Media Polls are bad info.

CBS created a poll just to get a news story. IMHO. The 34% approval rating was based upon CBS's posted numbers at the bottom of the PDF document. This is not representative of the population of the country.

If Brussels sprouts are sprouts, what do they grow up to be?

Brussels sprouts refuse to grow up. This hideous life form has baffled science for years. Children and dogs, being sensitive to evil, refuse to eat Brussels sprouts. The Latin name for the Brussels sprout is vestige Infernus or "leafy thing from hell." The first botanist to identify the sprout said it came from the nether regions. An inept lab assistant changed this to the Netherlands, and this was further corrupted to Brussels. As to their being sprouts, they have been sprouting from harmless broccoli, which leads me to believe they might be a type of fungus. Whatever they are, they don't grow up, and neither will you if you eat them.

Humor courtesy of Dr. Science (he knows more, then you do) http://www.drscience.com/

My Link List now LIVE!!! (cheering commences)

Okay so now I have a link list thanks to the handly help feature. So how do I know these links and or the people behind them? I hear you cry!

Well lessee... Tina of Tina's Stuff is my wife of 17 years.

Shoo is an elementry school buddy of mine, although it was through scouting that cemented our galactic spanning federation. R
obert (Bob, Bobbie, Rob, Bruce, Llama Hunter etc.) is another elementry school chum, who formed a Jihad with me in Scounting as well.

Joe I know through Shoo and through Shoo's collage. I also saved a small portion of his sanity onece upon a time when he was doing a pre-Tom Hanks Terminal impression.

The man behind the maddness of the sustainability Blog is a bit murkier to recall the meeting of, we went to the same church and I'm sure we met during one of the functions.

Tim of Timmerov, I have no idea who he is, never met the man.

Rocky and Sue are dear friends of ours, I met Rocky at work.

The rest are more fun ones. Homestarrunner is a creative flash cartoon site that never fails to bring a smile.

8-bit Theater is one of the longest running web-comics around and harkens to the early day of PC gaming.

City of Heroes is my current online game diversion. I use it to unwind and generally to have some entertainment that isnt just sitting and staring.

W00T! radio is gamer related and has mmorpg online parties in various games, plus a great mix of music.

I admit to being hooked on Short funny videos and the bestest site I found for them is Compfused. I love finding something funny showing it to Tina and have her laughing to tears.

Anyways thats my chart toppers for this week. Peace love and Seacrest OUT!!! (seriously Seacrest get the h* out!!!

My Kidney Stone

Recently, the beginning of 2006 to be precise. I had the experience of passing a kidney stone.

We had just returned from a yuletide holiday in Canada by car. This takes about 13 hours of driving and sitting... We got home with little incident and unpacked, warmed up the house and got to bed. Around 11:00pm I woke up thinking I had strained my lower back. I took some pain meds (ibuprofen) and went to bed figuring they would kick in soon. I could not get comfortable and the 'back-strain' kept getting worse. It was still a dull pain but now it felt more like I had taken a punch. I proceeded to walk around the house which seemed to help either ease the pain or keep my mind distracted. I also was very, very dry mouthed so each lap inside the house I would pause and drink some water. At one point I pressed my back on the arm of the couch and bent back to an inverted V like position which worked for about 5 min.

By this time the dull pain was to the point where I had to keep moving and even that didnt do much. Even walking itself was difficult to concentrait on. This is when I informed Tina we had to go to Hospital. She took forever to get dressed (probably about a minute in actual time) and we went into the Van.

This was the ride from Hell. I reclined the seat and layed there as pain beyond what I could ever recall just radiated outwards. I never really knew what agony ment until this point. If I thought I knew before, I was just kidding myself. Halfway way across town it occured to me that it wasnt getting any worse, and that let me focus. I was able to slow my breathing and relax my body and for lack of a better term, become one with the pain. This of course freaked Tina out because suddenly I stopped moaning and breathing hard and became very still.

This made the rest of the ride go a little more quickly (at this point space-time had slowed for me to the point were seconds were easily divided into looong periods of time). We get to the ER room and I climb out of the Van and Tina goes to park.

I have to fill out some forms... Any concentration or focus I had ended when I got out of the car and the pain was back full force to the point I could not really see. I recall writing my name and the reason my being in there 'PAIN' was scrawled across the bottom of the form. The next part of being in an ER is a quick evaluation where they take your Blood pressure. This requires sitting down. I get ahold of myself and focus enough to walk back into the room (I had been feverishly pacing around) and sit down in the seat for the BP machine.

My blood pressure was 'elevated' go wonder... Anyways, as I am sitting there the pain slackens off. I am sitting down still and my body is not SCREAMING at me for motion of any kind. Tina makes it into the ER by this point and they promptly hand her 1500 various forms to fill and sign and date and re-sign and inital and stamp and fold and mutilate...

