Follow the sunny paved road! Follow, follow, follow!
June/2005: Personal - I set out today, a bold adventurer in pursuit of food-stuff, upon a sunny paved road towards a modern-day castle. Beset by other adventurers on all sides, but with a mighty sun in my face... the travel was light, but the events were certainly dire.
It is obvious that the secret to getting a wench is knowing how to whistle. For the bold man in front of me whistled at a female, who turned and looked at him. Why, being able to whistle! How else would a female know of any potential interest if you cannot pucker your lips and make a loud shrill sound? Females are all about us, everywhere. They are not attuned to we males unless we whistle. I have learned this today. They're like animals, who need a high pitched wail to be communicated with. They then hear the noise and think "Why, that ugly 30-something guy in the blue car thinks I'm pretty? I am swooned." That is the way the world works. Learn to whistle.
I then came upon a real man's man. Motorcycles with loud noises mean you're a man. The louder and more annoying, the more male you are. That's the secret. The only downside to the annoying loud motorcycle is that I doubt a female would hear if you whistle. Then again, you're such a man with a really loud... TURQUOISE... motorcycle that you need not whistle, for females will flock to your low rumble.
Eventually the man's man motored away, leaving me behind a person who... yes, had to come to a full stop to take a right turn. I have not myself seen the dangers of the right-hand turn, but apparently they are many. This individual came to a complete stop on a 45 mile an hour road just so he could take a right turn into a parking lot. Now, I, in my rashness... would simply take the right turn by somewhat slowing down and moving the wheel. Apparently this person is more advanced than I, knowing that he needs to take a complete stop. In fact, I believe he has gone around the town, educating other motorists about this important step when taking a simple right turn... for it seems everyone else makes practice of this same skill.
Travelling along, I saw a shirtless overweight man with a purple and blue backpack riding an electric scooter. Not a scooter like a moped, but one of those old "foot push" kid scooters. The kind you used to see kids riding and wonder what was wrong with their parents. This 30-something fat man had sunglasses on. You know, to be cool. I think he would need to whistle very loudly indeed.
Eventually though, I came to my destination. But lo! A monster appeared in the visage of an angry homeless man waving his arms around in the hot parking lot. I snuck past this beast and his bellowing at the world, avoiding his +5 HP attack of beggery.
Then, I came upon my destination. The land of Quiznos. A bountiful land, which while suffering from bad advertisements, is stocked by the most regal and royal foodstuffs. Quickly ordering and paying a tithe to the King of Quiznos, I acquired my bounty, made my way past the begger of doom and navigated my way wence I came, sunshine shining down upon this proud traveller, whose mission was an unqualified success.
Once in my abode, the treasure was unveiled...
The Angus Double Steak and Cheese Sandwich
For it is the greatest sandwich in all the land. Double helping of Angus Steak, double the cheese, peppercorn sauce... all on hefty slabs of toasted white bread. It is the only sandwich worthy of we Meatatarians, superior to all other subs which try to thrust the green slime onto the 'wich, depriving you of the proper serving of steak and cheese that you are entitled to. It is worth the loud man's man, the visage of the shirtless fat man, the whistler and even the monster begger. It is worth all that and more, for there shall never be a greater sandwich in all the land, forevermore.
It is obvious that the secret to getting a wench is knowing how to whistle. For the bold man in front of me whistled at a female, who turned and looked at him. Why, being able to whistle! How else would a female know of any potential interest if you cannot pucker your lips and make a loud shrill sound? Females are all about us, everywhere. They are not attuned to we males unless we whistle. I have learned this today. They're like animals, who need a high pitched wail to be communicated with. They then hear the noise and think "Why, that ugly 30-something guy in the blue car thinks I'm pretty? I am swooned." That is the way the world works. Learn to whistle.
I then came upon a real man's man. Motorcycles with loud noises mean you're a man. The louder and more annoying, the more male you are. That's the secret. The only downside to the annoying loud motorcycle is that I doubt a female would hear if you whistle. Then again, you're such a man with a really loud... TURQUOISE... motorcycle that you need not whistle, for females will flock to your low rumble.
Eventually the man's man motored away, leaving me behind a person who... yes, had to come to a full stop to take a right turn. I have not myself seen the dangers of the right-hand turn, but apparently they are many. This individual came to a complete stop on a 45 mile an hour road just so he could take a right turn into a parking lot. Now, I, in my rashness... would simply take the right turn by somewhat slowing down and moving the wheel. Apparently this person is more advanced than I, knowing that he needs to take a complete stop. In fact, I believe he has gone around the town, educating other motorists about this important step when taking a simple right turn... for it seems everyone else makes practice of this same skill.
Travelling along, I saw a shirtless overweight man with a purple and blue backpack riding an electric scooter. Not a scooter like a moped, but one of those old "foot push" kid scooters. The kind you used to see kids riding and wonder what was wrong with their parents. This 30-something fat man had sunglasses on. You know, to be cool. I think he would need to whistle very loudly indeed.
Eventually though, I came to my destination. But lo! A monster appeared in the visage of an angry homeless man waving his arms around in the hot parking lot. I snuck past this beast and his bellowing at the world, avoiding his +5 HP attack of beggery.
Then, I came upon my destination. The land of Quiznos. A bountiful land, which while suffering from bad advertisements, is stocked by the most regal and royal foodstuffs. Quickly ordering and paying a tithe to the King of Quiznos, I acquired my bounty, made my way past the begger of doom and navigated my way wence I came, sunshine shining down upon this proud traveller, whose mission was an unqualified success.
Once in my abode, the treasure was unveiled...
The Angus Double Steak and Cheese Sandwich
For it is the greatest sandwich in all the land. Double helping of Angus Steak, double the cheese, peppercorn sauce... all on hefty slabs of toasted white bread. It is the only sandwich worthy of we Meatatarians, superior to all other subs which try to thrust the green slime onto the 'wich, depriving you of the proper serving of steak and cheese that you are entitled to. It is worth the loud man's man, the visage of the shirtless fat man, the whistler and even the monster begger. It is worth all that and more, for there shall never be a greater sandwich in all the land, forevermore.
[permalink]
[leave your comment]
The Boycott continues...
June/2005: Sports - This year has marked my re-emerging interest in basketball. I used to be a huge hoophead. Back in the day, I actually had every NBA player's PPG and APG memorized. Every play. I could have told you what Luc Longley's PPG was. Luc f'n Longley. T'was all I would do, play basketball and keep up on NBA news.
Then came Ruben.
Ruben Patterson is the scummiest man in the NBA. There is nobody worse. He makes former player Dennis Rodman look like Captain America. He makes Kobe Bryant seem like a feminist. Ron Artest? The guy deserves a medal for beating up Detroit mutants when compared to Ruben Patterson.
What exactly did Patterson do? Here's a synopsis:
That not bad enough for you?
That's Ruben Patterson. He's scum. It has been nearly four long years of boycotting the Portland Trail-Blazers. Not a dime has gone to anything Blazer-related. Won't even watch the games on TV. The acquiring of Patterson literally destroyed any interest I had in NBA basketball.
This year, however, I started shooting hoops again. Excellent playoff coverage on TNT lured me back to watching non-Blazer basketball teams. I started keeping up on NBA news and when the Blazer's got the third pick... there it was... the opportunity to be rid of Ruben Patterson.
The third pick, while a great pickup, didn't really benefit us. Out of the best four players, two are point guards, a position we don't need with Sebastian Telfair. So when dozens of trade rumblings popped up with the third pick and Patterson being married to any dealing of the third pick in the draft, I started getting excited. I would like to support our basketball team. I want to see a return to big-time Blazer basketball. The options seemed endless when it came to dealing the third pick and Patterson...
And today, we dealt the third pick to Utah.
Patterson was not included in the deal.
With our best trade material gone, there's really little chance to get rid of Ruben Patterson. His contract has a "trade kicker" that makes him hard to get rid of... and nobody wants him to begin with. He's scum. He's a pariah in the league. Utah fans rejoiced when we blinked and didn't keep our demand up that Patterson be dealt with the trade. Chad Ford on ESPN even joked about the relief they can feel now that Ruben "Rape 'em and beat 'em" Patterson won't be in Utah.
It's a complete failure on the part of Portland GM John Nash to actually take into account what is not only good on the court, but good for business. He blinked on a Jazz bluff that if we didn't pull the trigger before the draft, that they'd yank the deal. We received very little in return, a late first round pick and a conditional pick that may not even end up being ours. They're laughing in glee in Utah, while those disaffected Portland fans saw our best chance to be fans again slip away.
From now, there are only two things to be hoped.
1. That we can trade off Patterson somehow, to someone. A long-shot, but there is still some small glimmers of hope.
2. That we make the smart decision and hire Terry Porter, a legend here in Portland, as our next coach.
Both moves would do much to heal the rift between the team and the fans in this city. As Charles Barkley said during the NBA playoffs on TNT, it's a tragedy what the Blazer organization has done to us. There used to be basketball hoops on every street-corner. Blazer tickets used to be the hottest in town. They were being paid to have most of their games air on local TV in prime time... now? Tickets are often turned down, even for free... the games are carried on Comcast's local channel only. Hell, they used to sell Pay-Per-View packages that would include a ton of Blazer games. That's how hot the franchise was in this town, how beloved.
In the years since, the Blazer management have made every bad move possible to destroy the fanbase. It's a fraction of what it used to be. Being Portland's only major-league franchise, the entire town would bleed black, red and white. Autograph signings had lines around the block... now? Nobody gives a damn. The buzz is gone. The love is gone.
Today, the Blazer's once again threw away a big chance to get some love back. There is still a window to be able to do so... but it's closing rapidly. Many of us would rather have a team that loses every single game than one that includes pieces of human shit like Ruben Patterson.
Then came Ruben.
Ruben Patterson is the scummiest man in the NBA. There is nobody worse. He makes former player Dennis Rodman look like Captain America. He makes Kobe Bryant seem like a feminist. Ron Artest? The guy deserves a medal for beating up Detroit mutants when compared to Ruben Patterson.
What exactly did Patterson do? Here's a synopsis:
Seattle SuperSonics forward Ruben Patterson will enter a modified guilty plea to an attempted rape charge in an incident involving his family's nanny, his lawyer said Monday night. The nanny, who cares for the Pattersons' three children, went into a child's bedroom and saw Patterson standing there naked last Sept. 25, according to a suburban Bellevue police report cited by KING-TV. He grabbed her and she had difficulty fighting back because of his size and strength, the Sept. 30 report said. She allegedly got away after performing a sex act on Patterson, the report said. Patterson's wife was not home at the time. Bellevue police spokeswoman Marcia Harnden said Monday night she could confirm police took a report regarding a rape complaint from Patterson's address but she could say nothing more.
That not bad enough for you?
Trail Blazers forward Ruben Patterson was arrested Monday night on a felony domestic assault charge, the latest Portland player in trouble with the law. Tualatin police spokesman Sgt. Doug Nafziger said Patterson was taken into custody after his wife, Shannon, called 911 and said he assaulted her at their home. Nafziger said that when police got to the couple's home Monday evening, ``They found that Mrs. Patterson had minor (injuries).'' The couple's children, ages 2 and 10, were in the house at the time, police said. The presence of the children is enough to boost the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony under Oregon law.
That's Ruben Patterson. He's scum. It has been nearly four long years of boycotting the Portland Trail-Blazers. Not a dime has gone to anything Blazer-related. Won't even watch the games on TV. The acquiring of Patterson literally destroyed any interest I had in NBA basketball.
This year, however, I started shooting hoops again. Excellent playoff coverage on TNT lured me back to watching non-Blazer basketball teams. I started keeping up on NBA news and when the Blazer's got the third pick... there it was... the opportunity to be rid of Ruben Patterson.
The third pick, while a great pickup, didn't really benefit us. Out of the best four players, two are point guards, a position we don't need with Sebastian Telfair. So when dozens of trade rumblings popped up with the third pick and Patterson being married to any dealing of the third pick in the draft, I started getting excited. I would like to support our basketball team. I want to see a return to big-time Blazer basketball. The options seemed endless when it came to dealing the third pick and Patterson...
And today, we dealt the third pick to Utah.
Patterson was not included in the deal.
With our best trade material gone, there's really little chance to get rid of Ruben Patterson. His contract has a "trade kicker" that makes him hard to get rid of... and nobody wants him to begin with. He's scum. He's a pariah in the league. Utah fans rejoiced when we blinked and didn't keep our demand up that Patterson be dealt with the trade. Chad Ford on ESPN even joked about the relief they can feel now that Ruben "Rape 'em and beat 'em" Patterson won't be in Utah.
It's a complete failure on the part of Portland GM John Nash to actually take into account what is not only good on the court, but good for business. He blinked on a Jazz bluff that if we didn't pull the trigger before the draft, that they'd yank the deal. We received very little in return, a late first round pick and a conditional pick that may not even end up being ours. They're laughing in glee in Utah, while those disaffected Portland fans saw our best chance to be fans again slip away.
From now, there are only two things to be hoped.
1. That we can trade off Patterson somehow, to someone. A long-shot, but there is still some small glimmers of hope.
2. That we make the smart decision and hire Terry Porter, a legend here in Portland, as our next coach.
Both moves would do much to heal the rift between the team and the fans in this city. As Charles Barkley said during the NBA playoffs on TNT, it's a tragedy what the Blazer organization has done to us. There used to be basketball hoops on every street-corner. Blazer tickets used to be the hottest in town. They were being paid to have most of their games air on local TV in prime time... now? Tickets are often turned down, even for free... the games are carried on Comcast's local channel only. Hell, they used to sell Pay-Per-View packages that would include a ton of Blazer games. That's how hot the franchise was in this town, how beloved.
In the years since, the Blazer management have made every bad move possible to destroy the fanbase. It's a fraction of what it used to be. Being Portland's only major-league franchise, the entire town would bleed black, red and white. Autograph signings had lines around the block... now? Nobody gives a damn. The buzz is gone. The love is gone.
Today, the Blazer's once again threw away a big chance to get some love back. There is still a window to be able to do so... but it's closing rapidly. Many of us would rather have a team that loses every single game than one that includes pieces of human shit like Ruben Patterson.
Sunny days, the harbringer of lazy haze.
June/2005: General - It was very sunny. PeeJ ran like clockwork. Talked to a detective (Harv is on vacation) and signed her up for Information First. Played with Moxie. Listened to music. Found new city wallpapers. Talked to a reporter who wants a lead on any arrests in her area. Monitored the forums, made some replies. Fucked around with my myspace account. Read a few comics, including the Doctor Spectrum six issue series. Kept up on some of the latest developments with a few cases we're in the midst of working. Watched the latest episode of Bullshit. Ate some steak and three super-pretzels. Watched the ECW PPV. Blogged. Read some Wikipedia. Read some crime library. Researched some forum members to see how much contributor potential they either have or don't have. No TV, oddly enough. And of course, other mundane stuff that I simply can't remember.
That was yesterday and the day before, condensed in no particular order. Positively idyllic.
It's simply been sunny in general. Everything is running pretty smoothly. I can't even find the muster to go get into serious arguments on the forums. Morphine Jim was bitching that there haven't been any flame-wars on the forums in a while. I figured, "this sounds like a job for AngryGerman!" Then went and looked around the forums... I don't have anyone to mock or yell at. Nobody is doing anything all that annoying. Either that, or Erika just stopped telling me about the annoying people. Take your pick.
