perfidy

Sorry John, I've never had the pleasure of Ohio. Maybe Buckethead and I can swap Washington for Maine sometime? 

Apparently, there is a special unit of the Russian armed forces that specializes in extreme cold weather beer retrieval.

BBC reports that soldiers recently spent a week conducting beer retrieval operations in and around a frozen river near Omsk.

What's next, Mandrake? Beer? American beer? How's THAT tie in with your post-war commie conspiracies?

Homo sapiens, as a species, have distinguished ourselves through uncounted millenia by asking questions of ourselves and our Earth and relentlessly pursuing answers. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes our answers are way off; often our quest for answers only serves to confuse us further and demands new questions.

As our intellect evolves and becomes more refined, many an academician and layman alike seek a single, elegant solution to solve all the great puzzles of our universe.

I refer, of course, to those intrepid intellectual explorers who unflaggingly seek to tie Nazis and malevolent aliens together with secret Aryan Antarctic bases, the Trilateral Commision, the Kennedy assassination, the hollow Earth, and Denver International Airport.

Not satisfied with taxing you until you bleed, and not returning any noticeably improved service for said tax, the Bay State has engineered the following scam. Here's how it works:

When it's time to renew your registration, you decide to do so online. It's faster, easier, you don't have to deal with surly registry people, and they don't have to deal with the surly public. Everybody wins.

And after a few weeks, then 2 months, pass without a new sticker in the mail, you might begin to wonder what's up. After you get pulled over for having an expired sticker on your plate, you start making some calls.

The registry demands $15 for a new sticker. You explain you've already paid $40-odd online. You show the receipt. The registry will not accept the credit card statement or website receipt as proof of payment. More specifically, they won't accept it as current, because what you are REALLY doing is saying you lost your replacement and are trying to scam a new one on the cheap by saying you never got it. I am not making this up. The registry can do no wrong, only fend off the cheating masses always trying to get over. Then say it's the Postal Service's fault for losing your replacement.

So if you like driving a legal car, you have to pony up the extra $15, in essence to replace the replacement you already paid for online. Renewing online, so quickly and easily, actually costs more in the long run as you ultimately have to pay twice.

The woman this happened to, who I know well, knows other people to whom this has happened. When she asked about it at a registry office, the workerwoman said there are
M A N Y people in the same boat, just within the reach of that little branch alone.

What the Commonwealth is doing is charging people twice for the same service, then blaming the taxpayer or the USPS for it. And that, my friends, is poop.

This is an ongoing irritation, like that weird rash you can't seem to shake.

Radio, to put it simply, sucks. Tiresome jocks with the same banal schtick (crank calls; ass jokes; "I got so trashed last night"- dialogue; porn). The same IDs that all say "We rock!" or "We kick your ass!" (like that's a good thing?!) and "The only station that rocks your world!!", each time invariably followed by "Ramble On" or some other light rock that hasn't been played for at least 2 hours.

So-called "classic" rock stations are especially onerous- why can "classic" mean Hootie but not old Iron Maiden? Counting Crows and not MC5? Why do they only have about 50 records they can play, most of them seemingly including at least one Beatle? Why can they only play about 2 approved songs off each of those records?

At least....at the VERY least.... "modern" rock stations get new stuff to spin. Most of it is entirely average, but at least it's new. If you didn't know better though you would easily mistake the "classic" format for the "modern" one- a terrific irony given the amount of Zeppelin and Sabbath the latter stations play. Why can't Led Zeppelin go the f--k away forever?

Weekends are the worst, when all stations pull out the most tiresome, overplayed tracks they
can muster. In the middle of the night on Saturdays you might- might- hear something both new AND good, but you can't plan for it.

So why don't I just shut the stupid thing off? Why the temper tantrum over lame radio? Because I just don't GET it, and would really appreciate someone explaining it to me. This technology, coupled with the proper power, can reach so many people simultaneously: in their homes, at work, driving to one or the other, in the store, through those CIA-implanted fillings; and over a huge area. Why not make a GOOD station? Is there any business reason to allow a station to suck?

Because making porn is almost as good as printing your own money.

Fox news is reporting a new reality series based around finding new porn talent:

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,102247,00.html

Profits from this show will be massive, especially once the DVD is for sale. The $100k prize for the winner would be chump change by comparison.

There's a reason why companies like Vivid Entertainment Group are $150 million+ entities.

Last month I spent a few days in the company of warriors. It was like going to a different planet compared to my usual day to day existence at a liberal, snoot-ay private college. A filmmaker and I shot several training exercises conducted by special operations forces. This training was largely built around urban maneuver and combat; some exercises were held at night, others in broad daylight; some with live ammo, others with a 9mm paintball-type submunition. Many of the operators we spoke to were combat veterans and the rest are soon to be. Here's a short list of what I learned. I think it worthwhile to share these observations, particularly with Bad Guys. If you are a Bad Guy, please take these to heart and save us all some trouble in the future: 

1. These guys WILL get into your house/bunker/cave/RV/hijacked plane. You can lock the door and latch the gate if it makes you feel better, but you really needn't bother. They will blow it up, blow it off, torch or saw through it within about 15 seconds. If you give them half a chance and a pipe wide enough they will throw on some flippers, swim into your house, and come right out of your tap the next time you get a glass of water.
2. If commandos kick your door in in the middle of the night, they will not kill you if you are not holding a weapon. If you are not a Bad Guy, you might want to stop, drop, & roll like Dick Van Dyke encouraged in that old PSA. That was for fires. For this scenario, if you curl up and refrain from looking menacing you'll be OK. If you have to cry or piss yourself, try not to move too much. If you are a Bad Guy and insist on meeting Allah at that very moment, reach for your weapon. Hello, virgins!
3. Special operations people are high-energy. They do nothing slowly or half-assed. If you are a Bad Guy, you will not outrun them. You may make them tired in the process of catching you, but that will only make your immediate future exceedingly difficult.
4. Special operations people shoot better than you. While you and you cohorts were spending your days deciding whether Israel or the US was more responsible for the world's evil, they were training. Day and night, year-round: close quarter battle. Long distance sniper ranges. Heavy weapons training. Look, I KNOW you want to get your share of virgins but put it this way: I also know some want them more than others. All you have to do is not shoot at the SOF guys and you'll live. Just say, "I must live to spawn a new generation of martyrs" or some such. That'll probably fly on Al Jazeera.
5. Special operations people WANT to kill Bad Guys. ALOT of Bad Guys. Badly. They are disappointed if they are not in the fight, and will not accept failure once on the battlefield. If you are a Bad Guy, do not confuse soldiers with warriors. Soldiers exist to do specific jobs: cooks, drivers, artillerymen, military police, etc., and vary in their readiness and quality of leadership. Warriors don't share these problems. They exist to kill you. They are grouchy when they aren't. Please make a note of it.