Some of our friends still wonder why we moved. Here is one point:
Clean air report for the Delaware area
Clean air report for Colorado Springs

OK, how am I supposed to win?

• My Colorado t-tags on the new car expire Saturday.
• To get the registration, I need a Colorado drivers license.
• To get the Colorado drivers license, I need my current Delaware license and a state issued birth certificate.
• My birth certificate is city issued from Rahway, New Jersey.  That is no good, since it is city issued.
• To get a New Jersey issued birth certificate, they need to have a copy of my current drivers license, and that is the address they will ship it to, FedEX, signature required.
• But that is in Delaware, where I no longer live.
• They will ship it to Colorado, once I have my Colorado drivers license as ID.
• To get my Colorado drivers license, I need a New Jersey issued birth certificate…

Many years ago, Chad introduced me to Jason.  Jason was an entertaining sort, because he was always on the hunt… and was always up for throwing together the next gathering.  Anyway… one evening, I got a call from Chad.  There was a party at Jason’s place… his car was finally on it’s last leg, and he wanted to give it a funeral.

For those of you who never had the privledge of knowing Jason’s car… let me introduce you.

This is Kimberly… (or at least what she would have looked like when she was new.)

Kimberly is a 1980 Nissan Datsun 280zx.  It was the two-toned gold/black version of the Datsun 10th Anniversary Edition.  Why was Jason’s car named "Kimberly"?  Well… from what I understand, in high school there was one girl that Jason had a thing for.  He yearned for Kimberly.  Unfortunately, Kimberly gave it up to everyone except Jason.  Bitch.

So anyway… Jason named his car after her.  However, with his love unrequited, the car soon became the target of numerous jests… all engineered to be at Kimberly’s expense.  Kimberly… the real Kimberly that is… if you’re reading this… you could have avoided all of this abuse by taking 15 minutes out of your life to give Jason a quick knob…  BUT NOOOOO!!!!

Anyway… Chad had called me up the night before and told me that we were all getting together for a wake in honour of Kimberly.  Always up for a good time… and usually bored (this is Northern Delaware after all), I quickly volunteered to officiate over the ceremony.

The next day, I ditched out of work early and ran home to do some laundry and iron my suit.  Since I was going for the whole minister/priest look… a collar was necessary.  Unfortunately, I didn’t own anything like that… so I grabbed a white dress shirt and put it on backwards… and then slid a black t-shirt over it.  With my black suit on top of it, the only white visible was the collar around my neck.  Sweet!

Well… now I was running late.  So I snatched up my bible… dove in the car… and tore up Rte. 273.  My tardiness had gotten the better of me, and I started to lean on the accelerator.  My little Civic took off… going downhill… and with a decent tail-wind… I think at one point I managed to get it up to 65mph.  (It wasn’t much of a car… it got from A to B… that was about it.)  Unfortunately, on this evening… the stars aligned, the tide was right… and I was apparently going just fast enough to catch the attention of a bored Maryland trooper.

After expeling a slew of colorful metaphors upon seeing the bright, flashing bubblegum machine in my rearview; I pulled over onto the shoulder and awaited my fate.  I was confident I was going to have my license taken away right then and there… because I had points… BIG POINTS.  I was not looking forward to the encounter that was about to transpire… fortunately, it all worked out.  And here’s how it transpired:

Cop: Alright, God’dammit… where’s the fire?
Me:  Excuse me?
Cop: Oh… I… I’m sorry, Father.

<< No shit… this really happened.  In the cop’s defense… it was very dark. On the flip side… he was very young looking, so probably equally as gulible.  The conversation continues… >>

Me:  Don’t be sorry.  You’re doing your job.
Cop: I didn’t know… I…
Me:  My appologies, Officer.  I was speeding.  I’m sorry, but I’m late.  I’m on my way to a viewing.  I didn’t want to keep the family waiting.
Cop: Well… why don’t you just go ahead.
Me:  No… no.  I was speeding, and you caught me.
Cop: No… really Father.  Go ahead.  Just try to slow it down.
Me:  Go with God.

The cop returned to his car, and I took off… casually at first, and then like a bat out of hell… wanting to get over that state border before Mr. Policeman managed to make any sudden any realizations.  I hit Delaware… slid through Newark’s back S-turn… around the shopping center… and into the party.  The festivities were already in full swing.

Jason greeted me just inside the front door with a freshly-opened, cold beer.  The evening was destined to be worth the trip.  Chad was making toasts and being a bad influence on most around him… so what else is new?  Tom and Kerry took the prize for best dressed couple.  And Pickering… well… Pickering was drunk (but that’s another story for another time).  The gathering was a good humored look at life and death through beer bottle glasses.  It was a most relaxed and inviting evening.

Finally, a hour or two into the festivities, it was time to pay our respects.  With a bottle in one hand and my Bible in the other, I invited everyone to gather around Kimberly.  After a brief reading (from an inverted Bible), we had a hymn.  If memory serves me correctly, we sang the Banana Boat song.  Then, Jason invited anyone with anything to share in memory of Kimberly to step forward and share thier thoughts.

