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Infantile Obsesssion!

It has been a long while, ladies and gentleman. But I now happily present to you:



Grace Park's belly button!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 15:44

Wow

I check my home comp this morning and notice that Verizon seems to have upped my DSL speed! I used to get 83.5 KB/s and now it appears I can get 195 KB/s on downloads.

Cool.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:16

More Proof

Well, god's just all over the paper this morning. Turns out that not only was he persecuting the crazy arsonist guy with his subtle notes, he was also an accessory to a rather more disturbing incident:

When a Dumfries church burned early yesterday, two congregations lost their spiritual home.

Abundant Life Baptist Church bought the structure atop a hill in the 17900 block of Curtis Drive in 1993 and began a two-year renovation. When the expansion was finished, a missionary offshoot, the First Romanian Baptist Church, began meeting upstairs on Sundays.

Yesterday, both congregations searched for answers to the fire that demolished the sanctuary.

The blaze was reported shortly after 1 a.m. The fire, which was estimated to have caused about $1.5 million in damage, remains under investigation, fire officials said.

"But what has god got to do with this?" you ask. "Was this not his very house that burned down?" you wonder. Well, according to the Reverend Brown, god (in this case, at least) did it!

Brown, who plans to have church services Sunday, possibly on church grounds, said the fire was God's will.

"He could have stopped this, but He didn't," Brown said. "God always turns things like this into a blessing, eventually."

Still, walking through the remains of his church, Brown compared the loss of the building to the death of a child.

He said the possibility, however remote, that the fire may have been set makes the loss all the more painful.

So this god fellow may either have set the fire or he may have knowledge of who did. If he knew about is before the fire that makes him complicit in the crime. If he found out afterward and is in anyway shielding the perpetrators from the law, he can be arrested as an accessory after the fact.

In either case, I think we should being this god guy in for questioning and see what he knows. Find out where he was on the night in question. Search his robes for clues and residues and DNA and whatever.

Make him start his story at the beginning.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:03

OK, I Admit it, I was Wrong!

I know it will be hard for you to understand the lengths and depths of my utter wrongitity. Turns out there is proof out there and I have just been too not-unbalanced to see it:

A search of his apartment in Southeast Washington yielded few significant clues, authorities said. In court papers filed yesterday, investigators revealed the discovery of a note in a bedroom that read: "Thomas Sweatt is a sick man."

It was signed, "the Lord."

There you go. Proof positive the Big Guy is up there writing memoes (to the Washington DC area serial arsonist... I guess he didn't have a lot of options) and putting up sticky notes to remind himself to pick up milk on the way home. Mrs. Lord gets pissed when he forgets... There is a Mrs. Lord, right? I guess we'll know when we see some corespondence from her as well.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:41

Checking Her Out

So I went to this briefing yesterday. After tracking down the conference room snuggled up in the midst of a maze of offices and cubicles I sat down at the big table opposite the only other person in the room: an obvious (to me) comfortable shoe wearing "lady", if you catch my drift (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Then the briefer came in to run through her powerpoint slides and I couldn't help noticing that she not only filled her slacks in a most enjoyable (to me, at least)way, she didn't lack in the filling her sweater in a pleasent way department either. So as I am checking out young Miss Hottie (and competely missing the entire point of the briefing) it suddenly occured to me that I was probably not the only occupant of the room giving her the x-ray eyes.

Being a guy, this sort of wierded out the whole thing. Had Miss Comfortable Shoes looked less like say... me and more like a real lady it might have been interesting. As it was it just sort of killed the whole experience. Cause what if one thing led to another and young Miss Hottie was forced to pick between her two admirers (you don't think I know how stupid that is? But that is how male minds work so just shut up) and she picked Miss Comfortable Shoes over me?! I wouldn't be able to handle the rejection!

Luckily the briefing really was brief and I was on my way never to see the two of them ever again... Although now I am worried that since I left first, Miss Comfortable Shoes might have been able to get a phone number when I was out of the room. Damn!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:38

Maybe That's Normal Where You Are

So the mom gets arrested for trying to kill her kids in the bathtub and jumping out the second story window. The dad gets the kids back and isn't making the 4-year old available for questioning yet. And the Loudoun county Sherrif says:

Daniel Sherr has declined to speak with investigators or allow them to interview the 4-year-old, Simpson said.

"He's probably going through a lot of different emotions, torn between his wife and kids and, you know, normal things that people would go through," Plowman said.

Yeah, normal. Sometimes I think I must live the dullest life in the world.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:34

Please Please Please!

