No, it's not a celebration of the earth: it's St. Patrick's Day! That glorious day where we're all Irish, almost everyone wears green and even more people fall off the wagon for good. Obviously, the site looks a mite different, as it should. Unlike on v-day, the site will hopefully revert quicker, this being a weekday. Last time I got lazy and left it up the entire weekend.

Some choice soul has been playing the bagpipes for hours outside my office, which raises the questino: aren't bagpipes Scottish? Perhaps I'm mistaken on this...

Forget all that boring other stuff: the big news this week is that at my beloved workplace I received my frickin' huge monitor and set it up. It's gigantic! Colossal! Incredible! Words don't fail me, but as soon as we get our new computers in, I'll be able to punch up the resolution to a cool 1920x1440 at 75Hz. Now I just need to sneak in a copy of good ole' quake III and start using the bfg in the dredwerkz, like days of yore.

This is really too funny to quote from. Read it yourself. If you've never seen the movie in question, shame on you.

It appears the new idea behind journalist "embedding" is quite utilitarian: the army has managed to kill all the canary chickens and needs replacements fast. Go figure.

As a yellow dog Dem, I'm not the biggest fan of the blue dogs, but they have their heads screwed on right, especially when it comes to fiscal affairs and this is the latest example. It's about time that a group of Dems got up, said "this is idiotic" and made a plea for fiscal sanity. With projections of $6 trillion surpluses, it's difficult to keep everyone's hands out of the cookie jar (even though I still think Bush's first round of tax cuts was idiotic, even if it was politically difficult to fight), but now that deficits are back, someone has to draw the line. So three cheers for the blue dogs! I just hope they keep fighting strong.

I don't know why the last two days have taken a decidedly fark-like turn in the state of Texas, but the latest thing I've heard of is this man who is now serving time in a doghouse. Read the article. Makes you wonder what the punishment for the guy in Denton would have been had they caught him before he died. Either way, doesn't this at least count as "unusual" punishment, as in "cruel and unusual punishment"? Regardless of the crime, this guy should have to go to jail or pay a fine. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to happen overseas, not in America.

I was somewhat surprised to find the list of consular services for the Mexican Consulate, quite so...broad. Included is the always helpful question: how do I send a corpse to Mexico? Finally, the question that's been on everyone's minds has been answered. And yes, there are strict regulations on embalming, caskets and papers.

As an aside, I attempted to find the instructions to send dead people to France and Italy, but neither featured said info prominently. And those Italians...well, let's just say they need to work on their website. The French are way ahead of them.

What do I make of this story of a pair of really really bad neighbors? Well, let's take the final two paragraphs:

Kyla Welch, whose house backs up to the side of the Mack house, told the Denton Record-Chronicle that her neighbor did not appear to work and was a bit eccentric. But she said both were friendly enough to wave or speak when she saw them in the yard in the past eight years they have been neighbors. Welch said she had noticed recently that when she looked into the yard, Mack was sitting in the van.

"We did kind of notice they were out there all the time with the engine running. I just thought he was smoking in the van because of his mother's health," she said. "You never saw any lights in the house, but I thought they stayed in the back. You never saw anyone visiting," Welch said. "They were kind of odd, but they never bothered anybody."

Um, the van was parked in their front yard. And the engine was running. That's a little bit stranger than "eccentric". One neighbor even brought the man gas for his van so that he could continue to run the engine, yet go nowhere. Yet no one heard from the starving dogs who were so hungry they ate part of the dead mother's arm off, yet couldn't get anyone to let them out of the van. It's a sick, sick world, sometimes.

