Is this site still up?

How about that? I didn't even realize that I didn't shut this page down. Maybe I will start posting again. I still have opinions. I like to talk about things I like. I do need to practice some writing skills at least until the robots decide to remove our hands.

THAT: Mars is the Only Known Planet Inhabited Solely by ...

THAT: Mars is the Only Known Planet Inhabited Solely by ...

What is Desert Bus for Hope?

It's that time of year again where I talk way too much about Desert Bus for Hope and ask all of you to watch and donate to their worthy cause. Starting Saturday and continuing throughout next week the crew of LoadingReadyRun, their friends, family, and random strangers abducted from the streets of a moderately sized Canadian city will be playing the worst video game ever made (Desert Bus) while holding auctions, giving away amazing prizes ,singing, dancing, wearing hats, telling jokes, and whatever else they can think of to entertain and keep themselves awake.

Please visit https://desertbus.org/ to read more about the event and tune in and watch their shenanigans.

There will also be a Desert Bus Pre-Show on Friday night featuring The Doubleclicks and Molly Lewis performing live music and other surprises.

Help make this the biggest year yet as they raise money for Child's Play.

Why the US needs to read a book or why MTV owes Syria an apology.

I think I have figured out who is responsible for this whole Syria problem (well…maybe not the whole problem, but the problem with the people of the United States arguing over what should be done about it). Reality Television. Yep folks. By inventing a cheap alternative for networks to fill their time we no longer have educational programming filling the airwaves.

I understand that citizens of the United States don’t want to go to war in a place that seemingly has no importance to us here at home. I understand that the world doesn't want the United States to just go around playing the world’s police. Unfortunately both viewpoints are not valid anymore.

I know that the words Police Action have been used many times to make War seem less offensive. Unfortunately this has also made the terms now interchangeable. When the fighting in Syria was just fighting then it really was their affair. But then outside influence was brought in on both sides of the argument. Now it’s a regional/global affair. That reason should not be enough for the United States to walk in and shut everything down. The reason that is big enough and that the world should be behind is that the world decided almost 100 years ago that using gas in war was inexcusable.  It doesn't matter if it is a civil war or a multinational conflagration. If those responsible for using gas as a weapon are not brought to justice then the fear of using it as a weapon will diminish.

I don’t think that the general public has a good idea of what we are talking about when Gas is mentioned. This is not the Tear Gas that we see used on protesters. (Although when it is used everyone seems to freak out and demand that police officers should be tried for war crimes.) Tear Gas is designed as a “Less Than Lethal” tool for crowd control. It makes your eyes hurt and water so you can’t see. It makes irritates your lungs so you don’t have the energy to keep doing what you were doing. It irritates the skin to add to both of those other problems. Tear Gas is a fast acting irritant that does its job and generally leaves your system quickly and without lasting harm. When we look at Syria we are talking about gasses like Mustard or Sarin.  Mustard Gas causes severe skin, eye, and lung damage. It is slow acting so it can take a day for symptoms to fully appear. It can cause your lungs to bleed, your eyes to swell shut, blisters to form on any contacted skin. It will spread to others through contact with contaminated clothes. It is not used to control a crowd, it is used to kill slowly and painfully and keep your enemy from being able to fight because they have to help the fallen. Sarin is worse yet because there is little hope of surviving. It attacks the nervous system and makes your body turn on itself. It causes muscles that you need to breath to spasm suffocating you. It causes total loss of bodily control so that you vomit, urinate, defecate, and a number of other things that make your last moments on earth an agonizing experience.  This is the kind of thing that the human race has decided is not allowed to be done to people.

This is where I feel that Reality Television is at fault. Before channels like Discovery, History, and TLC got on board the Reality Train, they would have been making shows that informed people of what these gases were, why they should never be used, and what happens if people are not stopped. They would have also been showing the world why different people is different countries are important to all of us. Now we only seem to care about if some random rich person is mad at another for some perceived slight against them. We must know if the drama of the week will close down some small business in the middle of the country or if they will get to take some time off to go to an award show to give a musician an award.

I hate to say this but it’s looking like the crazy housewives that thought that MTV would ruin their children might have been on to something.  Their children didn't die in some Satanic Cult, but now they have to watch that Honey Boo Boo instead of asking why it’s taken weeks to get the discussion started on why we should or shouldn't care about some small country on the other side of the world.

