter'. Maybe there's already something decent like this out there that I just need to go find, and I'm just behind the times like with the GBA frontlight.
I can't believe that at this rate, Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to be fucking governor of California. Wait, yes I can.

He's right about one thing, the public doesn't care about figures. Or facts. Or substance. Or pretty much anything of relevance. California just wants to live in the fantasy land where someone famous is running the show. Well, if Schwarzenegger wins and drives California deeper into the toliet, then they fucking deserve it.
No, there is no way Iraqis would have assisted in the bombing of the U.N. building this week, because they love us. Oh, wait, those guards were more of those kooky "loyalists." What the fuck are men with such close ties to Saddam doing working as guards at the U.N. building? We're as concerned about security in Iraq as we are about effective homeland security. Why doesn't Tom Ridge just step in and give these two guys jobs as airport screeners?

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Yeah, maybe because it's NOT A FUCKING KIDS' SHOW! It's set in Las Vegas, for chrissakes! What do you want, shows about the ice cream man? CSI has probably done a show about the ice cream man, except their ice cream man rapes and murders people.

CSI is a shitty show, but if you're going to be a bitch about it, at least go after it for what it is, and not what it isn't.

There are few people I hate as much as these TV watchdog groups. These uptight religious fuckers who want nothing more than to control what people watch and how they think. I would love to fucking take them out for a night of porn downloading and IRC time. Of course, when someone rates shit like Touched by an Angel the best show on TV, you can pretty much write them off as being a fucking moron.
So for the hell of it, I decided to try taking out text ads on one of my favorite 'blogs, WIL WHEATON DOT NET. I figured if people were coming across this rubbish of mine out of chance, then maybe it wouldn't hurt to actually put some effort into promotion. Not sure why, since I'm not selling anything, but it'd be nice to get some more traffic. I'm not sure how effective this will be, since I've already gone through over 2% of my adviews in just a couple of hours, but maybe if I do it again I'll be smart about it and try and time things better, and maybe front a little more cash to get more ad views.
The Onion has a nice horoscope for you Scorpios this week:

"You will magically transform yourself from the nice lady in human resources to the bad girl of goat porn."
Hey, no shit?

Yeah, of course all these people running around killing and blowing stuff up are security threats. Although I do object to the liberal use of the term "terrorist." Sure, these guys are using terrorist tactics against us. But you and I both know the word "terrorist" is being invoked just to push the nasty connotation that word has for us Americans. It's just subtle manipulation to make it look like we're the only victims here.

Actually, lots of the victims are people working for the U.N. - you know, the body that didn't want us there in the first place. Or, at least we wouldn't be there had we abided by U.N. rules which we've agreed to uphold, in essence. I would more accurately describe these people as victims of guerilla warfare, and not terrorism. I think I'm safe in this terminology, because our own military commanders have used it. And they would know.

Some Rumsfeld quotes to hammer on:

"While this was an attack on a U.N. building, headquarters as such, it really was an attack on the Iraqi people"

No, Donny, this was an attack on us, the American people, however direct or indirect. An attack either by people who don't want us in Iraq, or people who hate us no matter where we are. Or both.

"This much is certain: their cause is lost. That regime will not be coming back."

Kinda like the Taliban in Afghanistan? They're not back in power like they used to be, but from what I understand, they're making impressive inroads in the new Afghanistan.
Like usual, I just need to go balls out (perhaps literally) with my new Asian fetish and move to Japan. Not that there isn't plenty of work in the sex industry here, but here I can't get access to all the anime goods I need. Yes, need.

But, even if I do move there, the dating scene is naturally still a pain in the ass, so I'm fucked wherever I go, and not in a good way.

Wherever I end up, I still need to make my dream come true of running the best porn mag ever, Chicks Masturbating.
Like always, Maureen Dowd puts things together in a much more coherent fasion than I.
Yeah, we are so totally fucked. The Administration isn't going to do anything to help this country as long as it doesn't line their friend's pockets and keep them in power.

The really scary thing about this blackout is that it happened on accident. What the fuck would happen if someone tried something on purpose? Don't give me any shit about giving terrorists ideas, either - they're already way out ahead of us. Even though I'm an electrical engineer, power isn't my specialty. Still, I don't see any excuse for shit like what happened last week. I know some of my EE brothers out there still have jobs - somebody get them to fix this shit. Well, more like, someone front the goddamn money so they can fix it.