I can only remember a few of those thoughts… (so if anyone can remember any more, then please fill in the blanks).  Here’s a few of the mourners words:

Kimberly was easy to work on, but was high maintenance and expensive to keep.
Kimberly could fit 2 up front easily, and a third in the back in you squeezed in.
Kimberly always gave great headroom.
Kimberly never wanted to turn over on a cold morning.
If you put too much power behind her, then her rear-end always tended to slide around.

Finally… everyone climbed up on Kimberly and took her for one last ride.  She managed to lurch forward about 2 feet… shuttered… and passed on.

We had a moment of silence.

Then we went back to drinking. As you can see… a good time was had by all.

The Postal Experiments page describes the efforts of several “scientists” who tracked the results of sending strange things through the US Mail.
Things such as:
Dead fish
A wheel of cheese
A coconut
Bald tire
Feather duster
Hammer
$20 bill
The procedures:

Procedures

Our research staff began the project by obtaining and reviewing relevant information on USPS regulations and discussing, in a limited and very hypothetical manner, the planned project with USPS 800 number personnel. A group of mailable objects was then assembled, stamped with abundant postage by weight and size, and mailed at public postal collection boxes (when possible to cram the object through the aperture) or at postal stations (if possible). A card was strapped to the object with duct tape or stranded strapping tape, and postage was affixed to the card, except as otherwise noted below.

Senders and receivers were interchangeable; the mailings were double-masked to conceal the identity of our mailing specialists, and gloves were used to prepare the mailings (to avoid fingerprints). In no case was a return address given; each object either went forward to its destination or was lost to follow-up. An object was considered lost if it was not received within the 180-day study parameter. All objects were sent first class using five-digit ZIP codes to actual domestic addresses, and the number of days to delivery were recorded (excluding postal holidays). The condition of the object upon receipt was also recorded, if it had changed, as was any unusual communication, verbal or written, from the postal carrier or counter clerk.

So as happened many upon many nights, we found ourselves hanging out in the donut shop in Newark, DE.  Located on the so-called "back stretch" of Main Street, this is where most of us young punks with nothing to do found ourselves until dawn.

A crowded night, still early, most of the stools were filled when in pulls one of Newark’s finest patrolmen.  And he is there to get the donuts for the night shift apparently.

He walks in, orders a couple dozen, pays, turns around, his gun falls out of its holster on to the floor, he leaves gets in his car, and drives away.

Yes, thats right, his gun fell out of his holster.  This being years ago, it was a revolver, and it hit the floor with a thunk, but he never noticed, and drove away.

No one moved for several minutes.  Then the snickering started, but no one moved to pick up the gun.  Shortly after that, we all quieted up again as the police car returned to the parking lot.

The cop came back in, picked up his gun, gave his best Barney Fife grin, and said,

"Whoops, I dropped my gun!"

Turned around and left, got back in his car, and most likely never returned again.

MSN Conversation with Anarchy:

Matt says: Like… the first time you met Gary… or when you had a reunion in a traffic accident… or when you came from the dentist and got into a fender-bender and the woman thought you were retarded…

Matt says: Write up the story about the chick who trashed your car and the cop brought you your license plate.

Chad says: yeah

Matt says: All these Chad stories are rushing back now…

Chad says: sweet, writing ‘em down…

Matt says: I’ll have to …

Matt says: But these are your stories… you should tell them.

And so I shall tell them. And many more. Just need to remember the details. That is the hard part.
I am also going to include the following stories:

• Cool Man Dave
• Tarot Cards and why Jason won’t forgive me
• Getting chased out of the cemetery by an old guy with a shotgun
• The donut shop girl with the napkins
• The donut shop nudists
• The donut shop cop
• The Gary drinking stories
• Jason’s car’s funeral (although Matt really does need to tell this one himself!)
• “Jason, you know the position!”
• 3 girls outside the van
• And if I get permission, there is always the Tom spitting on Julie story

You always know when you are in a Radio Shack, don’t you?

As part of the ongoing competition between Ninjas and Pirates, we have this to offer:
Captain John Hooke Silver, Attorney at Law.
Ninja troubles? Call now! Don’t wait until it is too late!

Thank you again Japundit!

Actually, it isn’t quite as cool as it sounds. Well, yeah, it is kind of neat!
This chart shows a scale of 1-22 how “evil” murderers and other psychopaths can be, with 1 being self defense, to 22 being whackjob torture murderers, the kind that are so popular on Lifetime TV.
Where do you happen to rate?
Are you someone who “snapped” at level 13? Or a torturer who doesn’t kill, which would make you a level 21?
Or are you the worst, at level 34, someone so evil and heinous, that the graph doesn’t go that high on the public site, that the description is only talked about by experts in the field, and then only in whispers? Are you, in fact, a spammer?
Dodgeblogium found this one.

Hey Scott, you’ll love this.
“Men don’t make passes at (anime) girls who wear glasses” from Rocket Jones leads us to the “Meganekko” of Anime. Meganekko is a term for girls who wear glasses. So, in anime, the description works like this:

Who is a “meganekko”?
Literally, a “meganekko” (pronounced “mé-gah-né-koh”, with all syllables stressed equally) is a “glasses-girl” - a girl who wears glasses.

