Panthera leo raises the bar for roadway craziness

And I thought Atlanta traffic was bad. . .

What about the Pope?

I chuckled.

Black Friday Vent

Yes, I went shopping on Black Friday. I wasn't exactly planning on it, but last night I saw some decent prices on one of the Black Friday deals aggregator web sites. Still, I wasn't planning on doing, well, anything today, good deals or not.

Then the dog ABSOLUTELY HAD TO GO OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW! at 5:35 AM, and I was awake and couldn't get back to sleep. So I said "screw it" and drove up to Office Depot (they had good prices on what I actually needed), thinking (correctly) that they wouldn't have the people crazy enough to camp outside. I passed Best Buy on the way home last night: the tent people were already out there, at 9:00 PM or so. So when I got to Office Depot, there were only 20 or so people in line at the door, with only five minutes til the doors were scheduled to open. "Sweet!" thought I, "I'll be able to get in and out and home in time for the second half of the morning news."

I was wrong.

There was only 1 manager with the keys to the locked cases, where approximately half of the "must-have" deals resided. There was only one register open, so the line reached 50 people deep (literally; I stopped counting the people with whom I was queued at 50) in a matter of minutes. To Office Depot's credit, they had plenty of stock for the initial rush, which, according to a manager I overheard, they had "not anticipated." Not anticipated? On the vaunted and much-hyped "Black-Friday?" Idiots.

Luckily for me, only one of the 4 items I bought was an "OMG-we-need-15-of-those-'cause-it's-such-a-good-price" item, so I was able to get what I what I wanted to the mega-checkout line without any hassle.

Still, other than the wait to actually pay for my goods, I got some good deals: a $15.00 piece of crap (but working) DVD player for either the garage or the guest bedroom, a good price on a couple gigs of RAM for the PCs (really improved performance, by the way, on Linux and XP), and a good deal on something for someone who'll probably read this.

Still, though. . . "didn't anticipate" a crowd on Black Friday? I say again: Idiots. At least I didn't go to Best Buy or, God forbid, Wal-Mart.

44 years ago today/Back and to the left

There's nothing funny about a President, any President, no matter his policies and politics, being assassinated. That being said. . .

And for the record, it was Oswald, alone, with a mail-order rifle. He also murdered Officer J.D. Tippit later in the day, a fact glossed over or outright ignored by many histories and movies of the events on that day.

Thanksgiving

I'll be spending today with family, which is nice. Since I'm not the (publicly) sentimental sort, I'm not going to gush about all the things I'm thankful for (except puppies; I love and am thankful for puppies), and instead present this strange and possibly disturbing video. I thought it was pretty funny in a weird way, even if it does look like someone slapped it together three days before his film school class final, while high. Enjoy, and have a happy thanksgiving:

"Do the math Frankenstein." Heh, kills me. That's a minute and a half of your life you won't get back. The story behind the masks is here, by the way.

Freak

If you're a bass player (or for some weird reason, like the bass guitar), you'll probably get a kick out of how freakishly fast this guy is on a 7-string, playing Flight of the Bumblebee:

I could do without the Casio-rific background music, but daggum, that guy's good.

And Victor Wooten is still better.

Never bring a battery to a gun fight

Even though "gun" is in the name, a stun gun is hardly as effective as a firearm, as this unlucky, and unprepared, victim found out, five times over:

A man tried to use a stun gun to fend off a carjacker and ended up being shot five times.

The man was taken to the hospital Wednesday with wounds to his abdomen and leg but was expected to survive, Atlanta police Sgt. Lisa Keyes said.

The man was driving a minivan in southeast Atlanta when he was confronted by a carjacker at an intersection. The carjacker jumped in, told the man to drive and demanded money, police said.

While trying to reach for his money, the man also pulled out his stun gun and shocked the carjacker.

But the carjacker reacted by shooting the man at least five times, Keyes said. The van, which was still moving, crashed into a tree and the carjacker ran away.

The victim, whose name was not immediately released, was conscious and talking to investigators when he was taken to the hospital, Keyes said.

Keyes stressed the importance simply giving up the vehicle when confronted by a carjacker.

"Make the situation safe for you," she said. "You know you have to get away from that person. Just try to give the car up."

Keyes is right; possessions are not worth your life, or anyone else's, for that matter. The key word is try. If your life, or that of your loved ones, is in danger, then by all means you should take all available precautions and actions to secure your safety. This is just a general rule, however, and I don't mean to suggest that the victim in the above story didn't fear for his life or that his life was or was not in imminent danger. If I was in that situation, I would certainly believe that my life and/or physical well-being was in jeopardy and would hopefully make the appropriate response. . . which would not include a stun gun.

However, using deadly force (a firearm, most likely) wouldn't be my first choice.

Remember folks, if you're behind the wheel of a car, you have the ability to get away. Just don't make it easy on your attacker(s): I keep the doors locked and the windows up, especially if I'm in a "bad" area; Southeast Atlanta, where the above crime took place, is, for the most part, an example of such an area. It's better to see a threat coming rather than be surprised by one, so I keep my eyes up and scanning the area, including my mirrors. I do it when driving anyway, might as well do it when stopped. If my doors are locked and a would-be-assailant attempts to gain entry, remember, I'm in a VEHICLE. If there isn't a car in front of me, I'd floor it and rapidly remove myself from the area. If there is a vehicle in front of me, but not behind, I'd shift to reverse and floor it. I attempt to keep enough room in front and behind my vehicle to avoid being boxed in.

