...Ironically, one of these had Ron "Hedgehog" Jeremy doing a rather acceptable porno-parody of Harry Mudd. Go figure.

...This is so unbearable.

...What? No Kate Bush? :(

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...Nice concept, but I can see problems for female users having way too many extra spaces in between words :-) :-) :-)

...Never thought I'd ever live to see the day when someone would come up with a steampunk contraption I would actually *want* to own, much less use.

Q: How soon before someone gives Boing Boing a Steampunk-styled logo? :P

The main problem was it was so fine grained and so dry that it would stick to things electro-statically.

...That's what was originally thought. After the initial studies of the dust were conducted following A11 and A12, it became apparent that the dust's adhesion wasn't due to any sort of static cling, but to the fact that the dust was so damn coarse from having even smaller micrometeoroids impacting into it that each grain basically developed "teeth" and latched onto the fibers of the EVA suits. This was the reason that brushing not only didn't work too well, it actually ground the dust deeper and more firmly into the suits.

And yeah, that's an issue that'll have to be addressed when we return for longer stays, because those fabric suits aren't going to last too damn long under those conditions...

====QUICK SIDE NOTE====

...Thanks to those who've noted my sudden lengthy absence of late on Boing Boing and Sci.Space.*. In a nutshell, things turned a bit sour with my right leg, and they ended up having to amputate just below the knee. The good news is that I'm a prime candidate for a prosthethe...prosth...oh, frack it, a fake leg. The better news is that I'm going to be a gimp that's pimped, with the leg in everyone's face having been lit up by LEDs! Which means no doubt I'll get featured on BB when I finally figure out what combination of LED kits and power source I want to install. In the meantime, I'm considering these two t-shirts to wear:

"My Other Leg Is A Lexus"

"My Leg Is Currently Rented To Lee Majors!"

...Oh, if only we could have buried Gary Gygax in one of these!

...What isn't specified but implied is that, once the dust was removed by the first tape strip, the second strip stuck just fine. There was concerns in the back rooms at JSC that duct tape's adhesive properties *might* be compromised in a vacuum, but as it turns out for short-term use it works just as well as in a 1G, 14.7psi environment.

...Long term's a different story. General concensus is that, barring how tightly Geno wrapped the tape around the fender and the map they used for the patch, the fender has probably long since fallen off due to the adhesive "drying out" from vacuum-exacerbated outgassing. Tests done on Earth have provided similar results along these lines.

...Amazing that such products of selective inbreeding could have come up with such a scam. Wonder if the bad guys had a black horse to put that stolen saddle on?

...Just on a lark, I called five of the major camera shops here in CenTex. Every one of them had the same exact two things to say:

1) Fuji had told them the same load of crap.

2) They told Fuji that such EULAs don't apply in the State of Texas, and if they wanted them to hawk their cameras, they'd cram their EULA.

...So far, all five shops have been selling Fuji cameras with no problems.

...Yeah, well, the design team obviously forgot *one* lesson the Rovers taught us. Note the lack of *fenders*, kids?

...Can you imagine about ten of these sets mixed together? Talk about putting the domino stackers to shame!

...Oh boy. Another disaster brought on by Siegel heir greed. The last money grab they pulled off resulted in Superboy getting axed, now I can see DC panicking and start monkeying around with the Big Red S to change him enough so that he's no longer anything that resembles Superman.

Enough is enough. Get a judge in on this mess that understands a) copyright law, and b) the fans are more important than a couple of greedy grandkids!

...Having gone through uncontrollable vomiting on more than one occasion thanks to DKA, I'm glad to see the Texas courts finally sided on the side of what's right instead of just abiding by the law. And while I can't smoke pot due to a THC allergy, it's good to see that this may set a precedent that could help make it easier for those who need the stuff for medical reasons to get it *and* use it without harassment.

"oh, morrissey, what have ye bred."

...If the reports are any indication, it takes Girlfriend In A Coma and makes it a case of life imitates art! :-)

...Actually, it goes much further than chulo kids ganging up to beat up the emos. In the San Antonio strip clubs, this has actually spread to the dancers! After reading this, I spoke with a couple of friends down in SA who are dancers, and they readily admitted that for the past several months:

"Every tejano, rock & roll and/or hip-hop dancer has been ganging up on the goth chicks and chasing them away. It's not that we're really against them, but their depressing music and their fucked-up lifestyle. We're here to make money and have fun, not make everyone feel sad and depressed and suicidal and all that shit! They want to be like that, let them open their own club! Call it the Body Bag or something like that! Jeesus!"

Guess I'd better call down to Perfect 10 San Antonio and tell my DJ buddies to erase all that Bauhaus I loaded on the hard drives before I went into the hospital...:P

...It's a shame that Dysfunctional Family Circus isn't online anymore to add to that list :-(

...He needs to do ones of infamous dictators, tyrants and genocide artists. That way, we can print them out, assemble them, and then stick them on a Boppin' Bag and give the bastards some of what they deserve in effigy!

Q: Is Wertham still alive?

A: If not, anyone up for organizing a mass grave pissing? :-)

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...Dspt th fct hv ll th ps cppd, 'll chck t th st t s f t's wrth th hyp.

...Now, where's the "Davy Crockett" portable field nuke launcher?

"If I only had a Brain!"

"If I only had a Heart!"

"If I only had some Balls!"

"Me? I'll settle for a pair of Boobs instead of the three I'm walking with!"

"I'm sure that these are like most stories that get passed around the internet and are 90% fake."

...Sadly, this is not the case. Probably only 10% are potentially fake, or at least hyped up. Having worked phone tech support, I can personally confirm that a lot of these stories are true, and more than one idiot user makes the same mistake(s). From my own experience, the worst callers are as follows:

* The over-50 rural farmer, who bought the computer because someone told him it would help him run his farm better. The problem is that he'll memorize every spec about his system and insist on reciting it to you over the phone even though you stress that you've got that data already by pulling up his purchase order. If you let him finish, every single time it ends with the following question: "Well, I don't know how to use this hear thing, and I need you to tell me how to do what I need to do with it." That's *NOT* what tech support is for, and when you explain that to the sodbuster, he demands your manager and promises to have you fired. The sad part? The managers are usually such spineless poofs that they'll do just that no matter how diplomatically you handled the matter.

* The freshwoman college bimbo. These are the ones who call up with a really minor problem that requires a part replacement, but are insistant that because their "boyfriend/fucktoy" told them it was "just a driver problem", they INSIST that you walk them through a driver reinstall. If there's no driver applicable - especially in the case of, say, a Keyboard molex issue - then they file a complaint that you wouldn't help them. If you humor them and try anyway, they still file a complaint because you just made them look like an idiot for having listened to their studmuffin in the first place.

* The warranty violator. These are the ones who've spilled coffee in their notebooks, and spend weeks going from tech to tech trying to find someone who'll believe their case - that they didn't spill *anything*, and that the tech who came onsite was either wrong or lying so he didn't have to replace the system. The problem here is that 1 out of 1000 times, there *wasn't* a spill, and that the tech mistook rosin flux that wasn't properly cleaned off in the Fab plant for dried coffee - they look about the same. The worse problem is that when you recall the system and prove it's flux and not coffee, you get a lot of people in trouble, and in turn they start going after your ass. It's almost to your best benefit to just fake an accidental disconnect and let the next tech take the call.

* The Speaker Phone caller. Speaker phones cause a lot of problems during tech calls because they're not usually duplex - whoever talks first has priority. So if Joe Customer is making a mistake in a procedure, by the time he hears you yelling "NOOO! DON'T DO THAT!!!", it's usually too late, and then he'll blame you for his own idiocy. The sadder part is that if you try to explain why they need to be off the speaker phone, they'll file a complaint on you.

