BunkBlog

Made another Black Forest Cake, this time using the correct type of chocolate for the mousse.

Unsurprisingly, it was quite popular. I discovered something, though. The building I work in is notoriously chilly lately, but today it was quite warm inside. After 3 hours, the top half of the cake (or what was left by then) slipped off, due to the melting of the mousse on the third layer. Oops. Too bad we don’t have a fridge there…

With apologies to Bill Watterson.

So, I’m reading Slashdot and come across this gem of a headline: PayPal Announces Intent to IPO. Um, did something change, or is an IPO now considered a verb? A company can issue or hold an IPO, or it can go public. You cannot IPO, just as you cannot do any of the other things that corporate America turns into verbs. Grrr!

Warning, here be spoilers…

Um, did they decide to just rehash every possible stereotype from the previous four iterations of Star Trek for this show?

And, must we introduce the “prototype” of every individual piece of technology seen in the other shows all during the pilot episode? Look, a “phase pistol” that has two modes: stun and kill. Oooh. Or, that newfangled transporter thingie that nobody trusts.

Hey, look, a cold emotionless Vulcan that turns out to have a heart of gold after all! Oh, my, whoda thunk it?!?

I particularly liked the strip-tease with the sexy Vulcan and the cretinous human in the shower/decon room. Yeah, baby, shake that pointy-eared thang!

Seriously, the show wasn’t bad, but they really need to let go of the baggage. Look at Andromeda or Earth: Final Conflict for examples of Roddenberry-inspired shows that aren’t exactly like the earlier Star Treks.

Although not the most talkative of late, happy birthday, !

Well, while working from home and exploring ways to make the webpages for the office actually reflect the federal law that states we have to have ADA-compliant webpages, I’ve brushed up my stylesheet skills.

Now, using Netscape 6, you can choose between the normal or “high-contrast” stylesheets for my random thoughts pages. Damn, I’m smoove.

My Stores are apparently popular, but nobody is buying anything. I’ve gotten to #25 on the T-Shirt Countdown, though. 🙂

I’ve moved some things around on my site, so if you get a 404, go back to the main page and try again. Nothing particularly popular got moved this time, though.
current_music: Blue’s Clues AGAIN and AGAIN

Feeling like a Flintstones character with that subject line.

OK, apparently anyone that wants to join up with the zoo in March has to make an obligatory post enticing all their friends to do so as well.

Consider yourselves enticed.

? Got a spare room still? 🙂

As in, fuck me in the…

The local post has reduced their alert level from the highest to something just below, which nobody (with a memory reaching back to Vietnam for some) in my office could remember hearing of before. Meanwhile, it took me an hour longer to get through the gate this morning than Friday, and they’ve closed 40 or more parking spots, forcing everyone to walk about 1 mile to get from their autos to work.

This is reduced security? Either these guys screwed up last week, or they’re just being dicks this week.
current_mood: annoyed

From the wonderful Sinfest, this hilarious monologue…

Simple is beautiful. The masters of any given field always go back to the basics, the fundamentals, the bare essentials of their craft. The fancy stuff is nice, but the real cool shit is minimalist. Drum and bass. Color and light. Meter and rhyme. And the works that grab us are usually built on the simplest of concepts–a love song, the hero myth, the afterworld. Of course, this is not recommended for all professions, like say, medicine. If I ever go under the knife, I don’t want some quack trying to go “minimalist” on me. I’ll be in pain cuz he won’t give me any drugs, and he’ll be like, “Hey, I’m retro.” Or pilots. Those guys definitely shouldn’t be getting too avant garde. “Attention. This is your pilot speaking. I thought I’d break down my craft to its bare essentials. Hold on, everybody.”

According to Jerry Falwell, the gays and liberals are at fault for the deaths of approximately 5000 people. Since Jerry also believes that the Teletubbies are gay, does that mean that children’s stuffed animals are terrorists? Radicals of any type are just repugnant.

A number of people are trying to get the U.S. into a very long war to eradicate all terrorist-friendly countries once and for all. That may very well be counter-productive. I notice that almost none of the people clamoring for war have ever been near one.