For the most part, I thrive on strife. Contributors would probably say that I'm most valuable to the site when there's someone to go counter-point, expose or brawl with. Outside of the novelty of "scooping" and ripping up the Blade smear-job, hasn't been a lot to deal with. Sleepy, sunny professional happiness. Beyond a project or two in the works, there isn't much to wake up for.
It's becoming more and more tempting to make history repeat itself. Back when I became overly contented at the Oratory (long before the work that is PeeJ), I sought out just some random website to write whatever I wanted at. That website ended up being ABrokenCrate.com. I simply randomly messaged the owner, showed some samples and got a main-page log-in. Didn't interact with anyone prior, just started writing often. Worked out pretty well, rose some hell out of nowhere with provocative opinions and watched the site grow. It's getting tempting to just find some small site and do it all over again, maybe even with a different online "handle."
For lack of a better term, I'm a willful "hermit" offline. I don't feel like going anywhere or meeting anyone. What has surprised me though is that the same characteristics are bleeding over onto how I use the internet. I have my little schedule of sites to visit, I go to the few... and that's it. Over the last few months, that "schedule" has mostly tightened to simply be Monticello. There's a lot to read on Monticello and keeping up with it is often a job in of itself.
I IM with basically, the same few people each day and the number of people I regularly IM with about non-PeeJ topics is dwindling. Usually it's simply talking to people that IM me about their lives. I've found that people like to talk about their lives, so I sit, listen, offer some advice or empathy and move on. I still haven't decided if all of this is a good or bad thing. I'm sure the social ninnies would consider it unhealthy behavior. Hell, it might even be so. I'm simply not certain. It doesn't feel unhealthy.
Part of me wonders if I'm "institutionalized" myself to this regimen. Like prisoners do, simply becoming numb and robotic to a fixed usually unchanging schedule. In that sense, perhaps it would be smart to "start invisible" and go have a good run writing on some other website. I'd just do it on my blog, but I'd rather not have this blog become well-trafficked. I don't need a bunch of people I don't know coming here and reading my entires. What's the point? After my slash-jobs on Jennifer Good and those idiot pizza delivery boys, I decided not to update with anything non-personal for a while. I even took the entire month of May off in order to get rid of those stragglers that were hanging around for no good reason.
I know of one thing I'd like to concentrate on doing... and that's working on the patience to do medium and long-form writing of fiction. I tried a small one once during my run at Abrokencrate. It wasn't received too well, but it was rather fun to put together. I've been kicking around an idea of a realistic, ideal "heaven" concept for the last couple of years. I was going to actually take the entire premise and create a long-form story out of it on the Oratory. I got about 12 pages into it and decided it was simply too much of a fresh concept to be used in such a limited manner. The concept was good, it was the particulars that I had wrong. It was too literal of a tale.
There are a few things I'd like to write and perhaps doing so under a new handle on another site. Doing so would give me the opportunity to experiment with pouring out "stab-your-eyes" cynical storytelling in a sterile writing environment without snippets of it ending up in a media piece attempting to smear my position with PeeJ, as happened January of this year. Hmm.
Then again, perhaps it's a stupid idea borne out of the lazy haze of overwhelming sunshine.
Regardless, at least it's sunny outside and inside.
That was yesterday and the day before, condensed in no particular order. Positively idyllic.
It's simply been sunny in general. Everything is running pretty smoothly. I can't even find the muster to go get into serious arguments on the forums. Morphine Jim was bitching that there haven't been any flame-wars on the forums in a while. I figured, "this sounds like a job for AngryGerman!" Then went and looked around the forums... I don't have anyone to mock or yell at. Nobody is doing anything all that annoying. Either that, or Erika just stopped telling me about the annoying people. Take your pick.
For the most part, I thrive on strife. Contributors would probably say that I'm most valuable to the site when there's someone to go counter-point, expose or brawl with. Outside of the novelty of "scooping" and ripping up the Blade smear-job, hasn't been a lot to deal with. Sleepy, sunny professional happiness. Beyond a project or two in the works, there isn't much to wake up for.
It's becoming more and more tempting to make history repeat itself. Back when I became overly contented at the Oratory (long before the work that is PeeJ), I sought out just some random website to write whatever I wanted at. That website ended up being ABrokenCrate.com. I simply randomly messaged the owner, showed some samples and got a main-page log-in. Didn't interact with anyone prior, just started writing often. Worked out pretty well, rose some hell out of nowhere with provocative opinions and watched the site grow. It's getting tempting to just find some small site and do it all over again, maybe even with a different online "handle."
For lack of a better term, I'm a willful "hermit" offline. I don't feel like going anywhere or meeting anyone. What has surprised me though is that the same characteristics are bleeding over onto how I use the internet. I have my little schedule of sites to visit, I go to the few... and that's it. Over the last few months, that "schedule" has mostly tightened to simply be Monticello. There's a lot to read on Monticello and keeping up with it is often a job in of itself.
I IM with basically, the same few people each day and the number of people I regularly IM with about non-PeeJ topics is dwindling. Usually it's simply talking to people that IM me about their lives. I've found that people like to talk about their lives, so I sit, listen, offer some advice or empathy and move on. I still haven't decided if all of this is a good or bad thing. I'm sure the social ninnies would consider it unhealthy behavior. Hell, it might even be so. I'm simply not certain. It doesn't feel unhealthy.
Part of me wonders if I'm "institutionalized" myself to this regimen. Like prisoners do, simply becoming numb and robotic to a fixed usually unchanging schedule. In that sense, perhaps it would be smart to "start invisible" and go have a good run writing on some other website. I'd just do it on my blog, but I'd rather not have this blog become well-trafficked. I don't need a bunch of people I don't know coming here and reading my entires. What's the point? After my slash-jobs on Jennifer Good and those idiot pizza delivery boys, I decided not to update with anything non-personal for a while. I even took the entire month of May off in order to get rid of those stragglers that were hanging around for no good reason.
I know of one thing I'd like to concentrate on doing... and that's working on the patience to do medium and long-form writing of fiction. I tried a small one once during my run at Abrokencrate. It wasn't received too well, but it was rather fun to put together. I've been kicking around an idea of a realistic, ideal "heaven" concept for the last couple of years. I was going to actually take the entire premise and create a long-form story out of it on the Oratory. I got about 12 pages into it and decided it was simply too much of a fresh concept to be used in such a limited manner. The concept was good, it was the particulars that I had wrong. It was too literal of a tale.
There are a few things I'd like to write and perhaps doing so under a new handle on another site. Doing so would give me the opportunity to experiment with pouring out "stab-your-eyes" cynical storytelling in a sterile writing environment without snippets of it ending up in a media piece attempting to smear my position with PeeJ, as happened January of this year. Hmm.
Then again, perhaps it's a stupid idea borne out of the lazy haze of overwhelming sunshine.
Regardless, at least it's sunny outside and inside.
A whole bunch of nothing
June/2005: Randomness - Well, first...
Moxie says hello
Nothing has been going on. Beyond PeeJ, my life is very boring. Which is not an altogether bad thing if you're me. Tried to feed Moxie some of the steak I made tonight. She was uninterested. I can't say I wasn't offended, considering the fact that my steak is ten times better than her cat food. Both my cats are odd about food. Whenever the dish is empty, they run around like idiots, hollering in their little cat-ways. It doesn't make any logical sense, hell, even for a cat. When I get hungry, the last thing I want to do is run around and jump on things. It's the furthest thing from my brain. Darting from room to room in a mad dash certainly isn't effective when it comes to getting me to refill their dish, since I think it's kind of amusing to watch Colby run around like an idiot.
Winco has some really great prices. Two bucks for a box of triple chocolate drumsticks. A buck fifty for six "Super pretzels." The only problem I can see with the super pretzel is that there is little to do except dip it in cheese. Most foods I make, I like to be able to experiment with. Perhaps it's Cheesey Steak Tots. Maybe it's Mini-hoagies with italian sausage and cheese. Can't do anything extragant with the pretzel. I was trying to think of things I could do to switch them up and came up empty. Can't put them on bread. Can't mix them with steak, or chicken... there's nothing to be done. The large bread pretzel is truly the loner of all foods.
I'm always amazed when I take up basketball again. I've been playing basketball again over the last few months after a hiatus of about four or five years. You don't lose your shot with basketball. I remember back when I was 19, went to a batting cage with my fiancee of the time. Thought... "Gee, I've played baseball, you don't lose your swing." How wrong I was. Couldn't hit a goddamned thing. Basketball, you step onto the court, shoot and it's all there. Sure, your touch may be a little off, but the mechanics don't really leave you. I can still hit the jumper. I shouldn't be proud of that pointless fact, but I am.
Never realized it, but a basketball is nine pounds when fully inflated. So you play basketball for a couple hours, you're basically throwing around nine pounds a few hundred times. That adds up after awhile. Doesn't seem like it, but you've basically tossed around 2000 pounds by the end of the session, in small increments. That's a ton.
My metabolism is a godsend. If there were any justice in this world, I'd be about 400 pounds. Or at least 300. Or 250. Not even close. Yet I should be. I've lived the most "Tech'd" life possible the last five years. Computer... computer... computer. Eight, ten hours a day. Far more than that when working tech support jobs. Yet in those five years, I've gained less than a hundred pounds... which may seem like a lot, but I started out at 125 pounds. Basically, I've done nothing resembling athletic activity for five years and I gained less than a hundred pounds. It has to be my metabolism that saved me. I never was able to put on weight, because sure I would eat a lot... but I was active. Used to drive me nuts. There's this old picture of me floating around off my old geoshitties website where I literally seem to not have a neck wide enough to support my head. Still, what drove me nuts saved my ass the last five years. Now with a regimen of basketball, I figure I'll be able to finally strike that perfect balance.
The only problem with attempting to is that while I may not have gained a fraction of the weight I should have after my years of nearly continuous computer-use, I sure as hell killed my lungs. The problem with getting back into activity isn't the soreness nor the sweating... hell, not even the tiredness since that's never been too much a concern. It's the loss of wind. You feel like you're sucking hot coals out of a lava pit. The cardio goes out the window. More than toning up, I want to get my cardio back, yet it's the hardest thing to get back. Without being able to get enough oxygen to your muscles, you burn out quickly and have to push it extremely hard to get the results you want. A real pain in the ass considering how much cardio I used to have.
Back when I played basketball each day with my multinational cadre of regulars (A Mexican guy, Chinese guy and Vietnamese guy), we came up with what I now consider to be an idea of hell, although it was fun at the time. Basically, it was a suped-up game of "Crunch." Crunch is an "all vs. all" game that sees the individual who shot last have to defend the individual who rebounded the ball. Make a shot and you get up to three free throws. Miss a shot and you're playing defense while the others rebounded. The vast majority of players, everyone I've ever observed in fact, play Crunch half-court. We didn't. We played Crunch full-court. Doesn't seem like a big deal, right? Crunch is played to 21 in almost all cases, right?
We played to a score of 100.
The games would last three to five hours straight. Up and down... up and down. Think about it, with only four (sometimes five) people, the entire game was a series of fast breaks. Miss the shot and whoever rebounded would be running. So you have to guard him. However, even if you didn't take the shot and just missed the rebound... you're still running. You want to get that rebound. I cannot describe the heartbreak of playing that game two hours straight and then losing 100-95-67-49, with your score being the 95. It was like sprinting a marathon and finishing second by only a few seconds. Now that was cardio. I don't even want that kind of cardio back, just enough so that I don't feel like I'm winded from a few trips up and down the court.
Last "major" entry I wrote about guilty pleasures of the playlist. My TV viewing though has it's own guilty pleasures. For instance, Reno911 shouldn't be nearly as funny as I find it. It should be a dopey cop comedy that is forgettable. Somehow they took that concept and infused it with writers who actually give a damn. Seasons 1 and 2 of Reno911 are funny as hell. The show has the balls to be just politically incorrect enough, without going overboard on it. Otherwise, MTV and VH1 have the worst "guilty pleasure" shows. VH1 had the ridiculous Celebrity Fit Club (Whose finale I still have not seen) and Surreal Life, both of which I've written about before. But MTV has Cribs and Pimp My Ride. I should hate those two shows. I don't. Hell, of all the TV shows on currently, the most I would like to be on is Pimp My Ride. It's a sickness.
Every once in a while I think I should go out and meet someone. But then I think "Why bother?" and that's the end of it. It used to be more of a struggle than that. I used to say "Go out and meet someone interesting, stupid." And then I'd reply "But where would I go? Hmm... and where would there be interesting people? Hmm." Now, it's not even that much of a conversation. "Why bother?" Can't think of a reason to bother. Sure, it'd be nice to have someone to watch movies with, but I don't really want to do any work to accomplish that. Since my definition of "work" socially has slid to an all-time apathetic, I think the only real chance to meet someone will come at say, the grocery stor... well, if someone looks at what I buy to eat, probably not, since it's bachelor to the power of lazy. So no real opportunity. Be nice... but the counter-argument of "Why bother?" is just too persuasive.
This Holloway/Aruba story has annoyed me away from watching the news. Yes, it's sad that the girl is missing. It's sad that she's probably dead. I get that already. It's far more sad, to me, that the story is getting as much attention as it is. If Natilee Holloway was a fat 18 year old, nobody would care. Nobody would pay any attention other than local LE and the family of the kid. Greta wouldn't be zipping over to South Dakota to "check out the places the fat kid has been" and CNN wouldn't be covering it with CNN's usual stupidity. Larry King would not have the girls mother on as a guest. Nobody would care. If it was an autistic kid? Nobody would care. Plain ol' ugly 18 year old? The national media wouldn't care. Much like Laci Peterson, this story is being driven by attractiveness. I just wish criminals would stop killing attractive people, then perhaps I could watch some actual news.
Robert Blake, OJ Simpson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson. What two things do four of these five people have in common?
If you guessed "They're famous and got off", you'd be right.
Scott Peterson's greatest crime is that he wasn't an actor, sports star or musician. Stupid fucker.
The NBA finals is boring. I don't care if the last game was a close, tense game. They're boring. I was rooting for 27 teams to make the finals this year. The only two I weren't rooting for were the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs. Jokes on me, since those are the two teams in the finals. I'd rather see the Hawks play the Bobcats. Detroit is absolutely the most unwatchable team since the Isaiah Thomas-led Pistons of the late eighties and early nineties. Their offense consists of running Rip Hamilton around screens, or watching Chauncy Billups toss up lackluster shot after lackluster shot. The Stockton/Malone Utah Jazz are looking at this team and going "Geez, fuck, this is boring. Fuck." Watching the Spurs play the Pistons reminds me of trying to watch Soccer. the only exciting player is an Italian, and he's not even that exciting.
The fact that we ended up with Pistons/Spurs when we could have had Heat/Suns is as disappointing as basketball gets. It's a heartbreaker. You almost wish for a year-long lockout in the hopes that enough players on the Pistons and Spurs will retire so that an abomination like this can never happen again.
I still haven't spent that check from K.C. Yargh.
