Recent links of interest:

"Michael Berg: Al-Zarqawi's death is no cause for rejoicing". Given how disgusted I was with some of the blog entries and comments that followed the death of al-Zarqawi, I thought this article was somewhat encouraging.

"Beyonce Gets Served on Fur". Even if you don't agree with PETA's stance on various issues, you should sign up for the mailing list just for hilarious article links like this. PETA is wacky.

"Reason behind fatal shooting elusive". I disagree -- it's not all that elusive if you've actually seen X-Men: The Last Stand. Or if you read the article, which for some inexplicable reason goes on about neighbors of the gunman being agitated by the family's initial lack of curtains or window shades. Shit, I'd be homicidal too if I lived on a street with people who gave a crap about being able to see an ironing board through my front window. And I think this is the first article I've ever read that describes the victim of a shooting as having been "lightning fast." He apparently wasn't faster than a speeding bullet, though. 🙁

"crabs". He's got a mouth full of crabs.

Ja.

So I was doing some "research" for my memoir and I happened to come across this flash thingy that will let you make your own Mr. Men and Little Miss character. Here's the one I made:

Yep. In other news, I made a bunch more images for the random image script thingy. I wasn't planning to make so many -- I've generally tried to keep it to one or two images per film -- but I kinda got carried away looking through these screencap folders of mine. (more...)

Those of you used to chatting with me on AIM may have noticed that I haven't been around too much lately. That is because I'd kind of gotten used to using the laptop as my primary computing device, and then I discovered... a stuck/dead pixel. Actually, there may be several of them in the same vicinity, but one is darker than the others and really really bugs me. Could it always have been there? I don't know, but now that I've noticed it I can't take my bloody eyes off of it. Hell, it's basically rendered the rightmost 150 pixels of my monitor useless, since I'm running all of my program windows dragged that much to the left to avoid making it show up on white backgrounds. I hate it. But as far as I've been able to discern, there's nothing that can be done about it. So I haven't been using the laptop much and have only been using the desktop for work (not much these days) and to check e-mail. It kinda sucks -- this thing cost $4K and I can hardly stand to use it now. What a waste.

Anyway, since my laptop looks almost exactly like Foamy's laptop and is (also) a Dell, I found the latest Ill Will Press cartoon (Tech-Support III) to be especially relevant (and fairly humorous, especially given that I have had similarly infuriating experiences with outsourced Dell tech support since getting the laptop). Unfortunately, the creator isn't taking e-mails so I can't ask him if Dell actually gave him a working solution.

Don't buy a Dell.

Sigh.

My connection has been royally sucking since last night, with me getting disconnected roughly every 10-20 minutes and having to reset the DSL modem and router each time to reconnect. It's getting bloody irritating. Finally, I called Verizon's tech support, only to be told (after holding for over 30 mins) that the connection seems exellent and that they don't know what the problem is. Sigh.

Saw Serenity this weekend. Lengthier review to come, but I'll briefly say that I thought it was nothing more than a routine and average space adventure film. Granted, that's not to say that it's entirely unlikable, and I might've liked it a little better if people I know hadn't been writing things like "WHAT A GREAT MOVIE!" and "I FUCKING LOVED IT!" in all caps. With such rave reviews, I was expecting something fantastic -- and instead got "eh". It looked good enough and the dialogue was fun, but the story was pretty much an amalgam of cliches and developments from far superior scifi films and television shows, to say nothing of the more nonsensical aspects. Look for a more detailed spoiler review in the near future.

And finally, a few links:

Ill Will Press -- I've got this site linked over on Scary-Crayon, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it over here from time to time, but the latest cartoon is the funniest offering I've seen in a while. Might even be the funniest installment to date. There's just something hilarious about squirrels with voodoo dolls and masochists taking offense at being called "masochists" even as they continue to commit masochistic acts. You have to see it. I wouldn't view the cartoon at work, though. It also has sound, being a Flash 'toon and all.

Unicef bombs the Smurfs -- Okay, so we've all seen parodies of beloved cartoon characters being bombed, raped, murdered, or committing such shocking deeds themselves, and some of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim stuff has featured Hanna Barbera characters in adult situations -- but a legitimate cartoon featuring the Smurfs being bombed? Look at the image -- SMURFETTE IS DEAD! Simply amazing.

Smegma! -- The word "smeg" was mentioned elsewhere, so I did a few quick lookups and came across this comprehensive definition and etymology of the term from which it is derived -- "smegma" -- on Wikepedia. Not recommended for work viewing, as there are images of penises with smegma on them, but it's a pretty interesting and entertaining read, if only for the sentence that reads, "This can in turn upset the pH of the vagina." Hilarity.

All for now. Ja ne, minna-san.