Fluffy

I have been tagged.

RW got me this time.
1) What were you doing 10 Years Ago?
Working part-time at a McDonald's.
2) 5 Years Ago?
Writing freelance articles for TIME magazine under the pseudonym Dr. Benedict St. Smythe.
3) 1 Year Ago?
I was in Kuwait for a very, very brief time.Not as a soldier, if that's what you're thinking though. It was the worst spring break ever.
4) Five snacks you enjoy:
Italian beef sandwiches, Krispy Kreme donuts, Maxwell Street Polish Sausage, Chicago style hotdogs, and my very own patented, space-age, out of this world moon waffles (a waffle with caramel and liquid smoke cooked inside wrapped around a stick of butter).
5) Five songs I know by heart but wish I didn’t:-
Dukes of Hazzard theme song, Popular from Wicked, I Feel Pretty from West Side Story, Beautiful by Christina Aguilera, and Let's Rock With The Sox, which always seems to get me beaten up by Cubs fans. Can't we all just get along?
6) Five things I would do with a LOT of money:
Buy a multimillion dollar mansion in Tijuana, become mayor of Tijuana, rig every boxing match, horse race, and masked wrestling fight to get even MORE money, buy the world, and buy every Star Wars prop on the market. Hey, I must appease the nerd inside of me...
7) Five things I would never wear:-
Clown shoes, a Monopoly-style top hat, a bikini, a Cubs cap, and high heels.
8) Five things I should never have worn:
One of those big novelty cowboy hats, jazz shoes, a grass skirt, a kilt, and a Sox cap in a North Side bar.
9) Five things I enjoy doing:
Blogging, playing video games, staying awake all night, Jeet Kun Do, and gunplay. Really.
10) Five bad habits:- Breaking bones on reflex, knuckle cracking, chewing in my sleep, singing "so take off all your clothes" when someone says "It's getting hot in here", and blasting AC/DC music
11) Five people that must fill this out:
Sonia
Scottage
Renegade Eye
Miles
Melissa

New icon

I got a new icon! What do you think of it?
Pretty nerdy, I know.

Black-White, the creepiest show of the year.

Black-White, FX's new reality show, has got to be the creepiest and most racist show ever. Two middle-class families, one black, one white, switch places for some time. This includes putting on makeup to look black/white, going to churches, talking, eating, and shopping. The white family is the scariest. When they turn black, it's so creepy how they get turned on by each other. When they go to church, the father puts on this African muumuu thing and starts dancing!He actually does that "raise the roof" thing in the House of God! And then, he goes around calling people the "n" word while his wife is saying the "b" word because she thinks it's socially acceptable! Maybe in The Chapelle Show, but not in real life! It's pretty racy, but entertaining when people get mad at them.

Move over MI:3 and X-Men 3, here comes Snakes on a Plane!

Snakes on a Plane, the title says it all! An assassin dumps a crate of killer snakes on an airplane! Recently, the trailer was released on the Internet. There's one scene where instead of oxygen masks dropping down, it's a bunch of pygmy vipers! Always remember to help your child put on his snake before putting on your own. Snake safety, you know. It makes me think, now it's Snakes on a Plane, what's next? Grizzly bears on a blimp? Sharks in a Honda Civic? Personally, I can't wait for Snakes on a Plane.

V for Vendetta movie: What a relief! Score: 4/5

Fortunately, the V for Vendetta movie was much better than I thought. It's, to quote a critic, "a vividly vivacious and voluptuous volley of a very violently fun time". I saw it in IMAX, meaning more sound (there are about twenty speakers, most of which are behind the screen) and huge digital picture. And only two previews! The movie was surprisingly true to the comics with suberb performances by Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. Excellent writing as well. The story opens with the story of Guy Fawkes and his unsuccessful attempt to destroy the British Parliament over 400 years ago, then quickly moves to the movie's present day, where government spokesman Lewis Prothero gives a speech showing England to be ruled by a religiously fascist regime.

