You Might Remember Me Mentioning...

Remember my little blurb about American cars yesterday?

Ok. I know we're supposed to buy American, but over the last few years, American cars have begun to suck ass. Why? Well, that's the question they've been asking us. The response from a majority of the survey victims was twofold: quality control, and the unions.

Okay. Well, I have a more compelling reason to buy Japanese vehicles than the unions, or non-nationalized healthcare, or simple "quality control." It's because the freakin' things are TOUGH. Take a look.

Oh, God, It's Worse Than We Thought...

Politics Makes You Crazy!

Using MRI scanners, neuroscientists now have tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them.
The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected.

Yeah. Remember how I'm always saying that all the politicians on both teams are nutso, and should get sent home with dunce caps? Apparently that's not all there is to it. Researchers at Emory University have discovered that discussion of politics can actually change your brain's cognitive function, turning off your logic centers and activating strictly emotional decisionmaking processes.
Admittedly, this doesn't bode well for this blog, but then I've never tried to pretend I wasn't crazy, either.

So what the researchers did was they presented a group of people a series of quotes by various political figures, selected (and in some cases flatly made up) to directly contradict their previous statements, while the subjects were wired to an MRI.
In virtually every case, the test subjects violently castigated the politicians from their opposite political group, while simultaneously letting those from their own team off the hook.
Of course, anyone who's paid attention to the media's slavish devotion to Clinton, despite the fact that he did some of the same, identical things that they now castigate Bush for, should have seen this coming, just like they should have seen it coming when everyone got after Clinton for things that Bush Senior did before him without comment.
But still.
Too funny.

Speaking of politics, but without value judgements of any kind - this is, after all, the age of "Fair and Balanced" reporting, and even I'm getting in on the act - The Honorable Samuel Alito is the next Supreme Court justice, replacing Sandra Day O'Connor. The vote will take place tomorrow - the Republicans broke the filibuster - and he is expected to get 57 votes, 6 more than he needs for confirmation.

The Enron trials are going into jury selection, a process marred slightly today by the fact that one of the defendants got lost in the sea of protesters outside the courtroom. Just to add to the mix, some of the protesters were there proclaiming Ken Lay, Enron's former CEO's innocence, which as you might guess added to the air of hostility outside the court building, especially considering a substantial fraction of the 5,000 laid-off workers showed up to wave banners too.
Picture mounted cops - yes, Houston has mounties of their very own - trying (unsuccessfully) to steer the defendants into the courtroom safely, while one of them just randomly wanders off into a crowd of people screaming for jail time for him.
Thankfully, unless you are a former Enron employee, nobody got hurt and everybody that was supposed to eventually made it to the courtroom.

A really, really lonely and bored old man in Germany tried to turn himself in for a crime he committed 80 years ago today. The cops were amazed, especially considering all he had done was to put a firecracker on a train track. They told him the statute of limitations was up, and he should just go home. They did, however, caution him not to do it again.

Falling smack into the "Duh!" category, Secretary of State Dr. Condolleeza Rice is running frantically around the Middle East trying to convince everyone to stop giving money to the Palestinian Authority government now run by Hamas, until Hamas recognizes the government of Israel, and disarms. I suspect that Hamas will "cave" to this fairly quickly, at least to the point of paying lip service to it, because the Palestinian Authority needs international funding fairly desperately. How desperately, you ask? Well, the Palestinian Authority's annual budget is about $1.6 billion, of which $1 billion is from foreign aid of one type or another, and $225 million of that is from the USA. That's right, folks, we're still subsidizing terrorists. We just can't seem to get past that, can we?

Speaking of Hamas, they're really angry right now. Why? Because the Palestinians are nervous and relieving their tension by text-messaging jokes about Hamas to each other. No, I'm not kidding, but they are. Sad thing is, these jokes really aren't funny:

While an overwhelming majority of people chose Hamas on election day, the wide circulation of the jokes reflects how conflicted people are over their choice, said Nadia Najjab, a social psychology professor in the West Bank Birzeit University.

"The jokes are really expressive of our fears," said Anis Barioush, a 50-year old teacher in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "The new rulers will change our traditions and impose a Taliban rule."

Oh, that sounds appealing, doesn't it?

