Obama is The Joker

Seriously.  Go ahead.  Ask me how.

OK, I’ll tell you how Obama is The Joker.  The Joker calls himself an agent of chaos.  Chaos can be seen as a state of constant change.  It’s change not for a reason, but for the sake of changing, with no firm end in sight and no solid base upon which one can fix oneself.

Obama is The Joker.  This, however, does not make McCain Batman.  Unless Batman is secretly 96.96% Joe Lieberman and 3.04% Hillary Clinton.

Funny aside: Dictionary.com offers this example for chaos; “a chaos of meaningless phrases.” Doh!  Now that is change you can believe in.  Yes you can!

Posted by JimK at 09:53 PM on July 25, 2008
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Categories: News,  Politics

Yellow cake is delicious

Remember how there was no yellowcake uranium in Iraq?

Uhh...oops?

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program _ a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium _ reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” _ the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment _ was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad _ using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” _ a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material _ it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth “tens of millions of dollars.” A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

“We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity,” he said.

Huh.  That’s...odd.  Canada bought non-existent yellowcake from Iraq?  But that’s unpossible.  Bush lied.  Joe Wilson said so.  So did every human being that is to the left of Sean Hannity...which quite frankly is most of them.  I’m confused.  What did Canada pay for?  Air?  Bush’s lies?  A reacharound?

Posted by JimK at 02:14 PM on July 06, 2008
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Categories: News,  International Events,  Politics,  The Middle East,  War
Tags: yellowcake uranium

ENJOY THE HOLIDAY, DAMMIT

I worry about political bloggers who can’t shut the fuck up on the big, major “be proud to be an American” holiday of the year.  Seriously, people.  Stop.  Just for the day.  Stop attacking whatever side you hate, stop talking endless shit about your country and just enjoy the day.  Whattya say?

I’m not gonna hold my breath.  I’ll be too busy chilling the hell out and eating hot dogs.

Posted by JimK at 01:15 PM on July 04, 2008
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Categories: Personal

Weight loss update

It’s been awhile since I talked about this, and I have photographic proof now, so...here I am talking about it. :)

I’ve lost 88.4 pounds so far.  I went from exhausted every waking moment of every day to exhausted about half the time because I don’t sleep enough.  Which is probably closer to normal than it sounds. ;) I’ve lost many inches off my waist, to the point where the new holes I drilled for my belt two months ago no longer work.  I even had to buy smaller underwear.  How fucking awesome is that?  Smaller.  Not bigger, smaller.  Underwear.

I think that might be the thing I am most proud of so far.  Weird, what you latch onto during a process like this. 

I’m a lot more fit, I can do pretty much whatever is needed physically without massive back pain...or needing to sit down every three minutes.  Most of my clothes don’t fit right.  I’m still in the stage where I’m OK with that...mainly because I’m broke and can’t buy new clothes, but also because I will keep getting smaller, so too much new shit would be a waste.

Let me be frank with all you fat fucking dudes reading this: SEX. GETS. WAY. BETTER.  Being a beached god-damned whale ruins your sex life.  Dropping even a few pounds makes everything exponentially better, and if you can work out and build some stamina...let’s just say that cardio training has many, many benefits.  If *I* can do this without starving or a special book, you can do it too.  I promise you it’s not as hard as the experts make it sound.  OK, it is hard, but it’s not as complicated.  You can do it.  Everything about your life will improve.

Photos: Some of you may have seen this picture before.  It’s our all-time favorite pic of us.

Yesterday we stopped by the in-laws to visit with the family, and jo-jo snapped this pic (stole it off your myspace, jo-jo!  Sorry...)

Christ I hate that tattoo.  And excuse the finger, that was just me goofing at jo-jo.  This was like the 40th picture someone took in like, two point three minutes.  Notice how there’s a lot less of me under the hot girl.  Less of a stuffed sausage casing ready to explode.  Fucking hell, I was literally ginormous.  Now the pants I was wearing in the first pic?  Can’t wear ‘em anymore.  They fall off, and even with a belt they look like clown pants.

I also have less hair too.  It’s hard to see in the first pic, but my hair was halfway down my back.  Now it’s a bit of a mop.  I’m so fucking stylish.

