Parking Frius

The truth of the matter is that I don't like Priuses - or is it Priuii? Either way I they rile me up.

I don't know if its their arrogant design or their drivers' smarmy look when they are overtaken, I just don't know.

I'm fine with Honda's Civic half battery and half petrol engine car. I'm even looking forward to owning a battery powered Land Rover Discovery one time in the (very, very) distant future. Looking at the Prius just makes me clench my fist in preparation for smashing someone in the nose

Unlike some bloggers I know, I do, however, frown on peeing on the door handles of ANY vehicle!


My wife doesn't like me to swear, especially when I'm driving, so I try not to. But those Priuses do test me.

So I came up with an idea.

Very simple.

I'll convince the wife that my swearing is actually something else, so here goes;

The process that Priuses / Prii use to turn their movement into battery power and then back into
car movement? Well it was named after Proffessor Fark of Hinkyflinky, Sweden. The process that is named after him is called farking. 

So now, whenever I pass a Prius, I say in an amicable, cheery voice, "look there's a farking Prius'.

And everyone smiles.


kthanxbai!

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The Pacific is Suckypoo

Just in case you were wondering, I am up to episode 6 of Tom Hanks' "The Pacific" and I still think it sucks big time.

Yes, Band of Brothers would be danged hard to follow but this is, and I don't use the term lightly, "Suckypoo".

I just hope that the book is better.

I continue to watch Pacific because I feel that ought to but really, it feels like I'm watching an exceptionally crappy soap opera. Is it better than nothing? I just don't know. What do you think?

As I said in my earlier review, "Pacific Disappointment" the best book for understanding an iota of what the Marines went through in the Pacific is to read the book "With The Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge.

kthanxbai!

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Higher Still?

Just in case you thought my mind had gone all serious and nice after my last few posts, here is a rather evil joke I picked up from Tanker over at Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated:

Obama in Heaven

Obama dies and finds himself before the Pearly Gates. He is very excited; all his life he’s had a secret wish and longed to meet the Prophet Mohammed.

Having arrived at the Gates of Heaven, Barack meets a man with a beard. ‘Are you Mohammed?’ he asks.

‘No, my son. I am Peter. Mohammed is higher up.’ Peter then points to a ladder that rises into the clouds.

Delighted that Mohammed should be higher than Peter, Obama climbs the ladder in great strides, climbs through the clouds coming to a room where he meets another bearded man. He asks again, ‘Are you Mohammed?’

‘No, I am Moses. Mohammed is higher still.’

Exhausted, but with a heart full of joy, he climbs the ladder; yet again, he discovers an even larger room where he meets another man with a beard. Full of hope, he asks again, ‘Are you Mohammed?’ ‘No, I am Jesus… You will find Mohammed higher up.’
Mohammed higher than Jesus! Man!
Obama can hardly contain his delight and climbs and climbs, ever higher. Once again, he reaches a larger room where he meets a man with a beard and repeats his question: ‘Are you Mohammed?’ he gasps as he is, by now, totally out of breath from all his climbing.

‘No, my son…. I am Almighty God. But you look exhausted. Would you like a cup of coffee..?’

‘Yes! Please, my Lord,’ Obama exclaims.

God looks behind him, claps his hands and yells out: ‘Hey Mohammed — two coffees!’

 (From a particularly evil email)

kthanxbai!

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Bandwidth Theft

When I put up a picture here on Blogger, Blogger pays for the server for the amount of data stored.

If I were to use a private server then I would pay for any picture / data stored on it.

A picture such as the above would not cut into the maximum bandwidth allowed but over time, and as more people direct other readers to it, the costs add up. So how annoyed should a blogger be when someone hosts their image (bandwidth) on another site without permission? Neptunus Lex shares with us how annoyed he got and what he did about it.

A brief photo essay on the perils of hotlinking other people’s digital imagery rather than hosting your own.

Before:

After: 

Here endeth the lesson.

I'm sure the Saudi Arabian forum that stole the picture from him quickly heard about their mistake!!

kthanxbai!

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Fed Up With Being Bashed About

I don't like bullies. I don't like liars. I really don't like being on the receiving end from either. Shocking really.
Someone who also doesn't like being rallied against is Amy. She received abuse from a friend of a friend on Facebook and decided to fight back on her husband's blog 'Fighting for Liberty'.

Some quotes from her essay:

In the late 1800s, some Jews began looking for a solution to the violent Judeophobia (I prefer this term to “anti-Semitism”) in Europe that they had been enduring for centuries. (Concise timelines of Judeophobia are here and here.) It was obvious to people like Theodor Herzl that the Jews needed their own land where they would no longer be persecuted.  (Examples of brutal, racist treatment can be seen here and here.)  Jews bought more land in Palestine (whenever possible – many Palestinians refused to sell land to Jews), and Russian Jews immigrated there to flee the waves of pogroms, increasing the Jewish presence in Palestine, even before the British issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917.  However, the British also promised the land to the Arabs, and had separately made a deal with France to make Palestine internationally controlled.  The Arabs revolted against the British (killing Jews as well, just for good measure) in 1936.  Although the Arabs weren’t successful in kicking out non-Arabs, this revolt started some cultural shifts – namely, increased hostilities between Arabs and Jews (two groups whose ancient histories had been intertwined in this area for thousands of years), and Britain revoked their promise to give land in Palestine to the Jews.


