Signs of the Apocalypse - #2 (Vancouver Edition)

For a second I thought it said Garage Bear.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

What Kind of Soda?

Wow...
For a second there I thought it was something else.

TBG

Did You Think This Through?

If you were "invited" to work at the Vancouver Olympics, one of the SWAG? items that you got was a lovely piece of Eco-Bling in the form of a water bottle.
One of the many (many, many) memos and notices that we got (all printed and Fed-Exed to us) cautioned us to be sure to bring our NBC issued water bottles, since there wouldn't be bottled water at the IBC or the venues in order to cut down on the number of #2 bottles cluttering up the landfills in British Columbia.
They would instead have water dispensers in strategic locations where you could refill your bottle.

Well... Isn't that nice.


Can you read that sign?


Sustainability.
Right...

Why don't you press the mouth of your bottle against the spigot where that guy with SARS/H1N1/CreepingCrud/Whathaveyou just had his...
Without some way to wash/sterilize the bottles, I have a feeling there is going to be widespread exchange of several biological boojums in the IBC and the other venues.

And overall, I'm not sure how much plastic abatement is going to occur...
No- no bottles of water, but...


Yeah... We're doing our part for the planet here, baby.

Oh yeah...
One other goodie-
Instead of trying to save the planet, how about a better class of snack food?
At other strategic locations around the IBC we have:

Candy, chips, & pretzels.

Oh wait- there are raisins too.
Oh good.
I'll definitely have a thimble-full of raisins instead of a Twix or bag of M&Ms.

This is going to be trouble.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Trouble Brewing

An All-You-Can-Eat-Sushi joint 3 blocks from my Hotel.

This could be trouble.
I'm envisioning another altercation with the Management, and perhaps a restraining order in my future.

Lovely. 

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Signs of the Apocalypse - #1

From SA, Zaxby's on Beach at Intercoastal West:

Ewwww.

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Irony, Number 5 in the Series.

Man, that flame job looks awesome.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

In a CRJ700 to ORD

Two and a half hours in a toothpaste tube with wings.
Welcome to AirRage,
population: Me.

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Irony. Part the Fourth

Sherlock would not approve.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

The Upstairs Fridge

Every now and then my next-door neighbor at work, P² comes up with a winner...
I got his all-company missive this morning and got a real chuckle out of it...

To: Everybody

From: P²
Re: Upstairs Refrigerator Exorcism Notification - Fri Jan 22 @ 3pm

Good morning,

Sorry for the SPAM… being convinced that some type of living organism has taken residence in the upstairs refrigerator, we will be throwing out (i.e. into the dumpster) all items in the upstairs refrigerator this coming Friday @ 3pm, regardless of expiration date, type of canned liquids, toxicity, science experiments, etc. 
Yes, “all” means all stuff (fridge compartment, not freezer side).

Freezer items that have passed expiration will be discarded, but any items still valid (safe) will not be tossed.

As recommended by Jerry & David, (our sysadmins - TBG) after the cleansing, we will reboot the fridge 3 times.

Cheers.

 I was particularly entertained on two fronts-
First, the fridge is right outside my office door.
Occasionally, when the atmospheric conditions are right, someone will open that door and I have to leave my office until the air clears.
The second level of entertainment is P²'s excellent blurring of metaphors...
Refrigerator Exorcism, especially the high-tech form of the ritual: a triple re-boot.
Sweet.
And Joanna thinks she has office fridge problems...

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Test test

This is a test....
For the next 60 seconds we will be conducting a test of the mobile blogging system.
If successful, that embarassing confidentiality statement will NOT be attached to the end of this post...

Remember, this is only a test.

-------------
TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Exploitation

Following the Massachusetts wake-up call, Yours Truly wonders how Rahm "Twinkletoes" Emanuel and the rest of the puppetmasters that are pulling Urkel's strings are going to take advantage of the situation...
I mean, these are the guys who live by the mantra "Never let a crisis go to waste" ...
TBG -Watching & Waiting.

Irony, Part C

Anarchy! That's what it is... Anarchy.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Sucks to be You

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Tiger's New Sponsor

Oh, the hits just keep on coming....

Thanks to Jingles for this goodie...

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Quote of the Day - 1/19/10

Spongemark Squarehands:
"Ah. I see they have officially changed the names of the competition where I'm working in Vancouver.
Instead of working Freestyle and Snowboard, I'm at Waterskiing and Wakeboarding."

Wear your waders and bring a PFD, man. It's gonna be wet up there.

WEATHER: Wet, Mild Weather Has VANOC in Snow Salvage Mode

A little more than a month after Whistler Mountain reported its snowiest November in history, Cypress Mountain, the venue for the 12 Olympic freestyle skiing and snowboarding events, is making weather headlines of its own. On Wednesday, after days of warm temperatures and heavy rainfall – what locals are calling a "pineapple express" because the jet stream pulls weather from the tropics to British Columbia – Cypress was ordered closed to the public until after the Games (It was originally planned to close Feb. 1). With conditions creating enough of a problem, officials did not want to risk the further erosion that comes with regular use. A joint statement from VANOC and Cypress Mountain read in part: "The course building crews are now actively working to preserve snow on ski trails which could be needed to supplement the snow on the courses."

