Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Did you hear something?"
¤ Usage: *cats crash through the room engaged in noisy mortal combat*
Flux: "Did you hear something?"
Malaya: "Nope."
¤ Synonyms: N/A
¤ Notes: This one is a little game Malaya and I play where in one of the cats makes a loud or pathetic noise, and I ask if she heard it, and she says no.  Dusty used to be the cause of this, with his frequently yowling or noisy/clumsy TV-mounting attempts, but now that we have two cats who frequently chase each other around and make a lot of noise doing it, the saying is more all purpose.

Over the months it's become ritualized to the point that any time we hear any loud, interrupting noise, at home or elsewhere, I can say, "Did you..." and she'll immediately reply, "Nope." -- January 14, 2004

About the only thing of note lately is the continuing D2 resurgence around here. Malaya and I played a bit more on Tuesday, and then got in another couple of hours Thursday night.  We've moved my Necro and her Sorc halfway through Act 3 and are still going well.  No one has come anywhere near dying, despite Malaya playing with virtually no thought to resistance and about 50 stat points in reserve at lvl 23.  My Necro is lvl 25 and is still going very cheap, with just one point in everything, and +2 to all from his wand and helm.  I'm mostly saving up to put points into Lower Resistance and Bone Spirit at lvl 30, and counting on that and my minions and my sorcy partner for long term killing power.  I do love nuking away any big mobs with corpse explosion, but the mana cost for that is hurting me with the very minimal +mana gear I now possess.  Spell-casting with a no-twinks char is touch and go at my low level.  I use up a lot of blue pots, but they drop in plenty, and after all, this is v1.10, I can just buy them in the stores if/when I need to.  It just feels so cheesy and Diablo-esque to do so...

I have no idea how far we'll take these chars, but we're having fun so far in our relatively short bursts of play time, so as long as we're having fun, it's a go.

Since I'm in the middle of working on some other stuff, so this will be somewhat shorter than usual today.  Of course these are usually a lot longer than I planned on them being, so I guess that just evens things out.  Here's some news, and below is a longer article about some recent news.

¤ So you get a divorce and your ex-wife still lives in the city, and your son is in her custody.  However you let the kid use your house since he wants to keep going to the same high school, and he comes over in the morning and rides to school with a friend.  Before you go out of town for a week you warn him not to have any parties and think all will be well.  Until the day you're leaving to fly home, you find out that your house has burned to the ground, and once you get home you find out from neighbors that there has been a wild teenager party going on for the entire week, in your nice home that is now ashes.

How did the fire start?  The guy's son set them.

He set three separate fires and torched it with gas," Layne said Tuesday as bulldozers knocked down the charred remains of his house, a loss the insurance company estimated at $380,000 for the house and its contents. "They got him to admit on tape he set the fires."

"I couldn't believe my own son would do this. He showed no remorse at the trial. He just sat there," Layne said. "It's just been a nightmare you just can't wake up from."

Why did the kid burn down his dad's house?  It was all part of his criminal master plan.

...the teen had "parties all week" that resulted in some damage to the house -- holes in a few walls and a kitchen cabinet was scratched -- but nothing that couldn't be repaired.

The fire was so hot -- exceeding 2,000 degrees, fire officials estimated -- that the house's I-beam that supported the house buckled, forcing the entire structure to be razed.

"It's incredible to me. He burned down the house to try to cover it up," Layne said.

This is basically the worst case scenario that runs through a parent's head when they're contemplating leaving their teenager home alone.  And like all worst case scenarios, it actually happens, sometimes.  The worst part?  The kid gets no real punishment.

Layne's nausea returned when he learned his son likely would receive minimal punishment for his admitted crimes.

The teen was convicted Monday when assistant prosecutors reduced the charges against him. They told Layne they expected the teen to receive a "slap on the wrist" and be ordered to receive counseling.

"I thought that they would send him away to a juvenile home until he was 18 or something," Layne said.

Layne likely will end his relationship with his son.

"The sad thing is, we lost my son in this, too. "I felt betrayed and hurt. I never want him on my property again," Layne said.

I like how dad was hoping his little white bread punk child would get his ass kicked and raped in Juvie for 2 years.  It's refreshing to hear from a parent who can realistically view their offspring's actions, and not just overlook everything bad because it's their little bastard doing the bad things. And yeah, I'd think not letting the little shit on your property again would be a good idea.

Pity dad (or the insurance company) can't get a lien on the kid's future salary until he's covered the $330k damage.  True, that would take about 40 years at his future McDonald's salary, and no amount of money would make up for losing everything you own in such a cruel fashion, but it's the principle of the thing that would soothe dad's broken life.

The more interesting news is about the event that they announced the winners at.  There were comedians and musicians and all sorts of stuff, but the big news is that female comedian Margaret Cho did some pretty biting anti-Bush material, and had the most outrageous bits of it excerpted on conservative internet news sites like Drudge Report and Freeperville.

