Archive by Author | Evil Wordsmith

The Dream Car

Ask most people what they want in a dream car and you’ll hear something like Ferrari or Lamborghini or Rolls Royce. Some kids may mention monster trucks. Here’s what I want. I want this:

Mounted something like this:

With a joystick mounted close so I can aim and fire it. No more traffic jams for me… And for my redneck buddies out there who think this gun might not be big enough, take a look at the page where I found it: http://www.orsm.net/text/a10-thunderbolt.php. Scroll to the bottom for an idea of how big it is.

E.W.

Oh and I think I need eye and ear protection.

What I Think About Flash

Aug5

I HATE FLASH.

I could live with Flash if people just used it for video. I still don’t like it, cause most of the time I’m connected to the Internet via a phone line. That means it’s impossible to watch a Flash video even if I want to, because you can ONLY stream it. And via a phone line you ain’t streaming anything. Sure, I suppose there are tools out there for ripping the stream, but so far there hasn’t been any video online that I want to see that bad. You are NOT the Martin Scorsese of the Internet.

However, that’s not all that Flash does. For some reason out there, particularly larger companies with too much money to spend for web “designers”, Flash is used for things like download links. Several years ago I sold a customer a valve. It’s a complicated bugger and now that customer wants me to do some maintenance on it. So I went to the manufacturer’s website to download the manual for that.

I did a search using their site’s search page (always amazed when that actually works…) and found the files I wanted, in pdf form, as I expected. Then I click the little “download” link. Nothing. No shocker there, I don’t like javascript either.

Here’s a clue for you web “designers” out there. I don’t want to run your software for you. Your stuff is running on a huge machine, mine’s a little machine. Plus, there are just too many guys out there with nothing but time on their hands working to run things on my machine so they can get things like my bank account numbers, access to my email and other generally bad things. Those people like it when the average guy lets anyone run stuff on their computer, like ActiveX. For me, I don’t need cutesy animations, I like text. Pictures when I need them. And I’ll take my video on the TV. That goes for cookies too. If you are just dying to track me, use your own hard drives like Google.

Ok so the link is javascript. Great, fine, I turned it on for you. Now when I click the “download” link I am greeted with a black page with a little text on it in the corner “Get Flash player.” Well, I suppose I got my text anyway. Now I’m irritated. I look at the source of the page, which I noticed was a redirect from the page I actually wanted. Yeah I saw that page pop up just before the black page. The source of the page was about three lines.

Now I can feel that my blood pressure meds weren’t prepared for this afternoon. So I do some deep searching with Google, since I can see the filenames of the actual files I want, none of which are flash.exe. So I got what I needed, without calling the phone number listed on the site under “Having trouble with downloading?” I’m pretty sure a chat with Bob (pronounced Boob) somewhere in India or Pakistan wouldn’t be at all good for my personal health right now.

So what have we learned? I hate Flash. Ok maybe you learned it, I already knew that. What I learned is that the next time I sell a preaction valve to someone it will be made by Tyco. Their website just works. In fact I may just allow their cookies next time I visit.

E. W.

I know none of this matters. I don’t have any illusions that I’m the William Shakespeare of the Internet.

Real Foreign Policy

Aug2

As I sit here a long way from home and the communication equipment between me and my family fails, threatening to take my sanity with it, I’ve been getting a small taste of what it is like for our military. I’m not anywhere like Afghanistan and no one is shooting at me (though there are probably some who want to hit me) and I can still talk to my wife and kid most any time of the day. But I wonder how those other families manage. If you know one of them and you can, take some time to help them. It is harder than most can imagine. It’s still harder than I can imagine.

How the Draft Affects Foreign Policy or Operation Gladiator

Jun20

You are President Jones. You are in the Oval Office. You are there because the door is locked and the windows are pretty tough. So you are doing what presidents do, talking on the phone. If you don’t believe me, check out any photo op pictures of any president. They are always on the phone.

“AWESOME! You da man, Berli!… Yeah, your debt is paid in full dude… Yeah, see you tonight man!”

You press a button to get the line to the Shrew, and she answers, “Yes Sir?”

“Tell Captain Tailhook to get the Mile High Club ready, Operation Road Trip is a go. Then get me the Drinking Buddies and tell them we are wheels up for Operation Gladiator in two hours. Remind them not to forget the Friendly Scotsman, Andrew Jackson and the Redneck.” You’re really getting the hang of the code word.

For you non-presidents, I’ll translate. What you just said was tell the commander of Air Force One to get the plane ready to go to Rome. And tell the Joint Chiefs that Operation Gladiator is about to commence so don’t forget the Scotch, Jack Daniels and the beer. We’ll get to Operation Gladiator in a minute. Continue reading →

How to Pick a President

Jun19

I just had a discussion recently with a Fox-breathing republican friend of mine where I pointed out that while I did drink the O koolaid, I’ve been clean and sober for about a year now. There probably should be a 12 step group for this, but I think most of the 12 steppers probably drank the W koolaid.

Now that I’m sober, I realize I haven’t liked any of our presidents much since Reagan. So I started thinking about how we could pick a good one, since this whole voting thing isn’t working out so well.

Now I don’t want to ditch voting entirely, since that seems to lead to things like the Taliban and Kim Jung Il. I kinda like the Queen of England, but after all that shooting a couple centuries back, we really can’t ask her I guess. I thought about this for a long time then it hit me:

Bring back the draft. Continue reading →

Superbowl

Feb7

Here’s the pick:

Away	Home			Winner	Vegas	Line	O/U	Bets
Indianapolis	New Orleans	23	24	NO	IND	5	57	NO	Under

Well, here it is, a chance for the Ain’ts to make history and earn the name Saints by finally winning a Superbowl. Apparently, I’m going to miss it.

I’d like to bitch about Comcast, well I am going to bitch about them, but it’s not really their fault this time. On the best of days it takes them forever to get their equipment repaired. Today is Sunday. Today is the day after Mother Earth put a fresh foot plus of new snow on top of a heavy coating of sleet, and the three inches of snow left over from the fifteen inches of snow from last week. If we are lucky, we might get to see the Daytona race next weekend.

So, I will likely try to watch the football game online, probably in vain. It appears that the NFL is pretty sure that no one on dial-up would ever visit their site. I don’t have flash enabled and the site still takes nearly five minutes to come up to a usable form. I’ve never been on there long enough to find out how long the whole thing takes, it always seems to still be loading by the time I’m finished looking at the scores.

Why don’t you have broadband you ask? Well, there is only one “broadband” provider here… you guessed it, Comcast! And just to spread the rant around, I haven’t forgotten about the FIOS from Verizon that will “be installed here real soon, sometime in 2008.”

I guess I should count myself lucky since we were the last house on the power line who still had power all night. And I do mean last house, the next door neighbor and everyone else west of me were out. The only light on the far side of the lake was one coming from what sounded like a distant generator.

And I suspect that all that light out at the end of my driveway when I went to bed was a Rappahannock Electric crew working to change that. And on the topic of utility bitching, let me say that I have never had a bad experience with Rappahannock. When Isabelle came bowling-for-people here the power was out less than twelve hours. When one of the local squirrels committed suicide without completely knocking out the power, the crew went door to door warning us that they would be cutting power for a few minutes for the repair to give us time to get computers shut down safely. They even provide discounts on our prescription medicines.

E.W.

And for those of you who are thinking of me as a bitchy-little-girl, bitching is cathartic if you have faith in the Universe. I got the best laugh ever just as I finished this post. The cable came back on right as I typed the period on the last sentence. What was on? A Comcast commercial… Nice work and nice timing.

Conference Week

Jan24

Here’s the picks:

Away	Home			Winner	Vegas	Line	O/U	Bets
NY Jets	Indianapolis	19	20	IND	IND	8.5	40	NYJ	Under
Minnesota	New Orleans	24	27	NO	SD	3.5	53.5	MIN	Under

I know the computer says Indy has the game, but my gut feeling is that the Jets will come to make a point. I have a feeling that Indy might be sorry about not bringing their A game to the Jets in the regular season.

Here’s how the Superbowl looks to me:

Superbowl		Indianapolis	New Orleans	24	26	New Orleans
		New Orleans	Indianapolis	22	22	Indianapolis

E.W.

Indy should be very afraid, do-overs are 0-2 in the playoffs.

Divisional Week

Jan16

Here’s the picks:

Away	Home			Winner	Vegas	Line	O/U	Bets
Baltimore	Indianapolis	18	22	IND	IND	6.5	44	BAL	Under
NY Jets	San Diego	19	23	SD	SD	7	42.5	NYJ	Under
Arizona	New Orleans	23	28	NO	NO	7	57	AZ	Under
Dallas	Minnesota	18	23	MIN	MIN	3	46	MIN	Under

Double do-over didn’t seem to help any of the previous losers.

I hope Arizona’s defense made it to New Orleans, my guess is NO will bring theirs.

Here’s how the rest of the playoffs look to me:

Conference	AFC	San Diego	Indianapolis	21	22	Indianapolis

	NFC	Minnesota	New Orleans	24	26	New Orleans

Superbowl		Indianapolis	New Orleans	24	26	New Orleans
		New Orleans	Indianapolis	22	22	Indianapolis

E.W.

Well, I wonder when Philly will get to Dallas… The deadline now is moved back about 9 months or so, so no hurry.

96 Points in the Game on the Wall, 96 Points in the Game…

Jan10

Picture an airport bar, somewhere halfway between Green Bay, Wisconsin and Phoenix, Arizona…

A bunch of large surly looking men, half which are in red pajamas and half in green, are sitting at the bar, watching a football game having a few beers. One of them in red shouts, “GEEZ, he scored again!”

His buddy in green replies, “I bet I could have stopped that…”

Red says, “Ever get that feeling you’re forgetting something but you can’t remember what it was?”

“Yeah, I’ve had that feeling all day, seems like I was supposed to be going somewhere.” Green says.

“And you know that feeling is never wrong…”

“Another touchdown… good thing we aren’t drinking to the scores.”

E.W.

In walks a bunch of irritated guys in darker green jammies, “… no flights to Dallas at all till next Fall…” one of them mutters.

Wildcard Week

Jan9

Here’s the picks:

Away	Home			Winner	Vegas	Line	O/U	Bets
Baltimore	New England	17	24	NE	NE	3.5	43	NE	Under
NY Jets	Cincinnati	18	17	NYJ	CIN	2.5	34	NYJ	Over
Green Bay	Arizona	25	25	AZ	GB	1	47.5	AZ	Over
Philadelphia	Dallas	20	22	DAL	DAL	3.5	45	PHI	Under

There aren’t any good bets, never are in the playoffs.

I sure hope that two weeks is long enough for Philly to make it to Dallas, clearly one week wasn’t long enough…

I hope that the teams who threw their final regular season games to “rest their starters” don’t make it to the Superbowl. Their fans deserve better than that. Unfortunately both of those teams appear to me to be going to the Superbowl. It sure would be funny if the Jets beat Indy next week… Here’s how the playoffs look to me:

Wild Cards	AFC	Baltimore	New England	17	24	New England
		NY Jets	Cincinnati	19	18	NY Jets

	NFC	Green Bay	Arizona	26	26	Green Bay
		Philadelphia	Dallas	21	22	Dallas

Division	AFC	NY Jets	Indianapolis	18	22	Indianapolis
		New England	San Diego	23	25	San Diego

	NFC	Green Bay	New Orleans	25	27	New Orleans
		Dallas	Minnesota	18	24	Minnesota

Conference	AFC	San Diego	Indianapolis	20	22	Indianapolis

	NFC	Minnesota	New Orleans	23	27	New Orleans

Superbowl		Indianapolis	New Orleans	24	25	New Orleans
		New Orleans	Indianapolis	22	22	Indianapolis

E.W.

I wonder if there has ever been a double do-over in the playoffs before.