I get brought into a little room, and Im starting to feel pretty good (and stupid cuz im in an ER and feeling better). I get dressed and the nurse comes in and wants a sample. I make it to the bathroom feeling a good 95% better (my back feels like I got punched). Everyone is saying its a kidney stone. Sample done, I head back to the room and sit down there in no pain at all. Just about the time I am thinking of sneaking out the doc comes in and checks me over. They are going to give me stronger pills and a pee strainer.

The nurse comes in the room at this point and shows us the little stone in the sample cup I had just made... That kinda confirms it was a stone...

We named it Malcom...

Friday my brain hurts.

Okay there is a popular song out there currently on the airwaves by a band named Fallout Boy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4435593179243241083

There lyrics are ...'difficult' to understand. So to help out you can check this video interp.

(warning there may be objectional stuff in this video. be warned)

Roseburg High

FYI both my kids are fine
http://www.koin.com/news.asp?RECORD_KEY%5Bnews%5D=ID&ID%5Bnews%5D=2513

ROSEBURG, Ore. -- One person was shot Thursday morning at Roseburg High School, according to an administrator.
Roseburg police Sgt. Aaron Dunbar says it is unknown at this time if the person hurt is a student or staff member.
Dunbar says the gunman appears to be a student.
The administrator says the school was in lockdown, along with a nearby elementary school. The shooting happened about 7:45 a.m. at the school.
One victim is being treated for an unknown injury at Mercy Medical Center.
Dunbar says the gunman fled the scene but was cornered by police near the school. After a short standoff the suspect held a gun to his head but was taken into custody with no further incident.

Ronald Reagan quote

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
Ronald Reagan

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
Ronald Reagan

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
Ronald Reagan

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
Ronald Reagan

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
Ronald Reagan

I know in my heart that man is good.That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.
Ronald Reagan

I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan

Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.
Ronald Reagan

The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, Jan 16, 1984

February's Dwarf song

This morning while showering the sleep away I recalled a joke my mom used to say.

"I owe, I owe, so its off to work I go"

Work blues

On Thursday I was informed that we are going onto manditory overtime for the next week. I work in the Home Sales call center at a big computer company. My personal job is support for a sales team. I fix problems before the order ships. I have actually received quite a few accolades for my work.

Our Call center has both system sales and electronics and accessories teams. My support role is for an E & A team. E & A sells hand held computers, Plasma TV's, Cameras and about 60,000 other items. The E & A team is going to have one hour manditory overy time. The system sales side is having two hours.

My Manager decided the entire support team will be working two hours OT and they will be shadowing thier teams schedules. Well my E & A team are still employed by a company called spherion as a way of testing thier worth without putting them on the major computer companies payroll. The powers that be decided that my E & A team will be moving to system sales for the next two weeks and they will not be working any OT.

The Ultimates

One of my favorite comic books is comming to DVD this month.

The ultimates! Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Wasp, Giant man. Characters that were all created a scant three years ago.

Yes, these characters were called "The Avengers" and appeared back in the 60's (or the 40' if you count Cap).

back in 2001 BENDIS! launched a re-boot of Spider-man, named... Ultimate Spider man. This took Peter Parker out of the Marvel continuity and re-booted the character. The success of this book followed with the Ultimate X-men and so on.

The Avengers re-boot is the Ultimates. It's a very different ride but in many ways the same rooted in reality basis that marvel has used for its characters over the years.

The DVD looks promising, the artwork and style is'nt anything innovative but it looks a step above your normal Television shows. What I am interested in is how close they keep the characters on track. When you stray from the comic book medium you get a wide variance on what the characters become. Some can stick closer to the comic the others. Spiderman .vs. Fantastic Four for instance. Sure Rami took liberties with Spidey but no where near what was taken with the FF.

The trend in comic books is to either buy weekly or wait until the first six issues are published in a Trade format. I am assuming the DVD follows the Trade comic which is on my must read list of books.

Bret Hart

Bret "Hitman" Hart is joining WWE's Wrestling hall of fame. This in and of itself is something we wrestling fans thought wouldnt happen.

Today there are two wrestling promotions with nationwide Television access, TNA and WWE (formerl the WWF). Once upon a time there were wrestling companies all over the place with local TV contracts and for some Network contracts. One of these was Calgary Wrestling owned and run by Stu Hart. Brets dad.

