While I Was Out

This is what was going on.

Product Placement for the Large People

Saw this and freaked out. I'd buy it except that I'd have the same problem with this I have with 40s: A warm 40 is no good so why pace yourself?

Not Dead

Pretty

In the words of Joaquin Phoenix, "I'm Still Here".

No posts recently in the wake of some recent events that have disrupted my ability to post. Namely, The ongoing tragedy in Fukushima, the energy crisis, social disquiet in London, tension in the Yellow Sea, chaos in Libya, not to mention 9/11. Also, there was an earthquake out this way, but nobody really cares.

More recently, I've been uber-busy drinking beer on my patio, hoping to God a hurricane comes and decimates our neighbors just so something interesting would happen locally. Aside from the guy high speed chase that ended with a guy climbing onto the Dunkin Donuts across the street from my workplace (P.S. this actually happened).

If I can find something later that's worthwhile to post about, I will. Until then, just looking at the pretty lights.

This Is Not News. I'm Not Sure What This Is.

This isn't really news, so much as it's something semi-new.

You don't need to be a fan, or even like Owl City, to be intrigued by why their (we'll call Adam Young "They" for the interest of keeping this post short and to the point) new single is being released as its own website.

I'm a fan, but nothing makes me sadder than when I listen to a good album at home, and then when I emerge into the scathing sunlight and see what's happening in the world, there's a whole lot of people trying to turn my musical experience into a whole bunch of money-spending.

"Here's this website! It's got a tiny amount of content and a lot of things you can buy!"

Not criminal, just annoying, and worth a passing mention. Also, annoying because somebody really, really could have used that domain name for something cool. Whatever.

If you get a chance, check out some of their music, it's pretty cool. Out of spite, find it somewhere free.

Oh Snap, China!

The graphic above looks way too aesthetically pleasing for the data it's alleged to represent.

At McAfee's blog last night, and reported later by Reuters this morning, a number of government agencies and large, powerful companies have been duped in the largest cyberattack ever seen. So large, in fact, that it's been going on for years and nobody has had any idea.

McAfee's not trying to point any fingers, but the ATTACKS themselves came from China. "Experts" (as most of the media are now calling "people we managed to get on the phone in the last 45 minutes") are prone to agree ("WITHOUT POINTING ANY FINGERS! MAKE SURE YOU WRITE THAT DOWN!") that the attacks may be China-sponsored, but also may be Russians operating in China. Wait, how do you just randomly gather that?

Also, has anyone ever used McAfee? I don't trust them with my computer I built from my sister's spare parts (her computer, that is, although, in an unrelated tangent, my sister and I ARE both fully mechanical). I would never trust them with any sort of opinion on international diplomacy.

Anywho, the infographic above relates to how many of what were attacked according to McAfee. Targets are listed to include the U.N., governments of the U.S., Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, along with a fairly large number of other organizations (including the International Olympic Committee, BEFORE the Beijing Olympics! Saucy!).

Here's a link to the actual McAfee post (on a blog? These are news now?).

Here's a link to 2 sides of the coverage of this event, from Reuters and Sophos.

The common opinion, at this point, looks like whatever happened was pretty big, however, nobody really knows much about who's responsible, where all this data is going (except maybe China) or what it's being used for.

But if China really does own as much of the U.S. as everyone tells me they do (nobody really tells me that, I think it was a big news story last year and I've fused it into a fake social memory) and they also have all of our crazy digital secrets ("Oh wow! The U.S. is broke, I couldn't have learned that by watching the news"), then that's actually pretty impressive. But I'm not going to point any fingers.

Except at LulzSec. Just because I blame LulzSec for everything. But I'd trust them over McAfee any day.

May This Chair Be With You

My lapse in posting is, this time, not entirely my fault. We've moved to a new residence and we definitely dont have our Internet hooked up. Or cable. We do, however have an awesome teal blender/George Foreman set. No furniture though. I think it's better that way, because

1) Floor-sitting will, inevitably, be the new 'planking'

2) I can construct this awesome armchair out of boxes from the move with all the time I'm not watching repeats of True Blood or scouring Wikipedia for spoilers that Alan Ball is going to somehow circumvent anyway.

