Happy Halloween

Jack O'Lecter
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

We're preparing for our first trick or treaters ever, very exciting. I hear we don't get that many, so I should be fat as hell from the leftover candy. Zip plop frim fram.

Oops Pow Surprise

I remember a Yo-Yo demonstration when I was in school in the '70s, I must have been been 9 or 10. Duncan probably sent guys to schools all over the country to show us the kinds of tricks we'd be able to do if we just bought a bunch of yoyos and got to work practicing. The guy we saw that day at the assembly did the same kinds of tricks I saw before and since, probably the same tricks people did when the damn thing was invented. I figured the yoyo was fully explored as a source of entertainment.

Apparently not. This guy's like the Jordan of yoyoing. Still pretty boring, but as interesting as yoyoing gets.

From Double Viking.

Just Enough Spare Time

Eli Kramer
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

I'm entertained by Photoshop contests and am amazed at how many people are skilled at making excellent fake pictures. This is from a contest on a Redskins bulletin board, featuring a picture of a drunk Eli Manning, who I believe is better than his brother Peyton. Peyton's gonna have all the records at the end of his career, but Eli will have the rings. Go drunk boy!

This isn't even the best Eli pic, I like the Something About Mary one more.

Art for Techies

Dave at Garfield Ridge found a neat art tool the likes of which I've never seen. Cool video here.

This One's for You, Buckethead

Yoda break dancing, from an easter egg on the DVD.

Schadenfreude, I Wuv You

I must, or I wouldn't get such a kick out of this. People were hurt, one badly, and I still giggle at the pics. Sue me.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that the link was from Jeff S. in Dallas.

Did You Ever Wonder

Jell-O San Francisco
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

What a Jello San Francisco would look like? Now you know.

From Boingboing.

Guilty Pleasure

I'm not much of a horror fan, and I find the show Scare Tactics not very interesting either. But this clip of a Peta supporter reacting to a tiny rat-man is frickin' hilarious.

Don't Be Hatin'

In a post about the strange relationship between grandstanding Texas asswipe Ronnie Earle and billionaire liberal loon George Soros, Instapundit gets snippy about Texas barbeque:

Texas home cookin' . . . and I don't mean that beef stuff they pass off as barbecue.

and later:

Real barbecue is pork (as reader David Ruddell writes: "If it ain't pork, it ain't barbecue. 'Nuff said."), but in a tomato-based sauce. Other approaches are amusing, and sometimes tasty, diversions, but they're not barbecue.

Having tried many varieties of BBQ in this country, I can say they're all pretty good. But chopped animal in sauce is just one version, and I do prefer slices of perfectly cooked animal to chopped animal any day. I enjoy all versions of BBQ sauce too, but slightly prefer mustard-based, like the Salt Lick in Austin serves.

And more than anything, chopped beef is just better than chopped pork. Take that, Tennessee boy.

Worst Halloween Costumes

Halloween costume
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Indeed they are. From Gorilla Mask.

No Sh#t

I've heard a lot of people complaining about how crazy the world has become lately, how dangerous and chaotic. Those people always strike me as ignorant of history in the extreme, and overly sensitive to the defeatist tone of the mainstream media. Finally someone has bothered to make that case scientifically:

Widespread fears about a world in a perpetual state of war are unfounded, a study says today. It emphasises that the number of conflicts between nations, civil wars, battle deaths, coups and genocides has been falling steeply for more than a decade.

While the authors note that bloody wars continue in Iraq, Afghanistan and Congo, they argue that there are substantial grounds for optimism.

The first Human Security Report, written by academics led by Andrew Mack, of the University of British Columbia, cites popular notions that war is becoming more common and deadlier, that genocide is rising and that terrorism poses the greatest threat to humanity.

"Not one of these claims is based on reliable data," it says. "All are suspect; some are demonstrably false. Yet they are widely believed because they reinforce popular assumptions."

The authors say there are 40 per cent fewer armed conflicts than in the early 1990s. Between 1991 and last year 28 wars for self-determination began but 43 were ended or contained.

In 1992, when the Yugoslav wars of secession began, there were 51 state-based conflicts around the world. The figure dropped to 32 in 2002 and 29 in 2003. The arms trade declined by a third from 1990 to 2003 and the number of refugees fell by 45 per cent between 1992 and 2003.

