I found this BBC slide show on how they attach the space shuttle to its fuel tank and rocket boosters pretty neat. The physics, power, and engineering that go into doing that have got to be pretty amazing. I mean, just imagine your task being to design a system where your top priority is "Don't drop the space shuttle."

Okay, so the Pope finally died. That's probably for the better -- for all of us. How did you enjoy Pope Deathwatch 2005? Personally, it got a little old for me. I'm glad it's done with. And it's better for the Pope because he doesn't have to deal with all this poor health shit anymore. Plus he was dumb.

It's been a good week for Death. In addition to all the regular Joes Death has claimed recently, he had a hat trick with three high-profile deaths in a matter of only a few days. The Pope, Terri Schiavo, and Johnnie Cochran. I find it extra amusing that two of those three high-profile deaths were ones that the Christians really, really cared about. All that praying and other such nonsense, and they're gone. Where exactly is your god for you know, Christfuckers?

Now that the waiting for death phase is over in the Pope and Schiavo cases, we can all move on to the next phase of those abominations. It looks like the next several weeks are going to be a total load of bullshit pageantry for the Catholic Church, all leading up to the crowning of a new Pope. Then with the Schiavo ordeal, there's all the bullshit that we're going to have to put up with as a result of one person being allowed to finally die after 15 years of not really being alive.

Hopefully it won't be too long before the front page of CNN will be the normal, useless, crappy liberal media coverage I'm accustomed to reading and passing on to you people. No more updating the Pope's condition every six seconds. No more seeing that fucking picture of Terri Schiavo's mother kissing her or Terri Schiavo looking blankly into the camera. Look, I'm sorry, but I can only take so much of that. It's just not something I want to be looking at constantly. It's sad and all, but if I really wanted to see that much of that, I could just go to the produce section and stare at the cucumbers or something for awhile.

Look, I'm not totally insensitive to what went down there. Well, okay, I wasn[t insensitive (really), but I became pretty insensitive towards the parents there at the end. Obviously that's an awful thing for anyone to have to endure. But there was one day when it was looking pretty grim in terms of getting the tube re-inserted, and the dad said something to the effect of "Everyone who wanted my daughter to die is getting their wish." And it's like, fuck you, pal. No one wants her to die. I mean, well, we didn't want to want her to die, we just felt it was the most humane thing to do. But once you start saying bullshit like that, yeah, I kinda do want her to die.

I also liked all the "expert" discussion from people who said she wasn't in a persistent vegetative state, like Bill Frist who saw a video. Thanks, doc. Did anyone see pictures of her from before she suffered the brain damage? Compare those pictures to what we've been bombarded with for weeks, and tell me that there wasn't some serious goddamn damage there.

There are probably few if any things more awful for someone to have to go through than burying their child. But like I said above, Terri Schiavo's parents really pushed the limits of sympathy. Are you trying to keep her alive for her or for you? As was pointed out by someone on a local talk show, the parents had kinda lost it anyway. They always referred to "our child" or our little girl" or whatever -- for a 41-year-old woman. Doesn't seem like they were in the best state of mind over the whole affair, but I do suppose that's understandable.

In the end, though, it really is none of our business. For most of us, we just spouted our mouths off about it with no real harm done. Sure we look like assholes, but some of us are used to that already. Then there were all those dumb fuckers protesting in Washington and outside the hospice and wherever else. To those people, on either side of the debate, a hearty "fuck you." You people need to get lives, and this is coming from me. I remember seeing a picture of some guy completely unrelated to Terri Schiavo crying outside her hospice and it's like, man, kill yourself.

An extra big "fuck you" to congress, Democrats and Republicans alike. These dipshits went beyond mere commentary by getting involved, despite the fact that I don't know how many judges over the years had supposedly settled things. Democrats are getting it for not doing anything to even look like they were trying to stop this (as usual). Republicans are getting it for being pretty much the biggest hypocrites ever. What's the shit we always hear out of them? States rights! Sanctity of marriage! Except when we need to make some stupid point about Jesus. Fucking cocksuckers.

