Rant

OWS with it

The standard small-town Facebook drama ensued this morning and on a message thread about the local protesters for Occupy Wallstreet, someone posted that they should “End it…the right to assemble does not mean denying the rights of others by blocking bank entrances, over-running parks and just a lot of nonsense…”

Many in Birmingham, AL and other hotbeds of racial inequality protest during the 1960s also felt that the blacks who staged sit-downs at lunch counters and boycotted bus companies were engaged in ‘nonsense’. I’m not an OWS’er, but I know that our Constitution does not offer a “unless it’s inconvenient for others” exception to any of the rights outlined.

I don’t align myself with these protesters, but if I don’t support their right to exercise these rights, then what moral authority will I have in the future when MY rights are endangered?

 
First they came for the OWS protesters
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a hippy.

Then they came for the Tea Party protester
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a crazy person.

Then they came for the smokers-rights protesters
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a smelly cigarette smoker.

Then they came for me
and there was nobody left to speak out.
(apologies to pastor Martin Niemöller for my bowlderization)

Dumb story, Nice, Trolls

On the subject of couples and showers

Pictured: picture. See: picture.

Browsing reddit this morning, I enjoyed this completely accurate picture and had to share my solution.

This is why I built a rain shower.

Out of PVC, I made a rectangular hoop of sorts that I hung from the ceiling.  It had holes drilled in it and a tube going to a diverter valve I put between the normal shower head and my monstrosity.

On a lark, I painted it gold.  They had brass, but I felt it was important to go with gold for reasons that will become clear shortly.

Once calibrated, I had a device that could allow both my wife and I to stay warm in the shower at the same time!  We could spend lots of extra clockcycles in the shower and many good times were had.

A few weeks later, we were at a party and wife was telling some friends about the device I had built.  We were having a nice conversation, then she mentioned that I had painted it to look sort of like brass pipes which was neat.

“Gold”, I corrected, then took a sip of my drink.

“Brass, gold, it’s just spray paint, you get the idea” she responded, making eye contact with her friends and smiling.

“Yeah, but no, they had brass.  I picked gold.”  I cocked my head very slightly, patient.  One of her friends suddenly twitched, then another.

After a moment, one of them asked my wife: “So….  he made you…  a golden shower….?”

I don’t remember much about what happened immediately after that, but all in all, I’d put this in the ‘success’ category.

Dumb, Pictures, Rant

Silliest thing I saw at the post office yesterday, and that’s saying something.

The rationale: Security

An unsigned credit card represents a unique kind of threat to our nation.  Specifically, it’s the kind of unsubstantiated threat that can be resolved by borrowing a pen and signing the back of your card.

When you do this, security flows through the pen through some property of Bic-enabled transubstantiation and onto the card and the entire country upon which the card is sitting (via the counter).  The agent selling postage is now able to compare the signature at the back of the card against the signature on the receipt and verify that it is indeed the same person.

This is just more proof that the Jesus favors the United States above all of the other states out there.

Life's too short to be nice