I don’t care if you like the President or not. This should not be a political decision. This should be about taking a stand with the rest of the world to say that using chemical weapons is wrong. Should the UN be handling this? Yes. Yes they should. The UN doesn't have an army. They can only try to make people talk. When talking fails then it comes down to the countries of the world to step up and do what is right. The United States has been there helping the world for a very long time. Even before we were a super power. When our country was still young we sent ships out to fight piracy. I’m not just talking about trying to track down people with names like Blackbeard or Captain Jack Sparrow. I’m talking about people that would attack trading vessels and kill or enslave their crews far away from our shores. We had to make people think twice before attacking Americans. It made us safe and prosperous. I admit that with that prosperity we gained a lot of ego and tried to control the world. Some things we did were good, some were just expedient and a lot of those things went bad.

While I’d love to discuss the many ways this political mess is one sides fault or the other, it just frankly doesn't matter. This is about standing up against Chemical Weapons. I would love it if we could just walk in and confiscate the weapons and leave, but that can’t happen. The people of the United States don’t want their soldiers doing that. They have decided that if we are going to risk something, let’s send a robot. Our current robots are only good at blowing things up and making cocktails and Toyotas. So we can either get the entire country drunk enough so they walk the weapons out to us or we have to blow things up. Most of Syria doesn't drink. Maybe they should. I’m sure they would love to meet one of our bartender robots and tell them their problems.

And with that bit of rambling I am going to call an end to today’s discussion. In conclusion, we need to either stop making Reality TV, or weaponize it and rain DVDs down on war zones to get people to quietly sit on their couches to wonder if they could give it all up to drive a truck in Alaska. 

That One Thing

Every day, as you go through your life, you come across things that make you happy, sad, angry, confused, or any number of other feelings. And then there is that one thing that just blindsides you. It stops your train of thought. It can stop you from moving on for a while. Sometimes its amazing like a joke that just is way to funny to you. It can take a long time to get back on pace after that. Other times its that car accident that almost happens. You have to stop what you are doing and process what almost happened. How it would have changed everything. The pain. The loss. And sometimes its something that just makes you angry. Some slight disrespect, or something not working the way it always does or should, or maybe even some plan you had getting derailed. Anything can be that little thing that upsets your day and just causes you to have to stop.

 How you deal with that one thing, that one little insignificant thing, is what your life balances on.  There is no easy answer because there never is.

And with that out of my head, and after I bang my head against the wall for another few minutes, I can get back to my day and try to make the best of it.

Ya see what I am doing there?

In honor of all of the new wonderful comments I am receiving from you, my loyal readers, I give you Monty Python's Spam Sketch.

Customer:
Morning,

Waitress:
Morning.

Customer:
What have you got?

Waitress:
Well, there's egg and bacon,
egg sausage and bacon
Egg and spam
Egg, bacon and spam
Egg, bacon, sausage and spam
Spam, bacon, sausage and spam
Spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam
Spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam tomato and spam
Spam, spam, spam, egg and spam
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam.

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely Spam! Lovely Spam!)

Or Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce
served in a provencale manner with shallots and aubergines
garnished with truffle pate, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam.

Wife:
Have you got anything without spam?

Waitress:
Well, the spam, eggs, sausage and spam
That's not got much spam in it

Wife:
I don't want any spam!

Customer:
Why can't she have eggs, bacon, spam and sausage?

Wife:
That's got spam in it!

Customer:
Hasn't got much spam in it as spam, eggs, sausage and spam has it?

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam!...)

Wife:
Could you do me eggs, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam, then?

Waitress:
Iiiiiiiiiiiich!!

Wife:
What do you mean 'Iiiiiiiiiich'? I don't like spam!

(Choir: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)

Waitress (to choir):
Shut up!

(Choir: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)

Waitress:
Shut Up! Bloody Vikings!
You can't have egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam.

Wife:
I don't like spam!

Customer:
Shush dear, don't have a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it,
I'm having spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans,
spam, spam, spam, and spam!

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)

Waitress:
Shut Up!! Baked beans are off.

Customer:
Well, could I have her spam instead of the baked beans then?

Waitress:
You mean spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam,
spam and spam?

Choir (intervening):
Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam.
Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!
Spam spam spam spam!

I can't wait to see what they inspire me to write about next.  And if you are a real person reading my blog, leave a comment about the best spam you have received, or just say hi. I'd love to hear from you.

Disney buys LucasFilm: My Initial Opinion

Everyone has been asking my opinion on Disney buying LucasFilm and making more Star Wars movies. (At least 2 people. I know. Crazy.)  I realize I have been opinionated about this in the past, but now I am hesitant to say much.

