Jon Stewart on PBS’s Bill Moyer

Posted on April 30, 2007 by Brent

Mom and Dad had this recorded when we went over there this weekend and it is a great segment. It is amazing that we can’t find people like this to actually be politicians instead of the people that we have up there.

Jon tries to be honest and serious throughout the entire interview and has some really great points and comments. It makes you wish that there was a way to make people listen to real comments and thoughts rather than the bullshit that is the “News” now.

It reminded me of the other great Jon Stewart segment from Crossfire.

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Sylvia Browne F’s up again 5

Posted on April 30, 2007 by Brent

Yet another fully documented case of Sylvia Browne‘s failure. As has been the case with all the previous ones, she did a reading on Montel that should thought could never be proven wrong, except it was… again.

Sylvia Browne’s screwup

Again, she failed to get anything right and again she causes terrible distress on her victim. This time though the poor woman goes to her death thinking that her daughter is a drugged stripper and wastes her life running around trying to find her. Of course the reality is that her daughter had been found and buried for years before Sylvia told her she was still alive. Sadly the body wasn’t identified until later after her mothers death.

And people say that listening to her is just harmless fun. It seems that yet again, she did more harm than providing any fun.

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IP address highlighter

Posted on April 25, 2007 by Brent

I have a few pages that list IP addresses for systems that are accessible from a webpage.  I don’t have access to change the pages so that the IPs are linked properly so I started looking around for something that would do it for me.

I couldn’t find a Firefox plugin that worked to do this, but I had previously found a GreaseMonkey script that  highlighted phone numbers in pages.  It would then let you click on them and it would dial your Asterisk Extension.

So I dig that script out of the intertubes and then dug up some regex.  A few modifications later and this is what I got.

IP Address Linker

You need Greasemonkey and a blind eye to the fact that I reused a large part of the code, but it works for me.

Thanks Intertubes!

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Triumph repair work (Part 2)

Posted on April 21, 2007 by Brent

After I got it back from the guy that “painted” it, the clutch wouldn’t work. I had my neighbor, Wayne, come over and help me take a look at it. We figured out that the slave cylinder (under the drivers floor pan) was leaking. We took it off and cleaned it up and figured out where it was leaking, he took the cylinder itself to WKU and had a guy there hone it smooth, while I ordered a rebuild kit from Moss for it. Continue reading →

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Triumph repair work (Part 1)

Posted on April 21, 2007 by Brent

The triumph spent most of the Winter at a local garage. I had met a local “Classic Car Rebuilder” named Todd Brannon, last fall and he seemed like a good possible to take the Triumph and repair some of the problems that I was having with it. Continue reading →

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Blades of Glory Review

Posted on April 14, 2007 by Pauline

Hi all, just saw a movie that had a scene in it that was just way too funny. For those of you not familiar with the movie, Blades of Glory, it is about two male figure skaters that decide to pair up for pair figure skating. The first routine that they do together is just hilarious. I was literally laughing so hard I missed glimpses of the routine. I have always wondered about men participating in sports that would require alot of close contact. How do they not feel uncomfortable being that close to another man, with their faces in another guys “business” if you know what I mean. Anyways, this scene was really funny and I just thought that I would post about it.

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You think you are relaxed at your job?

Posted on March 14, 2007 by Brent

First Atomic Bomb

This is a picture of the first atomic bomb. In this picture there is a lot going on, but I can’t focus on most of it because all I see is the striped shirted guy lounging around.

Just to be clear, that is a 14 kila-ton bomb. The tower that he is leaning on was effectively gone and the sand under it was glass when this went off. You have to be pretty comfortable around something as powerful as that to just be hanging out like that.

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Allison Dubois on 1 vs 100

Posted on March 9, 2007 by Brent

Last night I was watching an episode of 1 vs 100 that MythTV had recorded and was greeted by famed “psychic” Allison Dubois on the show. Many people know her as the supposed inspiration for the TV show “Medium”.

She was in the mob and given her “abilities” I expected to have to wait for a long time for her to miss a question. She was out on the second question. She did last one question longer than Dr. Ruth though.

They allowed her to come back in so she could win some more money for her “charity” when the next contestant came out. This time she was a little better and lasted until the 5th or 6th question. Still not that great of a showing in my opinion for someone that can supposedly see the future, read minds or whatever the hell she claims to do.

