Yet another new product from FE Labs, one which should enable you to more successfully justify your thug.

Hmmm, I wonder what it's like to be old and bitter and stupid and arrogant and still hung up on shit that doesn't matter at all anymore. I'll let you know just as soon as I'm old.

You know, these people just don't look like they'd be fucked up enough to torture and starve their children. Well, okay, I guess they do look like the average slobs you'd see in this country, but there's just something unnerving about their pictures, even before you find out what they've done. And then, of course, you find out what they've done. Hell, I've had a toenail removed under anesthesia, and, yeah, I don't wanna think about this one anymore.

It's official: I need to make fun of the Pope more. Not only did I cause a small (and needlessly ongoing) ruckus in the comments to my post, it also stirred up a bit of shit over here. Man, Xtians better steer clear of here once the Pope finally does bite it, because we're gonna have like a four-day bender at that guy's expense.

This seems to have snuck by pretty quietly; not that it wasn't a given.

In mourning

So the time has come. We must bid a fond farewell to a television show that was truly revolutionary. A show that broke so many molds, brought so many new ideas and storylines to our television sets. A show that entertained and inspired millions upon millions of adoring fans. I am, of course, talking about the demise of Star Trek: Enterprise. May her interesting and enthralling characters whose lives and development I cared so deeply about rest in peace. May the fabulous writers, who dare I say lived outside of the box and the confines that everyone expected them to live in, find new and challenging projects where their myriad talents can be exploited. And my best wishes to Rick Berman, who is pretty much the best person ever.

Alright, enough of that. I'm making myself sick.

In terms of irrelevant pop culture stuff, hearing this a couple of days ago was about the best news that could have come my way. I quote the Indian chief in Hot Shots when Charlie Sheen finally brings home the batteries he needs for his Walkman: It's about fucking time.

For as lame as Enterprise is, this should have happened a long time ago. Supposedly, things got a lot better this season, but plenty of people weren't around to see any of the supposed improvements. The thing is, I really didn't care how decent the show got, seeing as how I just could not get with the show from the beginning. The very foundations of the show were flawed. It was just such a bad idea for an already tired franchise, but Berman had to do it because he liked it. Fucking dipshit. The same goes for everyone else around him.

There have been rumors going around that Riker and Troi are going to show up on the last episode. Someone on Slashdot made a crackback that Q was going to show up, taking Riker into the past, present, and future to make sure that Enterprise never happened. Oh, if that were true. I would love nothing more than for Enterprise to be erased from the books in one fashion or other.

Of course, there are still die-hards (read: retards) who are still fighting to save the show. And it's like, you people are right up there with Rick Berman. Yes, he and his staff have put out nothing but shit on TV for the past several years, merely slapping "Star Trek" on it and shoving it off, but you people have allowed the low-quality to continue through your continual, unending, unquestioning support. It really is a religious thing for these people; it has "Star Trek" attached to it, so it's gospel and it must be true and we must watch it simply because it's Trek.

Okay, granted, I pretty much follow the cast of The Next Generation wherever they lead me, but they've at least got enough goodwill in the bank that they could fuck up a lot of things before I'd be like, hey, that's enough. But they were nowhere near that point, not for me at least. Maybe I'm just blind or in denial or living in some nostalgic fantasyland, but I wish we could see more Next Gen stuff, even especially if it's a ways down the line. Not too likely based on how the last movie did, but you never know. Still, Nemesis definitely deserved a better reception; Enterprise got what it deserved.

I love all of the bullshit coming out of everyone in the wake of the cancellation. "... Enterprise has carried on the tradition of its predecessors with great distinction,"
"The creators, stars and crew of Star Trek: Enterprise ambitiously and proudly upheld the fine traditions of the Star Trek franchise." Huh? This is the first Trek series to get cancelled in 35 years. I don't know if you want to be using phrases like "great distinction" or "proudly upheld." And before anyone thinks they're clever, getting cancelled like the original series is not some kind of positive omen for Enterprise.