Now, I am all for extra credit in schools, and I understand that the whole point of the exercise is that you're supposed to be putting in extra effort, but this kid went a bit overboard. Why, you ask? Well, he built a 100% functional, WWII - German style pulse-jet rocket engine in his garage, that's why. Only in South Florida, folks. I mean it.

Speaking of rocket engines, and why it's a dumb fucking idea to build them in your garage, I give you Edward Reiner, of Oceanside, California. And while I'm on the topic, let me discuss the ongoing overuse by Christians of the term "miracle."
What I mean is, let's take a tornado, for example.
If it misses the local church, "It's a miracle the church was spared."
If it hits, but it was an off day, "It's a miracle no-one was inside."
If it hits, and it was occupied, but there were only a few injuries, "It's a miracle no-one was killed."
If they were, "It's a miracle you were spared."
See?
Ok. However, in this case, Mr. Reiner's near-total escape from injury actually approaches the miraculous. He was tamping the rocket fuel into the engine with a METAL HAMMER, and it exploded. (Anyone surprised? WTF.) That initial explosion set off the black powder he had stored in the garage as well, which exploded with sufficient force to blow the garage door in half. Mr. Reiner was standing next to it - with a dumbfounded look, no doubt - when it blew, and came out of it with singed hair and a few cuts on his hands from the engine casing splitting in half. Better watch it, Mr. Reiner, that was a near-pass at a Darwin Award.

Ok. I know we're supposed to buy American, but over the last few years, American cars have begun to suck ass. Why? Well, that's the question they've been asking us. The response from a majority of the survey victims was twofold: quality control, and the unions. I agree that workers shouldn't get screwed, but paying huge pensions to workers for 20 years of turning lug nuts does seem a bit steep. I have to say, though, my favorite respondent was the guy who said the cure for bad American cars was to nationalize healthcare, as though having hospitals that close for the holidays for lack of funding would somehow magically result in a better Chrysler. Think I'm kidding? Here's what he said:

Aaron Blankenship of Durham, N.C., thinks that, for the American automotive industry to remain competitive, the United States must consider nationalizing healthcare. “We simply cannot compete with the outside world by paying these spiraling costs; it’s crippling us as a nation,” he said. The greed of insurance companies needs to be reduced, he added.

No, no agenda there, or anything.

If you ever thought you had seen the absolute worst video game movies have to offer, you haven't seen this.



This is Uwe Boll's trailer for his upcoming movie based (very loosely, I suspect,) on the game franchise Dungeon Siege, by Gas Powered Games. And it couldn't suck more if it tried - in fact, it looks like they DID. One of the users at IMDB.com got there ahead of me; he asked "How does Uwe Boll keep getting work?" Which, if you think about it, sums it up well.

Warner Brothers is beginning to follow the old adage "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em," announcing that they will be launching an online movie service based on the popular peer-to-peer filesharing software BitTorrent. The service, to launch in March, will offer WB movies and TV programming, as well as locally-produced "content."

Warner Bros. is working with Bertelsmann AG and its subsidiary Arvato to create a service called In2Movies, to launch in March. The service will feature movies dubbed into German, including "Batman Begins" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," for a fee that Warner says will be similar to the cost of a DVD. It will also offer television shows like "The O.C." and locally made programs and movies. Users, who will have to register for the service, will be able to keep the movie indefinitely. But instead of getting a movie from a central server, pieces of it could come from other people on the network who also bought that movie.

I'm not sure why the movie companies don't get it. Did you catch the "priced similar to a DVD" bit? For a download? Just like the music companies can't sell music at the price they want to, this isn't going to do away with, or even significantly impact, peer-to-peer filesharing. Really, the ONLY THING that will make a serious dent in filesharing is lowering their prices - because the motivation for most filesharers is cost, pure and simple. That seems really easy to me, but executives who make far more money in a year than I am likely to earn in my entire life somehow can't seem to grasp it.

Oh, The Sweet, Sweet Revenge...

Oddly, you may remember this...
A few months ago, I violently ranted about the maniacal idiocy of the residents of New London, Connecticut, who took their case opposing their city council's proposed use of eminent domain as a tool for increasing their tax base to the Supreme Court and lost, allowing local government across the country to go buck wild. Now, folks, it's payback time. Are you ready for this?