Watched ECW One Night Stand tonight. The most striking thing from the whole Pay Per View is that Eric Bischoff is more hardcore than anyone else on that show. This is a guy that goes and works for a man who hated his very being. Then he gets in a ring with someone he fired over the phone. Then he goes on a Pay-Per-View filled with wrestlers and other personalities who he tried to put out of work by undermining the bingo-hall company. Eric Bischoff has big brass nuts.
The other aspect that struck me was that it was odd watching Awesome and Tanaka do those types of moves to each other without being arrested. If I go down the street and punch some guy in the head, once, I can be charged with assault and jailed for up to a year. But Mike Awesome can power-driver (I refuse to call the running Awesome-bomb he did off the apron a "bomb", since he basically tossed Tanaka on his neck through the table) Tanaka through a table and it's legal. Sure, Tanaka is willing... the contrast though, still intrigues me. Even if my neighbor down the street agrees to fight me, it's still illegal for me to punch him in the head. I guess perhaps the entire fight should be pre-arranged, then it'd be okay.
I'd like to see Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe get into a fight, with the stipulation that the loser can't be famous anymore. Just no more. If I didn't know better, I'd believe that Ireland and Australia are having a competition over who can bring forth the biggest moron. Right now I'd say Australia is ahead, but only by a slim margin... which is almost negated by the fact that Crowe can act and therefore has a reason why he should be famous to begin with.
I joined this site called Freecycle. Basically, it's a group of people who offer up stuff they don't want anymore for free. I got a monitor off of it, and it's pretty nice. There are two problems with Freecycle however. The first is ridiculous offerings. I've seen people offer rocks. No, worse than that, condoms. For free. From a stranger. If that doesn't set off your little alarm inside your body that should tell you not to do extremely stupid stuff, what will? If you can't afford a condom, don't have sex. Just don't do it. And if you do it, you should be forced by law to tell your partner, so they can immediately realize that they need to dump your cheap ass. Still, condoms aren't the worst thing I've seen on freecycle. One person offered up tampons and stuffed animals. In the same post. They were both sitting in her closet. I didn't know you females made a practice of keeping those two items together and I kind of wish I didn't know that now.
The other problem with Freecycle is the plethora of idiots posting "Wanted" messages for shit that they have no chance of getting. These idiots are asking for "like-new" air conditioners, digital cameras and other expensive items that people don't just give away. It's not Santacycle. It's not "birthdaycycle." These people aren't your friends. They're good-intentioned people giving away stuff they've replaced that isn't valuable. Sure, you'll find your random old air conditioner or say, used paintball gun... but digital cameras? One idiot actually posted a "wanted" message asking for a car that runs and looks good. It's sad, but each hour my email reminds me that I live in a city full of idiots. Outlook is like a little taunting jerk that says "Look at these stupid people! Look at them! They're within half an hour of you! MUAHAHAHA."
And that is a big reason why the argument of "Why bother?" is so persuasive.
See? Told you it was a whole bunch of nothing. Why'd you even bother clicking?
Moxie says hello
Nothing has been going on. Beyond PeeJ, my life is very boring. Which is not an altogether bad thing if you're me. Tried to feed Moxie some of the steak I made tonight. She was uninterested. I can't say I wasn't offended, considering the fact that my steak is ten times better than her cat food. Both my cats are odd about food. Whenever the dish is empty, they run around like idiots, hollering in their little cat-ways. It doesn't make any logical sense, hell, even for a cat. When I get hungry, the last thing I want to do is run around and jump on things. It's the furthest thing from my brain. Darting from room to room in a mad dash certainly isn't effective when it comes to getting me to refill their dish, since I think it's kind of amusing to watch Colby run around like an idiot.
Winco has some really great prices. Two bucks for a box of triple chocolate drumsticks. A buck fifty for six "Super pretzels." The only problem I can see with the super pretzel is that there is little to do except dip it in cheese. Most foods I make, I like to be able to experiment with. Perhaps it's Cheesey Steak Tots. Maybe it's Mini-hoagies with italian sausage and cheese. Can't do anything extragant with the pretzel. I was trying to think of things I could do to switch them up and came up empty. Can't put them on bread. Can't mix them with steak, or chicken... there's nothing to be done. The large bread pretzel is truly the loner of all foods.
I'm always amazed when I take up basketball again. I've been playing basketball again over the last few months after a hiatus of about four or five years. You don't lose your shot with basketball. I remember back when I was 19, went to a batting cage with my fiancee of the time. Thought... "Gee, I've played baseball, you don't lose your swing." How wrong I was. Couldn't hit a goddamned thing. Basketball, you step onto the court, shoot and it's all there. Sure, your touch may be a little off, but the mechanics don't really leave you. I can still hit the jumper. I shouldn't be proud of that pointless fact, but I am.
Never realized it, but a basketball is nine pounds when fully inflated. So you play basketball for a couple hours, you're basically throwing around nine pounds a few hundred times. That adds up after awhile. Doesn't seem like it, but you've basically tossed around 2000 pounds by the end of the session, in small increments. That's a ton.
My metabolism is a godsend. If there were any justice in this world, I'd be about 400 pounds. Or at least 300. Or 250. Not even close. Yet I should be. I've lived the most "Tech'd" life possible the last five years. Computer... computer... computer. Eight, ten hours a day. Far more than that when working tech support jobs. Yet in those five years, I've gained less than a hundred pounds... which may seem like a lot, but I started out at 125 pounds. Basically, I've done nothing resembling athletic activity for five years and I gained less than a hundred pounds. It has to be my metabolism that saved me. I never was able to put on weight, because sure I would eat a lot... but I was active. Used to drive me nuts. There's this old picture of me floating around off my old geoshitties website where I literally seem to not have a neck wide enough to support my head. Still, what drove me nuts saved my ass the last five years. Now with a regimen of basketball, I figure I'll be able to finally strike that perfect balance.
The only problem with attempting to is that while I may not have gained a fraction of the weight I should have after my years of nearly continuous computer-use, I sure as hell killed my lungs. The problem with getting back into activity isn't the soreness nor the sweating... hell, not even the tiredness since that's never been too much a concern. It's the loss of wind. You feel like you're sucking hot coals out of a lava pit. The cardio goes out the window. More than toning up, I want to get my cardio back, yet it's the hardest thing to get back. Without being able to get enough oxygen to your muscles, you burn out quickly and have to push it extremely hard to get the results you want. A real pain in the ass considering how much cardio I used to have.
Back when I played basketball each day with my multinational cadre of regulars (A Mexican guy, Chinese guy and Vietnamese guy), we came up with what I now consider to be an idea of hell, although it was fun at the time. Basically, it was a suped-up game of "Crunch." Crunch is an "all vs. all" game that sees the individual who shot last have to defend the individual who rebounded the ball. Make a shot and you get up to three free throws. Miss a shot and you're playing defense while the others rebounded. The vast majority of players, everyone I've ever observed in fact, play Crunch half-court. We didn't. We played Crunch full-court. Doesn't seem like a big deal, right? Crunch is played to 21 in almost all cases, right?
We played to a score of 100.
The games would last three to five hours straight. Up and down... up and down. Think about it, with only four (sometimes five) people, the entire game was a series of fast breaks. Miss the shot and whoever rebounded would be running. So you have to guard him. However, even if you didn't take the shot and just missed the rebound... you're still running. You want to get that rebound. I cannot describe the heartbreak of playing that game two hours straight and then losing 100-95-67-49, with your score being the 95. It was like sprinting a marathon and finishing second by only a few seconds. Now that was cardio. I don't even want that kind of cardio back, just enough so that I don't feel like I'm winded from a few trips up and down the court.
Last "major" entry I wrote about guilty pleasures of the playlist. My TV viewing though has it's own guilty pleasures. For instance, Reno911 shouldn't be nearly as funny as I find it. It should be a dopey cop comedy that is forgettable. Somehow they took that concept and infused it with writers who actually give a damn. Seasons 1 and 2 of Reno911 are funny as hell. The show has the balls to be just politically incorrect enough, without going overboard on it. Otherwise, MTV and VH1 have the worst "guilty pleasure" shows. VH1 had the ridiculous Celebrity Fit Club (Whose finale I still have not seen) and Surreal Life, both of which I've written about before. But MTV has Cribs and Pimp My Ride. I should hate those two shows. I don't. Hell, of all the TV shows on currently, the most I would like to be on is Pimp My Ride. It's a sickness.
Every once in a while I think I should go out and meet someone. But then I think "Why bother?" and that's the end of it. It used to be more of a struggle than that. I used to say "Go out and meet someone interesting, stupid." And then I'd reply "But where would I go? Hmm... and where would there be interesting people? Hmm." Now, it's not even that much of a conversation. "Why bother?" Can't think of a reason to bother. Sure, it'd be nice to have someone to watch movies with, but I don't really want to do any work to accomplish that. Since my definition of "work" socially has slid to an all-time apathetic, I think the only real chance to meet someone will come at say, the grocery stor... well, if someone looks at what I buy to eat, probably not, since it's bachelor to the power of lazy. So no real opportunity. Be nice... but the counter-argument of "Why bother?" is just too persuasive.
This Holloway/Aruba story has annoyed me away from watching the news. Yes, it's sad that the girl is missing. It's sad that she's probably dead. I get that already. It's far more sad, to me, that the story is getting as much attention as it is. If Natilee Holloway was a fat 18 year old, nobody would care. Nobody would pay any attention other than local LE and the family of the kid. Greta wouldn't be zipping over to South Dakota to "check out the places the fat kid has been" and CNN wouldn't be covering it with CNN's usual stupidity. Larry King would not have the girls mother on as a guest. Nobody would care. If it was an autistic kid? Nobody would care. Plain ol' ugly 18 year old? The national media wouldn't care. Much like Laci Peterson, this story is being driven by attractiveness. I just wish criminals would stop killing attractive people, then perhaps I could watch some actual news.
Robert Blake, OJ Simpson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson. What two things do four of these five people have in common?
If you guessed "They're famous and got off", you'd be right.
Scott Peterson's greatest crime is that he wasn't an actor, sports star or musician. Stupid fucker.
The NBA finals is boring. I don't care if the last game was a close, tense game. They're boring. I was rooting for 27 teams to make the finals this year. The only two I weren't rooting for were the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs. Jokes on me, since those are the two teams in the finals. I'd rather see the Hawks play the Bobcats. Detroit is absolutely the most unwatchable team since the Isaiah Thomas-led Pistons of the late eighties and early nineties. Their offense consists of running Rip Hamilton around screens, or watching Chauncy Billups toss up lackluster shot after lackluster shot. The Stockton/Malone Utah Jazz are looking at this team and going "Geez, fuck, this is boring. Fuck." Watching the Spurs play the Pistons reminds me of trying to watch Soccer. the only exciting player is an Italian, and he's not even that exciting.
The fact that we ended up with Pistons/Spurs when we could have had Heat/Suns is as disappointing as basketball gets. It's a heartbreaker. You almost wish for a year-long lockout in the hopes that enough players on the Pistons and Spurs will retire so that an abomination like this can never happen again.
I still haven't spent that check from K.C. Yargh.
Watched ECW One Night Stand tonight. The most striking thing from the whole Pay Per View is that Eric Bischoff is more hardcore than anyone else on that show. This is a guy that goes and works for a man who hated his very being. Then he gets in a ring with someone he fired over the phone. Then he goes on a Pay-Per-View filled with wrestlers and other personalities who he tried to put out of work by undermining the bingo-hall company. Eric Bischoff has big brass nuts.
The other aspect that struck me was that it was odd watching Awesome and Tanaka do those types of moves to each other without being arrested. If I go down the street and punch some guy in the head, once, I can be charged with assault and jailed for up to a year. But Mike Awesome can power-driver (I refuse to call the running Awesome-bomb he did off the apron a "bomb", since he basically tossed Tanaka on his neck through the table) Tanaka through a table and it's legal. Sure, Tanaka is willing... the contrast though, still intrigues me. Even if my neighbor down the street agrees to fight me, it's still illegal for me to punch him in the head. I guess perhaps the entire fight should be pre-arranged, then it'd be okay.
I'd like to see Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe get into a fight, with the stipulation that the loser can't be famous anymore. Just no more. If I didn't know better, I'd believe that Ireland and Australia are having a competition over who can bring forth the biggest moron. Right now I'd say Australia is ahead, but only by a slim margin... which is almost negated by the fact that Crowe can act and therefore has a reason why he should be famous to begin with.
I joined this site called Freecycle. Basically, it's a group of people who offer up stuff they don't want anymore for free. I got a monitor off of it, and it's pretty nice. There are two problems with Freecycle however. The first is ridiculous offerings. I've seen people offer rocks. No, worse than that, condoms. For free. From a stranger. If that doesn't set off your little alarm inside your body that should tell you not to do extremely stupid stuff, what will? If you can't afford a condom, don't have sex. Just don't do it. And if you do it, you should be forced by law to tell your partner, so they can immediately realize that they need to dump your cheap ass. Still, condoms aren't the worst thing I've seen on freecycle. One person offered up tampons and stuffed animals. In the same post. They were both sitting in her closet. I didn't know you females made a practice of keeping those two items together and I kind of wish I didn't know that now.
The other problem with Freecycle is the plethora of idiots posting "Wanted" messages for shit that they have no chance of getting. These idiots are asking for "like-new" air conditioners, digital cameras and other expensive items that people don't just give away. It's not Santacycle. It's not "birthdaycycle." These people aren't your friends. They're good-intentioned people giving away stuff they've replaced that isn't valuable. Sure, you'll find your random old air conditioner or say, used paintball gun... but digital cameras? One idiot actually posted a "wanted" message asking for a car that runs and looks good. It's sad, but each hour my email reminds me that I live in a city full of idiots. Outlook is like a little taunting jerk that says "Look at these stupid people! Look at them! They're within half an hour of you! MUAHAHAHA."
And that is a big reason why the argument of "Why bother?" is so persuasive.
See? Told you it was a whole bunch of nothing. Why'd you even bother clicking?
The importance of having Harv
June/2005: PeeJ Stuff - Back in the ol' days, people used to say I don't like anyone. Pre-PeeJ, I didn't like too many people online. Spent time picking people apart in chats, writing negative articles on ABrokenCrate and in general, raising a little havoc in my little haunts of the internet. I doubt there's anyone that would have said prior to everything happening that I should be running some huge national internet organization. Hell, even I would have scoffed at the idea.
PeeJ has always been an experiment. Like I've said in countless interviews, there was not a set plan to be a national organization. Never was an idea to do even a newspaper article. Working with police? Furthest thing from our minds for the first year. The main thing in the mind was to clean up Yahoo! Portland. Once we felt we did that to a great extent, we moved on... not because I wanted us to move on, but rather because the contributors wanted to see what was up in Cali... and then Washington... and then... you get the point.
When we became "big" in August of 2003, nobody was more surprised than I. I was downright shocked. People started asking questions we never had even considered. Law enforcement involvement? Hmm... interesting. Media? Okay... sure. The people poured into the forums and pushed us towards moving in bigger and better directions. Someone had the idea of a phone verification staff. People starting doing what is now known as "FU" on these guys in General Discussion, making a second forum necessary... that got more popular than the main forum!
All of these things occurred because the public, you guys, pushed for them.