Conversely, there are a rather strident group of folks that think we should turn the other cheek and take our lumps as a deserved response to our imperialist ways. WTF?
I also note that none of these obnoxious twits have been in combat, nor even served the country which they take such pleasure in trashing while simultaneously sucking up all the advantages inherent in American life. To those people, I’d like to say, “Fuck you. You don’t get a vote until you have volunteered to go in the line of fire to defend your way of life.”Not every soldier has been called into battle, but every one of us that enlisted in the military knew that was on the option list. So, until you can say the same, your opinion on when we should risk our servicemembers’ lives is worth a lot less than you might like.
I know this makes me sound a bit too much like the ever provocative , but we agree on a few things at least.
current_music: Pearl Jam – Jeremy
current_mood: grumpy

I’m ambivalent about being “non-essential” but after more than an hour waiting to get on-post to work this morning, I was turned away.

Pretty effective crippling of the entire country…
current_mood: indescribable

I doubt the veracity of this, since it asked so few questions, and I answered quite strongly in favor of free markets (which seems to be anti-socialist), but here we go anyhow.

# 1 Socialist
# 2 Progressive
# 3 Leninist
# 4 US Liberal
# 5 Anarchist
# 6 US Libertarian
# 7 Marxist
# 8 US Conservative

Don’t expect me to fill out many of these “follow the leader” polls, but this one was entertaining in its lack of accuracy.
current_music: Stacy coughing
current_mood: bored

I’m convinced there is a correlation between gender and shampoo timing. Let’s see…

While looking through the sample page for GiggleCam, I had a thought (remarkable, no?). How exactly does one go about starting a game of naked Twister? And, is this a common game among friends? Heh
current_mood: amused

Hey, this is kind of cool. My “Friends Don’t Let Friends Reenlist” t-shirt is up to number 42 on the T-Shirt Countdown website. Hope someone buys them now. Or at least the Origami shirts, they’re cooler anyway. More colorful design will show up as soon as can get me that 102nd logo…

You can vote (if you want me to be more famous) at my website.
current_mood: tired

I’ve updated my website with a rather lengthy screed, regarding the lovely state of Web Browsers today. All the major players seem to have matured to the point of near-identicality. Read more for my hate-filled loathing of Microsoft. Well, maybe not quite hate-filled.
current_music: Texas – Say What You Want
current_mood: cold

Added a new page for my Photo Album: Origami Photos. Showcased currently is the John Montroll Stegosaurus, a truly cool looking model.

I have a package being delivered via UPS, which left Kentucky on the 25th, bound for Arizona. So, why, exactly, is the package now in Illinois? Is it being routed through Alaska next?

Yep, sure is cool to track packages on the web, although very frustrating. In San Angelo, I’d be able to watch the package arrive in Dallas on Monday and sit there for 3 days before it moved to San Angelo, where it would sit for at least one more day. Grrr…
current_music: Garbage – Silence is Golden
current_mood: annoyed

So, exactly why is it that so many people seem incapable of separating an email address from a person’s actual name? I’ve got a friend, named Aaron, who uses his initials for his website and consequently his user id on this system as well. His primary email address that he hands out is mail@hisdomain, yet people often think his name is Al. I have even more fun, since my domain is AndySocial, and I get people (who apparently are less endowed with a sense of humor than I had expected) emailing me as “Dear Andy” on occasion. Even better is when I email someone and they respond to “Andy” when my email return address is quite clearly “Gary Bunker (andy@andysocial.com)”. Makes you wonder how smart you don’t need to be in order to operate a computer nowadays. Twits.
current_music: Everlast – Children’s Story
current_mood: cold

OK, just for fun, I’ve built a Cafepress Storefront. Origami Swag has a variety of items with logos and slogans appropriate for those of us who enjoy folding paper into intricate forms.

Next week, the Andy Social Antisocial Store. or something. Thinking of the KMFMS t-shirt, and “It’s not just a job, it’s an indenture” stuff.