Holy Shit!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

What’s the opposite of chosen?

Holy Shit!Unmitigated Gall

The Palestinians, infamously, are a people that bad things happen to.  Whether from the perfidy of others (Jews), natural causes (Jews) or their own tragic flaws (planted there by Jews) calamity seems to stalk the Palestinian people like some loathsome stalking thing.  Latest in a long line of humiliations and embarrassments is this: “Five dead in Gaza ‘sewage tsunami’”.  Many people get hit by tsunamis.  But only the Palestinians would get hit by a sewage tsunami.

[Wik] I am truly sorry for those who perished, and for their families.  But I can’t help seeing this as one admittedly noisome piece of a larger picture.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/27/07 at 06:09 PM
Holy Shit! • Unmitigated Gall • Permalink

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Pointless, yet remarkable

Darwin Award ContenderHoly Shit!

So this guy visited 21 states in one day, in his car.  He drove 1706 miles in one day.  Technically, that’s cheating a bit - he did his trip on the third Sunday in October, which gave him an extra hour with the time change, and he ended his trip in another time zone, to the west, which gave him yet another hour.  Still, an impressive achievement for any day, even one that has 26 hours in it.  Just counting the first 24 hours, he drove 1571 miles.  I had thought that my single day driving record of 1288 miles was good, and he’s got me beat by almost 300 miles.

It would be pretty hard to top that record – perhaps you could edge him a bit on miles, but I find it hard to imagine how you could squeeze in any more states.  I think I might be playing with googlemaps a little, later on…

[Wik] He also did all fifty states in a week’s vacation.  This isn’t as good as the Mongolian trip that Sortapundit was talking about before he sold out and started writing ads on his blog, but quite an adventure.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/14/07 at 08:05 PM
Darwin Award Contender • Holy Shit! • Permalink

Ministry Public Announcement

Holy Shit!Perfidy

The Ministry has become belatedly aware that it has been in operation for just a smidge over four years.  It is the tradition among “bloggers” to celebrate annually the day when their blog took its first tremulous steps into the internets.  The Ministry is no slouch in the tradition department, maintaining in its mountain retreats, coastal fortresses (and indeed in Texan swamps) a wide variety of traditions.  Most of these are not fit for publication, and are the subject of terrified whispers amongst our various neighbors.

Therefore, let it be known that two days ago, the 11th of March in the year of our lord Two Thousand and Seven, was the fourth blogoversary of the Ministry of Minor Perfidy.  Here, in all its profound and numinous glory, is our first post, entitled, ”First Post.” Take stroll through our early work, you will find that we quickly settled into our pattern of random political commentary surrounded by ephemera and silliness. 


Posted by Ministry on 03/14/07 at 04:58 PM
Holy Shit! • Perfidy • Permalink

Monday, March 12, 2007

I for one would like to be the first to welcome our new cow overlords

Holy Shit!

This cow and this cow should not be allowed to meet and breed.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/12/07 at 05:56 PM
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Sunday, March 11, 2007

Well, how about that?

Holy Shit!

You may think that there is no connection between Apple’s OS X operating system and German armored vehicles.  You would be wrong.  I knew there had to be a real reason I wanted a Mac, and not just effete aesthetics.


Posted by Buckethead on 03/11/07 at 05:31 PM
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

A Fine Place for a Rebel Base

Holy Shit!It'll Be a Cold Day in Hell

Researchers atop Mount Washington, New Hampshire’s answer to a Dantean vision of frozen Hel (except with a mountain in the middle instead of a giant winged Satan devouring classical villains), discovered that boiling water instantly freezes up there.  Dig it.

I expect they will soon also discover that tauntauns don’t only smell bad on the outside.


Posted by GeekLethal on 03/06/07 at 05:20 PM
Holy Shit! • It'll Be a Cold Day in Hell • Permalink

Sunday, February 18, 2007

The Strange Rituals of my People

Holy Shit!

In all my life, in nearly thirty years of NASCAR fandom (albeit casual), I have never before seen someone finish a race upside down and on fire.

[Wik] For those of you who might be less than fully up to speed on the intricacies of stock car racing, please consult this handy primer on the subject from QandO.