• The owner of the WWF Vincent McMahon(sp) found that buying other wrestling promotions was more cost effective then buying up talent and fighting for TV coverage. Eventually the WWE bought up pretty much everyone. Calgary was of key importants because of what Stu Hart has built, a stable of over the top technical wrestlers. To name a few:
• Ben Bassarab
  Abdullah the Butcher
  Chris Benoit
  Chris Jericho
  Larry Cameron
  Justin Credible
  The Junkyard Dog
  The Dynamite Kid
  Superstar Billy Graham
  Bret Hart
  Bruce Hart
  Keith Hart
  Owen Hart
  Ross Hart
  Smith Hart
  Billy Jack Haynes
  Jason Helton
  Mark Henry
  Jos Leduc
  Paul Leduc
  Jushin 'Thunder' Liger
  Jim Neidhart
  Brian Pillman
  Kensuke Sasaki
  Gama Singh
  Davey Boy Smith aka British Bulldog
  Lance Storm
  Greg Valentine
  Edge
  Rowdy Roddy Piper
  Bad News Brown
  Fritz Von Erich

Thats quite a legacy. At the height of its popularity there were the big two promotions with nationwide audiance, WCW backed by Ted Turner and the WWF. They had shows on the same night at the same time and it was great for the fans. Bret was the champ at WWF and was given an oppertunity at WCW for an ungodly sum of money. Bret, seriously did not know what to do, the owners of the WWF told him that they couldnt match that and he should take the money. So he did. This resulted in the 'screw job' which is still being talked about today. The DVD Wrestling with Shadows was being filmed at the time and they caught every nasty moment.

So Bret left WWF with less then a good taste in his mouth. WCW could never figure out a plan for him so he floundered around until a farily green wrestler gave him a career ending injury to the head.

Brets was one of 12 kids most of whom are in the wrestling business. After Bret and Stu, Owen Hart was arguably one of the most talanted of the brood. He was working for the WWF when an accident caused him to plunge from the rafters of an arena to his death. Bret held the McMahon's personally responsible.

The feud that followed was nasty and took place both in WWF WCW and in various newspapers that Bret's weekly column appeared. The WWF erased Brets existance, then bought WCW and thus owned the legal rights to everything Bret did.

Bret himself suffered a stroke before\during or after a bike accident and had to struggle back to being able to walk and talk again. Fast forward to last year. Bret was able to make a working relationship with the WWE and produce a box set of some of his best matches. Evidently this lead to his being nominated to the Wrestling hall of fame (owned by the McMahons).

Despite all that happened no one's life work should be erased out of a feud. So I'm happy that Bret is once again in the limelight.

Adult Beverage

I'm not a 'Drinking man' by any stretch of the imagination. I have never been drunk I have never had a hangover. I havent woke up not knowing what I did the night before. I have no idea what a 'good buzz' is like.

I attribute my tea totallying to two reasons. 1-I just never had a taste for it. 2-My sister in a very know-it-all manner informed me at the tender age of 13 that in a few years I would be drinking beer and enjoying the gusto... (I showed her).

My wife, Tina, was taken aback when it came up early in our dating that I was a non-drinker. It upset the balance of her universe for about thirty seconds. Add to that my lack of skills with Drug useage. I am just one of those clean cut kind of people that some do not feel exist.

Well in 2005 I found an adult beverage that I enjoy. Mikes Hard Lemonade. 5.2% Alc\Vol malt beverage with natural flavors... yum!

So we are in Canada and my in-laws find out and are both shocked and possibly relieved... not sure on that. Next thing I know a four pack appears. So Im imbibing and I notice that the taste isnt all that good. I wonder if I have aquired a dislike for it. Nope, here is the thing.

In Canada the same bottle of the same product is 7% Alc\Vol and is a Vodka drink. In short its a different product all together. Go figure....

Anyways Enjoy a Mikes and let me know what you think!

Equilibrium (DVD viewing suggestion)

Equilibrium (2002) Directed by Kurt Wimmer.

Great action flick, over the top plotline and some questionable acting by Taye Diggs. It's a future society where emotions have been outlawed and supressed by the government as the cause of all things 'bad'. The top of the law enforcement is the violent monklike Grammaton Cleric's who are a force to be reconed with. Utilizing a gun kata that maximizes the kills in a given combat zone. Christian Bale is the lead (Batman Begins).

City of Heroes

My pastime, currently, is online gaming MMORPG (look it up). My game of choice is City of Heroes.

The best part about playing CoH is that my wife plays too. As our computers face each other it makes for easy teamming. We also have complimentary characters that provide great synergy as well.

This is a picture of my main character, Lady Grasp. Someone had beaten me to the name 'Grasp'... ah well...

The game is based upon superhero genre and takes place in Paragon City RI. You start by desiging a hero and costume from a set of Archtypes. My choice was a 'Scrapper' her main skill is Martial arts and her Secondary skill is Super Reflexes. in CoH speak.. {My AT is MA\SR scrapper} This means she engages in close quarters combat with punches and kicks and is very difficult to hit.

The game has a level 50 cap so once you reach that the only reason to play your main is for special events and or when you really want to kick the crap out of something.

Seeing if I can post a gif. This is a French pop-star named Alizee.

Shoo did'nt get me to do this!

Tina actually did. However I am not going to share this until I decide I can actually make enough blogs to warrant going forward.