Saturday, May 22, 2004

In another time and place, this could be funny. Oh, wait, that's right - no it couldn't. The Pentagon's golden boy has had his house raided and been accused of passing secrets to one of our most sworn enemies in the past week alone. That's just super. Okay, who knows what's motivated all this and what's behind it, but it doesn't look good.

I can't believe that the State Department had the nerve to call this guy "untrustworthy." I don't know why we bother with those people, because they clearly don't know shit about shit. The Defense Department, on the other hand - they've got it goin' on. Man, everyone at State must be ready to just fucking burn shit down right about now.

Friday, May 21, 2004

If you care enough, chances are you've already seen today's Penny Arcade, but I'm linking it anyway so I can easily find it later.

Pestilence

Here's yet another thing I'm fucking sick and tired of: say anything bad about Team Bush, and you're putting American lives in danger. Yeah, that's right. Exercising rights to free speech - you know, the rights our soldiers are (in theory) literally dying to protect - is putting people in harm's way. As opposed to the people who authorized this war and put those people on the front lines in the first place. And I'm looking at you, Everybody. Congress, the American people, all of you fuckers.

Nancy Pelosi is an idiot, but I do applaud her for standing up and saying that Bush is a fucking retard. Okay, she didn't put it in BLM terms, but calling a (weakly) standing president incompetent is fucking balls. Maybe if more people with some kind of credibility start standing up and saying "You know, Bush is kinda fucking stupid," maybe it will actually start to sink in. But probably not.

The Ds are going to have to find a new course other than repeating their mantra that Bush's economic policies aren't working. I don't know fucking shit about economics (just like damn near everything else I talk about), partly because it's all arbitrary and inanely complex bullshit designed to be confusing to anyone who likes logic or common sense. As such, I have no real clue as to whether or not Bush's economic policies have actually helped cause the recent pickup in the economy. Considering that what goes down must come back up (at least from historical precedent), there's a good chance that it was just fucking time for things to get better, and Bush had nothing to do with it. All these tax cuts and big spending packages and other handouts to corporate fat cats quite possibly delayed an upturn, which is happening in spite of what Bush has done.

But you know what? I don't even know if the economy has really picked up or not. It's all a bunch of bullshit statistics that get "revised" anyway, so who knows what the hell is going on. If things aren't as rosy as we're being told they are, the Ds need to point out why. If Bush's economic policies are bad, they need to tell us why. Sure, it's all going to be bullshit anyway, but give us something besides one-line empty rhetoric for a change. I know, that is asking a lot from a group of politicians.

Note to Tom Delay: I am, right now, going to start planning a party for the day that you die. Seriously. Right fucking now. I don't know when that's going to happen, and I'm not going to do anything to bring the day closer, but when it finally arrives we are going to celebrate.

One quote to pick at:

"The San Francisco/Boston Democrats led by John Kerry have now adopted 'Blame America First' as their official policy."

Another thing I'm sick and tired of. But thanks for this wonderful nugget, Mr. Gillespie, former lobbyist extraordinaire for companies like Enron (just to name one). First off, this bullshit tag of "Boston/San Francisco Democrat." This label is clearly used with a negative undertone. Can someone explain to me what's so awful about Ds from San Fran or Boston? Oh, that's right - because that brings up the awful specter of things like gay marriage. Making statements like this is one of the most subtle and most disgusting rhetorical tools that fucking politicians use. Trying to make a link where none exists through mere implication.

How is it that the right can throw around things like "San Francisco Democrat" and "liberal" and get people to accept them as bad words, but the left can't throw around things like "Texas Republican" or "conservative" or "completely fucking ignorant dumbass right-winger" and have those statements carry any weight? Oh yeah - because even if a lot of conservatives are dumbasses, they have conviction and are willing to fight. Left-wingers, on the other hand, are pussies.

Explain to me what's so awful about a "Blame America First" policy. Shit, here in this country we tend to blame America last. Are we the only one causing problems in the world? Of course not. But we like to pretend that we're a force for nothing but good and can do no wrong. Basically, everyone in this county has the same view of this country that I did until about sixth grade (I was a slow learner). I remember the first Gulf War, and how I initially thought that we really were there to liberate Kuwait. Then someone said "We're only there for the oil." And that line resonated in my head, and things clicked: we're assholes. Not the only assholes, but still very big assholes.