I haven't commented on the whole Perle/Blitzer/Hersh incident. Everything's been hashed out fairly well. But I did see an amusing quote from JMM that I thought was worth repeating. Here goes:

Trust me, if lacking a theme in your articles made you close to a terrorist most of my friends and I would be down in Guantanamo with burlap sacks over our heads.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Yes, it's another post about fast food. Laugh it up, guys: I'm hobbling around like a sixty year-old after the midnight indoor soccer game last night, so I don't care. I went to lunch with the notion that I'd pick up a shamrock shake from McDonald's. Only trouble is: they didn't know what I was talking about. Every year around this time I'm baffled that only 25% of McDonalds seem to serve this particular delicacy. Grr. Now I've got a craving I can't satisfy.

first off, excuse the case and any errors. i'm typing with one hand, because my other is holding an ice pack to my knee, which is only mildly sore. my ankle is more sore, so it gets the larger ice pack and an ace bandage.

tomorrow, i'm sure, i'll remember the days in high school when i'd wake up sore and think to myself that i had a few hours of classes to rest before i ran again. hopefully it wouldn't be mile repeats. there was always something hurting. college had its share of injuries but 9 times out of 10 they were due to a crash rather than simply being sore. (unless we'd done a particularly hard ride the day before...but even then cycling seemed to simply suck your energy away rather than leaving your ankles swollen or your joints creaking. low impact, you know? except when you'd crash. i guess cycling left more scars.

i am getting back to my chicken catching days, though, which feels good. two indoor games ago i could barely breathe after the first half. now i just want to keep playing. as long as i stay injury free i'll be good. time to tske some drugs, turn down my glowing blue music box, drink some h2o, (my full glass is currently chillin' in the freezer) and remove the contacts. if i keep this up i'll get pretty good at typing with my left hand. i'm already better than some people who hunt and peck. if i could just get the case thing to work i'd be set.

goodnight gracie.

Reading this sure took me back. Back to the days of playing "gunship" on an old PC. You always wanted to go with the hellfires when you were arming up your apache...the sidewinders, while good for hitting fast moving aircraft, were simply too expensive and useless for ground targets, and the default rockets were unguided with not enough punch to take out any heavily armored vehicles. Hellfires hit the sweet spot, and with clear skies you could lock onto multiple targets that were near each other, fire several hellfires (with a few seconds delay between each shot) and as each target was hit, switch the next missile to the next target. Four shots, four kills.

The Longbox even let you perform the neat trick of hiding behind a hill, using the top mounted radar dome (which sits above the rotors) to track targets. So you can fire multiple shots and then move 90% of the helicopter to a secure space, with only the radar dome exposed. (The massive engines are also hidden, helping confuse any incoming IR guided missiles). Boom. Boom. Boom.

I can only imagine that, some ten years from now, I'll be reading about the new advanced "Comanche" helicopters which are revolutionizing warfare. That game was fun as well, with better graphics...

After a relaxing weekend of sun and skiing, it's time to get back to work. First, though, there have been a number of pro-Dean articles in the press of late. First here this newsday article which is positive. Then there's this piece in the Burlington Free Press. Finally, there's this Ryan Lizza story in The New Republic. The last, more than the others, underscores Dean's strength: the other candidates keep confusing themselves about Dean's actual political record. Instead of attacking him from the right for supporting gun owner's rights, they're attacking his stance on Iraq as being too dovish. Implying that he is too far left to be a credible candidate in the primaries is sure to backfire, because it will attract support from the very people who vote in primaries. And when the general election rolls around, most people will be surprised to learn of Dean's fiscal conservatism and overall moderate nature. This is much like 43's strategy in the 2000 primaries: he emphasized his (relatively short) conservative credentials to begin with, helping him defeat the other challengers despite not having a more principled conservative stand than any of them. Yet by the time the general election rolled around, 43 was able to seamlessly transition to the center, claiming he had never left and that he was a "compassionate conservative".

Dean, by contrast, really isn't the uber-left candidate most have made him out to be. So his transition back to the center is an easy one to make. Unlike Gore in the 2000 elections, no credible candidate is considered "to the left" of Dean, despite his policies which place him more squarely in the center than candidates like Gephardt, Sharpton or Braun. By winning over the base so quickly, Dean can concentrate on his real strengths: fiscal conservatism (he's all for balanced budgets), healthcare issues (who could argue with a doctor?) and education. He won't have to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure he's pleasing the left-leaning folks: they're already on board. The fact that they may have embraced a candidate whose views don't parallel their own is good for the party today, and good for the nation in 2004. Let's just hope he picks up some more money along the way, scores a few upsets and then knocks 43 out of the ring next fall.