Hello all-
Not that you particularly care, but this site might experience random outages in the next 2 weeks or so while I move over to a new server and transfer the domain name to a new registrar. I pay $5 for a VPS on dreamhost, so why continue to pay $100+ a year for my account on godaddy in addition? That be like listening to Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga at the same time.

No, this isn’t another rant about how the media and advertisers are leaving out Christmas from their respective vernacular (heavily, and quite offensively handled by last night’s episode of Community)- its that time of year where I point you back to:

How not to end up in a ditch

As a bonus tip, avoid the ever-relevant “You have received a Hallmark e-Card from ‘A Friend’”, which invariably contains a link to an executable file which promptly installs itself and compromises your computer, AKA Bad news.

Merry Christmas and happy driving!

Sadly this video has embedding disabled, but here’s the next best thing:

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I was, in fact, in the hospital a significant amount of time over the past couple weeks.

Yes, I am all right now, pending final confirmation on Friday with another ultrasound.

No, I am not pregnant.

My kidneys have been having trouble- between the stones and the hydronephrosis, things have been rough.

Over the past week, I’ve been feeling pretty good, but I was so incredibly far behind in homework that when I wasn’t playing Lord of the Rings: Online, I’ve actually been working pretty hard on past-due homework.

Now for some one-line headlines:

Today was the 10th anniversary of the Columbine shootings. Can’t say I paid much attention to the news, but I didn’t hear a single mention of it. Pretty sad :\

I’ve been working on a new website dedicated to providing open source solutions for ministries- specifically through hosting and web-based apps like WordPress and MediaWiki, but also extending into the realm of the computer-building that I’ve been doing so much of.

Time Warner backed off on their bandwidth capping!

Was the first one to buy this new set of strings at Guitar Center. Forgot what they are called, but they sound amazing. (They come in zebra-like packaging)

Looks like I’m headed to Watkins Glen for the NASCAR race this year Happy Birthday to me.

It was my birthday on the 17th.

Have never gotten so much Facebook-notification-email-spam before.

It was nice getting so much email.

People really need to come up with something better to say than “Happy Birthday” and that now-lame Happy Birthday song. Yes, I know it isn’t very long. It’s not that shocking really. It’s about as long as the attention span of the average Zomgee.

I really like WordPress.

I really like Google Reader.

I really like getting replies on Twitter.

I really like this stream-of-consciousness stuff.

I made a rule that no new posts are published between midnight and 6am unless peer-reviewed.

I just set my system clock back an hour.

I’m clicking Publish.

Basically, I have one question for you; though it may lead to others. When you see this image, take a moment and try to figure out if it was made by Christians (religious, etc) or by the secular. (non-religious, atheist, etc) I want to see your comment if you can, it’ll be fun, I promise!

Take this cartoon with a grain of salt, it is not mine, I wont reveal exactly where I got it and I have no idea myself where it actually came from or who made it. It’s just something I saw and found it a little thought provoking, one way or another. I have a pretty good idea what the true answer to today’s question is, but let’s take a gander first:

Okay, definitely has some sort of spiritual concentration in here, but the message might be misleading or ambiguous. Wow upper-left post is upper-left. One thing we can probably agree on is narrowing down who the audience is. If this is Christian-made, it should be very apparent that it is for other Christians; and why? It must be reminder that ‘appearances of evil’ aren’t conducive to the Christian life. However, if this is secular based, the audience might be believers, the faithless or both. A secular message to a Christian with a weak faith may falter at thinking it is fruitless because they may seem ineffectual. A secular message to an unbeliever may also see fruitlessness or no differentiation: thus relinquishing spirituality or even morality as an option. Or perhaps there’s some other answer.

Unless anyone has any brighter ideas, I’ll ante up with “It’s made by Christians to encourage and remind other Christians that appearing like the world (compromising) to attract them in is hypocritical.” This thing looks like it’s out of some youth Bible-study publication of some sort. Oh and “Jesus rave” is just terrible.  Any thoughts are welcomed:

*ahem* let me start again

After a nice hike through the park and a wonderful dinner including a Colombini’s sub, I fell to the task of getting back to some homework, not knowing what was to come.