Now, New Hampshire residents have succeeded in placing a referendum on this year's election ballot to use eminent domain to confiscate Supreme Court Justice Souter's home, with the intent of replacing it with a hotel.

But wait!

That's not all!

Oh, no!

Olathe City, Kansas city councilmen moved on Tuesday to start the eminent domain acquisition of the home of - one of the other city councilmen!
Excuse me while I laugh hysterically.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!1!

heh, heh, wheeeee....

Ok, I think I'm ok now.

Heh.
On to other, equally weighty matters; apparently, scientists still have too much damn free time. Want to know why I think so? They've spent time, money, and effort studying the effects of sex on human behavior, and come up with this: sex relaxes you before a public speaking gig. Well, no fuckin' kidding. You actually had to study this to figure it out?

Lemme be clear. Anybody who's ever HAD sex knows the aftermath is pretty seriously relaxing. Only single, extra-nerdy scientist types don't know this off the top of their heads.

On a more serious note, Hamas won the Palestinian Authority elections on Thursday. How big a problem is this? Well, let me put it like this. Late Palestinian Prime Minister Yassir Arafat's party were the Palestinian moderates. Hamas is fuckin' crazy. Folks, this is a group that has in its charter a stated intent to destroy the nation of Israel, and they refused on Thursday to consider modifying their charter to remove that portion. That is a message that speaks pretty clearly to the upcoming total collapse of the peace process in the Middle East, don't you think? Hamas is a bunch of psychotic terrorists, and now they are the duly elected government of an already violence-prone ethnic group. Can anyone say "disaster waiting to happen" with me?

An Olympia, Washington prison inmate had an "I've fallen, and I can't get up" moment soon after escaping from prison Tuesday. How bad was it, really? The prison guards were the ones who overheard his cries for help. Best part? The guy had less than 10 days left on his sentence. Go, brainpower!

Ok, I just have to say, if you get a tattoo from a door-to-door salesman with a homemade tat gun, you are a frigging idiot. And if you, like the 3 women in Springfield, Missouri who agreed, get a horrible infection from it, up to and including hospitalization, then you just GOT WHAT YOU PAID FOR.

Congress is trying to pass a law which will totally eliminate Fair Use of your movies and music. This is no surprise to anyone who's been reading this page, of course, but this one's really scary - it limits "fair use" to what the bill calls "customary and historic uses." What that means is that unless it works the same way as the devices you have now, it can't happen, which means no more technological advances for us, ever. EVER. Write your Congressman and bitch.

Now, before I start the Hero File, one last hideously ironic tidbit for you: the MPAA is being sued for illegally distributing someone's movie without permission. You read it right - the folks who have been running wild with lawsuits for the last few years, terrorizing anyone and anything they disagree with by calling them "pirates," is being sued for piracy.

See my above hysterical laughter.

And now, for the first time, The Hero File:

Canadian "Nettwerk Music Group" is helping defend one Texas teen who is being sued for piracy by the RIAA. That's right: a music company is HELPING its customers. NMG got involved after they found out that one of the songs the RIAA is suing the kid for is Avril Lavigne's "Sk8r Boi," a song by an artist recording on contract with NMG in the first place. If you didn't follow that, the RIAA is suing on behalf of the NMG, and NMG is paying for the defense. Makes sense, eh? Only in Canada, but still, good on ya, NMG. Fight the good fight - you, after all, can pay better lawyers than his parents probably can.

Our next hero is a group: the citizens of Vermont who forced a judge to change the utterly ridiculous 60-day sentence he gave a child molester. It's long past time the public learned to scream in outrage when judges do stupid-ass crap like this; way to go, Vermont!

Speaking of heroic stuuf, and hoping they don't get talked out of it, Senators John McCain of Arizona, and Dr. Tom Coburn, have decided that Congress supports too much pork. Really. Not like the tasty meat from a pig, either, but the billions of dollars Congress spends on crap, and as such they have vowed to challenge each and every pork-barrel project in the upcoming budget on an item-by-item basis. I don't know how far they'll be able to carry this, but goddammit, someone ought to try.

