Yep, that's what I thought would happen

Turned off CAPTCHA yesterday because it pisses me off to no end (oh how I hate thee!  Begone from the world, blurry and random letters!) and today got my first real spam in a looooong time, a bunch of links all in Cyrillic, which when I run through Google Translator, apparently are advertizing "women's bright colored motorcycle boots." 

For a company that does so many cool things, google sure is getting on my bad side awful quick...

Added:  Hilariously enough, right after I first wrote this, I got another spam... on this post.   Fail, Fail, FAIL.  And let me just point out again, in the past couple hours, the amount of spam I've gotten over the course of 2 years of blogging has doubled.  Is the hatred of CAPTCHA worth it? 

WARNING. WARNING.

Weather Conditions: Alternating Wet and Icy
Traffic Conditions: Pickup Pinball
Faith in Humanity: Previously Unheard of Lows at Level -11 (i.e. one more than -10)

And yet, when I pulled off the interstate to the red light, I came in right behind the people who had passed me. Going 85mph only gets you something if you are going cross country, in all other cases your lead will be negated at the first signs of real traffic (or when you peel off sideways into a guardrail).

Caucuses Today

Boy, I sure hope [insert_team_name_here] wins!

(wait, didn't I do a post just like that on Sunday?)

Seriously, I couldn't care less. The whole spectacle is such a farce. I predict Tutti Romneycare is gonna win, with a full 10% of R-rated voters turning out at the polls.

The best thing that will come of this is that the endless robocalls slamming Newt will stop, at least for a little while. November can't get here soon enough...

Drat

My stock that's supposedly on order, that was supposedly going to be in stock as of yesterday, is now supposedly going to be in stock in a week and a half. 

Why do they bother estimating a date when it apparently has nothing to do with reality?

Wheeee...

So now in addition to HEC-RAS, I'm installing ArcGIS and HEC-GeoRAS. Because if ever there was a program cobbled together from decades of DOS command lines even more than HEC-RAS, it would be ArcGIS... should be fun...

While I'm at it

Since it seems that most of the driving population of the United States has a problem telling under what conditions you need your headlights, rather than give you some sort of list that you will forget here's a helpful hint to keep you safe, and more importantly, to keep me from dying screaming in a fire with you:

Just. Turn. On. Your. Headlights.

Since it is too hard for you to remember that you ought to turn them on in fog, just turn on your headlights when you get in the car.  Since it is apparently too hard for you to remember that you ought to turn on your headlights when the sun isn't up yet, just turn on your headlights when you get in the car.  Since it is too hard for you to remember to turn on your headlights when you are driving a little grey car in the twilight, just turn on your headlights when you get in the car.  One rule.  Keep it simple.  Turn on your headlights.  Broad daylight and it hasn't rained in a month?  TURN ON YOUR HEADLIGHTS.

With any luck you'll forget to turn them off and your battery will be dead, keeping your apparently too-dumb-to-breathe body off the road.

I don't care.

So apparently there's another group of crazy idiots who are going to boycott some coffee shop on valentines day, or thereabouts.  And there's some sort of counter movement going on in the gunblogs that will inevitably dwarf whatever feeble effort the three (or is it 14 million? Those anti-rights cultists can never seem to count...) people in Sheboygan paying attention to the National Counsel of Gun... Violence... Appreciation... Councilors (or whatever their flavor of the month is--good golly but those anti-rights cultists come up with some duuuh-uuuhmb names) twitter feed. 

I'm getting tired of this stuff.  I don't like coffee.  I don't like the chi-chi hipster atmosphere of coffee shops.  I don't even like the overpriced pastries they sell. In fact, it could be said that my entire life has been one long boycott of Starbucks et al.  I hate to say (write, whatever) this out loud, but I Don't Care.  Let it be put on the record that while I believe that this is a good cause, I also believe that no one is listening to the anti-gun groups, and so this is just an excuse to buy coffee. 

And I'd rather spend my money on ammo.  Harumph.

Sigh, and sigh again.

So came out of work yesterday to be greeted by a very flat tire:

So, got the spare on, went by the tire store to hear the professional opinion... it was too far gone to save, the sidewall had torn. I'd known that the tires on the truck were going to be needing replacement soon, the tread was getting down there, so I just had her give me a quote.

$826.24 later (over a hundred dollars of which was taxes and fees, thanks fed.gov!), I got to walk out the door of the tire place with brand spankin' new rubber.  Yokohama Geolandar ATS--reading reviews you get a nice even spread of people praising and complaining about the very same things (They wear great! They wear worst of everything! Great traction in wet conditions! Worse than slicks in wet conditions!).  Averaging things out, I figure they're decent all around tires.  I will say that they ride noticeably smoother than the old tires.

So yeah, spent the equivalent of a nice new entry level AR-15 yesterday on molded rubber.  How was your day?

Thoughts for the afternoon

Listen, buddy, it's not my fault you don't know how to use your cruise control. And lady, I know being an illiterate adult you won't read this message, but... surely someone explained to you at some point what those red octagons they put up at street corners are?