...So yeah, there's a few more, but those few were enough to dissuade me from doing phone tech support ever again. I'll manage a phone bank, but I won't work in the trenches again. Not until they start requiring computer users be trained and licensed like motor vehicle drivers, and tech support lines include the notice of "Don't argue with the tech, do what he/she says, any arguments = voided warranty, no exceptions!"

...So, how soon before Bryan Ferry buys one? :-)

...For some odd reason, when I first saw that photo up there, I was immediately reminded of Josh Weinstein and Trace Bellieu as they posed during the opening of MST3K.

Which leads me to wonder who they shot into orbit, and whether they're sending them cheesy movies or cheesy websites...

...Kids, I've dealt off and on in the Audio Technology industry for over three decades now. First as a design tech for Muzak, then as intern and later Video Engineer for a See-BS affiliate, then as a Test Engineer for that big company with a little name that makes computers but loves to lay off people for no justifiable reason en masse because some mid-level managers who were hired from an even bigger company with an even littler name told the big bosses "that's the way we did it at the old place!", and I can say with 100% certainty that the claims of Monster Cable are 145% complete and utter Bullshit. The voltages and wattages involved in getting audio to your speakers are so small that you'll get the same quality sound out of cheap twisted pair from Radio Shack that you'll get if you're retarded and/or gullible enough to buy into Monster's bullshit hype and buy their overpriced cables. While I personally am not stupid enough to waste money on Monster's crap, I know quite a few audiophiles - two of which work for audio specialty stores - and they all can back up the reports that what Monster is offering is a complete and total scam. About the only thing you can do to improve a cable is to use gold connectors as opposed to the tin or metal alloy ones, and that's only if you're running cables > 200', and even then the odds are that you won't have a connectivity problem other than line loss, and the gold will help with that in the fact that you've got a more conductive connector, and that's it.

Bottom Line: If the FTC were doing their job, Monster would be out of business after having their claims exposed and sued into oblivion over truth in advertising lies.

"...Coming soon to a torrent server near you: Pee-BS's Complete Collector's Collection Series! First up: the Complete Homer Formby series, followed by every single painting lesson show featuring the guy with the afro that Danger Mouse ripped off! And it's all for free...although donations will be accepted!"

...Heh, this is what you'd hang over a special display for a new Scissor Sisters album!

...You Boingers owe me a keyboard, dammit!

...You know, if citizens wanted to put an end to this sort of vigilantism gone awry, all they need to do is to gang about 100 of them on these twits, and they'll back down pretty damn quick. A previous comment about the Guardian Angels' flopping in DC is a prime example. Kung Fu doesn't block bullets, and when it's five GAs vs. 100 Bloods, Crips and/or Registered Democrats, you gan guess which side is more apt to go home with a tag around their toe.

...Ok, so from what I've been able to gather, Burt is a basement dweller who "qualified" for SFWA membership because he's self-published a few novels that at least five suckers actuall by bought. Having gained said membership, he managed to move up in the ranks of the SWFA administration primarily because so few of the members wanted to take on the jobs he practically begged to be assigned to. Now he feels he's "paid his dues" and believes he should now be handed the thrown, crown, scepter and Holy Hand Grenade to boot.

Sorry kids, but this is like a janitor at the White House claiming he's qualified to become President simply because he's taken out the trash for the past four (mis)administrations. You'd be better off with a stuffed dead bonobo with an erection than this chump...

Q: Cory, what would it take for me to write five SF novels and get them published so *I* could run for this office? God/Yahweh/Roddenberry knows I'd be more qualified to run this particular asylum...:-P

Q: What SF has Burt written? Because I can't recall ever having read anything by him, much less having heard of him before the SFWA flap.

...Heh, heh, heh! Tweak one of these to represent the Mooninites, make dozens of copies, and see how long it takes for the Boston PD to declare a terror alert!

...Interesting. I'd heard that Hitler thought the 7 Dwarves were Jewish characatures because they were obvious diamond merchants.

...Wow! Hoodathunk that Chewbacca's mass of hair was Peter Mayhew's actual hair! :)

...Heh, heh, heh! Could you see your average Joe Punchclock, middle-class blue collar Union goon working under these conditions?

...Actually, I use this trick all the time when taking pictures of outdoor attractions, where inconsiderate idiots and/or their festering excuses for offspring are oblivious to and/or clearly aware of the fact that I'm trying to take a picture and walk in front of the camera. Just take the 2-5 images you need, slap them in Photoshop as layers, and then erase where necessary. Eventually you'll have a photo of said attraction without any dipshits cluttering the beauty of what you were shooting.

Works best with a tripod, but a steady hand can do the job.

...This is actually far better than another "Beatles Tribute Show" from the mid-70's. Sentry Insurance sponsored a show that's considered the worst televised morass of Beatles covers in the history of television and human history. The Sentry Collection of Fine Music Presents the Works of John Lennon and Paul McCartney was so dismally bad that IMDB doesn't even have a listing for it. About the only person I can recall starring in it was Tony Randall, whose cover of "For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" was quite arguably the worst performance of his otherwise illustrious career. Anyone else who prostituted themselves by appearing in it, much less singing, probably would be embarasseod to the point of tears if confronted by the realization that someone actually remembered the show.

...Living in Austin, I can confirm the one about the "mean old lady". The old bitch lives near a couple of friends of mine - not the ones who posted that report, tho - and the entire neighborhood literally hates her guts. She's called the cops numerous times on her neighbors for really asinine reasons - one of which was her angst over one neighbor letting their grass grow higher than she liked, refusing to acknowledge the fact that the grass *had* to be allowed to grow uncut as part of a lawn treatment. The old bat got chewed out by the cops for having wasted their time over something that trivial, but that hasn't stopped her from causing problems for her neighbors. She'll actually call in cars that have expired tags, or file complaints for pretty much anything, as stated, she can think of. And nobody has a clue as to why she's such a [insert epithet that all women hate that starts with a "C"]. They figure she's probably just psychotic and off her meds.

...You know, Art Lebedev could use this as an inspiration for his next OLED project. A table that you could program to show whatever 8-bit pattern you want. Of course, it'll cost 30k USD, and will take five years of vaporware talk before it finally ships, but what the frack? Maybe he'll throw in one of his OLED keyboards with it in lieu of the six ginsu knives :-P

...Call me when he learns the full version of Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida, including the tympany solo!

...Having a complex prescription further complexified by my now requiring bifocals that can't be made seamless, I wouldn't touch something like "$39 Glasses" with a 20-foot pole even if Xeni offered me dinner, movie *and* bought a large popcorn with extra butter. However, I've had a couple of friends with really basic prescriptions - the ones that when I put on, I see AbZero difference between having them on and not wearing glasses period - who've gone there and were 110% satisfied. Then again, they had nothing radical where their diopter is concerned, or anything unsymmetrical in their focal range in their prescription, which makes it easy to "stamp-press" lenses like these. Any serious abberations, and you're far better off paying the extortion rates a *real* lens shop charges.

Oh, and the same caveats especially applies to places like LensCrafters.

...I actually *have* a pair of these packed up in one of my "do not throw away - valuable junk" boxes. I'm almost tempted to try this when I get out of this hospital and back on my feet. I figure I'll still be on Narco or some other pain killer, and can tolerate wearing those damn things for more than 10 minutes!

As to why I had them originally, they actually looked cool back in 1977 when I had them wired into my CB Radio...:-P

...When the Chinese finally released a 3-view of Shenzhou, I had one of my engineers who was from China translate the Traditional pictograms - dunno why they didn't use Simplified or Mandarin - and "Solar Panel" is described as "Sun Wing". That actually made sense from an aesthetic viewpoint :-)

"...And if you have an 'X' Ticket, you can join in on Mickey and Minnie's Midnight Naked Twister Party, Sponsored By K-Y!"

