Well not really “The Ween”, cause that’s my grandma’s weenie roast in Georgia. But tis the Vienna sausage version. It was a great time and the place wasn’t as dirty as it has been in the past. It’ll take some time to get together all the pictures and write up some stories. So just wait there for a few days.

Later!

It just hit me. My latest half baked theory, I was just reading an article condemming South Park for featuring Steve Irwin in their Halloween Episode. The article menitoned that it was too soon for a joke about his death. (which it probably is) but that’s not the point, the reason South Park is still on the air is that it’s an equal opportunity offender.

So here’s my take on why this is getting news now, It’s really a testament to Steve Irwin’s popularity rather than to how offensive the episode was. Because they’ve definatley had more to say about some other celebrities or political leaders. And they’ve done things that were way way more offensive. Let me just mention a few random South Park Related words.

Cherokee Hair Tampons

In the episode “It Hits the Fan”, South Park broke the swearing record by using the word shit a total of 162 times, uncensored.

The Butt faced People

In December 2005, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights protested the season finale episode, “Bloody Mary”, for its depiction of a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding from her vagina.

Furthermore, while the channel refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad, Comedy Central opted not to censor images of Christ, the president and the American flag being defecated upon.

So where’s my theory? Well here it is, If the figure or Belief being made fun of is liked or generally well thought of by more than… lets say 75% of the general public. Then it’s considered totally uncool to make fun of them. But if you want to make fun of Hitler, Satan, Saddam, OJ, Gary Condit that’s fine. But those targets are too easy, where the real money is are celebrities. Because there’s always enough people who dislike them to keep them below my magic 75% number but they’re still well known enough to be recognised. ex. John Travolta, Rosie O’Donnell, R-Kelley, Politicians. Also if you make fun of Tom Cruise you might win an Emmy. Because with all his craziness this year he’s slipped almost OJ levels of creepyness.

Later!

So I’ve been jotting down some thoughts on the songs as they come up in my playlist. I’m not trying to comment on every one. Just trying listen through them and write down what comes to mind. If I don’t comment on a song it didn’t mean that it wasn’t good, it just didn’t make me think of anything… so here I go…

#41. The Band – The Weight

I know I’ve heard this song before but I had no idea who played it.

#45. Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel

Is really short! 2:07??

#51. Grandmaster Flash – The Message

First hip hop song on the list, not a bad choice.

#55. The Kingsmen – Louie Louie

Oh man, I need a continuous mixtape of this and a regulation 5 story panty raid ladder.

#58. Michael Jackson – Billie Jean

Has there ever been a more memorable intro to a song. It just makes me want to dance on a glowing sidewalk.

side note… Bob Dylan sounds 80 years old

#60. Al Green – Lets Stay Together

This song is the shit. Makes me want to get funky.. or play a brass instrument, I don’t know which.

#63. Buffalo Springfield – For What it’s Worth

This is the first of many times this will happen. But I love the music to this song, because I heard it in “he got game” by Public Enemy. Not that that song is better than this, but it reminds me of something that happened in my lifetime. The LA riots, so it speaks to me more. Still a good song though.

#67. Elvis Presley – Jailhouse Rock

Great Intro, but another short E.P. song

#71. The Beach Boys – California Girls

Apparently there was a time when people could take this song seriously, Rolling Stone must be beyond that because I can’t listen o this anymore…click.

#72. James Brown – Papa’s got a brand new bag

I AM A SEX MA-CHINE. If only I could get his old toothless mug out of my head when I hear this song.

#73. Eddie Cochran – Summertime Blues

My parents must have had shorter attention spans than I do… 1:57

#74. Stevie Wonder – Superstitious

I think this is my favorite song on the list so far. I could seriously listen to it continuously for an hour and not get tired of it. It’s got the beat, oh yes.

#76. The Beatles – Strawberry Fields

I’ve really liked some other Beatles songs on this list, but Strawberry Fields can suck it!

#80. Marvin Gaye – Heard it through the grapevine

Damn those dancing raisins, relegated with the beach boys now

#86. Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road

All I can think of is that this is why the craft in “Explorers” was called the Thunder Road. I’m very sad

#91. Elvis Presley – Suspicious Minds

Without really knowing when this song came out I can guess that it’s the Vegas jumpsuit Elvis, because it’s 3 times as long as any other E.P. song and it sounds like it was recorded with a backing band. Also it’s very repetitive so bloated Elvis could remember the lyrics.

#92. The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Pop

First punk song on the list. I feel like this should have been higher

#96. Jerry Lee Lewis – Great Balls of Fire

1:50 ? come on Jerry couldn’t you think of another verse?

#135. The Beatles – While my guitar gently weeps

This makes me realize how good Dangermouses Grey Album is. This song NEEDS Jay-Z over it.

#136. Elton John – Your Song

Man, that queen did have some great songs. Makes me proud to have his pinball machine in the parents basement

#140. Led Zeppelin – Kashmir

I don’t need my Diddy on this song, but it’s definatley on par with the original… for me

#143. Prince – Purple Rain

Shelley, why is this song good?

So over the weekend I finished the “Skull Door Knocker” that I’d been working on for a while. I guess I’m going to pass it off as a halloween project… then just keep it up for the rest of the year. I threw together a picture of it for my Laptop Background in between deploying the application at work today. I cant stop looking at it actually, it’s got this HDR quality about it. I really did very little to the picture, just adusted the curves a little. I had to photoshop together some pieces of the door though. I think it came out really well.

Later!