Then there are the fans. I like the argument that it's all Paramount and UPN's fault for not promoting the show, as opposed to putting out crap. Honestly, a Star Trek show shouldn't need much promotion other than saying "Hey, guys, there's a show on TV, and it's called Star Trek. Watch it since your life sucks because you're a loser so you'd do it anyway." Of course, there was a oh-so-clever decision to not call Enterprise "Star Trek" in the beginning, only adding "Star Trek" to the name after a few seasons of shitty ratings. Because, yeah, that was the problem. No one knew all on their own that it was a Star Trek show, and that's what kept them from watching.

Like many fans, I've been saying for awhile that they need to give the franchise a rest, and bring it back after awhile so that people have some hunger for it. Wait awhile so that it's something new and interesting once more (if that's even possible). The thing is, though, I kinda do have a hunger for Trek at this point -- for Trek that's good. Shit, I'd almost (almost) be willing to accept something that's at least familiar but not a complete step backwards right now. Enterprise was so lame and so against established Trek-universe fact just by its very existence that I actually thought about buying some of the DVDs and watching episodes of Voyager that I never saw because that show was a piece of shit, too. Now, I'm not going to do that, but the very fact that they pushed me to thinking that pisses me off to no end.

As an aside, there's part of me that would like to have Voyager erased from the "history" books as well, but that show has one saving grace, and no, it's not Jeri Ryan's tits. No, I'm talking about the Doctor, who's pretty much my favorite character in the Star Trek universe. Everyone else on that show can pretty much burn, unless if you bring back the really bitchy Seven of Nine that we had when she first showed up (breasts are nice, but it's no fun without the bad attitude as far as I'm concerned).

So yeah, that's it. A very sad day when I'm cheering the end of a Star Trek show, and extra sad seeing as how that is now the rule as opposed to the exception. About the only positive thing is that Rick Berman may finally be waking up to some things. I'm not holding my breath, especially if it's taken all this nonsense to realize that shit be worn out, but I guess it's something.

Like I said, I've been inspired.

Hey, so remember when someone bought one of these, and I was like, I'm perfectly happy if I never sell anything in there ever again, because I sold one of the "Unsellables"? Well, if not for a recent purchase by someone, that very well could have happened. Thanks for everything, fuckers.

Anyway, the recent purchaser bought one of these shirts, which is great. Honestly, I just put that little slogan on the shirt because that's exactly what I was thinking at the time I read it was "organic cotton." So mad props to someone for buying something that I made on a whim, because, let's face it, that really is a great thing to put on a shirt.

Inspired by the, I dunno, ten cents in commission I'll get off of that sale, I decided to add a couple more t-shirts. Once again, I just went with my first reaction to the product, and I suspect that these too will not be hot sellers. Here's door number one and number two. Maybe I'll really get on it and start adding more stuff that's really funny over the next few days so you can fail to buy those products as well.

Heaven for climate, Hell for society

I hope the Pope just fucking dies already. And honestly, I'm saying this out of kindness. That man is so old and so screwed up that I think he would be much better off dead than he is alive. Would you want to have every ailment under the sun on top of his schedule? Even if things have been scaled back due to age and illness, I'm sure he's a busy guy spreading all that superstitious nonsense. Speaking of nonsense, man, I am going to renew my claim that those Catholics are sick ass bastards, making someone be Pope until the day they die, no matter how fucked up they are health-wise. It is so sad watching a dumb animal suffer like that.

Okay, yes, I say that he should die partly out of maliciousness. I mean, he is, after all, a very ignorant man -- he's Catholic. But he's not just any ol' Catholic, he is the Catholic, and that definitely gets you a +5 modifier on ignorance.

I don't know how they will determine the next Pope, but if it's like, say, the Fed chairmanship, there are several candidates out there, all vying for their chance to be Pope. And this is what really amuses me about the whole deal; you just know that there are some serious assholes out there who want the Pope to die just so they can benefit personally. Sure, I'm looking to benefit in terms of laughter at the expense of a sick, dying old man, but at least I'm not looking to further my career through his dying. And besides, they do say that laughter is the best medicine, something the Pope can surely appreciate right about now.