Individuals have played a great part in expanding what we do. DMO with technical wizardry. Frag with pure effort and heart in his first year. Phoebus and Beef with backend and frontend improvements. Jay with his creative trolling mind, creating new kinds of profiles. Yet, as much as people should be thankful towards their willing involvement, nobody has had the effect on PeeJ that the person you know as Del Harvey has.
There was no person pushing for LE involvement more than Harv. I had started "Information First" as an idea in early 2004, but didn't put the brunt of my efforts into it. It was small, a victim of my divided attention. It was Del that came along and asked for more work to do, so she got delegated the task of Information First coordinator. The role has suited her to a T. Handling law enforcement requests like a seasoned pro, we can pretty much thank her for solidifying and nailing down over a hundred different agreements with LE across the nation. It's something I could never have done, wouldn't have had the patience for it.
Her ability to step up and handle LE without any hotheadedness remarkably changed the way we do things. Yet, it's beyond that. There could not have been a person created more perfectly to get along with myself in advancement of this endeavor. I'm not by nature a social or friendly person and it takes a very rare person to be trustworthy enough for me to choose to delegate tasks to them. (But woe to they who become so trustworthy, because then they get a ton of tasks delegated :)) Harv was able to ascend the hierarchy of the website quicker than anyone before or prior. It's because she has applied herself to the project as much as anyone can. Thinking proactively, creatively. Coming to me with ideas rather than coming to me asking for ideas. These traits have served our organization well. She is the energetic memory-rich organized ying to my disorganized yang.
There might be those who are cynical and think that I would not praise Harv if I didn't get along with her. It's simply untrue. She has had to prove herself in regards to the site. At first, I thought she might have been some sort of heroin user, since I had pre-judged her as I do everyone I come into contact with, online or off. She not only had to break that pre-judgement, but also had to definite herself through the ranks of thousands upon thousands of new visitors. Perhaps it's not often considered, but think of what it takes to become a PeeJ contributor.
You come into the forums. You have no reputation. Your past accomplishments outside of possible LE employ, are pretty much meaningless. On the day you joined, probably 10-25 other individuals joined the forums as well. So many join that most new users are a blur. Out of 19,000+ forumites, there are only around 30 contributors. Just 30. Almost each and every member of those boards would like to become a contributor, yet at this time, only 30 have been selected. It's hard to imagine a more exclusive position.
The work to become a contributor is done. Then... you have to rise up through the contributor ranks to be delegated those tasks. And that's with the site owner initially thinking there's some hardcore drug use going on, and everyone knows how I feel about hardcore drug users. Not only that, but the opinion of site contributors is also a large factor in someone finally becoming a contributor. Each forumite considered is scrutinized not simply by myself, but by each contributor. Each person looking for a negative, a flaw that would disqualify someone from being invited up. You're not just impressing one person, you're impressing a collective.
It's an accomplishment to make it. It's more than beating out 20 other people for a job... because it is an act of defining yourself amongst thousands of others in order to do something that has no monetary benefit. Then, doing it so well as to change the way the site operates at a core level, all the while picking up early convictions in two different states.
For perhaps what was the most unplanned and unexpected organization in American history, that's invaluable. That's the importance of having Harv. Someone who took a look and decided to establish herself to help build and solidify not only the foundation of our group, but to shape it's focus like a laser on working with law enforcement.
The mad soup that is Perverted-Justice.com is of course more than any one person. Yet certain ingredients factor heavily into the mix and everytime you sample one of our convictions, the work we've done to educate the public... you're getting a large sample of el Del, whose dedication to the website has improved it in vast ways far greater than anything originally imagined.
PeeJ has always been an experiment. Like I've said in countless interviews, there was not a set plan to be a national organization. Never was an idea to do even a newspaper article. Working with police? Furthest thing from our minds for the first year. The main thing in the mind was to clean up Yahoo! Portland. Once we felt we did that to a great extent, we moved on... not because I wanted us to move on, but rather because the contributors wanted to see what was up in Cali... and then Washington... and then... you get the point.
When we became "big" in August of 2003, nobody was more surprised than I. I was downright shocked. People started asking questions we never had even considered. Law enforcement involvement? Hmm... interesting. Media? Okay... sure. The people poured into the forums and pushed us towards moving in bigger and better directions. Someone had the idea of a phone verification staff. People starting doing what is now known as "FU" on these guys in General Discussion, making a second forum necessary... that got more popular than the main forum!
All of these things occurred because the public, you guys, pushed for them.
Individuals have played a great part in expanding what we do. DMO with technical wizardry. Frag with pure effort and heart in his first year. Phoebus and Beef with backend and frontend improvements. Jay with his creative trolling mind, creating new kinds of profiles. Yet, as much as people should be thankful towards their willing involvement, nobody has had the effect on PeeJ that the person you know as Del Harvey has.
There was no person pushing for LE involvement more than Harv. I had started "Information First" as an idea in early 2004, but didn't put the brunt of my efforts into it. It was small, a victim of my divided attention. It was Del that came along and asked for more work to do, so she got delegated the task of Information First coordinator. The role has suited her to a T. Handling law enforcement requests like a seasoned pro, we can pretty much thank her for solidifying and nailing down over a hundred different agreements with LE across the nation. It's something I could never have done, wouldn't have had the patience for it.
Her ability to step up and handle LE without any hotheadedness remarkably changed the way we do things. Yet, it's beyond that. There could not have been a person created more perfectly to get along with myself in advancement of this endeavor. I'm not by nature a social or friendly person and it takes a very rare person to be trustworthy enough for me to choose to delegate tasks to them. (But woe to they who become so trustworthy, because then they get a ton of tasks delegated :)) Harv was able to ascend the hierarchy of the website quicker than anyone before or prior. It's because she has applied herself to the project as much as anyone can. Thinking proactively, creatively. Coming to me with ideas rather than coming to me asking for ideas. These traits have served our organization well. She is the energetic memory-rich organized ying to my disorganized yang.
There might be those who are cynical and think that I would not praise Harv if I didn't get along with her. It's simply untrue. She has had to prove herself in regards to the site. At first, I thought she might have been some sort of heroin user, since I had pre-judged her as I do everyone I come into contact with, online or off. She not only had to break that pre-judgement, but also had to definite herself through the ranks of thousands upon thousands of new visitors. Perhaps it's not often considered, but think of what it takes to become a PeeJ contributor.
You come into the forums. You have no reputation. Your past accomplishments outside of possible LE employ, are pretty much meaningless. On the day you joined, probably 10-25 other individuals joined the forums as well. So many join that most new users are a blur. Out of 19,000+ forumites, there are only around 30 contributors. Just 30. Almost each and every member of those boards would like to become a contributor, yet at this time, only 30 have been selected. It's hard to imagine a more exclusive position.
The work to become a contributor is done. Then... you have to rise up through the contributor ranks to be delegated those tasks. And that's with the site owner initially thinking there's some hardcore drug use going on, and everyone knows how I feel about hardcore drug users. Not only that, but the opinion of site contributors is also a large factor in someone finally becoming a contributor. Each forumite considered is scrutinized not simply by myself, but by each contributor. Each person looking for a negative, a flaw that would disqualify someone from being invited up. You're not just impressing one person, you're impressing a collective.
It's an accomplishment to make it. It's more than beating out 20 other people for a job... because it is an act of defining yourself amongst thousands of others in order to do something that has no monetary benefit. Then, doing it so well as to change the way the site operates at a core level, all the while picking up early convictions in two different states.
For perhaps what was the most unplanned and unexpected organization in American history, that's invaluable. That's the importance of having Harv. Someone who took a look and decided to establish herself to help build and solidify not only the foundation of our group, but to shape it's focus like a laser on working with law enforcement.
The mad soup that is Perverted-Justice.com is of course more than any one person. Yet certain ingredients factor heavily into the mix and everytime you sample one of our convictions, the work we've done to educate the public... you're getting a large sample of el Del, whose dedication to the website has improved it in vast ways far greater than anything originally imagined.
The guilty pleasures of the playlist
June/2005: Music - I like a wide assortment of music. It's really rather ridiculous. Most people have a single genre they prefer, which I imagine makes things easy. Just pick out a band of the genre and you'll probably like them. My tastes have no particular rhyme or reason. There are a number of artists that I enjoy that I can explain. They make sense. Artists past and present, such as Edith Frost, Elliott Smith, Shannon Wright, Jack Johnson, Louis Armstrong, John Lee Hooker, Beck, Johnny Cash... and bands like Azure Ray, The Innocence Mission, Rilo Kiley, Grandaddy, Cake, The Apples in Stereo, Magnetic Fields, Coldplay, Architecture in Helsinki and Zero 7.
All those artists make sense to me. I can pretty much explain and justify all of those groups and artists. It is right that I like them. I should. I'm built for that music. What puzzles me, however, is music I like that I can't explain. That I know I should not like but for whatever various reason, I do like. In some cases, it's music that simply has no redeeming value. In other cases, it's just music that is so different from everything else I listen to that it simply seems out of sort. And then there's those artists who irritate me outside of their music whom I still enjoy listening to.
The Strokes certainly fit under music that has no redeeming value. Lyrics are rather ponderous, it's one of those MTV-generated bands that most people of the mainstream like. I didn't even give them a shot due to all that was going against them until ol' Irish Drunky himself, KJ, suggested them to me back when I was writing for the Oratory. I was rather dismayed to find that I really, really like The Strokes. Songs like Someday, 12:51, You Talk Way Too Much, The End Has No End and others keep cropping up. I know I shouldn't like them. I really shouldn't, but the music is often, really good. The lead singer also has the perfect voice for Rock. It trails along, catchy as hell. Someday is a great example of the guy's ability to just stretch out words perfectly to the background music. Sadly, their second album is about ten times better than their first (At least I think "Is This It?" is their first, I'm not doing research) and they're a young band, so I'm probably going to be listening to them for a while. Yargh.
An artist who I can't stand outside of music but really do like her music is Fiona Apple. She's pretentious, shrill and at the same time, boorish. She has a way that she carries herself which seems very "noses up." Usually I can resist such artists and find a number of things to hate about their music as well. Not really so with Fiona. The most striking example is her cut off the Pleasantville soundtrack, "Across the Universe." It's a fucking Beatle's remake. I can't stand the Beatles. But this repulsive woman's remake of a Beatles song? It's great. Far superior to the original and very striking. When Erika told me about Apple's most recent album being held hostage by her label, who are refusing to release it, I actually was pretty annoyed. Thankfully, I found the tracks that were released. Nothing wrong with them. Perhaps her label can look past her music to punish her for being so annoying, but I'm simply unable to.
I'm Drug and Jesus-free. The idea of doing crack is about as attractive as the idea of believing in El Christian god. I can't stand druggies, and while I usually like Christians, I don't typically enjoy it when they shove it around as though their entire mortal life should be spent bandying it about. So, that makes my enjoyment of Ben Harper all the more annoying. A third of his songs are about being a moron and smoking weed, a third of his songs are plopping down lyrics pimping Jesus and a third are just awesome. Here Comes the Sun, Forever, Have You Ever, She's Only Happy in the Sun, By My Side and best of all, Another Lonely Day (One of my favorite songs ever, at that) are all stellar. Each song he does is a gamble. There's a thirty-three percent chance it will be great. Sixty-six that it will suck. Frustrating.
Phoebus is well-known online for liking ICP. Hell, he even had a review linked off ICP's official website. I have to admit, I marked out just as much for it as he did. No way in hell should I like ICP. They're crude, they're clowns and they're Christian. It shouldn't work. They shouldn't be an entertaining and often socially-relevant band. Yet, they are. As paradoxical as it sounds, songs like Halls of Illusions, The Amazing Maze, Suicide HOtline and a number of others are simply great listens. You never know what to expect from one of their songs in the way of beats and lyrics. So far, they're the only rap band that is even close to being relevant in a quarter of their songs.
Like I said in the top paragraph, my tastes sometimes know little rhyme or reason. ICP is crude and Christian... then on the other hand, another band that I have no business enjoying is just about as opposite ICP as any band could be. Death Cab for Cutie is the patron saint of all emo bands, and the vast majority of what is stupidily referred to as "Emo" sucks... but I like DCfC. Take for example, All is Full of Love. What a stupid, stupid song title. That song should be majorly shit. Yet, I like it. The lead singer even has what is often an annoying voice. Yet... I like it. That's the most audacious example out of their music library. The Sound of Settling is a pretty bad example as well, since "Bop-ba!" is NOT the sound of settling. The sound of settling is a daily, almost unhearable, sigh. Bop-ba! is not the sound of settlign. Still, like the song. No sane reason why. Though I dare anyone to dislike "A Lack of Color", because that song actually does make sense. Dammit.
The White Stripes fall into much the same category as The Strokes. They only merit inclusion here because of just how much I like the White Stripes. I like them far better than The Strokes, and I shouldn't. At all. They're another MTV band, and the lead singer is an awfully pretentious asshole. Someone from the Oratory once told me about a concert she went to where they stopped playing and refused to continue because the crowd wasn't being loud enough. That's fucking annoying. The crowd SHOULD be quiet. They SHOULD listen to the music, prick. Still, "You've Got Her in Your Pocket" is a fucking awesome, simple, song. Even some of the songs where their lyrics make absolutely... absolutely zero sense, I like. Black Math? C'mon. Get out of here with those lyrics. Still, I really like the song. Their sound breaks through my dark cynicism. Just something about their general sound that appeals. It's simple, it's sparse. It's not overly complicated and flush with instrumentation that isn't needed.
A band that utterly defies description (Oh snap!) is The Postal Service. The band's sound is like taking the sound to Sigur Ros, the soundtrack to any NES game and the voice of the guy from DCfC and putting it all into a big fuckin' blender. The songs are generally odd too, like Clark Gable or Brand New COlony. I like just about everything they've done, and the only song of any of them that makes even remote sense is "This Place is a Prison" because it doesn't really sound like anything else they've done. In fact, few of their songs sound like anything else they've ever done, yet all of the songs just like their music.
There's a song, eight minutes and 45 seconds long... called The Mariner's Revenge Song that tells the story of a poor kid, father dead, left with a mother who ended up meeting a dickhead who screwed over the family with gambling arrears causing the family to lose their house, with the mother then going crazy and dying... who embarks on a sea mission of a revenge against the rogue, a mariner. It's awesome. Just like nearly everything The Decemberists have done. Songs as goofy and odd as Eli The Barrow Boy, 16 Military Wives, Apology Song, The Chimbley Sweep and others are all damn entertaining. None of them have any real relevance, they're just all little odd songs that tell these little odd stories that bear no resemblance to any real happenings, ever. The lead singer has a very unique and solid voice for the sound too, just a perfectly put together band. Few rock bands bust out the accordion as appropriately as these guys do.