Prayer is pretty much just begging. If god has the big plan all laid out in his head what the universe is, has been, and should be to the ends of time, he already knows about your aunt with the goiter and he isn't going to make it magically disappear just because you get on your knees and ask him nicely.

It just isn't like this:



Will you feel better having prayed for Auntie's goiter? You might. You might get the same feeling from meditating or eating chocolate ice cream or pleasuring yourself. God's mind (if there was such a thing) is not a voting booth that can be swayed by the prayers of the faithful.

I was intrigued last month when the news showed all those pictures of people praying for Pope John Paul. What, exactly were they asking for? That he be miraculously cured? That he be let into heaven? That he die quickly? Well, he wasn't cured, if the Pope can't get into heaven with the intercession of the little people, I don't imagine anyone gets in, and he didn't die all that quickly but at least he didn't linger for years like that Terri person.

So were the prayers worth it? Of course not. Might as well have gone home and turned on the Playboy channel and gotten a big bowl of rocky road.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:50

Signs of the Apocalypse



Ewwww.

Loser #1: "You've got kimchi on my chocolate!"

Loser #2: "You've got chocolate on my kimchi!"

Announcer: "Two great tastes that taste great together..."

Shaa, right. Two tastes that go together like ox tongue and Ice cream.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 20:27

Kite Boarding in Sandy Hook, New Jersey

While driving through the Sandy Hook park referenced below, I came upon these two kite surfing dudes. I grabbed the camera and headed out onto this little spit of land that stuck out from Sandy Hook towards the mainland Jersey and watched these two surf back and forth using these big kite things attached to their bodies. Turns out they were Kiteboarding. This, it turns out is the hottest thing in sport (at least according to these two). Windsurfing is out and this is in.

Here are a few of the pics I snapped:

Kite Surfing (who knoew there was such a thing?!) out on the water in Sandy
Hook, New Jersey

The wind does most of the work.

Catching some air!

Nice form

It really was windy that day.

 

Sort of James Bond-ish, don't you think?

You can even jump over the land and escape the evil doers!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:02

Well, Isn't It?

The following appeared in the WaPo this morning:

Offensive 101

In "NBC's 'Revelations': It's a Long Way to Armageddon" [Style, April 13], Tom Shales describes the book of Revelation as "the last -- and wackiest -- book of the New Testament." Why does The Post allow such irreverence? Those who promote tolerance seem to be the ones who show it the least.

-- Mark Hegerle

I don't get this guy's problem. It appears he doesn't want the world to know just how ridiculous his precious bible really is when you actually read it. "Me think he doth protest too much" comes to mind.

If you line up all the books of the bible and had to list them from non-wackiest to wackiest wouldn't the Book of Revelation earn top spot as the wackiest?

For those who haven't read it recently, it starts with stuff like this:

1:12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

You telling me the dude who wrote this wasn't smoking crack or whatever 4th century equivalent available? But there is more raving:

5:4 And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.
5:5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.
5:6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

Seven-horned and eyed lambs? Did y'all grow up next to a neclear power plant?

I could go on and on but you get the idea.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:20

Back From the Wilds of New Jersey

I got back from NJ today. I left early and decided to take the Norther Route back to Northern Virginia. This entailed not driving down I95 which would have led to me driving through Friday afternoon traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, through Baltimore and through DC. I probably would have gottne back tomorrow.

Instead I headed due West through Allentown, Pennsylvania and Harrisburg (or some such place, I get all those same-sounding places mixed up), and then heading South to Leesburg, Virginia and on to the Corsair Cave. All in all it turned out to not be so bad a trip. I got stuck for awhile in Allentown as six guys stood around in the free smoking cigarettes and scratching their asses. I think they were trying to lay down a new layer of asphalt but who can tell when no actual work is being performed.

Got hungry somewhere north of Gettysburg and stopped off a greasy spoon for a heart-stopping plate of stuffed porkchops, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, and pie for dessert. Yum Yum.

Below I have a few pics I took at the Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area. Fascinting place. It has been a variety of defense bases over the years and there are plenty of ruins and old buildings and military crap left over from 200 years of use. I love that kind of shit so I was in heaven crawling around in abandoned bunkers and gun positions, despite all the "Keep out it is dangerous here" signs they put out for the rubes. The signs hadn't seemed to stop too many beer drinkers as there were many many empty beer cans that probably didn't date from WWI.

This is a lighthouse. Duh.

Some eletrical panel or another.

Some rubble at the end of the land. All kinds of cool stuff in there!

An open and a closed door. Something symbolic about that, I guess.

A big ring thing stuck in the wall. Look at the textures and colors. Gorgeous! How do I get one of these for my own house?!?

