Waterworks spiders, you'd better LOOK OUT! *SHOOM! Javelin-of-deadly-force!*

-The Gneech

Current Mood: bouncy

That the HTC Touch Diamond cellphone is a useless piece of crap, and what's worse it's an expensive piece of crap. Do not buy this worthless phone under any circumstances.

Thank you.

-The Gneech

Current Mood: time for phone-killin'!

'Girl' is the winner of Amazon Comic Strip Superstar!

I'm so happy for her and I want to thank everyone who took the time to vote. Dana's a sweet person and deserved to win.

Current Mood: bouncy

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Shooting at the Range

On Saturday, Will and I went to a shooting range and I shot a "real gun" for the first time (before then, I'd only shot my parent's BB gun). It was an interesting experience, and I'm not a bad shot. I'm more excited to know the anatomy of a gun and how to disarm one.

Being in a shooting range sounds and smells like being inside a fireworks display - even with the ear protection. Also, in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, they did have zombie shooting targets to practice on.

This upcoming weekend, on Saturday November 14th is the Wake County Library Booksale with 300,000 books! I can't wait to go! Is anyone else going? Should we coordinate?

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• 10:15 Alright, I'm working all day again. ENTERTAIN ME, TWITTER.
• 15:34 My friend's NetFlix account is increasing my quality of life while I work.
• 17:20 I just booted Mac system 6.0.3 from a "floppy" and formatted a "hard drive" inside of MESS. God, I'm a nerd.
• 19:53 Comic already uploaded. I was diligent in working today. Huzzah.

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As much as everybody hates insurance companies, you'd think they'd still know better; this healthcare reform bill, as passed in the House, doesn't make sense. Putting aside the whole quagmire of "a public option or not," the basic premise of insurance companies being disallowed to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or charging higher premiums based on medical history ain't feasible. You might as well tell lawyers they can't refuse to defend a client that they believe is guilty.[1] Or printers that they can't refuse a job where the client is going to keep changing their mind and want free revisions right up to press time.

I mean, yes, technically, if you can get the Legislative branch to ignore the 10th Amendment (not hard), the President to fail in his veto duties (which every President has done since Washington, alas), and the Supreme Court to roll over (a little harder than the other two but nowhere near as hard as it should be), then yes, technically you can do it. But think about what you're really saying:

"Insurance companies, we are going to legally mandate that you take a loss by forcing you to take customers who are going to cost you more. So suck it."

What do you think the insurance companies are going to do? Seriously? Just say, "well, yeah, we had that coming" and take it?

No, they're going to find other ways to balance the loss. The most likely way is to simply crank up everyone's rates by 30% for the next five years, instead of the 25% per year they've been doing. But, as that might draw unwanted heat, they may find new and exciting ways of canceling people's policies after they've made a payout or two. Or here's a good one: how about dropping spouses all together and forcing everyone to be the "primary holder" on an account or not have one at all?

If you buy into the underlying premise that the insurance industry is a bunch of greedy rat-bastards and it's okay for the government to stick it to them on those grounds, you need to also deal with the problem that nobody ever successfully came between a greedy rat-bastard and his money. They'll find a way, and they'll find it by doing the same thing they've been doing all along: holding onto the customers that make them money, and weeding out the customers that cost them money. All this bill will do is make more loops for them to find holes in.

A feelgood move this bill may be, but an actually good move, it is not.

-The Gneech

PS: Not even screening comments on this one; just leaving it locked down. Too many people read "not in the mood for nonsense" as "please send me lots of nonsense" last time. And then wrote "LA LA LA LA LA I'M NOT READING!" when I called them on it.

[1] Someone messaged me: "The adversarial system is predicated on the defendant having a mandate to be defended by a lawyer. A lawyer can not, having accepted the case, abandon it simply because they believe the client is guilty. And the public defender's job is majorily made up of such cases." To be clear, I meant refuse to take on the client to begin with. And I don't mean public defenders here, I mean private lawyers.

Current Mood: tired

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/forums/sheldontalk/7038/

This pic is awesome, Judy, thank you! I particularly love how one of 'em is nonsensically wearing camouflage as well!

