Random Image: Atheism Defined

Random Image: Cloud Gazing?

I was trying to come up with a way to explain why I think this image is so neat, but without donning the “Captain Obvious” helmet. So, yeah.

List and Photos of Donated Tech Junk

There’s a new-to-me blog out there (imagine that) called It Ain’t Dead Yet, which chronicles incoming junk donations to the “ACCRC” (Alameda County Resource Center, a technology recycling org). It’s not updated quite so frequently, but what they’ve got up so far is pretty spiffy ^_^

Random Image: Lego Version of That One Painting

Debunking Forwards: Bird Feeder Syndrome

I received the following forward from a good-intentioned relative, but had to overtly disagree with its message. The article seems to rationalize a form of racism (nationalism, perhaps) whereby an absolute trait is labeled upon the entirety of a people-group based on speculation and rumor, perhaps in response to a perceived amount of injustice incurred by the presence of such people:

As usual, Maxine gets it right…
The Bird Feeder Syndrome – A Survival Thought For The Day

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it is, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table ..everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be…. quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal. Now let’s see.

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen. Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to ‘press one’ to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than ‘Our own’ are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Just my opinion, but maybe it’s time for the government to take down the bird feeder. If you agree, pass it on; if not, continue cleaning up the poop!

Firstly.. (a) Immgrants are not birds. There should not exist the perception that, by contrast, legal citizens are on an intellectual level of homeowners while immigrants possess the limited capacity of air fowl. That’s just terrible. It might not have been what she meant, but it’s pushing the boundary on outrightly stating it. (b) Maxine fails to put herself in their shoes. Imagine if the country you came from became so stank that you decided to actually move your family out of it, and into an country that offered nice surroundings but in which existed a people that spoke a language different than yours. Would you not, at first at least, take kindly to offerings of quality and genuine support so that you could get on your feet? Would it not be a temptation, as a person (regardless of where you came from) to perhaps rely on that support longer than was presumed socially permissible? I’m not asking if you would, but wouldn’t the very idea at least occur in your mind that, hmm, perhaps I might be able to? Do you not know actual citizens of this country that would jump onto that if it were offered to them? I know dozens who would snatch it up if offered. Could some of this resentment toward immigrants who are offered this assistance actually be a bit of avarice you possess, that you yourself “deserve it more than someone else” in regard to those benefits?

Secondly, Maxine (the person putting out the birdfeeder) epic-failed on a few key aspects, in terms of the story itself and not drawing any particular metaphors: (a) She didn’t have any idea what birds actually were. Birds CAN get noisy and may very well fight, especially over limted resources. (b) She blamed her overt lack of research on the birds themselves, rather than herself for not knowing this would happen. Instead of being irritated with her own decision to put the birdfeeder out, she projected the irritation onto the birds themselves, who were just being what birds are and have always been since birdfeeders were even around. (c) The birds may not actually possess the capacity to realize that she is the person supplying the feed, whereas she may simply be a large competitor for the feed itself, much less knowing how out-of-pocket economics work to realize it is a sacrifice for you to do this. The anger here is a transition from a long-held belief aligning itself with the facts of reality, and isn’t at all a fault of the birds themselves. The biggest factor is her self-sustained deception that birds were not what they actually were. Instead of treating it as a learning experience, she has now over-encumbered herself with a severe distaste for birds, and sits pridefully on her porch in the self-reinforced notion that she had been right all along.

Pass the shovel, fellow citizen. I’ll do the gruntwork of humanitarian aid if your butler says you’ve got other appointments for today! Puh!

Random Image: Don’t Let Him Get Away

I have no idea how these pictures were taken — either by some unseen support, or by Photoshopping with an elite sense of shading for proper shadowfall..

A few days after I made this post, I found this link which may help explain it some.. mirrors, perhaps?

Random Image: Wacky Sink Design

Random Image: Neighborhood Watch

Random Image: Do Not Block, Usually

Epic Journalism Fail: Klingon “knife” confiscated

Oh dear. A very terrible report emerges of a “knife” that was “believed to be” a Trek replica that was confiscated in a British “knife amnesty” (where the public voluntarily turns over banned weapons without criminal charges), and not anywhere in the entire article is any mention that the item is a BAT’LETH. It’s not a knife, really; it’s not even really a sword, per se. The writer couldn’t, just maybe, have asked ONE SINGLE TREK NERD anywhere, what the device was called? OH COME ON!