 

Coming up we will have further photo blogging based on Red Bank, New Jersey architecture and kite surfing.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 20:28

Red Bank, Joisey

So, here I am sitting in the lobby of the hotel in Red Bank, New Jersey after a fine evening walk through the thriving metropolis that is Red Bank (can I use the name Red Bank any more often).

I awoke at 4:00 am this morning so that I would have enough time to drive my newly acquired rental Pontiac Grand Am the 4 hours it takes to get from the pirate cove to lovely Northern NJ. The drive wasn't so bad mainly because I left early enough to miss most of the traffic around DC and Baltimore.

Work was boring and sleep inducing. We put together a Sun R480 with two D1000 storage arrays. Not too many glitches. That should happen tomorrow when we start application installs and when we add the tape jukebox thingy.

After arriving at the hotel I did manage to get out and about and take a variety of shots of Red Bank. I will be posting of those in the near future upon return to civilization.

More later.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 20:22

Baltimore Aquarium Photoblogging

Below you'll see a variety of pics from in and around the Baltimore Aquarium.



And above!

This is where the Ravens play football.

They also have the Orioles right downtown.

The outside of the aquarium.

A Shark! Acutally, it is a submarine parked outside the front doors.

A Conning Tower!

Sharks! Like the water color?

A whale who has seen better days.

Turtle turtle turtle.

I know, it is an aquarium, not an aviary but they had birds.

And lizards...

And more birds.

Now that is a frog!

Remember the Orioles from before? Seems the dolphins like to play baseball too!

Air Dolphin (the ball is about 20 feet in the air).

Colorful seahorses in the gift shop.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 18:51

Busy Busy Busy

Yesterday was the trip to the Baltimore Aquarium with Corair Jr. and the sixth graders. Today Princess Corsair I has a 2:30 soccer game (we won 9-2 last week!). Then I have to get everything together for my trip to New Jersey early on Monday.

Not only can't I post, I can't even keep up with other's posts. I guess this is what is called "having a life".

Oh, and I have a cold.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:19

Road Trip!

It seems I will be visiting the Garden State of New Jersey next week to do some installs and document verification. Anyone know anything about Middletown or Red Bank?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:12

Just Had a Survey Guy Call

He got to the following question before he gave up on me:

In regards to your voting preference would you say you vote:

a. Straight Democratic
b. A few more Democrats that Republicans
c. Evenly split

When I mentioned that he hadn't included "a few more Republicans that Democrats" or "Straight Republican" he said, "Oh, yes, we have those answers."

Then he said "thank you" and hung up.

Boy, talk about your skewed surveys.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 20:24

Princess Corsair'isms

Princess Corsair II is in the learning to speak mode. Being in the multi-language household that she is, she tends to mix up her words are well as get all the grammar wrong.

Lately she has been using "ahn" (the Korean word for not as in "ahn ka" (don't go) in the place of no or not, as in "ahn shoes" (I don't have shoes on), or "ahn TV" (I am not watching TV).

Kinda makes it hard to figure out what she is saying sometimes, but it makes her more interesting.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 18:51

In Case You Were Wondering

If anyone asks you, the spark plug gap for plugs for a '98 Toyota Corolla is .044.

Got it?

Just saying.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 18:48

And Another Thing...

If you aren't watching this while your not watching Apollo 13, you are crazy. This is some hard ass tv:


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 19:14

Gawd Damn!

If this ain't one of the finest movies ever to be filmed, I'll eat this keyboard:



Yeah, I'll admit it, I teared up like a Midwesterner pooping out yesterday's load of extremely spicy salsa.

If you haven't seen it in awhile, go and do so. I just picked up the 10th Anniversary Edition at Costco. You should as well.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 19:11

Great Googally Moogally!

I hope to gawd I don't see any belly buttons here:

South Korean models display a creation of South Korean cloth maker Big Cloth during the 2005 Korea Big Women Fashion Show in Seoul, Saturday, April 9, 2005. The fashion show was held against a diet and plastic operation boom in South Korea. (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 17:23

Silly People

I know that plenty of people have awful, pathetic lives of squalor and despair which, despite many years of existence don't amount to a hill of beans. That really is a shame, but the universe never promised anyone a rose garden. Existence occurs in cold, unfeeling place that cares not a whit for you or your suffering, happiness, joy, or pain.

Some people don't like this message so they go out of their way to make themselves special in the eyes of the universe. Innumerable gods and goddesses have been invented over the centuries to try and make people believe that there is someone out there that cares about there misery and suffering, that the most powerful beings in existence have nothing better to do than listen to the lamentations and prayers of one short-lived individual plopped down on a non-descript planet in a not-so-special part of the Milky Way. If it is all about me, than my suffering must be for a reason.

