verbosity

Support the Magnetic Industry

Just as I was about to put my Mad MS Paint Skillz to use, I did a little googling and farking and found that my work was already done. Not only has the idea been thought of elsewhere, but they also have them for sale! Multiple places! (None of my ideas are original)

Click the pictures, or hit the direct e-bay purchase link for the second one. It even has an alien face for the removable-triangle piece!

[ EDIT: I just bought five of the green style. If you're in Lincoln and want one off my stack, speak up. ]

Supposedly 50% of Walgreen's magnet sales go to the USO, but they're the exception rather than the rule. There's a few "Made in the USA" magnet vendors, but to the best of my knowledge, even the magnets Walgreen's sells are Made In China.

And now, more humor:

Slap a Yellow Ribbon On My SUV song lyrics.

Please hold for a filibuster break

(Concealed [andyrut.com])

Amendment 1238 to Nebraska Legislative Bill 454 is a rather amusing piece, as is the man who uses such underhanded tactics to try and defeat an otherwise decent legislative system. While his underpaid and overworked staff members have a decent sense of humor, his disrespect for our government is not funny in the slightest. Sadly, Ernie Chambers will probably be re-elected many more times; the voting public by large is not aware of such shenanigans. He's been pulling stunts similar to this for a long time.

We have penalties for frivolous lawsuits. A measure to prevent, or at the least discourage similar behavior in the political arena would be appropriate. How about we destroy the ability to filibuster while we're at it. Let the people we elected to make our laws actually do their jobs. Dastardly tactics should not decide law; votes should.

[Some extra commentary]

Daylight Shifting Time

(Nighttime Wasting Time)

Andy already covered the technological reasons why altering the DST period is a Bad Idea™. It's a bad idea that's been done before, but the number of electronic systems today that the change would affect is far greater than the last time is was altered in 1986. Besides the systems that could be changed to the new DST period, there's a vast number of "embedded" systems that simply can't be altered (or it's unreasonably difficult to do so). But why do we have this kludge tacked on to our clock system in the first place?

We change our clocks to shift an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening, for some reasons not without merit. Why not just change from working "eight to five" to working "seven to four" for a period during the year? Oooh, change? Me dink change r bad. Normally, when discussing archaic systems, it's the rest of the world that has come around to doing it the Right Way™, and the USA is still in backwater-mode (the metric measurement system, etc.). However, most of the world is being dumb in this case. Sigh.

Let's take it one step further and get rid of time zones. Time zones stem from a similar motivation as DST: we want our daylight hours to have the same arbitrary numbers applied to them, no matter where in the world we are. Why? No logical reason. Why should it matter if people in Lincoln, NE work from 04:00 to 13:00, while people in Greece work 12:00 to 20:00?

Oh yeah, the 12-hour clock system...that one is brilliant too. Let's make telling time as ambiguous as it can be.

Imagine never having to worry about time zones or DST clock shifts, and knowing that "8 o'clock" always indicated morning (or night, or whatever it always is where you happen to live). I'd call it something like...Coordinated Universal Time. We already have that, you say? Well, crap, why don't we use it?

A decimal time scale would be nice, but I'm not going to ask for too much change at one time.

Randy Wheaton

...or Wil Orton? I think there's a degree of separation that's not being talked about!

episode eye eye lie

My horoscope in The Onion can't possibly lie!

Scorpio: (Oct. 24—Nov. 21)
Hope can sustain a person through excruciating personal trials, but unfortunately, there's no real reason to believe that the new Star Wars movie will be tolerable.

license revoked

To the red Pontiac Grand Am with 33-county plates who was driving eastbound on West "O" street at 08:51 this morning: Flashing red traffic lights indicate a required stop of your vehicle. You almost caused an accident with your ignorance. If you didn't see the light...well, I don't know how they'd make a light more noticeable than blinking. Here's a link to the Nebraska Driver's Manual.

To the white minivan eastbound on "M" street before the 10th street intersection at 08:57. Those parallel white lines on the pavement, the ones at a diagonal to the curb? Those are parking spots. They are not your personal driving lane. The turn lane begins after the bloody intersection.

To the lazy lady who parked in the handicapped spot in front of Valentino's To-Go on West "O" street: you must be handicapped in the head to not walk the extra 15 feet from the nearby spaces. I hope you heard my sideways remark to the above effect. You're lucky I'm not one of the civilian handicapped-parking patrol members, or your uncaring butt would be out hard cash. Speaking of your butt, you should be walking that extra 15 feet for more than moral and legal reasons...

I love technology, but not as much as you

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