ETP will catch the double meaning in this post, and you will not

I hope that Cody gets his goddamn head chopped off.

This (allegedly) lazy bastard had better not just be teasing my cock.

I like the idea of Howard Dean for DNC chair. I know, I know. "BUT OH MY GOD THERE WAS LAST YEAR IN IOWA AND HE SCREAMED AND...!!!!!!" Jesus Christ, fucking get over it. Yeah, maybe it wasn't a good idea to have a hothead as President. Or maybe it would've been, you know. Who's gonna fuck with this: "You had better not give me any shit because I've got my finger on the button you know I'll push it and so help me god I will SCREAM." Isn't national security our big thing now? This really doesn't sound much worse than just walking over to the Middle East and setting it on fire like Bush has (oh, that's right, I forgot, it's all better now).

Anyway, Dean, while being a politician and therefore a bullshitter, is about as close to "keeping it real" as we've seen these past couple of years coming out of the D side. He seemed slightly less timid than everyone else when it came to expressing himself, and I appreciate that kind of thing. For example, at least Dean picked a fucking side when it came to the Iraq war, unlike some other candidates I could mention. Despite evidence to the contrary, he's not the single-mindedly hard-core liberal some make him out to be, but he's not afraid to find himself on the left with many things as, ostensibly, that's where Democrats lie on the spectrum.

I liked some of the things he had to say when he announced his bid for the party's chair. "The Democratic Party will not win elections or build a lasting majority solely by changing its rhetoric, nor will we win by adopting the other side's positions." My god, that's so simple. Why didn't anyone else think of that beforehand? "The fact that we lost the 2004 presidential race by a narrow margin should not result in the abandonment of our party's core principles." Sticking to principle? Man, this guy is on fire!

This should all just be common sense, but the Democrats can't even do that anymore. The Republicans have done a great deal of work to get the Democrats to be embarrassed of who they are, and the Democrats have bought into it. Yes, Dean's words need to be backed up with future actions to have any meaning. As we learned from Megaforce, "Deeds not words." But at least someone is finally pointing the conversation in the right direction.

"I think that Governor Dean would take his lead from us."

Has anybody ever noticed how stupid Nancy Pelosi is? I mean, like, skull-crushingly stupid. I sincerely hope that Dean, if indeed he becomes head of the DNC, doesn't decide to take his lead from people who aren't doing any leading themselves.

"... but he will reinforce all of their worst instincts."

Once again, trying to shame the Democrats into not being Democrats. The Democrats would do good to get back to their "worst instincts," since that's what helped build the party into the dominant force it once was. Seriously, if the Republicans are saying that Dean would be awful for the Democratic party, then that, if nothing else, is an endorsement for the potential that Dean has to do some good. I don't know if anything truly scares Republicans nowadays (other than being poor and dealing with non-white people, both of which they've done a good job of shielding themselves from... and I mean real Republicans, not the poor and/or non-white motherfuckers they've suckered into getting on board with the R side), but I've gotta think that a Democratic party no longer afraid of who it is would at least have to give them some pause (right before going back to fucking the poor and/or non-whites, including the ones who vote R).

In the end, though, even if Dean totally fucks everything up, how will we know the difference from where the Democrats are today? What can he cost them? The Presidency? The House? The Senate? The Supreme Court? Nuts or not, Dean at least isn't the safe bet, the one who will do a smashingly adequate job and nothing more, like, say, John Kerry (John who?). Yes, I am carefully parsing my words when I say "bet," because Dean is, in many ways, more of a gamble than a lot of the other candidates out there, but that's exactly why I like him in that position. As I've been saying for awhile now, those pussy Democrats need to fucking man up, put some chips on the line, and roll those dice.