[Alsø wik] And because I think it’s funny, here’s a good recap of the race from the New York Times, including a great shot of the thrillingly close finish.


Posted by Johno on 02/18/07 at 10:04 PM
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Friday, February 09, 2007

The four most unsettling words I’ve ever heard

Holy Shit!

"I heard the heartbeat.”

Yep, my forthcoming son and/or daughter is now, inelecutably, fo’ rizzle fo’ shizzle. Hell yeah!


Posted by Johno on 02/09/07 at 04:32 PM
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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Live to Ride, Ride to Freeze Yer Nads Off

Holy Shit!

My morning commute is now a solid hour, not including time spent at the daycare where I leave the Li’lest Lethal.  Sometimes I hang out there for up to 30 minutes if he’s especially needy that morning or I want to work some more on the kickass pyramid of Legos I started there the other day.  Well what the eff, I’m there for a half hour!

But we’re talking about 60 minutes in the car.  It must be said that the actual distance is only about 25 miles.  Problem is that...well, I’m not sure really.  I just know that the 15-odd mile stretch of interstate highway I utilize is comprised of 3 to 5 lanes, depending, and traffic on all them goes about, oh, 32mph when it moves at all.  In such circumstances it is vital that my spawn remain at least nominally occupied, both for his own general wellbeing and to prevent me from opening the driver’s side door and hurling myself out of it so I don’t have to hear the relentless horrible crying anymore.  Although, come to think of it, given that highway traffic is usually crawling, I probably wouldn’t get too hurt.  But I would look totally stupid.  Maybe I could make sure I hit head first or something.  THen I wouldn’t hear the crying and I wouldn’t have to care how stupid I (surely) looked. 

The best form of sonic sedation is your basic kids’ music, 100 of the songs you thought were played out and lame by the time you were about 4.  These renditions are modernized and produced in a real studio by real engineers and real singers, which doesn’t really help much, truth be told.  And let me tell you, “Bingo was his name, oh” starts feeling like an icepick in my eardrums after awhile, and by the time the CD has restarted with “a tisket (?) a tasket (?) a green and yellow basket”, my thoughts wander again to whether the situation might be improved by just jumping out the door.

But what happens is that while the music dominates the interior space and soothes the savage child’s breast, I am looking at the exterior world with greater than usual attentiveness in an effort to find something to distract me from the unending preschool jams inside.  Today, instead of having to really bear down and pay attention, something came to me: a dude on a motorcycle.

The only reason that is remarkable is that the ambient temperature was about 20.  That’s 20F, for you non-Amurricans or domestic bedwetters.  And that’s respectably chilly in these parts.  You know, wear-a-hat weather.  But this cat was not only on his bike, he was in the fast lane (which, quite abnormally, was actually going fast), where I sat on his back wheel at 75 for about 5-10 minutes, but when there were some openings in the other lanes he weaved and was gone, 90+.  I don’t have the science fu to calculate windchills and whatnot, but I would think that any micron of exposed skin would be black and necrotic in about 3 seconds.  I like to think his car was just in the shop or wouldn’t start, because a guy who’s that into riding is kinda unsettling to me.

So that gave me enough to think about this morning to keep me from making the leap.

And btw, I learned (not the hard way, thank the Dark Ones) that the Connecticut State Police have at least one unmarked SUV.  Couldn’t get alot of detail; I was 9 lanes and a concrete divider away, going the opposite direction at about 70, and at a time in the early morning when colors tend to wash out.  At a glance, looked like a white or gray Blazer, with heavy tint on the windows.


Posted by GeekLethal on 02/01/07 at 02:51 PM
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Life’s Embarrassments

Holy Shit!The Miracle of Science

Just heard, in a phone conversation with my buddy Ian:

He was speaking with a friend of his, during an event today in Orlando, and they discussed the fertility specialist that the friend and his wife were seeing, due to their difficulty conceiving a child.

His friend went in to visit the specialist, and the nurse handed him a cup and asked him to produce a specimen.  After heading down to a fairly generic restroom and grabbing a stall, he did so, bringing the cup back to the nurse.

