To The Metal

Ann Coulter has an opinion outlining the apparent double-standard when it comes to law enforcement and politicians, spurred on by the idiotic conviction of Scooter Libby. Now all things considered, Libby deserved the conviction. After all, we had a dim witted prosecutor on the taxpayer dime who after making broad claims realized that there was no crime committed. The only way to redeem the political process and serve justice was to spend an obscene amount of time convicting a man that even the jurors want pardoned.

Now I had thought the idea of pardoning Libby was bad, I felt that it would be better to appeal and win – clearing his name and making Fitzgerald look like even more of an idiot. Now I agree with most people that Libby should be pardoned. Pardoning Libby would stick it to the Democrats, and I don’t think Bush should stop there. I think he should go on a wave of pardoning every single target of a one-sided Democrat run investigation. They already hate Bush, his approval ratings are in the shitter and he’s not running for re-election. Lets have some fun for God’s sake and really drive the Leftists up a wall. Besides, it’s not like he’s pardoning FALN terrorists or anything.

SHOOTING ELEPHANTS IN A BARREL

Liberals are idiots and Republicans are cowards, our political leaders are too busy fighting each other to give a damn about the people who elected them; the people are too busy fighting each other to realize they’re being duped.

So NJ is looking to ban weapons that are 50 caliber and are not single-shot muzzle-loaders. Current owners of 50 caliber weapons will be allowed to keep them, but for the sake of humanity the Government is here once again to protect us from ourselves.

What a crock of shit. Who cares if insurgents in Iraq use 50 cals? I highly doubt they bought their guns in a gun shop. Of course, the same arguments are made every time the government successfully reinforces its stance on the 2nd amendment by limiting the freedoms of every law abiding American citizen.

Common sense is replaced by mass hysteria and fear. So continues the downward spiral of the once great USA.

N.J. to Consider .50-Caliber Gun Ban

It’s only a matter of time until they ban plastic pellet guns, cos you know – you could shoot someone’s eye out.

With gasoline prices headed back to $3 for the summer driving season (tell me that isn’t opportunistic crap), an enterprising individual has been running his 1986 VW Golf on recycled vegetable oil for the past 7 years. As his reward for minimizing his dependence on foreign oil, assholes from the IRS showed up with a $2500 bill due to his use of untaxed biodiesel.

This country is so fucked. We need to lessen our dependence on foreign energy sources – fact. Environmentalists will not allow our meathead politicians pass legislation allowing us to tap more domestic sources – fact. Efficient and mass produced alternative energy sources and vehicles are still years away – and not nearly affordable for the average American – fact. Sure, there are hybrids, but I don’t want a Prius, a Civic, or an Escape. I like my VW, as does the subject of this post – so I can understand the dedication.

Yet if we take the first step on our own and make use of a resource that would otherwise be discarded, the Government in its infinite wisdom punishes us. Our nation for decades has been a shining example of how to squash innovation and growth, this sort of crap is nothing new. I still find it funny that they find new ways to amaze me every day.

Illinois Man Fined Thousands And Threatened With Felony Prosecution For Using Untaxed Biodiesel

So the Saturday before Presidents Day, Gamefly was supposed to have shipped me the game Gears of War – 2/17/2007 to be exact. After it hadn’t arrived last Saturday, I waited until Monday to report it as ‘lost.’ To GF’s credit, they immediately shipped me another copy and recommended I file a report with the postal service, which I did. The second copy shipped on 3/1/2007.

Yesterday, 3/5/2007, BOTH copies arrived at my rural box. The packages didn’t appear damaged, one was slightly folded which leads me to believe that it may have wound up at the bottom of some mail-truck’s bin, or one at the local office that was only noticed when the 2nd game came in. The packaging hadn’t been opened at all, but on the up side GF shipped me a brand new copy of GoW so if I plan on clicking “Keep It” I’ve got my own brand new virgin copy for $20 less than everyone else pays at the store.

I didn’t want to think that someone had made off with the game, and I’m glad I eventually did get it, but still I would like to know what the hell could have caused a delay of 10 business days in the shipping when most times I get the game in 3 or 4 business days.

I am astonished that all the politicians have the absolute gaul to pretend like they did not know how our VA patients were treated. With Walter Reed long heralded as the gem of the system, now looking like nothing more than a shard of broken green glass from a bar fight… I really hope they wake the fuck up and see that the ENTIRE SYSTEM IS A DISGRACE.