So people look for "signs" and "portents" and, most silly of all, "miracles". Most of which can easily be explained by coincidence, science, or common sense. This has never stopped the gullible and self-deluding, of course, as we see from the weirdness evident at the Pope's recent passing:

God Speaks Through Tiny Miracles, and the Faithful Know How to Listen

They say a good man was to be buried this morning, a pure, peaceful man, a man on fire with the Holy Spirit.

People lined up for miles to mourn the loss of Pope John Paul II, sending thousands of prayers, hoping he is up there.

Some say he is a saint or should be a saint. Surely in heaven, but they are praying for him anyway, because he needs prayers until there is certainty he has arrived.

To prove he is indeed up there, people have gone in search of good, of hope, searching for an ease in the suffering.

Searching for miracles.

Now, really. If people are in the least bit worried the the Pope of the largest Christian organization on earth might have a problem getting his hall pass to heaven, what chance do any of the rest of them have? Wasn't he supposed to have been god's right hand man on earth? Also, god knew this Pope guy for quite a long while, I would hope that he had made up his mind on whether he was letting him into the club by now. Voting with prayers at the last minute like some episode of American Idol seems to be less than accepting of His unflinching will. Does anyone really think a few prayers would change His Enormousness's mind?

Not big miracles like the parting of the Red Sea, the turning of water into wine, the feeding of a multitude with five loaves and two fishes.

But inexplicable coincidences, like when you need $29 and you look in that old coat and pull out three $10 bills. Like when you hear the news about the pope's passing and you and your husband both start crying at exactly the same time.

Perhaps it's a miracle when you reach in your purse to pull out your prayer beads and instead of finding one string you find three, and you give two away. Like when that old knee doesn't give out after riding in the back seat for two hours to Mass. Like when you look up in the sky, beyond where airplanes fly, and you think you see angels.

Or like when a woman goes to bed at night in despair and wakes up in the morning to face a new day -- and a bright sun slips through her blinds.

"Isn't that a miracle?" the Rev. Eddie E.L. Tolentino III, pastor of St. Michael's Catholic Church in Silver Spring, is asking. "There is something incredibly mysterious about life. It is a miracle to wake up in the morning filled with pain and on the edge of despair, and realize you can go on. It's a miracle. If you consider a miracle as something we have no power over."

Yeah, there haven't been many of the "plague or locusts" or "stopping the sun in the sky" sort of miracles in quite a while. One might almost think His Nibs had forgotten about us.

And I think a better miracle than pulling a couple of $10 out of an old coat would be to pull out exactly the amount you needed... in nickels... With the words "miracle nickel" written on all of them. That would get me thinking.

Sun slipping through the blinds in the morning?!? Praise Jeebus and alert the media!!! That hasn't happened since it happened yesterday when the sun came up in the morning, idiots. You want to know what appears to be miraculous and what I have no power over? My bladder after about four beers! If I don't get to a urinal soon, it is like the Biblical Flood all over again! And draining it can be like a religious experience... Try it sometime.

Over in the corner of the church, near the golden basin of holy water, under the afternoon sun, there is the Book of the Dead. People hoping for miracles have written to John Paul II.

The book is opened to a page titled: "We all go down to the dust and weeping make our song. Alleluia."

Under which someone has written: "To you in heaven -- John Paul II God is with you -- Forever."

Under which is written: "John Paul II is with you forever and ever. 04.03.05 We Love you always."

Under which is written: "I know you are with the Lord. Because you are always taking care of all of us. You'll be our shepperd forever." And the page ends with a quote inscribed: "In dying. You destroyed our death." And "May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome you."

Another miraculous things are the inane quotes and "poetry" that people write in "Books of the Dead" (isn't that a D&D thing?). It is a miracle that the people who write "We all go down to the dust and weeping make our song" can figure out how to put their socks on before their shoes in the morning.. At least most of the time.

And what is up with the whole sheep imagery thing? If you hang around at the wacky lucianne.com site (a noted haven for the overly religious) they take great pains to insult those who don't agree with them by calling them "sheeple". As in "sheep people". Yet they are the first ones to become a member of someone's flock and need a shepherd. Sort of like unthinking wool factories. Who really are the "sheeple" here, folks?

At the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Northeast Washington, is an inscription in the gold dome ceiling: "SEND FORTH YOUR SPIRIT AND RENEW THE FACE OF THE EARTH."

Reading the words, head up, spinning round and round, twirling with the words on that golden ceiling is dizzying. But maybe a miracle is up there.

And maybe you are just dizzy and loopy...

