"buffalo blogtoberfest" written by Zobar on estrip.org

09/23/07 02:01 - 71ºF - ID#41268

buffalo blogtoberfest

Two very confused bloggers arrived promptly at 6pm. 'Are we in the right place?' Two tables sat reserved and unused in the corner of someone else's event. Middle-aged Cheektowagans, many of whom had never heard the word 'blog' before, eyed the empty chairs. 'Can we take these?' 'You'll have to find the person in charge.' 'Who's that?' Who indeed?

Roll call: Mr. and Mrs. Punaro

were there, and also seemed to be the only people who knew what was going on. We were told Michael Rebmann

was 'here somewhere, I think ...'

Meanwhile (e:strip)

managed to send a full delegation on short notice [(e:dragonlady7) (e:james) (e:jim) (e:libertad) (e:metalpeter) (e:mike) (e:paul) (e:terry) (e:zobar)] and then hauled our asses out to Youngstown for another (e:strip) event [+ (e:theecarey) (e:vincent)]. I filed a motion with (e:paul) to change motto to '(e:strip) - the blogging community that organizes events ... and then goes to them.'

- Z

_______________
xpost:

Permalink: buffalo_blogtoberfest.html
Words: 187
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: wtf

09/19/07 09:22 - 68ºF - ID#41200

wtf?

Work just bought me an iPhone. No really, WTF?

- Z

Permalink: wtf_.html
Words: 11
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: schadenfreude

09/17/07 04:31 - 70ºF - ID#41157

this shit makes me ill

This is what you get when you start a company, name it something completely idiotic like AMP'D Mobile, and convince them that you're so awesome they need to buy you a Ferrari: Guess what! You've wasted all your fucking money and now you've got to peddle your ass for nickels! This is a complete inventory of everything they chose to spend their company's money on, and they have to sell it all now that they've [predictably] gone out of business. Looking through this stuff is almost anthropological. Christ, it's like the .com bust never happened.

LOT 352: 1997 FERRARI 550M RED/TAN 19,000 MILES, MANUALS, TOOLKIT, VIN#ZFFZR491A1V0109057, CA PLATE 5K0G100 - CALIFORNIA CAR

LOT 353: 2006 FORD F350 DUALLY KING RANCH EDITION 14,500 MILES, V8 6.0L TURBO DIESEL, 4WD VIN# 1FTWW33P06EC47159, NEVADA REGISTRATION

LOT 547A: HUMAN TOUCH BLACK MASSAGE CHAIR WITH OTTOMAN

LOTS 629-632: CPU [?]

LOT 1002: APPLE 30in HD CINEMA DISPLAY 81083

LOT 1196: BGW 1100 POWERED SUBWOOFER

LOTS 1238-1241: [Exceedingly cool classic arcade games]

LOTS 1242-1244: ROCKET

LOT 1245: FOOSEBALL TABLE

LOT 1246: BASKET BALL HOOP

LOT 1385: 20in RIMS

Part 2: I guess the Internet finally killed somebody.

- Z

Permalink: this_shit_makes_me_ill.html
Words: 192
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: a series of tubes

09/12/07 08:12 - 62ºF - ID#41067

line status: showtime

1: My ISP sold my DSL account to EarthLink when they got out of the business. Tech Support said they were sending me a new modem, but it is nowhere in sight. Today was our sixth day without tubes, and things were getting a little tense. I finally h4x0r3d my b0x3n and now it tells me "Line Status: SHOWTIME." That is a good thing.

2: One of my coworkers lived across the street from these girls

[NSFW]. She says they're total bitches.
2a: Anyone you know on here? It's tough to tell, they've got some stuff on their faces.
2b: No offense to all yall, but Buffalo is not exactly the place I would start looking for hot porno chicks.

That is all!

- Z

Permalink: line_status_showtime.html
Words: 134
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: a series of tubes

09/05/07 04:07 - 83ºF - ID#40950

cootie catcher

Emergency Bulletin! Jon Spencer at Mohawk Place next Tuesday

Now on with our regularly-scheduled post:

OK, I was discussing cootie catchers/fortune tellers with (e:dragonlady7). She said she didn't know how to make one, so I Googled it. It is not surprising to me that I found instructions for making a cootie catcher on the Internet. You may follow the link

but the URL itself is more interesting than the page.

girlpower.gov/girlarea/gamespuz/cootiecatcher.htm

How wrong is this URL? Let me count the ways:

1: There are instructions on a US Government [.gov] website for making a cootie catcher.

2: There is a website called girlpower.gov at all.

3: I just visited a website's girl area.

Now I feel dirty.

- Z

Permalink: cootie_catcher.html
Words: 147
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

08/27/07 02:45 - 77ºF - ID#40757

flip flop

1: Facebook is quite addictive

2: Usually I stay away from politics, but here's something to chew on.

Both major political parties have diverse, complex, and often contradictory platforms that go far beyond the simplistic conservative/liberal split. What is interesting is how they take sides when an issue is not addressed by the traditional party platform.

To whit: the electoral college. Republicans typically support it, and Democrats typically oppose it. Both sides can come up with long lists of lofty ideals that support/oppose it, but what it comes down to for both sides is that the electoral college elected a Republican twice in a row.

In the electoral college, most states use the Winner Takes All method but two states [Maine (D x4) and Nebraska (R x5)] use an alternate approach that arguably gives better direct representation. The Democratic Party proposed switching Colorado (R x9) to the new system in 2004, and failed.

Now it seems Republicans are all about more direct representation in the electoral college, but only in California (D x55). And who is defending the status quo? Yeah, the Democrats.

Conclusion: Only losers want election reform, but only the winners have the power to do it.

- Z

joshua writes at 12:24:28 08/29/07 - Comment #23359: Actually the irony is that if GWB hadn't won Ohio, he would have lost the electoral college but won the popular vote by 3.5 million. I can't recall how large of a difference was represented in the popular vote in 2000 but I don't remember it being larger than 3.5 million on Gore's side.

This is the major problem - its obvious, and we've spoken about this plenty of times, that when there is a big discrepency between the popular vote and the electoral college the entire system's credibility is called into question, and rightly so.

I think elimination of the electoral college, or modifications of the rules, would make things very interesting. After all, in 2004 40% of NYS voted for President Bush. Being one of the states with the largest number of electoral votes, distributing these votes in proportion to the popular vote would make things very, very interesting indeed.

I'd be interested in reading a study, if there was one out there, that would determine the outcome of the presidential elections in the past had the electoral college votes been in proportion to the percentage of the popular votes, state by state.

metalpeter writes at 08:20:40 08/27/07 - Comment #23179: The thing about this country is we are not a democrocy we are a representive democrcy. Basiclly the people have no control we pick people to have control for us and then they do what ever they want. If they have morals then they try to get done what the people who elected them elected them for, but often they follow who paid for them to run or even special interest groups. The electoral college is an example of indirect Democraticy but I can understand why people want it. It helps fight fraud. Say I'm running and in Buffalo, New York, Albany and Rochester I get the votes of everyone who died in that year then it doesn't matter that I got 100,000 (or any number) more then my enemy because I only get so many points. But I'm sure there are better ways to stop illegal votes.

But here is one of the problems with it. Lets say (e:josh) was running for president and in NY he is leading and people on TV see that so they don't vote cause it doesn't matter since there guy say (e:ajay) can't win so josh gets all the points an ajay gets nothing. But if those people would have voted then the proportion the ajay would have been behind josh would be much lower and he would be closer. Just the opposite is true also if someone gets 99% of the votes in a state it doesn't matter how many more people voted for them cause the only get the points. That is why you can win the popular vote and not become president it doesn't make any sense.

There is another reason why it should be gotten rid of and that is so you can have more then 2 people running for president. Currently all 3rd party people do is take voters away form some one else and cause them to lose states that the 3rd party can't win. I will use my self as an example Yes I liked Ross Perot and voted for him but all that did was take votes away from someone else and I'm sure a lot of people did that (i hope I'm remembering right that he was 3rd party). But if it is most votes wins then a 3rd party guy or gal could win because they could get the most votes. I'm not saying it would happen but it sure seems like a much more fair way of doing things.

jason writes at 04:24:48 08/27/07 - Comment #23165: Yes, yes, it's about the time to let the gamesmanship begin! The most important thing, and the only real important goal is to attain and keep power.

The thing I find most insulting is that the parties pretty much proudly out themselves as hypocrites, using each others' arguments depending on their relative strength. You see it all the time nowadays, and we will continue to see it. Turnabout is fair play, it seems, and the fanbois pile right on top of it.

I agree that doing this proportional electoral college vote thing state-by-state is just not a good idea, but I'm also not a lawyer and can't say what the recourse is. Maybe it's time to relegate "flyover" country to the worthless status everyone on the coasts wants for it. That certainly would ensure that one party ruled from now until the end of time. Depending on who we root for, that is either a no brainer or an outrage, damn the hypocrisy.

james writes at 03:25:31 08/27/07 - Comment #23160: No, this has nothing to do with direct representation or popular elections or real election reform. This has to do with which party wants to be in power in 2008. California will not go for any of the GOP candidates in 2008. But in this new system 20 of CA's 55 electoral votes will go to the Republicans. That is one hell of a deficit for the Dems to make up and probably would not win the election. This is just a power grab, knocking out the biggest bloc of voters for Dems.