Worst of all though... and they're definitely worst of all the bands I like, the fucking Black Eyed Peas. Really, just the fucking Black Eyed Peas. It's bullshit. I'm absolutely fucking ashamed of liking them. Absolutely. But I can't help it. They're so fucking audacious and well put-together. The sounds just come out of nowhere. It's what I like about Shaggy of a lot of ICP's work, all of a sudden there's just some random funky scream, lyric or beat that just doesn't belong. The Black Eyed Peas took a long time to infect my music collection, as it took seeing that fucking Best Buy commercial a thousand times and hearing the real version of "Let's get it started" with the proper lyrics before I gave up and decided to simply deal with them. Any band that can have a hook advocating people to "Let's Get retarded" and to "bop your head like epiepsy" is too self-irreverent to not halt lyrical hatred towards. There's quite a few of their songs that I don't like because they're simply too atrocious, but tracks like Shut Up, Pump It (Can't resist that beat. It shouldn't work mixed with the background of the main pulp fiction track... but it's too fucking infectious) and Dum Diddy have absolutely no right to be listenable, but they seem to work for me. It's absolutely incomprehensible. Thankfully 70% of their songs are not anything I'd listen to often, still, 30% is far too much as it is.
I really would like to see studies that try to, on some level, explain why people like the music they do. I've thought it over in general and there's nothing that makes much sense. My mother used to always play "new country", which for whatever reason, I've always hated. But my grandfather used to play "old country" (Cash, Hank Williams Sr) that I like quite a bit. Doesn't make sense that music that isn't that much different in sound could change my opinion from liking to revulsion. I've also met people who I've thought to myself... "Yeah, this person will like this type of music... it fits their personality" only to find they like crap like eighties rock or "smooth jazz." Or music that I as well like, but wouldn't expect they to enjoy. Since the government enjoys throwing cash for tests on such mundane things as the effect of zero-gravity on ladybugs, why not a test or two trying to figure out why music tastes can differ so wildly? At least then I'd have an excuse for some of the tastes I do have. Perhaps a music gene, because hey... they try to blame everything else about our lives on genes as it is. Makes an easy scapegoat.
It really has to be easier for those that like a specific genre and stick to it. Less self-confliction all the way around.
All those artists make sense to me. I can pretty much explain and justify all of those groups and artists. It is right that I like them. I should. I'm built for that music. What puzzles me, however, is music I like that I can't explain. That I know I should not like but for whatever various reason, I do like. In some cases, it's music that simply has no redeeming value. In other cases, it's just music that is so different from everything else I listen to that it simply seems out of sort. And then there's those artists who irritate me outside of their music whom I still enjoy listening to.
The Strokes certainly fit under music that has no redeeming value. Lyrics are rather ponderous, it's one of those MTV-generated bands that most people of the mainstream like. I didn't even give them a shot due to all that was going against them until ol' Irish Drunky himself, KJ, suggested them to me back when I was writing for the Oratory. I was rather dismayed to find that I really, really like The Strokes. Songs like Someday, 12:51, You Talk Way Too Much, The End Has No End and others keep cropping up. I know I shouldn't like them. I really shouldn't, but the music is often, really good. The lead singer also has the perfect voice for Rock. It trails along, catchy as hell. Someday is a great example of the guy's ability to just stretch out words perfectly to the background music. Sadly, their second album is about ten times better than their first (At least I think "Is This It?" is their first, I'm not doing research) and they're a young band, so I'm probably going to be listening to them for a while. Yargh.
An artist who I can't stand outside of music but really do like her music is Fiona Apple. She's pretentious, shrill and at the same time, boorish. She has a way that she carries herself which seems very "noses up." Usually I can resist such artists and find a number of things to hate about their music as well. Not really so with Fiona. The most striking example is her cut off the Pleasantville soundtrack, "Across the Universe." It's a fucking Beatle's remake. I can't stand the Beatles. But this repulsive woman's remake of a Beatles song? It's great. Far superior to the original and very striking. When Erika told me about Apple's most recent album being held hostage by her label, who are refusing to release it, I actually was pretty annoyed. Thankfully, I found the tracks that were released. Nothing wrong with them. Perhaps her label can look past her music to punish her for being so annoying, but I'm simply unable to.
I'm Drug and Jesus-free. The idea of doing crack is about as attractive as the idea of believing in El Christian god. I can't stand druggies, and while I usually like Christians, I don't typically enjoy it when they shove it around as though their entire mortal life should be spent bandying it about. So, that makes my enjoyment of Ben Harper all the more annoying. A third of his songs are about being a moron and smoking weed, a third of his songs are plopping down lyrics pimping Jesus and a third are just awesome. Here Comes the Sun, Forever, Have You Ever, She's Only Happy in the Sun, By My Side and best of all, Another Lonely Day (One of my favorite songs ever, at that) are all stellar. Each song he does is a gamble. There's a thirty-three percent chance it will be great. Sixty-six that it will suck. Frustrating.
Phoebus is well-known online for liking ICP. Hell, he even had a review linked off ICP's official website. I have to admit, I marked out just as much for it as he did. No way in hell should I like ICP. They're crude, they're clowns and they're Christian. It shouldn't work. They shouldn't be an entertaining and often socially-relevant band. Yet, they are. As paradoxical as it sounds, songs like Halls of Illusions, The Amazing Maze, Suicide HOtline and a number of others are simply great listens. You never know what to expect from one of their songs in the way of beats and lyrics. So far, they're the only rap band that is even close to being relevant in a quarter of their songs.
Like I said in the top paragraph, my tastes sometimes know little rhyme or reason. ICP is crude and Christian... then on the other hand, another band that I have no business enjoying is just about as opposite ICP as any band could be. Death Cab for Cutie is the patron saint of all emo bands, and the vast majority of what is stupidily referred to as "Emo" sucks... but I like DCfC. Take for example, All is Full of Love. What a stupid, stupid song title. That song should be majorly shit. Yet, I like it. The lead singer even has what is often an annoying voice. Yet... I like it. That's the most audacious example out of their music library. The Sound of Settling is a pretty bad example as well, since "Bop-ba!" is NOT the sound of settling. The sound of settling is a daily, almost unhearable, sigh. Bop-ba! is not the sound of settlign. Still, like the song. No sane reason why. Though I dare anyone to dislike "A Lack of Color", because that song actually does make sense. Dammit.
The White Stripes fall into much the same category as The Strokes. They only merit inclusion here because of just how much I like the White Stripes. I like them far better than The Strokes, and I shouldn't. At all. They're another MTV band, and the lead singer is an awfully pretentious asshole. Someone from the Oratory once told me about a concert she went to where they stopped playing and refused to continue because the crowd wasn't being loud enough. That's fucking annoying. The crowd SHOULD be quiet. They SHOULD listen to the music, prick. Still, "You've Got Her in Your Pocket" is a fucking awesome, simple, song. Even some of the songs where their lyrics make absolutely... absolutely zero sense, I like. Black Math? C'mon. Get out of here with those lyrics. Still, I really like the song. Their sound breaks through my dark cynicism. Just something about their general sound that appeals. It's simple, it's sparse. It's not overly complicated and flush with instrumentation that isn't needed.
A band that utterly defies description (Oh snap!) is The Postal Service. The band's sound is like taking the sound to Sigur Ros, the soundtrack to any NES game and the voice of the guy from DCfC and putting it all into a big fuckin' blender. The songs are generally odd too, like Clark Gable or Brand New COlony. I like just about everything they've done, and the only song of any of them that makes even remote sense is "This Place is a Prison" because it doesn't really sound like anything else they've done. In fact, few of their songs sound like anything else they've ever done, yet all of the songs just like their music.
There's a song, eight minutes and 45 seconds long... called The Mariner's Revenge Song that tells the story of a poor kid, father dead, left with a mother who ended up meeting a dickhead who screwed over the family with gambling arrears causing the family to lose their house, with the mother then going crazy and dying... who embarks on a sea mission of a revenge against the rogue, a mariner. It's awesome. Just like nearly everything The Decemberists have done. Songs as goofy and odd as Eli The Barrow Boy, 16 Military Wives, Apology Song, The Chimbley Sweep and others are all damn entertaining. None of them have any real relevance, they're just all little odd songs that tell these little odd stories that bear no resemblance to any real happenings, ever. The lead singer has a very unique and solid voice for the sound too, just a perfectly put together band. Few rock bands bust out the accordion as appropriately as these guys do.
Worst of all though... and they're definitely worst of all the bands I like, the fucking Black Eyed Peas. Really, just the fucking Black Eyed Peas. It's bullshit. I'm absolutely fucking ashamed of liking them. Absolutely. But I can't help it. They're so fucking audacious and well put-together. The sounds just come out of nowhere. It's what I like about Shaggy of a lot of ICP's work, all of a sudden there's just some random funky scream, lyric or beat that just doesn't belong. The Black Eyed Peas took a long time to infect my music collection, as it took seeing that fucking Best Buy commercial a thousand times and hearing the real version of "Let's get it started" with the proper lyrics before I gave up and decided to simply deal with them. Any band that can have a hook advocating people to "Let's Get retarded" and to "bop your head like epiepsy" is too self-irreverent to not halt lyrical hatred towards. There's quite a few of their songs that I don't like because they're simply too atrocious, but tracks like Shut Up, Pump It (Can't resist that beat. It shouldn't work mixed with the background of the main pulp fiction track... but it's too fucking infectious) and Dum Diddy have absolutely no right to be listenable, but they seem to work for me. It's absolutely incomprehensible. Thankfully 70% of their songs are not anything I'd listen to often, still, 30% is far too much as it is.
I really would like to see studies that try to, on some level, explain why people like the music they do. I've thought it over in general and there's nothing that makes much sense. My mother used to always play "new country", which for whatever reason, I've always hated. But my grandfather used to play "old country" (Cash, Hank Williams Sr) that I like quite a bit. Doesn't make sense that music that isn't that much different in sound could change my opinion from liking to revulsion. I've also met people who I've thought to myself... "Yeah, this person will like this type of music... it fits their personality" only to find they like crap like eighties rock or "smooth jazz." Or music that I as well like, but wouldn't expect they to enjoy. Since the government enjoys throwing cash for tests on such mundane things as the effect of zero-gravity on ladybugs, why not a test or two trying to figure out why music tastes can differ so wildly? At least then I'd have an excuse for some of the tastes I do have. Perhaps a music gene, because hey... they try to blame everything else about our lives on genes as it is. Makes an easy scapegoat.
It really has to be easier for those that like a specific genre and stick to it. Less self-confliction all the way around.
Do the Big Money Hustla-hustle!
June/2005: PeeJ Stuff - Finally! I done finally got muthafuckin' paid! All this time doing PeeJ stuff, and the money is finally flowing in like sugar in Candyland. It's been a long, long struggle, but volunteering for the site has finally paid off, and not only paid off... but in spades! It's such a big deal that I actually charged the batteries on my digital camera in order to take a picture of the check for proof.
DO THE BIG MONEY HUSTLE!
Feel that scrizzle flava. Yeah baby, that's a zero next to that 1. We're talking double-digits here. I earned each and every one of those dollars (Even dollar number seven) by going to Kansas and testifying against Spongebob_Giantdick. Though... I didn't actually end up having to testify. That just makes the manna money even more pimptastic. Thank you, Mr. Giantdick, for providing me the opportunity to...
Shit, what am I going to do with my newfound bounty?
Hmm. There are quite a few options, after all. I think I'll discuss the options in my new Blog-feature called "options for my faux-testimony money." I have to give it some sort of official name, obviously.
My blog presents... *drumroll*...
Options for my faux-Testimony money A. Well, there's always the first thing I thought of, which is Taco Bell. Not only will ten dollars cover the cost of Taco Bell for me, but it will actually cover the cost two-and-a-half times. That means we're talking... FOUR spicy chicken burritos and FOUR double decker tacos. Plus like... a buck left over. The only con to this option is that I'd be eating food that originated, indirectly, from a guy named spongebob_giantdick. Creepy.
B. Combine it with five bucks and buy a six-channel soundcard. I've been meaning to upgrade my soundcard for almost a couple years now. I have two channel audio and a six speaker system. Pretty lazy not to upgrade. Only problem with doing that is that I don't really play my music that loud to begin with, so why have six channel sound? To string some speakers behind my head? Hmm.
C. Save it. HAHAHAHA. Right. I know me better than that.
D. A box of Fancyfeast for the cats. I saw a box at Winco today for ten bucks, 12 or 24 cans of Fancyfeast. Can't remember which amount. The major con is that they usually bat around Fancyfeast cans until I feed them some. Otherwise, I just like feeding my cats Fancyfeast. It's such a Grey Poupon thing to do.
E. Find someone and go to the Kennedy to watch a movie and eat some pizza. The major con to this is finding someone I would want to go with. Seems like I shouldn't have to perform work in order to spend money.
That's good enough. Four decent options and a joke. Regardless of what I do with my newfound bounty, I'll be better off than ol' Robbie Francis, because hey, I'm eight years younger, not a internet predator and ten dollars richer, big money hustla style.
DO THE BIG MONEY HUSTLE!
Feel that scrizzle flava. Yeah baby, that's a zero next to that 1. We're talking double-digits here. I earned each and every one of those dollars (Even dollar number seven) by going to Kansas and testifying against Spongebob_Giantdick. Though... I didn't actually end up having to testify. That just makes the manna money even more pimptastic. Thank you, Mr. Giantdick, for providing me the opportunity to...
Shit, what am I going to do with my newfound bounty?
Hmm. There are quite a few options, after all. I think I'll discuss the options in my new Blog-feature called "options for my faux-testimony money." I have to give it some sort of official name, obviously.
My blog presents... *drumroll*...
B. Combine it with five bucks and buy a six-channel soundcard. I've been meaning to upgrade my soundcard for almost a couple years now. I have two channel audio and a six speaker system. Pretty lazy not to upgrade. Only problem with doing that is that I don't really play my music that loud to begin with, so why have six channel sound? To string some speakers behind my head? Hmm.
C. Save it. HAHAHAHA. Right. I know me better than that.
D. A box of Fancyfeast for the cats. I saw a box at Winco today for ten bucks, 12 or 24 cans of Fancyfeast. Can't remember which amount. The major con is that they usually bat around Fancyfeast cans until I feed them some. Otherwise, I just like feeding my cats Fancyfeast. It's such a Grey Poupon thing to do.
E. Find someone and go to the Kennedy to watch a movie and eat some pizza. The major con to this is finding someone I would want to go with. Seems like I shouldn't have to perform work in order to spend money.
That's good enough. Four decent options and a joke. Regardless of what I do with my newfound bounty, I'll be better off than ol' Robbie Francis, because hey, I'm eight years younger, not a internet predator and ten dollars richer, big money hustla style.
The Pinnacle of the Internet
June/2005: Current Events - In the series of comics that constitute the graphic novel "Watchmen", a vigilante character named Rorschach is captured by the police. Prior to his trial, he has to meet with a state psychologist to determine whether he is fit to stand trial. Sessions are blase, with Rorschach giving bland answers to a rorschach test performed upon him. During the final session, he finally comes clean about what he sees. A dog. With it's head split open. The character then proceeds to tell a tale of trying to track down an abducted child and finding the perpetrator of the abduction, who fed her body to his dogs. The noteworthy part was how "normal" and common the male was, and how these things occur nearly everyday. It's a powerful issue which my description doesn't do justice.
I'm not nearly as dramatic as Alan Moore, but I can relate to the point of that story. No, not because of some split-open carcasses, but rather a message board. I call it "The Pinnacle of the Internet" because once you truly experience it, you know that humanity is doomed. We're doomed. The human race cannot be "saved", and we're on a long spiral to ape-ism. There is no hope. It is literally, the most disturbing thing on the internet. Nothing else can really touch it. You can go look at your gore-fest sites, the beheading videos, the bangbus type of rape-porn... you can go do that all day. When I hear of those, sure, they're disturbing, but it's just male-freaks that like that shit. However, this lone message board crosses all social and economic lines. Posters of all types partake in it. It is the single most disturbing thing on the entire internet, yet, it spawns an addiction to check every-so-often, because it beckons as the ultimate proof of the folly of man.