...You know, the more I hear stories like this, the more I'd love to see every one of those clerics who come up with such draconian bullshit edicts and have them simply burned at the stake.

[shakes head in disgust]

Q: How do you deal with trolls?

A: Hunt them down and exterminate them like the vermin they are.

CIP: Daniel Joseph Min, Brad Guth, Thomas Lee Elfritz, and the rest of the racist trolls currently polluting usenet.

...Kids, what the frack is Carl doing on that stamp? Is he supposed to be lighting up a joint or what?

"If you fart in space does it make a sound?"

...Actually, the real question is whether or not flatulence provides enough propulsion to actually move the mass of a human body in weightlessness. IIRC, the Skylab astronauts were asked this a few times - once by schoolkids! - and they skirted around the issue and changed the subject.

"...We all live in a rusty submarine! Rusty submarine! Rusty Submarine!"

...You know, with that stained glass mural in the opening of the conch, and the steeple effect the spike at the top imposes, my first impression was that this was some sort of church in any other place except Mexico. Still, it's really a beautiful concept!

"One of the Apollo astronauts (I forget which one) said that when the lunar module capsule pressurized, and they were able to take off their suits, the capsule interior smelled like cordite, which I have been told is sort of like a mix of gunpowder and alcohol or maybe gasoline. He said this was what the lunar dust that they carried in on their suits smelled like. I'll take that as a difinitive source on what the moon smells like."

...The "cordite smell" was pretty much confirmed to be caused by the outgassing produced by the lunar dust oxidizing after several million years of being in a vacuum. As for the "smell" in this more recent description, I would suspect that we're dealing with outgassing again, but from the EVA suits - especially if it's the Russian ones - and whatever lining/coating/paint is on the inside of the airlock. Vacuum will cause outgassing on items you wouldn't expect it to.

...One other culprit, although I really have my doubts about it, is monatomic oxygen - O, not O2. One of the things that tore the hell out of many of the samples on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) back in the late 80's was determined to be caused by all that O. Mono-O is extremely erosive, and IIRC while it's poisonous those who've smelt any significant quantity noted a rather odd smell before getting sick from breathing the stuff.

"A-Ha! That's a tidbit of information I was not aware of, and makes this idea's prospects look much better (I'm referring only to the concept, not necessarily the other issues like cost and such). That was a helpful reply, thanks. The article on moon dust I read made it out to be potentially much worse than that, with the finer dust even being capable of circumnavigating the moon before settling."

...I suspect we read the same article, or at least a similar one. The big worries about moon dust settle - no pun intended - on two concerns: the dust getting kicked up during landing(*), and the inhalation of said following an EVA. The latter is actually of more concern for moonbase habitation, for unlike Earth dust which is generally "smooth" due to erosion, Moon dust is seriously coarse due to even the dust being bombarded by micro-micrometeroiods. Think about those stickers you get walking through the tall grass, only on a micrometer scale. That's a layman's explanation for how this dust sticks to everything.

CIP: When Neil & Buzz made the first EVA on Apollo 11, they found that the lunar dust did stick to their suits a bit more permanent than they expected. After they returned to Earth, the initial belief was that it was some sort of static charge that caused the adhesion. It actually wasn't until Pete & Al got into all of their dust on their first EVA that it became apparent that the Moon dust stuck to everything because it was so damn coarse.

...Now, imagine that stuff getting into your lungs, and you can understand the concerns.

(*) Ascent concerns are slightly less than Descent if we're dealing with the same kind of configuration as with the LM, where you leave behind the descent stage. You still get some dust being kicked up, but the bigger concern is whatever gets blasted off the descent stage. You get really good views of this from the Lunar Rover camera footage taken of the last three LM ascents; a lot of kapton and other fragmentaries were blasted off by the ascent module's engine at liftoff, and although nothing was observed hitting the Rover, the concerns were still there.

"OM, are you out of the hospital yet? Good luck, man."

...Hey Bill! Yeah, I'm here with the earliest possible release being Saturday. There's still some issues with an exposed bone in the wound that they're debating on what to do with, and if they decide to chop it down I'll be here at least another week after Saturday. But I can't complaint - the nurses here have been 150% fantastic, and the care here is so good that I honestly want to stay sick :-)

FYI, Pat Flannery's keeping in touch, and keeping the groups up to date on my status. I didn't load Agent on the notebook, and I refuse to use GoogleGroups like the trolls who infest the group do. But much to the chagrin of those same trolls, I ain't dead yet!

...And then there's Revelations, where we discover that Gog is Hello Kitty, Magog is Doraemon, and the Four Horsemen are all Pokemon characters.

"Who's job will it be to dust the thing? Moon dust is nasty stuff, I hear, and a lander lifting off from the surface essentially creates a powerful sandblaster that will strip any finish off metal, or severely pit any bare metal."

...Good question, and one that can easily be solved by situating the landing site behind either a large ridge or sufficiently distant so as to minimize the amount of dust that lands on the array. Note that when Intrepid landed in the Ocean of Storms about 600 feet from where Surveyor III landed, when Conrad and Bean finally got to the probe, they noticed it appeared to have been baked. In fact, it had been discolored by dust that had coated the surface that had been kicked up by the LM's descent engine. During the post-flight analysis, NASA engineers determined that Intrepid would have had to have landed at least 3500 feet away to bring the dust contamination down to a bare minimum, and at least 6700 in order to eliminate 99% of it.

...Long term, however, the amount of dust accumulation is pretty much negligible, with "long term" being 10-20 years. Most, if not all of the Moon dust is really from micrometeoroid impacts. And while it is a continuous rain, it's not all that thick, and the accumulation can actually take centuries to really notice any difference - the Apollo Reflectors have been up there almost four decades, and astronomers running the lasers claim they can't detect any changes in reflectivity from the mirror arrays.

...The real threat is damage from the impacts from meteoroids that aren't all that micro. We're not talking the ones that make big craters, but the ones from meteoroids that average 1-3cm in size. These make impact craters anywhere from 3x to 15x their size, and that's enough to knock out one or two of those array elements, depending on how it hits the array.

...You know, I'm really not into all the current steampunk fad/craze/whatever, nor am I big on the home theaters simply because I prefer a Laz-E-Boy over those theater seats. But this is a clear exception! It's fracking gorgeous beyond belief, and the only thing about it that raises a red flag is how those ornamental columns resonate low-freq sounds from the sound system when the sound is realy cranked loud.

...This guy deserves whatever kudos he gets. It's a really beautiful work of decor!

...As soon as the double-whammy of Dilaudid and Norco wears off, I'm so going to tear these guidelines apart. We fans do *NOT* enjoy blatant inconsistencies, because it's an example of sloppy writing. Granted, mistakes *are* made, and those are the ones that the "No Prizes" were invented for. Not that it matters are Marvel these days, what with the Big Fat Q excusing the biggest inconsistency in the history of the company by writing it off as "hey, it's magic, we don't *need* to explain anything when it's magic!"

...That's The Matrix?? I could have sworn that was Dr. Phibes!!

...You know, as much as I'd love to see this sort of t-scope up and running last month, the design demonstrates once again that the Unmanned Probes Uber Alles types still miss a major point about science and funding: the taxpayers want pretty pictures to go with the charts and graphs and wavy lines. If it were up to me, every observatory instrument like this would be required to include an optical element to help provide those pretty pictures that keep Joe Punchclock and Ethyl Soapsjunkie entertained enough to ignore the fact that they're paying for wavy lines and squiggles and numbers that make no sense whatsoever to anyone but a scientist.