The following day, Sunday, I noticed a little bit of red on my arm. I didn’t think much about it until Sunday night, when I could see what looked like poison something and proceeded to ask for some salve that would relieve the itching.

Monday morning started normally, but with some pretty sore/itchy arms. By that point, it had spread to my other elbow and my hip. Everything seemed to be going fine through the day. There was a bit of itchiness, but a quick dab of lotion or vinegar solved that for a while.

Arm at noon on Monday

After lunch, I made my typical trip to school and sat through all my classes and worked on labs until about 8:30pm. I then came home posthaste to make it in time for 24. During one of the commercial breaks, I asked my mom for some more vinegar or something to put on my arm. It was at that point where she noticed that my arm had swollen up like a balloon and you could see the redness spidering out through the veins. It was at that point that I decided a trip to the ER might be best. After I finished watching 24.

I made it to the ER about 10:30pm, chilled a bit in the waiting room, twittering, IMing, responding to some email. When my number got called, a tech checked me over and he told me to go wait out in the waiting room again. I figured that meant I was going to be given something and then discharged.

Noooo.

I got my own room. I sat there from 11:30 or so until 1am waiting in my room. Wondering if they had forgotten about me, etc. Turns out they didn’t, because the first person to see me was another tech who wanted to know if I had a will, who my emergency contact was, etc. Oh yeah, and how I would be paying for the visit.

Eventually doctors and nurses came in checked it out, explained what probably happened, and prescribed what needed to be done. So I waited another hour before someone else stopped by with pills.. then another 1/2 hour before I was given my prescriptions and then discharged. I didn’t make a big deal about waiting so long and it doesn’t bother me since around me, people were potentially dying and whatnot.

I got out of there about 3:00am and drove home.

That’s my story.. perhaps a bit dramatic, but it was definitely.. not fun. The first time I’ve been in the ER since I broke my nose maybe… 10 years ago– besides taking kids from camp and my “friend” at the time because she decided to do a handstand on her chin on the concrete sidewalk… ^_^

Anyways.. if you could keep me in thoughts and prayers.. I would appreciate it. At times the itching/pain/pins and needles feeling is a bit unbearable..

Another picture?

Arm at 11:30pm Monday, almost at its worst (angled slightly so you can see the oooooze)

I figure- what better time than to have another concept contest? Take a gander at the following vid and see if you can guess what our theme is:

Any guesses? What caught my eye/ear was the line “Everything is better with Bluetooth”.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to:

• come up with a design/concept/idea of an item that would be epic if bluetooth was incorporated into it
• concept must fall within normal zomgee contest rules (nothing crude, obscene, blasphemous, etc)
• concept may be presented in text, picture, video, or a combination of any of the
• concept must be submitted via comment to this post no later than 3/31/09
• shortly thereafter, HT, OhYo, and I will review the entries and pick our favorites
• a prize will be awarded to the winner valued between $10 and $15

Rubric

Get to it!

So yesterday was Monday, I realize that, but I’m only now able to get a wireless connection while we’re here in Orlando. Currently we are making prep to head over to MGM and spend a day of awesomeness there and meet up with Nonalla tonight.

Yesterday, however, we stopped over at Port St. Lucie and visited the beach there.. it really was a blast and by far the best beach I’ve ever visited. The water was quite cold, but after a few splashes, it felt super-warm and the three of us zomgees decided to have fun. In addition to the odd looks we received for being in the water in the first place.. (really, just about everyone there was wearing a sweatshirt) we partook in typical zomgee-ness and … well … you can see for yourself below.