Witness: The Michael Jackson Fan Club Message Boards.
Now, I know, you're probably thinking I overhyped it. Sure, there are weird Michael Jackson fans. "What does that matter?", you may ask... "I see these freaks dancing on TV all the time." And it may be true. Perhaps you did witness some of these freaks on short TV clips. However, that's not the reality of the Michael Jackson Fan Club message boards. At first, I had the same reaction as you. Then I read, oh, a couple hundred posts over the last couple months.
Do so, and your outlook on life will change. It will become more bleak. If you wish to continue being a happy, "Humanity is so great" type of person, stop reading now. I'm not responsible for any potential permanent change in your outlook on life, I'm just the messenger. Here's some great examples of just what I'm talking about. I don't need to add much commentary, it speaks for itself.
Thread: I would sleep in MJ's bed
Posts from the same thread:
These people have jobs, one of them might be working next to you right now. These aren't people all locked away in psychiatric institutions (Though they should be), these are flesh and blood, regular humans, who probably were raised much like you. They walk around... they have brains. They probably have children. And they would sleep in Michael Jackson's bed. This is 2005. I can see people being so... there's not a word for it. Stupid doesn't quite fit, disturbed doesn't either. Still, couple hundred years ago... maybe. But it's 2005. These people should not exist.
Thread: Will You Please Fast On Monday For Mj
Post from the same thread:
These people exist. They're real. I'm not making them up. You could fall in love with one, without knowing it. It could happen. You could meet this nice female or male, they could be well-adjusted in every other way. Then, one night, after you've moved in together, you make the mistake of checking their internet history. You find that the cookie still has you logged in. She/He fasted two months ago for Michael Jackson. This could happen to you. Because we live in a society that breeds these people.
Thread: Who likes MJ's looks??
Posts from the same thread:
The internet does not get any scarier.
Racist conspiracies against MJ? Oh yeah.
Psychics seeing the future? Oh yeah.
Site's exploiting children set up by these freaks? Oh yeah.
Thread: Michael Jackson had sex when he was 10!
Yep.
Michael Jackson is a member of the Nation of Islam. So you'd expect that this would be a bunch of bow-tied black people screaming about racism. But other than one thread, not really. The board is populated by a cadre of white Christians.
Thread: Prayer Warriors
HE IS MUSLIM. HE'S MUSLIM!
From the same thread:
The breastplate of righteousness. I can't make this shit up.
Ever notice when people wish to defend a pedophile, they couch it in civil rights? Very creepy.
Not only is Michael Jackson not Christian, but he's not black. Still, that fact is lost on those thinking an international Jewish/KKK conspiracy is behind the problems facing Michael Jackson. Seriously, these people walk amongst us. They might be handling your insurance or marrying your kid at a future date. Never know. They have threads talking about possibly committing suicide if he's found guilty, encouraging a teen boy to run away from his parents if they prevent him from listening to Michael and other creepy threads where they talk about Jackson as though he's some sort of messiah. If you like to get drunk on stupidity, this forum is 100% intoxicating.
The point is though, look at these people. They're akin to those who followed Charles Manson. The cult of celebrity has become so pervasive that it has spawned a society where the average person isn't much unlike these creepy Michael Jackson fans. Whether it's males obsessing over Lindsey Lohan, fat older females clamouring for Clay Aiken, or ignorant females talking about wanting to make Ludacris their "boo", society is gone. Arrivederci!
Read those posts and threads. If you're not resigned to a society on the decline and the worthlessness of mankind, then you're just either not paying enough attention, or are very happy with whatever drug of choice you take to be able to ignore these people. This is the pinnacle of the internet. It doesn't get any worse or more revealing about the nature of people in our society than that creepy cadre of freaks. Realize that our blue orb is infested with these freaks, perhaps not to this degree, but the elements are there in almost all of us. We're fucked. There is no god. There is no salvation. "Stupid" is everywhere, all around us. Growing in both number and boldness. And nothing will ever impede the rate of expansion. It is hopeless.
Have a nice lunch.
I'm not nearly as dramatic as Alan Moore, but I can relate to the point of that story. No, not because of some split-open carcasses, but rather a message board. I call it "The Pinnacle of the Internet" because once you truly experience it, you know that humanity is doomed. We're doomed. The human race cannot be "saved", and we're on a long spiral to ape-ism. There is no hope. It is literally, the most disturbing thing on the internet. Nothing else can really touch it. You can go look at your gore-fest sites, the beheading videos, the bangbus type of rape-porn... you can go do that all day. When I hear of those, sure, they're disturbing, but it's just male-freaks that like that shit. However, this lone message board crosses all social and economic lines. Posters of all types partake in it. It is the single most disturbing thing on the entire internet, yet, it spawns an addiction to check every-so-often, because it beckons as the ultimate proof of the folly of man.
Witness: The Michael Jackson Fan Club Message Boards.
Now, I know, you're probably thinking I overhyped it. Sure, there are weird Michael Jackson fans. "What does that matter?", you may ask... "I see these freaks dancing on TV all the time." And it may be true. Perhaps you did witness some of these freaks on short TV clips. However, that's not the reality of the Michael Jackson Fan Club message boards. At first, I had the same reaction as you. Then I read, oh, a couple hundred posts over the last couple months.
Do so, and your outlook on life will change. It will become more bleak. If you wish to continue being a happy, "Humanity is so great" type of person, stop reading now. I'm not responsible for any potential permanent change in your outlook on life, I'm just the messenger. Here's some great examples of just what I'm talking about. I don't need to add much commentary, it speaks for itself.
Thread: I would sleep in MJ's bed
Michael Jackson is so precious. I am a straight 25 year old male and I would sleep in MJ's bed if he invited me to come to Neverland. He is such a nice man and I feel sorry for him in this trial. All he wants to do is love kids, what is so wrong with that. Why does everybody make him out to be a monster. More people in the world should be like MJ, then maybe that way their would be less child abuse in the world. I know he is innocent of his supposed crimes
Posts from the same thread:
I would sleep in MJ's bed also. All it is is innocent love.
I love you Michael!!!
I love you Michael!!!
your words are true mike we love you when i was young we used to have bunk beds same bedroom as my brothers so when friends came round sleep on floor same when i went to friends but today in this world so much hatred sick minds jelouis of people nothing better to do with there lives sad yes i would sleep at neverland in a flash to be a child again no worrys not think about this and that to let your self go freedom and i hope he wins next week i want to be there in santa maria to support him cause hes hurting with them evil people ill be watching we need our king of pop back
he is so innocent but the world is so nasty that's why they treat him like a monster when he shows all his love to children.people even don't believe it is true that a man can love children so much.
I'm just not getting that piece about bed-sharing being so inappropriate???? You all are right, people turn innocence and sweetness and love and tender feelings into something evil because they cannot understand how innocence can exist. I also agree, if more children had the love and affection of someone that they need, it would be a better world for them.
I'd sleep in Michael's BED!!!! LOL OK, fine... I probably wouldn't get a winks sleep because I would have to sit up and just stare at him!" You're right, Andrew! It would be impossible FOR ME!
These people have jobs, one of them might be working next to you right now. These aren't people all locked away in psychiatric institutions (Though they should be), these are flesh and blood, regular humans, who probably were raised much like you. They walk around... they have brains. They probably have children. And they would sleep in Michael Jackson's bed. This is 2005. I can see people being so... there's not a word for it. Stupid doesn't quite fit, disturbed doesn't either. Still, couple hundred years ago... maybe. But it's 2005. These people should not exist.
Thread: Will You Please Fast On Monday For Mj
Will You Please Fast On Monday For Mj
HELLO EVERYONE….God knows how hard these days are for all of us,I feel I need support from every and each one of our big family(the fans)
I thought so hard of what we can do to help OUR ANGEL,since I live so far away,there’s no way I can go to the court house.
So I thought if we all fast on Monday ,that would be great.it doesn’t matter what religion each belongs to.let’s fast all together for MJ.
I also thought if we can make a united prayer through the net,so we can pray all together.but I don’t know how to make that happen…if we set a time so we can be all together praying ,that would be wonderful.
MICHAEL needs us ,let’s not give up on him.
I’ll fast Monday asking God to make his innocence prevail.and I hope you do too…
One heart,one prayer.together we won’t be denied
Thank you all.
HELLO EVERYONE….God knows how hard these days are for all of us,I feel I need support from every and each one of our big family(the fans)
I thought so hard of what we can do to help OUR ANGEL,since I live so far away,there’s no way I can go to the court house.
So I thought if we all fast on Monday ,that would be great.it doesn’t matter what religion each belongs to.let’s fast all together for MJ.
I also thought if we can make a united prayer through the net,so we can pray all together.but I don’t know how to make that happen…if we set a time so we can be all together praying ,that would be wonderful.
MICHAEL needs us ,let’s not give up on him.
I’ll fast Monday asking God to make his innocence prevail.and I hope you do too…
One heart,one prayer.together we won’t be denied
Thank you all.
Post from the same thread:
That is a wonderful idea, I will fast on monday. What a small price to go without food compared to the price MJ has paid over all these years to bring us joy. By fasting we can show how serious we pray and Love MJ. This is our day and in the name of Jesus Christ Michael will walk away from that court room a free man! Because he is INNOCENT and the devil is a liar!
These people exist. They're real. I'm not making them up. You could fall in love with one, without knowing it. It could happen. You could meet this nice female or male, they could be well-adjusted in every other way. Then, one night, after you've moved in together, you make the mistake of checking their internet history. You find that the cookie still has you logged in. She/He fasted two months ago for Michael Jackson. This could happen to you. Because we live in a society that breeds these people.
Thread: Who likes MJ's looks??
If you ask me, I do. All through the years Michael has been very cute or otherwise hot. Even today I think so. I have pictures all over my room of when he was little and of today and he looks good in every single one of them.
Angel
Angel
Posts from the same thread:
I DO!!!! I think mj is DAMN SEXY!!!
He looks amazing!! I think he's cute, adorable, hot, handsome and sexy!!
Of course like always i totally agree. He is hotter than anyone i know!!!! he's more than hot! !
YES!! I think he looks great now! Especially when he's smiling and looks really happy. I love his beautiful smile and his sweet eyes and his sexy dancer's body. I love his lips too and his cute butt!
The internet does not get any scarier.
Racist conspiracies against MJ? Oh yeah.
Psychics seeing the future? Oh yeah.
Site's exploiting children set up by these freaks? Oh yeah.
Thread: Michael Jackson had sex when he was 10!
i wish mj had sex with me when i was 10
HAHAHAHA omg me too
Yep.
Michael Jackson is a member of the Nation of Islam. So you'd expect that this would be a bunch of bow-tied black people screaming about racism. But other than one thread, not really. The board is populated by a cadre of white Christians.
Thread: Prayer Warriors
They are doing this over at MJJF, and I thought it was a great idea. Im looking for a few very serious believers to get busy getting together to pray for Michael Jackson. This is not a joke, neither is it something to take lightly. I mean business. We can send all the good thoughts towards him here we want, but I want to form a group that is going to storm heaven for answers and stand in the gap until we see it come to pass. Its ok if you dont know alot about God, but if you believe that God can and will answer prayer according to His will, bring a believing heart and join me. My plan is to meet regularly in yahoo instant messenger and battle in the heavenlies for this man who is being so attacked.
Ephesians 6:12
This is not a wrestling match against a human opponent. We are wrestling with rulers, authorities, the powers who govern this world of darkness, and spiritual forces that control evil in the heavenly world.
And Jesus said:
Mathew 18:19
I promise that when any two of you on earth agree about something you are praying for, my Father in heaven will do it for you.
If you are interested and feel like you should do this, please contact me at psalm138selah@yahoo.com
Thank you!
Ephesians 6:12
This is not a wrestling match against a human opponent. We are wrestling with rulers, authorities, the powers who govern this world of darkness, and spiritual forces that control evil in the heavenly world.
And Jesus said:
Mathew 18:19
I promise that when any two of you on earth agree about something you are praying for, my Father in heaven will do it for you.
If you are interested and feel like you should do this, please contact me at psalm138selah@yahoo.com
Thank you!
HE IS MUSLIM. HE'S MUSLIM!
From the same thread:
I havent seen Ozzy in several days and I dont know what happened to Cindy, the new gal. MJ has something going on in court tomorrow and I feel like I'm suppossed to be in prayer for it.
I'm going to join the people over at MJJF in prayer for Michael. Anyone that is interested in praying for Michael can come here:
http://www.mjjforum.com/forums/inde...=16100&st=0
They have some very committed prayer warriors over there! I'm registered under the same name I have here.
Hope to see some of you there! I know they meet to pray in instant messenger before major things go on in court., but they also pray regularly in this thread. Was very interesting to find that it is the biggest thread there.
There is much power in prayer.
I'm going to join the people over at MJJF in prayer for Michael. Anyone that is interested in praying for Michael can come here:
http://www.mjjforum.com/forums/inde...=16100&st=0
They have some very committed prayer warriors over there! I'm registered under the same name I have here.
Hope to see some of you there! I know they meet to pray in instant messenger before major things go on in court., but they also pray regularly in this thread. Was very interesting to find that it is the biggest thread there.
There is much power in prayer.
ALERT!!!!! ALERT!!!!! I know this was set up for Michael, but where there is need there is need and one of our own needs prayer! She has just pm'ed me with urgency so if you don't mind pray for the mind, body, and finances of this family member.... Thanks folks... returning to knees....
And I pray for Michael........ you laid him on my heart so heavy today, and Im sorry I got distracted. In the name of Jesus, according to your word, I bind any spirits that are coming against him. Let Michael be aware of Your protection and Your presence. While I was going through my troubles today, you gave me your word and I repeat it here as directed. Protect us Lord as we stand in the gap for Michael, for our foes are many and sly. I give you honor, glory and praise, Mighty God. My eyes are on You, Father. As always, Im honored to be called Your child.
I have only read the 1st part of this subject but you have a wonderful topic. And I am not on ya-hoo but Michael is in the heart of my prayers and my church are praying for Michael which is very powerful and tearful for me, tears of joy and strength.
People ask for help in wise ones, educated people, rich in money people and rich in powerful jobs. BUT THE TRUTH IS NO authority in earth can do more or be more powerful than God, so when you thank what can I do to help Michael? JUST PRAY AND BELIEVE IN THE NAME OF JESUS and watch the truth pervail!!!!!!!
REALLY IF YOU ASK AND BELIEVE THAT GOD CAN DO ALL THINGS IT WILL HAPPEN,
I Love you
Dorothy
People ask for help in wise ones, educated people, rich in money people and rich in powerful jobs. BUT THE TRUTH IS NO authority in earth can do more or be more powerful than God, so when you thank what can I do to help Michael? JUST PRAY AND BELIEVE IN THE NAME OF JESUS and watch the truth pervail!!!!!!!
