I just want you kids to know this: s0l3k7r0n 0wNz J0o!

edited to add: s0|3k7r0n owns the factories that make the Xbox and the Playstation 2. It has more money than we will ever be worth in our lifetimes. It does a multitude of other things which are cooler than your wildest fantasies of coolness, but I'd probably be killed by a |337 squad of ninjas if I whispered a word of it. Which I never would, so stop asking.

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music is back! It's all new and improved. Get skooled.

I was really wondering what was going to happen with this story:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 ? The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman?s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush?s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.

It's potentially worse than Watergate if it's true.

I haven't been blogging a lot this week. I've been fairly busy with my new job. Currently I'm in the three week training period, which involves going to classes which start at 7 AM. It's really not cool waking up before dawn and getting across the city using only public transportation and my wits to guide me.

My job at stream involves a non-disclosure agreement, which means I'm not able to brag about how mind-blowing my work there really is. Let me assure you that it's cooler than anything in your wildest fantasies. Make no mistake, I'm going to be on the bleeding edge of technology.

Training is very interesting. There is a very diverse mix of people in my class. A couple of guys have had intense experiences in the military, and I suspect they have killed in the past.

Look.

Nelly has two words for you, homeys: Pimp Juice.

Not content with shooting policemen and civilians in Iraq, drunken GIs wandered into the Baghdad zoo and killed an endangered species.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. soldier shot and killed a tiger at the Baghdad zoo after it bit another soldier who had reached through the bars of its cage to feed it, a zoo security guard said Saturday.

The soldiers had been drinking beer when they entered the zoo Thursday night after it closed, said the guard, Zuhair Abdul-Majeed.

"He was drunk," Abdul-Majeed said of the bitten soldier.

After the man was bit, the other American shot the tiger three times in the head and killed it, Abdul-Majeed told The Associated Press.

A completely unrelated note: I'm really amazed at the lack of flowers being thrown at the feet of our soldiers. With what Cheney and Rumsfeld said, I though that the flood of flower petals would be a major problem for our occupying liberating troops.

I don't think Freud got into the whole psychoanalysis thing to help people.

I have found little that is good about human beings. In my experience most of them, on the whole, are trash.
- Sigmund Freud

I finally get to use these:

Did you hear about the pirate who went to China?

He got Sarrrrrs.

What kind of grog do pirates in Portland drink?

P.B.arrrrr.

If you want more pirate jokes that don't suck, go here. If you want jokes that will go right over you head, go here.

The legendary bard Paul McCartney roughed up a scurvy photographer dog while visiting the sorcerer David Blaine in London. The photographer is lucky that McCartney didn't hang him from the yard arm, arrr. Just kidding! Everybody knows that bards are sissies, arrr!

I'm parking my nether regions here at the University of Oregon for the last time, arrr. Shiver me timbers, I haven't heard from my scurvy wench since she went to the drive in movies with the landlubbers from Missouri. Argh. She gave me the wrong phone number so I wouldn't call her, and then shivered me timbers with her shrill harpy voice yesterday before hanging up on me, and I haven't heard from her since. Arrr. I'm going to blow all my doubloons on wenches and rum if she doesn't call me back, mateys. Mark me words.

It's me last weekend of toiling here in the port of Eugene, for after Saturday I shall set a course to Portland and never return. Unless it's to plunder Eugene's booty. Hopefully my trusty vessel doesn't break down and leave me marooned on the side of I-5. Argh.

It's September 19. Know what that means? It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day (We came up with these in an effort to interest The Other Dave (Letterman) in TLAPD. His staff liked 'em, but alas, his show is "dark" the week of Sept. 19.)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Is John Titor really a time traveller from the year 2036? We'll know if his prediction of a civil war in the US happens next year.

This is the best collection of prank cyber-sex I've ever seen on the internet:

J-Dogg: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?

BritneySpears27: Aight.

J-Dogg: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.

BritneySpears27: I slip out of my pants, just for you, J-Dogg.

J-Dogg: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.

BritneySpears27: Oh, I like to play dress up.

It only gets better after that...

Then sign up for Google CodeJam! Winner takes home $10,000!

Round will receive the following cash prizes: 1st Place - $10,000 2nd Place - $5,000 3rd Place - $3,500 4th Place - $1,250

Those finalists not finishing as one of the top four scorers in the Championship Round will each receive $250.

