d00dism

I tried calling on Thursday about my order of GTA: San Andreas. The customer service representative had just talked to another person that ordered it from them.

From the way he talked about it, a lot of people had. They had almost 700 outstanding orders and only 290 copies coming in that they knew of. He was so frustrated with people calling and checking that he almost had a speech for me and it was extremely impatiently said. It’s not that I was getting belligerent (as I have been known to do).

Luckily, by ordering on the 25th of July, I guaranteed an early spot in their queue. I also got in on a sub $40 price (which has recently skyrocketed back up to approximately $50, the same as other retailers). I got a nice surprise on Friday to see that it had shipped. Starting Wednesday, I may not be posting as much, or at least nothing of length. Enjoy it for now.

Brought to my attention by Wizbang, a LiveJournal user got visited by the secret service following an entry about wanting the president dead. Luckily for her, she has (as of the writing of this entry) about 86 pages of comments, the majority of which are in support.

Shock

This is just reinforcement of the idea that my generation refuses to take responsibility for what they do and say. She wished Bush dead, Cheney dead, and everyone in the administration dead.

Who would have thunk it? Wishing a horrible death upon the president gets the attention of the Secret Service? Wow. I mean, really shocking. According to Annie though, it’s perfectly all right to do this. The Secret Service should ignore all of these threats. Well, let me revise that. They should ignore all of these, but the real ones. But wait, how should the Secret Service figure out which ones are real? Oh, that’s right, by visiting these people exactly like they did.

It’s fine to say whatever you want. That’s guaranteed under the first amendment. It does not give you free license to say anything without consequences. If you say something that wishes death upon the president, whether it be in a letter to the president, a speech to a militant group, a terrorist tape made by Osama himself, or even in a LiveJournal, you can expect to be investigated.

Let me explain this a little bit slower for those that don’t understand. Part of the problem when dealing with terrorist (or political) threats, is that it is hard to tell when someone is being serious. There are thousands of nut jobs who get their jollies by writing these letters, calling in bomb threats, and even issuing serious acts like the events of 9/11. It becomes incredibly hard to sift the real threats from the fake ones. Suggesting that this LiveJournal entry was obviously a joke is infantile. The moment such a threat isn’t followed up with at least a light investigation is the moment that threat is actually followed through. Guess who gets blamed in that case? The Secret Service for not investigating. Either they’re taking threats too seriously (as they supposedly were in this case), or not enough (in the case of 9/11). You can’t win.

Maturity

Now we must broach whether what she said was constructive in any way, shape, or form. The fact is, no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t original. It doesn’t point out some new fact that should have some kind of bearing on how people vote. It didn’t give a fresh new perspective. It didn’t present a new opinion. It didn’t reinforce an existing opinion. It did nothing to contribute to what is supposed to be nation-wide, collective, political discussion.

I shouldn’t be all too surprised considering this comes from a LiveJournal account dedicated to Harry Potter. It is tough being 10. I used to lash out at people and public figures that frustrated me. I lacked all verbal and mental ability to lash back in a meaningful way or even articulate my feelings in a mature way. I was forced to resort to “I wish you’d die.” The sad thing is that she is a little less than a month older than me. It’s just more proof that some people mature faster than others.

I’m back after a hiatus last week. I forgot to write down my picks because I was going to my friend’s apartment for game one. The good news is that I’m going to remember for this week. Without further ado, they are:

• Arizona vs. Buffalo
• Detroit vs. Dallas
• Jacksonville vs. Houston
• Indianapolis vs. Kansas City
• NY Giants vs. Minnesota
• Cincinnati vs Tennessee
• Green Bay vs. Washington
• Baltimore vs. Philadelphia
• Atlanta vs. Denver
• Carolina vs. Seattle
• New England vs. Pittsburgh
• Oakland vs. San Diego
• San Fransisco vs. Chicago
• Miami vs. NY Jets

If you’ll notice, I actually picked the two undefeated teams to win again this week. The odds are against them, but the Eagles and Patriots are my two favorites for the Superbowl at this point. However, if another NFC team starts to pick up the slack, I will pick them over the Eagles simply because the Eagles always suck in the post season.

Due to the fact that this is becoming fairly popular on the web, I think I may make a PHP software package to manage football picks. If you feel like helping out or getting involved, drop me a line. It may be the motivation I need to actually do it.

Curt Schilling is one of the most popular players in Red Sox Nation. His last two performances showed gritty determination and incredible ability.

The Magic Sock

Or did it? According to Laura Vecsey at the Baltimore Sun, it was a ruse. It’s good to know that Laura knows where the real news is. She’s getting down to the real issues. We can only hope that Bud Selig notices and forms an investigation team, a la the 9/11 Commission. This is important stuff. Forget that it’s wild speculation and the fact that the only evidence she seems to have comes out of New York:

Even factoring in the sour grapes, word out of New York is that some Yankees players wouldn’t put it past Schilling to dab his sock with red magic marker, or apply generous amounts of Mercurochrome - anything to amplify the Red Sox’s amazing postseason run and, of course, to hoist his stature.

Good lead. I also heard that A-Rod was also a robot.

Word out of Boston is that some Red Sox players wouldn’t put it past A-Rod to be mechanical, or engineered in a factory - anything to amplify Steinbrenner’s ego and, of course, to hoist his paycheck.

Is that good journalism? I know I’m still new to this whole writing thing, but I was under the impression that having some good backup to my articles was necessary. I thought that wild speculation was a bad thing. I guess I was wrong.

Proof? Who needs proof?

Speaking of wild speculation, we now have the Associated Press (AP) publishing a story that despite Schilling’s endorsement of President Bush, Schilling will not be able to make the appearance.

It seems like fairly vanilla news at first. It’s pretty logical that Schilling wouldn’t be able to travel due to his ankle. The problem is that the source is an email to a fan site. It’s written as if it’s from Schilling. He even goes on to apologize for expressing his political views.

While I am a Bush supporter, and I did vote for him with an absentee ballot, speaking as I did the other day was wrong. While I hope to see him re-elected, it’s not my place, nor the time for me to offer up my political opinions unsolicited.

I certainly think it’s certainly kosher to do (especially when complete idiots Hollywood actors feel the need to do the same). Isn’t it a little suspicious that this was released as an email (by itself), breaks his commitment to the President, and then retracts his statement? Well, it is, but apparently not enough for the AP.

Schilling, who contributes frequently to online fan forums, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

So confirmation isn’t necessary either? We can just publish things we read online? Cool! I want to be the first to publish that Kerry eats babies for breakfast and that Bush smokes weed. You heard it here first folks.

I’m not saying it isn’t true. It might very well be. News organizations are supposed to have the integrity to check up on the stories. The AP admittedly had no proof of this story and went ahead with it anyway. It makes you wonder about its other articles. I think they should change their acronym to SAP (speculative association of the press).

No sooner than Peter Cohen mentions getting more than 11,000 comment spams than I realize that I had been hit. I previously had less than five spam comments. I now had about 50. Ugh.

Luckily, setting WordPress to moderate comments with more than 3 links in it did the trick. Considering the success he had with MT-Blacklist and MovableType, I thought it was time I got WPBlacklist which is the equivalent for WordPress. Installation was quick and easy.

Now I just have to wait and see if it works.

Update: Two spam comments have been caught already. Seems to be working fine.