Obviously, I’m still a big fat bastard to be sure, but I’m more than halfway to my stage 1 goal.  I want to lose 150-ish pounds and then decide what my stage 2 goal will be.  Probably another 25 or so.  If When I ever reach that stage 2 goal, I swear to fuck I’m going to eat an entire sonofabitching cheesecake in one sitting.  And spend the week after on an elliptical machine for three hours a day. :) It will be worth every frigging bite.

By the end of the week it’ll be 90 pounds (I’m due for one of my 1.5-2lb drops).  In a couple of months it’ll be 100.  And I’m still eating chocolate, bitches!  Never shall I abandon my dark lord.  Bacon, red meat, butter and chocolate are four of the top ten reasons to wake up in the morning.  Never gonna give them up.  Never gonna say goodbye.  Never gonna run around and dessert (them).  See what I did there?  A clever bit of wordplay and a textual rickroll.

So that’s me bragging then.

Posted by JimK at 02:38 PM on June 29, 2008
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Categories: Personal

Heller smells like victory…partial victory

This is good, but it’s only a partial victory. 

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects individual gun rights, striking down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and raising questions about weapons restrictions elsewhere.

The 5-4 ruling resolves a constitutional question that had lurked for two centuries: whether the Second Amendment covers people who aren’t affiliated with a state-run militia.

``The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,’’ Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in the final decision of the court’s nine-month term. ``These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.’’

It affirms the individual right to self defense, but the language is narrow, focused on home defense and handguns, and leaves a lot of wiggle room.  The limits of today’s ruling are explored at Reason.  It’s worth a read.

For states without a Castle Doctrine, that leaves a lot of places where states and cities can still try to gun grab.  It doesn’t matter to them how useless these laws are.  It doesn’t matter how ineffective gun bans are.  They won’t stop.  It’s a religion.

Next case please.  One that takes this even further and leaves these over-reaching nanny mayors and governors across the land with NO ambiguity; you shall not infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

It must suck to work for the Brady Center today.

Posted by JimK at 09:15 PM on June 26, 2008
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Federal Government,  Guns - 2nd Amendment
Tags: firearms second amendment heller supreme court

George Carlin died

One of the greats.  I pay tribute to Carlin over at Made of Awesome.

Posted by JimK at 04:02 AM on June 23, 2008
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Categories: Entertainment,  Humor
Tags: george carlin

Obama vs. McCain

Seems to be all but over.

We’re completely fucked either way.  There isn’t a good choice to be made here.  It’s between a crazy old liar who can’t wait to spend our money or a crazy young liar who can’t wait to spend our money.

Posted by JimK at 10:12 PM on June 03, 2008
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Categories: News,  Politics

New site: Madeofawesome.net - Taadaa

OK, I think it’s ready.

All pop culture, no politics ever.  The return of Emily from the Starkcast.  Astoundingly awesome logo by artmonkey.  Tell your friends!

Seriously, tell your friends.  If you read this site for the non-political content, it will ALL be over there.  I am SO sick to death of politics.  I cannot stand to prattle on about the same dumb shit endlessly.  No one is listening anymore, and no minds are, or will in the near future, be changed.  It’s a complete waste of time.  I’m preaching to the choir mostly, and while I love my choir, how does it help?  I’m awfully small-time to matter, I don’t break news or stories, and everyone can pretty much predict what I am going to say about any given story.  It’s all so ponderously depressing, and I’m not in that “my team is best-blog every bad story about Billary or Jesus Hussein Obama” mentality anymore.  I’m trying to lighten my life up in more ways than one.

I want to have fun on the internets again.  I started to dread the *idea* of blogging, because I got tied up in thinking that every day/week/indeterminate period of time has to contain some serious political shit or UR NOT DOIN IT RITE.  But, for the last year or two, I’ve only ever had fun writing about tv and movies and games and whatnot.

Couple weeks ago, the answer became clear.  A fresh start, an new outlook, do what I like, have some fun.  A new site.

Tell your friends and family!  I plan to go see a lot more movies this year, as we found a theater that doesn’t allow the crap that has driven people out of theaters.  Punk kids, phone conversations, too much yapping, it’ll all get you thrown out.  I will be doing reviewcaps of more TV shows now.  I have a co-host again.