Of course, being someone who *does* understand how to read the squggles and lines and dots and dashes and numbers, I'm looking forward to hopefully living long enough to see the wonders that this array will reveal to us. If only the diabetes will cooperate and just be satisfied with taking 1/4 of one foot...

"IDKFA"

...Please, don't give Marvel any ideas.

...Damn. It's a shame Stogie Castro got to resign with an announcement on his own volition rather than from the impact of a bullet.

"Per the comment above, these are legal recordings."

...Son, you *really* need to learn to tell when someone is making a joke. Especially one at the expense of the MafRIAA.

[shakes head in mild dismay]

...And now for the most important question of all: how many of these disks are bootlegs and/or mix tapes? :)

...Heh, considering Cho's latest role, what we need is for he and Kal to do a short spoof with James Cawley entitled Harold and Kumar go to Rura Penthe!

...I actually like this concept! Imagine one for the 3.5" GI Joe fanatic, or one of Barbie dolls in a massive lesbian orgy fest for the pervert on your Chrisnukkah Gift List! I'm really surprised someone didn't come up with this concept before, what with LEGO lamps like this having been seen for decades!

"I just sent a giant box of old action figures to my little nephews. Sigh...I want an ugly lamp!"

...And here's the rub: it doesn't *HAVE* to be ugly! With the right selection of figures, and with duplicates included, a really impressive lamp with aesthetic qualities can be achieved with just a little time and forethought applied during the construction.

...On the other hand, I can already hear toy collectors screaming at figures being used this way instead of being left in the packaging and allowed to never know the joy of having been played with.

...I look at that thing, and I have waking nightmares of tracking down a paper jam.

"can you imagine horrible the caption if this was covered in the Family Circus??

Jeffy: "Jesus's daddy is recharging him!""

...Or something else along the lines of:

"Okay...CLEAR! [Za-THUMP!] No pulse! Go to 40..."

"The Energizer. It keeps on dying for your sins! And dying. And dying. And dying..."

"Your Electric Company is working for you..."

"Shortly after the lightning strike, Jesus found himself still on the cross. Only now he was covered in straw, and being harassed by crows near a Yellow Brick Road..."

"So, as little Jesus found out, Mr. Weather was right about not playing outdoors in the middle of a thunderstorm..."

"Whoo! Sure beats the hell out of a Plasma Ball light!"

"But the problem is the kids had stopped when the dude went off on them. Even if they were are you saying it is acceptable for cops to have temper tantrums when people don't instantly obey them?"

...No, the problem is that Squishy is just taking the cop's side because he knows it pisses the rest of us who believe that our freedoms are sacrosanct and that cops should be immediately removed from their position the second they abuse one iota of their authority.

Or, to put it another way, after reading his blatherings, I'm now convinced he's just trolling.

...If Xeni owes Yoko an apology over the story, then Yoko owes us all apologies not only for causing the breakup of the Beatles, but for having the audacity to screech into a microphone, slap it on vinyl, and then expect us to buy it.

Hell, you can't even *bootleg* a Yoko Ono album these days unless it's part of a Sound Effects Collection...

...More Warren Ellis drek. Oh. Joy.

[/dripping_sarcasm]

"All the people hating on that cop and saying that those poor abused children didnt do anything wrong, please. I bet your kids cuss you to your face and run all you. That cop did a good job and those little punks got what they deserved. Pray for those children to see the error of their ways. Peace and hair grease."

...See? This is what I'm talking about. Those of you supporting the cop aren't doing it because he was in the right - which he damn well wasn't - but because you don't want to support the skatepunks because they're skatepunks. That's the same sort of crap that justified the turning of a blind eye towards civil rights violations for centuries: Concentration Camp Guard X may be a sadistic, murdering bastard who tortures inmates to death, but because they're of an inferior age/race/creed/color/species/gender/sexual preference/choice of sport, we'll just ignore the crimes so long as nobody else takes notice.

...#55: Good point! The Nazi pig probably has a few dozen pedo mags stuffed in his matress at home. Perhaps we need a search warrant and raid that particular hovel!

"FACT. When statues are struck by lightning, they come to life. FACT."

...Nonono, you've got your myths confused. Corpses come to life when struck by lightning. Statues are like snowmen, and only come to life when you put a magic hat on them.

Still, one does have to wonder if Jesus shouted SHAZAM!...:)

...For extra credit, color the area that was modified to allow Tetsuo to destroy Neo-Tokyo!

"now I truly am stuck in an internet argument!"

...And one you've who's lost it, and not just by majority dissent. Every point you've raised has been shot down in flames, period. While you're entited to your opinion, in this case it's clearly wrong and the better part of valor calls for a quiet retreat on your part.

...The thing that's really getting to me is that *anyone* would defend this particular Fife's actions. He's clearly one of those power-mad cops who most likely was the school bully, and chose law enforcement as a means by which to legally continue his psychotic need to beat up those weaker than he is.

Bottom Line: It doesn't matter what those kids were doing, because it's obvious as hell that they weren't doing anything that justified that Fife's actions. He should have been out busting *real* crooks - drug thugs, muggers, rapists, child molesters, murderers - instead of picking on kids and trying to play little Hitler games.

...I think it's pretty clear that the consensus around here is that this pig obviously needs to be at least fired, if not thrown in jail. What I'm going to strongly suggest is that we all use the info provided by #66 above and let the Baltimore city government know that the entire world *is* watching, and that we're not going to silently let such abuse go on unchallenged. Here's that contact info again in case you missed it:

* Mayor Sheila Dixon
City Hall, Room 250
100 N. Holliday Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
Phone (410) 396-3835
email: mayor@baltimorecity dot gov

* Baltimore PD: (410) 396-2411

* Maryland States Attorneys Office: (410) 396-4001

* Citizens review board: (410) 396-3141

...When contacting these various governmental bodies and/or their representatives, make sure that you remain calm and rational while expressing your disgust and discontent over the behavior of the cop. Make sure you point out that this sort of behavior is *not* a positive reflection of either the Baltimore PD or the City of Baltimore with regards to the city being viewed as a safe and friendly place for tourism, and that the only form of damage control that would work to salvage the city's reputation would be to a) publically fire the cop and make it clear that he is an example to *ALL* Baltimore police officers who abuse their authority and embarass their fellow officers, b) at the same time formally apologize to the kid for having been abused, c) order an immediate review of police procedures and make it clear that harassing innocent citizens will be grounds for immediate termination *and* that the city will not back any cop who gets busted for being a total dickhead like Rivieri was, and d) reemphasize that the job of a police officer is to protect and to serve, which means going out and busting *real* criminals, not hanging around shopping malls looking for kids to bully in between wasting time at the local donut shop.

Bottom Line: Let Baltimore know that the rest of the world won't sit for this shit, but let them know as politely as possible.

"Yoko Ono once again shows that she is a class act and a cool lady, through and through."

...Luckily for me, because I'm sitting here missing 1/4th of my right foot amputatated, I have access to lots of nice drugs for pain and nausea. Which is why the sheer audacity of that statement failed to kill me upon reading it.

[shakes head in utter dismay]

...I have the perfect compromise: Lennon stops using her name, Yoko never sings or opens her mouth again. Fair trade.

...So, is this related to the "Brown Note" that Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman used to make the entire world shit their pants during the World-Wide Recorder Concert?

...I'm surprised he didn't include his own Ren and Stimpy in the list of decline causes. If any one cartoon took the animation industry's sense of style and threw it down the toilet with a Woodstock-class Brown Acid chaser, it was John K's offensive misuse of cel stock.

