I liked Glenn Greenwald before he was on Salon ;)

Glenn Greenwald was so awesome today.

Some dogs are dumb

A dog almost committed suicide today because it was so excited to see me.

I'm riding my bike down the Huron St hill into town this morning when I suddenly hear a woman shouting some indecipherable word over and over again. I glance over in the direction of the sound and it turns out the indecipherable word is the name a very dumb dog - some kind cocker spaniel piece of work - that is racing across all four lanes of one of the busiest streets in Ann Arbor (during AM rush hour, no less).

Lucky for me its breeding mix has given it pretty short legs and it just looks sort of stupidly floppy and non-threatening - I'm going about 15-20 mph on a down hill, so it only takes me a split second to gauge the speeds and distances and know that it isn't gonna catch me.

A male voice then joins in shouting the indecipherable word that's apparently indecipherable to the dog too as cars speed by. Not wanting to see the death, or crash for the distraction (I've been big on keeping my attention focused to minimize risk factors since my accidents last year) I just keep on riding and looking straight ahead. Still, the morbid curiosity in me keeps one ear tuned for telltale sounds.

There were none.

If you live in an urban area, please keep your dog on a leash at all times. Even if you're "just taking him/her out to the car."

I don't like dogs too much in general, but I'd feel bad if your dog killed itself because it was so excited to see me.

The Edwards' campaign bloggers

Well now that political bloggers are finally getting the attention of the MainStream Media (or MSM as they call it) they're all annoyed that the MSM has ended up (or been manipulated into) focusing on their foul-fingered attempts at humorous venting of spleen.

The progressives cry shame on the MSM who let neo-con bloggers get away with "far worse" but pick on them for using some offensive language.

Cry me a river, guys and gals. I feel like taking a swim today.

Please realize that being a progressive blogger does not mean that you are sitting at home or in a bar doing shots or drinking martinis or chugging beers with your buddies and swearing a blue streak about how much you hate this that or the other thing that conservatives feel very strongly about defending.

Why do I have to tell you that they will throw that stuff right back in your face and it will make your face look really bad to anyone who looks at you for a long time after? You know that they are bullies and jerks right? You know that many of them make a living by being very good bullies and jerks right?

Do you think that they are not going to bully you if you just tape a big ol' sign to your chest that says "bully me" by using language that every 4 year old knows is nasty and naughty. The neo-cons and their media shills usually have to make stuff up to smear people, but you guys and gals just hand them stuff on a silver platter.

If you think I'm going to ask you to "censor" yourselves or "constrain your freedom of speech" then you need to think twice.

I am pleading with you to work on elevating political discourse in this country by getting your keyboard out of the gutter.

This goes for all the commenters too.

Go make assinine comments that you think are clever over on YouTube if you need an outlet for that. The hater community thrives there.

Rage and cry with your friends on the weekend at home or in bars.

Then when you sit down to type on your blog:

CLEAN IT UP!

Have you ever seen REPO MAN on regular cable? They say M-er F-er so many times in that movie, and when they redubbed it for broadcast they made it a better movie.

Guess how...

With genuine creativity they changed that nasty expletive to "Melon Farmer." You know that everyone watching who needed to know knew what the "censors" had done, and I hope you know that saying "melon farmer" a whole bunch of times makes for some serious hilarity.

So figure it out and start being creative and intelligent with your anger instead of just stupid.

10 Pounds of Lead Shot Will Mash Your Packing Peanuts!

I bought this bag of #12 (believe me when I say, that's the tiniest pellet size you can get) lead bird shot. This stuff is definitely not to be used in the course of hunting for food - unless you like breaking your teeth on the way to getting lead poisoning. It's like very small Christmas cookie sprinkles, only made of shiny black metal.

Why did I search for hours on the internet for this stuff?

Only love or anime could make me do something so odd. To be more precise: building injection-molded plastic mecha (robot) models.

I still haven't gotten around to watching Zeta Gundam - the show from which the model I'm currently working on came, but this Hyaku Shiki (that's "type 100" in Japanese) has some DAMN heavy feet now.

Prior to filling them with the lead shot, which settes in very nicely thanks to it's small size, each foot weighed about 1/4 ounce.

I'll update later with their new weight, as well as the weight of the rest of the kit. For now I'll venture a guess that the feet will weigh almost as much the entire remaining structure.

Pix here when I finish it.

UPDATE:
Each foot now weighs about 1.25 oz, so together they weigh 2.5 oz. This is about how much the whole body from the hips up weighs. This should make the center of gravity low enough for more dynamic poses that an unweighted model could maintain.

Bartender

...is the title of a recently produced short Anime series (apparently from the fall of 2006).

I just watched the first episode on YouTube.

I'd embed it for you, but the uploader disabled embedding (probably a good idea in terms of keeping it under the "use violation" radar.

In case anyone was wondering, this show exemplifies some of the things I love about anime.

There is a feeling I have about some anime that the creators of certain shows (Kino no Tabi / Kino's Journey is another) are immensely brave, in the same way that filmmakers like Wong Kar Wai and David Lynch are brave. I find them brave because they work in an industry that produces "products" and they add some kind of ethereal, spiritual value to their work that most industrial workers do not even attempt because of the obstacles that have been "institutionalized" into their paths.

Bartender isn't earthshattering by any means, but it makes for a quite lovely and engaging 22 minute diversion into a sort of guided meditation on the world in which we live.

Technically it is very simple: "limited animation"at its most limited - but with luminous, beautifully rendered backgrounds and irresistably attractive character designs.

The story itself is almost like something you'd overhear at a good party - again very simple, but in a small way enlightening and pleasant to witness its unfolding. Also, perhaps more than a little bit far-fetched, but no worse off for it.

If you want to watch it, try this, or go torrent download it at animesuki.com

The Boston Mooninite Thing

"If someone can go around at night and place these devices throughout the city with ease, what makes one think terrorist couldn't do the same."

This grammatically challenged quote, attributed to some "man on the street" in a New Hampshire online newspaper, pretty much sums up how dumb many people are about terrorism in this country.

This is the sort of stupidity that makes me want to move to a parallel universe where US citizens are educated in logic and reasoning.

If the world was as scary and full of America-hating terrorists as dumbasses like this guy seem to think, then a very high percentage of USers would be dead and dying. This whole Boston thing is proof of the exact opposite. This country is still a pretty safe place. SURPRISE!

Here's a statistic you might not hear anywhere else: Since immediately before (and including) the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedy, about 0.001% of the entire US population has been killed by terrorists within our national borders. By contrast, during roughly this same period of time about 0.08% of the entire population has been killed by traffic accidents. That's because over 40,000 people in this country die in car accidents every year, year in and year out. Gosh, that's way more than get killed by terrorists every year isn't it? I'm no lightning calculator, but I think something like 80 times as many people have died in the last few years because of car accidents than have died because of terrorist incidents.

So citizens of Boston, New Hampshire, and everywhere else in this country, STFU about your stupid, irrational fear of terrorism and start driving more carefully. And stop smoking while you're at it, you're killing yourself with that stuff! You could probably stand to eat healthier and get more exercise too.

Let's have more TV news stories about fatal car crashes and grossly obese people in diabetic comas and people dying in cancer wards - that stuff is plenty sensational and disturbing to grab some ratings. It's actually REAL too, unlike this "terrorist threat" BS!