Strange, I don't remember being absent minded....

From another blog....

Strange, I don't remember being absent minded....

Now that I'm 'older' (but refuse to grow up), here's what I've discovered:

I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

My wild oats have turned into prunes and All Bran.

I finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.

Funny, I don't remember being absent minded...

Funny, I don't remember being absent minded...

Thanks to Bob Walder - read the whole list
http://www.bobwalder.com/blog/2005/04/
strange-i-dont-remember-being-absent.html

Function

One of my great peeves (and yes I have plenty - maybe this should have been the Mad Geek) is the geekspeak use of the word 'functionality'. Try to find that in a legit dictionary. No not an on-line or other geek crap. I believe Mr. Gates is responsible of much the present use. Yes MS word will pass it in spell check - so what? So will blogger. I guess some think it makes them sound smarter or more 'with it'. How about withitality.

The correct word is function. Period. If you can give me one phrase where you can't just say function instead of functionality please let me know.

South Park - Make Your Own

http://www.planearium2.de/flash/spstudio.html

Kinda fun - no name yet!

Father Garces

Here we go again. Move Father Garces' statue so Caltrans can improve Golden State Hwy. The museum? Right. Just like having the Beale Clock Tower there, it does nothing for our town there. It would have been a mistake to place it back in the middle of 17th and Chester, but it really did belonged right downtown somwhere.

I know, lets go just a little more north. Center field at Sam Lynn Ball Park. Any player who can hit FG gets dinner for two at Squizzler at The Ice House. They deserve it.


The original circle was grass and the statue sat in the middle just as it should have. (I can remember before the bridge was built, and yes I was preschool then thank you. We lived in Westchester right by the water tower. I think my dad would sometimes go around the circle 2 or 3 times just to thrill the kids and piss off mom.)

Does anyone remember when a few years back a city traffic engineer was ready to destroy the circle to make a "more conventional intersection". The uproar was amazing and the city backed down. Unfortunately Caltrans is not local and will probably not be so easy to sway.

If they really are going to move it, then it needs to be closer to the civic center. Maybe to the side of the courthouse or city hall. That or the ball park.

Format

Well that silly test I put a couple of days ago has screwed up my format. All the contents of the sidebar are now written over because the table of test results is too wide. I could tweak the template, delete the post or just let it drop off over time. I'll take the easy way out and just wait.

New Pope

I understand they elected a new pope today.



Do I have that right?

Personality Test

Stability and Sex are too high but other than that about right.
I never do these things so I have no idea why I did this one
(and what the hell is female cliche?)

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||||| 50% Stability |||||||||||||||| 63% Orderliness |||||| 23% Empathy |||||||||| 36% Interdependence |||||| 30% Intellectual |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Mystical |||||| 23% Artistic |||||| 30% Religious || 10% Hedonism |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Materialism |||||||||||||||| 63% Narcissism |||||||||||| 43% Adventurousness |||||||||||| 50% Work ethic |||||||||||| 50% Self absorbed |||||||||||| 50% Conflict seeking |||||||||| 36% Need to dominate |||||||||||||| 56% Romantic || 10% Avoidant |||||||||||||||| 70% Anti-authority |||||||||||||| 56% Wealth |||||||||||||| 56% Dependency |||||||||| 36% Change averse |||||||||||||||| 70% Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Individuality |||||||||||||| 56% Sexuality |||||||||||||||||| 76% Peter pan complex |||||||||||||| 56% Physical security |||||||||||||||||| 76% Food indulgent |||||||||||||| 56% Histrionic |||||| 30% Paranoia |||||||||||||||| 70% Vanity |||||||||| 36% Hypersensitivity |||||||||||| 43% Female cliche |||| 16%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Indigenousgeek for Pope

Kevin Kelm (createor of RoboDump and some other fun stuff) has a pope name generator up.

If I am elected, my pope name will be: Pope Offensive Ben X

I like it though I would have preferred being the first. I'm pretty sure I don't stand a chance.

Energy

Here it is almost midmonth and I've not been on my soapbox once. Let's change that.
Most of us (Americans) are paying gas prices that have risen astronomically. We hear all kinds of reasons, mostly the cost of crude and the increasing demand of emerging economies like China and India. There may be some truth to that but are you reading the financial pages at all? Oil companies' profits are also way up. Let's not continue to kid ourselves, VP Dick and all his buddies have us all bent over the proverbial barrel.
Ouch! May I have another sir!?
All the big energy companies are running rampant with the FEC turning a blind eye, and it's not going to change anytime soon, not with this administration.

So what to do. I was watching the news yesterday morning and KTLA was running a story about used Toyota Priuses selling for more than new ones. I'm sure the car companies will ramp up hybrid production but lets face it - that takes time, and not everyone is going to be able to run out and buy a new $30K plus car tomorrow even if the supply increases. Hydrogen is way off the list still and besides it's not a new energy source but only a redistribution, sort of a battery, it takes energy to make hydrogen.

The only way to get cheaper, more reliable energy right now is probably nuclear. The real problem is it needs to be done differently then in the past. The obstacle to that is irrational fear by people unable to understand or pay attention to the real science, instead of Hollywood fueled mega-scares, and the status quo of the existing players.

Here is an acticle on BoingBoing which itself has many links.
Lot's of reading and lot's of interesting points made. Read the Wired article on China and pebblebed reactors. Why the hell are we letting the Chinese get ahead of us on this? This is where the USA should be going now - not later. We continue to forefit our technological edge to them. We could do it and be safer and more responsible then they will ever be.
The Rolling Stone article The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler is also interesting but I do think he's a little too alarmist and negative about the ability of us to adapt when times get bad enough.