These folks risk everything to protect us despite never-ending criticism that would make the complaints against any Police Department pale in comparison. When crime goes up in a community, Police will increase patrols, add more officers. When violence goes up in a country, our bastard politicians talk about de-funding the war.

Then our brave veterans return home for treatment and get a half-assed job that could be easily surpassed by any free-clinic in the city of Camden, NJ.

So it looks like my motherboard supports 3 DIMM’s if they’re 266mhz or 333mhz, but only 2 if they’re 400mhz. Now I’d still love to know how the hell this update hosed my BIOS, as most times I’ve installed RAM that didn’t work in a system, it would just beep at me and either refuse to boot or refuse to recognize the RAM.

Still, for a 3 year old system, this is quite possibly the best machine I’ve ever built and used.

So last week I decided to upgrade the system this blog is running on… twice the ram, and 4 times the hard disk space. I got the parts today, came home early, and proceeded with the upgrade.

RAM upgrade goes in – works perfect, it’s detected, no problem there. I was previously running a pair of 512mb Corsair XMS PC3200 ram with a 2-3-2-6 timing, I tacked on a single 1gb Corsair XMS PC3200 DIMM with a 2-3-3-6 timing. Worked fine, so I shut the box down and got ready to toss in the first 250gb hard disk. I was working on a pair of 80gb SATA’s, and planned on running a pair of 250gb SATA’s.

So I pop out an 80gb drive from the mirror set, add the 250gb in its place, then hop into the RAID controller to rebuild the mirror. After a few minutes of it sitting at 0% and not seeing or hearing activity, I rebooted to do the job with Norton Ghost 2003.

First boot, BEEP BEEP BEEP, etc… Reboot and a red box with white letters pops up “DO NOT power off while the BIOS is saving.” Sat there for 10 minutes, it doesn’t take that long to flash the BIOS let alone save settings, so I hit reset.

Nothing.

I hit reset again.

Nothing.

The hard disks fire up, the fans spin, and code 90 displays on the board. I Google it, and its apparently a quirk of the NVIDIA Nforce2 BIOS when people over clock the systems too much. Mine is bone stock, this makes no sense. I try the ‘insert key’ trick where I’m supposed to hold down the insert key while resetting the system 4 times to clear the CMOS and reset the FSB to 100mhz, a failsafe level. I hit my first road-block, USB keyboards will not work at this point, and I don’t have a PS/2 board.

Queue girlfriend with keyboard, runs here from the office with a keyboard.

I try the insert-key trick. Doesn’t work, my BIOS is corrupted, my system is hosed. I proceed to order a new BIOS chip from ABIT with next day air. The chip costs $6, the shipping is $25. Blah. I checked to make sure UPS delivers next day air on Saturdays, it does, so there we go.

So I almost give up, I sit down with my laptop and stare longingly at my hosed PC. I read a bit more about the problem, and catch the phrase “hot flash.” No, I’m not talking about some post-menopausal womanly thing… A hot flash is when one takes a good bios chip, replaces a corrupt bios chip with it, boots the system to a floppy, then while the system is ‘hot’ or turned on, remove the good bios chip, install the corrupt chip, and then flash the corrupt chip with the latest version of the bios.
So then I realize, hey, after I built this system 3 years ago, one of my cohorts built a nearly identical system. I ring him up and after a promise is made to fix his system if I hose that too, he’s on his way.

Of course, in the process of getting my BIOS chip out, I cracked the socket. The socket was still OK, it just was missing a corner. I didn’t want to damage his system at all, so I looked around for my chip puller – it’s at work. Technically it’s my job’s chip puller anyhow. Again comes the girlfriend to the rescue with her chip puller… Sadly it’s too big.

Before my buddy gets here, I head out to Radio Shack in Warwick figuring they’d have a puller. I walk in the door, nobody is there. Apparently the girl just waits to hear the door ding and then comes out from the back room to see what I might need. She has no idea what a chip puller is, or if they even have one. She’s been there ‘5 years.’ That doesn’t say much, most Radio Shack employees don’t have a clue what is in their store. I spot a $50 toolkit and pick it up, the puller inside is the perfect size and it’s a decent kit anyhow.

So I get home, do the hot-flash, and bring the system back up. The RAM I bought is no good, so I’ll have to RMA that with NewEgg. The new drives are in, the system is running perfect, hip hip hooray.

That was a long damned afternoon.

Yes.

I’d laugh at this show if it wasn’t so sad.

How many sides does a trapezoid have?
How many decades are in 2 millenia?
What color do you get when you mix red and yellow?
What’s the closest star to the Earth?

