Today in Fat

Posted on April 17 2003 by Mickey
    The Associated Press has this story about one Joseph Connor, a resident of New Haven Connecticut, who is suing McDonald’s for not hiring him. Connor is 420 pounds and, viewing his obesity as a disability, claims McDonald’s violated the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act by refusing to hire him.
    McDonald’s, on the other hand, is afraid that if hired as a food preparer Connor will be eating food items before they can be served, that he will get wedged in aisleways, and that if he gets too close to the equipment the more pendulous parts of him may get inadvertently deep fried.
Posted in Food, News | Leave a comment

A Chill Wind

Posted on April 16 2003 by Mickey
    “In the 19 months since 9-11, we have seen our democracy compromised by fear and hatred. Basic inalienable rights, due process, the sanctity of the home have been quickly compromised in a climate of fear. A unified American public has grown bitterly divided, and a world population that had profound sympathy and support for us has grown contemptuous and distrustful, viewing us as we once viewed the Soviet Union, as a rogue state.
    “A chill wind is blowing in this nation. […] If you oppose this administration, there can and will be ramifications. Every day, the air waves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled threats, spewed invective and hatred directed at any voice of dissent. And the public, like so many relatives and friends that I saw this weekend, sit in mute opposition and fear. […] And in the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition? Where have all the Democrats gone? Long time passing, long time ago. […] We need leaders who can understand the Constitution, congressman who don’t in a moment of fear abdicate their most important power, the right to declare war to the executive branch. And, please, can we please stop the congressional sing-a-longs?”
    — Tim Robbins, taken from his address last night to the National Press Club.

Posted in News | 20 Comments

Everybody’s Gone Surfin’

Posted on April 15 2003 by Mickey
    I think the warm weather has gone to my brain. I just spent a considerable amount of time typing onomatopoeic nonsense into my browser’s address bar to see if anything would show up.
    Incidentally, FYI, the following domains are available:
http://www.bloop.com
http://www.hyurp.com
http://www.smeemo.com
http://www.flahoopa.com
http://www.spleeba.com
http://www.jaggahoopny.com
http://www.splageepa.com
http://www.glaggahoopa.com
http://www.hliggamorba.com
http://www.horpahorpahidyhoo.com
But these are not:
http://www.glop.com
http://www.frigga.com
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Ed End

Posted on April 14 2003 by Mickey
    My TV viewing is so far behind, I only tonight watched last Friday’s season finale of Ed. Apparently viewership is down for the show, so there’s talk this might be its last season.
    I’ve watched Ed from the beginning; but i have to say, I would not have a problem if NBC decides not to renew the show. Yes, I enjoyed my nice, pleasant visits to Stuckeyville, at first. But as time wore on, aspects of the show began to wear on me. Tom Cavanagh and Julie Bowen were appealing, but they were outweighed by too many grating and annoying secondary characters. I guess a character like Michael Ian Black’s Phil Stubbs was supposed to be an irrepressible schemer and a lovably ineffective con artist. Instead, he was neverending pain in the ass and a drag on the show. (And I only recently found out Black was responsible for the Pets.com sock puppet commercials, so I have that much more reason to hate him. I hated him pre-show.) And the only kind thing I can say about whiney, dorky, cloying, irritating Warren Cheswick (as played by Justin Long) is he almost made Phil Stubbs bearable. It got to the point I was grateful I was watching the shows on tape, so I could skim through any scenes with those characters in them. They not only ruined the show, they killed it.
    So I have to hand it to the producers on how they handled Friday’s season finale. They did not resort to a cliffhanger to force the network into considering a renewal. Instead they gave the show a definite ending, a very pleasing resolution, as if they admitted that the show had run its course. It feels like the end, and I have to admit I hope it is.
    (The only drawback is I won’t be able to see the gorgeous Julie Bowen for a while — since she was the real reason I watched the show every week.)