I think we could do some good to start blaming ourselves first. You know, take some responsibility for things for a change. Even if something that goes down isn't necessarily our fault, at least it shows that we're actually trying to critically analyze what we're doing. And hey, if it turns out we did fuck something up, we're on top of things. A little pre-emptive strike if you will. And hey, it might actually get our actions to line up with our rhetoric. Maybe it would even help make this country into the country we've convinced ourselves that it already is.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Back in Black.
Apparently, someone wasn't lovin' it.
Google search:

Where the fucks my pants

People have officially become too dependent on computers.

Stupid American voice actress has overinflated sense of self-worth

As already hit upon by ETP, we ended up spending very little time at ACen. This wasn't exactly a surprise. We knew how much shit we wanted to do while in Chicago, and we had a feeling that con time would suffer as a result. We didn't care.

After getting there on Friday, we shopped for a couple of hours and then left. We made note of a few things we wanted to do on Saturday, which is typically the big day for conventions anyway. Saturday actually saw us getting up around 8 AM, which is quite a feat for all of us. But I'll always get up if there's a good reason for it.

Once we arrived, we went to what turned out to be the only ACen event that we were going to attend: the Excel Saga panel. This panel consisted of the series director, character designer, and screenwriter. Oh, and some stupid fucking white people who worked on the English dub.

The people who do dubs are pretty much the worst humans ever. I'd go as far as to say that they're sub-human. I mean, how much would it suck for your life to be so empty and meaningless. Doing all that shit for something that sounds like crap and is nothing but a bastardization. All for people who are too fucking lazy to read subtitles and who are so petty that they get bent over cultural jokes that they don't understand. Yes, I'm petty too, but I'm also right.

Just for the record, the above doesn't apply to Amanda Winn Lee. Yes, she's an American voice actress, but she's funny. So I'll give her a pass. Hey, my rules, dooshe.

The real humans on the panel were pretty fucking amusing. You'd pretty much expect this from the people responsible for Excel Saga. Watanabe Shinichi (or Shinichi Watanabe if you want to kick it Western school) AKA Nabeshin is fucking nuts. Again, just what you'd expect. It made for a pretty entertaining hour.

Entertaining with no thanks to above mentioned stupid white people. There were two voice actors and the director (I think). Monica Rial was one of the voice actors, and fucking Christ was she a stupid bitch. She kept making all these jokes that weren't funny that the whole audience insisted on laughing at. It's like, look, lady. You're not funny. Don't pay any attention to these fucking dorks who are unnecessarily inflating your ego. They don't often see women, and as such would still be laughing even if they saw you sodomizing their own mothers with a DVD boxset of Excel Saga.

Despite the fact that people were making Monica feel way better about herself than she deserved, the white people were thankfully marginalized for the most part. There was one point where the panel moderator specifically asked the audience if there were any questions for the white people since they weren't getting any. I liked that, at least until it encouraged the white people to talk some more. Things were so quiet for them, though, that even the white people were asking the Japanese guys questions. I'm just glad that the 'fro has enough presence to carry an entire panel like that.

So yup, that was pretty much the extent of our time at ACen. We thought about going to the Read or Die panel but didn't. We were kind of interested in the costume contest and the music video contest but ended up saying "fuck it." We shopped some more after the Excel Saga panel, then got the hell out of Rosemont and never looked back.

Get your con Chicago on

Okay, since ETP has given a quick rundown of the trip he, BOETP, and I took to Chicago, I now find myself embarrassed for slacking off and taking, like, a day-and-a-half to start covering what I want to cover. Hey, I've actually got tons shit to do at work, and taking a couple of days off didn't help. Plus, there's all that "banging hot chicks" I have to get around to. Oh, and you don't give a shit about my mini-vacation anyway, remember? So get off my ass already.

I was debating just how I should go about this. Should I do one long post, or several vignettes? In the end, breaking it up wins, because that A) keeps me from having to make a 67-hour post and B) allows me to have posts with all sorts of titles that I think are so bloody clever.

So, where the fuck to start? Well, how about the beginning? Damn I'm smart.