That doesn’t capture the essence of the term, though. The stereotypical meganekko is a cute girl, and probably smart, too. If she’s in high school, there’s a good chance that she’s the class president (”iincho” in Japanese). If she’s old enough and you’re a single male, she’s the kind of girl that your parents might wish you would bring home for them to meet some day.

But that’s the stereotypical meganekko. Not every meganekko conforms to the stereotype, any more than people conform to stereotypes in real life. Some of them are self-centered, others are clueless, and a few are downright manipulative or outright evil. Some of them are pretty instead of cute, and others aren’t particularly attractive. In short, they’re a lot like any other group of people; some are people you’d want to call “friend”, others aren’t.

That is your lesson for today!

Want to see just how fast zombies can take over your town? Here is the Zombie Simulator. Careful bumping in to anyone!

A woman brings her deceased husband to a mortician and orders that he be buried in a blue suit. The mortician says, “wouldn’t it be easier to bury him in the black suit he’s wearing now?”

The wife says it would, but she hates the way he looks in black, and wants him in blue.

The night of the viewing, the wife approaches the mortician and says, “thank you for changing him into a blue suit. I know it must have been a chore, with the rigor mortis.”

He responded, “oh, it was no problem at all. Not long after you left, a lady came in with her deceased husband, he was
wearing a blue suit and she wanted him in black… so I just switched the heads.”

“Ringers” are people used by professional reporters to actually go out and get the stories, usually while the reporter hides in a safe hotel room somewhere.
Luckily, reporters no longer have to pay out a few bucks to the ringers for a story, the Internet can do it for them!
The Bomb-A-Tron is a new tool used by professional organizations such as CBS, CNN, and the NYT. By simply adding a few random details, reporters can easily present a professional, well written, and completely unquestioned article to their editors.
Thankfully, this wonderful tool is now available to bloggers the world over. Please use it wisely!

OK… so you’re bored. Looking for something to do. I know, I’ll look on the new Google Maps feature and see what good things are around town.
So of course, the first thing I look for is “Giant Boobies” and my zip code. Hmmm… I am definitely going to have to start using that business more often.
Next search has to be “Free Beer”. Wow, that computer consulting company there must be doing great business!
And finally, I think I want to find “Hot Sex”. Wait a minute? Focus on the Family? Christian Parenting Today Club? Those I can see.. it’s all a big coverup. But the Rocky Mountain Nuclear Pharmacy?

Thanks to coldforged.org for this one!

If you are a long time blog reader you know that for months, many sites have disabled commenting, or taken other extreme measures to cut down on the comment spam. Seems that the subhuman monsters that do this have created automatic bots that just create message upon message in the comment areas of blogsites.
We were hit pretty badly here, then I installed the auth-image plugin that prompted each commentor with an image of a 6 character string that you had to manually type in to enable the comment to appear. This was 100% effective.
Since upgrading to the newest version of Wordpress, I updated the plugin to a newer offering called Spam Karma. Spam Karma is an all in one solution, that does many things to see if you are a spammer. One good thing is that it will only use the image prompt if it can’t quite figure out that you are in fact a good commentor. So most people should not have to do anything special. This is good.
But what I think is the nicest thing, is that it keeps track of how many comments are tagged as spam. In the upper right corner of the blog, you can see the stats block. Right now, after less than 24 hours, this is what it looks like:
statistics
Total comments: 337
Total pingbacks: 3
Total trackbacks: 4
Total spam blocked: 258
258 spams were blocked. Within 15 minutes of plugging in this new feature, it was at almost 40 spams caught. They’re relentless. After each spam is caught, further posts from that IP address are blocked from further posting. If you’re a Wordpress user, after upgrading to 1.5, the first thing you should do is enable Spam Karma. Thanks to Dr. Dave… I appreciate what you’ve done!

*Update - Only a few hours after this initial posting, we already have more attempted comment spam than actual comments. It really is a shame that those “people” who spam for a living can’t get any sex because they’re too damn ugly and smell funny.

(more…)

Ever wonder why braces are so prevalent? It’s the damn stove. New Scientist reveals that

"We’ve evolved to eat mush," agrees paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood also of George Washington University, but not involved in this study. "We’re a pretty puny bunch, really, with small teeth and small jaws," he says. "If we couldn’t get the foods we like, and we ever had to adapt quickly, we might be in a terrible mess because our teeth aren’t equipped to cope with anything very substantial."

So of course, since most people won’t go back to carving off huge hunks of animal flesh and tearing into it like underfed lions, it looks like evolution is going to make us even worse.

Japundit found the Official Ninja Webpage! You too can find the Real Ultimate Power!

Ninja Facts: 1. Ninjas are mammals. 2. Ninjas fight ALL the time. 3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people. Testimonial: Ninjas can kill anyone they want! Ninjas cut off heads ALL the time and don’t even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

Now, we all know that Pirates are much better than Ninjas, but ninjas are pretty slick. Even IT directors who have a ninja secret identity.

Yo. Just click here…
Where I found it…

Just a little photo to give everyone something pretty to look at…