I've been re-reading my Usagi Yojimbo collections, and decided that I would continue to read through all of my back issues, to get the whole tale in total. That meant figuring out where my issues began in relation to where my collections ended, so that I could have the whole story to read. That turned out to show that I needed three volumes, although the third one would overlap slightly with my back issues. Accordingly, I made a purchase from Amazon tonight:

Grasscutter, Usagi Yojimbo vol 12
Grey Shadows, Usagi Yojimbo vol 13
Demon Mask, Usagi Yojimbo vol 14
Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, Girl Genius vol 8
The Complete Peanuts 1963-1964

I almost bought Through the Wild Blue Wonder, the Complete Pogo vol 1 and The Complete Bloom County vol 1, but my order was getting expensive enough.

I also looked through my Bone back issues and collections to see what I need, and it turns out I only need a single back issue (#38) to complete that run. Rather than buy a collection, or the 1,100-page Complete Bone I think I'll look for that single issues.

It's Comedy of Errors by one William Shakespeare, and it opens Thursday night. You can come on the 12th, 15th, 16th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, 25th and 26th. Let me know which night you want to come.
As for trivia, I had asked you to identify actors based on two of their roles.
An evil Kylothian monster is a lawyer in Boston - joebrown42 googled the answer. Laura Flynn Boyle played the Kylothian monster Serleena in MiB2, and portrayed Helen Gamble for 6 years on the show The Practice.
The antichrist got chased by a dinosaur - filkertom and silvia_tamburu both knew that Sam Neill played Damien in Omen III and Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park.
Don Quixote fought with Arabs against the Turks - filkertom correctly identified Peter O'Toole as having portrayed Don Quixiote (Man of La Mancha) and Lawrence of Arabia.
Al Capone will risk getting arrested to fix your air conditioner - joebrown42 and Ilan got this. Robert De Niro played Al Capone in The Untouchables and Archibald 'Harry' Tuttle in Brazil.
A teapot turns out to really be a Chinese spy - Points go to filkertom for identifying Angela Lansbury. She did the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and was Mrs. Iselin in the original version of The Manchurian Candidate.
Lassie reports on magical events in Chinatown - themoniker was the only one to get this. Kim Cattrall was Lassie in the movie Porky's and was Gracie Law in Big Trouble in Little China.
The mayor of New York knocked on the door of a very strange house after his car got a flat tire - filkertom, janetmiles, zevabe and joebrown42 all knew that Barry Bostwick was Mayor Randall M. Winston Jr. on the show Spin City, and was Brad in Rocky Horror.
A homicidal barber got killed by Freddie Kruger - Both harpoholic and silvia_tamburu knew that Johnny Depp was both Sweeney Todd and Glen Lantz (in the very first Nightmare on Elm Street movie).
The tomboy of the four daughters turns out to be an android when faced with the Queen - joebrown42 and silvia_tamburu got this one. Winona Ryder was in Little Women (as Jo March) and in Alien: Resurrection (as Annalee Call).
The watcher served as a doctor in the Korean War - zevabe correctly identified Donald Sutherland as Merrick, who was the watcher in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, and was Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H.
Tonight's question is related to the Bard. How many suicides are there in Shakespeare's plays?

Current Mood: tired

Hangin' w/ confusedoo, who's visiting, after a day of National Zoo today and Smithsonian yesterday, followed by a lot of Munchkin playing and pizza-nomming with guest star sirfox last night.

Posted the last SJ strip, which will go up in the morning. Now looking at a to-do list filled to the brim with stuff that was waiting for that to be out of the way ... but because it was all "can wait for SJ" stuff, none of it is immediately urgent.

Which ... is an odd place for me. Lots to do ... nothing pressing. Weird. 0.o

I wonder if it's too late to do FC conbook art. Probably. Oh well, I can work on the SJ collection instead!

Or not, if I feel like doing something else. ;)

I just like saying that. :)

-TG

Current Mood: relaxed

( Creme of the Memes... )

Current Mood: blah