Organic chemistry has never been hotter thanks to a new linker, Overworked & Underfucked. She also likes posting pictures of boobs on her page, just in case you're at work or something (I honestly don't know why I spend so much time looking out for you people like that).

People need to lighten the hell up, because this is both cute and funny. I totally want one, but you'd have to be nuts to pay $70 for one, especially if you're just going to give it to someone who's probably gonna end up dumping your ass anyway. Who says romance is dead.

While we're on the subject of crazy people, this also has interesting potential. Just goes to show those bear people that you can make light of and have fun with something that we all know is a serious issue (and, in the case of the radio show, at the same time help those who do have mental health issues).

Oh yeah, then there was this that I read which I meant to comment on. Hey, I fucking hated having to do shit over the summer back when I was in high school, but you know what? I sucked it up and did it. At the last minute. Just like everyone else. Hey, we got to enjoy almost the entire summer, and we still got our shit done. Any little dipshit who hasn't figured out this really quite simple formula should be set on fire.

"It didn't completely ruin my summer, but it did give me a lot of undue stress both at home and at work."

Oh, boo fucking hoo. Just wait until you graduate and get out into the real world. Or you get set on fire.

"These students are still children, yet they are subjected to increasing pressure to perform to ever-higher standards in numerous theaters."

Theaters? Hey, this is giving me a great idea. Once they fire the draft back up, can we get Peer to be first in line to get shipped out? What the fuck kind of name is Peer, anyway?

Larson and his son had acted as their own legal counsel.

Anybody who knows even the slightest about the legal profession knows what that means. I really hope that these people do get assfucked for filing frivolous claims. And set on fire.

Hello Carl

Okay, so the Iraq vote went down without any huge disasters. All I really have to say, though, is this: The picture of the woman giving the "V" sign with the ink-stained finger? I get it. Big day, hugely symbolic, bedrooms, closets, I get it. That's this year's Saddam statue falling -- I can't fucking get away from it no matter how hard I try. They're making it seem like that's the only bloody picture anyone took in Iraq on election day.

You know what? Maybe that was the only picture taken, because they faked the Iraqi election just like they faked the moon landings. Actually, I don't know if I buy that moon theory or not because I've never really looked into it, but I do find it amusing that this is the first result you get if you Google for "moon landing."

Maureen Dowd has also decided to sell out.

Nearly three weeks in, and yeah, the new car is a fucking blast. I'm still in the break-in period (I'm just over 1,000 and BMW recommends 1,250 for break-in), so the abuse love hasn't yet reached the levels it should be at. Well, okay, it's not like I'm going to be totally fucking nuts once I hit 1,251, but I know that I can if I want to without that particular worry.

My first week with the Bimmer was both good and bad. Obviously good since it's fun to drive. I've always liked driving, but now it's a completely new realm. My Civic was a good, trusty car, but it wasn't the Ultimate Pretension Machine. The bad part of Week 1 was two-fold. First, after having the car for about three days, I got a fucking big-ass rock chip in my front windshield. Welcome to Colorado. Then, a couple of days later, I pulled a corner too tight and scraped up one of my wheels. The amazing turning radius on that car can sometimes be a little too good. It's not horrid, and it can be prettied back up rather easily, but it still pissed me off.

The past two weeks have been much, much better. Fun, but without any annoying little damages. I'm doing pretty good with the manual. Still slow off the clutch, but not stalling out like a motherfucker. I got to discover the magic of brake dust and how much fun it is to clean that shit off. It was kinda neat in a way, because after getting it off they looked like totally new wheels, and I was saying, fuck, those are some good looking wheels. Still, I really need to be more vigilant to keep it from getting that bad (and it doesn't take long since BMW's are notorious for this). I also need to get into the habit of more regular cleaning now that I have a nicer car. Not that my Civic was a total mess all the time, because it wasn't. It was fairly easy to keep things pretty clean since it's just me day-to-day, and my only other regular passengers are ETP and BOETP, and it's not like they bring along a bunch of disease and garbage. Still, the Bimmer demands better, and that should mix nicely with my OCD.

