Eine Kleine Nachtmaintenance

I've done some fiddling with features, sidebar items and such, so I thought I'd keep you, my loyal, enormous reader base, apprised of the changes.

Most obviously, the blog has a new title. I figured since Charlemagne being my close personal friend was all an extension of my April Fool's post from '08, it was probably time he be retired. I didn't do one of those for this year. Sad. They were always fun to write. Anyway, I was feeling a little Beowulfish, I suppose, and besides, Scyld wæs god cyning. Blog title is subject to change, as it has ever been.

The important poll from "About Me" is now an actual poll. I'm worried some of you won't pass, though. Don't worry, if you practice a good robot dance, maybe you'll only be prosecuted as a human sympathizer.

"Fun on the Internets" has had some changes to better reflect current internet interests.

I ditched my broken last.fm album quilt for a Recent Tracks widget. It's a shame, as it seems to only work intermittently. Hopefully that'll get better; I guess we'll see how long it lasts.

I added a followy thingy, in case any of you want to well... follow me. Anyway, I'll probably be looking over my shoulder a lot more often, ducking in and out of doorways and alleys when I walk down the street, that sort of thing. Seriously, WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME!?

Ahem. Well. That about covers it, I guess. I'd try to give you an idea of what's upcoming here, if I had any sort of idea myself. Time and inspiration rarely strike together these days, it would seem. Hopefully that'll happen a bit more often, but I make no promises. I'd like to get back to writing some fiction, give some reading updates, talk about music, complain about current events, but there are only 24 hours in a day, and somehow my life manages to be somewhat full. As blogger seems to have added a lot of functionality that I had missed, please let me know if there's something else you'd like to see. Be careful out there, friends. You never know who might be following you!

Multi-Facial

"Ladies and Gentlemen! I would like to present an intriguing, thoughtful, and well-written short film* starring one of the most talented actors of our time, V- wait, what? Him? Really... you're sure? Okay, if you say so... As I was saying! One of the most talented actors of our time, Vin Diesel!"


*We ask that you disregard the terrible rapping.

Seriously... it appears that Mr. Diesel did his best work before anyone had ever heard of him and he had made any money to speak of. It's rather hard to believe that the gentleman we just watched is responsible for such diverse and complex characters as Riddick from The Chronicles of Riddick, Dom from The Fast and the Furious, and Xander from XXX. I mean, I liked Pitch Black as much as the next guy, but I'll take Mike from "Multi-Facial" over the others any day.

Silly Mizzou!

My apologies, everyone. It has come to my attention that my previous post was chock full of punctuation errors, due largely to my terrible, terrible formatting. Oh well. If I were not being lazy right now, I'd go back and fix it. Now, on to other business.

Last month, the Missouri Information Analysis Center released a report on how to identify domestic terrorists involved in militia movements. The report contained a controversial passage that stated that such people usually identify with third party political candidates, and mentioned Libertarian Bob Barr, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, and Republican Ron Paul.

Obviously, many libertarian-minded people took offense with being lumped in with the Tim McVeighs of the world. The whole thing caused a bit of an uproar among conservative commentators, and after pressure from the public and Missouri state officials, the report was recently retracted, with apologies issued to the candidates mentioned.

I mention this, obviously, for its ridiculousness and for the fact that I'm a little insulted (only a little though). I also mention it for the fact that a staff member of the Campaign for Liberty, the organization that grew out of the Ron Paul campaign, was recently detained at security checkpoint for carrying a large amount of cash. He had the cash because he was returning from an event they had where merchandise was sold and donations were accepted. They wanted to know why he had the cash, and he was reluctant to tell them. The key to all this is that he was flying out of St. Louis, MISSOURI. The great thing is that the sly little fellow covertly recorded the entire confrontation with his cell phone.

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

Honestly, I don't think any of them handled the situation all that well. I can understand Mr. Bierfeldt's hesitation to reveal his employment, and I can understand the cops' frustration with the situation, but seriously, you've got to let people know their rights. This reminds me of Alex's traffic stop. But that's a story for another day, from somebody else!

Seriously though, Missouri:
...and, I just checked, still not a terrorist!