I wish I had one of these: a fusion generator. This high school grad built one with junk.

Why haven't we mastered fusion yet? If we spent 1/10th of the military's budget on the research, we'd probably have fusion plants all over the place by now.

Just what we need: Saudis with nukes.

Allah would be pleased.

Supply Side Jesus illustrates the beauty of supply side economics.

My new cell phone has a speakerphone. That's nice, because it means I don't need to put the little device (which just happens to emit microwave radiation) next to my head. According to this article:

Their previous studies proved radiation could open the blood-brain barrier, allowing a protein called albumin to pass into the brain. Their latest work goes a step further, by showing the process is linked to serious brain damage. Professor Salford said the long-term effects were not proven, and that it was possible the neurons would repair themselves in time. But, he said, neurons that would normally not become "senile" until people reached their 60s may now do so when they were in their 30s.

Brock showed me a huge spider he caught in his living room last weekend.

It turned out to be the deadly Hobo Spider!

Rural communities be ware, July - September are Hobo season. Bites are painless and show only mild redness and swelling the first few days. Some victims experience nausea. Then comes the pain and skin discoloration followed by blistering skin that falls off and won't regrow - ugh!

ugh indeed.

In a few centuries, the ten thousand or so humans left on the planet will look back at newspapers and laugh at the great lengths we went to to protect ourselves from terrorism. I say this because we are 40,000 or so years overdue for a supervolcano eruption, which is will be an event of cataclysmic proportions, and we should be hoarding food right now.

According to this article and the experts it cites, Yellowstone sits atop one of these supervolcanoes.

"The impact of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to comprehend." says Professor McGuire. "Magma would be flung 50 kilometres into the atmosphere. Within a thousand kilometres virtually all life would be killed by falling ash, lava flows and the sheer explosive force of the eruption. One thousand cubic kilometres of lava would pour out of the volcano, enough to coat the whole of the USA with a layer 5 inches thick. The explosion would be the loudest noise heard by man for 75,000 years."

The long-term effects would be even more devastating. The thousands of cubic kilometres of ash that would shoot into the atmosphere would block out light from the sun, making global temperatures collapse. This is called a nuclear winter. A large percentage of the world's plant life would be killed by the ash and the drop in temperature. The resulting change in the world's climate would devastate the planet, and scientists know that another eruption is due - they just don't know when.

Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University, quoted in a BBC Horizon documentary on Supervolcanoes [7] three years ago explained: "It's difficult to conceive of an eruption this big. It's really not a question of if it'll go off, it's a question of when, because sooner or later one of these large super eruptions will happen."

Johnny Cash is dead.

This is the future of porn, mark my words. An interactive, three dimensional video projection? Why hasn't this happened sooner? The Year 2000 is a pretty big disappointment, I'll be the first to admit. No flying cars, no moon base, and 'cyberspace' is still a very far cry from what William Gibson pictured it as. So three dimensional TV is the only thing we have left to hope for, even if it is three or four years late.

I'd still be happier with a jet pack, but I'll take what I can get.

My car is going to go to die soon. It's very fortunate that I'm getting a job that's accessible to public transportation, because my car is probably going to explode soon. I can feel it. It literally sounds like a diesel. The driver side door doesn't unlock from the outside. The cracks in the windshield have all connected into what looks like a piece of abstract art. The window on the driver's side doesn't roll down. The air conditioning is broken. The doorframe (driver's side, of course) is bent. The timing belt could go at any second. One of the tail lights is broken off it's mount, so it's held in place with rubber bands and paper clips.

The bus is starting to look very, very good right about now.

This week marked the beginning of my employed life in Portland. I got a job at Stream doing tech support and sales, and gave notice at my job in Eugene. I also bought a Canon Powershot A70 and a 256 megabyte memory card to go with it, so I can now take nearly 300 photo-quality shots without stopping. Now I can start making more updates to my photoblog. Fun.

When you're feeling low, and you want some beer with candy floating in it: Skittlebrau.

Take heed, Ryan.

We have a fig tree in our back yard. I discovered this when I came home to find Nathan making a double batch of fig newtons. We discussed finding a recipe for fig wine, then I found one. Also at the site are recpies for blueberry wine, carrot wine, elderberry wine, strawberry wine, raisin wine, and on, and on, and on.

ps Honeyed figs, Baked figs in port are also looking good.

Get the last house you'll ever need: the underground fortress!