Just another WordPress site

ESPN’s Page2 has a hilarious list of postseason plans for NFL players.

I’m not usually one to propagate wacky conspiracy theories, but this page listing the “10 Most Startling Speculations and ‘Conspiracy Theories’ About September 11 and America’s New War” is at the very least an interesting read, and at most a startling indictment. To his credit, the author of the page has a disclaimer which I will also throw out there: “Feel free to accept them as gospel, study them as symptoms of a traumatized culture, or scoff at them as anti-American propaganda.” These days, who knows; my guess is a little bit of everything…

First we had the “What would Jesus drive?” campaign against SUVs, and now Ariana Huffington’s Detroit Group is running TV ads alleging that SUV owners are supporting terrorists. “Patterned after the commercials that try to discourage drug use by suggesting that profits from illegal drugs go to terrorists, the new commercials say that money for gas needed for S.U.V.’s goes to terrorists.”

While I once again agree with the goals of the campaign, this is also a bit much. There are many times when I get annoyed thinking about the fact that some people insist on buying expensive, gluttonous Mercedes and Cadillac SUVs that will never leave the pavement as a status symbol rather than for any real utilitarian purpose. And as recently as yesterday I went off on a rant about some people driving as if they own the road when they are in a big SUV or truck. Judging from the response in Metafilter’s discussion area, I’m not the only one. Still, I’m surprised at the audacity of this campaign in today’s hyper-sensitive PC climate. I guess I’m not the only one, as many TV stations are not airing them. I have yet to see any here in my area, although apparently they were aired over the weekend in the D.C. area (as well as New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit) during several news programs.

In case you hadn’t heard, several music companies recently made a settlement in response to a class-action suit alleging price-fixing of music. If you bought any “prerecorded Music Products, consisting of compact discs, cassettes and vinyl albums, from one or more retailers during the period January 1, 1995, through December 22, 2000” then you are eligible to receive from $5 to $20, depending on the amount of people who file claims. Initially I was a little skeptical about this, but after reading this story on Wired.com telling of the surprising lack of respondents I decided to file a claim. If you haven’t done so already, file your claim; you have until March 2nd. The only problem with publicizing this too well is that if enough people respond to drive the settlement per person below $5, all of the money goes to charity. This sounds a little too convenient, although I’ll hold out my hopes for now.

The U.S. Army unveiled the “SmarTruck II,” a protoype vehicle with lots of technological bells and whistles, at the Detroit Auto Show. It really reminded me of something…

Oh yeah, I think I saw one of these while stuck in traffic last weekend. Oh wait, I’m wrong. That was some asshole in a Hummer H2 passing everybody on the right shoulder in the snow. I just have to vent, because the snow this weekend, while beautiful in the way it transformed the landscape, caused all kinds of problems on the roads. There was an eight-car pileup on Route 70 because people in Maryland panic at the first sight of a snowflake, much less a pretty good snowfall. It didn’t take much to cause fender benders all over the area when people on the roads were too oblivious to change the way they drive in the snow. “Uh oh, I’m on a bridge and am sliding a little on the ice. What should I do? I think I’ll slam on my brakes and turn the wheel. Hey, where’d that guard rail come from? Why are all of those cars coming at me all of a sudden? Hey, there’s the other guard rail!” DUH!

I was just too stupid to listen to local traffic reports and got stuck for an hour in that mess. Which is when I saw the asshole somehow decide that he was entitled to make use of the right shoulder AND push his way across three lanes of traffic AND illegally turnaround in the median strip. Did I mention the word “asshole” enough yet? So much for making a family-safe blog…

The trailer is up for Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino’s next film. It looks pretty damn cool…

The Straight Dope Message Board has a fun thread with examples of prose from The Lord Of The Rings if it were written by other authors. Dr. Seuss is pretty funny, as is Tom Clancy :-).

X-Entertainment has a great article on Star Wars figures and the Kenner mail-away offers used to entice Star Wars-addled children such as myself. Although I must sadly admit that I had very few figures, I cherished those that I had and pined for the Millenium Falcon playset. Of course, I can’t find any of them now… 🙁

William Gibson, author of the seminal novel Neuromancer, among others, has started his own blog. For those of you that haven’t read his work, Neuromancer coined the term “cyberspace” and was a totally different kind of science fiction. Along with Neal Stephenson, he’s one of my favorite science fiction writers.

For any Redskins fans wishing for the Good Ol’ Days, NFL.com ran a nice article about Riggo, as well as some of his contemporaries.