I can't find a good complete transcript anywhere, so for now the best we can do is the partial one on Drudge.

* "Despite all of this stupid bullsh-- that the Republican National Committee, or whatever the f--- they call them, that they were saying that they're all angry about how two of these ads were comparing Bush to Hitler? I mean, out of thousands of submissions, they find two. They're like fu--ing looking for Hitler in a haystack. You know? I mean, George Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he fu--ing applied himself." (big, extended applause) "I mean he just isn't."

* "I think this last year has just proven how stupid Republicans are." (big applause)

* "For example, Judge Roy Moore, or Jay Moore or whatever, in Alabama. [inaudible] ... Ten Commandments statue stay in the lobby of a courthouse. 'You can't move the Word of God! You cannot remove the Franklin Mint edition of the Word of God!' [said in Southern accent] People are protesting there and like, I think it could have been solved so much easier if they had just placed a golden calf next to the statue and then people would have started worshipping that. And then they could have moved the Ten Commandments to Bush's office -- which he needs them, desperately.

Or maybe he needs a new version of the Ten Commandments -- George W. Bush's Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal...votes. (big applause) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's...country. (big applause) Thou shalt not kill...for oil. (big applause) Thou shalt not take grammar...in vain. (big applause) I mean, whatever fu--ing happened to separation of church and state? I mean, you can't like, impose your god on my god. God has many names. God is God, God is Jehovah, God is Allah, God is Buddah, God is Beyonce. (laughter)

You know, you cannot impose your God on other people. And ah, George W. Bush is coming out with the weirdest stance on same-sex marriage as well. What he says about it is, well, 'well, we're all sinners.' No we're not! Just because somebody ate an apple one time does not make us all sinners. And if it was from the tree of knowledge, I think she should have eaten more than one. (laughter) Possibly even baked a pie." (applause) "I don't understand the whole same-sex marriage thing. He was quoted by saying, 'well, you you uh, just gotta take the speck out of your own eye before you take the co-- out of your neighbor's.'" [in Southern accent] (laughter)

I laughed at the golden calf reference, personally.  The Dubya's own 10 commandments were pretty good also, if only she could have gone for the whole 10 of them.

So how are the natives taking her comments? The American Political Journal site has a collection of the more amusing flames Margaret has received since her comments were quoted on conservative sites.  And yes, they (the flames) are about as racist and sexist and unimaginative as you'd expect from the sort of person who would be offended by what she had to say.  Here's a few of them, and you'll note that the profanity has been removed, after the first letter of the word.

From: chris white <tobyrese@msn.com>
To: margaret@margaretcho.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 6:01 PM
Subject: hi

F$@# you you oriental c$%& . you are not even an american. You are soooo stupid. Go f$@# yourself and go back to Asia you slanted eye whore.

 

From: Sam Yates <yatesfam@sigecom.net>
To: margaret@margaretcho.com
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 5:01 PM
Subject: a big fan!

I read a transcript of your remarks about President Bush.

Why don't take your slant-eyed ass back to the orient if you don't like it here, you worthless troll.

 

From: "Mark Hundley" <mark@hundleyphoto.com>
To: <karen@margaretcho.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 3:45 PM
Subject: awsome

What a f$@#in' fat c$%&

 

From: "Tom Smith" <firenexttime@msn.com>
To: <margaret@margaretcho.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 6:33 PM

which way does your p?$$y slant, baby? this is important, since you are certainly quite unfunny.

Quite a persuasive argument they make, isn't it?

I was amused and amazed to see how many insults were based on her race, even to the point of calling her "slant-eyed."  What is this, World War II?  Who the hell says "slant-eyed" anymore? I thought that insult went out decades ago. I mean it's like insulting a black person for having "nappy hair," it's just ridiculous.  One guy did say something about "blindfold you with dental floss" and I had to chuckle at that one, having never heard it before.  Of course Malaya laughed as well before saying that she'd heard it in the past.

There's also the whole, "Go back where you came from." thing that just makes me shake my head. The woman's like a 4th generation American; is racism based on physical appearance still so prevalent in the US?  *sigh*  Malaya has heard that line a few times herself (she's Asian) and her reply is usually, "But I don't want to live in Detroit?"  "Go back where you came from." always seems a singularly idiotic comment to me, but since it's a comment made by idiots, I guess that's appropriate enough.

I'm not surprised by the fact that so many conservative redneck types are ignorant enough of current events to hate what Margaret Cho said, but I am surprised that so many of the flames would go for racist or sexist or fatist comments.  It's childish.  If your only retort to a scathing political attack is to call someone names, you have no right to open your mouth.  It's like saying, "I'm too stupid to take you on factually, so therefore I will imitate an 8 year old."  If your only rebuttal is to curse and ad hominem, you've already lost the argument and should just sit quietly and let your betters decide your fate.

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