The Pentagon is planning a new generation of weapons, including huge hypersonic drones and bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US to strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own territory.

Over the next 25 years, the new technology would free the US from dependence on forward bases and the cooperation of regional allies, part of the drive towards self-sufficiency spurred by the difficulties of gaining international cooperation for the invasion of Iraq. [...]

Anybody know how to get blogger to post inside a textbox? I can't get it to read the code from inside the form.

DMX arrested for swearing.

Ex-Prez Bill Clinton on Media Mayhem

Mel Gibson says he attended Mass every morning while shooting his new movie, The Passion, because "we had to be squeaky clean just working on this." [...]

"Where are the they? Aren't there penguins living up in the Ice Bay of Forochel and the frozen north? There's a whole bunch of stuff about the Lossoth, the Snowmen who helped Arvedui when he was in trouble. If Tolkien goes to the trouble of creating the equivalent of Inuit tribes living in the coldest regions of the planet, then there must be penguins somewhere. Hey, after all, he was fond of Polar Bears (remember the Father Christmas Letters?). I love penguins -- it wouldn't hurt to have a little mention of one, would it? Remember that fox that was puzzled when he saw three hobbits sleeping in a fir-wood out in the country… that should have been a penguin. He would have been puzzled too."

(not really worth reading the rest of it, but here's the link anyway).

He's the guy that played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Well, he's got himself a blog, and it's pretty cool. I was gonna post the link, but I came across the following:

"And you know what else? I am profoundly upset about war, dreams of war, and the Bush Junta. Patriot II? How the [word that rhymes with 'duck'] did this happen? How did we, as a culture, sit back and put these people in charge?"

So I decided not to. Free speech has its weak points, and liberal drivel is one of 'em.

You are 2% geek

OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Highlight the ones you've seen:

1 Godfather, The (1972)
2 Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)
3 Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
4 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)
5 Schindler's List (1993)
6 Citizen Kane (1941)
7 Casablanca (1942)
8 Seven Samurai (1954)
9 Star Wars (1977)
10 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
11 Memento (2000)
12 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
13 Rear Window (1954)
14 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002)
15 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
17 Usual Suspects, The (1995)
18 Amelie (2001)
19 Pulp Fiction (1994)
20 North by Northwest (1959)
21 Psycho (1960)
22 Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)
23 12 Angry Men (1957)
24 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
25 It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
26 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
27 Goodfellas (1990)
28 American Beauty (1999)
29 Vertigo (1958)
30 Pianist, The (2002)
31 Sunset Blvd. (1950)
32 Apocalypse Now (1979)
33 Some Like It Hot (1959)
34 Matrix, The (1999)
35 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
36 Taxi Driver (1976)
37 Third Man, The (1949)
38 Paths of Glory (1957)
39 Fight Club (1999)
40 Boot, Das (1981)
41 L.A. Confidential (1997)
42 Double Indenity (1944)
43 Chinatown (1974)
44 Requiem for a Dream (2000)
45 Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
46 Singin' in the Rain (1952)
47 Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
48 Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
49 Saving Private Ryan (1998)
50 All About Eve (1950)
51 M (1931)
52 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
53 Raging Bull (1980)
54 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
55 Se7en (1995)
56 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000)
57 Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
58 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
59 Vita e bella, La (1997)
60 American History X (1998)
61 Sting, The (1973)
62 Touch of Evil (1958)
63 Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
64 Alien (1979)
65 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
66 Rashemon (1950)
67 Leon (1994)
68 Annie Hall (1977)
69 Great Escape, The (1963)
70 Clockwork Orange, A (1971)
71 Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)
72 Reservoir Dogs (1992)
73 Sixth Sense, The (1999)
74 Jaws (1975)
75 Amadeus (1984)
76 On the Waterfront (1954)
77 Ran (1985)
78 Braveheart (1995)
79 High Noon (1952)
80 Fargo (1996)
81 Blade Runner (1982)
82 Apartment, The (1960)
83 Aliens (1986)
84 Toy Story 2 (1999)
85 Strangers on a Train (1951)
86 Modern Times (1936)
87 Shining, The (1980)
88 Donnie Darko (2001)
89 Duck Soup (1933)
90 Princess Bride, The (1987)
91 Lola rennt (1998)
92 City Lights (1931)
93 General, The (1927)
94 Metropolis (1927)
95 Searchers, The (1956)
96 Full Metal Jacket
97 Notorious (1946)
98 Manhattan (1979)
99 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
100 Graduate, The (1967)

The guy at the shop says there's something stuck inside my transmission. Wonder what it could be.....