Finally, what is this nonsense that people aren't getting excited about transmission lines? That was my favorite subject area in electromagnetics, partly because it was one of the first things that actually made good sense.
Clearly, this Moore guy as well as all the people down there protesting feel strongly about this issue. Otherwise, they wouldn't be motivated like they are to do something about something. The thing that's pissing me off the most about this (today) is the fact that these people could be doing so many better things with their time. You know, shit that isn't childish and petty, and might actually help someone. Oh, and it's great that this jackoff is willing to start throwing away thousands of dollars every day in a state where people can't fucking read (call it a hunch).

Again, CNN's poll shows that more than half of the people responding don't understand why separation of church and state is important.
You know what phrase I'm getting sick of? "Guilty as sin." Has sin's guilt ever been proven in a court of law? I didn't think so.
Hey, so check this shit out. The banner ad on my blog actually proved useful to me. Who you gonna call?
So this Chemical Ali thing is bugging me. I'll fully admit that maybe I was negligent when they retracted their belief that they had killed him back in April. Still, I can't help but think that our ever-so-responsible media just didn't bother to make it a newsworthy item.

This got me to thinking that maybe I need to start my own news service. How long do you think that would last? Probably about six seconds. I think it might go a little something like this:

‹steps off airplane and Reagan Fucking National›

Ahhhh, D.C.! So good to be here! Let's head on over to the White House.

‹later, at the White House›

Hey, Mr. "President", why are you such a fucking retard?

BANNED FOR LIFE

Fuck. Used that one too early. And man, was that place ever white. Let's head over to the Pentagon.

‹later, at the Pentagon›

Hi, Mr. Rumsfeld. How does it feel to be one of the biggest assholes in the world, yet still his Deputy Secretary's bitch?

BANNED FOR LIFE

Oh-for-two. Let's hit Capitol Hill.

‹later at, you guessed it, the U.S. Capitol building>

Hey, you congress fuckers! How about a real September 11th Inquiry?!?!

BANNED FOR LIFE

So much for that. Shit, and I really like visiting the Capitol, too. Oh well. Last stop, the State Department.

‹at the State Department›

COLIN POWELL, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN US?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Some sobbing heard from inside, then ‹BANNED FOR LIFE

This would conclude my short yet eventful career in journalism. After all that, maybe I could find someone at the Watergate who was working there back in the 70's to tell me some stories, but that would be about it.
Wow, it's been an exciting couple of days here in the Fuck Everything offices, which consist of me alone in my room in my pajamas.

Today I've got a couple more links to add to the small yet growing list. This guy had some nice things to say, and this cleverly named site even quoted me!

Okay, enough feeling good about minor accomplishments. Time to get dressed and go to work, while I still have a job.
So a friend of mine and I were talking about modding the original Gameboy Advance to add a frontlight to it, like the GBA SP. Yeah, I'm sure people thought of this over two years ago before the original GBA came out, but although I dabble in video games, I'm by no means a hard-core gamer, and therefore a little behind on shit.

Anyway, I figured someone had come up with the idea years ago, and sure enough, it looks like there are solutions out there. Apparently, there is also another kit which doesn't require soldering, but can't match the performance of the Afterburner. That's fine; the 'no soldering' part didn't sound like much fun, anyway.

Now I can have the best of both worlds; a frontlit GBA like the SP, but without the shitty design of the SP.
What the fuck is going on here? Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I never heard that they retracted their belief that this guy was dead. Now the former dead man has been captured.
Okay, this turned out to be a really long yet still half-assed review, so if you don't care about web browsers or open-source software, you can punt on this post.

So I've been fucking around all day with a new web browser - Mozilla Firebird. Standard Mozilla is my browser of choice, for a few reasons. I don't care much for IE, and it's not an option under Linux (well, maybe with wine, but I don't care either way), which is fine by me. Firebird is an offshoot of Mozilla, and it's supposed to be a more lightweight browser. I'm all for lightweight; I don't need a bunch of bullshit colorful borders or pretty pictures or useless menus that do nothing but suck up memory. The same philosophy extends to my desktop environment, where I'm happy as long as I have a pop-up desktop menu and can have a JPEG as my background.