 
TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

I Have Mixed Emotions On This

Man shoots out window to escape sinking SUV after veering off Northern Calif. road into creek

Things to ponder...

1. A Kalifornia gun owner/user carrying his shootin' iron in his car in a place where he can get it and use it in a timely manner?

2. If you are so high-strung that you can be so startled by a hands-free cell phone ring that you crash through a guardrail and into a creek, you have other issues to deal with...

(I'm assuming the "creek" he drove into and had to shoot his way out of was a small stream or brook, and not a Native American from the Georgia/Alabama area that was moved to Oklahoma in the 1830s. The Woman Who Knows Most Things is part Creek.)

3. I'm glad he wasn't on a street crowded with pedestrians or on a interstate full of cars...

Just saying...


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Irony, Part II

Yes, yes it does.

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Look! Up in the Sky!

Must be swamp gas.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Irony, Part 1

Irony, we has it.



TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

The Google Oracle

I imagine everyone has seen the "Google will stand up to anyone or anything EXCEPT Islam." meme that is making the rounds...

I was monkeying about with Google this morning and made some interesting observations concerning Google and it's predictive query line...

Here's the meme that I referenced above:
Type in "Catholicism is  " and you get:


No surprise, eh?

But if you type "Islam is " you get:

So Google will self-censor, to avoid pissin' off the Muslims.

Do they give a rat's ass about anyone else?
Let's have a look...

Buddhists playing bagpipes in the bathroom?

No problem.

Scientologists shattering sheetglass in the shithouse?

Nope. Not scared of L. Ron or Tom Cruise.

How about our friends in Tel Aviv?

Now, I'd be concerned about getting a visit from the Mossad, but the boys and girls in Mountain View ain't.

Oh well...

The Google Oracle works on people too...

What do you think it says about George W?

No shocker there, eh?

Well.. Guess what?
Urkel gets the same treatment:

Equal treatment from The Goog. I loves it.

Now, this is interesting:

A surprising result when you key in Laura Bush:


...Versus the same query on the current First Lady:


There are some really whacked-out people with access to the Intarwebz...
Scary, actually.

Other people get the full treatment too...

The chief of staff? Rahm (rhymes with bomb) Emanuel...

You'd never know they used to call him "Twinkletoes"...

Then we have Dead Ted...

Brevity is the soul of wit.

But what does the Oracle think of itself?

No smoking gun there...

It does make you wonder what the definition of "is" is...

If you were thinking of one of the Clintons or of Monica, you can go Google it yourself...

Other entities with interesting results...


Wow. I always thought that it was the happiest place on Earth. Who knew?

One of The Woman and The Perfect Child's favorites:

Hmmmm. Wonder what it would say about "Twilight"?

Another organization close to my heart...

I'm surprised the popular acronym didn't come up...

Perhaps Islamofacists aren't the only thing Googlites are a-skeered of...


Happy Googling!

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Sunday Matinee (No spoilers here)

I made my monthly foray to contribute to the Entertainment Industry's bottom line by taking in a movie.
I had originally planned on seeing Avatar, but after recent revelations regarding Cameron's script notes, I decided to say FTMF and go see something a little more apocalyptic - The Book of Eli.



Just a couple things -

- I loves the Sunday Matinee at Regal- all movies are 5 bucks.
Awesome.

- They are obviously making their dough at the concession counter.
12 bucks for a medium drink and a medium popcorn?
Let me do the ROI on the fountain drink, cup, popcorn and paper bag they serve it in... Add that, multiply those, carry the seven...
11.97 profit on a 12 dollar sale.
Hmmm.
FTMF too.

- 7, count 'em- 7 previews.
26 minutes of coming attractions.
And only one of which I'd probably see.
(Shutter Island)

And finally-

In regards to The Book of Eli-
GO SEE THIS MOVIE.


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Cats R teh Evil...

The Woman Who Knows Most Things and Yours  Truly were discussing the Gold Old Days when we were owned by a cat.
(As opposed to nowadays where we are slaves to a couple democrats dogs.)

Apparently The Bozi was listening as we regaled ourselves with fond reminiscences of our days with Sebastian, our Russian Blue.
This morning I found a helpful pamphlet sitting next to my laptop when I woke up...


See the full pamphlet after the fold...

TWSS

From SpongeMark SquareHands
PAUL: You made me miss my mouth.
SMSH: That's what she said.

Dude, you need to find a better class of people to hang with...

TBG

Traveling Music

A little mood music for your enjoyment.


(Click to hear song.)
It might be nice to have this playing in a continuous loop at all US Airports.