The school that I go to is… odd. Things such as the one-man Karl Marx in modern culture play tend to pop up among the “free-thinkers”. You’ll also find various calls to communism, 57 original flavors of eastern religions, people who walk around in bare feet (yes, bathrooms are frequented by them..), and the largest population of adult males aged 17-24 who don’t shower. Ever.

So I wasn’t exactly surprised when I saw this at school: 

Click for larger

Now, keep in mind that I don’t mean to ostracize anyone in this post. I have several vegan/vegetarian friends who take their eating habits seriously and some of which get sick from eating meat (much in the same way some get sick from dairy).

I am, however, calling out PETA on another load of garbage. I’m going to dissect this flier a little, but first let me direct you to some of their other propoganda.

I’m all for the ethical treatment of animals and even have certain family members that take it upon themselves to go the extra mile and rescue stray and feral cats. Yet even these family members consider PETA to be crazy.

I’ll cite some of the “facts” and quotes mentioned here.

First off, at the top, we see a quote from Paul McCartney about how going Vegan is the single most important thing someone can do. Sorry Sir Paul, but thats fairly low on my list. Saving someone’s life, curing cancer, erasing the national debt, bring character and accountability back into politics are somewhere near the top. I could go on, but you get the point.

Another quote is on the left margin: “(The meat industry) is one of the top two or three [Dan: real precise I see...] most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale from local to global.” Really? With all those vaguisms can anything really be gleaned from that? Any citations? Any speciality in the field of agriculture, conservation, forestry, etc? or are we just getting an “in” celeb to help us make our message seem credible. I don’t really value highly the opinion of a man who sings about living on a yellow submarine.

Ok, so on to the “facts” (I should note that even though “reports” and “researchers” are mentioned, no direct citations are given here).

“…the meat industry is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined.” So what exactly defines the “meat industry”? I’m guessing everything from the animal feed and the process to create it, animal excrement (I lol at that word), animal breathing (WOW look at all that exhaling those cows are doing!), transport, refrigeration, and consumption, right? A bit of an unfair comparison now that cars have to be like ULHZEV (uber leet haxor zero emissions vehicles) for the EPA to even consider allowing them to exist. Oh and yeah.. global warming is real too right?

“Animals raised for food in the U.S. produce 130 times more excrement [Dan: There it is again!] than the entire human population of the U.S.!” (The exclamation mark wasn’t added by me!) So.. cows are bigger than humans, right? And all they do is eat all day. US pop = ~300M. US # of cows alone: ~100M. Do cows poop 3x more than humans? probably. Why does this matter? Oh, wait, and poop is biodegradable too, right? And doesn’t it fertilize soil? Make your homemade tomatos bigger? Make that corn you buy in the summer taller? K.. just wondering.

“More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared for grazing and for growing grain to feed farm animals.” Now.. that grain- does that go to feed humans as well? Does some of that go to fuel our new, shiny ethanol cars? 260M acres is approx 11% of the entire landmass belonging to the U.S., so I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the term “forest” means any sort of land where tree-like vegetation was growing on it as of 1500AD.

“A vegetarian uses only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eater [Dan: Like from Land Before Time!!!] uses more than 4,000.” I absolutely love this statistic, and I can tell you why: Its because we “meat-eaters” take showers every day. You know, that time of day when you wash your hair, clean yourself, make yourself smell better than before… We also wash our clothes too. Also, it seems to me that the world is quite full of water and ways to purify it, so this is just as assinine as saying that since I have big lungs I should be excommunicated for breathing too much air. QQ

The list goes on and on, and, frankly, I’m bored and tired and have a final in a few hours, so I’ll just catch the last one: “Chickens, pigs, turkeys, fish, and cows are intelligent [Dan: SRSly.. I saw a cow solve a Rubiks Cube on youtube], social animals who feel pain, just as humans, dogs, and cats do. More than 27 billion [Dan: WOW thats a lot] animals are mutilated, confined [Dan: Like.. put in a cage?], and killed in horrible ways by the US meat industry every year.” Yes, animals can feel pain. If you flick a cow’s ear, it will moo at you and quite possibly kick you. Yes, they are social- they travel in herds, schools, etc.. but they don’t have PTA meetings, have Friday poker nights, or swim down to a southern state for 8 days of relaxation and gaming. Yes, death is a gruesome thing, but it can be and is done humanely. Animals do not have souls. They don’t have a divine spark or even come close to being on the same level as humans because, frankly, we aren’t animals. All this section does is appeal to the emo side in all of us, and it tends to work.