I haven't gotten too caught up in the pretension... Yet. I'm more concentrated on just having fun and getting to know my new girl. Right now I'm more concerned with getting used to having a rear-drive, manual six-cylinder after years of nothing but front-drive, automatic four-bangers. Later I'll continue my work on how much better I am than everyone.

Speaking of FWD, I came across this amusing graphic, probably in the Bimmerfest forums:



As you can see, the sense of elitism -- already strong B.B. -- is building. I'm on my way to realizing my true potential. For months I'd been seeing 3ers out on the roads, looking with hungry eyes, even at 325s. Now, I look with condescending eyes, even at other 330s. The 325 drivers are not as cool as they think they are, and 323 people are to be pitied after they're mocked. Sure, some of those people might have some worthless options like a Nav that I don't have and don't care about, but I've got the 330i ZHP with leather, so they can't touch me.

Every time I look at the car, I'm like, fuck was red ever a good idea. I originally wanted that sexy Oxford green, one because it was slick as shit, and two because it was somewhat unique. If I didn't know better, I'd say that 3ers only come in silver, steel blue, and black. The rare individual pulled some strings to get navy or white (although I will never understand the desire to get a white car). Even though the 3er looks sharp in any color, it would have been nice to have something that stands out from the pack. Well, the Imola red stands out pretty nicely. Also, recently I've seen someone driving around in a green 330 (which I know is ZHP-less) close to where I live, and it certainly wouldn't be acceptable to have a car in the same color as that loser. So the choice just keeps looking better and better.

One of the coolest little things I discovered about the new ride is that the CD player is capable of playing MP3s. Somewhere along the way, I got the impression that it couldn't do that, so I was pleasantly surprised when I finally verified otherwise. Unless I'm feeling saucy, all I need now when I'm out driving around is one CD -- filled with Fluke, of course. This also pretty much abrogates my desire to get a CD changer, which should be standard on a car like this but isn't because it's BMW.

My first regular payment is due soon, and that's gonna be painful. I had to get snow tires since the summer/performance tires are awful on snow and ice, and that'll be a painful bill to pay. Then there will be registration at the beginning of March, and that too will suck. All reasons why I wanted to wait for a couple of months, but oh well. At least this is the most rewarding stupid thing I've ever done.

So yeah, even if I have to "take it easy" at this point, that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the Ultimate Driving Machine. It's just incredible. You know what? When I drive that BMW, I know how God must feel... When he drives a BMW.

What the fuck? Why the hell does John Kerry pick now to start sticking to his guns? This was going to be so goddamn funny, John; thanks for screwing it up. It's official: John Kerry ruins everything.

"Strictly along party lines"... "No Republican voted against her..." Man, what we've done with the two-party system is fucking neat.

And while the Senate's Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, voted in favor of Ms. Rice, he said he was disappointed that the White House and some Republican lawmakers had tried to "stifle debate" on the nominee.

Yeah, it's pretty lame to try and hamper any debate. But if you're just going to go and vote for her anyway, doesn't that kinda kill a lot of the impact of the debate? Debate is kinda useless if you're just blowing words out there only so you can say you did it. I know, I know -- the Democrats were trying to make a statement. Too little, too late. As always.

Maybe this is a non-issue, but I found interest in the fact that the Democrats' so-called rising star, Barack Obama, voted for Condi Rice. Now, I know what you're saying. "Obama is black, Rice is black. Like he's gonna vote against her." That's the thing, though; when it comes to a lot of things in this country, race oftentimes dictates the one path you should follow, no matter what. This kinda goes in with the whole Democratic party on Condi (well, not the whole party on her... you know what I mean) thing, as lots of people were talking up how the Democrats couldn't really oppose a black woman as Secretary of State because it'd make them look bad.