You say the Israelis are brutal and racist.  However, I think you are seeing only the ugliness of war on one side.  It is ugly on both sides.  The Israelis did not start the war.  On May 15, 1948, just one day after the independent state of Israel was created, six Arab nations declared war on Israel.  The war could have been avoided if the Palestinians had agreed to the U.N.-proposed two-state proposal.  And still, the war could end at any time if they would agree to a two-state proposal.

Well done Amy! For the rest of the essay click here



kthanxbai!

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Hitting The Capitalist Nail On The Head

I like Capitalism. 

Its a good 'ism'.
 
If you sell me a product I like at a price I like, then I'll come back for more. You'll make money and everyone is happy.

I like it. Black and white, no shades of grey, does the job and everyone is happy.

So why is it so infrequent that we get to see signs like this around the planet?

Kudos to Five Guys Burgers and Fries. And a hat-tip to Sharp as a Marble.



kthanxbai!

I Should Not Be Here

I should not be here.

I should be drinking tea and eating scones with my Mum in good old Blighty.

But that Eyjaf­jal­la­jokull volcano has scuppered all our plans.

But it really is quite beautiful isn't it?

In a deeper sense I think it should open our eyes on just how reliant we are today on certain machines, and how nature can play with our daily lives.

kthanxbai!

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Thar be pirates - oooh aar

I have an MP3 player, I have an iTouch, my wife has an MP3 player and we were seriously considering getting one for our 13 month old baby.

The truth of the matter is that I have not actually bought a CD or music online for years. Maybe 5 years. All of the music I have on either of my digital music players is from discs I bought in the beginning of the century or stuff I downloaded of the interweb in the last year or two.

Have I caused the downfall of the music industry? Probably..... not. Have you and i together created a huge vacuum where their bank balances used to be? Highly unlikely.

What is the real effect of piracy on the music industry, a world wide business of over $60 BILLION a year??

Oddee has the answer - go there, or here, or here, to find out the who's, whats, whys and wherefore of piracy's effect on the music industry.


kthanxbai!

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The Polish tragedy

In case you weren't sure just how much of a disaster Poland went through when their President's plane went down yesterday, here is a who's who of those on the plane.

There were no survivors.

Lech Kaczyński, President



Maria Kaczyńska, First Lady

Ryszard Kaczorowski, last President-in-exile

Krzysztof Putra, vice-Marshal of the Sejm (speaker of Parliament)

Krystyna Bochenek, vice-Marshal of the Sejm

Jerzy Szmajdziński, former Minister of Defence and intended Presidential Candidate for this year’s election

Władysław Stasiak, chief of the President’s office

Jacek Sasin, deputy chief of the President’s office

Aleksander Szczygło, chief of National Security Bureau

Paweł Wypych, Secretary of State in President’s office

Mariusz Handzlik, deputy Secretary of State in President’s office

Andrzej Kremer, vice-minister of Foreign Affairs

General Franciszek Gągor, Chief of Staff

Jerzy Bar, ambassador to Russia

Andrzej Przewoźnik, major historian

Maciej Płażyński, MP, former Marshal of the Sejm

Przemysław Gosiewski, MP, former minister

Zbigniew Wassermann, MP, former minister

Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, MP, former Minister of Social Policy

Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz, MP, former chief of President’s Office

Aleksandra Natalii-Świat, MP, vice-president of Law and Justice party

Leszek Deptuła, MP

Grażyna Gęsicka, MP

Arkadiusz Rybicki, MP

Stanisław Zając, MP

Edward Wojtas, MP

Wiesław Woda, MP

Sebastian Karpiniuk, MP

Grzegorz Dolniak, MP

Janusz Kochanowski, Ombudsman

Sławomir Skrzypek, President of the Polish National Bank

Janusz Kurtyka, President of the Institute of National Remembrance (state institution for historical research)

Bishop Tadeusz Płoski

and the chiefs of every arm of the Armed Forces.

kthanxbai!

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Mr. Deal's Easter by crankylitprof

If you ever wondered what English Literature Professors did in their spare time, read on:

They lived together in the same gray with green trim Victorian house for sixty-some odd years;  he carried her over the threshold after their wedding reception. Money was too tight for an actual honeymoon, but both were thankful to have their own place, more so because all they really felt they needed was each other. The beautiful house was just gravy (though Mrs. Deal kept that house like it was Imperial jade, turning carpets, washing walls, changing  drapes for each season and polishing all the wood with beeswax).

The town grew around them, cars became more prevalent. Eventually, the street was paved, and actual stop signs — and a traffic light! — were erected. They drove the same perfectly-maintained-by-the-Mister beige Packard that he had bought with his Army muster-out pay in the late fifties.