There’s a good chance that I might start up a modified version of the podcast again.  Something much shorter and simpler.  In short, I am *excited* by this.  It’s like when I first realized that a website could be in this interactive form, with automated software to set it up chronologically and with archives and stuff.  Those crazy webernet kids were calling the diary/linksites “blogs” and while that sounded a bit like the sound a dog makes when it vomits...blog it is then.  Let’s do this thing!  I was excited about the idea of interacting with people in this new way that wasn’t as demanding as IRC/chat, but more exciting than a regular website.

I’m excited again.

If you could do me one favor...well, two really.  First of all, come by the new site and register.  Jump in with both feet.  Secondly, tell one person about the new site.  Email, a link off your site, however you can.  Just one person!  Please?  I do stuff for you.  Not sure what, but it’ll be good and you’ll like it.

It’s the dot net, as someone out there owns the com and wants $500 bucks for it.  I have about $5.  So it’s www.madeofawesome.net.  If you see any bugs or something looks weird in your browser let me know.  I tested it with Firefox, IE 7 and 8, Opera and Safari so it should be good.

See you there.  It’s gonna be awesome.

Posted by JimK at 12:07 PM on May 20, 2008
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Categories: Personal,  Technobabble (Technology),  The Internet(s)
Tags: made of awesome

Anouncement soon!

Man, I forgot what it was like to obsess over every detail of a pet project, every pixel.  If this was for a client, it would have cost more than I could charge.

I’m going to let it stew for a day.  Hopefully, Tuesday morning I will be making a big announcement.

Posted by JimK at 11:34 PM on May 18, 2008
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Categories: Personal

Portion Size and weight loss

I’m the last person to blame hormones, glands or the food undustry for “making” me or anyone else fat.  let me say that right off the bat.  99.95% of us fatsos are fat because we eat too much and move too little and that’s the truth of it.  But…

How did we get here?  In part, this picture essay explains some of it.  I know that you have all heard a parent or grandparent telling you to clean your plate.  I don’t know if parents still use this one, but back in the day I would get that “There are kids starving in China” line.

Train kids to clean their plates and you end up with adults that do it out of habit and/or compulsion.  Couple that with the “more food is a better bargain” mentality and the propensity for larger and larger portion sizes, add in a dash of suburban sprawl forcing us to drive everywhere, take away any physical labor required to gather massive amounts of food and bing bang boom, you have a nation of sedentary, fat bastards.

I think the thing that illustrates the problem - moreso than the burger or pizza images, is the soda.

Who ever needs that much soda?  I spent most of my life literally thinking that I was an idiot to even consider the smaller amount.  It just doesn’t make sense on a cost-per-ounce basis, right?  Whatta bahgain!  64 ounces for just ten cents more!  Meanwhile the cost of fountain soda is so low that the only reason most places bother charging for it is because the cup is so expensive.  The cost, for them, of 32 ounces of soda versus 64 ounces is probably less than two cents, if it’s even that.  It makes good business sense to trick the consumer into thinking it’s a bargain.  That’s where the “finish your plate” mentality comes in.  We’ve paid for it now, it would be senseless to waste it.

The way to fight this is first to be aware of it.  The second is to take the smaller option.  You are not an idiot for choosing the smallest portion possible.  Sometimes I get McDonalds for Donna as I am coming home from the gym.  One out of every four times or so, I order a small fry for myself.  Is it the best deal per fry?  I don’t know, nor do I care.  what I know is, I love fries, and I want fries, but it only makes sense to have a small amount that can easily be metabolized.  So that’s what I get.

Smart decisions.  That’s what it comes down to.  Don’t let the bastards get you down - or fatter.  They’ll sell you as much as you are willing to buy, and you know what?  They’re right to try.  Caveat Emptor, people.  The only way you become an idiot in this game is if you fork over your money for the big stuff because it’s a “better deal.”

Buy enough food to stop you from being hungry, eat it slowly and then stop when you aren’t hungry anymore.  That alone will transform your body.  No real work required.  Think smart, buy less, eat slowly.

It’s not rocket science.

Posted by JimK at 02:24 PM on May 15, 2008
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Categories: Personal,  Recipes and Food
Tags: weight loss portions