This is the funniest thing I have seen this week:
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Local afternoon talk host Chris Baker (740 KTRH) is a funny guy, and a pretty good talk show host. The guy understands the potential in blogging, but Laurence is right about Chris’ blog:
Then the other day Ken Charles is all a flutter, interrupting Chris on his show over something new…
- A photo gallery?
- A studiocam?
- Moderated comments?
- RSS feeds?
- A decent picture of Chris?
- Permalinks for individual posts?
- Moderated forums for listener discussions when the show isn’t on?
Hell no. It’s “Instant messaging” he gasps and I look at it.
It’s just an email form. Not exactly “Instant messaging” by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it’s faster for me just to thumb in a message from Ziggy3 than jump through those hoops.
There’s so much that needs to be done, and this is a priority?
Take a look for yourself. His blog has some major problems with it. Some are aesthetic and some are functional, but they all scream “amateur.”
Basically, the site doesn’t work very well, and it’s uglier than a shit sandwich on a stick in the rain.
I’m not saying this to rip on Baker, but to prod KTRH and Ken Charles to action. The blog has so much potential. Stories could develop across Houston media — radio, TV, print, Internet. Listeners could become blog readers. Link love could proliferate, and the “50,000-Watt Think Tank” could be at the center of it all.
But that’s not going to happen as long as the site looks like someone tried to put out a forest fire with a screwdriver.
Chris, Ken, get on the stick and fix that blog!
Buzz Aldrin is, by all accounts, a great guy. West Point graduate, religious man, fighter pilot, astronaut. But don’t piss him off:
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Yeah, this is old, but I just learned of it yesterday, thank’s to the Chron’s Eric Berger.
George Brown is a lobbyist for the liquor industry in the state of Louisiana. He convinced the legislature of that fine state to include the following in its open-container law:
“Open alcoholic beverage container” shall not mean any bottle, can, or other receptacle that contains any amount of frozen alcoholic beverage unless the lid is removed or a straw protrudes through the lid.
That’s right: daiquiris are effectively exempt from the open-container law. Excellent. So, on the way to Paducah, I stopped off at my favorite daiquiri joint in the whole wide world: The Geaux Cup.
Hell yeah.
The Geaux Cup is a little A-frame building just off Interstate 10 in Crowley, La. In addition to being the seat of Acadia Parish, Crowley is also the Rice Capital of America and the home of my good buddy Mary (aka Clotille). The Cup is renowned for the breadth of its menu, which features literally scores of frozen beverages, including — I am not making this up — the “Jet Fuel” and the “Fuck-Up.”
Wow.
I went with a Lime Kamakazi in a big ol’ Styrofoam up. Then I hit the road:
I love Louisiana.
Fast-forward a few hundred miles, and I came across this sign, pointing me to Cooter, Mo.:
Holland is nice, but…
Then I went to Graceland:
I have done it all.
Graceland was closed, probably because I got there at about midnight on a Thursday. Oh well.
Last weekend, I headed up to Paducah, Ky. to see my friends Chris and Joanna get married. Here are some pics from the weekend:
Chris and Sean rock out to Peter Frampton at the post-rehearsal-dinner party.
One of several shots at the party.
The happy couple, riding the trolley to the reception.
Chris and me, in the Joe Hettler pose.
Chris, Mary and me. We are still sober at this point.
Drinking ensues.
Another one.
Mary likes the whiskey.
Shamil, Mary and me. We are quite drunk at this point.
Good times.
If I were Herb Kelleher, I’d be smacking my dumbass subordinates upside the head. Despite my protest, Southwest is trying out assigned seating.
Southwest Airlines will test assigning seats to travelers, another indication the maverick carrier may get in line with other U.S. airlines by junking its first-come, first-served seating system.
Passengers will be assigned seats on about 200 flights from San Diego starting July 10 and continuing for several weeks, an airline spokesman said on Tuesday.
The airline wants to know if assigning seats will slow Southwest’s ability to unload incoming planes and board passengers for the next flight.
Yes, you dumbasses, it will.