...As for John K being such a "fuddy-duddy", well, I guess if I couldn't get a new show sold to a network to save my life for about ten years now because I couldn't comprehend that my style was total crap that nobody wanted anymore, I'd be trying to find a scapegoat too. Or, to put it another way, he's still all butthurt about the Network that used to show Cartoons rejecting his Goddamn George Liquor pilot all those years ago.

...Ok, so where exactly is this town? And can we book a round-trip junket there on Priceline? :)

"I'm not 'man.' I'm not 'dude,' I am Officer Rivieri."

...Yeah, right. Rivieri, that's spelled H-I-T-L-E-R from the look of things. This type of cop isn't a peace officer, he's the school bully who, having gotten older - as opposed to growing up - found that the only job he was qualified for was a cop. It's the only job where he could assault those weaker than he is with some semblance of impunity and carte blanche, and actually get paid for it. I'd love to see him take this sort of hard-nosed Gestapo attitude with a *real* crook, but as with most bullies he's too chickenshit to actually take on someone who'd actually be a threat. Which explains why he's on "skateboard patrol" rather than actually out solving *real* crimes.

...Damn thing looks more like a Jack-in-a-Box!

...Lessee, let's take each of these and see how far they got by 1975:

* Ultrasonic dishwashers - IIRC, these eventually got trashed by every Appliance R&D house because - you guessed it - they never could find the right combination of frequencies to keep from breaking the glasses!
* combination electronic oven and food freezers - They still don't exactly have them today, and it's more of a logisical reason than a technological one. You simply *want* to keep the cold from the heat and vice versa, so neither interfere with one another.
* portable ovens - Microwave, obviously, and if you want to stretch it a bit and include a wok or those first frydaddies.
* toaster bacon - It's here now, but to be honest that part of the future's not what it's cooked up to be.
* triple purpose TV unit - made unnecessary by the cheap portable TV explosion of the 70's.
* wireless cardiac monitors - they have them now, but cables and sensors are still preferred.
* irradiated canned beans - Probably. Might explain some forms of flatulence.
* automatic language translaion - ya ni govoriyoot po-angliskii, tovarisch!

Q: "What do old people look like?"

A: "My Mommy!"

...Yet more reasons the US needs to just carpet bomb the entire Middle East and eradicate such draconian bullshit once and for all. Barring something that deservedly drastic, we simply inform the governments of these turd-world countries the same thing that Mexico forces on us: if they're a citizen of our country and they're accused of a crime, then send them home, period.

...Ok, I give. Anyone got the Krylon official Color Name and Number, or at least a SKU from Home Depot for this spray?

"Excuse me, do you have any Krylon Hamilton #69, please?"

...Yeah, but these guys aren't answering the most important question: what's the minimum number of slice turns required to solve the cube?

"Cheved" Guevara? :)

...Kids, it's obviously another JJ Abrams "viral marketing" campaign for the sequel to The Blair Witch Godzilla Project :)

...And just because the photo accompanying this article has inspired it, all I can say is:

Patriots = FAIL!

:-P

...Damn! There goes my spore theory!

...The real question here is what bullshit justification the Muncie city council had for denying the request. Whenever a city government refuses to take action that will benefit the community, it's usually for really petty reasons.

...On the other hand, after 12 years in K-12, then 7 on both sides of the academic fence in College, the conclusion I came to with regards to cheating is that in about 80% of the cases where cheating occurs, it's actually the teacher/professor/non-english-speaking foreigner teaching assistant who's really responsible; had they taught their material well, the students would have learned and wouldn't *need* to cheat.

The other 20%? Slackers, frat punks, and anyone else who was simply too lazy to study, natch.

...Actually, what would be *really* interesting is to see videos of the display while, say, the priest is giving his sermon, or the choir is going through their standard repertoir.

...You know, I thought the other reason we kicked the shit out of the Taliban and liberated Afghanistan was to prevent atrocities like this from happening? Don't we still have troops over there who could free this guy?

Bottom Line: If there's a reason the Muslim "world" fears the West, it's because we're endangering their "right" to rape, maim and murder their own people for really retarded reasons just because some decrepit old frackwit claiming to channel "Allah" says it's okay to do so.

...Man, talk about synchronicity! $80 for the kit, and the LEDs are fracking cheap by comparison. Makes one wonder why someone hasn't actually done an LED-based official update to the Lite-Brite!

...On a side note, a modeler buddy of mine passed on a tip on LEDs: a *lot* of Chrisnukkah light sets are cheap LED-based, and they usually get marked down to $2-$3 USD after the season ends, in strands of 100-150 lights. Just cut'em loose from the strand, and you've got LEDs out the wazoo!

...Well, now we know what happened to Swee'Pea when he grew up. Just more proof that adopted kids *can* take on the physical characteristics of the foster parent if adopted early enough!

...Serious question here: has anyone stated what the materials cost for just one of these signs is? Last time I actually priced LEDs, they were a) about $3 - $5 USD a pop, and b) the Blue LED was considered still impossible. So yeah, it's been about 3 decades since I priced LEDs in bulk.

So, anyone got a cost estimate?

...Someone who's simply gotten tired of spoiled, whining uber-artists and creative gawdz, who now that they've hit it big act as if the entire industry revolves around them *and* whatever turds they feel like dropping at that particular moment. It's like Baseball, Jack. I remember when it was all about playing the game; now it's all about the money.

...Ok, if they want to be macabre about it, keep the basic layout, dress the manniquins in tropical attire, and recreate Jonestown.

...Moore *used* to be cool and respectable. But after looking at both sides of his issues with the Big Two comic book companies, I'm convinced that he's just playing butthurt artist in order to get the attention and have his fans buy his indy work out of sympathy. He's still got talent, but he honestly needs to pull the stick out of his ass and think of his fans for once. God/Yahweh/Roddenberry knows that Marvel needs him to come straighten out what The Big Fat Q has screwed up with Civil War and Brand New Divorce, and at the rate DC is going with Didio killing off everyone, he'll probably have to spend some time there as well, even if it's just to revive Swamp Thing.

...Kids, I hate to burst this protomeme, but I worked with EBS authenticator codes from 1978 to 1981, 1985 to 1986, 1988 to 1992, and one final stint in 1995. Whenever we received a new instructional booklet from Civil Defense containing new authenticator lists, we always unsealed the old ones - against regulations, mind you - just to see what those authenticator codes were. In every single case but two - IIRC, 16 lists total - they were all either five to seven random alphanumberic characters, with the two from 1991 and 1992 being actual words, but absolutely *NOTHING* that could be connected into faux porn movie titles.

...Unless this guy has the complete FCC authenticator info booklet to go with this list, I'm calling bullshit.

...There's a bit more to the story now. Living in Austin, you hear the stories amongst the DJs and radio people, and having been a former DJ for KNOW-AM, I still keep in touch with some of those still in the business locally. The scuttlebutt now is that this kid was rather difficult to get along with, and was one of those "control freaks" who wanted AbZero interference with his program from higher-ups. Apparently someone at KOOP noted the same thing someone else here did - he was playing far more blues than the as-advertised jazz - and the blues that were being played were actually getting to be more depressing in tone. The station had actually been getting complaint calls, something they'd rarely gotten before. The kid had been called in on the carpet a few times over this, and the week before he set the fire there'd been a "you can't fire me, I quit" confrontation, and he'd stormed out. The mistake KOOP made at that point was to not at least change the locks.

Ah well, when they stick him in the slammer, maybe the warden'll let him emcee the prison's PA system for the morning announcements...:P

...Actually, the one to sell the pre-Egotist Moore's Swampy run on anyone is to give them a copy of Swamp Thing Annual #2, which featured the conclusion of Moore's first - and best - Swampy vs. Arcane arc. That was the one that hooked me on the series, which lasted until Mark Millar totally fucked up the book and deliberately crashed it.