Evey Hammond, a young woman who breaks curfew, is caught on the street by members of the secret police, known as "fingermen." They are about to rape Evey when a man dressed in black, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and armed with a set of daggers, intervenes by either incapacitating or killing the fingermen. The man introduces himself to Evey as V and takes her to a London rooftop to show her an event. As the clock strikes midnight on the fifth of November, Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" begins playing through the city's PA system and the citizens of London go outside, astounded, to listen to the symphony. In the symphony's climax, The Old Bailey is blown up in a spectacular display of fireworks.

The Norsefire regime, the totalitarian regime of Britain headed by High Chancellor Sutler, explains the destruction of The Old Bailey as a voluntary act of emergency demolition on the part of the government. The police are also dispatched to find Evey, who was identified based on closed-circuit television images showing her in the company of V.


The next day, V takes control of the state controlled British Television Network (BTN) by threatening to bomb it. V plays a recorded message in which he declares that he was responsible for the destruction of the Old Bailey, and urges the populace to take a look at their government and rise up with him a year from today (November 5th), when he will destroy the Parliament building. Coincidentally, Evey works at the BTN. The police under Chief Inspector Eric Finch arrive at the BTN originally with the intent of arresting Evey, but ends up dealing with V instead. V is soon stopped by Lt. Dominic at gunpoint, but Evey maces the officer. Evey is rendered unconscious by the detective, who is himself subdued by V. V takes the unconscious Evey with him.

Evey awakens in V's underground lair, which is richly stocked with literature and works of art that he has "liberated" from the censors. He explains to her that she will need to remain with him for the next year, because even the limited information she has about him could conceivably allow the police to locate his den.

V begins killing people, starting with Lewis Prothero, the Norsefire talking head. Finch tries to deduce V's identity based on his victim selection. Finch begins to suspect a cover-up, as the victims all appear to be tied to a former detention facility, whose records are conspicuously absent from the government archives. Evey spends an indeterminate amount of time with V, learning, among other things, that he has been heavily scarred in a fire. She eventually volunteers to assist V in one of his missions, apparently in order to escape. She dresses as a young girl to gain access to a bishop, making V's assault possible, but Evey flees when V attacks the man. She hides with Gordon Dietrich, one of her former superiors at BTN, whom Evey had planned to meet before she was attacked at the beginning of the film. He shows her his collection of contraband and reveals that he is a closeted homosexual who has been forced underground by the Norsefire regime; he tells her that if his house is ever searched, the charge of harboring a fugitive will be the least of his problems, and invites her to stay.

Finch's investigation proceeds, albeit slowly. Speaking with the coroner about one of V's victims, he mentions that V has been leaving a rose with each victim. Recalling that the coroner had once been a botanist, he shows her one of the flowers. She appears rattled, but passes it off by saying that she had thought that breed of rose extinct. At night she is awakened by the appearance of V in her bedroom; she knows V's identity and apologizes to him before V kills her. Finch, having just discovered that the last surviving senior officer from the detention facility is actually the coroner, hurries to her home, but arrives too late to save her. Finch finds and reads her diary, and brings it to the Norsefire council, where Sutler commands him to destroy it and forget its contents. The diary tells the story of the detention camp's medical experiments, which were focused on germ warfare. Almost all of the prisoners died from the experiments. But one, housed in cell "V" (in Roman numerals), not only survived but appeared to gain unusual strength and agility. He apparently destroys the camp through some type of explosion and escapes.


Gordon produces an episode of his show that mocks both the V plot and the Chancellor, reasoning that his popularity will protect him from any truly dreadful consequences. When the police raid his house anyway and attack Gordon, Evey escapes, but is captured by a man in a police commando's uniform. She is held prisoner, shaved, tortured, and interrogated for information concerning V but refuses to divulge anything. She derives strength from a letter she finds hidden in the cell wall. It is the autobiography of Valerie, a former prisoner incarcerated and presumably executed for being a lesbian. When given one last chance to inform on V to escape her execution, Evey says she'd prefer to die.
I have had a strict "no spoiler" policy on my site for a long time. The rest is for you to find out.

