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I made the mistake of renting 13th Child (Legend of The Jersey Devil) this weekend.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this cheesy in quite a long time.  The dialog was horrendous and it was delivered in such a wooden fashion that I started to wonder how the actors could move with such big sticks up their asses.  And then there was the cheesy rubber suited monster.  It’s almost enough to make me want to grow another hand so I can give this stinker more than two thumbs down.

After yesteday I’m left with just three boxes to deal with.  Unfortunately these three are likely to be the hardest of them all.  They’re filled with all those little annoying items that I’m not quite sure what to do with.  It’s tough being a pack-rat…

I had a new bookcase delivered yesterday morning so I got busy unpacking all my books and all of the junk from my office.  It took all day, but I got it done (it was something like 30 boxes).  This morning I unpacked the rest of the stuff in the garage and cleaned up out there.  As soon as I can get rid of all those broken-down boxes I should be able to park the truck in there.  In the meantime I’m a bit tired and sore from all the lifting and bending.

As if we didn’t need more proof that spammers are vile scum, I got a spam today at the email address I set aside for the sole purpose of reporting spam to SpamCop.  Some spammer who got reported obviously decided to add my SpamCop address to their spam list.  I hope this bastard is having fun searching for a new ISP right now…

If big marketing groups like the DMA are supporting the latest antispam bill that’s a good sign that it’s a bad bill.  In this case, the bill would still allow unsolicited email advertisments as long as there is an “opt-out” method.  This is utter crap because the opt-out requirement will guarantee that your inbox will still be deluged with unwanted email.  What these people fail to comprehend is that there’s a volume problem here.  While it sounds simple for them to do an opt-out, it’s more problematic for the end-user.  There are thousands of businesses that would love to send email if they thought they could get away with it and you’d have to wade through all of them to opt-out of each one. 

As far as I’m concerned, the only viable method that will ensure the continued survival of commercial email is opt-in.  I am willing to entertain certain opt-in emails (in fact I get a few now).  However, I will never, ever accept unsolicited emails from businesses (I don’t even accept emails from businesses I already have a relationship with unless I’ve opted in to them).  The potential for abuse is too great and the volume of them would make them impractical for most people to deal with.

The Ninth Circuit ruled today that Congress may not ban homemade machine guns based on the Commerce Clause.

Link via Instapundit.

Now where did I put those machine tools…

Do we really need Yet Another Cartridge?

This concept vehicle from Bombardier reminds me of something from Star Wars (although you’d have to scuff up the smooth finish and make it look like it’d been beaten with a hammer to get it exactly right).  But I’m left wondering what would happen if the gyros failed?  I suspect you’d be roadkill…

I hate when that happens.

Link via The Fat Guy

If nothing else this move of work location has forced me to improve my wardrobe.  At the old location we didn’t have many customers or other visitors around, so we tended to be a bit rough at the edges (why dress up if you’re working on code or taking conference calls?).  In particular, I have a liking for loud shirts that are not meant to be tucked in.  Correlated with this is my extreme dislike for tucking in my shirt.  I hate it because it feels so constricting (not to mention the difficulty in concealed carry with a tucked-in shirt when I’m not at work¹). 

The new location has a lot of customers around because they come here for classes.  We have been told to adhere to a “business casual” dress code (which also means no blue jeans).  I’ve spent over $300 in the past few weeks buying new clothes.  On the positive side, though, is that I’ve discovered that I can now buy shirts and pants at Kohls.  Their sale prices certainly beat those at Casual Male.

¹  I looked at those “Pager Pal” holsters at the gun show this weekend.  The guy at the table let me try one on (along with a dummy Glock).  The problem is that while I’ve lost quite a bit of weight, I’m still not shaped right to carry with the Pager Pal.  It created a noticeable bulge in the front of my pants that I was able to identify as a gun.  I’m not sure if the Kimber would have done the same thing, but I didn’t want to take the chance.  Concealed means concealed…