Osco is still around?

I think the law should be extended so that if a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription based on stupid religious beliefs (but I repeat myself), the pharmacist should not only be punished by fine and whatnot, but you should also get to punch him hard in the nuts. If it's a she or just some guy without balls, you should be able to tape nads on he/she/it like you do with all your action figures and then punch them hard.

I always get kinda weirded out when I discover that stores and other places I thought were long since dead still exist in other locales. Like when I found an Alco store in Canon City. Or one time I was in some shithole Utah town (like there's any other kind in that state) on my way to Vegas, and in that town I saw a Sizzler... Right across the street from a Godfather's Pizza. I can't remember what the name of that town was, but it really was a place that time forgot. Their Subway didn't have red wine vinaigrette sauce or provolone cheese, for Christ's fucking sake! I was sure to give the girl making my sandwich a hard time about it, which I'm sure she appreciated. Fucking Mormons.

Anybody who knows me knows what a huge fetish I have for miniatures. Read into that what you will, but I could easily go bankrupt collecting this stuff. That is just too cute.

Well, their suspensions may be soft...

Why is it always the greatest thing in the world when He shows up? Yes, capital "H" he. For some reason.

Also, holy fuck -- this is our life in one strip.

Here's what looks to be a decent 'blog: OverSpun. A bunch of liberal bullshit, and, more importantly, occasional clips from The Daily Show. Originally found linked over at Jared's.

Okay, so this is about as close as I'm gonna get to some kind of moral dilemma. We all know I'm down with the Clintons. I know that Hillary is just kissing ass with red staters for a potential run in '08. Sucking up to Republicans doesn't bother me too much -- keep in mind that I'm a conservative now -- but why does she have to be doing it on fronts like abortion and video games? Can't she side with them on taxes or something, and leave any of the nonsense "morality" stuff alone?

I also wonder if it's anything more than a waste of time for Hillary Clinton of all people to be trying to woo conservative voters. Many of whom have, you know, long since decided to hate her and Bill's guts no matter what they do. Seems like it'd be better to go with the Rove doctrine of working on your base, because we know the Clintons should easily be able to do that. Granted, Bill's thing was trying to be more moderate, but still. There are a lot of people out there who I don't see getting on board with Hillary Clinton... Ever.

"This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman..."

Okay, please tell me that she didn't actually use the word "diss." The more she says shit like that, the less I'm gonna want to have sex with her.

Happy Pin 'Im Up Day. As my Easter gift to you, I present a webcomic originally found linked at WWDN: Diesel Sweeties. Look, you just can't go wrong with any comic that has cameos by, well, just go check it out and you'll like it if you're familiar with certain other webcomics. Also, I think that I may have to adopt the last line of this comic as some kind of new personal mantra. Finally, dude, what exactly is the problem with that?

Extreme Teabagging

One thing that I find utterly retarded is when someone (who probably got here via Google) leaves a comment for a post that's like a hundred years old. It becomes kinda irritating when the comment is something stupid (even if that one is kinda funny). Extra irritating when I have the perfect response. C'mon, fuckheads, be more timely with your comments or don't comment at all, lest I be forced to link old shit just to show people how goddamn clever I am.

A full page of new GYWO comics is up.

Google search:

Dead or Alive:Extreme Beach Volleyball characters almost naked

Dude, have you ever even seen the game? That's what the entire game is (although rumor has it that if you look hard enough, you can find somewhere in the game where you play volleyball).

One more for the road:

illicit hair cut

What?

It's been too long since I posted a link to a story about sexual fetish in Japan from MDN's WaiWai pages. Like I've said before, I'm far from an expert but I've learned enough about Japan that none of that stuff phases me anymore, but anyone relatively new here may appreciate a small insight into the Japanese brand of perversion. Or not.