The principal of an elementary school in San Antonio, Shannon Allen, age 31, gave a royal beatdown to a crazy man who brought a gun to the school and tried to threaten the school office - she tackled him straight to the ground and held him long anough for the cops to get there. Gotta give respect to a principal who is willing to risk a bullet for the kids - and you'd be shocked how few of them there really are. Go Shannon.

And finally, I just have to say, if you get so drunk you attack a car with a sword and then don't even remember it, you are my personal drinking hero. Oh, wait, I've already got one, this guy in Edinburgh who already did it so you didn't have to.


Yes, folks, there are still heroes in the world, and we can all rest safe, assured that we will be defended by corrupt politicians, drunk Scotsmen, angry Texans, the citizens of Vermont and New Hampshire, and a Canadian music company.

...And We're starting The New Year Off Right, I See...

Sen. Joe Biden does something intelligent!

Supreme Court nominees are so mum about the major legal issues at their Senate confirmation hearings that the hearings serve little purpose and should probably be abandoned, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden said Thursday.

Nearly a miracle, I'd call that. Not the idea, which was good, but the fact that a seated Senator came up with it. This sounds like the kind of thing you'd expect from someone with a political axe to grind against big government, instead of Senator Joe Biden, whose leftist leanings are semi-notorious.


The black man who successfully infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan is now retired. They said of him, and I quote: "He was a good, loyal Klansman." In fact, they went so far as to ask him to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of the Klan. This, of course, just goes to show you that you don't necessarily have to be smart to join a malignant racist terrorist group.


The helicopter pilot who stopped the My Lai massacre is dead, having passed away from cancer in Alexandria, Louisiana at the age of 62. Hugh Thompson was the pilot who stopped the murder of civilians in the village of My Lai by holding the troops back at gunpoint while evacuating the remaining civilians.

Sea lions like hybrid-engine cars. No, really - or at least the one who picked a Toyota Prius as a good bench in Seattle on Wednesday does. Can you imagine the surprise that guy had to feel? "Ok, good latte, time to go back to work - OH MY GOD, on my car, it's a sea lion!"


Remember the thing a few weeks ago about Sony's use of rootkits in their DRM system being classed as spyware? Guess who else uses them? Symantec does, for one. Who's Symantec, you ask? The guys who make Norton Internet Security, that's all. You know - the one that promises to protect you from spyware and viruses? Yeah, them.

Lancaster ISD in Texas is doing probably the least intelligent thing I've ever heard of from a school board yet: suspending students for not completing homework for the Christmas break. That's right, kids, if you go on winter break and then don't turn in your homework, you can go right back on break again! Isn't that wonderful? Remember what I've said before about school boards. "Stupid" isn't a big enough word for them.

There is a serial killer - of cows - in Tooele County, Utah. That's right, he kills cows. With a rifle. For no reason. And pissed-off ranchers are offering an $11,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. This just in: someone in Utah has entirely too much damn free time.

Ok. I want you to read all the way to the end of this story before you start laughing about the pathetic state of things in our nation's capitol.
Marion Barry, who you may remember from a few years ago, is in trouble again. In 1991, Barry, then the mayor of Washington, D.C., was caught on videotape smoking crack with a hooker, and served six months in jail. Then, after getting out, he was elected to the City Council, where he has since "served." Now, after October's issues with tax fraud, he's in trouble for failing his court-mandated drug test. That's right, he's still a crackhead. Now here's the really, really good part, are you ready?
Oh, what the hell, I'll just quote it.

Barry was put on probation under the condition that he be tested for drugs. If he violated the terms of his probation, he could be sentenced to as much as 18 months in jail.

Under provisions in the city charter, the misdemeanor charges would not make Barry ineligible to vote in the district, allowing him to keep his council seat even if he is sentenced to jail.

Get that? EVEN IF HE GOES TO JAIL HE CAN KEEP HIS CITY COUNCIL SEAT. Does anyone else find this faintly ridiculous? Oh, by the way, you can laugh now.

Remember me mentioning in July that the Pentagon's Super Electric Death Ray was being put on hold? Well, not to worry, because they still have many, many more Super Death Rays soon to come, just not any electric ones. Including the Voice From Heaven. What a name for it, guys. Jeez.

Maryland is making huge strides in Youth Education, as shown by their decision this week to return (!?!) a book entitled "The Earth, My Butt, And Other Big Round Things" to their school libraries. More fun from school boards. Yay!