Images from NBC‘s Ed, taken from julie-bowen.net.
Posted in TV | 1 Comment

A Wolf in No Clothing

Posted on April 13 2003 by Mickey
    Well, I finally finished the work on my Diary page. Now it’s all up-to-date and ready for new entries.
    I’ve been so immersed in this that I barely had time for anything else (except eating, of course). I hate to admit it, but I’m completely out of touch with the war news. I tried watching some CNN today, but all I heard was Wolf Blitzer going on and on about how soldiers sometimes have men lift or remove their shirt to insure the men aren’t suicide bombers. I swear Blitzer spent ten or fifteen minutes talking about men being ordered to take their shirts off. Every new interview guest was asked questions about men taking their shirts off. I finally had to change the channel, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the segment ended with Wolf shirtless — either by example or just some perverse fantasy of his. Even better, for him, maybe Blitzer would bring one of the many retired generals out and have him order Blitzer to remove his shirt.
    I always suspected CNN secretly enjoys when America goes to war. I just hadn’t realized how much.
Posted in Blog, News, TV | Leave a comment

A Quick Note

Posted on April 12 2003 by Mickey
    My work with categories is only halfway done but I’m already off on another project. Now I’m trying to spruce up my Troubled Loner domain. The front page is still the same (if you visit) but I’ve decided to completely revamp my online diary that’s hosted there. The content of the diary is still the same (obviously) but I’ve decided to upgrade it to a pMachine database, just like here. This should make it easier to handle — as well as to update! It’s a big job though, since the diary has several hundred entries to be converted. That’s why I don’t have much to add here and don’t have much more to say.
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Future DVD Purchases

Posted on April 11 2003 by Mickey
    • As has been reported elsewhere, two discs in the first edition of the Back to the Future box were mastered misframed. It appears Universal is finally shipping out corrected copies. These can be recognized by the “V2” under the UPC symbol.
    • The latest Official Lord of the Rings Fan Club Magazine states that the extended edition of The Two Towers will contain 43 minutes of additional footage. This makes it longer than last year’s extended Fellowship version (which had 35 minutes added). Much of the new material will involve Treebeard and will necessitate 150 additional special effects shots. The theatrical version DVD is expected out in August, with the extended edition in November (though no release dates have been announced).
    • It was originally announced the season three box set of Mr Show with Bob & David was coming out in April, but the official site says it will be early August.
Posted in LOTR, Movies, TV | Leave a comment

Spending $2 at Taco Bell

Posted on April 10 2003 by Mickey
    It’s a slice of life, a bit of humor, and a history lesson all in one. Find out what two bucks at Taco Bell can get you.
Posted in Food, Links | Leave a comment

Self Portrait

Posted on April 9 2003 by Mickey
    A lot happened in the news today, but to be honest I was busy playing with my new camera. I took a self-portrait, but I’m too shy to post it here. It’s buried somewhere in this collage though. Can you find me?’

Be gentle on my graphics work. PSP freezes when I use layers.
Posted in Personal, Photos | 1 Comment

Spring Cleaning

Posted on April 8 2003 by Mickey
    Remember all that work I did a couple weeks ago, to try and decrease the size of my database and relieve load times for my page? You know, my efforts to remove older entries and put them in plain old static HTML Archive pages? Well, I spent today and last night undoing all that. I’ve restored all those older entries back into the database. This at least should make those older entries searchable, alongside the rest of my entries.
    I also got rid of those old Food, TV, Gadgets, and Movies pages. They were mainstays here, staples for the site which had been in existence before I’d even known about “blogging”; but now all their content has been absorbed into the main database. And, so I can still maintain those “four basic food groups” (as it were), I’ve begun breaking everything into categories. I should have established that practice from the outset, as soon as I started using pMachine, because now I’m forced to do it retroactively. Nevertheless, I’ll be marking most entries by category now, and you’ll probably start seeing little “symbol bugs” soon. I do not recommend looking for stuff by category though, since it will probably take forever for such a list to load.
    Speaking of load times, now that the links have increased for archived months I’ve moved them out of the old “Archives” box and put them in their own column, at the very end of the page. Hopefully, if/when a page load times-out (as happens so frequently at my workplace), the bulk of the page should still load.
    Sound good?
    P.S.: There will be a few more changes showing up too, in the near future. I’ll probably be moving the “Random Photo” box to its own photoblog soon. Not only are photoblogs becoming more prevalent (which of course means I want one too), but I took everyone’s advice and got myself a new camera!
Posted in Blog, Personal | 1 Comment