The ostensible reason for going to Chicago on this particular weekend was because of Anime Central. The thing is, it's not like you ever need an excuse to go to Chicago. But some kind of special event doesn't hurt to help tack down a date. If said special event turns out lame, hey, we're in Chicago. It's not like there isn't anything else to do in this town.

We knew in advance that we were going to be bringing home a boatload of shit that we didn't leave home with, so we decided to drive in order to avoid trying to haul things home on the plane or shipping things back. Since we're fucking smart/stupid, we hatched a plan to leave the Denver area around 9 PM-ish Thursday night and drive straight through to get to Chicago. With three people driving, this wasn't too bad of a plan. That pretty much worked out. Maybe 14 hours in a car would drive other people nuts, but not me. I love driving. I've driven 10-11 hour drives by myself and been just fine. Having your two best friends along for the ride certainly doesn't hurt matters.

For me, the driving part is an essential element of many vacations. We kept ourselves pretty well entertained both going out there and coming back, and I wouldn't trade that for anything, not even being able to get there in a couple of hours instead of more than half a day.

We did decent in terms of time. We got into Chicago around 12:30 PM or so. Behind schedule, but what the fuck. Our plan was to just head over to ACen immediately, and we did just that. Hey, no time to fuck around going to the hotel or somewhere else to clean our filthy selves up, there's shopping to be done!

Okay, now, check this out. We wanted to be there at noon to hit the dealer's room when it opened. Didn't happen. Okay, we're a half an hour to an our off our target. Not a huge deal, right? After all, we pre-registered, so getting in there should be a snap, shouldn't it? Wrong. We get there only to find a long line for pre-regs. This, of course, is only a line to get into ANOTHER line. All told, it wasted over an hour to get our fucking badges that were already paid for. It didn't help that things were organized horribly and stations were manned by fucking idiots.

Note to ACen and pretty much any other con: if people are good enough to pay in advance, SEND THEM THEIR FUCKING ADMISSION MATERIALS IN THE MAIL. Thanks.

Standing in line for so long did allow us to witness one special event: the worst atrocity ever. We see this cute Asian girl there. She's even wearing a schoolgirl outfit, and we all know about me and that. Then... Then we see her boyfriend. Now, it's not the fact that she had one that was so awful. That's something you're almost always expecting. No, the atrocity was just how fucking awful this guy was. I mean, he was the kind of guy you'd expect at an anime con for Christ's fucking sake. I don't know what the deal there was, but that's pretty much going to piss me off until the end of time. You know what? I hate myself, and I'm just going to end this segment here.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

It would be nice if something like this would do any good, but it won't. Virtually all anti-spam measures are token measures. There's just too much spam out there for them to ever get any of this to work. Some spammers have already started doing this "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" thing, and I can tell you it has done wonders for cleaning up my inbox. I wish they'd just stop sending me porno spam altogether since I think I've made it pretty clear that I already know where to go to get porn and usually without paying a fucking thing.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Oh, yay, more shit flinging. Not to be confused with the artist formerly known as Flinging Shit.
One time in high school, we got a kid to eat a live goldfish for five bucks. He fared a lot better than this kid.
Get stoked. All I can say is that there had better be lots of beating and killing women in this game, because that's what that whole series is all about.
That sucks, dooode. You can't visit the zoo anymore. Don't worry; tomorrow's my day off so you can come over and see my zoo if you want to, dooode.

Seriously, I'll get to the story behind this joke sometime this week. Trust me; you don't care now, and you won't care then.

I also love CNN articles like this which show that some of their writers have got to be high school english students. Lines like the last one in the zoo article are clearly added to cross some kind of word count threshold.

I'll (sigh) explain this joke later

Dooode, I hope everyone still recognizes my 'blog, dooode. I missed that little guy, dooode.

Wait, no it isn't

Dooode, I'd totally forgotten how much the new Blogger sucks, dooode.

Good to be back

Let's get things rolling again with a cheap cop-out.

Spam:

fuck like you did when you were 19

I AM fucking like I did when I was 19. That's the goddamn problem. But hey, thanks for trying to sell me something that will keep me from seeing any action. I think I've proven that I'm capable of getting to that place all on my own.

Undoubtedly more bullshit about my trip that you don't care about later on. Right now I need to go clean my filthy been-in-a-car-for-fourteen-hours self and get my ass to work.