To The Metal

US state wants to tax TVs, video games to fight fat, fund education

I personally believe that any lawmaker that proposes a new tax, should be impeached and deported.

Considering the size of our federal budget, and how much we all pay in taxes, any conversation of something other than a tax CUT or ELIMINATION is obscene.

Want to put a dent in all the fatties?  Offer a tax break or elimination for parents whose children have an appropriate BMI.  Processed crap is tasty, that’s why it sells.  It’s also expensive – your average “value meal” costs upwards of $6.  For $6 you could buy a pound of ham and a loaf of bread, and eat lunch for a week.

I do that and save about $150-$200 per month, not to mention I’m not pumping my body full of crap.  If the government offered to cut my taxes for staying healthy?

Sitting at the Milford diner tonight having dinner, a woman came in with her family a few seats behind us.  As the waiter – who apparently knows her – shows up, she starts explaining how she had her gall bladder removed, and in explicit detail – WHY she had it removed.

I’m sitting there, eating my buffalo burger, and trying to keep the bile from rising up from my own gall bladder.

Then – someone else at her table makes the comment ‘isn’t it poor etiquette to wear a hat indoors?’  Mind you, my friend is wearing his had, and a woman at an adjacent table is wearing a hat.

“Yes, and talking about your raging bile duct while people are eating is good etiquette.”

Morons.

…die young.

Rest in peace, Heath Ledger.

Phenomenal actor, IMHO.  Very sad.

Not sure how long its been going on for, but it looks like my lil router’s been getting ddos’ed for a bit. It hasn’t really affected site performance at all, but the POS router’s getting kicked bad enough to effect lan traffic. I’m going to toss a real firewall into the mix, something that’ll let me actually see who is coming through my connection before they hit the server – and if necessary log/block/report their asses.

Lamers.  Ceiling cat is watching you, and is not happy.

Last week, Mi and I stopped in to the new Harpoon Bay at 48 Main St in Warwick, NY and had the opportunity to poke around.  I cannot tell you just how much we miss this restaurant!  Sure, there are plenty of great restaurants in the area, but anyone who has been to Harpoon Bay cannot deny that it stands out in nearly every way possible.

The new location offers more seats, more room, a full bar, and they practically had to pry me away from the massive kitchen.  It looks AMAZING!  Hopefully everything will be up and running in a couple weeks and we can stop wasting money on other chefs.  I won’t deny that there are some really good restaurants in the area, but we’re biased.

See. other restaurants in the area might have a meal worth remembering… but none of them really offer an all out experience.  You don’t just remember the meal when you leave Harpoon Bay, you remember everything – and unless you’re completely insane, you just can’t help but go back!  It doesn’t matter if you’re there for lunch, a casual dinner, or the most special night of your life – Harpoon Bay fits the bill, and Denis Viera fills the plate better than any chef short of my folks.

I’ll make sure to update when they’re again open for business, if you don’t hear me scream it first!

I’ve been a fan of the Terminator franchise since I first saw T2: Judgement Day back in 1991.  It pretty much dominated my attention for several years.  I read the comics, watched the movies repeatedly, drew dozens of Terminators in my high school notebooks- I was hooked.

Then came T3.  Anyhow, Fox has brought about Terminator – TSCC.  After watching the pilot, I must say this show displays outstanding potential.  Maybe it could even be the next Smallville.  Lets not get ahead of ourselves tho.

For starters, the effects are quality, the acting is satisfactory, and thus far the plot is rushed but true to the Terminator universe.  Sarah?  I can understand they needed to play down the borderline psychotic she was in T2, but I think they turned the dial a little too far from 11.  When she’s on – she’s ice cold focused.  Lena Heady plays the role perfect.  When she’s conflicted, she’s almost too conflicted.  She’s not the SC of T2, she’s more like the SC of the original Terminator – at this point I think that part of her personality needs to be throttled, if not buried.

John, good job.  Thomas Dekker successfully continues and improves upon his counterpart in T2.  He’s a little older, a little wiser, but he’s still a teenager.  I think some of the scrapper of T2’s JC has been lost, but hopefully that will come back as the series progresses.

Cameron?  The affectionately named Terminator and protector of John played by Summer Glau?  Well, she’s a Terminator.  She’s playing a robot.  Now technically speaking, the T-800 and T-1000 of T2 were logical progressions of the character – they had a bit more ‘personality’ for lack of a better word.  Any future ‘interceptor’ or ‘hunter/killer’ should do also be a logical progression.  I just hope that she doesn’t get too loose – we need to be reminded that she’s not human, she’s a reprogrammed killing machine, and as Skynet keeps sending these back they’ll become more convincing but not quite right.  Personally, I like Glau, I enjoyed her performance in Firefly, Serenity and The 4400 – and if anyone can pull off a performance that respects the Terminator universe and the character, she’s it.

I can’t see them keeping the amount of action as frenetic as the pilot, but most good series develop a steady pace to keep things interesting as well as avoid redundancy.  There are infinite angles to explore here besides just running from Terminators, and I am elated that they’re using ideas from the comics – sending back teams of resistance fighters, hiding weapons beneath the flesh, etc…  If I see a Terminator rip a gun from a resistance fighter’s abdomen, I might just stain the couch.

Overall, I like the idea of this show.  After the steaming pile of crap that was T3, the franchise needed some redemption and this is it.  It has a few quirks, but nothing catastrophic.  I feel if this show can be allowed to grow and develop, it could be a modern sci-fi classic.  That is, if Fox doesn’t fuck it up first.

Well we decided against the house in Middletown after running into an absolute gem out in PA.

It’ll add a few miles to the daily commute, but the cost of living in PA is insanely low compared to New York. Still some details to hammer out, but hopefully by March we’ll be in our new house!

The year I put snow-tires on my car, it didn’t snow – and I managed to wreck the thing on black ice.

This year so far, it’s been a fairly typical winter (read: it snowed).

So when the weather reports called for snow last night and today, I was hoping to use my new 4×4.

Yes, it snowed, but it wasn’t nearly cold enough to make it stick on the roads – and we didn’t really get much.  BAH!