Lethal Star Trek blade seized in knives amnesty

Random Image: Awesomest Apartment

Very seriously, this is the apartment I want someday, in some variety. And I really do mean really yes. Really, yes. I had designed a home I wanted to build one day and it came out to around 450 square feet, but that was partially based on having to buy a standard-sized washing-machine/dryer and such. Hmm…. the possibilities….!!

Delightful Photo Gallery of Lying on the Ground

On queueueueue-ing up another month or two of ranom images for the coming weeks, I came across this wonderful series of photographs of kids acting out adventure-type scenes by lying on the ground in order to act out a mid-air event, such as swinging from a vine, jumping across a chasm, flying on a magic carpet, or floating in space (or sea, even). All of the props lie on the ground, and the picture is taken of the ground itself as the background, creating a rather intriguing illusion.

The gallery is called Dreams of Flying, by jan von holleben, and it turns out there’s a book and a calendar in the works.

Jpop/Jtv News Alert: Haromoni Cancelled??

Hello-Online.com is breaking a news story of speculation that the Haromoni show, a newer (and frankly, unfavorable to me) version of the wildly popular Hello! Morning daytime youth-geared show featuring the members of the Jpop group, Morning Musume, is going to be cancelled based on wretchedly-low ratings, an upcoming episode in television guides titled “End”.. While still no official word, reasonable speculation abounds.

I was a pretty big fan of the Hello! Morning program, as it not only was eye-candy of teh uber-cute girlies (often in the little-sister kind of cute.. at first xD), but the music the group puts out is always positive and always peppy, and the show itself often had Double Dare type of activities (to make an American comparison, without the goopy mess) and silly random things like another American show, Zoom on PBS.

Haromoni, a name by which the original show was simply known by until it actually changed formats, made too many very-drastic alterations to the style and flow of the program for my tastes. Not really game-themed, not so much on the colorful sets, and more out-in-the-real-world trips and lots of what I call “forced smiling” content. Plus there was the addition of this very irritating baby puppet that would bounce in his remote-controlled stroller (remote constroller, perhaps?) and make various show-directing/subject-changing suggestions.

However, my opinion of the newer version partially pivots (perhaps greatly to some degree) on the amount of fan-translated shows available on the Net at large. There are lots of Hello!Morning translations, and not really very many Haromoni eps translated. The Haromoni eps are just as plentiful outside of translation (unless I’m just looking in the wrong places) but just haven’t seemed to have taken quite an earnest attention to getting switched over for us nonJ-speakers.

I think if they can somehow revamp themselves back into the random, colorful, peppy, game-filled, and positive upbeat format, they could be even better than the original.. but will they?

Slightly More Hilarious: Quote of My Week

In lieu of starting something I’ll continually forget to post again ever unto forthwith thenceabouts, I’ll just call it the “Quote of My Week” instead of “the day” or “the week”. It comes from a site I just happened upon within the last 5 minutes, Lindsayism.com, remarking about something that honestly doesn’t sound spectacularly tasty to begin with:

“It tastes like 1000 aspirin dissolved in 1 ounce of Robitussin without the sweetness or point.“

Ten Things Never To Say to A DJ: Not Hilarious

I was directed by two different sites to this particular audio assembly, supposedly being something along the lines of gut-busting, side-splitting, can’t… breathe… hi-freaking-larious but I barely cracked a grin on #4, and was pretty much meh for the rest of it. I figured I’d let you gentle readers decide for yourselves =P

Andre Harris – 10 Things Not To Say to a DJ, or if you prefer, a direct download (mp3, 19.2mb)

But then again, the poster stated that the instrumental background was boring — but I rather liked it. Go figure.

Random Image: Boba Fett Space Rum

The Wiki for Guys Needing to Waste Time

You knew it was coming sooner or later. It’s here. It’s Chickapedia, a dbase of beautiful women. I naturally checked to see whether there were any of my oft-swooned-for gals of the J-pop persuasion, and sure enough most of the Morning Musume cast was listed (but no C-ute!). Other disappointments lead me to discover no entry for:

)) Tilda Swinton (the knockout who played Gabriel in Constantine and the White Witch in the Narnia movies)
)) Any of the C-ute members, notably Yajima Maimi
)) Tonya Kinzinger (a somewhat unknown actress, from a foreign soap opera show I’ve never seen but have seen some amazing neckwork on YouTube.. yowza!)

It’s too bad that the “My Babes” section is limited to FIVE. Argh!