Leaning Towards the Dark Side

I got a Playstation 3 last weekend, before they announced they were lowering the price. Fucking Sony. Still, I’m happy. Haven’t checked out any BlueRay yet, but I will. I’ve started out with Grand Theft Auto IV.

Holy shit. The level of detail in this game is amazing.

One, the cops are a lot better than they were in any previous GTA game…I can’t knife three people without getting a wanted level. In one of those missions where you have to steal a cop car and then lose your wanted level, I got a three star right away and it took me ten minutes and two wrecked cop cars to shake them.

I haven’t even gotten to their version of Manhattan yet, I just moved from Broker (Brooklyn) to Bohan (the Bronx). I’m not even allowed to drive there, because the bridges are closed due to terrorist threats.

I have to say that I’m a little tired of that GTA convention, with places walled off from you until you reach a certain point.

I’m totally addicted, and I haven’t even started playing Civilization: Revolutions yet. Gotta go squeeze in some more GTA time before the wife gets home from a bridal shower…I’ve only left the house twice today, because the dogs were whining about having to go or something. Damn mutts.

I’m almost resentful that our trip to a water park tomorrow is going to get in the way of my GTA time. Not to mention Sandy Hook on Tuesday.

All I can say is: “Jack who?”

Like George C. Scott with Patton, no one else should ever be allowed to play the Joker again. I favor a Constitutional amendment, or a multi-lateral treaty to this effect.

And, to be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed with Aaron Eckhardt.

Chuck Norris, constitutional scholar, wants to “return to the Constitution”, by, well…this:

I don’t only think there are too many cooks in Congress’ kitchen nowadays, but the numbers are stacked in discriminatory ways. For example, if California represents a larger liberal voice with its 53 representatives, what chance or how fair is it for smaller more conservative states who have between one and five representatives and votes in the House? The U.S. doesn’t need a new reapportionment act to raise the number of representatives, but a return to the Constitution to reduce the number of representatives in pursuit of creating more equitable regions or districts. Personally, I believe, just as we have one governor per state, we should consider reducing Congress to one representative and two senators per state (the minimal by constitutional requirements). If one representative works for Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming, why can’t it work for all the rest of the states? Here’s a movie we all can star in: “Honey, I shrunk the Congress!”

Via Ed Brayton, who compares World Net Daily to Cannonball Run 2

Reason commentator “Warty”, on Reason writer Ron Bailey’s talk against Intelligent Design

You might have gotten the point across just as well by rolling your eyes, laughing, and making the jerkoff motion for 10 minutes. These creationists get far too much respect.

A Country Such as This, by James Webb

During their Senate race, George Allen apparently referred to Webb as “”the fiction writer candidate”, to which Webb once replied “Yes, George, I write fiction,” Webb said, “and take a look here and you will see how people who do this understand the human experience in a very profound way.”

Webb actually writes some pretty damn good fiction, a Pulitzer prize nominee, in fact. This book is a fantastic work chronicling the lives of three Annapolis graduates and their wives through the 50s, 60s and 70s. No matter your slant going into this, you’ll find a character to identify with and a character to hate. For the record, I loathe Dorothy Dingenfelder. I seem to have exhausted my library’s supply of Webb novels, so I’ll have to request some be transferred in.

The Second Front by Douglas Botting

I love this Time-Life series, they are immensely readable and feature some truly fantastic photographs. Amid everything else that was lost on Omaha Beach, future doctors, scientists, businessmen, political leaders, thinkers, and fathers (sometimes, the most important thing you do to history is pass on your genes), the thought I had is probably a shallow one. But I can’t help but wonder what was lost to history when a darkroom technician screwed up and destroyed all but 11 of the 106 pictures that Robert Capa took on D-Day. Photographs have such a power to put us in the moment, and I’m left wondering what else we might have been able to see through his camera.

Dirty Little Secrets by James Dunnigan and Albert Nofi

A whole bunch of great military trivia, including one thought by Martin van Creveld which I’ve often pondered myself:

Taking an “objective” point of view, it is not clear why the use of high explosive for tearing men apart should be regarded as more humane than burning or asphyxiating them to death”.

But perhaps my favorite secret comes after the end, at the start of the index:

The length of a book index is not determined by how long it should be, but by how many pages are left over when the book is manufactured to various “standard” book sizes.”

…or “Bill Donahue is such a cunt”

The Dark Agers at the Catholic League are trying to up and start an inquisition against PZ Myers for saying he’d like to defile a bland, tasteless cracker. They’re bombarding him and his university president with letters which, in most cases, appear to be both obscene and anonymous.

Let’s hope Donahue doesn’t take this to the next level, he does employ ninjas, after all.

see more dog pictures

My wife’s cousin had a baby a few weeks ago, from what I hear, her dog Maggie (Pippin’s mother) is fiercely protective of the little one, barking up a storm at anyone who goes near him.

Man steals cracker, gets death threats

And condemned by Bill Donahue to boot. Apparently, some people believe that the cracker is magically transformed into human flesh when the right words are said over it. Of course, by “point and laugh”, I exclude any friends and family (Hi, Mom!).

Speaking of laughable, I hope Obama sends Jesse Jackson a case of fine scotch for his comments on Fox News. I can think of little that Jackson could have done to help Obama more.

I was taking a walk last week when I saw this and took this picture, I just had to caption and submit it to the Fail Blog

moar funny pictures

Seen at Steve’s and Tommy’s

Your instructions are as follows:

1. Take out your iPod (or Zune, I guess…really, who buys a Zune?)
2. Press shuffle songs.
3. Answer the following: a) How many songs before you come to one that would absolutely disqualify you from being President? b) What is that song?
4. Leave your answers.

#5 is Whiskey in the Jar by a band called Athenrye. There is nothing controversial about the song, but as Athenrye was an Irish rebel band with very Republican politics, it’s not something a President would want to have on his iPod the next time he meets the PM or the Queen. On the other hand, I may get away with it because I doubt many have heard of them.

#8 is Let the People Sing by the Wolfe Tones, but I think they’re mainstream enough to let this slide

#15 “My Next Thirty Years”, by Tim McGraw. No one who listens to Tim McGraw should be allowed to have their finger on “the button”, but as my iPod isn’t full, I’ve never really gotten along to deleting crap I’ve listened to…lessee…five times. For the record, I would like to state that only two McGraw songs are on my iPod, and the other one I listened to 0 times.

#25 “A Place for My Stuff”, George Carlin. I’d probably get away with it now that he’s dead, but if I played the track that begins with “I used to be an Irish Catholic, until I reached the age of reason…”, Bill Donahue and the three members of the Catholic League would be on with Hannity screaming that I should be boycotted out of existence.

#36 is the entire Vice City Public Radio track from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, with Maurice Chavez. It is inappropriate in its entirety.

I was really hoping that the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe Uncut #2 would come up, as it features an interview with Christopher Hitchens which has him repeating dirty limericks for ten minutes, culminating with:

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