Disney can restore Star Wars to the beloved series that it is if:

1. Cut CGI by 90%. Make sets. Use Models. Use actors. Even use puppets. The magical quality of the original movies was that everything looked real because it was. 
2. Make the Thrawn Trilogy into the next movies (please lock the ideas George has been retooling for years in a box and place it under the next theme park). 
3. Stop making toy designs first. Make a quality movie and the toys will sell themselves for years. Otherwise you have to keep making new content just to sell a toy that will only sell for a few months.

This could be the best thing ever for Star Wars or the  final nail in the coffin. Either way I will be happy. I will get quality content or I will be able to finally forget the entire series.

Chocolate

Back in July Kira and I participated in a Chocolate Walking Tour of San Francisco. I have always thought of San Francisco as a Seafood Town and had considered places like Hershey, PA to be Chocolate Towns. I didn't have any idea of what we were going to see or do, but thought that a walk around San Francisco would be fun and if they happened to have chocolate then it would be a lot of fun.  It was a whirlwind of chocolate history (and tastings) from around the world. San Francisco seems to have every kind of chocolate imaginable within a few short blocks.

The first stop on the tour was a place called Scharffen Berger. They gave us a quick education about their company and products and then out came the tasting samples. Wow. I wasn't tasting chocolate. There were berries and flowers and other unrecognizable tastes happening. I was amazed. I was hooked. Over the next few hours I experienced more of the same. My life was changed in a very good way.

Fast forward several months to today. I have tried chocolate from all over the world now. (Thank you to Fog City News and their wonderful selection of bars.) Some have been great. Some only enjoyable. Recently I came across a new bar from the company that started me on this adventure. A limited edition bar called Markham Valley. This chocolate made from beans grown in Papua New Guinea is excellent. A great chocolate flavor with wonderfully subtle fruit flavors that just make it probably the best chocolate I have ever had. Seek this one out while they still have some.

It's April

When did April get here? Wow. Well I have finally decided to fix the URL for my blog so you are now looking at the New and Improved Bizarre Ramblings of a Fool blog. It surprisingly looks exactly like the old blog and it probably will continue to look like that.

I do hope to have some new posts soon as I will soon be flying to the East Coast to take in the sights and sounds of New York City and Washington DC.

Desert Bus for Hope 4

How far will a people go to raise money for sick kids? If those people are the world renowned LoadingReadyRun comedy troupe, that distance is from Las Vegas to Tucson and back until people stop paying them.

Please stop by their website http://desertbus.org and make a donation to a good cause.

GAMING FOR THE GREATER GOOD

Desert Bus 4 Drives Forward to raise money for BC Children’s Hospitals

Victoria, BC, Canada – November 15, 2010

On November 19th, the fourth annual Desert Bus for Hope charity video game marathon will roll out – bigger and better than ever before. Last year’s marathon collected more than $140,000 over six days, and all proceeds were donated to Child’s Play, a charity that donates over a million dollars to Children’s Hospitals worldwide every year, including Vancouver Children’s Hospital and Victoria General Hospital’s Pediatrics Ward.

Desert Bus for Hope is a video-gaming marathon broadcast live on the internet by LoadingReadyRun, a sketch comedy group from Victoria, BC. In the Sega CD game “Desert Bus”, the player controls a virtual bus that drives an eight-hour-long strip of highway between Tucson, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, on an endless loop. The game is a “verisimulator”—a tongue-in-cheek parody of other simulation games—which attempts to approximate the real-life situation of driving a coach bus as closely as possible, including the associated tedium. The player is required only to ensure that the bus stays on the road: if they crash, they are towed back to the start and have to try again. Originally part of “Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors”, Desert Bus is considered by many to be the most boring video game ever created.

Viewers are asked to donate money via the desertbus.org website, and as the dollar total rises, so does the length of time the team must continue driving the bus. According to Paul Saunders, one of the founding members of LoadingReadyRun, “The mixture of generosity and spite is a really powerful thing.” Viewers are encouraged to participate by e-mail or by live internet chat, where they can ask questions of the crew, make requests, bid on donated prizes and become an active participant. To view the telethon, donate money, or find more information, please visit www.desertbus.org.

LoadingReadyRun is an online sketch-comedy group based out of Victoria, BC. They produce a new short film every week, which can be viewed on their website, www.loadingreadyrun.com.

For more information or for interviews, please contact:

Kathleen De Vere, Event Coordinator
Desert Bus for Hope
250.589.8208
Kathleen@loadingreadyrun.com | media@desertbus.org ###

Fantasy Football Week 10

Its been a while since I posted my first blog about Fantasy Football. In the first 10 weeks of the season I seem to have figured out something. I am 9-1 so far. Its been interesting and I have definitely watched more football this year than I have since I worked at Radio Shack and had the games on every weekend.