Sister Paula says that great things, miracles, happened when John Paul was pope. "The Holy Father took on teachings of Christ in a personal way," she says. "He made of himself a total gift to God in the hands of Mary. It was because of this Russia fell, because Mary knew her children in Russia were suffering. She is in heaven. Heaven must be a place where you can put your foot down."

Yeah, you keep thinking that. 40 years and trillions of US dollars and many overt and covert confrontations and the tides of history and the weaknesses of a command economy and the people's need for freedom had nothing to do with the death of communism. It just took Mary a couple of decades to decide that enough millions of people had died for the greater glory of communism and it was time to throw a little hissy fit and stamp her little foot (don't stamp too hard, you might fall right through that cloud) and put and end to it. Right. Nobody said rationality and religion were closely related.

Sister Paula believes John Paul is up there with Mary right now, listening to her prayers. "People are praying to him. He is answering them. He is answering their prayers. He can go to the Mother of God or to Jesus and ask that these graces be done for them."

Says Ryan: "There are going to be miracles. . . . Great things have been happening. It's not done yet."

Does he have to get in line with all the other people up there or does he get to cut to the front of the line?

In fact, White says, in North Carolina, a family with a relative sick with cancer is praying to John Paul to intercede. And if she is cured, if that happens, it will be a miracle.

And if that cure occurs, that miracle could be used as evidence that the pope is in heaven, and should be named a saint. It could be submitted to the cardinals of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and the new pope, who would decide whether he is worthy.

And if she isn't cured and she dies a painful lingering death, that just proves that the Pope wanted her up in heaven with him and the All Encompassing one. Heads I win, tails you lose.

"We believe miracles happen all the time."

Like vigil candles burning at the altar. And millions sending up prayers for the pope. Like the belief that heaven indeed exists. And for seven days, the faithful stopping to mourn for a peaceful man.

Millions also prayed for Reagan, and Kim Il Sung, and the Ayatollah Khomeni, and Princess Di, and the shuttle astronauts, and pretty much everyone who with a big name who gets in the news. I am not sure what that proves.

What tripe. If that is what it takes to make people feel good I pray they get to meet their Maker sooner rather than later.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 21:30

Dorks

Seven weeks before its release, "Star Wars" fanatics started lining up outside Grauman's Chinese Theater for the sixth installment of the popular George Lucas movie series. The vigil began Saturday.

But there's a problem: "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" won't be showing at the Hollywood landmark when the movie is released May 19. The studio, 20th Century Fox, opted instead to open the film a mile away at the ArcLight theater.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:45

Japanese Men are Pussies

Notice I didn't say they like them, just that they behave like morons:

Like many Japanese women, Junko waited until her early 30s to get married. When she and her fiance, an employee of a well-known firm, decided to tie the knot, she set her sights on making a home, putting away some money and starting a family.

Fifteen years later, Junko and her husband are childless. It is not that they cannot have children; it is just that they have never had sex.

Article continues
The sexless marriage is one of several reasons why experts fear Japan is on the verge of a demographic disaster.

In 2003 Japan's birthrate hit a record low of 1.29 - the average number of times a woman gives birth during her lifetime - one of the lowest rates in the world, according to the cabinet office. The population will peak next year at about 128 million, then decline to just over 100 million by 2050.

Wow. Shacking up with hot Japanese babages and not only not getting them preggers, not noticing them at all! What they hell is wrong with these guys?

A survey of 600 women found that 26% had not had sex with their husbands in the past year.

"We are sort of room-mates rather than a married couple," one 31-year-old man, who had not had sex with his wife for two years, told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Is this guy diddling high school girls on the side or is he just a eunuch?

"The men love their companies; they live for work," Mr Kim said. "Men don't even think it is a problem if they don't have sex with their wives. They have pornography and the sex industry to take care of their needs, but their wives have nowhere to go. They just suffer in silence."

Ooooh. So they are married to their jobs. And their porn (and those Japanese schoolgirls). What a bunch of maroons! Just who do they think will be taking care of their non-sexual selves in the coming decades? They think that tons of geriatirc loving Indonesians are suddenly going to show up on the Japanese doorstep looking to wipe drool off these wankers? Ya need kids to follow in your footsteps. But I guess in this case, the faster these 'tards die out the better for me to get a nice apartment in Tokyo when I retire!

Woohoo!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 21:54

One for the Ladies

Not sure if I have any "lady" readers, now that Silly Sally doens't come 'round no more, but here is some belly button material for them...



OK, Korean Men Protesters are not as nice as a Korean Woman Golfers, I admit. I'll keep looking round.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:10

Commenting is back

Seems to be working again.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:30