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

The GPS Jihad

Testing GPS units out at Ponte Vedra...
It's 31 degrees out here...
Think there will be any 911 calls to the St. Johns SO?
TBG - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

NE Winter Blogmeet

Well...
My trip to the Frozen North is complete...
The Event went well... Stats were kept, scores were made, obstacles were encountered and overcome.
Went to dinner with Dan and JR and no one ordered dessert. Wait- what?

A game of Asshole broke out and I didn't fall over in my chair, JR didn't throw up as I was talking to the police, and we did not wind up 50' yards offshore in our underwear at 1:00am.
Yay.

I visited a shooting range (Manchester Firing Line) and punched holes in some paper with a rented 92F,
and got to fire a Steyr M9, provided by a generous blogger that was on-hand...


(pretty sure this is the model...)


Melikes the M9... Nice (unique) sights, smooth firing, minimal recoil... Very nice gun.
If I wasn't so damned biased against Glocks and all things Glock-like I'd be shopping on GunBroker right now...

Next stop- Food and friends...
I met up with the Famous JayG, (again) and a group of pistol-packing Yankees at local pool hall...

After the Northeast Bloggers arrived and introductions were made, fun conversation was had, and a bit later food, drink and more shooting (shooting pool and the bull, so to speak. As a rule, most of us don't imbibe and discharge projectile weapons).

The Peeps:
Lissa and her husband Mike, whom I had met at The Firing Line...
JD and his (much) better half Terry (Terrie?) sat at the table across from me and did their best to pretend that I wasn't embarrassing them too much.
Bruce was on my left for a bit, and it was he who had (IMHO) the quote of the night: As the topic of conversation was O-(FTMF)-Bama, Bruce uttered the famous line - "That guy is as useful as a volume control knob on a head of lettuce."
Awesome, Bruce. Made my night.

Marko the Munchkin Wrangler was on hand, both at Jillians and at MFL- he was the proud owner of the Styer M9. (Thanks for letting me fire it, Marko. Again, very cool weapon.)

I also met Scotaku at the Firing Line and at Jillians; Scotaku has excellent taste in reading material, and wants to go back to Japan sometime soon....

Other victims included Zeeke42, Doubletrouble, Too Old To Work, Too Young To Retire (TOTWTYTR)
Mopar & Mrs Mopar, SciFi and his Pool-Shark Better Half, Libertyman and The Borepatches (Mr & Mrs) who were also at the Firing Line, and I watched Mrs Borepatch fire a .38 revolver with great accuracy... Better keep an eye on her, man.

Topics of conversation ranged from politics to recipes to blogging editors; we also covered Firefly/Serenity, 2nd Amendment topics, our kids and our dogs.
We moved to the are of the bar where the pool tables lived and we proceeded to abuse the felt on a couple tables for an extended visit...Witty banter ensued, and non-alcoholic beverages were imbibed.
There was an offer to display a tramp stamp, and the usage of the term ButterFace was discussed and applied to a nearby pool player. A very excellent time was had by all...

Now, this is my third official blogmeet-
There was a mini-meet in June in Orlando that I referenced earlier in this post, (my first run-in with JayG and Robb [NoPants] Allen and some Florida Bloggers), and then the October Hoosier Blogmeet in Broad Ripple Indiana...
Blogmeets (especially gunbloggers) are a blast, heh, and you meet some awesome people.

Here's the thing:
(And this is assuming that some of these people actually visit my little slice of the interweb once in a while and read this hunk of foolscap)
Is there any way to schedule one of these shindigs at a good half-way point between Indy and Yankee-land?
Maybe in the Pittsburgh area?
Hell, I'd make the trip up from North Florida South Georgia to visit with y'all. I have to believe some others would too.

No doubt some other entities would be interested if we were to get JayG, Tam, RobertaX, Caleb, Breda, and the rest of the Gunblog Conspiracy folks in the same geographical location....
The BATF, for instance.
There'd be a few Black Helicopters, The Cigarette Smoking Man, some executives from Blue Sun, maybe The Tenth Doctor... most likely some research agents from Weyland-Yutani, Yoyodyne, and Umbrella Corp would show up too.

Hmmm... Maybe it's not such a good idea to get The Brain Trust in a localized area.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Odds?

Things are looking a little sketchy for an on-time departure...
And since I'm on SouthwestFistFight Airlines, its BOS, BWI, NOR, JAX.
4 chances for delays and missed flights.
My life's a *#@+&ing carnival.
TBG - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Wait, what?

Him: "You're leaving?"
Her: "Uh, yeah. I just put my jacket on inside out, and it fit better.
I think its time to go."

TBG: Wow.

TBG - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Shocker

Here's a shocker...
A spirited game of asshole during the wrap party...
So painful....
So dangerous....
TBG - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

First Sunrise

Sunrise over the Winter Classic in Boston.


(Click for bigness)

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE