Dangerous Logic

Reconstruction in progress

I'll be converting to Movable Type 4 in the next few days. Hopefully that'll be the impetus I need to blog more often.

Update 8 MAR 08: Since I haven't upgraded since I originally installed MT2.6(!) back in July of 2003(!!!), I have to upgrade to MT3.3 and thence to MT4.0. Things may go wonky, perhaps seriously so, over the next couple of days. Don't worry; I've backed up the entire site.

And Then I'll Need Another Vacation To Recover From That Vacation

I enjoyed that two-week blog vacation so much that I'm going to take another one. Actually, since I've got a real vacation coming up (at the usual place), I think I'll make it a three-week blog vacation. See you in late June.

That Puts My Output At Roughly Five Pages Per Year. I'll Be 'Famous Author Guy' Real Soon Now At That Rate.

I took some time off the blog last weekend to wrap up a short story I've been trying to finish for literally the last four years, which, coincidentally, is about how long it took me to write my Iron Chef parody episode.

Now that I've got a first draft for this thing, I need to figure out what I'm going to do with it. It's kind of The Office meets 'Bastard Operator from Hell,' and part of the problem is that both Ricky Gervais and Simon Travaglia have set the bar pretty damn high (which really pisses me off because I started this story before The Office came out!).

I guess while I'm trying to figure out what to do with Episode 1, I can start on Episode 2, in which Kevin gets evicted from his cubicle and we find out why Kate's hands are always moving. Let's hope it doesn't take me four years to get this one done.

It. Is. Finished.

Five and a half years.

Eleven semesters.

$2000 of my own money (and about $6000 of my company's money).

Thousands of hours of homework.

All done.

Can I get a 'Hallelujah!' from the congregation?

Anybody Need A Free Pepsi Ringtone?

I've got about 20 more Pepsi Smash ringtones than I'll ever use, and it appears that I can cash them in for cell numbers other than just my own. So poke around there, find one you want, and let me know via email (parking underscore god ayat yahoo dawt com). First come first serve; offer ends August 20th.

About That Probability Thing...

Correction: in a prior post, I lamented about being 0-for-11 in the Pepsi ringtone thingy. Due to pilot error on my part (i.e., not knowing where on the website to check to see how may ringtones I'd won), I did not know that I had actually won 4 times, thus putting me squarely in the fat part of the 'one in three is a winner!' curve.

Since then, not only am I batting about .500 on ringtones, I got a FedEx letter a couple of weeks ago telling me I'd won one of the phones they give away every ten minutes!

Anybody need a brand-new unlocked Moto SLVR L7?

Speedo Guy

So I was doing some spelunking through my server logs this morning. Turns out half of MySpace is hotlinking to a picture of Speedo Guy from this post last summer. As an aside, there are some really fugly pages where people (either the luser or somebody on their message board) are hotlinking to it or to my Project Beeramid pic. It's like every luser on MySpace said 'give me one of every webtoy you got,' without any consideration as to how it would look when it was done.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this yet. It's not like they're stealing a lot of my bandwidth - most of those MySpace pages hit me about once a day, if that - but still. I think for now I'll just update that picture with my URL, so they can know where it came from (and maybe swing by and increase my readership - yeah, I'm a whore that way).

If it keeps getting worse, I can always do something like this or this.

I Spent 2 1/2 Months Acquiring This Beige Base Tan. It Had Better Work.

On vacation until June 25th. I might post in the meantime, but probably not. Comments and trackbacks are off, even though it looks like they're still on.

Feel free to follow along and rage at my good weather (or mock me if it's crappy):

And Then We'll Throw Up, Pass Out, Wake Up, And Then Go Drinking Once Again

Headin' on down to the Legion post to get my Irish on. In the unlikely event I post again in the next 36 hours, it'll likely be unintelligible anyway.

(note to Chess - it's the Legion post across the street from Shoaff. Hell, you could probably walk there!)

Blogroll Off-Line For A Bit

My blogrolling.com Gold membership expired over the weekend, and I won't be renewing it for three reasons:

• They upped the price from $10 to $20.
• The Certificate Authority for their website's security certificate is themselves (tucows.com). Firefox tells me that this could mean I'm not actually connected to them, but to somebody pretending to be them. That's probably not the case, but would it have killed them to spend $1000 for an SSL certificate signed by a trusted authority?
• I emailed them asking about this - and whether they accepted PayPal - over a week before my membership expired. I still haven't heard back from them.

Fortunately, I captured all my blogroll info before they blocked my access to it, and I'll be maintaining my blogrolls manually via HTML (except for the one blogroll you're allowed under the free blogrolling.com membership). This, however, will take me a bit of time to square away. So if you lost me as a link for, say, the purposes of the TTLB ecosystem, don't despair; you'll be re-blogrolled soon. For the moment, my temporary blogroll appears after the jump.

Tags: blogrolling.com

Blogs I read every day
• Castle Argghhh!
• Dean's World
• Stream of Consciousness...
• Defense Tech
• Jihad Watch
• The Belmont Club
• Knowledge Is Power
• Vodkapundit
• World Wide Rant
• Blogs4Bauer
• Mitchieville
• Ace of Spades HQ
• Gates of Vienna
• Schneier on Security
• INDC Journal
• American Digest
• Beautiful Atrocities
• doubleplusgood infotainment
• The Sneeze
• Practical Penumbra
• chessandlena.com
• QandO
• 2!3054). Speaks...
• Single Malt Pundit
• Geese Aplenty
• protein wisdom
• The Shape Of Days
• Garfield Ridge
• Dreamland Blues Radio

U-M blogs
• A Nickel's Worth of Free Advice
• Michigan Football Forum
• Dave Nemo's Blog
• RBUAS
• mgoblog
• Motown Sports Revival
• ParadigmBlog
• The Blog That Yost Built
• Big House Football
• Blah Blah Blah
• Rob in Madtown
• Off Tackle
• Sweaty Men Endeavors
• The People Things
• Schembechler Hall
• iBlog For Cookies
• Westsider Rider

Blogs that should be higher in the Ecosystem
• The Hoot Owl
• Misere
• Life In The Great Midwest
• Homo Insapiens
• Red Hot Cuppa Politics
• Mia's Torture Chamber

New on the blogroll
• (none right now)

Early linkers to me
• Liberty and Pie
• Precision Blogging
• mlah
• Grimblefig
• Tman in Tennessee
• spankysplace
• Spiced Sass
• Cranial Cavity
• Feste...a foolsblog
• Ronit Bhattacharyya's Notes
• The Unrepentant Curmudgeon
• One Little Victory
• The Sporting Life
• Neanderpundit

Mandatory Mythical Milestone Post (Unless You Consider Post 691 A Milestone)

I started this blog almost five years ago on Blogger, and I moved it to Movable Type about two-and-a-half years ago. Somewhere along the line, post 1 got renumbered to 310, which should put this 1000th post in perspective.

Bleg For 'Every 10 Minutes' Points

Does anybody have any Every 10 Minutes points they forgot to enter in time for the final drawing last night? They're still good towards Dew gear until November 15th.

And if you've some caps lying around that you haven't entered the codes from, and don't plan to, could you flip 'em my way? I need six more for a t-shirt. Thanks.

Think Long-Term

If you haven't already donated to help the victims of Katrina, you need to. But here's something else to consider: I think there will be plenty of money in the short term (although if everybody int the U.S. donated only $10, we should be generating almost three BILLION dollars instead of the less-than-a-billion numbers I'm hearing now). But what happens two months or six months or eight months from now, when all the short-term money has been spent, and nobody can go back to NO because it's still not livable? We need to start thinking long term about how we can help these folks become self-sufficient once their $2K debit cards are all used up.

Maybe they'll be absorbed by their current host communities and there won't be any problems, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't have any specific ideas. If you've got any ideas - or if you've read about any - leave me a comment.

Don't Cry For Me, Blogosphere-a

In case you're pining over the lack of DL posts lately (yeah, both of you), dry your tears and go donate some cash to help the victims of Katrina. Instapundit has a good set of links.

In particular, there's this, which gives you the chance to pry some money for the victims out of your company (and who doesn't enjoy sticking it to The Man every now and then?):

Jay Allen has a further suggestion:

I would suggest people donate through their companies whenever possible. Most major corporations offer matching funds to the dollar for charitable donations. Find who's collecting money for relief efforts, then file for a match through your employer instead of sending to the agency directly.