REALLY IF YOU ASK AND BELIEVE THAT GOD CAN DO ALL THINGS IT WILL HAPPEN,
I Love you
Dorothy
oh YES God is a MIGHTY God and yes Michael their evil schemes against you will fail and as you stand tall in the brestplate of rightousness they will fall!
The breastplate of righteousness. I can't make this shit up.
I have been so welcomed here!
Thank you all so much!
The hearing will talk about Sneddon's motion to limit the Teal Subpoenas.
If the Lord is willing, things will be decided in our favor.
However, remember that the appeals court is making a decision also.
Dear Lord,
Please give all of the members of the Appeals Court the courage and faith to make the right decision, not only for Michael, but for all those people whose civil rights would be affected by their decision.
This we ask in Your name.
Thank you.
Thank you all so much!
The hearing will talk about Sneddon's motion to limit the Teal Subpoenas.
If the Lord is willing, things will be decided in our favor.
However, remember that the appeals court is making a decision also.
Dear Lord,
Please give all of the members of the Appeals Court the courage and faith to make the right decision, not only for Michael, but for all those people whose civil rights would be affected by their decision.
This we ask in Your name.
Thank you.
Ever notice when people wish to defend a pedophile, they couch it in civil rights? Very creepy.
Dear Lord,
We thank You for presiding over this hearing. Please give Judge Melville the courage to rule appropriately on these issues above - not just for Michael but for the future cases that will be affected by the decisions he makes today. Help him to stick to his word on the Teal Motion and help him to realize that Michael's constitutional rights are in danger. Help Judge Melville to see that he must rule for EVERY American citizen - NOT just for the purposes of this case.
But, Dear Lord, we will TRUST in Your judgement. Even if it seems that, at the end of the day, we didn't get what we expected and that Judge Melville made the wrong decisions, we trust that You have answered our prayers and that we all will understand when this over. We will NOT lose faith.
We know that You love Michael, too.
Thank You for Loving Your People.
We thank You for presiding over this hearing. Please give Judge Melville the courage to rule appropriately on these issues above - not just for Michael but for the future cases that will be affected by the decisions he makes today. Help him to stick to his word on the Teal Motion and help him to realize that Michael's constitutional rights are in danger. Help Judge Melville to see that he must rule for EVERY American citizen - NOT just for the purposes of this case.
But, Dear Lord, we will TRUST in Your judgement. Even if it seems that, at the end of the day, we didn't get what we expected and that Judge Melville made the wrong decisions, we trust that You have answered our prayers and that we all will understand when this over. We will NOT lose faith.
We know that You love Michael, too.
Thank You for Loving Your People.
Not only is Michael Jackson not Christian, but he's not black. Still, that fact is lost on those thinking an international Jewish/KKK conspiracy is behind the problems facing Michael Jackson. Seriously, these people walk amongst us. They might be handling your insurance or marrying your kid at a future date. Never know. They have threads talking about possibly committing suicide if he's found guilty, encouraging a teen boy to run away from his parents if they prevent him from listening to Michael and other creepy threads where they talk about Jackson as though he's some sort of messiah. If you like to get drunk on stupidity, this forum is 100% intoxicating.
The point is though, look at these people. They're akin to those who followed Charles Manson. The cult of celebrity has become so pervasive that it has spawned a society where the average person isn't much unlike these creepy Michael Jackson fans. Whether it's males obsessing over Lindsey Lohan, fat older females clamouring for Clay Aiken, or ignorant females talking about wanting to make Ludacris their "boo", society is gone. Arrivederci!
Read those posts and threads. If you're not resigned to a society on the decline and the worthlessness of mankind, then you're just either not paying enough attention, or are very happy with whatever drug of choice you take to be able to ignore these people. This is the pinnacle of the internet. It doesn't get any worse or more revealing about the nature of people in our society than that creepy cadre of freaks. Realize that our blue orb is infested with these freaks, perhaps not to this degree, but the elements are there in almost all of us. We're fucked. There is no god. There is no salvation. "Stupid" is everywhere, all around us. Growing in both number and boldness. And nothing will ever impede the rate of expansion. It is hopeless.
Have a nice lunch.
Dorothy was full of shit, and her little dog too.
June/2005: PeeJ Trip - So, as most of the people know who read my blog, I recently had to go to Kansas to testify against a douchebag who threatened myself and a contributor in email. It was supposed to be a preliminary hearing, but El Genius had banked on our not arriving. I guess there is a handy aspect to the idiots that dislike us since they convince these morons we expose that we're a bunch of untrained vigilante idiots who won't work with police. The guy could have taken a pretty sweet plea agreement had he not made the State of Kansas fly us in. Once he knew we were there, he then wanted to plea, but it was an agreement far less sweet than the original offer. Sexual offender counseling and one of the two felonious threat charges. But hey, I already wrote about that part of the trip on PeeJ. Y'know, the important part. Now for all the stuff that isn't important!
First, no offense to anyone that reads this, but Kansas sucks. I wasn't looking forward to going to Kansas, and I'm not a big fan of the state. Sure, the people are friendly as hell (and they were, that's not just bullshit so you won't be offended while I bash your state) but that only goes so far. When your airport has a sign that says "Tornado Shelter", the entire area is no good for me. Kansas is just boring. It's flat. There's not much to look at. Few of the cities are very large... I mean, it's Kansas. There's a reason everyone went from areas like Kansas along the Lewis and Clark trail to Oregon. It's because they were in Kansas. The accomodations went smoothly all the way through, excepting our first driver who was a tad creepy, what with his tales of harassing his ex-wife and how he was charged with a crime, probably because, in his words "I called the detective a bitch."
We flew into Kansas City, Missouri via Denver, Colorado. The Denver, Colorado airport rules. It has an Auntie Annes. The Kansas City airport does not rule. At all. Besides the aforementioned Tornado Shelter, the KC-MO airport has exactly FIVE restaurant areas. They have a starbucks, a Cinnabon (oy vey), some restaurant called the fountains of something, a sports bar and an Arthur Bryant BBQ. The sports bar and BBQ place are actually the same restaurant, they just like to pretend they're seperate even though they freakin' share the same menu. We hit up the Sports Bar/BBQ place on the way back, and yep, that was some damn fine BBQ. Doesn't save the shitty airport though.
This is the floor of the Kansas City Airport
The problem with the KC Airport is that it's set-up in a bizarre fashion, that is certainly not cost-conscious. Most airports have two or three security areas that you pass through, and then get to the massive terminal area. Not so in KC! In their wisdom, they decided to make their terminal areas grouped in bunches of four, with thirty-something terminals. That means they have a security check-point per every four terminals. So that means they have to hire about ten times the security of most airports, since they have so many checkpoints. This additionally means that the KC-MO airport screws you on concessions and restrooms. There is nary a single bit of restroom, water or concession access in the terminal areas. Since they are so small, they don't have room. So all the concessions, water fountains and restrooms are outside the security checkpoints. Meaning that to be comfortable, you basically have to wait until the last second to go through security, so as to avoid having to go through security twice in case you feel a sudden urge to y'know, do something crazy like urinate. That's what I had to do. It was oh-so-much fun going through security twice.
The reason you see a laptop on the floor of the KC airport is because outside of the terminal areas, there are a TON of plug-ins. Yes, a virtual ton. However, 95% of them are under phone booths on the floor in areas without seating. Or they're by the bathroom. Since all the plug-ins in the few seating areas were taken, we were stuck on the hard floor of the KC airport, underneath a pay phone, to post a conviction to the mainpage from there. The entire airport is a model of simply sublime planning, I can't imagine a worse airport.
From the airport, we met up with the car service supplied and the creepy guy already mentioned. I have to say, the prosecutors office took great care of us. Had us booked in a pretty nice marriot, and had I known before going, I would have taken advantage of the pool and exercise room. Oh well. The car service was also prompt and overall, the entire accomodations were spot-on. Obviously there isn't much to do in Olathe (Correct pronunciation, O-La-Thee, not "oh-laithe" as I chose to pronounce it) Kansas at midnight, so it was a great night of History Channel, which thankfully, had good programs on and not their usual non-history shit selection. A great show on Secret Soviet Space Shuttle Disasters kept me up until about 3 AM. Crazy information. For example, there were two main rocket researches competing for innovation and state contracts. The lesser of the two is an arrogant Russian who decides to use a concocture called "Devils' Venom" to power his space-rocket. Basically it's pure-oxygen and very unstable fuel. So, to prove everyone wrong about how dangerous it was, he goes and sits out there in a chair. It's safe! So the other scientists and workers have a choice. Sit behind the blast shields and look like cowards, or go out there and join Mr. Arrogant Safety Man. Most of them choose to join the boss, since hey, it's Russia and rational thought isn't really encouraged. Of course, the entire rocket blows up when it tries to take off and immediately crisps 150 of Russia's best scientists and space workers. Not to mention the arrogant stout little idiot whose idea the concoction was to begin with. The fire was so immense that the chemicals were spouting out and burning through the skin of those arriving to fight the out of control inferno.
Other Russian space disasters are covered, including a three-stage rocket with the first stage having yep, THIRTY FREAKIN' ENGINES. Of course, the thing malfunctions, lurches to the right, and drops back down on the launchpad with the explosive force of a nuclear bomb wiping out the installation. The most remarkable thing about the program is how successful the Soviets were in keeping it hushed. Sure, of course the KGB and Russian Politiburo had power, but to cover up disasters on that scale is truly impressive. History Channel wasn't done serving up the goodness, as they managed to have a show on the mob that, unlike most shows on the mob, covered little-known and interesting history tidbits, such as the repression by the Fascist Mussolini Regime on the Mafiaoso of Sicily, including brutal attacks on godfathers and other mob illuminaries. I had simply assumed that the Sicilian gangs stayed out of the affairs of World War 2, but I could not have been more wrong. They actively aided the landings on Sicily, met American troops and fought alongside American forces against the Fascists. They were stoutly opposed to both Hitler and Mussolini, both of whom loathed the idea of mob families.
Even Lucky Luciano, who fled America to Sicily to avoid a murder rap, pitched in. Contacts between the Navi and Mafiaoso worked to both parties satisfaction. The mobs cracked down on dockyard strikers and saboteurs, and Luciano's 30 year murder rap disappeared into thin air. After the completion of the war, the Sicilians actually had a strong movement to join as an American protecterate, with elections and street-fighting breaking out between the pro-America mob and pro-Russian communists. Italy wisely appointed many Mafiaoso's to government positions and the movement to have an American Sicily died out. It's rare to actually find interesting programming on the History Channel, since they rarely cover actual history (Get History International, it's ten times better), but I lucked out in Olathe.
I became even luckier when I noticed how many restaurants were right next to the hotel. Restaurants we don't have in Oregon like Schlotsky's Deli, Steak and Shake, and the infamous Cracker Barrel. The Cracker Barrel has come highly recommended to me, through the many writings about it on Lance Storm's blog and various people who have pimped it to me in IM. I probably would have gone with the Steak and Shake had it been open, since the entire idea of a fast food steak and milkshake place is too good to pass up, but they were not open so Cracker Barrel it was. Very good food. It was nice to finally hit one up and see what they're all about. A very southern-funky restaurant, it wasn't bad. If I ever find another one though, I'm definitely going to make a point to hit up the Steak and Shake. Just such a great concept.
The Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe, Kansas
(Sorry lady in blue, didn't mean to catch you scratching your ass)
Perhaps the most ridiculous part of the trip is how much nicer the Johnson County Courthouse is than Portland's courthouse. They have a beautiful courthouse, with some nice grounds surrounding it... just gorgeous. You can't really tell from that picture, but it was really, really nice comparatively. We visited the DA on the case, met the detective who had been communicating with Tso during all of this and just relaxed, awaiting to be called to testify. However, the DA came into the witness room and informed us that we weren't needed to testify and that he decided to take the plea. All we had to do was show up and it was over. The defendent glared at us as we went into the courtroom, and I kind of internally laughed. I didn't know how big or small this guy was before going into the courtroom. He's a small little asshole. Amusing, what with his big "I'm going to kick your faggot ass" talk. I never before realized how much of an explanation the judge has to go through for every plea agreement. They run through various statements to ensure the defendant knows what he is agreeing to, and that he's certifying all the prosecution claims as true. One of those claims was the background to this, which was the sexual solicitation of a minor he attempted. Hence, the sexual offender counseling stipulation put into the plea agreement by the DA.
After that was over, we left and went to the airport where the posting of the conviction commenced. Like I said, the prosecutors in Johnson County took good care of us, flying us both ways on, unbeknownst to them, my favorite carrier, United. Good choice Kansas! United is the best! I got to listen to the new Beck, Garbage and Queens of the Stone Age albums in their entirity in the midst of the various flights. Plus, they serve whole cans of soda.
United is the best, and the book is pretty good too
Other airlines I've been on will just give you the small cup with ice. Not United, whole can baby. Hell, in a little over 24 hours, they supplied 2/3rds of a six-pack of 7-UP. You rock, United. The only negative of the flights is that I came within 15 pages of finishing The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. Now that I'm home, when am I going to have time to finish those pages? I picked up three books from Barnes and Noble for the trip, the aforementioned Decline and Fall, the memoirs and life of Simon Wiesenthal, and a book examining and exploring the archives of the Vatican from the late 1500's to the present day. I saved the books of the great Nazi-hunter and the Vatican expose for future flights, as it was the Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire which truly interested me. Of the three, it was the first book I picked up and the one of three that I was 100% decided upon. Sure, it may not seem like an interesting subject, but consider...
The Ottoman Empire was the longest-lasting empire of the last thousand years. At it's height, it spanned from Persia (modern-day Iran) to North Africa... to the edges of the former lands of Greece... to all of the Balkans and part of Poland. Look at a map sometime, that's a lot of real estate. It's near-capture of Vienna during the 1500's would have made it the pre-eminent power of it's time. However, after the defeat of the Ottomans at their encampment outside of Vienna, the empire slowly started to fall into decline, which is basically where the book picks up. The Ottoman Empire stretched across a vast amount of peoples and culture. Turkmen, which is what they were best known for, Arabs of all flavors, Egyptians, the Barbary Pirates (An Ottoman ally for many years), the Bedouin Tribes, Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, Jews, Greeks, Slavs of all sorts... the Empire was comparable to present-day America in that respect. What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Ottoman Empire were the Ottoman Sultans.
The Sultan occupied a double-post. First, as the ruler of the Ottoman Empire itself and as the leader and standard-bearer of Islam. As a crude comparison, the Sultan was a combination of Islam's version of a Pope and the Ottoman version of a dynastic king. This dual-role caused more trouble than it was worth. As a dynastic king, the ruler of a grand and large Empire, the Sultan had a responsiblity to remain powerful militarily, which meant advancements, sometimes of a Western sort. However, as the standard-bearer of Islam, a massive embracing of Western progress put many Sultan to the sword of the religious fanatics that existed then, not much unlike the religious Islamist fanatics that exist now. The history of the Ottoman Empire is a great example of how Islam has done nothing but hold back the Arabs, the Turks and all other traditionally ethnic Islamic races. Each time a Sultan would ascend who would institute a plan of military modernization, the religious military corps, the Jannisaries, would rise up in defense of "traditional Islam" and cause issues in Constanople. Many times, this resulted in the change of heart, or even death, of the Sultan himself. The issue of the Jannisaries and the Islamistic religious fanatics in the Ottoman Empire ultimately was the reason the Ottoman Empire continued to shrink over hundreds of years.
