Russell & Kimmy

So last weekend Kimmy and I ended up in Houston; after all the cruel and nasty things I have said about Houston over the years I want to clarify that Houston still sucks. In fact I have a theory that it is impossible for Houston to not suck …. it revolves along the line that you can’t sit in a chair, lift your right foot up and make a clockwise circle with said foot while tracing the number six in the air with your right hand, you can’t do it and Houston can’t stop sucking. Actually there is one way you can do that, but Houston still sucks. Despite its wretched nature I did have a fun time in Houston. First did you know that Houston has wards? I didn’t know that and I don’t recommend visiting the 5th ward by downtown it is depressing. Second did you know that Houston has a nice Convention Center? Too bad it is fraking ugly (and was hosting a Mary Kay convention); I believe the term Kimmy used was modern …. I am going to go out on a limb here and say the modern style sucks. Speaking of Mary Kay, I mentioned they were having a convention … I have never seen so many pink Cadillacs in my life, rows and rows of them in the parking garage. That may pink Cadillacs was a bit un-nerving; strange that I consider that un-nerving and not the 10,000 Mary Kay reps wandering around the Convention Center and the Hilton where we were staying; which we got great rates for, can’t beat $65.00 a night. The Hilton was nice (despite the lack of a continental breakfast) with a rooftop heated pool; we were going to go swimming but that idea was quickly vetoed after passing a conference hall full of drunk Mary Kay reps … did I already mention un-nerving? Amusingly enough each room contained a Gideon Bible and http://www.amazon.com/Be-My-Guest-Conrad-Hilton/dp/0130715980 ….a bit vain don’t you think?

So there was a point for us going to Houston; we had tickets to Jersey Boys. I would love to tell you about Jersey Boys but evidently the back of my ticket contained an agreement that basically states that if I attend this performance and use this ticket…uh….I can not relate anything about this performance so…uh….according to the ticket I can tell you that I have seen Jersey Boys….and…..uh…..that is all I can tell you according to the agreement on the back of the ticket. Now if I had snuck in I could tell you all about Jersey Boys, but sadly I didn’t so that is all I have to say about that. However the ticket does not prohibit me from commenting on the audience (which was made up of Houstonians and probably suburbanites), so Kimmy and I unleashed our comments in abundance. After seeing a few of our fellow audience members I have learned that boots are really back in fashion and that people can not admit that they are old. I have vowed that when I get old (anything past 50 is officially old), I am going to dress like an old person not like I am 20 and I will respect my fellow man by maintaining decorum and decency and promise not to expose things that shouldn’t see the light of day. I also vow to blame all of my short comings on senility.

Found on the Web:

Did you know elephants could paint and evidendtly sell those painting for a ton of money? 

A list of the best all around sci-fi cuss words.  If you know what any of these are you are a dork, sorry.

I must applaud the RIAA, they are brilliant but lazy. Suing people takes work; first you have to catch them violating your copyrights, second you have to document it (and if my experiencing with coding is any indication documenting causes physical pain), then you have to contact their ISP and find out who smittenedkitten really is (my bet is a 12 year old introvert), after that you have to pay a lawyer to file the paperwork, and lastly you have to sue the person (oops smittenedkitten is already dead, crap who do we sue now?!?). Wow that is a lot of work to sue someone who might not have the money; i.e. college kids. Well the RIAA certainly doesn’t want those wretched (but poor) college kids to steal all their precious bodily fluids music but it doesn’t feel like actually doing the work of catching them so what do you do? Their response was to blame Canada is to hoist the dirty work on universities through House Resolution 4137 – College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007.

Like all great House Resolutions it starts off with a snappy name (like flags for orphans) but when you start wading through the crap (and yes it is wading better roll up your pant legs) you find it is a lie, there is nothing about Opportunity and Affordability; well at least not for college kids.

My personal favorites from H.R. 4137 are Section 494 subsection A clause 2:

In General each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity – i.e. damn you thieving intellectuals I demand that you write a profitable way for us to sell music and we also want you to develop some DRM like Sony’s but we want you to get sued instead of us.

Followed by Section 487 subsection P:

(iii) a description of the institution’s policies with respect to unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing, including disciplinary actions that are taken against students who engage in unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials using the institution’s information technology system; translation – we hate thieving college kids so we want you to punish them after they have been sued and possible been sent to jail; after all nothing says I hate you like double jeopardy.

(iv) a description of actions that the institution takes to prevent and detect unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material on the institution’s information technology system. So yeah we are to lazy to do our own homework so we want you to do it for us, after all we went to Harvard and paid poor grad students to write our papers for us; what its going to cost you more money and bog down your network HAHA not our problem; wait didn’t we already demand this in another section?.

So as I stated above, man the RIAA is evil but they are brilliant; I wonder if this means they will share their court winnings with the various universities?

Links:

H.R. 4137 - College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007

RIAA sues Dead Grandma - claims we are sorry we did our homework wrong.

Lloyd Dogget - he is my House of Representatives Rep

So I have noticed that men like to engage in what is colloquially referred to as a pissing contest; i.e. my truck is bigger than yours, my wife is hotter than yours, I can spit a watermelon seed across 3 counties while bisecting 7 birds, etc, etc, etc. For the record I would like to throw my piss out there and declare that my wife is the most awesome wife in the world. While another man’s wife might claim to love him, my wife proved it by putting our marriage in jeopardy and buying me an Xbox 360 for my birthday; like I said the most awesome wife in the world. So far for my birthday I have scored 3 excellent games (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Lego Star Wars II) and as soon as I can pry Kimmy off the controllers and invite the guys over I am going to have a Call of Duty 4 smack down. Even though I have yet to crack Call of Duty 4 open or Halo 3 I am not sad; Lego Star Wars II is more fun than it has any right to be. It is an incredibly violent game where Lego Storm Troopers get slaughtered in droves, Wookies can rip off arms, you are encouraged to gun down Jawas (man is gunning down Jawas fun) and almost everything explodes…. in fact you can’t make it through most levels with out blowing something up. The most disturbing aspect so far has to be the escape from the Death Star where you pick up Storm Troopers with a crane and drop them down open shafts; funny yet dark at the same time. The only downside (there is always a downside) to the game is that you can’t loose, if you die you just respawn where you happened to get gunned down/fall/exploded with a modest loss to your stud total; although this does make the game easier to play while drunk.  I also dislike that you can’t pan the camera around to make sure you aren’t missing any goodies.  Also equally annoying is that two players have to stay close to each other while multiplaying or the game will drag the lagger closer to the leader.  Other than those 3 things I can’t find anything else to dislike about Lego Star Wars and I give it two thumbs up, which strangely enough is the number of thumbs I have.   The other disturbing aspect of owning an Xbox is that I am beginning to resent work….it interferes with my game time and anything that separates me from the Xbox is double plus ungood.

I have managed to take a breather from the Xbox to realize that Michigan had its primary last night and a lot like the Wyoming primary I didn’t care; did anybody really care? Wait, Wyoming had a primary and the media didn’t swarm that wretched state? This can mean only one thing, not even the media is slummy enough to go to Wyoming; wow! The thing that amuses me the most about primaries (besides the media being slummy) is the way they are reported. Hillary Clinton had a “stunning” victory over Obama in the New Hampshire primary. Evidently 8,000 more people got off their butts and voted for her rather than Obama; she beat him by an almost “commanding” 3 percentage points. But when you get down to the cold nasty business of calculating delegates she got 9 and Obama got 9; they fraking tied! Evidently America and the media hasn’t figured out it isn’t how many voters you have vote for you, it is the number of delegates you have vote for you; of course delegates aren’t particularly sexy and thus are unfit to make it to national television. That and a tie isn’t as exciting as winning by 8,000 votes *waves hands in air* and in a nation obsessed by sports, thank you Corey for pointing this out, someone has to win and someone has to loose; God abhors a tie.

So evidently the people of New Hampshire are celebrating global warming and reveling in the warmer temperatures brought about by global warming. For the record I am a big advocate for global warming, there are a lot of places on this planet that I don’t particularly care for (Houston) and global warming would solve that problem nicely. Sadly global warming isn’t happening quite fast enough for me so I need everyone to release more carbon. I find it interesting that New Hampshire is expiring warmer temperatures as politicians descend upon the state to court the stupid; could their be a link between the hot air from Washington and the warmer temperatures in New Hampshire? So while on the subject of politics there is a statistic being bantered around that 40% (i.e. I made it up) of New Hampshire’s citizens are not affiliated with either political parties, they like to be called independents. Evidently these independents can vote in either primary and like to wait till the last minute to decide who to vote for; politicians fervently court these independents in hopes of getting their vote. Let me rephrase that; these morons wait till the last minute to decide who to pick and have great leverage in deciding who the leader of the free world is, that is why politicians like them. Doesn’t that inspire confidence in our political system does it? Remember no one is as dumb as all of us and vote Quimby.

Despite bearing the scarlet moniker of the New Hampshire Primary, today is a great day, it is the birthday of Steven Hawking. Coincidently today is also my birthday; and strangely enough the three hundredth and sixty sixth anniversary of Galileo’s death. I am always amazed that I have some how managed to survive another year. I like to blame my continual survival on sheer dumb luck and Kimmy’s continued persistent cooking. I am always grateful that Kimmy cooks; it has saved me from a dull life of peanut butter sandwiches. The secret for longevity in men is to always have a woman to take care of you. This is why men get married; that and their mothers are tired of taking care of them. I am not sure why women continue to marry men but I like to think that its hormonal imbalances; Kimmy likes to call it love. Whether it is love, hormones, or sheer dumb luck I have somehow managed to survive to 28 and am quite proud of this; I like to list it up there with my accomplishments of being house trained, graduating from college and surviving for another year. So Happy Birthday to Me and Stephen Hawking, oh and Elvis who is probably hiding in New Hampshire.