WE'RE GONNA DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE HARD!

Remember when we first met John McClane?

Best Music Video Ever:

Yippie ka yay mother fucker

There is a new word.

There is a new word. This word is "danjayerous".

It has no definition. Because it is best left undefined.

Bauer

Rant: That's it, MSNBC. No more metaphors

According to this MSNBC.com article, "The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants".

This is a clear sign that MSNBC is incapable of using metaphors responsibly and henceforth MSNBC is banned from using metaphors.

A metaphor is, "a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance". In this example the metaphore is "drove a stake".

Now, I know a few things about stake driving, the means by which stakes are driven, and situations in which one would drive a stake. And none of these things, in any way, resemble a senate vote on an immigration bill.

First of all, the bill is not a vampire. And in no way is the immigration bill vampiric. If the bill "sucked the blood of white americans" or "recoiled from the garlicy stench of justice" then, maybe, it could, kinda, be said to be vampiric. If the bill could turn into a bat, or had no reflection, or, at the very least, hid from the sun then it could be argued to have some vampiric aspects.

But as it currently is the bill is not a vampire and is not vampiric. The bill is also not a werewolf, frankenstein, or mummy. It could maybe be argued by be a reanimated corpse, as it had been killed once by the senate and then came back with some modifications.

Yes, actually. That's a very good comparison. The immigration bill is currently a zombie bill. It was a living bill struck down by the senate which was then reanimated by a dark wizard, Bush, so that it could do the dark wizard's bidding, which is, presumably, to get illegal immigrants to vote for Republicans in '08.

But even if we can say that this is a zombie bill the notion of stake driving does not apply. One does not use a stake to defeat a zombie. In fact, driving a stake through the heart of a zombie would have no effect at all. Zombies are killed by means of fire or decapitation.

So, really, the sentence should have been, "The Senate on Thursday set fire to and decapitated President Bush's zombie bill which would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants so that they could vote for Republicans in '08".

But since MSNBC could not figure this out they are heretofore banned from using metaphors.

REAL ID

hey everyone.

the congress is trying to get the REAL ID act though the back door again. This time it is attached the the immigration bill. Please email, fax or call your senator and ask them to support the Baucus-Tester and Grassley-Baucus amendments to the immigration bill.

you can go to unrealid.com for a form that will automatically send a fax to your senators.

Besides the fact that it will cost a lot of money, make identity easier, and require Americans to carry an internal passport to move around the country and get jobs, it will do nothing to make the US Safer.

Our Blog has a [Chat] thread. 06/25/07 ->

We need a [chat] thread for the week of 6/25/07. Now we have a [chat] thread.

Get your [chat] on in the comments.

For those who can't read J's table

_J_'s Awesome T1 deck!

Starting Hand Size	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
7	3	25	30	26	7	4	1	1	1
6	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0

Goldfishing for fun and tedium.

So, it turns out that tables don't work too well on blogger.com. But I made this damn thing, and then I modified it so that it would work as well as possible. So now YOU have to see it.

These are the results of 100 goldfished test games with my T1 Combo deck. The bold headers at the top of each column indicate the turn number and numbers below indicate games on which my deck won on that turn. So, for example, the 5s underneath the "5" header each represent a game on which the deck won on turn 5. The M column is for games on which I took a mulligan down to 6 cards. Also, for these goldfish games I assumed that I went first. So on my first turn I did not draw a card at the beginning of my turn.

_J_'s Awesome T1 deck!
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	M
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	6
1	2	3	4	5	6				5
1	2	3	4	5	6
	2	3	4	5	6
	2	3	4	5
	2	3	4	5
	2	3	4	5
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
	2	3	4
		3	4
		3
		3
		3
		3

Pet Spa + Kitty = ROTFL

I can't stop laughing.

The Pet Spa

I...can't....stop.

Steve Perry is best ever.

A Newsweek interview with Steve Perry on 'Don't Stop Believing".

It brought back all of those memories of all the times I watched the VH1 Behind the Music of Journey...

Seriously?! Those Bastards....