I don’t hunt. I never have and probably never will. I’m not callous towards the suffering of animals, but lets be realistic here. Humans are designed to eat meat. Those who don’t can have serious problems from a lack of protein. Besides.. meat is yummy.

Even though I missed the majority of the Super Bowl, I did happen to catch the ending (the best part) and a few commercials along the way and thanks to the evil, alien-run empire, I was able to see them all.. A year ago I posted my top 10. This year I’m going to mix it up a little…

Best TV/Movie trailers

Runner up

Winner

Wow <3

Lamest

Fourth Place

William Shatner is always lame.

Third Place

Creepy looking guy who throws like a girl.. lame.

Runner up

I was about as clueless as the kids.

Winner

Sorry guys, you killed the talking baby franchise.

UU Tee chr(146)

Fifth Place

Just. Weird.

Fourth Place

Way to ruin memories…

Third Place

First cowboys, now football players… You are men. Remember that.

Runner up

Can’t. Un. See. X_x

Winner

Alec Baldwin. Duh. This would be in “Lame”, but hulu is pretty awesome.

Funny

Fourth Place

I’m good.

Third Place

Runner up

Get a dog

Winner

I have to admit, I loled during this one

Epic

Fifth Place

And she called him.

Fourth Place

Lego my coko

Third Place

Could have been the winner if it wasn’t too off the wall.. although props for having the real McG

Runner up

LMAO!

Winner

I won’t admit to have ever thought this.

Winner

Here it is.. the best commercial. Slightly less-than-PG, but… yeah.

Props to Vork from “The Guild” for his rather eye-searing role. The Guild is an online sitcom written by Felicia Day, of Dr. Horrible fame.

My plan will start by upgrading any infrastructure concerns we may have. We must keep on top of the WordPress updates that may come out in the future as well as invest in dozens of new plugins. We will, over the next few months, spend resources on reorganizing the site and making sure that everything is easily accessible and readable. We will also spend time and money making sure our servers are as good as they possibly can be. If necessary we will upgrade service plans and switch companies and we will make sure that Zomgee loads as fast as any site out there.

My plan will also focus on the research and development needs of Zomgee. We will pour our dollars into the Mozilla Foundation and we will add a research position a year from now to seek out more knowledge about issues and to create ideas for the future. We will also spend money on various small projects that need not be listed here.

Finally we will seek to tweak our revenue stream by targeting only those readers who do a lot of reading. After All the little-guy readers need not be burdened exceedingly. We will therefore increase the ads for power users and while this will perhaps decrease your enjoyment of the site a bit you have plenty of enjoyment to go around. It will ensure that we spread the load among all our users and allow for more fairness to everyone.

We must create a better tomorrow for Zomgee and we need to start by taking action today. Without this stimulus package we will continue to post less and less and if we’re not carefully we may not even have a Zomgee left in the years to come. Please join me now in supporting what will be a monumental plan to increase posts in the year to come.

Don’t worry about the bad news, you’ll just get ulcers. Instead focus on the good things, like the nice weather we’re all having right now. I mean I’ve got my windows open and my shorts on. I know some people find it a little chilly but hey it’s not that bad. Walk outside at night and it’s a bit cool but otherwise it’s quite comfortable and there’s even a nice breeze right now. All in all when we’ve got nothing else, at least we we can be thankful for the weather. I hope all of you are enjoying it as much as I am because really if you don’t have this nice weather it’d be really easy to get down and depressed about the state of the world.