Happy Birthday Bonzo

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a few days later

even tho the anniversary was the other day, as today is the 30th, i figured i'd say happy 30.

happy 30 star wars.

han shot first!

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Happy Berfday Rhea

21 years ago today (hey, she'd be legal if she was people, and she certainly considered herself to be) a golden ray of sunshine was born into this world. Rhea McW. a lovely dark red-gold (sometimes confused for an Irish Setter), a silver streak on her chest, a wag in the tail, looking for the ultimate in pillows (usually my brother's bed). an excellent specimen of the breed. i still think of her, and smile when i see the pictures i have on my fridge. there some saying that it's hard to look at a golden retriever and not smile, and she certainly brought many smiles to my face.

(Berf (n) - the sound Rhea made when she wanted your attention, but didn't want to bark)

photo credit: PBW

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Your Score: True Neutral

40% Good, 48% Chaotic

Plane of Existence: The Outlands, "Plane of Concordant Opposition". Description: The plane between all other outer planes.


Examples of True Neutrals (Ethically Neutral, Morally Neutral)
Red XIII, "Nanaki" (FFVII)

Vincent Valentine (FFVII)

Cid Highwind (FFVII)

Mr. Spock

Linus Torvalds

Dr. Strangelove

Scott Evil

Batman

The Punisher

Switzerland

Canada


Not actively for or against anything. Has his or her own reasons for doing everything. Usually difficult to understand.


Will keep their word if in their best interest

May attack an unarmed foe

May use poison

May help those in need

May work with others

Indifferent to higher authority

Indifferent to organizations



True Neutral "Pure Neutral"

"Balancer"

Some neutral [people] commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They are of the true neutral alignment as described in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

A true neutral [person] sees good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. He advocates the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Some true neutral [people] actively support balance in the world, and seek to avoid having any one side, law or chaos, good or evil, become too powerful over them or anyone else, and will work against whichever side is the most powerful. They tend to side with the underdog in any situation, and are often opportunistic in their actions.

True neutral is committed to the avoidance of extremes, and is non-judgemental.


Other Alignments and Tendencies (Tendenices are what you would more often sway towards; esp. for Neutrals):

0-39% Good, 0-39% Chaotic:Lawful-Evil

0-39% Good, 40-60% Chaotic: Neutral-Evil

0-39% Good, 61-100% Chaotic: Chaotic-Evil

40-60% Good, 0-39% Chaotic: Lawful-Neutral

40-60% Good, 61-100% Chaotic: Chaotic-Neutral

61-100% Good, 0-39% Chaotic: Lawful-Good

61-100% Good, 40-60% Chaotic: Neutral-Good

61-100% Good, 61-100% Chaotic: Chaotic-Good

Link: The Alignment Test written by xan81 on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

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i semi-watched the season end of 24.

all i can say is 'eh'

actually, it was pretty bad. i remember thinking that last season was pushing it, but this season it completely jumped the shark. and then made some yummy shark fin soup.

i actually missed chunks of episodes and you know what? for a show that if you miss something, you're pretty much screwed, it pretty much sucked.

so, season 6 of 24 was pretty bad. and we get a 7th season in january. i wonder if i'll watch it. or find something else...like watching the paint drying channel.

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i'm up to 60 miles now

for the 3rd year in a row, M, F & I did the Project Bread - Walk for Hunger. it's a long 20 miles by foot, but it was fun. this year it took us 6 hours, but 30 mins was break (official & unofficial rest stops). started out grey and overcast, cleared a bit, then clouded over again before finally clearing up when we were at memorial drive. was cool and breezy for most of the walk. good thing M bought me a lightweight windbreaker at target (gotta love clearance).

so here's the start and finish.

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30 years

30 years ago saw the birth of Rhetticus Molius, whose name i have taken in his honor.

Happy Birthday Rhett.

our laps are colder without you.

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...and he chased the whale

'Moby-Dick' Pushed As Official State Book Fifth-Graders Advance Melville Novel

BOSTON -- From its iconic opening line -- "Call me Ishmael" -- to its cataclysmic conclusion, "Moby-Dick" has inspired generations of readers with its impenetrable mystery of the white whale.

Now students at Pittsfield's Egremont Elementary School want to add one more laurel to Herman Melville's literary masterpiece: "official book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." and he chased the whale.

The fifth graders, whose school is less than a mile from Arrowhead (Mol edit: NOT TRUE - TRY 2.3 MILES. GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT JACKASS), the house where Melville penned the massive tome, have filed a bill that would do just that. A legislative committee is to hold a hearing on the proposal on Tuesday. and he chased the whale.