Peaceniks against the troops who rescued them

Spurred by a tip from a detainee, a multinational military force stormed a house in western Baghdad early today and rescued two Canadians and a Briton who had been held hostage by a shadowy guerrilla group for nearly four months.
James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both from Canada; and Norman Kember, 74, from Britain, were discovered bound and sequestered in a house in a residential district of the capital, officials reported. The three were whisked to the fortified Green Zone and debriefed by the authorities but did not address the media, officials said.
The men, all activists working for Christian Peacemaker Teams, had been captured Nov. 26 along with an American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., whose body was discovered March 9 wrapped in plastic and dumped on a trash pile in western Baghdad. Mr. Fox had been tortured, handcuffed and shot, the police said.
Today's rescue, by a force that included American and British troops, was one of the few times that military action in Iraq has played a decisive role in a hostage release.
But within an hour of the event, a surge of four car bombings, including a suicide attack, struck Baghdad, killing at least 23 people, wounding at least 48 and tempering the military's euphoria from the morning's exceptional success.
The attacks followed five days in which there had been no incidents in the capital involving car bombs, suicide car bombs or suicide attackers wearing vests packed with explosives, according to an American military spokesman, who insisted that the relative lull was a result of expanded security operations in Baghdad.
But the convergence of the devastating attacks, coming within about four hours of one another, suggested that the guerrillas' ability to operate in the capital remained unfettered.
"As you're well aware, today he surged," acknowledged Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior military spokesman, using his preferred pronoun to describe the amorphous insurgency. "He still has that capability."
Military commanders jealously guarded details of the morning's rescue operation, saying they did not want to compromise ongoing operations. Among the scant information General Lynch offered in a press briefing, he said a detainee captured Wednesday night had provided the authorities with information that guided them to the house where the three hostages were being held. The captives were found unguarded, their kidnappers having vanished, General Lynch said.
Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, said Mr. Kember was in "reasonable" condition and the two Canadians had to be hospitalized.
More than 200 foreigners, including many citizens of Arab nations, have been abducted since the American invasion in spring 2003, some by criminal gangs seeking a ransom and others by insurgents trying to compel foreign governments to cut ties to Iraq. About 50 of those captives have been confirmed as killed, some in ghoulish videotaped beheadings, and about 20 are still missing, including the American reporter Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped on Jan. 7.
Abductions of Westerners peaked in late 2004, forcing many foreigners here to adopt stricter security measures, including sharply curtailed travel and the fortifying of homes and offices. Others simply left the country.
Militant Shiite opponents of the American-led foreign presence in Iraq are widely believed to have committed at least two high-profile kidnappings of Westerners, both journalists, but most abductions, including those of the Christian peace workers, have been by Sunni-led rebel groups seeking to drive foreigners out of the country.
Among other cases in which the military helped to secure a hostage release, American forces, responding to a tip from an Iraqi detainee, rescued two hostages, an American and an Iraqi, from an isolated farmhouse south of Baghdad last September. The American, Roy Hallums, had been working as a contractor for a Saudi Arabian company when he was kidnapped in 2004.
Last June, Iraqi troops raided a house in Baghdad and freed an Australian hostage, Douglas Wood, from nearly seven weeks of captivity. But according to some officials, the troops had been conducting a routine search operation and had stumbled across Mr. Wood by accident. Other captives have been discovered in vehicles in routine checks at roadblocks, officials said.
Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, said in a statement that the rescue operation today was a multinational effort involving British troops and followed "weeks and weeks of very careful work by military and coalition personnel in Iraq, and many civilians as well."
The Rev. Alan Betteridge, president of the Baptist Peace Fellowship and a friend of Mr. Kember's for more than 40 years, told the BBC that "it's tremendously good and so unexpected after the killing of Tom Fox a couple of weeks ago, when we really did fear that each one would be killed eventually."
Christian Peacemaker Teams, which is based in Chicago and Toronto and grew out of a collection of churches including the Mennonites and the Quakers, sends groups of Christians to conflict zones around the world to promote peace and human rights. The four activists had been captured while driving to meet with Sunni Arab leaders in western Baghdad.
The captors had periodically released videotapes of the men and renewed their threats to kill them. In early March, a videotape emerged showing three of the men, but not Mr. Fox.
The eruption of car bombings today began about 9 a.m. when a car packed with explosives was detonated in Karada, an upscale neighborhood, as a police patrol passed by, an official with the Interior Ministry said. One civilian was wounded.
An hour later, someone triggered a charge planted in a vehicle parked in the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adhamiya, the official said. The explosion, which apparently targeted a passing police patrol, killed three police officers and wounded five others.
About an hour later, a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives at the entrance to the headquarters of the Interior Ministry's major crimes unit in central Baghdad, killing 10 police officers and 5 civilians and wounding 32 others, including police officers and civilians, the ministry official reported.
Five other people were killed and 10 were wounded, according to the authorities, when a second car bomb exploded at about 1:15 p.m. near an outdoor market and a Shiite mosque in western Baghdad.
This story is so crazy. These "activists" didn't even want soldiers to save them. Instead, they had to be rescued through grassroots political means. Peh! I've had enough of this guys.
Hat tip: The New York Times

