17 Sep 06 Male Bathroom Etiquette
Really, it’s the truth. 
17 Sep 06 Idea for a YouTube Greasemonkey Script
Someone can probably write a Greasemonkey script around this and get a fair amount of geek worship because of it — I have no idea how to go about programming it myself, however.
The purpose of the script is to get around YouTube behavior of autoplaying videos upon loading the page.
You could probably do this by intercepting the call for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[code] and replacing it with http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3D[code].
This places the age verification screen before any video, even one that wasn’t actually flagged.
The only thing is that the script would have to be smart enough not to interfere with itself when the user clicked on the ‘Confirm’ button on the age verification screen.
A corollary could be that it could make sure that no one else’s embedded YouTube would autoplay, by stripping the “&autoplay=1” out of any embedded YouTube videos, as more fully detailed here
If anyone does write this up, lemme know, eh?
17 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/17)
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“Nothing larger than a laptop bag can be carried into airplane cabins. But cellists, violinists, and French horn players are loath to consign their instruments, often antiquities worth millions of dollars, to cavalier baggage handlers and the rough-and-tu
(tags: terrorism dumbass censorship) -
“Most dinosaurs are extinct now or almost so, but now and then some sightings show that a few survivors remain in the world.”
(tags: dumbass religion whaddafuck) -
“I was treated like a common criminal, especially by Chief Reilly, who called me a ‘freakin’ idiot’, ‘incompetent’, and I overheard him telling Officer Flaig that if I ever came near his dog I would have a slug in my a**.”
(tags: dumbass whaddafuck) -
“Boxer’s office said if she does not receive adequate answers to her questions, she will push for an investigation by the FCC inspector general.” God bless Barbara Boxer!
(tags: whaddafuck fascist censorship amazing) -
“[A]d agency Downtown Partners placed life size realistic decals of a person at the bottom stairwells in Cineplex Odeon Theatres in Toronto. At first, the decal generates the impression that someone is lying down unconscious and needs help.”
(tags: amazing goodideas interesting) -
“‘The VA still has not determined yet if a Wiccan symbol can go on the headstone,’ said Tim Tetz, executive director of the Nevada Office of Veterans Services. ‘But we have determined we control the state cemetery and that we therefore have the ability to
(tags: military whaddafuck horrifying) -
(tags: cool interesting)
16 Sep 06 Pretty Cute Movie Mash-Up
16 Sep 06 Twinkle
I’ve not listened to Tori in quite some time, but this is beautiful. Since the lyrics speak to a visit to a murderer in an abbey, the woman had to adapt the lyrics a bit, and although the purist in me rebels at lyrics alterations, these ones were quite nice … and the children’s chorale singing it, well, that brings such a beauty to this song.
16 Sep 06 Ruined it for the rest of us … ;-)
![[Peanuts Strip]](http://www.windycitymike.com/images/2006-09-15-peanuts-strip.jpg)
15 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/15)
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(tags: whaddafuck horrifying)
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“The producer of a mashup album that combined the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band has been threatened with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit by EMI, the Beatles’ music publisher.”
(tags: dumbass corporatism music whaddafuck) -
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush [Bush's grandfather] was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
(tags: unbelievable neocon) -
After a V.A. nurse published a letter to the editor criticizing Bush, Mel Hooker, H.R. chief at the Albuquerque VA hospital, wrote her, “The Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition.”
(tags: whaddafuck censorship neocon politics government fascist horrifying dumbass) -
Oh, good, so it’s perfectly acceptable for me to go “yowza! yowza! yowza! homina!” at her now.
(tags: cute) -
Wow — when you see it go from Bush to Clinton to Bush, it’s pretty telling, isn’t it? That’s amazing.
(tags: government tragic politics) -
“The Bush administration yesterday cautioned countries with secret CIA prisons in their territory against disclosing the sites’ existence, even as the European Parliament renewed its demand that its members come clean if they host such detention centers.”
(tags: horrifying whaddafuck terrorism holy_shit fascist) -
“[T]he Department of Energy convened a conclave of scientists, linguists, anthropologists and sci-fi thinkers to develop an elaborate system intended to shout ‘Danger!’ [...] $1 billion to complete.”
(tags: interesting science)
13 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/13)
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“We didn’t want to reinforce her saying it, so we tried not to react, but since I spent at least a minute convulsed in soundless laughter, I’m not so sure it worked.”
(tags: hysterical cute) -
For those who may be wondering why I broke out in subdued, quiet laughter in the middle of a rather quiet floor of real estate attorneys …
(tags: cute hysterical funny)
12 Sep 06 To Love, to Take Care Of, to Help Somebody Figure Out the World
I’m a fan of Jessamyn, a fellow Chicago blogger — I ran across her on the evidently-now-defunct Diary-X when she was a Chicago attorney and just found myself drawn to how well she wrote and how much her feelings felt familiar to me.
Since then, she’s married and had an absolutely gorgeous and cute little girl, Katie. A few days ago, she wrote beautifully about how she had hoped for a little miracle like Katie to enter her life.
It’s not quite “manly” for guys to feel similarly, I suppose, but I have to admit, I do often wonder if I’m going to get the chance to be a father — and so much of what Jessamyn wrote resounds:
I wanted somebody to love; I wanted somebody to feed and hold and take care of; I wanted somebody to share our home with us; I wanted somebody that Geoff and I would both love more than we had even maybe known we could love; I wanted to help somebody figure out the world; I wanted to see the world through a child’s eyes; I wanted to have an excuse to watch Sesame Street, and Bass & Rankin Christmas shows, and to play with toys, and to fingerpaint and make cookies; I wanted to share holidays and traditions.