I'm hoping the good thing that comes out of this wil be a real change in our policies. I don't think this can be allowed to continue unabated. The damage this does to the whole economy can't be hidden behind the war on terror forever.

Mind In The Gutter

Wizbang has a little contest going to come up with dirty sounding clean phrases or words.

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/005664.php

Dang somebody beat me to Dick Trickle.

Translating

A recent post by BakeTown points out http://www.gizoogle.com/ just in case you need to get into gangsta mode.

I had a post back in October about the Urban Dictionary. A good way to waste some time.

Another long time favorite of mine is The Dialectizer. Just in case you need Redneck or Swedish Chef.

Okay back to work.

Web Comics

This is part 2 - the first part is below

Web comic strips. These are basically web only, not regular comics placed on websites. Some can be a little more colorful than your family newspaper fare. I'm not talking Tijuana Bibles (caution XXX content), which could be a whole story of their own, but often not G-rated either.

Sinfest.net - Horney boys, hot nyphms, God & The Devil, cute pets, a party animal pig, angels, sanctimonious Jesus freaks, devil followers and a dragon. Tatsuya Ishida also includes Notes from the Resistance. Good art and usually right on funny.

You Damn Kid by Owen Dunne - Plenty of good gags about priests and nuns and uptight catholic parents. I didn't grow up catholic but I had plenty of friends who did and went to parochial schools. Good art and lots of fun. Check the archives for the best ones. Right now he off on a kick trying Those Darn Kids, a cleaner version of the regular strip. Going the other way look for Norman P. Function, another strip he does and then be sure to read Norman's blog. Pretty funny stuff.

Sex & Violence by Aaron M. Holm - new posts have started again after a long pause. Terrific art and plenty of blood and guts. The guy seems to have his problems but I like the off beat strip. He did another named Joe Average that he's stopped. Ah well.......

Just Another Vice by Roger Sims - no longer updating. A drunken riot otherwise. Best read from the start. His other tries, The Retardos and Murger were so bad as to be almost funny.

Where the Buffalo Roam by Hans Bjordahl - okay I'm a geek, why not a geek cartoon.

Day by Day by Chris Muir - need a conservative bend to counter the Doonesbury. This strip is good enough to be syndicated. Not too hardline but plenty of good political skewers.

My very favorite for last.
Dr. Fun by Dave Farley - no it's not The Far Side but hey what is? This ones been around a long time and Dave's universe is just maybe weirder then Gary Larson's was. I prefer to read it by the week. And if it catches you be sure to read all about its history in the FAQ.

And just in case you get stumped by some of these be sure to check out
http://www.comicsidontunderstand.com/
Dr. Fun seems to be a popular entry. I wonder why.

That's all for today kids. Part 3 will go into cartoons on film and TV.

Comics

Awhile back I mentioned writing about comics, and I did, but just as I was about completing my post, my laptop did a full blown lockup. The odd thing is that never happens, ever. It's a rock solid machine. It was a rather long post with lots of links too. Either bad karma or I wrote something to anger the gods. So I've waited about two weeks now for things to calm down and I'm going to try again (with lots of draft saves along the way).

I've read comics my whole life and loved them. I still have some comic books from the 50's and Mad Magazines, National Lampoons and more. But I'm really talking the daily newspaper type of comic here. This genre has moved to the age of the internet quite well, with many of the regulars available along with old discontinued strips rerun and new web comics. Just as an aside, I may never understand how Bill Waterman, Gary Larson and Berkeley Breathed all walked away from some of the most successful strips ever made. True artists I guess.

Lets start with the daily dead tree comics. I've bitched before about the way the Bakersfield Californian was stupid enough to let a voluntary non-scientific poll drop some of the best comics around. In particular Doonesbury and Non Sequitur, but this is Bakersfield. Unbelievable was putting in mildly. Sheer moronic stupidity and editors with a lack genitalia. Yet the Family Circus endures. Sigh......... need an online fix of these and some other good ones
http://miette.develooper.com/~ask/comics/
Besides the two mentioned there are reruns of Calvin & Hobbs (one of the best strips ever made) and Peanuts (good but not always). The Sunday Real Life Adventures and others that are hit and miss, Close to Home, Cornered, Loose Parts and Reynolds Unwrapped.

Other sites to look for comics.
Comics.com carries repeats of Lil Abner. Now I'm showing my age, but by the time the sixties rolled around I was just becoming a teenager and I was starting to 'get it'. You couldn't find a strip that was funnier and had political and social jabs that were better than the editorial page. Course as I said, I was weaned on Mad Magazine, and this was well before Doonesbury showed up. Other favorite of mine you can get there are Ballard Street and Frank & Ernest(Malaprop Man - terrible puns - love it).
Ucomics.com has some others we don't get in B'field as well as some old repeats too. Favorites include The Boondocks and Citizen Dog.

Now both these sites have both free and fee comics. The only one I wish I could see is Bloom County, but I'm not going to pay to reread it. Berkeley Breathed is without doubt one the the great comic strip writers and artists of our time. He's back again with OPUS which is not officially available online (but look hard and you can find them).

For newspaper sites with available comics try
http://sfgate.com/comics/
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/
both good for catching your favorites when not at home.

Next up in part deux - Web Comics