"I think it should be the book because mostly everyone I know likes to read books that are adventurous and cliff-hanging, and how you have to keep reading until midnight to finish them," said 10-year-old Andrew Macfarland. and he chased the whale.

The book -- the full title is "Moby-Dick: or, The Whale" -- has long been the bane of high school students baffled by it brilliant and maddening digressions. and he chased the whale.

But those same digressions -- into philosophy, the nature of obsession, and an encyclopedic inventory of 19th century New England whaling arcana -- has made "Moby-Dick" one of the most celebrated novels in the American canon. and he chased the whale.

Much of the brilliance, of course, is because "Moby-Dick," published in 1851, is about so much more than a hunt for a whale. and he chased the whale.

Melville had gained fame and popularity as an author of high seas adventure stories like "Typee" and "Omoo." By the time he set about writing "Moby-Dick," he had come under the sway of thinkers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. and he chased the whale.

Melville quickly began redrafting the book, added chapter upon chapter studying the nature of Ahab's vengeance and the relations between the crew, including the South Sea islander Queequeg, Native American Tashtego, and African harpooner Daggoo. and he chased the whale.

"The thing about `Moby-Dick' is the extraordinary metaphysical scope," said James Wallace, a literature professor at Boston College who teaches a course called "Melville and his Era". and he chased the whale.

"You have chapter after chapter on the sea and the relation of humans and nature and the nature of obsession and the psychology of Ahab and the marvelous poetic probings of what it means to be human," he said. and he chased the whale.

The book is also intensely parochial. Ishmael begins his adventures in New Bedford. The narrative moves to Nantucket before the whaling ship Pequod sets out on its doomed quest. and he chased the whale.

"Moby-Dick" has also inspired pop culture. Movies from "Jaws" to "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" have mined its themes. and he chased the whale.

In many ways, the book became a kind of "Moby-Dick" for Melville himself. He could never match the breadth of the novel and died in relative obscurity. and he chased the whale.

Karen McHugh, a fifth grade teacher at the school, said part of the inspiration for the bill was to teach children the legislative process. Classes routinely file such bills to learn how state government works. and he chased the whale.

She also conceded that "Moby-Dick" isn't generally a book assigned to fifth graders. and he chased the whale.

"Even though they haven't read the book, most of them are familiar with Melville," she said. "`Moby-Dick' was written right around the corner." and he chased the whale.

Fifth grader Matt Capeless, 11, said he'd vote for the book, describing it as story "about a guy named Captain Ahab who is trying to catch a big white whale named Moby-Dick." and he chased the whale.

Not everyone is convinced.

Mike Frederick, director of the Thoreau Society, concedes "Moby-Dick" is a great book, but said if he had to choose, he'd have to go with a nonfiction masterpiece, "Walden." and he was a drunk.

"I suppose the big case you could make for `Walden' being the book for the Commonwealth is that it's also emblematic of the intellectual revolution" that helped the United States craft its own literary and philosophical tradition, he said. and he was a drunk.

Don't tell that to fifth-grader Andrew Macfarland.

"All I know is it's about the crazy sea captain, I don't know if it's revenge or something," he said, "but it's next on my reading list." and he chased the whale.

thanks JJ.

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way to go

while i was watching 24, the news teased a bomb threat (in tewksbury) and not being aware of the 2 prior threats (WTF????) i didn't know, so i head over to boston.com to see if i can find out where. i do a quick search, and this is what popped up in the sponsored links.



way to go!

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30 Years ago this evening...

30 years ago tonight, Led Zeppelin performed a concert at Richfield Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. while the performance was ok, the recording of the show was better than ok. (Personally, the following night (4/28) is one of the finest 1977 shows they did, but the recording isn't as good)

as any Zep bootleg collector can tell you, the recording from this night is pretty common. and while there are better performances from the 1977 tour (as i mentioned above), this one holds a special place in my heart. until 1992, i wasn't aware of Zeppelin bootlegs. it never occured to me that people recorded bands other than taper friendly bands (eg: Grateful Dead, Phish), so when JW (my roommate) borrowed Destroyer from WP, i was surprised. JW was trying to get me to listen to The Dead and he would make copies of shows that WP had, but on a trip to NYC, WP came back with Destroyer (2cd version, didn't have Over The Top/Moby Dick).