Oh dear

I was somewhat looking forward to seeing Red Tails when it comes out (about the Tuskegee Airmen in WWII), but I saw a trailer for it on the TV yesterday that had a Dubstep soundtrack.

Look, I like dubstep as much as the next guy, but there is a line that was crossed there.  I'm not saying my entire collection of hopes and dreams was shattered, but it was dented a bit.

Excremental Driving Skills

Not sure if excremental is a real word or not, but I think it is accurate.

Another few feet and they would have come through the front window.  Apparently this semi-sentient excuse for humanity doesn't know the rule "SLOW THE HELL DOWN WHEN YOU ARE GOING AROUND CORNERS ON ICY ROADS!"  With the corollary, "ESPECIALLY IF IT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE!"  Hopefully they do now.

I want to know what it would take to put in a concrete barrier right there.  Maybe one with embedded tungsten-steel spikes for that extra "I love you, too."

Slip Slidin' Your Life Away

So yeah, it snowed last night, enough to to stick, and I had to choose between driving to work on the interstate, which involved higher velocities than through town, or the town way, which was slower but would have more traffic, stopping and going, and potential for sliding into others. Chose interstate, and got here ok, despite the best efforts of all those people who just don't get what black ice is. Saw several people on the side of the road, backwards and/or bent, looking perplexed at their vehicles, as if to say "What, you mean my mother was WRONG when she told me that I was a good, rational human being?"

Here's some hints: If you can see the reflection of the headlights on the road though the skiffs of snow, that means THERE IS ICE. If you can feel your car shimmy and shake a little bit, not only is there ice, but YOU ARE GOING TOO FAST. And for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, please, PLEASE turn on your headlights. Believe me, not only is your life, as idiotic as it is, worth the $10 to replace a headlight bulb if you are worried about burning one out, but MY LIFE IS WORTH IT TOO. I know I've said it before, but here it is again: "I don't care if your goal in life is to die screaming in a fire, as long as you don't take me with you."

Virtual Shackles

This.

So, from all of the Youtube videos I've posted, I'm pretty much hosed.

What She Said

I know you probably already read Tam, but really, I have to link to this.

If there is one thing that I just don't get these days, it is how a handful of millionaire quasi-aristocrats and their hangers-on have such an influence over little ol' me in flyover land. Why does the entire country have to hang in the balance over some random decision involving two groups of people who are worse negotiators than kindergarteners? And why do we all seem to think that if "our guy" gets in, he will fix everything? I mean, it's not like you can go ALL THE WAY BACK TO OUR OWN STUPID FOUNDING FATHERS to see where that gets you...

Feh. 

I know this is slightly old news

But it has been stuck in my head and I wanted to get it out.

Were you aware that a bill was proposed that was supposed to be for limiting regulations?

While I find the intent of the bill admirable, I just want to let that sink in for a second.

They were trying to pass a RULE to make it so there were LESS RULES.

Aye-ye-ye...

Crap.

Now they've changed the Youtube interface as well. 

CURSE YOU GOOGLE AND YOUR INFERNAL MEDDLING! KILL IT WITH FIRE!



I'm going to have to start clicking on the "Report a bug" button on the bottom of all the pages and just say "google".

I shouldn't have done that

Went to Gallery of Guns and found that they're having a deal on the Bushmaster ORC 308. I could get one within a week for just under 800 bucks. It doesn't have all the trimmings that I think I would like (you know, like SIGHTS?), but for that price you would have lots of leftover moolah to start in on the accessories. And you'd have the rifle--the price of which is only going to go up.

How much do I have stashed in my fun fund, again?

This one goes out to doubletrouble

He said, and I quote: "It's inevitable. Once you get a cat, the cat-blogging commences. It's a rule, I believe."

So here you go:

Fractal the cat, in daylight. He had his whack of shots and is starting to act much more animated. Though the vet said that he's 5 months old yet only weights 2.5 pounds. So he'll probably be a little cat when he grows up.

Happy Caturday, dammit.

Whatever you do, don't go reading the news

So I just clicked over to Google News to see if there was anything interesting happening.

Hell in a handbasket.

And here I was thinking that it was a pretty good day so far.  I'm sure there's something good going on somewhere, but there is certainly a large volume of suckiness, too. "If it bleeds it leads." 

May have to bump up my saving schedule for that battle rifle...

Typical Government Effectiveness: an Analogy

So at work I've been using a free program made by the Army Corps of Engineers, a super-duper double-effective government bureaucracy if ever there was one.  This program, called HECRAS, is sort of a standard in the industry,  apparently, used for analyzing river hydraulics.

Let me just say that this program is the perfect representation of our government.  It works, marginally, at what it was designed for, but is so incredibly frustrating for a person to work with that you often want to throw your computer across the room.  The provided documentation is extensive, yet hard to understand, and seems to leave out a few key points for basic functions.  The user interface leaves something to be desired, and, the best indicator of all that this program was designed by a government bureaucracy, THERE IS NO UNDO BUTTON.

Who else would  make a computer program that deals with hundreds of cross sections, each of which having hundreds of points, where if you screw up and delete the wrong point you can't undo it?  Only something that has never met an agency it couldn't grow, and doesn't know the meaning of the word "cutback".