I hope it's something edible. And tasty.

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel shamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." -Jack Handy

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading." -Henny Youngman

"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. Sooooo, let's all get drunk and go to heaven!" -Brian O'Rourke

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." -Dave Barry

Right-click this puppy and select Save Target As.

UPDATE:

but you don't have to wait till December for your next LOTR fix — The Two Towers DVD will be out in August.

blue blue windows behind the stars
yellow moon on the rise
big birds flying across the sky
throwing shadows on our eyes

leave us
helpless helpless helpless


My car broke down today (familiar territory). It's the first time this one's been in the shop. Pray that it won't cost too much.

Yahoo! Games' Lemonade Tycoon

Weird Al is playing Gulfport, MS, in August. I just might go.

Read this.

Castro: "Tell me and let me see if I hear you. Tell me you haven't returned yet."
Ferrero: "We have a problem with the line."
Castro: "I can't hear him. I hear certain words. I hear him say Fidel. And then I don't hear anything else. What do you think we should do?"

Ferrero explains to Castro that there was an issue with one of Hugo Chavez's suitcases that got lost when he went to Argentina last month. Castro was there, too.

Taken from the transcript of a call Fidel received recently from the same Miami DJs that pranked Venezuelan President Chavez back in January.

"Okaloosa County acquired 3-miles of Santa Rosa Island in 1950. The acquisition of Okaloosa Island culminated the efforts of U.S. Representative Robert F. Sikes, who introduced the bill authorizing the transfer. The community of Destin, the world's luckiest little fishing village, was founded by Captain Leonard Destin in 1945. It adopted the ways of its New England founder."



"The creation of Destin's East Pass is one of the County's great stories. Mr. O.T. Melvin was one of the four men responsible for the freak occurrence. Heavy rains had built up pressure in the bay, at which time it was higher than the Gulf. The four men attempted to dig a small trench from the Gulf to the bay with shovels. The pressure-driven waters literally exploded through the small breach. The flood leveled a forest in the process. The old Pass, located further east, completely closed with silt within three years. Today, the Destin East Pass is maintained by periodic dredging. Mr. Melvin later regretted the changes that had occurred."

homeless serving as billboards.
vodka-sipping barfly goes up in flames.
strongbad e-mail #77: "suntan".
coca-cola launches float-flavored drink.
steve carell video archive.
the hospital.

Get this song and woo yourself a lady. Thanks to 'Thanael for the link.

Since when is ketchup fancy?

The building's fire alarms briefly went off last night and woke me up. Reminded me of the first week in the apartment last August when they went off in three of the buildings here around 4 in the morning. Drove everybody out of their apartments — except for Josiah and Ben, who apparently prefer sleep to hearing. Some punks must've pulled the alarms, I guess trying to revive the excitement of the party that was supposed to be the grand finale to summer and a kick-off to classes.

While Rick, John, Mike and myself waited out in the parking lot for the firemen to figure out how to cut the alarms, half the baseball team and a buncha other guys were talking about the fights that had broken out a few hours before. It started cuz some drunk dude banged on some random apartment door, and when the guy inside opened up, he was yanked out into the breezeway and got his head bashed into the concrete. Naturally, the baseball team and several other guys got into it, and two of 'em ended up in the emergency room. We could still see a nice-sized puddle of blood/flesh in the breezeway where that poor guy's head had been.

It was just fire alarms last night, though.

I wrote my name in concrete today. A few months ago my roommate John found his uncle's name on a sidewalk from when he used to go to UWF in the early seventies. Wonder how long it'll be there.

Organizational Behavior is over. Good thing, too, cuz psychology is really dumb — or at least the stuff they teach us at UWF. I will say this, though. I've had really fun groups and I've had really productive groups, but the group I had in this class was both. We had a great time and got a lot of quality work done, even with one of our members going into labor the day before our final presentation. Wish all my groups could be this tight. The class was only 4 weeks, too (I think they do classes this way in Europe - I know they do in Finland, not sure bout the rest of the continent). I really liked that — most of my 16-week classes feel like such a waste of time.