I'll be back in a few days when our Interweb access is back up and running unless something unusually awesome happens that I'll have to update about via flocks of digital carrier pigeons.

Peace!

Stockholm Syndrome

Never been so excited for a safety announcement. 3 hours waiting will make anyone care.

This Is About To Get Out Of Hand

On a Thursday in White Marsh you would typically end up in a theatre with maybe 4 other people. Tonight almost three hours in advance the theatres already almost full.

The question remains, what do you do for three hours in a theatre just waiting for the show to start?

Things to do whilst waiting for the show to start:

Try to swindle a 3DS from a nerd girl 2 rows up

Get into an imaginary fistfight with the usher over seating consolidation for the sold-out show, and losing your PRIME 3D viewing location

Smoking a cigarette to quell your rage over above-mentioned seating loss

Wait 20 minutes in line at concessions stand

Brood over being swindled into a bottled water when honestly tap water would have been sufficient

Hate that you can hear Angry Birds above you and you don't haz with you

Yell at your girlfriend about your crappy seats

Apologize, to no avail

Consider napping, except that you'll sleep through the movie.

Make friends with the stranger on your other side

Pass out

Life Absurd

This is the line for the Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 midnight showing. At 9pm. In White Marsh, MD. Really? 3 hours in advance wasn't quite enough? This is absurd! What does one do for three hours while SITTING IN A HALLWAY? I'm going to start building a small society from the uncleaned AMC floor lint.

The Lotsarita

Thank you, Don Pablo's, for this giant margarita. I will need at least one more to survive the 3-4 hour wait in line for seats at the Harry Potter premiere. Judge me and I'll find you.

Barack Obama, Congress, and the Great Debate on Debt

The big topic of today is the ever-impending deadline to raise the Federal debt ceiling to prevent default on all our debts. There's a lot I wanted to say, but I ate a whole pizza and now I'm just cranky like a baby.

Pizza, at a time like this!?
Surely you jest.

A man has to eat sometime.

I wanted to really comment on who was wrong about what and what we should do and blah, blah, blah but I can't really find much information about what's going on whilst wading through all the gossip about who Boehner's going to prom with and how Obama's parents won't spring for his and Pelosi's limo/dinner at Red Lobster.

But no, seriously. It's sort of mental to see how much news coverage is centering around the name-calling and backstabbing going on during these big budget talks, and how little anyone is actually talking about the budget issues that are even being discussed. All coverage at the moment is being dedicated to how angry everyone in "the room" is towards each other. Also, people are covering polls that are taken in sort of a "man on the street" kind of way. Soooooooo....

Uninformed public + gossipy new coverage = results that sound like who's voting for who for prom queen.

End of story: If nothing else is working in Washington, I'm at least glad Obama is growing some cajones and standing up to all this bipartisan panty-bunching. Nothing annoys me more than a bunch of people in a room spending so much time arguing that they can't get anything done. That's the reason why my girlfriend and I have dinner separately so often, otherwise we'd both go to bed hungry every night.

Catherine Kieu Becker and the Thing She Did (GROSS)

I'll give you the opportunity to pass this one up. Awful story to follow after the jump.

HEAT WAVE! And Other Hot Things

Mostly just because it's been hot outside, partially because The Who looks much better on camera than Martha and the Vandellas (Yeah I knew who they were before I saw them next the result for The Who on YouTube. Are you going to argue with me?) but entirely because I was one day into a blog and almost out of stuff to talk about so tonight I'm letting the Interweb do the talking for me. And it's talking about OMG IT IS HOT OUTSIDE.

Follow the jump to watch me rage intellectual about the Sun and all the things it does for (and against) us.

Happy Birthday Neptune!

You are blue and ridiculous and gassy. And you take 165 times longer than we do to get around the Sun. Way to go, fat-ass. (Follow link for true information).

I'm wondering if these will give me cancer, and weighing that possibility against how tasty they must be.

And this is to test to see if I can post via email from my cell phone. Hi Chris! Nice fork!

Dawning of a New... Blog

I couldn't think of anything more brilliant as a title for my first post. So I'm probably in trouble.