...Wouldn't have been so bad if it was by someone other than Ellis. The guy's ego self-inflation is second only to John Byrne's.

...Where's the Greenpeace ship full of treehugging hippies protesting the disruption of marine life?

...Lessee, Siegel & Shuster were from Cleveland, Superman was from S&S, and this death ray was from Cleveland as well. Lex Luthor's inspiration, anyone?

...GodDAMMit! Leave it to the neo-Nazis and the Klansmen to screw up one of my favorite pasttimes - making fun of Canuckleheads! Now I'll have to start calling them something else, otherwise I'll be accused of being a racist!

...You know, when you consider all the other workers in the entertainment industry who are out of work, whose families had shitty Chrisnukkahs, and are otherwise suffering because the Writers Mafia got greedy once again, I find this sort of 'humor' on their part pretty damned disgusting.

Bottom Line Either the studios need to grow some balls, lockout the WGA and get things rolling again, or Congress needs to step in and force arbitration to a quick close. Enough's enough.

"...Presidente Castro? It's time for your afternoon massage!"

...Empty-Vee hasn't shown anything of substance since they quit just being a music video channel and tried to be the Be-All and End-All to the young adult demographic. Although turning the channel over to reality shows and drug thug rap ghetto "music" was the sign that the plug needs to be pulled long ago, the first *real* sign that things were about to change for the worse was when they decided to air Beavis and Butthead. Once they moved away from the music, it was downhill from there.

...Hey, could this be what the FSM looks like without its tentacles?

...This debacle is just another example of what's wrong with our pitiful excuse for a police force these days. They're too busy occupying themselves with turning minor incidents into big crimes, just so they don't have to risk their lives hunting down the *real* crooks.

...You know what that looks like? A large wet glob of that cushioning liner foam they put under your carpet in most apartments. I suspect someone changed out the liner in an apartment and simply dumped it down the sewer rather than take it to the dump.

"Under investigation", huh?

...Lessee, she's at home safe with the kids in Englandland. It's not like NYC's excuse for CPS has any jurisdiction over there, so they can probably go take a flying fuck.

...On a side note, in situations such as these, when a CPS organization starts "an investigation", it's usually an effort to frame the parent and make themselves look as if they were in the right all along.

...Is it me, or is Gibson lining himself up to be the next Harlan Ellison?

...Oh God/Yahweh/Roddenberry! Now Richard Hoaxland has another imaging artifact to abuse and foist as "proof" of life on Mars!

...Uh, ok. Movies by peer review process. If the Wikipedia model is any indication, this might work the first couple of times, but eventually some juvenile delinquents from England will wind up vandalizing the thing, then using admin rights claim their vandalization was actually "contributing", and then ban anyone who complains on the grounds they violated WP:AGF and whatever other Wikinazi rules that prohibit arguing with an "admin".

Ryan:

...Interesting. This implies that these printers require a different CAD output, then? What CAD package is best suited for use with these?

...At the same time, your comment about the scaling vs. accuracy begs the following: If the samples on the printer's website require size to be as sharp as they are, then how larger *are* we talking about? What's the *practical* minimum for a really sharp edged accurate "print" of a part?

...The only problem I see is the strong hints that dogs and cats would be replaced by other wildlife and unable to survive without human intervention due to their being domesticated. Anyone who's come across wild dog packs in rural areas knows that's a load of horse-hockey. The feral instincts aren't eliminated by domestication, they're just temporarily suppressed by conditioning, and like any animal can easily revert to type on proper provocation.

...The first toy to be sold in porn shops *and* comic book shops!

"have any of you seen the "Sgt. Pepper's" movie starring (among others) the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. I wouldn't seek it out unless you dearly love the Bee Gees and/or Peter Frampton. Apparently Steve Martin is in it too, but I couldn't stand it long enough to see him. Quality cinema it is not."

...No, it wasn't. In fact, the Gibbs' inability to act was so glaring that all of their dialog was elminated and George Burns' narration was expanded to cover those areas. Barry even admitted after the premier was annihilated in the press that it was possibly "the worst mistake the band ever made", and wound up being the catalyst that got the Gibbs to sue Robert Stigwood for mismanaging their careers a few years later. They later reconciled, but it was never the same.

"A fitting tribute would be to hunt up old Wham-O TV commercials on YouTube and such."

...Yo wish be's my command:

Wham-O Wheelie Bar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE-txZE2ggg

Wham-O Super Baloon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCgRLbA7dfg

Wham-O Water Wiggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ZeS6vF1-M

Wham-O Firecron Super Ball & Super Elastic Bubble Plastic Joint Commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pErbVm-LGI&feature=related

Wham-O Desert Storm Booby Trap Foiler:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVrxddbiow4&feature=related

Wham-O Bubble Thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtbPS-ntCJk

Wham-O Frisbee (1981):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUJWmr_5zUM

Russian Snickers Frisbee Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-eq0v9779w&feature=related

...And that's pretty much what's out there right now on a five-minute YouTube search.

Other Videos:

AOHell Video of Water Wiggle & Slip'n'Slide:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/water-wiggle-and-slip-n-slide-by-wham-o/3947092836

DailyVision late 60's Frisbee & Hula-Hoop Commercial:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x38jzh_pub-whamo-frisbee-hula-hoop_ads

Another version of the previous clip:
http://www.encyclomedia.com/video-wham_o_hula_hoop_.html

Other Links:

Official Wham-O Website:
http://www.wham-o.com/

Article on Wham-O and its origins:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9918/whamo_toys_favorite_fads_of_the_50s.html

Wikipedia Entry (Does not appear to have been molested by trolls, rogue admins, or Limey schoolpunks pretending *not* to be trolls):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wham-O

1978 Article on the Water Wi9ggle recall:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml78/78020.html

1980 Article on how Wham-O got it's water groove back:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml80/80007.html

Big Red Toy Box's Article on Wham-O:
http://www.bigredtoybox.com/cgi-bin/toynfo.pl?whamoindex

Boston Globe article on Wham-O:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/08/21/toy_story/

The Toy Guy takes on the Slip'n'Slide!
http://www.thetoyguy.com/toyreviews/Archives/whamo_wet.html

Remember Wham-O's Magic Window? You weren't doing the right drugs when you owned one, then:
http://www.theplaymakers.com/welcome/archives/000108.html

1965 Vintage Super Ball on eBay; Provider OM bids one quatloo:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1965-Vintage-WHAM-O-Super-Ball-Atomic-Super-Ball-Toy_W0QQitemZ260202601542QQcmdZViewItem?IMSfp=TL0801130938a9442

M$N $hopping has a whole $hitload of Wham-O products listed:
http://shopping.msn.com/results/toys/bcatid6436/wham-o/2-129661/forsale?text=category:toys+Brand:Wham-O

Would you believe Wham-O owns the rights to using the color yellow on water slides? Read'n'Heed, MAKE-types:
http://www.hewm.com/en/news/press/press_3344.html

Holy Frak! Wham-O has a Peeps Maker Machine? We're doomed!
http://www.toymania.com/news/messages/4568.shtml

Great Idea Finder's article on the Hula-Hoop:
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/hulahoop.htm

Some 12-year-old's essay on Wham-O:
http://projects.cbe.ab.ca/ict/2learn/mmspeight/fifties/research/zoe.htm

Another essay on the Hula-Hoop from someone who actually owned one - and probably still suffers from the hernia:
http://www.loti.com/fifties_toys/The_hula_hoop.htm

Blog Entry lamenting Wham-O getting bought out by the Red Chinese:
http://www.latdamuseum.org/weblog/2006_01_01_archive.html

History of the Frisbee - Includes Patent Drawings:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980218.htm

NYT Article on Flying Toys:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE6D6153CF933A15755C0A963958260

"don't forget that ELO did a pretty good job ripping off 'A Day in the Life' with their song 'Mr. Blue Sky'."