for me, live Zeppelin to this point was only The Song Remains The Same. i liked it a lot, but wasn't educated in the ways of bootlegs to realize that it wasn't a very good live document of Led Zeppelin. Destroyer was a better document. a near complete version of the show and i was facinated. but it wasn't until i listened to White Summer that my mind was completely blown away. i was familiar with White Summer (Jimmy included the version from the BBC session (6/27/69) on the box set). what i didn't know was in concert, White Summer crashing into Kashmir was going to change my view on Led Zeppelin forever. i remember sitting in the money chair (you could always find change that had fallen out of pockets in it) with my 2 big speakers on either side of me. volume up, but not too loud. late afternoon/early evening. grey and rainy day (similar to what it's like now). the closing strains of White Summer playing and out of nowhere, the entire band goes crashing into the opening chords of Kashmir. that transition of calmness into the power and majesty that is Kashmir sent the chills running up and down my spine for the next few minutes. i was completely dumbstruck by what had just happened. i listened to it again, and again chills. i must have listened to that sequence a few times before i was able to pull myself together enough to try and figure out what i had just listened to.

i quickly dug out some tapes so i could record the show, and eventually i had to return Destroyer to WP, but from that point on, i knew i needed more. my 2nd Zep bootlegs were from 2 separate (incomplete) shows in 1973 (soundboards that had been stolen from Jimmy in the late 80's) and from there i was as good as screwed. i began to discover that there was much more available (all for a price of course) and other shows quickly followed (Brussels 6/20/80, New York 2/12/75, Copenhagen 5/3/71) and by the time i graduated from college, i had a pretty decent sized collection of Zeppelin bootlegs. i quickly discovered that bootlegs of other bands i liked were available (most notably Pink Floyd), and ever since then, i've been collecting shows. i very rarely buy bootlegs these days, on occasion i might, but for the most part, it's all digital. it's become somewhat of an obsession, and i realize that i can't listen to all of them, but it doesn't seem to stop me.

and it all started with a recording of a show that Led Zeppelin did 30 years ago tonight.

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stoopit WBCN

opie & anthony = funny
opie & anthony + 2 weeks vacation = 2 weeks of funny reruns
toucher & rich + 2 weeks morning radio != funny

i want my opie & anthony funny reruns when i wake up. not toucher & rich who even said after less than a minute that they don't want to be there anymore than we (the listeners) want them to be there.

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hahahahahaha

i'm so glad this loops. i can watch this over and over and over again....

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dear rev. al

STFU.

you aren't helping ease racial tensions.

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Happy Good Friday (or Happy Death Day Jesus!)

FINALLY, a cut of the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre i'm willing to watch.

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mother fucking WOMBAT

what a fucking surprise

i wasted how much time to try and get our servers ready for this adjusted daylight savings time?

The Daylight Saving change: no savings, no point
By Ken Fisher | Published: April 03, 2007 - 11:41AM CT

The US government's plan to boost energy savings by moving Daylight Saving Time forward by three weeks was apparently a waste of time and effort, as the technological foibles Americans experienced failed to give way to any measurable energy savings.

While the change caused no major infrastructure problems in the country, plenty of electronics and computer systems that were designed with the original DST switchover date (first Sunday in April) failed to update. The inconvenience was minor, and the potential savings were great. Or so we were told by the politicians behind the move.

As it turns out, the US Department of Energy (and almost everyone else except members of Congress) was correct when they predicted that there would be little energy savings. This echoed concerns voiced after a similar experiment was attempted in Australia. Critics pointed out a basic fact: the gains in the morning will be offset by the losses at night, and vice-versa, at both ends of the switch. That appears to be exactly what happened.

Reuters spoke with Jason Cuevas, spokesman for Southern Co. power, who said it plainly: "We haven't seen any measurable impact." New Jersey's Public Service Enterprise Group said the same thing: "no impact" on their business.

So while the US government pats itself on the back for at least looking busy, know that the main goal—energy conservation—has not been met. We can still argue over other supposed benefits, like the supposed reduction in crime (which returns in November?) and the fact that many people seem to simply like the change. As far as the purpose of the move is concerned, that appears to be a total flop.

Congress is tasked with reviewing the change and its effectiveness. With little to recommend it, the future of this latest DST change may ultimately hinge on Americans' preference for when we all get out of bed in the morning. Isn't arbitrary, mostly meaningless change great?

Oh, and if you're wondering why some of your colleagues showed up late for work yesterday, it's because many devices-even patched devices-shifted an hour ahead Sunday, when the change would have normally taken place.

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