There's no way I can make a quick buck now....

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20070626_Spiritual_gift_for_Catholics_in_Phila_.html

iPhone? Moer Liek iSdumb!!!!

The Newsweek Review

You can't download songs directly to your iPhone? Man, if only it had wireless capabilities...

You can't set mp3s as ringtones? How will I ever know that I'm getting a call from nirvanafan431 if I can't play Smells Like Teen Spirit?

It gets warm after using it for a while? BAH! Add some fans, APPLE!

Can't access e-mail if port 25 is blocked? What the crap? I ALWAYS block port 25! Everyone always blocks port 25!

Safari? SAFARI?!

No flash support for web browsing? What, was this phone built in 1992?

No support for instant messenger clients? Yeah, we'd hate to cut into your profits from SMS messaging, Asshats.

A 2 Megapixel camera? Apple users have to have at least a 5 Megapixel camera for taking pictures of their smug. Smug won't fit into 2 Megapixels!

Only 8 Gigs of storage? How will I fit my 10 gigs of videos of myself with my iPhone onto it?!

Heh

So... I just got into work, and loaded up YouAreDumb today.. turns out it's still yesterday's column, and a well written one at that..

what I didn't notice yesterday, but just got was the title. "Inner City Pressure"...


I'm going to have synth hooks in my head all day.

Inner! Inner city... Inner. City. Pressure!

Behold! The Food Of The Gods!

http://www.peppersandsmoke.com/bbq/burgers/


Oh, yeah. Guess who's going to their local butcher to figure this thing out......

edit: made that thing a link

Star Wars Pocketmodel TCG: NEAT!

I do not think I have yet stressed how awesome the Star Wars Pocketmodel TCG is. So...

The game combines miniature and TCG mechanics in a manner that is delightful, fun, and conducive to creative strategy. Players create fleets of 30 build stars worth of ships and decks of 30 cards. A player loses if:
1) They have no ships in play.
2) They have no objectives in play.

Decks:
Decks are composed of two types of cards.

Combat: Objective:

Combat cards are used to modify combat. The number in the upper left hand corner of the card (+1) is used to modify the stat of a ship on which it is played. Red deals with attack, blue with defense, yellow with damage, and green with shields. Every combat card has a number in the upper left hand corner, so it is never dead in the hand.

In the text area of Combat cards one will usually find an icon with text next to it. On the Admiral Ackbar card is it a green icon with a little picture of a laser within it. If the ship upon which the card is played has that same icon then the ship will get that bonus. So, if we play Admiral Ackbar on a ship with the little green laser icon the ship will get both the +1 from the upper left hand corner as well as the effect of the Ackbard card, "+1 attack for each opposing {green stormtrooper icon} unit in your unit's zone". As one might guess, the green stormtrooper icon, just as with the green laser icon, appears on some ships. So, when constructing one's deck and fleet one must assess the value of specific cards and specific ships as well as the interaction of those cards and ships. If one builds a deck of very powerful {green laser icon} cards but uses very powerful {green stormtrooper icon} ships then the cards and ships will not interact as well as they could if they had matching icons.

Objective cards can be compared to Global enchantments in Magic, kind of. When the game starts players place three cards from the top of their deck face down on the table. These are their "objective" cards. Players can use their ships to attempt to destroy and opponent's Objective. The number seen in the lower right hand corner of each card above is that card's objective number. So, if Ackbar is the objective one must be able to beat a nine. If Mustafar Mining Platform is the objective one must beat a twelve. When the game begins one places three face down cards as their objectives, but as actual objective cards are drawn one can place the objective card on top of the face down objective card and replace it. While one might think this a peculiar and problematic game mechanic it actually works well in gameplay. Different objective cards have different effects, some global, some player specific, some which trigger when the objective is revealed, etc. So selecting objective cards also adds to the customization and strategy of the game.

Fleets: Fleets are constructed using thirty build stars worth of ships.