I highly recommend getting into some kind of Fantasy Football League with friends. Even if you don't have a lot of knowledge of football its a great way to learn more.

Fantasy Football

Some of my friends over at the Audiobuzzed Podcast have had a Fantasy Football League for a couple years and this year I have joined them. While I may have participated in a few football pools in the past (to amazing failure) I have never participated in a Fantasy Football League before. I have never been someone that pays much attention to statistics in football. Every time I would try to use the numbers to predict the winner of a game it never worked out. I did far better either picking alphabetically or based on the match-up of the mascots.

I'm actually excited about football season this year now. When I was a kid I loved to watch the 49er's play every week. It was the height of the Joe Montana years and the start of the Steve Young years. How could you not love to watch the amazing action? But then with coaches retiring, quitting, or getting fired every few years and the whole question of ownership of the team happening, the team went in to a deep downward spiral. They soon could not win. Random street gangs would tease the players and play keep away with the team ball. Sad times had fallen on San Francisco and I just lost interest. I'd still watch a game every now and again. When I got an HDTV I watched a lot more football because it was so cool to be able to see blades of grass on the field.

I'm excited to see how this season goes now. Since I have players from so many teams I think I will be watching a lot of football just to see how they do. Do I need to bench a player? Do I have any players on my team that I think might be terrorist sleeper agents? When exactly do dragons, orcs, gnomes, and elves come into this? So far its a lot more Football than Fantasy.

Well if you have any tips for what I should watch out for, let me know. I need to go read these scouting reports on my players. Wow, this guy pays way too much for his cell phone, but his girlfriend is cute. I wonder what the wife thinks about her.

{Originally posted to bizarreramblings.wordpress.com on September 7, 2010}

Webcomic Roundup

I have always been a big fan of comics. Not comic books, but those little strips in the newspaper. Our local paper did not have any comics though. I would have to wait until I went to my grandparent's or my friend's house in other towns so I could dig though their old stacks of newspapers to dig out any comics I could find. They were magical to me. I would read them over and over.

A few years ago (ok, many years ago now) I found that people were posting their own comics online. Some looked very amateurish. Some were funny. Some artistic. Some vulgar. Some were all three. It was a new world. The standard newspaper comics seemed tame and boring.

To this day webcomics (as these online comics are known) have become an important part of my daily reading. Here are a few of my favorites:

Questionable Content

The Devil's Panties

Punch an' Pie

Girls with Slingshots

Something Positive

xkcd

Count Your Sheep

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Let me know what you think and let me know if you have any favorites.

{Originally posted to http://bizarreramblings.wordpress.com on August 17, 2010}

formspring.me

What would you fly across the country for? teehee

Well while I would fly just to fly, I am going to say I would fly across the country for love, adventure, intrigue, comedy, food, if it were a Tuesday, to find something, to lose something, and (finally) to learn.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

What's the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?

I had been laid off from Radio Shack and I got a call from a friend that I had helped with different projects, both radio & computer related. He gave me a phone number. He had arranged for an interview with a company to become a computer technician. It was the best thing that could have happened to me professionally and one of the biggest pushes forward in my life.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

Tacos or 5 dollar foot longs?

Usually I will go with the sandwich. I am fairly (extremely) picky when it comes to Mexican food. I don't enjoy a hard taco shell or refried beans. I love spicy meat, cheese, and a flour tortilla.

Sandwiches are magical though. Each one is as different as a snowflake. And they have three of my favorite things if made right; meat, cheese, & mayo. (Also I am a fan of pickles but am not entirely sure why.)

Ask me anything

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/mikesmith916

formspring.me

What would your perfect day look like?

I have had great parts of a day. I have even had more than one great part of a day in one day. But I can't say I have had a perfect day. I guess it would have to be fairly warm but not too hot. Slight breeze enough to keep cool without your hair getting mussed. And then I would have to be doing some activity with friends. Could be anything. Trivia games, miniature golf, regular sized golf, camping, hiking, museums, movies, working on a project, I guess pretty much anything.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

Are you more of a talker or more of a listener?

Definitely a listener. I really do find peoples lives fascinating. So please, talk away.

Ask me anything

Formspring.me

I've seen several people start using Formspring.me to have people ask them questions. So in an attempt to write more, I have signed up and even added a way to ask me questions right there on the side of my blog.