The electoral collage has to go, but doing it state by state is a stupid way to do it. If they do it and Mitt Romney is President there sure as hell wont be any movement to split Texas or other large GOP strongholds.

And Governor Schwartzeneger, a Republican, opposes this reform as well. So it isn't GOP vs. Dems on this issue as a rule.

Permalink: flip_flop.html
Words: 216
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: misc

08/20/07 11:02 - 60ºF - ID#40645

headhunt'd!

Item! It feels nice to be wanted. More details later, or not.

Item! My buddy and his wife ended up in Cancun this weekend. I can only hope they got a hurricane-season discount. They ended up 'finding' plane tickets out at $600 a pop, which was still better than sticking around at the hotel that made no evacuation plans and had been wiped out by another hurricane a couple years ago.

Item! (e:dragonlady7) was out of town this weekend so I got some quality fucking-off done. I did some housework but more importantly I totally found the best article on Wikipedia: (WIKIPEDIA - Voynich manuscript). This is the coolest fucking thing, and it creeps the shit out of me.

Item! What do you do with a bored Norwegian in Buffalo? Take him to the Pirate Festival for "Adult Night!"

I can't really explain why.

- Z

Permalink: headhunt_d_.html
Words: 150
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: weird

08/14/07 11:50 - 68ºF - ID#40534

and when i awoke i was alone

The other night I had a weird dream. (e:dragonlady7) 's Norwegian cousin Aleksander was visiting us, and someone suggested that we should take him to a community ed. class about Norwegian Culture & Language. We showed up and there were maybe 100 people in the classroom, mostly just shooting the bull and eating the fruit & cheese trays. The teacher didn't really know anything about Norway and didn't bother to teach the class. I guess it was mostly just a social night called Community Ed. So Aleksander goes up to the front of the class and starts talking about what Norway is like, and some people are listening and some people are not, and nobody's being rude or anything, but really he could really have been talking about anything at all.

He kinda thinks this is totally lame, and there's all these people eating cheese and crackers, and so he says, you know, Norway's very similar to the United States in a lot of ways, except that when we eat cheese and crackers, we don't eat cheddar, we eat havarti.

And you know how in elementary foreign-language classes, when they teach you new vocabulary, the teacher says the word and the students repeat it? Everybody stopped what they were doing, said "HAVARTI!" in unison, and went back to chatting.

I split a gut and had to leave the room I was laughing so hard. Aleksander had half an idea of what was going on so he went on to explain that in Norway the cheese and fruit trays would be called a smörgåsbord [laying on the accent real thick-like]. And the entire class stopped, replied "SMORGASBORD!" and went back to doing whatever it was they were doing.

Laughing, Aleksander came out to join me in the hallway and asked me what the Hell was going on. I was laughing so hard I woke up.

Turns out neither havarti nor smorgasbords are particularly Norwegian.

- Z

Permalink: and_when_i_awoke_i_was_alone.html
Words: 327
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: lol

08/13/07 03:13 - 79ºF - ID#40515

lulz! [edited]

My kitty Chita Rivera is such a spaz, a product of her surroundings I suppose.

Also, see my previous post if you want to hear all the stupid details about my living room. Here's a pretty decent color sample

- yellow living room to the right, blue stairwell to the left, [future] orange hallway in the center. The old color

is so bleh, especially when compared with the new color at sunrise

- Z

_______________
Edited to add 'invisable microphone:' damn this is addictive.

Permalink: lulz_edited_.html
Words: 103
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: home

08/13/07 11:56 - 72ºF - ID#40511

color

So we've been renting a house from my mom for a while. It's a nice house but the walls are hideous. Somebody once decided to paint the living room periwinkle. [I can't explain it - the floors are a light-colored hardwood and the room tried its hardest to clash with itself.] My room is a smudgy light-toothpaste green. The kitchen has dead-wildflower wallpaper in muted earthtones with high-gloss white-and-yellow Formica all over the walls. And the master bedroom - jesus - is reflective silver wallpaper with baby blue flowers. Also, much of the ceiling paint [which is your standard white] is peeling. I strongly suspect that there are more serious problems with the walls, which are still the original [early postwar] plaster.

I told mom we were repainting the place whether she liked it or not. Then I showed her the swatches we'd picked for the living room. She kinda flipped out [she owns the house after all]. "You are an adult and you can make your own decisions. But when you leave the house you're painting it all white again." Hmf.

Now our living room is ZOMGWTFYELLOW!!! with all the molding in HOLY SHIT!!! PURPLE. It sounds like a trainwreck but it looks 300,000 times better. Turns out it was always a yellow room but nobody bothered to paint it that way. Pix soon.

I think maybe we won't tell mom what colors we've picked for the rest of the house.

- Z

Permalink: color.html
Words: 243
Location: Buffalo, NY

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