Read the complete, moving, story here

kthanxbai!

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Mazel Tov to doubletapper

Doubletapper has been voted 'Best Foreign National Military Blog' at milbloggiong.com
Considering the competition for the position and the fact that there was only 1 foreign blog winner - he did done good!

Obviously, the fact that he shows many pictures of gorgeous IDF female soldiers in uniform, and with their rifles, in no way influenced the judges.

kthanxbai!

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I'm meant to be the one ranting

The idea of this blog is to bring you, the gentle and highly intelligent genius that you are, a few of the interesting things I find out there on the interweb.

Tanker over at Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated, has this juicy rant about, guess what? Yeah, 'kids today'. Have fun!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill… Barefoot… BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda....

 

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it! ....

There were no MP3’s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!...
Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning...

The whole outrageous rant is here. 

kthanxbai!

iBonkers

The iPad was released just a short time ago but already there are blinking nutters who are doing weird and wonderful things with them:









 kthanxbai!

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Four White Cops, One Angry Black Man

Sounds like a joke or a beginning of a cheesy detective novel?

Its actually another great blog from His Eminence the Ambulance Driver over at his blog, A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver:

  

Four White Cops, One Angry Black Man

 … and the angry black man was high on drugs and emotionally despondent over the inability to kick his addiction.

 And the incident ended not with gunfire, or with the black man writhing on the ground at the end of a Taser, but with the angry black man walking to the ambulance and climbing aboard, of his own free will. The EMTs bandaged the man’s lacerated wrists as he sobbed brokenly, and the cops quietly assured him that they were there to help, not arrest, and that they’d do whatever it took to get the angry black man the help he needed.

And when the angry black man thanked one of the white cops for treating him like a man and a fellow human being, and begged him to accompany him to the hospital, the white cop promised that he’d follow right behind the ambulance, and he’d be there with him in the ER as he went through what was undoubtedly a very frightening time for the angry black man.
 He delivered on his promise, too.
  
That’s how the majority of these encounters go, you know. Doesn’t matter if the cops are white and the angry man is black, or vice versa. With a little compassion and a lot of communication, the vast majority of such incidents end without harm or bloodshed. I see them play out this way every day.

 I tell you this story not because it is unusual, but because it isn’t.

 You know, just in case you got the opposite impression from what you always see in the news.

Having seen this exact situation pan out time and time again I thought I'd spread the word.

kthanxbai!

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You want funny?

You want funny? You can't handle the funny.

As they say over at 'Throw The Ball Already' - this is the funniest beer commercial ever.



Enjoy.

kthanxbai!

The Law is an Ass

God forbid you have a loved one who gets killed in the line of duty, overseas.

After the emotional roller-coaster you and your family go through before the body of your loved can be returned to you, the day of the funeral arrives.

At the funeral you find a group of anti-gay protesters clamoring throughout the service.Personally I'd claim sever emotional distress and use some buck shot to scatter them.

Neptunus Lex shows us that reality isn't so easy:

The father of a Marine slain in Iraq has been ordered to pay the court costs of the odious Phelps clan:

Lawyers for the father of a Marine who died in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters say a court has ordered him to pay the protesters’ appeal costs.
On Friday, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered that Albert Snyder of York, Pa., pay costs associated with Fred Phelps’ appeal. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, which conducted protests at the funeral of Snyder’s son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, in Westminster in 2006.
Lawyers for Snyder say the Court of Appeals has ordered him to pay $16,510.80 to Phelps for costs relating to the appeal, despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the Court of Appeals’ decision.

I guess he hadn’t given enough.

kthanxbai!

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I get bored

I know I get bored.

I know I need a bit of direction.

But I think she needs help first:



kthanxbai!

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don't tell the wife!

I'm just saying - don't send the picture below to your loved one.

Ever.



yeah, you know you’re curious

kthanxbai!

Busting an iPhone thief

I read this story a while ago and was very impressed it on a variety of levels.

The ingenious use of Google Earth and the iPhone applications themselves to find the thief just blew me away!


I think you'll like you'll enjoy the story too;

How to catch an iThief

kthanxbai!

I just don't get it

A coalition of countries are at war, where there are casualties on a daily basis.

A total of 276 British troops have died in the Afghan conflict since operations began in 2001.

The bodies of two soldiers killed in Afghanistan last week will be brought back to the UK on Tuesday.

L/Cpl Scott Hardy and Private James Grigg, both from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, died last Tuesday north of Musa Qalah.
The cortege will pass through Wootton Bassett after arriving at RAF Lyneham.

 The Daily Telegraph, 

10:49AM GMT 22 Mar 2010

 And the British government's response to all this?

March 22, 2010

Army to sack 500 soldiers because of troop 'cap'

 

British troops in Afghanistan

Up to 500 soldiers will lose their jobs under a plan to reshape the Army to better meet the challenges of operations in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence announced today.

Unbelievably, 500 of the army's most learned and experienced NCOs are going to be getting the boot soon.


Can you explain why?

 kthanxbai!