Sweet pen spinning lord in heaven!

Check this shit out!

Man, I wish I was even remotely that good.

This is what passes for phishing these days?

Got an email at work warning us to be wary of an email scam going on. Here's the actual scam itself:

Dear _______________

A complaint has been filled against you and the company you are affiliated to by Mr. George Hanson and sent to Federal Trade Comission by fax,in witch he's claiming that he has been cheated by you and your company in paying a greater ammount of money than the one appearing on the invoice you gave him for using your services.

The complaint states he contacted your company on MON,22 OCT 2007, trying to solve this situation without interference from any Governmental Institution , but your company refused to take action.

On WED,24 OCT 2007, the complaint was sent by fax to Federal Trade Commission and we forwarded it to Internal Revenue Service and Better Business Bureau.

Complaint was filled against :
Name : ________________
Company : ________________
If you feel that this message has been sent to you in error or if you have any questions regarding the next steps of this process, please download! the original complaint by clicking the link below :
[link removed]

Please take knowledge of the complaint's content and complete the form at the bottom of forward it to
[link removed]

Bruce Jameson
Complaint Officer
Federal Trade Commission,Fraud Department

Since when the fuck did the FTC deal with personal complaints like this? Ever? If they did, wouldn't they file complaints against people instead of fill them? Also, I would hope they could tell that witch, even near Halloween, is simply wrong to use in this context. Now I know I have some problems with comma usage, but shouldn't there be more commas? Not to mention the entire first sentence is one of the longest run-on sentences I've seen in a while. Then there's the end where they're all like "you should click on these links no matter what!" What BS is that? Please! If you fall for phishing from a source so blatantly false, you almost deserve it. I know the goverment isn't always all that good at what they do, but their emails at least are vaguely gramatially correct and don't appear from shady sources saying that the FTC is taking action against you personally and you totally need to click on these third party links. Sheesh.

Math Nerd love song

Love songs don't get much nerdier than this. It's a good song in terms of humor and, in a sad nerdy kind of way, a touching song. :)

the difference of sleep

I had a great weekend on the one hand. Party a a friend's house, good drinks, great people, good time had all around. Great game night the next day, fantastic session, just fun for everyone all night. Can't say I didn't have a good time. But, as with all good things, there were certain downsides, which add up to a sad but amusing story.

So at the party I met up with an old friend and we shared his bottle of scotch. Once upon a time, this was a very normal situation for me and would be a welcomed evening's drink. However, as I really do not drink very much these days, drinking so much scotch was probably ill advised. As a result I did not take my sleep aid, as mixing generous quantities of scotch and anti-psychotic medication is not considered wise, so I did not get a good night of sleep.

So, the next day, hung over and unhappy, I woke early, ate little, and generally felt horrible until the game. After getting into the game, I had a great time, as mentioned, but had almost no food and little to drink, not helping me. All I really needed was a good night's sleep. So, after the game, I went home, took my drugs, and went to bed hoping for a good seven hours of sleep. When I woke and struggled to get back to sleep for several hours, I wondered what could possibly be wrong. It felt as if I hadn't taken my drugs at all. In the morning, I checked my drugs and found that rather than actually taking my sleep drugs, I had popped a multi-vitamin instead. Woops.

As a result, Monday was a day of living hell. No sleep for two days, permanent nausea, no food, and general wishing that I was dead. Work proved too much for me, and I ended up at home, trying and failing to eat, and wishing I was dead some more. I started passing out at 7 and took the right drugs (even double checked to be sure) and went to bed.

Now I feel fine. Not 100%, but compared to yesterday, I feel fantastic. The moral of the story: Don't mix the larger, slightly orange pills for the smaller, white pills that actually make you sleep. Got it.

LOLZ

Much like when Stephen Colbert said "I only got married to rub it in gay people's faces", here is an unattributed link to a very funny "anti" gay marriage list.

Why athiests are angry, and rightly so.

Why Greta, an atheist, is angry, the abridged version.

Now I don't consider myself an atheist; really what I believe defies simple description. However, I usually find myself siding with atheists in any sort of argument, especially when it comes to the patriotism of an atheist coming into question. I don't expect you all to read Greta's whole spiel, but I'll quote a few of my favorite comments from her:

I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.

I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.

I'm angry that the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." My President. No, I didn't vote for him, but he was still my President, and he still said that my lack of religious belief meant that I shouldn't be regarded as a citizen.

I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.

I'm especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I'm angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I'm angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.

I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.

I get angry when religious believers base their entire philosophy of life on what is, at best, a hunch; when they ignore or reject or rationalize any evidence that contradicts that hunch or calls it into question... and then accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

I get angry when believers say that they can know the truth -- the greatest truth of all about the nature of the universe, namely the source of all existence -- simply by sitting quietly and listening to their heart... and then accuse atheists of being arrogant. (This isn't just arrogant towards atheists and naturalists, either. It's arrogant towards people of other religions who have sat just as quietly, listened to their hearts with just as much sincerity, and come to completely opposite conclusions about God and the soul and the universe.)

But perhaps most of all, I get angry -- sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry -- when believers chide atheists for being so angry. "Why do you have to be so angry all the time?" "All that anger is so off-putting." "If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?"

That's really just the tip of the iceberg, but I think it gets the point across. Athiests are angry because there's so much wrong in the world that can be solely blamed on the kind of religious people who frighten me. They're in the majority, and if they had their way, they would have me and all other people who don't agree with their view of the world at best deported, and at worst killed. Science and reason are taking a back seat to religious fanatcism and it seems like there's nothing we can do to change that. That's why athiests are angry, and that's why I'm scared.

I turn again to Bad Religion for the most succinct statement on the world today:

Welcome to the new Dark Ages.

Portal! Finally!

With the release of Valve Software's Orange Box, I am finally in possession of Portal, a wickedly clever game designed by the same people who brought Half Life into the world. In case you somehow don't know what I'm talking about, Portal is a first person shooter wherein there is no actual shooting. Indeed, Portal is a FPS puzzle game, and I have to say a masterfully crafted one at that. To boot, it's addictively entertaining and very funny at times.

The game starts with you waking up from some form of hibernation with no idea who you are, where you are, or wtf is going on. Your only companion is a female computer voice who instructs you to enter the glowing portal that appears on the wall in your chamber. Eventually you receive what I've been waiting for I think at least a year to play with: the Aperture Science Foundation Hand Held Portal Device. Shoot portal one, shoot portal two, walk through from point A to point B. You'd think this would get old, but, trust me, not even a little. Holy crap it's cool. And the game they built around it, though admittedly shorter than I had hoped, is excellently crafted and involving. And, at the end, your reward is a cake. Seriously.

The downside is that I beat the game in a single sitting, and stayed up WAY too late to do so. But, considering my skill for logic puzzles, it's not that surprising. And I had a damn fun time beating it, and I imagine I'll have a damn fine time doing it again! Possibly tonight...

Nah. I also have Half Life 2: Episode Two to play, and I've been waiting forever for that one too. Hee hee hee.. I wonder how Ep2 and Portal will intertwine. Even if it's not now that they combine, it's clear that the Portal Device is destined for Gordon Freeman's hands eventually. Now that will be something to look forward to!

Man I'm a geek.