Not bad -- if your employer is supporting this.

All Units Disperse To Planned Hide Positions

Heading up to the Secure Undisclosed Location for the Full Moon Party. Back Sunday.

Yes, bail bondsmen are on five-minute airborne alert.

So How Many Blogpuns Can We Fit In Michigan Stadium, Anyway?

It's getting nigh on football season again, so I've decided to add a blogroll with U-M blogs that I figure on reading regularly this year. I imagine this list will grow as I find more - of course, the nature of using a blogrolling.com script to display it in this post will mean that it's always up to date; I'll still need to put it on the sidebar for future reference.

Drop What You're Doing And Help Fight Cancer

I'm serious. Hit the 'Clik4Cathy' button to the right - as Bluto would say, "don't cost nuthin." If you're a Day By Day fan, you already know why; if not, Beth explains.

It's A New Track Record!

Basking in the glow of yesterday's nine-post day (I think my previous best was four).

Naturally, I got nuthin' for today except to gloat about yesterday...

..and then remember that the Blogfather routinely does nine posts over lunch.

Make Sure Your Bone Saw Has A Food-Grade Blade

Yeah, I keep a pretty close eye on my referrer logs, especially now that I've disabled trackbacks. So I saw that someone came here searching for "how to cook a pig in the ground." They found my Iron Chef: Battle Long Pig parody script.

Man, I hope they don't use those recipes.

Blegging For An IPod, Again

Gee, I totally forgot - I signed up at freeipods.com last December. Perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody's signed up through me yet (I reckon that's a side effect of my, you know, not actually telling anybody about it since, um, last December).

Anyway. Here's how it works: you register at the site through a referral link. In this case, MY referral link. You sign up for one of the special offers listed, then you get your own referral link. Get five friends to sign up through your referral link and complete an offer, and you get a free iPod. At press time, you can choose between a 20GB iPod or a 4GB mini iPod (in true Apple style, you get your choice of color). Yes, it's definitely multi-level marketing, but it ain't like Amway where you have to have a pyramid of 64 people extending eight levels below you to make any money at it. One offer, five friends at one offer each (and some of them are cancellable after freeipods.com credits you for completing the offer but before you're actually charged any money), and you're done. I chose Blockbuster Online because I've been thinking about trying it out anyway.

You can read more about the offer on wired.com, engadget.com, and geek.com. And I'll make the same offer that my referrer made to me - once I get my iPod, I'll change my referrer link to yours (one referral at a time, first come first serve).

In My Head, I'm Already On The Beach

I may as well make it official - I'm going back to the beach house for two-plus weeks starting Friday morning, and I'm too busy between now and then to write much of anything. I may do a WTW tomorrow, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I'll probably be shutting off comments and trackbacks, too, to thwart the spammers. See you on or about June 27.

Vacation's Over. Everybody Back On Your Heads.

I decided to take a few days off the daily blog-slog. I'm working on a Memorial Day weekend post, but, frankly, once you get past the wheelchair+golf cart chariot race and breaking into an electrical box in order to light the field for Night Jarts, it's pretty thin.

Anyway, look for a White Trash Wednesday post tomorrow.

So Maybe They Want To Read About More Than Just Cod Roe

I'm getting another batch of fresh hits on my Cod Roe Iron Chef recap, so I think it's time to bring the rest out of the archives. Back in 2000, I wrote about two dozen Iron Chef episode recaps for Pyroto Mountain, a combination trivia/political game and online community. I've haven't played Pyroto for years, but I still have the recaps. I'll be converting them into blog entries over the next few weeks, starting with Battle Banana, which I expect to have later today.

And of course this is as good a time as any to mention my IC parody episode.

More Blegging

Astute readers will recognize Thursday's post as a thinly disguised bleg for links; after all, when I first signed on to the Ecosystem as an Insignificant Microbe, I would have loved for a Adorable Little Rodent to link to me out of the blue.

Actually, I'm exercising a little literary license here; when I signed up for the Ecosystem, I was pleasantly surprised to find two Ecosystem sites already linking to me (spankysplace and One Little Victory (now part of Liberty and Pie)).

