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November 26, 2005
black friday
Congratulations, America! Nothing like a little Wal-Mart to extract the dark underbelly of your American-ness!Yes, the holiday shopping season kick-off, which the media has oddly named "The Friday of Blackness", progressed without a hitch. Oh, except for fistfights in San Jose. And in Philadelphia. Oh, right, also Orlando.
I reckon it's considered bad progressive form to haterize on the "Stupid American" phenomena, but, really. There's some fellow citizens that could use a God-sized perspective check. Unfortunately, unless it comes through the teevee, it will not happen.
I'm proud to say that my shopping manners forbid even grumbling.
Posted by mrbrent at 12:06 PM
turkeyyyy
I am back from the Day of Givin' Thanks. Because it's all about Thanks Givin', it is.I would like to remind you that the number of side dishes to the turkey should never exceed the number of guests by a factor of two. Even if all your guests are NFL linemen. Which ours were not.
Also, I would like to extol the virtues of "taking the bus" to your out-of-town location.
I really would. Alas, alas.
But enough about me.
Posted by mrbrent at 12:00 PM
November 22, 2005
katrina
I don't mean to bring anyone down, or at least, bring anyone more down than usual. But I was hitting the ponder this past week on the long-term effects of Hurricane Katrina, and I realized that I hadn't heard a body count since back when there was a hoop-de-doo over projected body counts and whether they made you not a patriot or not.Actually, that was the whole crux of the Hurricane, wasn't it? Whether or not your love of country/president trumped reality?
In any event, I came to find out that the body count was published today, and the answer is 1,306.
Give or take 5,000.
No, really.
Posted by mrbrent at 2:41 PM
curse you, steven allison!
I'm not sure what happened overnight, but I became a very popular man. I woke up to umpteen or so e-mails in one of my accounts, all accusing me of either visiting illegal websites or registering for something or sending someone an e-mail. All come with a 75KB application attached (oh, I love opening attachments! maybe it's a present!), and half claimed that they were from the FBI or the CIA.Sure, we were warned, but we were very clearly not that the CIA/FBI e-mails would all be signed by the same person, Steven Allison.
Who is apparently our country's answer to James Bond.
Hopefully, he will use his untold millions of hijacked computers to fight communism, or at least snatch some sweet passwords for trading.
Posted by mrbrent at 9:47 AM
November 21, 2005
good morning
The Yahoo! Headline Box clears it up for you:• CIA chief: Interrogation methods not torture
Because, you see, "interrogation methods" and "torture" are not even just entirely different words. They're apples and oranges. One's an abstract noun, and the other is actually two nouns squished together. How can there be any equivalency between two concrete nouns and one abstract noun?
If something that the CIA was going to do was going to be "torture", it would be very easy to spot, as it would be labeled "torture". And our "interrogation methods" are always only "interrogations methods", or we otherwise wouldn't call them that.
Clear?
Also, this is not my "shoe". It is a "bananaphone".
Posted by mrbrent at 9:51 AM