This ship has 3 stars on its base (the three stars above the three icons at the bottom of the base). So this ship is worth 3 build stars. Ships currently can be worth 1-5 build stars. Capital ships are worth more build stars, and fighters are generally worth less build stars. So when constructing a fleet one must assess the value of a given ship with regard to its stats (2, 8, 3, 3 on the example) and its build star worth, as well as the sorts of cards with which it would interact.

Ships are the means by which things are done in the game. They are one's "units", if you will through which one interacts with other units and objectives. Ships have four stats. Red attack, Blue defence, yellow damage, green shields.

Gameplay: During one's turn one may either move, combat, or strike.

Move:
A player may move 5 build stars worth of units to another zone. There are 3 zones in a two player game. Your home zone, the contested zone, and your opponent's home zone. Your home zone is where your ships start and objectives are. The contested zone is the area in the middle. Your opponent's home zone is the area where your opponent's ships start and where your opponent's objectives lie.

Combat:
None of this will make much sense without a brief explanation of Combat. Combat takes place in the following steps:
1) Declaration of groups. The attacking player specifies 5 build stars worth of attacking units and 5 buid stars worth of defending units.
Once declaration of groups happens each attacking ship gets its battle phase. Once all battle phases are complete combat ends. Battle phases take place in the following manner:
1) The attacking player selects an attacking and defending unit.
2) Combat cards are played. Attacking player may play a card then defending player may play a card. If the attacking player opted to not play a card but the defending player does play a card the attacking player may play a card.
3) Each player rolls two six-sided die
4) Players then apply their attack stats, card effects, objective effects, etc. to the die roll to see if either ship managed to hit the other.
5) Damage is assigned based upon the outcome of the die roll and the stat modifications of these rolls. If either ships is destroyed it is removed from the game into one's "reserve" area. If a ship was damaged and not destroyed damage counters are added to it.
This sequence is repeated until all of the attacking ships have attacked.

Strike: Players may attempt to destroy an enemy's Objective if they have a unit in an enemy's home zone. One specifies an attacker and a target objective, then rolls to see if one destroys that objective by beating the number in the lower right hand corner of that card. Combat cards may not be played to enhance / decrease a Strike. Strikes may only be made by units in an enemy's home zone. So if I have an A-wing in your home zone I can attempt to destroy 1 objective in that zone per turn.

I think that is pretty much the Star Wars Pocketmodel TCG...BUY IT!

Damnation, but it's only 9.

I have no music today, as my internet radio station is taking a Day of Radio Silence to protest the upcoming net-radio bill. No music, lots of slow, dull work, and no information.

WE WANT INFORMATION

so.. why has no one found out any info on the Clausen brouhaha?

And what's going on with Guster tickets?

AND... Why, oh why, am I so boring?? I read all the right stuff.. I know all the right things.. I'm hip, I swear! Sunny Taylor and the Starlight Vocal Band!

Crap, Almighty!

The problem with the "Almighty" films is not the poor storytelling. The problem is also not the poor writing. The problem is also not, surprisingly, that one scene where Jim Cary is "seduced" by that lady who is all attractive but wears black because she might be the devil, or a demon, or just some lady, or someone else. We're not really sure. Given all that one might suspect that the problem is the gigantic error-riddled theological quagmire these movies present to the viewing audience. But that, too, is not the biggest problem with the "Almighty" films.

The problem is that people see these films and then talk about them. And they talk about them at work. And I have to listen to them.

Evan Almighty continues this tradition of "sparking conversations that I have to listen to" by retelling the story of Noah, the "main" character of the only flood myth, ever. I say "main" because, argubly, Morgan Freeman would be the main character, unless we want to argue that, theologically, God only ever plays a supporting role.

According to the people with whom I work Evan Almighty tells a "cute story" with a "nice, Biblical message" which is not "sacrilegious" despite what the boy who is dating this individual's daughter would say.

Rather than bang my head on my desk until blood comes out of my ears and I die a sweet death I will provide a link to The Epic of Gilgamesh, the "oldest written story on earth". Followed by a link to the wikipedia page about the Flood Myth in the oldest written story on earth.


I will end this post with a picture of a guinea pig wearing a leash: