Joe's 10-Oct Most-used Quotes.
10. "Ow. My blood hurts."
7. "Says you and the soulless minions of orthodoxy."
6. "I must obey the inscrutible exhortations of my soul."
5. "Joe no function food/sleep well without."
4. "I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I'm a Whale Biologist."
3. "This is so cool I have to go to the bathroom."
2. "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
1. "As long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony."

So apparently President Bush gave a speech at the Hilton in Newport Beach today. So the closest airport is John Wayne. My cow-orker, Jeremy, told me that Air Force One was parked at the airport. We couldn't see it from our office windows, because we can only see the first third of the runway or so. But we do know someone on the floor whose office overlooks the entire airport. So we went to his office to be able to see it. It wasn't the 747 Air Force One. 747s can't take off or land at John Wayne (runway's too small). It looked more like a 757.

So after seeing Air Force One, we returned to our offices to continue to pretend to do work. About 10 minutes later, we hear lots of sirens and such outside. Looking outside, we see tons of cops who are blocking off intersections and driveways. A CHP chopper flew by as well. A whole bunch of motorcycle cops went flying down Campus Blvd. at about 60 mph. About a minute later the motorcade came by. Two limos, about a dozen SUVs and vans, and three buses. Not more than 100ft from our building, and we had front row seats.

After they passed, we ran down the hall to Jeremy's friend's office with the airport view. We saw the whole motorcade pull into the airport and drive up to Air Force One. We watched for about 5 minutes as everyone boarded. I had my binoculars, but at that distance, I couldn't really identify people. Plus, the left side of the plane was facing away from us and the limo was obscured by the engines. I did see tons of Secret Service agents. We were also looking to see if the surrounding buildings were lined with police snipers (couldn't see any). After about 5 minutes, Air Force One taxied to the end of the runway and took off without incedent.

Of all the days not to bring my camera to work.

How Well Do You Follow Directions?.

Type the following URL into your web browser. I'm going to spell it out so you can't copy and paste.

Go to Aye Ess Oh Ess Oh Eff Tee Dot Eff Oh Are See Ee Nine Dot See Oh Dot You Kay. (It helps if you say it out loud.)

If you end up here:

Then you are an expert direction follower and follow directions better than 90% of our clients/prospects.

If you end up here:

(at our old web site) then you do not follow directions well.

What's the difference? In the former, you followed the directions exactly and entered the URL exactly as I gave it to you, which is what I wanted you to do. In the latter, you did not follow the directions exactly, but instead added the unnecessary and deprecated (and in this case incorrect) "www" to the beginning of the URL. I did not want you to start the URL with "www". If I had, I would have said so. Many of our prospects incorrectly assume a "www" when I tell them the URL for our web meeting service. This usually results in a minute or two of confusion as they try and figure out why they can't see the web meeting I've started for them.

I would like to point out that for the vast majority of URLs, prefixing them with "www" is unnecessary. www.google.com is the same as google.com; www.amazon.com is the same as amazon.com; www.fu-news.blogspot.com is the same as fu-news.blogspot.com. In the former cases of each, you just wasted four keystrokes, and (if you were speaking it to someone else) a lot of breath. For most web sites, you do not need the "www", and when you do it is usually to specify that you want the www server and not some other specific content server (such as mail.domain.com or ftp.domain.com). So when conveying a URL to you, I will tell you to begin it with "www" if and only if it is necessary. If I have left it out, then it is either unnecessary or incorrect. So never assume that a URL begins "www".

See no-www.org for more details.

What Really Grinds My Gears

By Tom Adams

My take on immigration:

We should not have immigration limits even for economic reasons. I believe that simply out of principle because that's how our great grandparents came over, and I don't want to send someone escaping their crappy or oppressive country (i.e. pregnant Chinese women) back to where they came from (which usually leads to them being punished for trying to escape their country). I don't believe that it would cause the negative effects of flooding the work force like in 1900 considering we already have protective measures already in place like the minimum wage and unions. Besides, if we did run out of "opportunity" here, how many more would actually immigrate over?

Now I DO believe that whatever background checks can be done should be done. If someone violated a law in their past country that our country agrees with (i.e. murder, NOT having a second child like in China), then we should deny them access and return them to their country of origin. This check I think would unfortunately have to be done in tax payer supported holding areas so that we would not lose track of them. This might of course lead not so much to limits on immigration as much as a slowing of the process. Someone would have to put some serious thought into how to make this efficient.

Should they sneak in, we kick out any illegal alien and punish monetarily all who profit from their presence here. Should they attempt to sneak in more than once (several times?), then we should jail them for life (execution is probably too harsh) to reduce the cost of trying to keep them out considering their own country won't do it for us.

I think it wouldn't be bad to grant dual citizenship to those who would normally get guest worker status, but you restrict their dual citizenship status to not voting or holding office so that you wouldn't worry about the conflict of interest that comes with dual citizenship. I think that would simplify the ridiculous nature of people's guest worker visas expiring. If they were cleared to get in the first time, why the hell would we kick them out simply cause they were here for too long? That is not a security risk. This also solves the issue of benefits without paying taxes etc considering they can be tracked just like any other citizen.

My rant does not imply a lack of national security. We should check any and every person that attempts to cross our border and restrict the number of access points across our border to simplify our security measures. This may mean a wall, not to keep people out but to channel people. I am the most ardent supporter of national security you might ever find. I spent plenty of time in Iraq with the Marines of Kilo 3/25 thinking about what security to this country means. I don't believe that any right to privacy (a right never actually mentioned anywhere in the constitution) trumps anything necessary to keep America safe. So does that mean invasive searches of every immigrant that comes over? Why not? You're not a citizen yet. Wire tapping all international calls? Wish we had those kinds of resources. Non-yet-Americans not yet on American soil (we'll call the holding tanks "international territory") are not granted US Constitutional rights until they achieve citizenship. We as a country decide when that is. If you don't like that, make a law against it, until then quit using the judiciary to make up "rights".

And for goodness sake, quit turning back those fleeing oppressive regimes because of some weird treaty or international law. Any Cuban refugee who manages to get off that gosh forsaken island should be HELPED by our Coast Guard, NOT returned!

Things that "my" party want that I think are stupid:

Immigrants should be forced to speak English - I don't think anyone in America should be forced to speak anything they don't want to! Now if they want tax payer funded services (i.e. public schools, welfare etc) they will need to learn English as I don't believe in bending over backwards at our expense to meet the needs of every yahoo that enters this country. It is beneficial to society that everyone communicates. So if Grandpa Enrique comes to America to retire in peace, I don't believe it’s necessary for him to learn English. It’s his right to not have to speak at all if he doesn't want to. But his granddaughter, Karina, if she goes to a public school should be taught in English and not Spanish as we are paying the system to teach ALL kids not any particular sect of kids, and these kids need to grow up communicating with each other. If they want Karina to grow up only speaking Spanish, they can pay to send her to a privately funded Spanish school. Not the tax payer’s burden. Why English? Is it because I'm a racist? No, it is because a nation should have a single unifying language for economic but especially for legal purposes. It is insane to think that some town in the south Texas could write a law in Spanish, and if you get arrested there, that your lawyer needs to learn Spanish or have a translator that he can trust to not miss any details help him. It’s just a legal nightmare to have laws written in different languages. Besides, the overwhelming majority of this country already speaks English. Why should we change? That and I am an evil white bigot.

Charitable organizations have to turn in illegal immigrants or face punishment - That sounds eerily close to punishing a priest for not testifying on what he heard in a confessional. If anyone honestly believes in separation of church and state in its true sense, they would understand that organizations like religious charities can not be forced to do background checks before they help the needy. There should never be a law preventing or hindering charitable acts regardless of the recipient.

If I'm not mistaken, it seems that both parties are fighting as hard as they can to get the Hispanic vote with the hopes that it will vote in solidarity like the Black vote. This is shameful trying to pander to those who want to disregard the rule of law in order to get their vote. This is also condescending to think that Hispanics are so foolish as to trivialize their individual votes by voting as a block the way Blacks do. Sorry to offend any blacks, but what in all reality has the Democratic Party whom 93% of you vote for actually done for you in the last 20 years? Lets face it, if you were really downtrodden or oppressed 20 years ago, how has your status changed under a Democrat Congress from prehistory-1994 and a democrat president 1992-2000? Seems like voting in a block only causes that party to trivialize you and expect you to do what your (bribed?) leaders tell you to do. Besides history books show that republicans fought for you during the civil war and the civil rights movement, NOT democrats.

So who am I voting for in November? I don’t know, but considering how much both sides are pandering for the illegal vote, I’ll probably have to choose my candidate based on other issues. (Probably the republican)

That's about all I got to say. In summary: immigrants are good and welcome. Breaking the law and security threats is bad. Oh yeah, and politicians suck.

All Hail the Wisdom of IMDB

(pardon the terrible MSPaint JPEG conversion)

Some biting hollywood commentary from the Internet Movie Database?

Man Awakes to Find Beached Whale in Bed

In a 911 call that made eyebrow-raising history, Sam Burud informed a skeptical operator that he had awakened to find a beached whale in his bed. His wife was nowhere to be found, and he suspected that the beluga had ingested her. Burud was completely oblivious as to how the marine creature had found its way into his sleeping quarters, but requested its immediate removal. Thinking the man was delusional or “under the influence,” the operator hesitated to send a squad car out to the house. A few minutes later, the man called back to inform the emergency personnel that he had mistaken his 8-month pregnant wife for a whale. Mrs. Burud declined to comment, perhaps because she could not make her way to the telephone. However, the couch (sans pillows) that appeared outside in the back yard did not escape the notice of our news crews. It appears that Burud will be spending his nights there for quite some time to come. However, Burud encourages his wife to look on the bright side: "At least her gestation period is not 14-16 months long, and our baby will hopefully weigh nowhere near 80-125 lbs. There are advantages to not being a beluga..." It is our opinion that there are also advantages to not mistaking your wife for one.

More from the Department for Studying the Obvious.

Teen Exposure to Sex in Media Leads to Intercourse, Study Says

Duuuuuuh.

Key quote: "Media is a powerful sex educator, but not always in the best interest of children," Brown said. "'Desperate Housewives' could use condoms. Why not? On reality programs, let's get real. People do use condoms. What's missing in the media are the three Cs. Rarely is there a commitment, contraceptives or consequences."

So who cares if watching Desperate Housewives leads 14-year-olds to have sex. The important thing is that it teaches them to have safe sex.

From True Facts About Jack Bauer.
(Mandatory mature content warning)

"Jack Bauer's calender goes from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Jack Bauer."

Apparently, some can fool Mrs. Pickles. :-P

Poll of the Day/Week/Month.

The Post From a Non-existant Time.

Present day, online. A blogger is up early in the morning on the first Sunday of April. He back-dates a post, not realizing the chosen date and time doesn't actually exist. By doing this he inadvertantly opens up a portal and is sucked through into... the Twilight Zone.

Stoopid blogger ruining the joke by not allowing any posts to be back-dated to between 1:59am and 3:00am. Stoopid stoopid stoopid.

Warm, Purring Kittens.

Nature's vibrating heating pads. Good for stummy aches.



Speaking of kittens, our little Bastet is growing up and becoming a queen. She's currently in heat. We know this because she spends most of the time cooing, rolling around on the floor, rubbing against objects, "assuming the position," and doing other things that I'm sure would be very provocative for a boy cat. We've temporarily changed her name from "the sniffy one" to "the horny one."

Speaking of fertility, Rie hasn't been feeling well recently so she went to the doctor, thinking it would be another infection or something. It wasn't. She's pregnant.