Still, you have to be amazed by the glory and tolerance of much of the history of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan elevated not only Priests of Orthodox Christianity (the religion of the Greeks, Slavs and Russians at the time), but gave them religious tolerance. So too, did the Sultan extend to the Jews. Numbering only 230,000 in the empire, the Rabbi's were still given great respect in Constanople. Tolerance was the rule of most Sultans, which actually increased the happiness of the Ottoman subjects. Only when Sultans gave into fanatical Islam did places like Sarajevo, Athens, Crete... turn to revolt and calls for autonomy and independence. Had a Sultan been able to, prior to the 1800's, destroy the Jannisary Corps and minimize the power of radical Islam in Constanople, I have little doubt that the Ottoman Empire would continue to exist to this day. Had the progressive Sultans not been undermined by their status as the standard-bearer of Islam, modernization would have occurred, stability would have flourished and far-off dominions of the Ottomans, like Egypt and the Greek lands, would have been happier and more productive Ottoman lands, rather than rebellious and self-serving. The administration of the lands could have been tightened up, and a legitimately westernized Ottoman army would have been able to exist. With the Ottoman control of Middle Eastern oil, they would have had a viable resource to continue dominance past the end of World War 1, where their fall into Turkmen nationalism doomed the Empire to break-up. The republic Ottoman Empire, no doubt, would have served the Arabs of today... and world stability, far greater than the mish-mash of Arab tinpot dictators, had only Islam not served as a great impediment to Ottoman success.
I could go on and on about the significance of how fanatical Islam negatively affected the Sultan and the Empire (Which, by the way, is not a point of the author, as the book is simply a narrative of history, rather than a work of opinion) and parallels to how fanatical Islam continues to do the same today, hundreds of years later. It's really a fascinating read, as there are many more significant historical facts to know about the Ottoman's other than the infamous "Sick Man of Europe" line uttered by Tsar Alexander.
A good book, a worthy reason to have to take a trip and some Cracker Barrel. All in all, a pretty effective 36 hours of travel, resulting in more of the glorious red that everyone loves to see. While I hope to never again have to make a trip to Kansas, I'm glad that the experience was worthwhile, site-beneficial... and most of all, short.
Because it is damn good to be back home, Tornado-shelterless Oregon. Phew.
First, no offense to anyone that reads this, but Kansas sucks. I wasn't looking forward to going to Kansas, and I'm not a big fan of the state. Sure, the people are friendly as hell (and they were, that's not just bullshit so you won't be offended while I bash your state) but that only goes so far. When your airport has a sign that says "Tornado Shelter", the entire area is no good for me. Kansas is just boring. It's flat. There's not much to look at. Few of the cities are very large... I mean, it's Kansas. There's a reason everyone went from areas like Kansas along the Lewis and Clark trail to Oregon. It's because they were in Kansas. The accomodations went smoothly all the way through, excepting our first driver who was a tad creepy, what with his tales of harassing his ex-wife and how he was charged with a crime, probably because, in his words "I called the detective a bitch."
We flew into Kansas City, Missouri via Denver, Colorado. The Denver, Colorado airport rules. It has an Auntie Annes. The Kansas City airport does not rule. At all. Besides the aforementioned Tornado Shelter, the KC-MO airport has exactly FIVE restaurant areas. They have a starbucks, a Cinnabon (oy vey), some restaurant called the fountains of something, a sports bar and an Arthur Bryant BBQ. The sports bar and BBQ place are actually the same restaurant, they just like to pretend they're seperate even though they freakin' share the same menu. We hit up the Sports Bar/BBQ place on the way back, and yep, that was some damn fine BBQ. Doesn't save the shitty airport though.
This is the floor of the Kansas City Airport
The problem with the KC Airport is that it's set-up in a bizarre fashion, that is certainly not cost-conscious. Most airports have two or three security areas that you pass through, and then get to the massive terminal area. Not so in KC! In their wisdom, they decided to make their terminal areas grouped in bunches of four, with thirty-something terminals. That means they have a security check-point per every four terminals. So that means they have to hire about ten times the security of most airports, since they have so many checkpoints. This additionally means that the KC-MO airport screws you on concessions and restrooms. There is nary a single bit of restroom, water or concession access in the terminal areas. Since they are so small, they don't have room. So all the concessions, water fountains and restrooms are outside the security checkpoints. Meaning that to be comfortable, you basically have to wait until the last second to go through security, so as to avoid having to go through security twice in case you feel a sudden urge to y'know, do something crazy like urinate. That's what I had to do. It was oh-so-much fun going through security twice.
The reason you see a laptop on the floor of the KC airport is because outside of the terminal areas, there are a TON of plug-ins. Yes, a virtual ton. However, 95% of them are under phone booths on the floor in areas without seating. Or they're by the bathroom. Since all the plug-ins in the few seating areas were taken, we were stuck on the hard floor of the KC airport, underneath a pay phone, to post a conviction to the mainpage from there. The entire airport is a model of simply sublime planning, I can't imagine a worse airport.
From the airport, we met up with the car service supplied and the creepy guy already mentioned. I have to say, the prosecutors office took great care of us. Had us booked in a pretty nice marriot, and had I known before going, I would have taken advantage of the pool and exercise room. Oh well. The car service was also prompt and overall, the entire accomodations were spot-on. Obviously there isn't much to do in Olathe (Correct pronunciation, O-La-Thee, not "oh-laithe" as I chose to pronounce it) Kansas at midnight, so it was a great night of History Channel, which thankfully, had good programs on and not their usual non-history shit selection. A great show on Secret Soviet Space Shuttle Disasters kept me up until about 3 AM. Crazy information. For example, there were two main rocket researches competing for innovation and state contracts. The lesser of the two is an arrogant Russian who decides to use a concocture called "Devils' Venom" to power his space-rocket. Basically it's pure-oxygen and very unstable fuel. So, to prove everyone wrong about how dangerous it was, he goes and sits out there in a chair. It's safe! So the other scientists and workers have a choice. Sit behind the blast shields and look like cowards, or go out there and join Mr. Arrogant Safety Man. Most of them choose to join the boss, since hey, it's Russia and rational thought isn't really encouraged. Of course, the entire rocket blows up when it tries to take off and immediately crisps 150 of Russia's best scientists and space workers. Not to mention the arrogant stout little idiot whose idea the concoction was to begin with. The fire was so immense that the chemicals were spouting out and burning through the skin of those arriving to fight the out of control inferno.
Other Russian space disasters are covered, including a three-stage rocket with the first stage having yep, THIRTY FREAKIN' ENGINES. Of course, the thing malfunctions, lurches to the right, and drops back down on the launchpad with the explosive force of a nuclear bomb wiping out the installation. The most remarkable thing about the program is how successful the Soviets were in keeping it hushed. Sure, of course the KGB and Russian Politiburo had power, but to cover up disasters on that scale is truly impressive. History Channel wasn't done serving up the goodness, as they managed to have a show on the mob that, unlike most shows on the mob, covered little-known and interesting history tidbits, such as the repression by the Fascist Mussolini Regime on the Mafiaoso of Sicily, including brutal attacks on godfathers and other mob illuminaries. I had simply assumed that the Sicilian gangs stayed out of the affairs of World War 2, but I could not have been more wrong. They actively aided the landings on Sicily, met American troops and fought alongside American forces against the Fascists. They were stoutly opposed to both Hitler and Mussolini, both of whom loathed the idea of mob families.
Even Lucky Luciano, who fled America to Sicily to avoid a murder rap, pitched in. Contacts between the Navi and Mafiaoso worked to both parties satisfaction. The mobs cracked down on dockyard strikers and saboteurs, and Luciano's 30 year murder rap disappeared into thin air. After the completion of the war, the Sicilians actually had a strong movement to join as an American protecterate, with elections and street-fighting breaking out between the pro-America mob and pro-Russian communists. Italy wisely appointed many Mafiaoso's to government positions and the movement to have an American Sicily died out. It's rare to actually find interesting programming on the History Channel, since they rarely cover actual history (Get History International, it's ten times better), but I lucked out in Olathe.
I became even luckier when I noticed how many restaurants were right next to the hotel. Restaurants we don't have in Oregon like Schlotsky's Deli, Steak and Shake, and the infamous Cracker Barrel. The Cracker Barrel has come highly recommended to me, through the many writings about it on Lance Storm's blog and various people who have pimped it to me in IM. I probably would have gone with the Steak and Shake had it been open, since the entire idea of a fast food steak and milkshake place is too good to pass up, but they were not open so Cracker Barrel it was. Very good food. It was nice to finally hit one up and see what they're all about. A very southern-funky restaurant, it wasn't bad. If I ever find another one though, I'm definitely going to make a point to hit up the Steak and Shake. Just such a great concept.
The Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe, Kansas
(Sorry lady in blue, didn't mean to catch you scratching your ass)
Perhaps the most ridiculous part of the trip is how much nicer the Johnson County Courthouse is than Portland's courthouse. They have a beautiful courthouse, with some nice grounds surrounding it... just gorgeous. You can't really tell from that picture, but it was really, really nice comparatively. We visited the DA on the case, met the detective who had been communicating with Tso during all of this and just relaxed, awaiting to be called to testify. However, the DA came into the witness room and informed us that we weren't needed to testify and that he decided to take the plea. All we had to do was show up and it was over. The defendent glared at us as we went into the courtroom, and I kind of internally laughed. I didn't know how big or small this guy was before going into the courtroom. He's a small little asshole. Amusing, what with his big "I'm going to kick your faggot ass" talk. I never before realized how much of an explanation the judge has to go through for every plea agreement. They run through various statements to ensure the defendant knows what he is agreeing to, and that he's certifying all the prosecution claims as true. One of those claims was the background to this, which was the sexual solicitation of a minor he attempted. Hence, the sexual offender counseling stipulation put into the plea agreement by the DA.
After that was over, we left and went to the airport where the posting of the conviction commenced. Like I said, the prosecutors in Johnson County took good care of us, flying us both ways on, unbeknownst to them, my favorite carrier, United. Good choice Kansas! United is the best! I got to listen to the new Beck, Garbage and Queens of the Stone Age albums in their entirity in the midst of the various flights. Plus, they serve whole cans of soda.
United is the best, and the book is pretty good too
Other airlines I've been on will just give you the small cup with ice. Not United, whole can baby. Hell, in a little over 24 hours, they supplied 2/3rds of a six-pack of 7-UP. You rock, United. The only negative of the flights is that I came within 15 pages of finishing The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. Now that I'm home, when am I going to have time to finish those pages? I picked up three books from Barnes and Noble for the trip, the aforementioned Decline and Fall, the memoirs and life of Simon Wiesenthal, and a book examining and exploring the archives of the Vatican from the late 1500's to the present day. I saved the books of the great Nazi-hunter and the Vatican expose for future flights, as it was the Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire which truly interested me. Of the three, it was the first book I picked up and the one of three that I was 100% decided upon. Sure, it may not seem like an interesting subject, but consider...
The Ottoman Empire was the longest-lasting empire of the last thousand years. At it's height, it spanned from Persia (modern-day Iran) to North Africa... to the edges of the former lands of Greece... to all of the Balkans and part of Poland. Look at a map sometime, that's a lot of real estate. It's near-capture of Vienna during the 1500's would have made it the pre-eminent power of it's time. However, after the defeat of the Ottomans at their encampment outside of Vienna, the empire slowly started to fall into decline, which is basically where the book picks up. The Ottoman Empire stretched across a vast amount of peoples and culture. Turkmen, which is what they were best known for, Arabs of all flavors, Egyptians, the Barbary Pirates (An Ottoman ally for many years), the Bedouin Tribes, Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, Jews, Greeks, Slavs of all sorts... the Empire was comparable to present-day America in that respect. What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Ottoman Empire were the Ottoman Sultans.
The Sultan occupied a double-post. First, as the ruler of the Ottoman Empire itself and as the leader and standard-bearer of Islam. As a crude comparison, the Sultan was a combination of Islam's version of a Pope and the Ottoman version of a dynastic king. This dual-role caused more trouble than it was worth. As a dynastic king, the ruler of a grand and large Empire, the Sultan had a responsiblity to remain powerful militarily, which meant advancements, sometimes of a Western sort. However, as the standard-bearer of Islam, a massive embracing of Western progress put many Sultan to the sword of the religious fanatics that existed then, not much unlike the religious Islamist fanatics that exist now. The history of the Ottoman Empire is a great example of how Islam has done nothing but hold back the Arabs, the Turks and all other traditionally ethnic Islamic races. Each time a Sultan would ascend who would institute a plan of military modernization, the religious military corps, the Jannisaries, would rise up in defense of "traditional Islam" and cause issues in Constanople. Many times, this resulted in the change of heart, or even death, of the Sultan himself. The issue of the Jannisaries and the Islamistic religious fanatics in the Ottoman Empire ultimately was the reason the Ottoman Empire continued to shrink over hundreds of years.
Still, you have to be amazed by the glory and tolerance of much of the history of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan elevated not only Priests of Orthodox Christianity (the religion of the Greeks, Slavs and Russians at the time), but gave them religious tolerance. So too, did the Sultan extend to the Jews. Numbering only 230,000 in the empire, the Rabbi's were still given great respect in Constanople. Tolerance was the rule of most Sultans, which actually increased the happiness of the Ottoman subjects. Only when Sultans gave into fanatical Islam did places like Sarajevo, Athens, Crete... turn to revolt and calls for autonomy and independence. Had a Sultan been able to, prior to the 1800's, destroy the Jannisary Corps and minimize the power of radical Islam in Constanople, I have little doubt that the Ottoman Empire would continue to exist to this day. Had the progressive Sultans not been undermined by their status as the standard-bearer of Islam, modernization would have occurred, stability would have flourished and far-off dominions of the Ottomans, like Egypt and the Greek lands, would have been happier and more productive Ottoman lands, rather than rebellious and self-serving. The administration of the lands could have been tightened up, and a legitimately westernized Ottoman army would have been able to exist. With the Ottoman control of Middle Eastern oil, they would have had a viable resource to continue dominance past the end of World War 1, where their fall into Turkmen nationalism doomed the Empire to break-up. The republic Ottoman Empire, no doubt, would have served the Arabs of today... and world stability, far greater than the mish-mash of Arab tinpot dictators, had only Islam not served as a great impediment to Ottoman success.
I could go on and on about the significance of how fanatical Islam negatively affected the Sultan and the Empire (Which, by the way, is not a point of the author, as the book is simply a narrative of history, rather than a work of opinion) and parallels to how fanatical Islam continues to do the same today, hundreds of years later. It's really a fascinating read, as there are many more significant historical facts to know about the Ottoman's other than the infamous "Sick Man of Europe" line uttered by Tsar Alexander.
A good book, a worthy reason to have to take a trip and some Cracker Barrel. All in all, a pretty effective 36 hours of travel, resulting in more of the glorious red that everyone loves to see. While I hope to never again have to make a trip to Kansas, I'm glad that the experience was worthwhile, site-beneficial... and most of all, short.
Because it is damn good to be back home, Tornado-shelterless Oregon. Phew.