Without further ado, I introduce the Dangerous Logic Class of May 2005:

• Mia's Torture Chamber, if for no other reason than this post, which made me think of one of my favorite Chick McGee lines: "If you [are a man who] want[s] to have sex with two women, rent both of them."
• Homo Insapiens, even though he(?) doesn't have a blogroll at all. I was hooked by the reference to Britain regarding the Chunnel as "a 32 mile long, rigid, concrete, steel-reinforced barge pole that ensures that the UK will never drift closer to Europe."
• Dan of Life In The Great Midwest interrupts a bike ride to make fun of a Commie in the People's Republic of Madison.
• Red Hot Cuppa Politics has a punch line to the Rise Of Generation Y.

Blogroll Graduation

A while back, I stumbled around the bottom of the TTLB Ecosystem and found a half-dozen blogs that I liked that didn't have any incoming links. I added these to a section of my blogroll called 'Blogs That Should Be Higher In The Ecosystem.' I intended to announce this right away, then update that list once a month or so, rolling the old links into my regular blogroll.

Anyway, take a peek at these blogs, which will graduate into the regular blogroll Real Soon Now and be replaced by new blogs I like that don't have any incoming links:

• All Along The Blogtower
• Hail The Ale!
• Misere (who I don't think was at the bottom of the Ecosystem, but should be higher ranked anyway)
• Roborant
• Room Twelve
• The Radical Centrist

Cod Roe Is Fish Eggs! Cod Roe Is Fish Eggs!

Did Food Network air the 'Cod Roe' episode of Iron Chef last night or something? I've seen a spike of traffic based on Google searches for 'cod roe,' going to my synopsis of the episode when it aired on FN in December of 2000 (which reminds me - I need to pull those synopses into blog format).

Granted, it was only about 500 extra hits since yesterday evening, but that's a nontrivial number for us 'long-tailed' bloggers - those ranking as 'Crawly Amphibians' through 'Adorable Rodents' in the TTLB Ecosystem (and I wish I knew who to credit for that term; I just recently read it in my blogrounds and I can't find it on Google).

Back Into The Bunker

Well, my instructor this semester has seen fit to give us a surprise final.

Cumulative over the entire semester.

Next Monday night.

See you next Tuesday. Maybe I'll have something between now and then (hopefully at least a White Trash Wednesdayism), but don't count on it.

Proposal Work Sucks...

... but it's better than the alternative. Anyway, that's why I haven't blogged much lately; moreover, the situation is likely to continue until at least Thanksgiving. At least we get paid overtime. And free ice cream.

Is it normal to have your forty hours for the week in by Wednesday noon?

Forget About Me - How About You Keep An Eye On Iran's Nuke Program?

Doing my monthly referrer check, I noticed two hits on DL from iaea.org. I keep telling them that I don't know what Kim did with the special explosives I gave him, but they won't believe me...

Support The Ecosystem

A simple request - if I'm on your blogroll, and you're not already a member of the TTLB Ecosystem, go check it out and sign up if you're so inclined (yes, this is a shameless attempt to recover from the humiliation of being demoted from 'Slithering Reptile' to 'Flappy Bird'; also, half my blogroll is blogs whose names I saw just randomly surfing the Ecosystem and thinking 'that's a cool name for a blog. I'll go look at it,' then deciding to keep going back. Like this guy's blog).

Likewise for blogrolling.com. They'll manage your blogroll, automatically move recently-updated sites to the top, and allow you to add a new blog to your roll in one click (three clicks if you have the Google toolbar installed and pop-up blocking on). All for free.

Comments Broken

The comments function seems to be broken; whenever anyone submits a comment, they get this:

An error occurred:

Quantifier follows nothing before HERE mark in regex m/

(Followed by what appears to be my entire blacklist file, followed by)

at extlib/jayallen/Blacklist.pm line 3028.

I'm working on it.

Update: Fixed. I added a broken URL string (it contained two asterisks in a row, twice) into my blacklist file when I despammed late last week, and I guess comments have been broken ever since. Removing that line from my blacklist.txt file fixed it.

On The Beach Again

Headed to Oak Island, North Carolina, for the next couple of weeks. Half the 'hood is coming with us, so the trip report ought to be entertaining...