Who looked at it and said “No, I needed a urine specimen”.

Ian asked him “So what did you do then?”.  Turns out he just left, utterly crushed by embarrassment, though he’s since recovered after realizing that what he did, wanted or not, was something he’d been practicing his whole life for. 

Ever the clown/instigator, Ian pointed out to him that he’d handled it all wrong, and should instead have replied “What do you think this is?”


Posted by Patton on 01/24/07 at 02:53 AM
Holy Shit! • The Miracle of Science • Permalink

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Buckethead’s plan to save Linux

Holy Shit!

And speaking of cool technological gimcrakery we’ve linked in the past, it occurred to me the other day that Linux freaks are always complaining that they need to have a truly beautiful and slick user interface to have a chance to beat Windows.  Most efforts along these lines have been workmanlike at best, and nothing compared to the almost godlike levels of slick that regularly come from Cupertino.  Even Vista has Linux beat solid at least in this department.  If someone put bumptop on top of a well packaged Linux distro that made minimal demands on the user for installation (and, more to the point, included codecs so that user could actually watch movies and listen to music without breaking the law.  ESR has a screed on this issue, and how Linux could actually win the OS wars as computers switch to 64bit architectures.  Interesting read.)

You’ll remember bumptop - we linked it here, and here’s a pic:

Combine the intuitiveness of that interface with the solidity, security and open source goodness of Linux, and you’d have something that even Steve Jobs would envy. 


Posted by Buckethead on 01/10/07 at 03:05 PM
Holy Shit! • Permalink

Saturday, January 06, 2007

An inconvenient truth

Holy Shit!

Truth is, walking around a New England January in a t-shirt, and sweating, is DOWNRIGHT UNNATURAL, like Zima, Cirque de Soleil, and obese men in Speedos.


Posted by Johno on 01/06/07 at 02:41 PM
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Thursday, January 04, 2007

Gratuitous Child Photo

Holy Shit!

My mom sent me this photo she took when she was up over the holidays.  I had to share:

Our baby girl is amazed at her world.


Posted by Buckethead on 01/04/07 at 06:20 PM
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Thursday, December 28, 2006

Sooper Sekrit

Holy Shit!

As the clock tolls the end of the year, after five years of delays, millions of pages of secret, top secret and otherwise classified documents will become unclassified, unsecret and un-top secret. 

But in theory if not in immediate practice, what was set in motion by the Clinton administration in 1995 is coming to fruition. Executive Order 12958 declared that in 2000, every classified document 25 years of age or older would be automatically declassified unless the classifying agency had already sought and received that document’s exemption (anything that could cause an “identifiable” risk to national security, would violate a person’s privacy or involves more than one agency is exempt). After two three-year extensions granted by the Bush administration in response to cries from the CIA, FBI, NSA and other agencies that they didn’t have the manpower to review all of their papers in time, the final deadline has arrived. And President Bush is enforcing it.

The FBI alone will be declassifying 270 million pages of heretofore secret material.  This is a good thing.  While I recognize that keeping secrets is necessary, the government has had a nasty habit of classifying basically anything, regardless of whether it truly needed to be secret.  I look forward to seeing what people dig out of this staggeringly large treasure trove.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/28/06 at 03:38 PM
Holy Shit! • Permalink

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Oops, I did it again

Holy Shit!The Miracle of Science

It is natural for us to assume that the attractive and wealthy are actually stupid.  This is a face saving gesture, for otherwise, how are we to accept the fact that we, with our much greater intelligence and savvy, are not rolling in bling and surrounded by attractive and loose-moralled members of the opposite sex?  In at least once case, however, this is not the truth.  Witness, Britney Spears’ Guide to Semiconductor Physics.

[Wik] I have been warned that the above-referenced website may, in places, be unsafe for work.  Meaning, there may be tits and whatnot in plain view.  I have not perused the entire site, as my interest in semi-conductor physics is only slightly higher than my interest in Ms. Spears.  So, take whatever measures you feel are appropriate for your continued safe employment.


Posted by Buckethead on 12/26/06 at 12:42 PM
Holy Shit! • The Miracle of Science • Permalink
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