The woman contestant actually had trouble answering those questions. I nearly shat myself when she said that Mexico had the longest border with the US.

Give it another 10-15 years, I’m sure we’ll be dumbed down enough that we can’t compete with a 2nd grader.

So I’ve been trying to get tickets to see Chris Daughtry, fan club was supposed offer pre-sale tickets (no email ever came). Money conquers all and I’ll say it right now – American Idol was staged, Daughtry is complicit, the entire scheme rigged to cash in on his record sales and tour sales.

American Idol has always been a prize of the pop music market. They’ve promoted generic, unoriginal crap for several years now. While the sales of some winners have been adequate, over the past few years the marketability of the performers has dropped drastically – case in point, Taylor Hicks. If the idiot who signed that karaoke singer’s million dollar contract isn’t working the fry vat at a McDonald’s somewhere I’ll be astonished.

The real crime is that a ringer enters the show, Chris Daughtry. He sails through several rounds with bigger and better backdrops only to be dropped in favor of people with inferior talent and stage presence. Everyone’s shocked. Daughtry is dumbfounded. The judges are in tears. The mistake was Seacrest. He simply said “You’re going home.” That’s it. No shock, nothing. Other people get voted off every week and he’s always got a little something more to say. He didn’t look shocked because he wasn’t.

Fans are furious. Complaints arise of his number going to other contestants (one of mine went to Hicks). The official and accepted line being “He was so popular people didn’t vote because they didn’t think they had to.” Sure, its possible… Likely? Not even close. Every week they claimed more callers. How could they claim a record number of callers that week if enough didn’t call in to support the best performer on the show?

Now everyone is looking for more Daughtry. They buy t-shirts and cd’s from his Absent Element days. Realistically, all are waiting for the inevitable release and tour. The release comes out and breaks record with how quick it hits platinum status. Shows sell out within seconds of tickets going on sale.

I probably wouldn’t care so much if I had gotten tickets, but the simple fact that these shows sold out in less than a minute and that ticket brokers who use official tickets THEY OBTAINED FROM PROMOTERS AND TICKETMASTER as well as others that resell tickets have them for prices ranging into the hundreds of dollars… I call bullshit. Anyone who pays $100+ for a $20 ticket is a complete moron.

I’m sure there are folks who will pay for it. I’m also sure that come the next tour, bigger venues will be available and they’ll likely sell out as long as more people don’t catch on like I have. The trick to selling anything is that the consumer must want what is for sale. They must desire it. I won’t disrespect Daughtry’s talent or presence. He’s got plenty of both and kudos to him for that much… But this whole situation STINKS to high heaven, and I have very little doubt it isn’t completely staged.

Q/A:

and then make a new season with no talent whatsoever?

This season is no different than any other, a lot of mediocre performers with minimal stage presence. For God’s sake they’re going to have an ABBA week. Who the hell cares about ABBA? Should the ratings be enough to keep checks coming in from sponsors, expect at least 2 ringers next year. I say 2 ringers because whoever pulled this off will definitely want to bring in more money to make up for not pulling the same act this season. They couldn’t pull it this season because it would simply be too damned obvious to drop another ringer into the game and have them cater to the ‘anti-idol’ market. Mark my words, the folks with the power will always make more money off the losers than the winners – especially after Daughtry.

Council vs. the N-word

I don’t like the N word either, but I think the fact that the city council is dedicating time to place an unenforceable moratorium on the use of a WORD simply to “convey the legislative body’s strong condemnation of the word” is an absolute farce and they should all be booted out of office for wasting taxpayer money on paychecks.

That’s right folks, we’ve reached the point where we are legislating words. I’ve got an N word for the NYC City Council – It’s Neanderthal. I’m surprised they haven’t attempted to ban a word which accurately describes the council.

There are more words out there that could benefit from a moratorium, words like “terrorist” and “jihad.” Those words convey a hatred that affects everyone, even folks who use the N word casually and during comedy shows. I haven’t seen any Muslim comedians crack jokes about the Jihadist who confused his road-flares for dynamite and burned his beard off during an attempted attack yet. Maybe then we’ll get some more attention placed on real problems.

See, the problems with politicians like those possessing the city council is that they honestly believe if we stop using the word we’ll stop thinking about reasons for using the word… Eradicate hate by eviscerating the dictionary. How long till they ban the word Nazi so we forget about the 3rd Reich and how many brave men died in battle with pure evil?

Twats.