...And Huey Lewis ripped off Sweet Talkin' Woman when they upchucked Do You Believe In Love?. The only reason Jeff, Bev and the boys didn't sue talentless Huey was that they were far too occupied with their own legal issues over that early 80's concert tour where the entire tour was lip-synched.

"Those in America probably aren't aware of the fact that The Bee Gees had countless European smash hits long after "Saturday Night Fever" (which, contrary to popular belief did not kill the group)"

...Agreed. Spirits Having Flown was the post-Disco follow-up, and the Gibbs used this to make a break *away* from dying disco. At the time it was one of my favorite albums, and - don't laugh now - it was also the last 8-Track I bought. The problem was the album after that, Living Eyes, which was released at a time when America was rejecting everything even remotely associated with disco and embracing the fallout from Punk/New Wave's afterbirth, and the then-evolving New Romantics sound. Except for the title track, there wasn't really any song on that album that said "play me again, Sam!", and even the title track caught flack for being too much of another Gibb Brothers' "UNICEF Jingle".

...Possibly the true "death knell" for that phase of the Bee Gees was when most "formula" Top 40 stations simutaneously altered their playlists so that any "Bee Gees" song was replaced by ones from the likes of The Cars or The Clash. Oldies stations held on to the old stuff from the days before Barry started taking beard lessons from Wolfman Jack, and the Saturday Night Fever hits managed to maintain a clawhold on the playlists, but pretty much anything they made until One was virtually ignored outside of Europe(*).>

Punch Line What will kill the Bee Gees? Well, Maurice notwithstanding, probably natural causes..

(*) Or Japan, where they tend to go apeshit over certain bands for reasons that defy explanation.

...For every Yin there is a Yang. The Yang to this video can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFR-8NVjw-k

(*Can* we imbed YouTube videos from a post?)

...That is *SO* Moon Zero Two!

...You know, if the writers can go out and find other writing gigs during the strike, then the studios should be able to hire scabs with impunity. Fair's fair, right?

...Some entreprenurial individual needs to do a version of this on parchment, then do a sequel with the Declaration of Independence!

...You noticed that as well, huh? What gets me is that the models made by the manufacturer of this printer look as if they've been vac-u-form cast, and have way too sharp an edge for what I've seen produced in the field by this printer. I've seen some laser+gel models that were far, FAR more sharper in detail than this thing obviously produces, although they're all in green or really light purple.

...The cost of materials is the question here. The printer runs about $50K USD, and if you take into consideration the traditional scam of the "ink" always being so grossly marked up above actual cost that it's cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy refills, then that Mark IX Hawk probably cost him about $1902.43 USD in materials cost. He'd have been better off just buying a resin kit at that rate!

...Speaking of that mesh, he probably got it at the old GAMMA Mesh site. It's no longer up, but the mesh is floating around on other sites. 3D Meshes may have it, or some of the regulars there may be able to provide it.

...And then there's the reason the Super Balls were discontinued: kids were getting injured when they threw the damn things down and they recoiled back into their eyes! Just like the Air Blaster caused eardrum ruptures!

All those great toys lost because some parents just couldn't accept that their kids were too stupid to survive Darwinism :(

...That Lunar Winnebago made the rounds on sci.space.* last year, and we all had a laugh at that one. Apparently it was really never intended for serious consideration, so the real question is as to *why* it was built in the first place.

On the other hand, the thought of some old retired couple galavanting around the Ocean of Storms in one of these, taking in the sights between overnights at the KOA still draws a chuckle...

I hosted one in Texas, had a blast!

...Yes, you did. And I'm still kicking myself in the balls for not being able to attend!

...Gee, can you hardcode that so *your* posts are automatically blocked? We'd appreciate it a lot, Crash.

...Oh, this is *nothing* compared to what we called the "Pogo Pod". This was essentially a dumbbell-shaped two-man pod with a really long rod mounted in the middle. The rod would act like a pogo stick, and the pod would bounce hundreds of yards from site to site. The real surprise is why this concept was never used by Mattel for their Major Matt Mason series. They practically used every *other* NASA proposal!

"If I took out all the dumb misogynistic comments, this thread would be in tatters."

...Yeah, well, it's bad enough that you actually deleted a *LEGITIMATE* question I posed. *Was* the cake a chocolate one, or did they go traditional wedding white and then use a chocolate frosting? It's a serious question.

[shakes head in utter dismay]

...This reminds me of the dipshit junkie who walked into a police station, whacked only halfway out of his gourd, and demanded that the cops arrest the pusher who sold him the coke because the stuff wasn't up to his usual expectations.

...How Hollywood could reduce and possibly eliminate piracy:

1) Stop making shitty movies. Period. According to some estimates, as much as 80% of the films that are foisted are the result of some exec wanting to simply clear his desk of lousy spec scripts without having to throw them away after having paid a couple hundred bucks for them.

1a) At the same time, quit editing out scenes that make the movie work better for the sake of throwing them on the DVD as a selling point. Best example: Star Trek Nemesis, which is actually a far better movie with all the human elements added back in that were taken out because Stuart Baird, Rick Berman and Brandon Braga were clueless as to what makes a good Trek flick work.

2) Theaters need to reduce prices back to under $6.00 USD for prime time viewing, and all the concession stand junk food needs to be reduced in price to match the stop-n-rob convenience store pricing. The reason most people avoid the theaters and prefer DVDs and/or Pirated Rips at home is that it's TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE to take even one person for a decent night at the movies, much less the whole family.

3) Continue to prosecute those *selling* pirated copies of movies, especially those scumbags who try to pass on a screener as a direct-to-DVD transfer. But leave those who are sharing low-quality rips alone. If your movie is worth a shit, then this is *FREE ADVERTISING!*. If your movie is nothing more than dog feces on film stock, then see 1) above before whining about nobody spending money on your film because they've already seen how bad it is.

4) If any of the above can also be attributed to Union Greed, then it's time for Hollywood to grow some balls and kick the Unions out once and for all. The recent Writers' Strike is yet another example of how they've exceeded their purpose and are simply trying to rape everyone's wallets and not just the execs.

...Sounds to me like some ambulance chaser discovered his credit card was maxed again by his mistress, and needed to come up with a quick sting to get the bill paid ASAP.

Screw the revolution. Let's line up all the lawyers against the wall *now*...

...K00l! A mouse you can use to kill someone without having to strangle them with the cord! Tie two together and you get a killer bolo!!!

...Hmm. nd wht ds t sy abt th cncr w cll "dsmvwllng"?

...How do they execute him? Why covering him with honey and burying him in an ant mound, natch!

...Hey, why is everyone so down? Like Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi, she'll eventually return from the grave!

...It's interesting how this thread immediately degenerated into hawks vs doves, when it should have stayed on the Monkey. Some facts about the Monkey:

1) According to most sources, like Spartacus, there's several radio trolls who claim to be The Filipino Monkey. According to quite a few Military radio operators and about 5x more Hams, the *original* one is still trolling, and has been since 1981. There's now at least five other trolls in various parts of the world who are either impersonating the Original Monkey, or are simply carrying on his "work". They're distinguishable from one another, but only if you compare the two as they've gotten very, VERY good at their impressions of this twat.

2) According to several USN surface-types, they actually have gotten a triangulation fix on at least one of the Monkeys on several occasions. The problem is that nobody within the chain-of-command will let them drop some heavy ordnance on the fix.

