lickety jackblog

"Global warming is no joke, and neither is a specially-designed garment for trapping cow farts."

and other highlights, such as the cordless jump rope. yes, cordless.

posted by totallybloated @ 9:50 AM 0 Comments

more on good old pat robertson and his bullshit leg press.

"Vasko said she has not seen Robertson leg-press 2,000 pounds but that it's not "a huge shocker" that he could"

msnbc vote
and a video where he appears to do 1000 lbs

but I would just prefer to read the comments on this blog about robertson

Labels: religion

posted by totallybloated @ 2:33 PM 0 Comments

Someone Must Die!

Tonight I am going to see the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox face off against the heroic Louisville Riverbats in what will certainly be a reaffirming and lovely display of non-big league baseball. And I tell ya, there are few things in this world that can make me sad about going to see a ballgame, but the Kaiju Big Battel might just be one. From the website:

"The Anime Boston 2006 Big Battel is just hours away, on Friday, May 26th. Kaiju's highly anticipated homecoming will feature thirty-two blocks of crushable cityscape (including the Prudential Center), 2 Kaiju Jumbotrons, the fan favorite Danger Zone (a Double-Dare-inspired audience participation area), and twenty Kaiju fighters including two new monster creations."

Confused yet? I highly encourage that you spend sometime at the What is Kaiju? page getting yourself up to date. This event seems almost too outrageous to be true. Which probably explains why it costs $30 to get into. The webpage features far too many hilarious tidbits for me to possibly include here, but I leave you with this: Beware! Kaiju (and American Beetle) might be coming to a town near you!

posted by dan @ 12:39 PM 0 Comments

I'm so fucking pissed

Both my father and grandfather before me were Chicago firefighters. My father retired as a Batallion Chief about three years ago, after almost 40 years of service. With that in mind, and at my dad's request, I decided to take (tomorrow's) Chicago Fire Department recruitment exam, which was last offered in 1995. I thought it would be interesting at the very least, and who knows, there are many worse occupations.

So I just finished taking the "practice exam," as appears in the National Firefighter Selection Inventory Study Guide supplied by the CFD. The test is a series of simple "reading comprehension," grammar and vocabulary questions. Just a general sort of communications aptitude test. The following is the one question out of 70 that I answered incorrectly:

66) Firefighter Carol is taller than _______.

a. me
b. I
c. us
d. all of them
e. we be

I will wait to hear what the Jackbloggerz think the answer to the question is before I post the "actual" answer (as well as the paragraph-long explanation thereof given at the end of the practice exam). It's some bullshit.

The other zinger:

59) Firefighter Wells began ________ decent [sic] down the ladder.

a. their
b. there
c. them
d. her
e. hers

Why a firefighter needs to hone his/her spelling and/or his/her conjugation of subjective/objective pronouns is entirely beyond me.

posted by Little Gordie @ 9:57 PM 0 Comments

Budget Cuts?



As some of you may know, a concerted effort has been in the works since January '05 by The "One Laptop Per Child" initiative and the MIT Media Lab in general, and Nicholas Negroponte in particular, to create a laptop sellable for just $100. The purpose of the machine is to be mass-produced and sold only via largescale government initiatives that would send the machines to needy school districts, "third-world nations"* and other computing-starved situations. The first images of the machine have been released and can be viewed here.

I think this is pretty damn cool. The machine will run some version of linux. Its designers claim that it will be equipped with many of the same capabilities as more expensive computers minus the massive data storage. For more specs check out the One Laptop Per Child homepage.

Unfortunately, these machines will mostly not be available for sale to you or me. However, there is a pledge site up where you can apparently purchase one for $300 (so that you get one, and you're also paying for the production of 2 more).

This machine could change a lot, especially considering that it will be the first computer that many children across the globe will be interacting with. Kind of makes me want one.


*Please do not verbally crucify me for the use of this term. I'm aware that it marks me as a h8r.

Labels: science

posted by dan @ 1:57 PM 0 Comments

because only godless pussies can't leg-press an escalade

"did you know pat robertson can leg-press 2,000 pounds! How does he do it?"

... i don't know, with magic? ah, no. with CBN's age-defying jesus-shake of course.

it's religiously insane! and jesus, i really want to try one.

Labels: religion

posted by the cold cowboy @ 10:34 AM 0 Comments

Oh. Is it my turn? Okay, well: I'll use Elderly Spinsters with the assistance of Fnord Motor Co. and Insurance Companies to destroy Back Alley Winos. That's, let's see here, twenty-two against three. Anyone care to stop me?

Labels: nerdcore

posted by meatcoat @ 3:22 PM 0 Comments

'Koranic' tuna inspires, awes Kenyan Muslims

"The otherwise ordinary fish caught the attention of fishmonger Omar Mohammed Awadh who pulled it out of a catch when he noticed what seemed to be Arabic writing among the scales near its tail, they said.
...
"Arabic scholars examined the fish and determined the writing was a Koranic verse meaning 'God is the greatest of all providers'..."

From Yahoo News

Labels: religion

posted by Little Gordie @ 11:52 AM 0 Comments

quick, jackbloggerz working in giant law firms - how do we sign up for this?

i want my $1,000+

posted by the cold cowboy @ 11:10 AM 0 Comments

To all tha gamecasta's...