Only if I were unable to maneuver away from the threat would I escalate my response into the "deadly" range. Hopefully, the assailant would cease assailing, but if not, force would have to be applied. I sincerely don't ever want this for myself or anyone else. Deadly force is the last resort, but "going home alive" is always rule #1, at least in my mind.

To me, having a reaction plan is half the battle. After all, a prepared mind always has an advantage over one that is unprepared.

Debunking the "Non-sporting" firearm myth

It's still a rifle, remember? Pretty cool AK deer hunter over at The High Road with pictures (of the deer, the gun, and possibly the brightest jihadi ever):

Yugoslavian Underfolder AK47, 5 round magazine, Remington 123gr. PSP , iron sights at 65 yds, 1 shot thru the heart...runs about 30yds and folds up in a heap. The small entrance and exit wound are in perfect alignment just behind the front shoulders. I don't think the bullet expanded or fragmented, It just cleanly passed thru the heart and made for a very clean and quick harvest. This was probably one the most unique hunts with a rifle I've ever had.

Awesome: no lost meat, minimal suffering for the deer, and all with an eviillll black commie assault baby-killer inexpensive, rugged, semi-automatic rifle. . . with iron sights. no less. He also makes a good argument in favor of the AK as a sporter:

Folding up that AK and putting it on my backside made it whole lot easier than sporting that scoped 10 pound bolt action monstrosity around.

Damn straight. Who needs a long-barreled, heavy, expensive (and expensively scoped), rare-wood stocked rifle to hunt deer when an inexpensive, virtually indestructible, decently iron sighted rifle will work just fine? "Always use the right tool for the job" and all that.

h/t to Countertop

Wrong Place

Looks like I may have disappointed someone when they didn't find what they were looking for:Sorry, buddy.

Quote of the Day

Third paragraph:

"Vonnegut was the American Mark Twain."

-J. Michael Lennon, who, according to the Wiki,

"is a former professor of English at Sagamon State University, in Illinois, and Wilkes University in Pennsylvania."

Man, I hope that was just a slip of the tongue.

And you thought TV here was weird. . .

Not that I didn't watch this Japanese Bikini Rodeo Pie Fight* a few times, because that video is weird in a good way. These guys, on the other hand, well, they're just plain weird:
Yeah, try getting that image out of your head. You're welcome.

*Safe For Work, if your work allows Japanese girls in bikinis throwing pies at each other while riding mechanical bull thingies.

Their system must be wrong. . .

'course, if it's not, I'm flattered. Notice, however, that I'm purposefully placing this pointless post directly above a post that contains a dead man, a trouser snake, and a picture of Homer Simpson. This test has to be random, although I have tried it 3 times or so over the course of the day when perusing my "to be checked later" temporary bookmark folder. Tip 'O the hat to Tam.

Man killed by trouser snake

You and your dirty mind. No, really, this is proof that stupid crazy drunk rednecks exist everywhere, not just here in Georgia:

Man killed by trouser snake

A Cambodian man's time on this earth ran out when, during a drinking session, he spotted a 2-metre-long cobra swimming in a river – and immediately decided to remove his trousers and use them to wrangle the snake.

The Bangkok Post reports that he planned to sell the snake later.

Unfortunately for the man, 36-year-old Chab Kear, his trouser-wrangling skills were no match for the snake.

Once he had tied that animal inside his trousers, attached to his waist with a scarf, it managed to get its fangs through the fabric of the trousers, biting him three times in the stomach.

The paper reports that Kear's response to the cobra bites were, heroically: 'don't worry - it's nothing a drink can't fix.'

These were also the last words he uttered on this mortal plane.

Heh. "Alchohol: The cause of and solution to life's problems" apparently did not apply in this case. My crack reporting staff* managed to get a film of the autopsy X-Ray:Additionally, I feel that I should receive an award or some other recognition for Google Image Searching "trouser snake" with Safe Search off in a fruitless attempt to find an amusing, yet safe for work, image with which to entertain you people. I've seen things I'll not easily be able to unsee. I knew I would, but still. . .

*Two drunk monkeys and an aloe plant totally count as a reporting staff.

I want pictures!

If you're in Cullman, Alabama on November 10th, please get many pictures of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan protesting against the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. That's right, the KKK is protesting the KKK. Why? Well, in the most ironic comment I've heard in awhile, an "investigator" for the Alabama KKK [whatever that is] said,

We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment.

I. . . I think my eyes just broke themselves off their optic nerves from rotating up and around so quickly. Also, if violence breaks out between the two groups, I hope the police just grab some coffee and watch the racist bastards kill each other off.

UPDATE: The Southern Poverty Law Center has more.

Nerdgasm

I found this video here. Here's the explanation:

Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon hosted by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI.

The music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved. The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software. These coils were constructed by Steve Ward and Jeff Larson. Video was captured by Terry Blake. What is not obvious is how loud the coils are. They are well over 110dB.

Pure awesomeness. The Mario Bros. Theme:

Question - Answer

Plane loses engine during takeoff:

South African officials were trying to determine Thursday why an engine fell off a Boeing 737 during takeoff at Cape Town International Airport.

Gravity would be my starting point. Also, they didn't lose the engine; it was right there on the runway for the majority of the flight.

Seriously, though, that ranks high on my list of "Things That Suck."