Firebird definitely does seem more lightweight - load times are faster, which is nice on my 500 MHz shitbox laptop, and menus and icons are simplified. It also has one of my favorite Mozilla features, tabbed browsing. I wouldn't even touch anything without tabbed browsing nowadays, and as far as I know, IE doesn't even have it (at least, not the versions I've used, and from what I understand, IE hasn't exactly undergone a lot of updates). The problem with Firebird is that its default configuration is a little too lightweight. There's one button that Mozilla's tab bar has, whose function is to open a new tab. Firebird doesn't have this by default, but it can be added. The fucking thing is, I cannot for the life of me figure out how the fuck to add it manually. I can download an 'extension,' which I have done, which gives me that one stupid button. The problem is, it fucks up other shit on the tab bar. I shouldn't have to download an extension for something so basic, anyway. The fact that such a simple thing isn't in there is fucking infuriating, not to mention inexcusable. In addition to this one button nonsense, there are all sorts of other neat things you can do to extend the functionality of tabs, but so far I haven't figured out the right set of options that make me happy. One option, and fuck if I know which one since there seem to be about 12 that sound like they do the same thing, causes problems with 'blog editing, which we simply cannot have.

Firebird is only in its 0.6 release, but stability is pretty good, except for hangs when trying to change themes/skins. It looks like it has some improved functionality for handling bookmarks, but the bookmark manager itself looks just as retarded as Mozilla's. And by retarded, I mean that in the sense that it has no intelligence. Like, say, I'll cut a bookmark, and then go double click on a folder, and paste the bookmark. I want the bookmark placed in the folder I just opened, but it puts the pasted bookmark outside and above the folder, and then I have to drag it to where i want it. Little shit like that I just wish they'd fix. Oh, and for some reason, buttons like the arrow keys just stopped working in Firebird. I don't think that has to do with the pounding on the keyboard I've done out of frustration, because they still work in other applications. Oh, wait, now they magically work again. WTF? Goddammit, broken again.

The Google search section on the main toolbar is nice, but I wish I could figure out how to move it somewhere else. In fact, that's the whole problem, is just that I can't fugure out how to move, add, and delete shit. Configuration can be done by hand-editing CSS files, which is a royal pain in the ass. The few examples I've seen by no means give me any insight as to syntax or even options that can be controlled. Maybe there's some decent documentation out there, but if I didn't stumble across it through the seaches I've done already, then that's just bullshit. I'm probably just being a dumbass, though, and it's not that hard to find.

Of course, the ultimate test of a browser will be its porn downloading abilities. One thing that fucking pissed me off about Mozilla was that in the right-click popup menu on images, it had the 'save image' and 'send image' options one after another. Obviously, I use 'save image' a lot. But sometimes I accidentally click on 'send image', which pops up a fucking e-mail window. When I'm trying to download a bunch of images, I can't wait 6 seconds for the window to open, and then for me to close it. The default menu on Firebird doesn't have this shit since there is no built-in mail client (one is available, but I don't care since I gave up on GUI mail clients a long time ago... Pine all the way, baby!). Otherwise, it seems to be OK in the downloading department. Mozilla's recent versions have been corrupting images for some unknown reason, which is just intolerable. So far, Firebird has allowed me to download my pictures of Japanese idols without any corruption issues, but it hasn't seen the tour of duty that Mozilla has.

So, unless I can get that one fucking button, and sort out the other tab bullshit, it will probably be back to standard Mozilla for now. Firebird is just too much of a fucking pain in the ass to get to behave right now. This, of course, is a common syndrome with open source projects like Mozilla or Linux. I like hacking on shit and trying to figure stuff out, but when I get to points where I'm saying "this is fucking irritating; I don't want to deal with this shit," then the average user will never jump on board, because he doesn't want to have to do anything.

Still, if you're someone who likes to tinker, Firebird may be something to keep an eye on. Mozilla was way too unstable for me for a long time, but it's become my everyday browser. Hopefully Firebird will get there too. I know some tinkering will always be necessary just based on its nature as a lightweight yet extensible browser, but if countless Google searches can't answer my questions, then there's just not enough of a knowledge base out there to make it a workable scenario right now. We'll see how it goes over the next few days and with future releases.
You see, this is why, even though I don't like the current administration, I hate the Demorats too and just can't get on board with them. They always come up with limp dick, opportunistic shit like this. John Kerry is great at this crap, like when he was calling for 'regime change' in America. Yes, I agree with what they're saying - get rid of Bush. But they come up with concepts or slogans that are so fucking unimaginative that it makes me ill. It's not even possible to recall Bush, so why use that as your main concept? Why don't you fuckers just sit down for awhile and come up with some shit on your own? If you can't even come up with original campaign slogans and stuff, how are people supposed to have any confidence that you can come up with solutions to this country's problems?