Labels: nerdcore

posted by doomgoblin @ 3:13 PM 0 Comments

One of the better Weekly Review's captures the Bush administration's tenure in a sentence:

"Analysts found that President George W. Bush had claimed exemption from 750 laws, and Bush said that the best moment of his presidency was when he caught a seven-and-a-half-pound perch.

posted by Little Gordie @ 2:33 PM 0 Comments

How Much Would You Save
Under the 2006 Tax cut extension plan?

Income, in 2005 dollars / tax cut savings:

$10,000-20,000 : $2
$20,000-30,000 : $9
$30,000-40,000 : $16
$40,000-50,000 : $46
$50,000-75,000 : $110
$75,000-100,000 : $403
$100,000-200,000 : $1,388
$200,000-500,000 : $4,499
$500,000-1 million : $5,562
Over $1 million : $41,977

SOURCE: Tax Policy Center

that's right bitches! it's party time for all you poverty-line playaz: Uncle Sam's 'bout to bring tha' skrilla $2 deep - that's one lottery ticket!

Canvass Question: what will you spend yours on?

i'll be spending my $46 on a rhinestone-encrusted case for my blackberry.

Labels: congress

posted by the cold cowboy @ 11:20 AM 0 Comments

PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY DEPARTMENT MEETING

We have a department meeting once a month at my job. There are about 50 people in my department in the Chicago office. Corresponding via conference call are an additional 10 or so representatives from San Diego and Baltimore.

At the beginning of the meeting, one of the secretaries distributes the "minutes" for the previous month's meeting to everyone. The minutes I received this morning* for last month's meeting were as follows:

• William Hanson opened the meeting. He stated that he had nothing to announce.

• Mark Brest had nothing to announce from the Baltimore office.

• Jacqueline Gersh had nothing to announce from the San Diego office.

• Jerry Owens stated that she had nothing to announce.

• Cathy Ferguson introduced new Conflicts Department members, Peter Donegal and Andrew Wind.

• Kathryn Kendall gave the numbers report.

• Mia Breckenridge explained that a member of the firm's conflict searchers group will begin doing Dun and Bradstreet corporate research.

• Mia Breckenridge announced that there is a cake to celebrate the engagement of Joan Greeves and Patrick Masticate. Many people then ate the cake.

*I have changed only names. The rest is real.

posted by Little Gordie @ 1:49 PM 0 Comments

Generate this. It's a blog full of generators, ninja writing generators, roadsign generators, hillbilly name generators, etc. Find a favorite generator and give us your favorite outcome.

posted by skirt @ 1:13 PM 0 Comments

law school. over. suck it.

posted by ayatollah assahola @ 2:07 PM 0 Comments

the skate scene in new orleans, post-katrina.

stuff like this is while i sincerely love skateboarding and skate culture.

posted by candycanesammy @ 1:35 PM 0 Comments

thanks for the post flynn! good stuff!

while i was reading that stuff i started thinking about blogs. i kinda missed the whole blog train happen. when i left everything was hilarious livejournal crap. when i came back people on tv were standing in front of other tvs connected to computers talking about blogs like they had real credibility. i missed the part where they became credible news sources. now don't get me wrong--i'm not saying that all blogs are dumb. there's good stuff out there written by people more informed than a lot of news & media people on television or in print. but i still wonder what other people think about blogs.

so what's your take on blogs, jackbloggers?

posted by sean @ 6:58 PM 0 Comments

happy "mission accomplished" day!

3 years ago today, bush flew onto an aircraft carrier, larping Pilot, and gave a speech about how major operations were done in iraq. how's that going? media matters has a recap of some of the dick-sucking coverage bush got that day. scroll down to g. gordon liddy's comments to realize that i'm not just being crass when i say "dick-sucking".

BONUS! if you didn't catch it, stephen colbert fucked bush up this weekend at the wh correspondents dinner. there has been a bit of a media blackout about this, and chicago reader cover girl georgia10 does her best to explain why.

Labels: iraq, LARP

posted by candycanesammy @ 12:31 PM 0 Comments

More on Western

After heated debate on the dissolution of WCP, Garland issues another statement.

And here's an article from The Student regarding the "difficult decisions" being made. It's pertinent to know that in watching the alumni listserv recently, there have been several rather nasty accusations leveled against WCP ex-faculty member Carolyn Haynes, who would be dean (apparently without any further National search, which is sually required) of the Honors program to replace Western.

The Columbus Dispatch covered the issue and seemed pretty pro-Western.

Talk now primarily concerns how rapidly all this information came across, and the lack of transparency in the decision-making process. University Senate wants Garland & Co. to delay the decision by a year or so. He's obstinate, so seems his statement.

Support from Alumni (especially from around the early '80s) is very impressive on the list. It's worth watching, if you're interested. They've put ads in the newspapers with thousands of signatures from people opposed to the closure. Alums are threatening to withdraw or withhold monies, to take Miami out of their wills. There's even talk of trying to have Western secede from Miami in order to be its own university again.

Also, apparently there was an alum-donated reserve of $100,000 or so which was meant to be used to promote better Western recruitment (possibly to hire a staff person for just that purpose), which has been sitting unused since around 1997. One of Garland's big critiques has been low enrollment, but of course weren't willing to give Western money to recruit...

Tired. More later.

posted by Little Gordie @ 12:19 AM 0 Comments