Chuggnutt!

Month: September 2006

  • The Dirty Screech

    Screech!On the one hand, I want to say, “who knew it would come to this,” but on the other, well, it figures: Dustin Diamon, AKA Screech from “Saved by the Bell,” is the latest celebrity to have a sex tape released to the public.

    See also stories on TMZ.com here, here, and here. That last link purports to have a preview. Consider all of it NSFW, kids.

    This is an incredibly weird story… mind-boggling, really. TMZ describes the tape as:

    The tape begins with Diamond in a bathtub, narrating what’s to come. It ends with Diamond introducing one of the women to a “Dirty Sanchez.” Suffice it say, it is unbelievably graphic.

    …I have to say, I never thought the phrase “Dirty Sanchez” would ever appear on this blog. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you like, but I ain’t gonna link to it.

    The cynical theory is that since Diamond is supposedly flat broke, and his career is stalled out due to the Screech typecast, this video not only breaks him out of that stereotyped image but also kicks-starts the PR on his career.

    If that’s true, that’s pretty hardcore. (Pun intended.)

    See also: my post from over three and a half years ago.

  • Stump Wikipedia

    I think we should start a new game: “What Can’t You Find on Wikipedia?”, or, alternatively, “Stump Wikipedia”. Seriously, they have over 1.4 million articles now, and it keeps going up. Is there a ceiling?

    Although you have to stick to real subjects… you can’t punch something in like “nitrate waffles” and expect a legitimate response. (See Googlewhacking if that’s the game you want to play.)

    Of course, the irony here is even if someone were to find such a subject, that person or another could immediately create a new article for it… thereby negating the point.

    So how soon before Wikipedia becomes sentient?

  • Kitlers

    Random link for the day: Cats that look like Hitler.

    Really.

  • The sandwich meme

    Apparently today was “sandwich day” over on Slashfood and it made me think of something I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Something you’ll probably think sounds gross at first. Most people do. But the thing is, even though it sounds gross, it’s actually really really good.

    And once I tell you about it, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it.

    Ready?

    …the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

    You’re all cringing. At least the ones who have never tried this are. But really, a lot of you routinely eat much worse that this. Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, High Fructose Corn Syrup—not to mention Monosodium Glutamate and Red #7. And what about Aspartame?

    Think about it. PB & M. You might think it sounds awful, but until you try it, you’ll never really know.

    Really.

  • Akismet

    I’ve started using the spam-killing service Akismet to handle comment spam on my three blogs. That, and instituted a basic moderation system for comments. I can’t say as I’ve been dealing with as much comment spam as some people, but I just got sick and tired of dealing with the problem myself and decided to offload the work.

    So far Akismet is pretty slick, though I’d guesstimate that it has only caught 50% or so of the spam comments I’ve received since activating it today. I’m hoping it gets better.

    It took a little bit of work to integrate it into my custom software, but I was able to crib a PHP class someone else had written and get it all integrated fairly smoothly. If you’re running one of the standard platforms like Movable Type or WordPress, though, there already exist handy plugins that you should just be able to drop into your blog directory.

    So if there’s any comment weirdness over the next few days as I monitor the activity and work out the kinks, bear with me. If you post a legitimate comment, it should show up right away, unless it was incorrectly flagged as spam. That’s where the moderation comes in; I’ll make sure to approve legit comments ASAP.

  • Mortality

    One year and two weeks after we lost our first cat, we lost our second cat today. We had to have him put to sleep, the same as before; he was essentially end-stage advanced urinary tract disease. We’d spent the last two weeks doing everything we could for him.

    This was our cat Lucifer. He was 13. We’d also raised him from a kitten. He was a big Maine coon, with six toes on each of his front paws; he looked like he was wearing mittens. He was also the sweetest cat you would ever meet.

    Yes, it sucks. It’s like that, sometimes. But at 13, he lived a full, happy, loving life with no complaints; there’s not much more you can ask for.

  • Diversion

    We got the minivan back from the shop this week, and today I had the distinct pleasure of attending a diversion class for the ticket I had received (you all remember my accident, right?) The diversion class was the kind with the driving simulator—whenever you’re involved in an accident this is the type of class you get. It ran from nine until about three.

    The class by itself was just fine; full of information and videos about traffic safety, etc. Definitely worth it to get the ticket expunged from the record. The simulators, though, they were something else…

    …as in, really old technology. I’m quite sure they were state-of-the-art fifteen years ago, but in this day and age they just seem, well, sad. Seriously, these are circa early- to mid-nineties units; the “simulators” are basically adjustable seats with the simplest possible console you can imagine: steering wheel, ignition, speedometer, and indicator lights for the program. Gas and brake pedals. Gear shift (for an automatic) and emergency brake.

    Everyone sits in these consoles and watches a screen where the “simulation” is projected from—I kid you not—laserdisc. Laserdisc! Aside from thrift stores, I haven’t seen a live laserdisc player since the late 80s. And it’s just a movie, basically, no real interaction—you simply “drive” the console in accordance with what’s on the screen, and the indicator lights flash if there was an error of some sort (too fast or slow, no turn signal, etc.).

    All very basic. Embarrassingly so.

    Modern video game systems are more advanced than this. In fact, with how affordable technology is these days, there’s almost no reason you couldn’t put together a simulator out of a PlayStation or Xbox, cheap LCD monitor, and driving controls (which I’ve seen for racing games), and have the entire system come in for well under $1000.

    Laserdisc! I’m still shaking my head.

  • I’m on a Scooby roll…

    Scooby's at the front door - McDonalds sign

  • Compare and contrast

    Compare and contrast this:

    Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the extinction of up to half of all species, a scientist said on Thursday.

    With this:

    The earliest civilizations were not a product of favorable conditions but rather a last resort in the face of dramatic shifts in the weather, a climate scientist said on Thursday.

    I’m trying to decide if these are complimentary or contradictory. Or maybe I’m just randomly amused, correlating the climate crisis faced in one article with the results mentioned in another…

    …what we tend to think of today as civilization was an accidental by-product of unplanned adaptation to catastrophic climate change. Civilization was a last resort…

    Interesting stuff.

  • Pets are expensive

    Our Labor Day weekend itself was decent enough overall, but Sunday night we had to take our oldest cat to the emergency pet hospital because he’d been acting weird all day, and by the evening was seemingly in serious pain. Turned out he had stones in his bladder and was all blocked up.

    Since our regular vet wouldn’t be open until Tuesday morning, the cat stayed at the emergency hospital from Sunday night through Tuesday morning (about 36 hours), receiving treatment. Tuesday my wife transferred him to our regular vet, and they performed surgery to remove the stones that day.

    Recovery Tuesday night, and again tonight. Probably home tomorrow. But all this adds up to another hefty bill. Pets are expensive. I’m beginning to wonder if we should have insurance policies taken out on them.

    And before anyone thinks I’m totally cynical, the cat is doing just fine. He’s 13 years old, but remarkably healthy otherwise.