Coke Blak: Disgusting?

I have always been a Coke fan. In fact, I have at least a can every day. But this new Coke Blak... I'm not so sure about it. I think it will only have half the taste and twice the caffeine of regular Coke. But who am I to voice my opinions? Listen to the reporter experts.

Coca-Cola Blak to Hit Shelves Soon
Coca-Cola’s newest drink, Coca-Cola Blak, is scheduled to be officially released on April 3rd. The drink, which we have mentioned before, is a blend of classic Coke and coffee “essence.” The company is trying to market the uniqueness of the product, but similar blends have been released in the past and have failed.
In 1994, for example, Pepsi began to test market a soda called Pepsi Kona. It tasted more like coffee than soda and consumers were not thrilled. Back in 1995, Starbucks partnered with Pepsi and began to market a coffee product called Mazagran. It was a lightly carbonated iced coffee beverage and it, too, flopped. Customers were willing to try it once, based on the Starbucks name alone, but the drink was not enough to encourage repeat sales. The question is whether it was the carbonation or the coffee that put consumers off the original drink. Since coffee sales have boomed, one can only assume that the combination of coffee and carbonation has not previously been held in high regard by consumers.

Hat tip: nicoleMart, one of the more interesting blogs around.

The Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I've decided to write about the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick. This is the Wikipedia article:
The Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick is an order of chivalry associated with Ireland. The Order was created in 1783 by George III. The regular creation of knighthoods of St Patrick lasted until 1922, when most of Ireland became independent as the Irish Free State. While the Order technically still exists, no knighthood of St Patrick has been created since 1934, and the last surviving knight, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, died in 1974. The Queen however remains the Sovereign of the Order, and one officer, Ulster King of Arms, who is now Norroy and Ulster King of Arms, also survives. The patron saint of the Order is St Patrick. Its motto is Quis separabit?, or Latin for "Who will separate us?"; an allusion to the Vulgate translation of Romans 8:35, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
Most British orders of chivalry cover the entire kingdom, but the three most exalted ones each pertain to one constituent nation only. The Order of St Patrick, which pertains to Ireland, is the third-most senior in precedence and age. Its equivalent in England, The Most Noble Order of the Garter, is the oldest documented order of chivalry in the United Kingdom, dating to the middle fourteenth century. The Scottish equivalent is The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, dating in its modern form to 1687.
The Order of St Patrick earned international coverage when in 1907 its insignia, known generally as the Irish Crown Jewels, were stolen from Dublin Castle shortly before a visit by the Order's Sovereign, King Edward VII. Their whereabouts remain a mystery.