So I’ve been listening to “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” today at work. I must say that they’re very biased in the classic Rolling Stone way. Probably 50% of the songs are from the 60’s and 70’s and definatley 90% of the top twenty. With the exceptions being Nirvana “smells like Teen Spirit” and the Clash “London Calling”. It’s not that I’m saying that I disagree with the list. Because with all opinion based lists the only way to disprove it would be to write an opinion and I ‘m just too lazy to do that. So they’re just going to have to go on being right by default. It is a little early for me to judge the entire list, I’m only on song #32. Which is exactly why i decided to post this.

#32 Ray Charles – Georgia on my Mind

I can’t seem to tell if it’s sad or awesome that I can’t hear this song without seeing the Stone Mountain Laser Show in my head….

I’m gonna go with awesome!

Later!

So it was a pretty non-descript weekend around the sausage (Vienna Sausage = our house). We did venture out after Charlie and I got Killed at softball. I have never seen a softball hit so far in my life. 300 ft fence and the ball was 50 feet over it. Absolutley stunning. So Frenchie, Jesse and I piled in Jesse’s Accord heading to DC for scary movie night at Amanda’s place near Howard University. I wish I could tell you tales of dice games and partying in the street ( it was homecoming weekend) but nothing much was going on in the ‘hood. We got there late, apparently they had just finished watching “Sleepaway Camp” which, according to reviews, was not very good at all. But that was kind of the point of the evening. We talked and BS’ed for a while before decideing to watch the original Halloween. It was fun pointing out all the flaws in slasher movie logic and trying to figure out if Jamie Lee Curtis really was a hermaphrodite.

After the movie the remaining crew played taboo and ate cookies until late in the night. I discovered that I am rather bad at Taboo, but I can eat the hell out of some cookies.

So on to Saturday, Jesse and I had been working on our respective projects all morning so we decide to stay in for the night (like we really needed an excuse) The mysterious Josh made a rare apperence that night too. By 10 we had the whole crew assembled and we did what we always do. Played the Pong. This was a rare night, for I, perennial loser… went undefeated the whole night. AND the stars must have been aligned, cause IT happened. It may not seem like much but in the first game, overtime, I had the ball land on the triangle intersection of three cups. It’s like a triple play in Baseball. Except harder. More like a no-hitter. I still haven’t wittnessed a Perfect Game ( 2 same cup rounds in a row ) but I’ve only seen this happen one other time.

Relax, it was only amazing

And you know the rest of the night was good after that! So good in fact that I didn’t get out of bed until the 3rd quarter of the Redskins game the next day.

Looking ahead at the stuff we have to get done before the Halloween party I think I really have to get working on some stuff. Not to mention that we’re going down to see Brian Regan in Roanoke the day before the party!

It’s gonna be sweet!

On recovery monday we did some nice work on a few projects that we have around the house. I made major progress on the skull door knocker, finally attaching the knocker piece. Without which it wouldn’t be much of a knocker. It looks sturdy enough to be actually used, but this is the B version of the design. I had to go back to the drawing board after I kept breaking off the knocker. So really all that’s left not is to glue on the skull and paint the thing. I’ll get started on that tonight, since there’s nothing good on TV.

Jesse continued work on the beerpong table 2.0 installing 60 out of 90 blue LEDs ( he would have more but he forgot to order them!)

But the ones that were there looked sweet!

A minor incident happened when he was showing me how bright they were. They started flickering on and off in weird patterns, I heard him say “wow, I wonder why that’s happening?” and then we saw smoke coming from the board. turns out it was just a short circuit and the driver chips are OK. But one LED was reduced to a smoking crater.

check this link for progress pics

Later!

I was going back through the blogs today and besides noticing that I get comment spam for World of Warcraft Goldfarmers I realized that I wanted to start posting the little doodles that I do at work. I’ve started keeping my sketchbook handy so during those 2 minute long deployment processes I can sketch something small. But I think they’re starting to look at me when I brought out the colored pencils.

Later!

So it’s been a couple months? Maybe since we gave away the admiral, reports from Chris Brogan have him living well in the 120 gallon tank. Some water quality issues, since he never changed the water before this. (he only had 3 fish in there so it really didn’t matter). But I think he’s going to be fine. So when the little ackbar enlisted he was little more than a head and tail. But he quickly went to work eating every piece of food he could.

It’s like he knows that he has to be the biggest fish in the tank. He went from being the smallest to the biggest in record time, with no signs of stopping. When it’s feeding time he’s like pac man. He is so quick about going from piece to piece it’s really cool. I usually feed him on one side of the tank to make sure that some pieces fall down to the smaller fish on the other side.

Also an update on “scarfish” (the dumbest fish in the tank). a few weeks ago he litterally got stuck in a hole in the boat. I thought he was dead because he was just sitting there diagonally half in the boat. but when I tapped the tank he freaked out, didn’t do him much good, but he was really trying. I tried to push him through, but he was REALLY stuck. I had to reach inside the boat and pull him through the hole. Which had to be painful, if fish feel pain that is, becuase I scrapped off a bunch of scales off his back and his left fin had been worn away from the gravel. So he was in really bad shape. But just like Tony Montana he has clawed his way back to the top… or second to the top. First lieutenant to Ackbar. (or whatever one rank below him would be)

Later!

PINK FOR OCTOBER
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so the internet got together and decided to turn all our websites pink for the month to support the cause. It was a big meeting, you should have been there! Breast cancer is a serious thing. I personally know/knew a couple people that delt with the disease. Just doing my thing to support them.
Save the boobies
but seriously, breast cancer sucks.
Later!