In 1950 each conflict killed 38,000 people on average. By 2002 that had dropped to 600.

Every time I hear some whiny ninny moaning about what interesting times we live in, I think of 1942, and 1862, and any number of other times that make the current state of affairs seem like a game of Candyland. Quit your bitching, punks. It gets a lot worse.

He Promises to Feel the News at You

I didn't catch the Colbert Report last night, but I like this. I don't watch the Daily Show any more, but I will watch Colbert, who was the best part of it.

Please God Make Them Make this Car

Holden Efijy (concept car) from Australia
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

My little sister Patsy's car shopping, and she doesn't seem to be interested in a sports car (damn her demonic eyes) so much as a fancy new SUV. I told her it's OK to get one just like her boyfriend's as long as it's in a different color, but now that I've seen this awesome machine I won't be satisfied until she gets one. Link from Lileks.

I would also be satisfied to see her in either this or this. Do it Pats!

UPDATE: Welcome Garfield Ridge fans, what are you wearing?

Fractal Cabbage

Romanesco Cabbage
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Check out this crazy Romanesco cabbage site that Boingboing linked today. Nature is cool, isn't it? You can buy this at the supermarket. In Switzerland.

For Once, I Agree with a Group of People

That this is the most desirable woman on the planet. Good job, planet earth.

Seems Like Good News

I haven't been tracking Iraq much lately with moving and the baby getting close, but this seems encouraging:

The enemy struck a blow against us with the arrest of Abu al-Faraj, may God break his bonds. [...] Our situation since Abu al-Faraj is good by the grace of God, but many of the lines have been cut off. Because of this, we need a payment while new lines are being opened. So, if you're capable of sending a payment of approximately one hundred thousand, we'll be very grateful to you.

It's not going well for the bad guys. Link from Wizbang.

Wrong-o, Keebler

This is not the answer to what goes in the tiny front pocket on Levi's jeans (the article says coins or a watch). The answer is guitar picks. Everybody knows that.

What the Internet is For

intro_bbillick_anyplace
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Finding Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick's Match Game PM appearance, for one thing. From Gorilla Mask.

Best Baby Pictures Ever

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Sounds Like Fun

Chess and boxing, alternately:

Chess boxing is one of the newest and most unlikely hybrid sports, designed to test both brain and brawn. A typical match consists of up to 11 alternating rounds of boxing and "blitz" chess sessions.

Contestants start with a four-minute chess round, then it's into the ring for a two-minute bout of boxing. A minute's break to tend wounds and remove gloves and the sweaty competitors, towels around their necks, sit down at the chess board again.

The form of chess played is "blitz" chess. Competitors have a total of 12 minutes on the clock before the match is over.

"I was just curious," said Tobias Gries, a 30-year-old from Berlin who watched Saturday's championship. "It is one of most unusual combinations possible, so it was interesting to see how these totally contrasting games could be brought together."

I remember Norm MacDonald joking about an Olympic sport in which contestants would run 400 yards and then fish. This seems more ridiculous but way more fun to watch. From Pejman's new site.

Great News for Florida

I love the idea of pythons breeding in the Florida Keys and trying to eat alligators. If you've ever spent any time with a python, you know they're lovely companions, and the thought of large numbers of huge pythons in your back yard is nothing short of fantastic.

I once lived in a house with four large Burmese pythons, from 8 to more than 11 feet long, and they were loose almost all of the time, although we had a snake room we put them in when they were getting close to taking a dump (you feed a big constrictor infrequently and it's not difficult to predict when it will poop). After a few times finding a nasty snake doodoo on the carpet, you tend to try to keep that from happening as much as possible. My friend Randy in San Antonio used to keep an eye on his snakes when poop time was drawing near, looking for the characteristic cocking of the tail that indicated an imminent dump, and pick the snake up and milk the doody out over the toilet. I'm not sure that constitutes toilet training, but it's a lot less messy than the alternative.

But enough about poop: what I'm trying to say is that pythons are awesome pets and even better wild animals to have around your house. Our largest snake, Bambi, slept in one of our beds every night, and we all loved it. When my then-girlfriend first saw all 11 feet of Bambi, she first froze and then started shaking like a cartoon character. Within a month she would say things like "I'm going to take a nap. Where's Bambi?" and carry her off to bed so she could coil around her and sap some of the heat out of her. Bambi was the sweetest pet I could imagine, very sociable and invariably friendly. She figured out how to open doors by curling around the doorknob and got out one day when someone left a door unlocked, and after stopping traffic for a while was taken away to the San Antonio Zoo by Animal Control. She may outlive me for all I know.