Marriage and fatherhood are unfortunately still a very long ways off on the horizon for me, but, as always, Jessamyn seems to have this beautiful way of conveying the wonder of being a parent.
11 Sep 06 2001 - 2006
September 11, 2001: This Entry Could’ve Been About … and Time in the Crucible
September 15, 2001: Prejudicial Virii: Tragedy Perpetuating Itself
September 19, 2001: The Mind’s Scabs
September 29, 2001: Troubled, Turbulent Waters
October 3, 2001: Uchronia
October 11, 2001: Faith, Hope, Charity
October 14, 2001: A Brief Brain Dump
September 11, 2002: Remembrances
September 10, 2003: LiveJournal — 09/10 11:49 PM
September 11, 2004: Blogger — 9/11 10:29 AM
September 11, 2005: And Now It’s Time for Weekend Update!
11 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/11)
![[Perry Bible Fellowship Comic]](http://www.windycitymike.com/images/2006-09-10-pbf.jpg)
10 Sep 06 You Can’t Clone Coolness … Unless You’re REALLY Skilled
There once was a boy named Gary Brolsma. He lip-synched to the song “Dragostea din Tei” — also known as the Numa Numa song. He became famous. He didn’t like that fame. He withdrew.
He came back. He got offered lots of money, and he performed a new song, the New Numa song.
The reaction I posted on YouTube:
Wow, this is awful. What made Gary’s first video is that it embodied something we all do … rock out to a catchy song in the privacy of our home, not caring an iota how we look. Gary was just brave enough to then put it on the ‘Net. This is self-conscious, choreographed, special-effected, with an annoying and uncatchy song. It has absolutely none of the elements that made the first song resound as a meme. Horrifying.
10 Sep 06 Ze Frank Comedy Stand-Up Routine
10 Sep 06 September 11th and Unity
“So in the last week, President Bush has called on Americans to use the five-year anniversary of September 11th as a chance to recall the unity that we felt in its aftermath.
“It was a pretty amazing unity. We were certainly bonded together by fear but also by a kind of hopefulness. It was a hopefulness from the experience of the amazing strength that we have when we decide to help each other.
“That unity was not about the government. It was a shared determination among us to make things better.
“The President seems to think that ‘unity’ implies supporting him and his policies. In my personal opinion, the President has no right to attach himself to that part of our experience.
“He already had his shot.”
— Ze Frank
10 Sep 06 My Pointed Ears are Showing …
Courtesy of Monitor Duty, some rather fun Star Trek music videos to popular songs:
09 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/9)
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“But never fear – Jack Bauer knocks out a pawn-like Federal Marshall escorting the suspect and breaks every bone in one of the suspect’s hands until he talks, which of course renders exactly the information they need, just in the nick of time.”
(tags: tv powerful food4thought government) -
“Ford made the announcement of the delivery of a Mercury Mariner Hybrid “Presidential Edition” to President Clinton today, celebrating the fact that the first hybrid vehicle to be outfitted for presidential service is a Ford Hybrid.”
(tags: goodideas government nature cool) -
(tags: food4thought terrorism)
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“Well, you know, it would be manifestly difficult to believe in magic rings unless everyone was high on pipe-weed. So it is in Gandalf’s interest to keep Middle Earth hooked.”
(tags: funny)
07 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/7)
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“The last captive thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo on September 7, 1936. Today in Australia, the day is now known as ‘Threatened Species Day.’ Ten years ago it was known as ‘National Thylacine Day.’”
(tags: nature food4thought)
06 Sep 06 How to Put on a Bra 101
06 Sep 06 Net Crap (9/6)
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"More than two dozen CBS affiliates have decided either to drop or delay" the broadcast. "The Rev. Don Wildmon had asked the 3 million members of his American Family Association and other sympathizers to bombard the FCC ... "
(tags: tv politics neocon whaddafuck dumbass) -
"In the midst of the celebrating crowd, it would have been easy to overlook the sixty-five-year-old woman sitting there, weeping. [...] The picture, she thought, had done a strange kind of violence to her work.”
(tags: interesting movies) -
“The Republicans didn’t want the government to run your life, because Jesus should. That was really part of their thing: less government, more Jesus. Now it’s like, how about more government and Jesus?”
(tags: politics neocon hysterical government) -
“If they can do that, they can do anything. Why even have an election? They could just swear in whoever they want because the election need not be final.”
(tags: whaddafuck fascist horrifying) -
“The lawsuit accuses Morice of taking the boat ’solely to promote himself and his law practice.’” DAMN. What the HELL?
(tags: dumbass weather holy_shit whaddafuck evil) -
“Disney is now fingerprinting visitors to Walt Disney World as part of its ticket-fraud prevention scheme [...] those mathematical representations are exactly what you need if you want to join up two fingerprint databases, like Disney’s and the NSA’s.”
(tags: fascist whaddafuck weird conspiracy) -
“Not exercising hard enough? The TV VOLUME GOES DOWN! if you don’t get back on track, THE TV TURNS OFF until you do.”
(tags: interesting weight_loss funny goodideas) -
“[A]n outsider makes one edit to add a chunk of information, then insiders make several edits tweaking and reformatting it. [...] [I]nsiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it’s the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.”
(tags: interesting hysterical) -
“Pope Benedict XVI’s chief exorcist, Rev. Gabriele Amorth, has called fictional wizard-in-training Harry Potter the ‘king of darkness, the devil.’ [...] Amorth compared the Potter character to dictators Stalin and Hitler,