Restaurant review: Frontera Grill

445 North Clark Street - Chicago, IL 60610 Phone: 312-661-1434 - Fax: 312-661-1830

I expected it to be better. Oh, well. Maybe I didn't order the right thing. When I first walked in to Frontera, I was surprised. I had expected more of a fancy atmosphere. Instead, it was all quite casual. I was seated and ordered a few appetizers: tamales, huaraches, taquitos, and surprisingly good oysters. The appetizers were excellent and the oysters tasted like they were just caught yesterday. But it was the entree that made my meal a disappointment. I had vuelve de la vida, a seafood cocktail. The cocktail sauce was much too limey and the seafood itself was rather lacking. The dessert was good though. I ordered homemade blood orange-buttermilk ice cream with caramel made from goat's milk. Here is a weblink to their website. In all, I give it three forks.

Who I was in a past life

In a Past Life...

You Were: An Insane Warrior. Where You Lived: Central Africa. How You Died: Dysentery.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

What is the way to peace?

Hmm. Churchill, Nixon, hippie.World leaders and an average man. Is two fingers in a "V" shape for victory, or is it a universal sign of peace? How can it be both when the meanings are complete opposites? Maybe there cannot be peace without war. We've seen it in history dozens of times. The unification of Hawaii or Japan. The Mongol invasion of China. William Wallace and Scotland. Or, maybe nonviolent protests are the answer. Ghandi, Martin Luther, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King. Or maybe slow terrorist attacks, like Guy Fawkes, the Irish Republican Army, maybe the Resistances of Nazi-occupied countries during WWII, or even al-Qaeda or Hamas. Or maybe there is no way to peace. Maybe we are doomed to fight each other over our race, our religion, or even where we live. But sometimes I just wish that we could all get along. I wish that no one should have to live in fear or die because of who they are. I really do. I wish that people could open their eyes to the horrors that are going on in this world.

This is terrible.

According to this article, 1 out of 20 civilian jobs are held by illegal aliens. Ew.

New template

I'm experimenting with a new template. Let me know what you think of it.

This is nuts.

According to this article, a Muslim grad student drove his car into a group of fellow students to "avenge the deaths of fellow Muslims around the world." Just goes to show you that fundamentalism, radicalism, and even insanity is abroad right on our doorsteps.

If Noah's Ark was built in 2006...

And the Lord spoke to Noah and said "In six months I'm going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed.But I want to save a few good people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am commanding you to build an Ark." And in a flash of lightning, He delivered the specifications for an Ark, "Okay," said Noah, trembling with fear and fumbling with the blueprints."Six months and it starts to rain," thundered the Lord. "You'd better have the Ark completed, or learn to swim for a very long time." Six months passed, the skies clouded up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard, weeping. And there was no Ark. "Noah!" shouted the Lord, "where is the Ark?""Lord, please forgive me!" begged Noah. "I did my best. But there were big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the Ark construction project, and your plans didn't meet code. I had to hire an engineer to redraw the plans. Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system.""Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the Ark in my front yard, I had to get a variance from the city planning commission. Then I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the spotted owl. I had to convince the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that I needed the wood to save the owls. But they wouldn't let me catch any owls. So, no owls.""The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now we have sixteen carpenters going on the boat, and still no owls. Then I started gathering up animals, and got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me taking only two of each kind. Just when I got the suit dismissed, EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood.""They didn't take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of a Supreme Being. Then the Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plain. So I sent them a globe. Right now, I'm still trying to resolve a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over how many Croations I'm supposed to hire.""The IRS has seized all my assets, claiming I'm trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country. And I just got a notice from the state about owing them some kind of use tax. I really don't think I can finish the Ark for at least another five years," Noah wailed.The sky began to clear. The sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled, "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth?" Noah asked hopefully."No," said the Lord sadly. "The government already has!"