The global warming eco-freaks are the proud recipients of another, this time extra-violent Reality Check today - and this one won't bounce, either. A new study has found that the #1 - by a lot - source of greenhouse gases in the world is - wait for it - plants. Yeah, plants, you know, like the ones the eco-weirdos want to grow after they bulldoze the cities? Turns out a forest is a far bigger polluter than a city is. Oh, the irony. The sweet, sweet irony.

Being as it's January, Captain Obvious is getting a good start: German scientists have determined that CDs you burn at home don't last as long as store-bought ones. No kidding - and the list of cruddy ones includes anything from Columbia House, too. You know why? Because the physical media used for "burnable" CDs is less resistant to heat, which can cause the data stored on the CD to become unreadable to the laser. Excuse me, but "Duh." This, of course, explains the GIGANTIC leaps forward in technology that the Germans have produced over the last few years: look at where their research dollars are going. Oh, wait, excuse me, "euros."

Lindsay Lohan, the "actress" and drug-addled wasted-looking imbecile, is "upset" that Vanity Fair magazine has published an article saying she's a drug-addled, wasted-looking imbecile. Too bad: the magazine replied to her tantrum to Newsweek by saying

In response, a statement from Vanity Fair reads, "Evgenia Peretz is one of our most reliable reporters. Every word Lindsay Lohan told her is on tape. Vanity Fair stands by the story."

Whole Foods just became the nation's largest corporate customer of renewable energy, switching all their stores and facilities to wind power only. There's not much more to say; that's a perfect example of putting your money where your mouth is, and I for one hope it works for them.

Remember the mutiny on the Bounty? Or, at least, the movie about it? Well, Captain Stephen Bligh, descendant of the original Captainy Bligh, is suffering from the same problem. 1100 Coast Guard workers, crewmen, and safety inspectors under his command voted they had "no confidence" in him, and the British Department of Transport has confirmed that he will leave his directorial post by the end of the month. I would say "maybe you shouldn't have made a point of claiming the relationship" but that seems a little obvious.

Paranoia nuts rejoice: Britain seems determined to prove you right, and they're starting off by banning drivers who make rude gestures (or, in fact, any other kind of gestures) at speed cameras. 21-year-old Sean Toehill is the first of what will no doubt be many, many drivers ticketed and banned from driving for this offense, especially since after this, drivers will be making gestures a lot ruder than the one he made, which is pictured in the article.

Returning to my previous mention of my earlier article (follow that? Good.) about SunnComm and Sony's DRM nightmare, Sony CEO Howard Stringer says that it's unfair to blame Sony for the errors of one of its smaller subsidiaries. Not, of course, that both companies are named SONY, or anything. Or that the parent keiretsu has done anything to discourage the association of the two prior to this recent PR catastrophe. It must be convenient to be able to pass off problems internal to your company which cause enormous dissatisfaction among your customers as "unfair."

Steven Spielberg is really angry, no doubt, about the latest DRM disaster. Why? Because it means he almost certainly won't get any awards from Britain for "Munich." How's that, you ask? Well, to protect the screeners of the movie from evil, evil piracy, they encrypted them in such a way that they would only play on a specific player used by the British Film Academy - but they encoded them for Region 1, which meant that the British players, of course, could not read them. Thus, the film has missed both rounds of voting without the Academy members even having seen it, and as they are not allowed to vote for a film sight unseen, it seems likely that the film will be disqualified. Gooooooo, DRM!

Microsoft is trying to cover up the fact that the XBOX360 sucks by saying that they might, in the future, add Blu-Ray support, and will definitely, in future, add HD-DVD support for owners who BUY AN ADD-ON. Now, think back with me to the last time you heard of an add-on for a home viedogame system that actually sold well. Remember? That's right, the light gun for the original NES. Over 15 years ago. There have been dozens and dozens of add-on products made since then, but they just never seem to work out, epecially since companies seem to be completely unable to understand that people WILL NOT BUY extra crap if it costs as much as the original system did. Oh well. I don't care; I'm going to buy a PlayStation 3 when it comes out.