3) The Monkey doesn't just harass military vessels, he also loves to fuck with cruise ships and oil tankers. Apparently the Carnival line is very familiar with the Monkey, and would love to see him keelhauled. According to some reports, the Monkey may have caused at least one near collision back in 1997 between a Carnival cruise ship and a small freighter during an extreme fog condition - the Monkey, instead of trolling, was pretending to be a Coast Guard station offering assistance, and ordered a course change that was supposed to *avoid* a freighter. Instead, they missed each other by ~50 yards, and only because both crews had posted full lookouts!

...The Monkey is just proof of my belief that malicious trolls should automatically receive the death penalty when caught. That way, when they go to Hell, they can be one of the 57 virgins every terrorist gets as a "reward".

...Horny li'l gal, ain't she? :p

...Most important suggestion: bar *ANY* Mafi...er..."union" activities. They're proving once again that they've long exceeded their need, and now serve not to protect their members from being exploited, but to make far more money than they're worth while working far less *AND* keeping out new talent as part of a job protection scam.

...Disemvoweling = Censorship. Censorship = Violation of Basic Rights of Expression. Violation of Basic Rights of Expression /= what Boing Boing is all about.

Enough. If someone's post is an obvious trolling, then purge it. But leave the rest of us alone, even if we do prefer to use "colorful metaphors" when we damn well see the need...

...Yep, leave it to the Frogs to go and want to screw things up for the whole world once again. Makes me wish we'd let Hitler keep'em.

...The secret to thoes "Mystery Boxes" is that they usually either contain a smaller box inside so as to give the perception that there's *something* in there, or they contain absolutely nothing at all. Shelly Mayer did a parody of sorts in an issue of Sugar and Spike back towards the end of the series, where "Tomorrow's Teen-Agers...Today!" discover that these "Floogles" that everyone's buying like crazy are simply empty boxes with clever packaging. Either way, it's a scam to get you to buy an empty box.

On the other hand, this fucking box is probably what Abrams uses for inspiration when he "promotes" his movies, especially Cloverfield and Star Trek Recycled - show box with generic packaging, and give away nothing just to be a jerk...

...JimH asks:

Q: "Where is "Kindergarten Cop" when you need him?"

A: Who do you think they hired as the TSA Nazi, especially in this case?

...This country is getting closer and closer to a revolution. The irony is that it won't be against the Government, but against the hire-a-pigs. They'll actually go up against the wall *before* the lawyers!

...Two points of order:

1) @Moderator: I think I speak for quite a few people when I ask that in the future you delete any and all "disemvoweled" postings. These are clearly the work of pedantic trolls, and serve no useful purpose whatsoever.

2) @Adam Weiss: Having worked both sides of the Customer Service fence, I can say with conviction that 99% of "customer service" these days involves pissing off and/or conbefuddling irate customers just enough to make them go away without having to give them anything along with not causing them to go off and tell everyone in the world that they got fucked over. This sort of consumer abuse is exactly why anyone who gets the shaft from a company WRT even the most basic customer service needs to make their displeasure known as widely as possible, in as many forums as possible, and most importantly in a professional manner. Consumers have a *RIGHT* to complain when the complaint is valid. Dave's complaint *IS* a valid one, and your attitude and comments are nothing but pure trolling and/or schilling for whatever Midwest flunkey has been stuck with this mess. Again, he has the *RIGHT* to complain, so deal with it.

[shakes head in utter dismay at some people's idiocies]

...You know, this is *really* getting to be pretty pathetic on the part of the hire-a-nazis. Dave needs to sue the airline *and* sue the wannabee pig for damages. He won't get anything from the pig unless he opts for a wage garnish, but this sort of crap from a fucking bimbo stewardess being supported by her employer - makes you wonder who *she* blew to keep her job! - needs to be shoved back down their collective throats.

...You know what's going to jump on this like white on rice? The Star Wars & Star Trek mesh creators. They'll be able to whip out somewhat more accurate meshes in a lot less time. That's what *I* want this one for.

@Kaosdevice: Would you take $20.00 USD in exchange for proving your claim? :)

...Holy Frack! The real revelation is that Woolworth's is still in business! I thought they'd all gone belly-up 20 years ago!!!

...Of course, there *is* the rumor that's gone around for a couple of years now that Warren's favorite masturbation toy is a fur-covered Rhoomba :P

@Halloween Jack (A real cool cat, natch): Actually, there's the three counterlaws of Warren Ellis that need to be posted in all fairness:

1) When it comes to cat piss, Warren is an expert in the same way that Howard Hughes was with his own - he bottles the stuff and has a vast collection.

2) The primary reason these days "superheroes" are referred to as "underwear perverts" can be attributed to Warren having written them that way for most of his career. Ergo, the old adage of "he who smelt it, dealt it" applies to Warren having made the "underwear pervert" claim in the first place.

3) It's difficult to understand you with your head up your ass, Warren, Try pulling it out and giving that third law another try :p

...You really want to impress me? Someone locate the Pac-Man levels and the assocated mod patches. I haven't seen those around since Chicken Cannon 2.0 got released in...what? 1994?

...No, Warren has #2 totally wrong. It's not that robots don't want to have sex with humans, it's just that robots don't want to have sex with *Warren Ellis*.

@Esther: Warren actually "writes" comic books, although about 2/3 of the time he can't meet a deadline to save his ass. On occasion he comes up with an oddball concept that actually works, but winds up screwing his own pooch by failing to turn his work in on time. Google on "Ministry of Space" and see the 203 different excuses he had for why that mini's last issue was almost three years late. It's almost as if he ripped off the entire Max Klinger manual on Hardship Discharge Excuses from M*A*S*H!!!

"Father dying. Mother dying. Father and Mother dying. Sister pregnant, Mother dying. Father pregnant, Mother and Sister dying. Half the family pregnant, the other half dying."

Nope. Warren Ellis sure doesn't deserve to be writing comics...:p

@Hohum: Down here, we actually have both hire-a-pigs and *real* cops in the malls. The cops generally pass through about twice a day just to check on things, while the keystone beer kops stand around looking bored. We don't get much of the young punk mall shenanigans in Central Texas - although one event did happen last year that was actually proven to have been mishandled by the hire-a-nazis, although started by the thugs and their girls - and most security goons know that to tell someone around here they can't photograph something is a lost cause at best - Austin alone ranks something like third in the total number of cameras carried at all times per capita, so if they molest someone for taking pictures, cameras will pop up out of nowhere and film *everything* in sight!

...But this is Texas, the state that most Iranians and Iraquis agree should never be touched by the Islamic revolution on the grounds that Texans are the only infidels more dangerous when disturbed than even the most radical extremists employed by Al Queda. Which is why when we see this happening elsewhere, we tend to call for a rope!

...Half the problem is that most - if not all - security guards hired by malls are *NOT* trained law enforcement officials by any definition. What they are, kids, are the school bullies who grew up and couldn't meet the qualifications for a *REAL* police officer, whether it be height, weight, stamina, education, and above all else *INTELLIGENCE*. These hire-a-pigs are nothing but thugs stuck in a boring job because their genetically-induced blockheadedness prevents them from doing anything else for a living. The sad part is that, like Charly,they're aware of their unique form of mental retardation. The despicable part is that being aware of just what completely and utterly worthless they are, they feel obligated to abuse their meager authority in making the lives of normal people like us miserable.

...On a side note, there *are* private security types who -do- their jobs as well - if not better - than a cop. However, those professionals don't get relegated to the shopping malls, but to more important locations, such as hi-tech research labs, financial institutions, and high-dollar strip clubs.

...Bah, that [citation needed] tag is one of the most abused tags on any Wiki. I've seen articles practically vandalized beause some punk slapped those tags on every other sentence,