All I'm saying is pythons are not dangerous to humans if you keep your eyes open and, if you come upon one, you move slowly away from them. Housepets may be another story, but in my opinion that's all worth it if you can walk out of your front door and run into a big python in a tree, or sunning itself on your lawn, or best of all, swimming in a lake or river. Watching a large python swim is absolutely fantastic.

We Should Be Happy They Notice at All, I Guess

Why do celebrities think they can get away with this kind of lame bullsh#t instead of just giving some goddamn money to hurricane relief efforts? I'm sure some of them do, but did you see the interviews with a bunch of the stars who did telethons right after Katrina? They all talked about doing fundraisers, or more telethons. None of them mentioned the fact that if they all pitched in 5% of their pretax 2005 income, New Orleans could be rebuilt 50 feet higher. Out of gold.

First link from Perez Hilton, your one-stop shop for wonderful awful celebrity gossip.

Wow

I did find the Ashley Smith story (where Smith was taken hostage by Brian Nichols after he shot some people in and Atlanta courthouse and later released her, supposedly because she read to him from a religious book called "A Purpose Driven Life") a little unbelievable, but I didn't expect this to be the truth of it.

Good catch, Rogers.

UPDATE: Discussing this with my wife reminded me that it struck me a little strange that Nichols carjacked Smith when she was going to the store for cigarettes at 3 in the morning, or something like that. Sounds like a crackhead thing to do, and apparently it was.

Hey Mencia, Get Your Own Mind

Came across an interesting item on What Would Tyler Durden Do about Joe Rogan's hate for Carlos Mencia, who he says is a joke thief. I can't think of anything worse for a standup to do, and it surprises me because I found Mencia's show pretty funny the couple of times I've seen it. As WWTDD points out, Joe REALLY hates Mencia:

The latest, and most disgusting joke thief off all is a guy named "Carlos Mencia." The REALLY crazy thing, is that's not even his real name.
He sells himself as being mexican, but the reality is his real name is Ned Holness, and he's actually half German and half Honduran.
The mexican hook is something he did to ingratiate himself with the local Mexican population of LA where he started.
Now, normally I wouldn't dedicate so much time to talk about a piece of shit like "ned" on my website, but this stupid motherf*cker talked sh#t about me on the radio, so it's open season for hacks.

Rogan also calls out Dennis Leary for the same thing:

One of the real problems, is that very few comedians stand up for what's right. They might talk about it privately, but very few step up and take a stand. I have before, especially on the subject of Dennis Leary stealing from one of my favorite comedians, the late, great Bill Hicks.
It's commonly known amongst stand ups that Dennis stole a big chunk of Bills act, but amongst the general population it's actually a surprise to a lot of people.
Why? Pretty much because no one that anyone would listen to on the subject stood up and said something about it publicly.
No one defended the integrity of this great art form. They just let a pretender and a hack steal ideas from a great mind. He pretty much got away with it too. He went on to have success in films, and unfortunately, Bill Hicks died of cancer before most people knew who he was or what he had to say.
It really killed me, because I started out a Dennis Leary fan. I remember watching him in Boston, laughing hysterically at his act, thinking it was all his. I was really impressed. For a few months, he was actually my favorite comedian. His jokes on Jim Fix dying while jogging, and how ironic it was that John Lennon was dead, but Barry Manilow continued to pump out albums made me howl.
Then, I saw Hicks, and I really got confused. He was doing the same material, almost word for word that Leary was doing.
I didn't get it. Something was wrong. I was only doing stand up for a few months at the time, so I asked some of the local pros, and they all had the same answer: "Leary is a thief."
I couldn't fucking believe it. How could this be? How could a guy stealing ideas be allowed to perform in these clubs?
The club owners just didn't seem to care. They turned a blind eye, and profited off their hired performer pilfering material from others.

I guess if you're going to steal material, Bill Hicks is the guy to rob, but to me it's that much more of a crime because Hicks was such a comedy God. F*ck Dennis Leary.