Pauline tried to cop out for her and say that she probably didn’t want to use the gift on the show. Why not? She was playing for some charity. What better reason than to win money to help a charity? Is her psychic gift limited to only a few usages? If so it doesn’t seem like she would be wasting it on one-on-one phone readings for money, when she could use it once and win tons on the show.

This isn’t the only time that 1 vs. 100 has had psychics on. Another time they had like six of them in the mob. They were all out within 3 questions, if I remember correctly. Not a very good showing for these supposed psychics. I guess it is hard to cold read a multiple choice question that you have to answer without being able to see anyones thoughts on it.

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Sylvia Browne F’s up again 4

Posted on March 9, 2007 by Brent

Caught again being a fraud. I really wonder if she thinks the Montel Show is a good thing after all these.

This time not only was she wrong about every aspect of the disappearance that she was talking about, she also failed to spot the killer in the very room with her.

Perhaps “Francine” her spirit guide didn’t undestand the question or something. Wouldn’t it be great if she had to go on the show and explain exactly how what she said could be interpreted when faced with reality.

Sylvia Browne is a fraud.

and so is every other psychic on the planet.

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Iraq tidbits if anyone is interested

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Pauline

I have had the opportunity to correspond over email with an old high school friend who is currently serving in Iraq. Since I am interested in the conditions over there, I have asked him lots of questions. I thought that others might also be interested in getting some info so I have posted the questions and answers here

His email
I am in Iraq now, in the suburbs of B-dad. Right now it is the rainy season so there is alot of water collecting everywhere and the mud is horrid. You end up being 5 inches taller when you finally make it to y our location and it takes 10 minutes to clean the stuff off

me
Sorry that you are over in Iraq. I didn’t know they had suburbs over there. From the news you get the impression that everyone is just living in horrible squalor and that once we bring stability to the region, their lives will be sooooo much better. I really don’t know what to think of all of it. I don’t really trust the news and I definately don’t trust what the president says. I can’t imagine it being boring though???

him
Other then when getting attacked Iraq is boring, there is not alot to do here. We are in a area called Taji. You can look it up on google earth. Iraq is a dirty country but its not the shit hole alot of people think it is. The northern parts of Iraq in Kurdishstan are nice and clean but the other parts are not so nice. Southern Iraq is horrid. The live in mud huts.

me
Do they let you guys watch the news over there? they did a special the other day about how they are trying to increase the number of facilies they have dedicated to Tramatic Brain Injury (apparently from bombs) and they are supposed to be increasing funds for veteran health care and are moving any veteran disability claims to the front of the line so that they can get their needs taken care of first. what kind of entertainment do they have for you guys over there you are not looking in mud huts for osama? I know alot of entertainers supposedly go over there and put on shows for you all. Have you seen anybody interesting?

him
I can not speculate on the health benefits because I have not had a reason to try yet. We have MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recriation) areas were they have everything from movies to gyms as well as internet and libraries for the Soldiers to use. Normally I go work out, watch a movie or read a book at night. I do not get the greatest amount of free time but I still have enough time to do some things. Working 7 days a week 12 hours a day does not afford alot of time for fun stuff. The first time I came over I saw Robin Williams, John Elway, Leanne Tweeden and had a chance to see Toby Kieth and the band Adema. This time so far I saw one of the comedians from In Living Color ( name escapes me but I remember seeing him on the show).

questions and responses

do you guys form good friendships,

Well like a family there are some you like and others you can not stand. While I am frieldly with some of the people here I would only call a small few actual friends. I would guess the number around 5 or so and maybe another 5 that I could form a friendship with. When I say friends I mean like our old click in High School.

>>> is it mostly guys or are there some women over there too?

We have some female Soldiers over here with us, not as many as last time though. This FOB (Foward Operating Base) has a large number of female Soldiers on it from what I have observed.

>>>when you get to come back home do you get back together and hang out,

Some of us hang out, as I said above here are about 5 or so that I call friends and we hang out and go drink together or just go out and have fun or they come over to the house and have dinner (bringing their families if they have one).

>>>when you ship back to Iraq do you usually get to go out with pretty much the same
> group or do you have to get to know all new people?

We always get new people before we deploy but I can”t really talk number here, OPSEC (Operational Security) risk.

Do any of the Iraqs know english? do you speak to them at all? Are you part of the group that is supposed to be training the Iraq police to take over?

I know a little arabic and they know a little english so we can normally comuniate one way or another. Can’t answer the question about our mission here, once again OPSEC.

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