Of course, the Democrats' lack of vision and a clear plan for the future could be the subject of many, many rants. I'm just waiting for one candidate to unveil his 'roadmap' for America.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Wait, we completely stiffed the U.N. in the lead up to the war, and now we expect other countries to send people now that a serious incident where non-military personnel were killed has taken place?

"What? You guys ignored us before the war, and now you want us to send people as fucking cannon fodder? Fuck you! Clean up your own goddamn mess!" is probably what most countries would have to say to us. At least, that's what I'd 'a' told the bitch.
For those who had given up, Get Your War On has been updating every couple of days.
Also, I've been inspired to add a guestbook to Fuck Everything. Sorry in advance for the annoying banner ads, but it can't be helped unless I want to pay money. With an anime con coming up in like a month, I need to be preserving my war chest.

I just noticed that the fucking guestbook also has pop-ups, which I initially missed before since my browser just automatically blocks that shit. So, again, sorry, but whaddya want for free?
Okay, so check this shit out. I'm totally friggin' stoked, and it's not even the first day of classes. In the past couple of weeks, I've actually gotten e-mails from a couple of people who actually read and enjoyed my shitty little blog. This guy e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago, and he has an interesting 'blog. Then today, I got a message from this guy. He's pissed off, too, and as we all know, I respect that. Just got the e-mail and haven't had the chance to peruse a whole lot of his site, but I've seen some good stuff so far.

So there we go, I've got like six people now who I can think of besides myself who have been here at least once. It's a small start, but it's something. You know where I think this is gonna lead? I'm gonna rule the world, and virtually everyone will be in trouble.

Okay, grandiose visions aside, I've decided to add a new feature to my crummy front page to give some recognition to people who have, for some reason, perused the neverending shitstorm known as Fuck Everything. We'll work on ruling the world later.
Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, yo! Okay, this has nothing to do with Ben Asslick, but the Penny Arcade guys were making fun of this earlier, and I felt it worthy of some useless commentary. Whereas I give the XBox shit (and I rather like the XBox, by the way) for being a stripped-down PC, this Phantom things is... Well, a PC. Oh, and just for fun, download their PDF spec sheet. It's so full of marketing fluff and bullshit that I think I got some form of poisoning from it.

I think I'm going to start developing my own console which has no use, and I'm going to name it 'Chapter 11.'
More of this asshole. There are enough ignorant quotes in that article that you can just make up your own commentary on this one. I think we could save everyone a lot of time and effort by just burning Alabama down.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

This redistricting shit is getting real old now.

And, yeah, gotta love that 'crazy' John Kerry! Fuckhead.
Yeah, great, more dick medication. Meanwhile, our power grid is falling apart, and the Middle East is in flames.
Christ, what a mess.

Also, I like Bremer saying "We know in general terms who's behind it," which means they don't know fucking shit. Naturally, they "know" it's Saddam loyalists, because if you're not with the U.S., you're with Saddam.
God damn it, people are fucking losers. I'm in an IRC room, let's call it the "pervert channel," and someone comes in and actually asks if there are any female Chicago Bears fans in the room. What the fuck? Look, I'd like to see the Bears do well this season and all, but I don't go into the "pervert room" to talk about it. Why are men so invested in sports that they can't even stop talking about them when they're places designed for jerking off?

Monday, August 18, 2003

So apparently, Filthy is still dead. How long is this shit going to go on for?
Seriously, who the fuck out there needs more than 4 Gigs of memory to play Counterstrike and download pornography? Who the fuck is going to be rendering Monsters Inc. at home? You know what kind of home users will buy 64-bit based PCs? People like me, because I'm a gimp.
Boy, does this make me sick. Pretty fucked up that Asscroft has to run around the country to tell people "Hey, look guys, it's not that evil!" And since he's such a friendly looking guy, it'll work. Also, fuck all these people saying the purpose of the campaign is to "educate" Americans. You mean indoctrinate?