[Hat-tip: Loren Steffy]
Like many people, I jot down lots of notes throughout the day. In my case, I use Post-Its, which are stuck in a row right in front of my computer keyboard.
I was cleaning them off, and I realized that they were just scraps of thoughts. Here today, gone tomorrow. In many cases, I don’t even remember what the note was supposed to mean. I wrote it down long enough to do something with it.
Here are some of the things I found important enough to write down:
I know what some of these mean. Others I don’t.
Props to Allah at Hot Air for this one:
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This is just brilliant. Take a few eggs (or Egg Beaters), and toss them in a Ziploc bag with a little milk, plus whatever toppings you want. I’m gonna go with onions, jalapenos and a little bit of cheese. Seal the bag, mush it all together and drop it in a pot of boiling water.
I’m not sure on the cooking time. I’ve seen figures anywhere from 4 to 13 minutes. I guess just take it out when it’s done.
Hell yes. The new Superman movie is coming out, and I can’t wait. Here are some trailers:
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And by far the coolest part:
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Regular readers of Mattsapundit will notice that this blog is devoid of comment spam. No Viagra from Canada, no midget porn, no 1% mortgages, none of that crap.
But scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see that I’ve had more than 1,300 attempted spam attacks, all of them rebuffed without incident. This is because I use Spam Karma 2, an excellent anti-spam program.
The way it works is this: as comments come in, they’re automatically put through a series of filters, each of which can be configured for strictness. Each filter looks for a specific trait common to automatically-generated comments. One looks for comments generated too rapidly, one checks comments against an IP blacklist of known spammers, another checks for an unusually high number of links, while yet another checks for comments on older posts. There are 10 filters in total.
Each filter assigns the comment a karma value based on its performance. This value is cumulative as the comment makes its way through the chain. Suspicious comments tend to have more than one spam-like attribute, so the negative karma builds up. At a certain point, determined by a very high negative karma value, the comment is obviously spam and it’s automagically discarded. Buh-bye, scumbags.
Conversely, real, human-generated comments get good karma. They might have one or two suspicious attributes (originating from a browser that doesn’t support JavaScript, for instance), but they’ll pass the other filters and get posted without a hitch.
The software works almost perfectly. No spam gets through. I haven’t had a single spam comment since I’ve been using Spam Karma 2. That’s pretty impressive, considering I’m just using the default settings. Even better, it’s given no false positives to date. Every once in a while, the software isn’t quite sure whether a comment is spam, and it holds it in moderation for me to approve or deny manually, but that’s only happened maybe three times.
All in all, it’s a nearly perfect anti-spam measure. If you use WordPress, check it out.
I’ve noticed an uptick in people looking for the FedEx “Wrong” commercial. Here it is, folks:
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Per Iceman’s request, here’s the video for “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys:
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The other day, I saw a press release touting the Houston Independent School District’s Summer Feeding Program:
Breakfasts will be served from 7:30–8:30 a.m., and lunches will be served from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Adults may also participate in the program by purchasing breakfast for $1.60 and lunch for $2.85.
HISD meals are nutritionally analyzed to ensure that children receive the vitamins, minerals, and calories required to maintain a balanced diet.
All that for under three bucks? How could I resist? So I skipped on down to the nearest government indoctrination center, which happens to be Sinclair Elementary School, less than two miles from MattCo.
After making my way past a mean-looking secretary and a bunch of kids who spoke less English than my pet fish does, I found the nearly empty cafeteria, and went through the serving line. The entire waitstaff consisted of one friendly woman in disposable plastic gloves. Here’s what she dished up:
It’s a six-compartment polystyrene tray, loaded with everything a growing boy needs. Today’s main course was breaded chicken strips, accompanied by broccoli cuts, a white roll and mashed potatoes. Accessories included a spork, an absurdly thin paper napkin, and a thin straw. I’ll address each compartment in turn, beginning with the chicken strips and going clockwise.