Along the same lines is Alberto Gonzales. Hey, look, they're giving a Hispanic a high-ranking post! Team Bush, in addition to putting another one of their men at Justice, know they're scoring brownie points with the brown faces (I'm half Hispanic, by the way, so I can say that and only have it be self-loathing instead of racism). Nevermind how horrible the guy may be, they're looking good just for putting a Hispanic in there. And, again, the Democrats look bad if they put up too much of a fight.

Mad props and a huge finger to the Republicans for mastering the race game, at least when it comes to shuffling people around. Again, I may be making a bigger deal of it than I should, but of course I'm cynical/racist/stupid/whatever like that.

It's a pretty pathetic state of affairs in this country when Bush, the Ostensible-in-Chief, has to come out and explicitly tell his people not to be paying off people in the media, even if it was just a pundit (a group of people that really no one should be seriously listening to). Well, more likely the message here wasn't "don't do it," but more "don't fucking get caught, dumbass."

"We've got new leadership going to the Department of Education."

So what? That was happening anyway, completely separate of this issue. Sadly, this is as close to "accountability" as you get in the Bush White House.

So I was looking around BMW's website, and came across a series of short films called The Hire. They are, of course, first and foremost BMW car commercials, but they're still mildly entertaining if you like seeing abusive driving. They star Clive Owen and some are directed by people you may have heard of, like Guy Ritchie and John Woo with executive producer credits going to people like David Fincher and Ridley Scott. So yeah, car commercials with some street cred. If nothing else, I'd recommend checking out the one entitled "Star," which I found pretty amusing.

Although there's nothing in this article that isn't pretty self-evident to a lot of us (you know, those of us who already agree with it), it is nice to see it all laid out clearly and concisely every now and then.

William Safire, idiot, is ending his run as an Op-Ed columnist. In all fairness, I never gave ol' Bill a fair shake since he was the main (if not the only) conservative columnist in my liberal wonderland that is The New York Times. In the early days of this 'blog I linked a decent number of his columns for the sake of ridicule and nitpicking, so I thought I'd link his last one just for posterity's sake. I'm sure his career on the Op-Ed pages is now complete with my acknowledgement.

The bullshit over privatizing Social Security is not going to go away until Team Bush either gets its way or the Democrats finally take control of something. When it comes to this issue, I really don't know what the fuck to believe.

The Democrats, of course, want to keep Social Security as we know it because it's their program. Maybe some of them even believed at one point that it was genuinely the right set-up. Regardless, they'll tell 'ya that everything is A-OK, or that it will be with some tweaks here and there.

Conservatives, on the other hand, say that Social Security is a huge mess and if we don't make major changes the Earth will spiral into the sun any day now. So, where does the truth lie? Pretty OK or totally fucked? Like with any battle of extremes, the real answer is probably closer to famous potatoes, but still somewhere in between. Does Social Security need some work? Like any government program, probably. Is it totally doomed? Probably not.

But again, I really don't know a whole lot on this. I could go do some painstaking research on my own to find out, but that's not my style. One thing I do know is that everyone has an agenda and is completely full of shit. The Ds are going for pride or principle. Some Rs are probably thinking principles (like self-reliance), but the prevailing theme on their side is, like it should be with Rs, money. Team Bush is clearly on the side of business assholes, and it's not difficult to see how that plays big in this discussion. When Bush talks up the concept of an "ownership society," he neglects to mention that the primary beneficiaries of such a system are the people who already own this fucking society. The financial sector likes the idea of privatizing, doesn't it? I wonder why that would be? Because privatizing has great benefits for the general populace?

I really do like the idea of making people actually think about shit and do things for themselves, but it's not like Social Security is a total freebie. Most people pay into it their whole goddamn lives before they start getting those checks. And it's because of those people that privatizing makes me nervous. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, there's a decent chance I'm not going to see Social Security money anyway, or at least not much money. So it's up to me to start saving now, which I am. But there are other people in generations ahead of mine who still need to be covered. And it's no secret that they're going to accomplish that by having the government do some hefty borrowing. That should go great with our existing debt.

I have no conclusion for this post, so I just say "fuck you" to both parties and go on with my evening.