And since another article mentioning Sony would be just what the doctor ordered to round out this helping of Week 2 goofiness, here goes: Sony came up with yet another new, inventive ad campaign. This one's just as offbeat as the PSP ads on television, but even more oddly placed: they're "fake graffiti." That's right, Sony's been hiring artists to do fully-legal and authorized "wall art" depicting people, animals, and sometimes aliens doing strange things with their PSP handhelds. Now, apparently, the ad campaign isn't punishment enough for gamers; now we have to listen to bloviating about it from New York City Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., who wants to force Sony to pay $20,000 to an anti-graffiti campaign. Ok, and while you're at it, take down all the damn billboards, too. Them bastards.
Here's a clue, chief, since you don't seem to have one: if they're legal, which they are, and they had permission, which they did, you don't have a legal leg to stand on. In fact, you'd better watch your ass, there, because Sony might decide to sue you for violating their First Amendment rights - and by extension, those of graffiti "artists" everywhere. Just keep in mind that if the Supreme Court ever rules in favor of Sony on this, it will strike down hundreds, even thousands, of local anti-graffiti laws as unConstitutional, and that would be bad. Even I think that would be bad, and I'm a serious proponent of free speech. See, the trick is, folks, that there's no way to distinguish the "good" graffiti from the "bad" graffiti, and if you allow some of it, you allow all of it. I suspect, because it's not very popular and Sony already said they were pulling the ads in a month ANYWAY, that this is what we call a self-correcting problem - if you ignore it, it'll go away. If you mess with it, it only gets worse.

2005: What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been

So many things happened this year that were newsworthy, but the thing is that you most likely already know about most of them: the election success in Iraq, the new Nazi Pope, Jessica and Nick getting divorced.


I'm not about all that.
So, in the spirit of bringing the news the big sites forget right to your desk, here is MY version of a "Year-In-Review" for 2005. Take a deep breath.

Congress tried valiantly this year to outlaw anything a reasonable person might want to use their VCRs or DVD players for, like fast-forwarding past the commercials. The MPAA tried paying off cops when lawsuits didn't work, a FRENCH court got something right, and the (now former) CEO of TYCO proved that cream isn't the only thing that rises to the top.

Senator Orrin Hatch, from Utah, finally managed to PASS one of his many, many copyright-related bills: FECA. Unreal Engine 3 was released to developers, and became hailed as the gold standard for future games, the RIAA and MPAA made a ton of money, the U.S. Court of Appeals banned the FCC's "broadcast flag," and Billy Crystal told an audience to ram their cellphones up their asses. The FAA announced "No Billboards In Space!" while the folks at Sony announced that you won't have to buy HD-DVDs when they come out, if you own a PlayStation 3.

Microsoft announced the all-new, even-more-cryptic-for-no-good-reason RED Screen Of Death, giant boogers are infesting the oceans, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, made Senator Jack Reed look like a monkey on TV, the Secretary-General of the U.N. got caught selling oil-for-food contracts to his relatives under the table, and a 73-year-old Kenyan farmer killed a full-grown male leopard with his bare hands. The government gained the ability to bulldoze your home to build a strip mall, but that's ok.

PlayStation makes better soldiers, according to the Army; the new Battlestar Galactica kicks A$$, and the Pentagon was forced to put their plans for a Super Electric Death Ray on hold for a while.

In August, a housecat held an alligator at bay for hours until animal control officers arrived.

"Intelligent Design" hit the news in a big way, and an online plague killed thousands.

A software bug forced a recall of 75,000 cars; it took Memphis cops a two-month sting operation to bust a crack house that had a sign on the door saying "Crack House," Florida police arrested a stuffed llama, a guy trying to carjack a full limo got the beatdown of a lifetime, and Overstock.com's former president offered investors the worst excuse in history.

The MPAA sued a 67-year-old grandpa because his grandson downloaded movies they already owned, a newspaper got their homepage stolen, the Russians admitted their spy satellites are worthless, and a U. S. Senator claimed he shouldn't be held responsible for his voting record.

A woman driver working for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation drove her van through some guy's wall, a guy in Hawaii tried to beat up some cops with a tree, and a farm outside Duluth spilled 10,000 gallons of bullshit.

What a long, strange year it's been, but 2006 looks better every day. Happy New Year, everyone, and I hope things go better this year. Rest assured, if they don't, that I will be here to make fun of you for it.