Something interesting happened a couple of days ago. Well, interesting for my sad life. I was doing my usual round of bullshit checks -- e-mail, Fe linkers, other 'blogs, and 'blog traffic. When I got to Sitemeter for my Sailor Schoolgirl site, I saw the following number under the today's visits stat: 127,000. That's not a typo. Sometime fairly early in the morning, I got a link from somewhere, and traffic just went berserk. It looks like if you get too many hits on a site that's image-intensive, Angelfire will shut it down. That is, unless if it was just the high traffic that caused it to catch someone's eye at Angefire and they killed it for other reasons. Anyway, it's just that third index that got shitcanned; everything else is still up and running.

I don't know for sure what happened, since Sitemeter's free service only shows the last 100 hits, and the other pages generate enough traffic that the surge was long gone in the logs before I checked it. Right now my best guess is that it was due to the fact that my defunct page is one of the top search results if you Google (whether via regular Google or image Google) for "hoshino aki," an apparently popular model who has driven a lot of the traffic to that site.

As I type, I'm re-uploading index three to a new site, but who knows if I'll eventually end up in the 127,000 bucket again. So now, I'm thinking if I want to continue this Japanese hottie goodness, I should really look into getting an actual hosted site somewhere. I've been mulling this for quite some time now, but being me, it hasn't gone anywhere yet, assuming it ever does. And either way I go, I also need to mix in some advertising -- even though it may not have really done anything, I'm kicking myself for not having set it up before 127,000 happened.

In terms of hosting, I'm looking for something cheap which at the same time gives me decent bandwidth allocations. You know, I want everything for nothing. I'd like to keep doing this site since it seems like it's serving a purpose, even if that purpose is just helping other guys jerk off. Hey, I'm fine with that -- I know what a pain in the ass it is to find sailor girl pictures. But I'm not that into providing this public service, not to the point where I'll shell out too much, especially given the, ah, financial climate over here. Some of the lower-cost options I've come across are Lunarpages, Doteasy, and LiveRack. I need to look into those more, though, to read the fine print. Anyone out there have any suggestions for decent hosting solutions?

This is none of Congress's business, nor is it the business of anyone else in the government. Yeah, it's a sad story no matter which way it goes, but they need to stay the fuck out of it. But they can't! We live in a "culture of life"! Intervening to save one person all because of, naturally, Jesus. Meanwhile, we're killing thousands of people around the world and plenty more here at home. Wow, what a principled people we are.

"Bipartisan" bill. What fucking ever. This is led by the Republicans, plain and simple. You know, the people who are supposed to be about getting government out of our lives. Even if the Democrats are really supporting this, I mean really supporting it and not doing it because of some image issues, well, they're at least supposed to be the Big Government people. The Republicans, of course, have been both Big Business and Big Government for quite some time now -- at least a couple of decades. No, they don't want to help you with, say, Social Security or health care or a foreign policy that doesn't get everyone to hate us, but they will determine what you can and can't read or hear or masturbate to, they'll determine what you can and can't do with your body (hell, they'll even try and keep you from finding out what you can do with it, as the abstinence drive shows), and they determine when you live and when you die. But as we've seen, they're all too happy to play God. Which is funny, because they say that they really revere another god, one who has made it pretty clear that he doesn't like competition. That sounds like self-righteousness at best and outright hypocrisy at worst, but neither of those could possibly be the case with these fine souls, so I'll have to keep searching for the answers.

Meanwhile, I wish we could remove the feeding tubes of everyone on Capitol Hill. Whatever the fuck that means.

Hey, you know what? Maybe we should be encouraging teens to take abstinence pledges after all.

Look, I know this is coming from the liberal media blah blah blah, but c'mon. You spread institutionalized ignorance and kids are going to fuck up even worse than is expected of them. I've been over this issue too many times before, and while that usually doesn't stop me, I'm way too tired to get it on right now. You'll just have to come up with your own non-wit and uninsightful commentary with the standard jokes about underage girls mixed in for good measure.

Okay, I don't give a shit about anything in this article, but it does bring something to light that I need to bitch about. Whatever in the hell they're doing to Lindsay Lohan, it needs to stop. Everytime I see her showing up somewhere it just keeps getting worse and worse. She used to be so incredibly hot, and now... Well, jesus, what the fuck? This is so upsetting that I can barely put together coherent sentences, so I'm punting.

So let them.

It's fuckin' Paul

Not exactly new news, but Paul Wolfowitz has been tapped to head the World Bank. That's pretty special. You know, we should just get it over with and change the American flag so that it's nothing more than the image of a middle finger.

The sad thing was that the other leading candidate (at least as far as the rumor mill went) was ex-Hewlett Packard, errr, ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina. Ahhh, the time-honored American tradition of having to choose between shit and... Shit. While Wolfowitz is, well, Wolfowitz, and therefore not exactly qualified to be in charge of helping the poor (in addition to being a dick), Carly has the distinction of helping to run one of the world's most admired companies into the ground. Now, I don't work for HP (considering all the layoffs they've been through, who does?), but I do have it on good authority that HP isn't what it used to be, and she had a teency bit to do with fucking it all up.

So yeah, other than my inborn tendency for knee-jerk reaction, none of this shit is really bothering me that much. The world is fucked and there's nothing we can do about it. Another thing in recent days that showed just how apathetic I am was the decision to start ripping up ANWR for oil. I should be pissed about this but I just can't work up the energy (no pun intended). I mean, it was only a matter of time before the Republicans got their way on this. And what is everyone else to do about it? Vote so that shit like this doesn't happen? We're too fucking stupid for that! Speaking of stupid:

Democrat presidential contender John Kerry was more succinct: "It's a sad day when the Senate sells off America's public lands to the highest bidder," he said.

Once again, thanks for nothing, dipshit. Seriously, if this man tries to run in 2008, someone punch him in the fucking cock.

Blitzwing and Astrotrain would like to have a word with you

Another thing I've gotten sick of is the continual rape of The Transformers. Every successive show they come out with is total bullshit. I have seen nothing but a string of shit like this which has me saying stuff like "That's not Optimus Prime."

Yes, I know, these cocksuckers have to make money, because that's what they do. But why do they always have to do it at the expense of something that actually matters? Yes, in this world of war, poverty, disease, corruption, pollution, etc., the Transformers are important, goddammit.

Other than the Takara re-releases and the toy commercials I know and love (i.e., the TV series from the 80s) being released on DVD, the only thing I've been satisfied with when it comes to advancing the franchise are the Binaltech series. I've brought this up before; it's the series of Transformers that they're making which are based on modern cars. Well, I'm happy with the Japanese versions, as opposed to the cheap American versions (known as "Alternators") which have plastic instead of the die-cast parts found on their Japanese counterparts. Okay, there are some things I object to with this series, like the Ford Mustang that they're calling Grimlock. Look, Me Grimlock is a half-witted dinosaur, okay? Otherwise, though, you guys are good on that front.

... some of the new Cybertron toys have a special "triple change" feature, which enables the toys to switch into three different modes.

Wow, that's amazing! We've never had Transformers that could change into three different modes before! Fucking dipshits.

One tech news site I used to read avidly was the British site The Register. Not only was it news about shit I was following (mainly microprocessor news at the time, in addition to other stuff), but they had a tendency to be pretty funny about it as well. Although I only read El Reg every now and then as opposed to religiously (got pretty sick of the whole microprocessor game), they've still got the knack for interesting tech news writing. They have this series called "Rise of the Machines," which is about avdances in technology that "threaten" humanity or instances of technology gone berserk. I found this pretty amusing, as well as its follow-up.

I suppose the experience was worth it, though, even if Wil Wheaton was there for like six seconds. I really need to get my shit together and order his two books.

Even if the threats had been real, it wouldn't have been a problem since Tugger's got his back.

Good. How satisfying do you think it must have been for the judge to get to write an opinion including phrases like "Had the Larsons done a bit more homework..."?

Hopefully after this bullshit, whiny ass pussy Peer will no longer have any friends (assuming he had any to begin with). That'd be great, because in my book, he'd have to kill himself for failing to live up to his own name. May as well take his dad along with him, who -- in addition to giving his kid a stupid name -- is teaching his son great lessons about coping with the real world by forstering complaints about three whole fucking assignments.