Monthly Archives: September 2011

I’m Tired (Or, Blog Post Necromancy)

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Michael C. McGreevy pictured at the New World Brewery

Photo by David M. Jenkins

I decided to peruse through my Drafts folder this morning and I stumbled across a post I began writing over a year ago and never finished. I don’t know if I’d say it was my best work, but I don’t think it sucks so I’ve cleaned it up a bit, tacked on an ending, and am setting it free to roam the wild internets as an independent post free from the safe confines of the Draft folder. I hope you enjoy.

One of my Uncles sent me an email with a link to this article (note – I’ve updated the link to point to a blog post that has the full text of the article. The original piece, along with the blog associated with it, appears to have been pulled down by the owner) earlier today. It was written by a sixty-three year old retired Marine and former state senator from Massachusetts.

When I get these kind of things I tend to ignore them. I know I’m not going to convince the more Conservative members of my family to see my point of view, so I generally don’t even bother trying. That said, it’s hard for me not to read something like this and not have the desire to respond, so I figured the best place for me to do so was here.

With all of that out of the way, this is likely to be a rather political post. If you’re not in the mood to read that kind of thing I suggest you ignore the cut tag below.

Continue reading →

1 in 3200

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At some point today a satellite is going to fall out of the sky. As much as I love the folks over at NASA, and scientists in general, I have to admit that occasionally they say some really stupid things.

This particular scenario represents one of those occasions.

The quote that is getting thrown around the most about this event is the one in which a scientist stated that there was a 1-in-3200 chance that a piece of debris from the satellite was going to hit “a person.”

This, of course, led to internet panic. Just this morning Simon Pegg mentioned it on his Twitter feed as well, which is likely to cause a slew of re-tweets and a heightened call to alarm about there being a 3% chance you’re going to be hit my satellite debris today.

Calm your sphincters, folks.

Pay attention to what NASA actually said – There is a 1-in-3200 chance of debris from the satellite harming a person. They did not say that debris from the satellite was going to hit one out of every thirty two hundred people. Out of all the people on the planet, there is a less than 3% chance that the debris from the satellite will strike one of them. The Washington Post ran the numbers, and the actual odds of you personally being struck by debris from the satellite are something more along the lines of one in twenty-two trillion.

Keep calm and carry on, folks. It’s not quite time to call up Bruce Willis to save the day just yet.

Republican Presidential Debate – Now With Drinking Game!

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Ok, so I’ve gone through all the trouble to get the Live Blogging plugin working the way I wanted to on my site, so I guess I’m going to have to go through with my plans to live blog yet another GOP Presidential Debate

The things I do for you people, I swear.

So here’s the deal – For one, I’m likely to be broadcasting from a Google+ Hangout while I watch. You’re welcome to join me if you like by visiting my wall over there. If you’re following me on Twitter or Facebook you’ll get notifications whenever I update this post for as long as the API lets me do so before it breaks (I killed the Twitter to Facebook link about half way through the last debate). If you really want to stay up to the minute on the updates the best thing to do is monitor this page. There is a script running in the background that will automatically feed new posts to the parent.

Now, on to the fun part…

If you want to play along with my debate drinking game, the rules are pretty simple. I will announce it is time to drink whenever any of the following events happen:

  • Any candidate says “Obamacare”
  • Any candidate mentions Class Warfare
  • Any candidate uses the phrase “The American People”
  • Any candidate mentions Ronald Reagan
  • Any candidate mentions 9/11. Finish the whole drink if the candidate says we were attacked because “they” hate the American way of life.
  • Rick Santorum complains about his “Google Problem”
  • Ron Paul hungrily lips his lips while staring at another candidate.
  • Newt Gingrich says anything that makes him seem like he’s done anything at all relevant in the last 15 years.
  • Mitt Romney’s hair moves.
  • Gary Johnson…wait, holy crap! Gary Johnson is actually there? Dude, I like that guy! He was on Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me! He gets an honorary toast the first time he answers a question.
  • If any candidate compares Herman Cain to the Noid finish the whole bottle. Every time Herman Cain actually proves he has a sense of humor, drink.
  • If John Huntsman…I can’t think of anything funny about John Huntsman, which is probably a good thing…least as far as I’m concerned. Dunno how well that works for him. I wanna say to drink if he actually face palms over being forced to try and make sense next to the rest of the lunatics up on the stage.
  • Every time Michelle Bachman…Flying Spaghetti Monster, save me…Every time she’s on the screen stop me from slitting my wrists or throwing the bottle through my television.

If you guys have any suggestions for the drinking game let me know in the comments and I’ll modify accordingly.

[liveblog]

[sociable]

Feedback sought – live blogging

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I decided to keep a running commentary on Twitter of the Republican presidential debate that was broadcast on CNN last week. I had an absolute blast doing so, but I am sure that the number of posts I made during that period annoyed some of my followers. At the very least the volume of tweets that cross posted to my Facebook page temporarily broke the link between the two.

There is another debate on Friday night and I have every intention of doing a running commentary again. My question, for those of you who would like to follow along, is how should I do so? Should I set up a live blogging plugin here and have the notices cross-posted to twitter and Facebook? Should I set up a special Twitter account specifically fir my live blogs? Should I do exactly what I did last tine and let anyone who doesn’t care to read my commentary ignore, filter, or drop me as they choose? Should I take sone other path I have not, as of yet, considered?

I’d really like some feedback on this because I loved doing it but I don’t want to do so if it’s going to annoy mire than entertain.

Thanks, all!

Edit – So this is how it would look if I did the live blog here.

[liveblog]