The chicken strips were thickly breaded, with only a slightly greasy feel. The breading, liberally spiked with black pepper, surrounded a rubbery bit of engineered chicken material. Not bad, as far as chicken strips go. Cream gravy would have been a nice addition, but it was nowhere to be found. The portion was pretty big — five strips! — but I attribute that to the server’s appreciation of my rugged good looks. Sources tell me that the standard portion is three strips.
The broccoli cuts were incredibly hot and somewhat overdone. Despite the overcooking, however, the vegetable’s flavor was unharmed. No seasoning was evident.
The tennis-ball sized dollop of mashed potatoes appeared to have been prepared from dehydrated potato flakes. The texture was perfectly uniform throughout: no bits of skin, no bacon bits, no cheese, nada. Similarly consistent was the utter lack of flavor.
The roll was tasty and dense, but for some inexplicable reason it was sliced latitudinally like a hamburger bun. I suppose the slice could have been an HISD hint, telling me where to apply butter, but none was provided. Pity. The roll was fine by itself, but a little butter or jelly would have gone a long way.As I was going through the serving line, I wondered what the fifth compartment would hold. Dessert, perhaps? Cherry cobbler with little crumbles on top would have been nice. Alas, the server completed her duties without putting anything in the fifth compartment. Was it a metaphor for the emptiness of an overreliance on government assistance, or just some sneaky bastard hoarding all the cobbler?
The sixth compartment was intended to hold utensils. As you can see, it’s designed so that the utensils face up when the compartment is oriented to the right. When you turn it around, the utensils are upside-down and the entree is far away. I’m deeply offended by this not-so-subtle slap at left-handed people, and I hope the superintendent takes measures to rectify HISD’s de facto policy of right supremacy.
No beverage was provided. I thought for sure I’d get a shot of 2% milk, but no dice. I guess calcium is exempt from HISD’s nutritional scrutiny. Instead, I hit the water fountain on the way out.
Anyway, back to lunch. The decor was pretty boring and institutional. The room was large, with round laminate tables, high ceilings, and way too much linoleum, glazed brick and harsh fluorescent lighting.
While I was enjoying my meal, I was approached by a gentleman who asked what I was doing. Apparently, school administrators don’t get a lot of food reviewers, because at first he seemed unconvinced by my explanation. He told me I should have gotten a visitor badge when I came into the school. Okay, no problem. I checked into the office on the way out, and they scanned my driver’s license into some massive HISD database. Pretty intrusive for some chicken fingers, if you ask me.
All in all, it was a pretty good meal, as long as you don’t stop to consider the fact that its mere existence encourages irresponsible parenting and complete, pet-like reliance on government.
Pros: Extra chicken; low price; convenient location; opportunity to mess with befuddled school administrator.
Cons: No drink; getting hassled by The Man; failing our children with a massive educational bureaucracy and welfare state; no gravy.
Decor: 
(out of four)
Food Appearance:
Taste: 
Nutritional Value:
Bang for the Buck:
Overall:
I just got the following unsolicited email written in Hebrew. I guess spam is Kosher now:
כמה זה עלה?
- מחיר שיחה ×œ× ×™×™×“ של רשת מירס. זהו.
התחייבויות, חוזי×?
- ל×! תתקשר מכל קוו (×’× ×˜×œ×¤×•×Ÿ שקלי×, ×•×’× ×˜×œ×§×רד שבחוץ),
מתי ×©×‘× ×œ×š, כמה ×©×‘× ×œ×š, ×œ×œ× ×”×ª×—×™×™×‘×•×ª, ובלי הרשמה.הטלפון שלי בבית ×—×¡×•× ×œ×©×™×—×•×ª לחו”ל, מה עושי×?
- מתקשרי×, ×–×” ×œ× ×—×¡×•× ×œ×©×™×—×•×ª למירס.
ומה יופיע בחשבון חודשי?
- החיוב מופיעה כחלק ×ž×”×—×™×•×‘×™× ×©×œ חברות סלול×ר (מירס).
ול×ן ×פשר להתקשר?
I’ll task the Mattsapundit Semitic Languages Directorate on this immediately.
Yeah, it’s another commercial with buttoned-down white dudes rocking out. Deal with it:
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