I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.

~Voltaire

Beretta, for those of you who don’t know, is fine Italian-made firearm manufacturer. I own a Beretta CX4 Storm, .40-caliber handgun. It’s beautiful. Because I own a handgun from Beretta, and I registered with them on their website, they regularly send me emails.

Today, I received this email ad from Beretta USA:

Yes… a President’s Day gun sale. Sounds a little too dark for my blood. Eek.

By the way… Beretta has TERRIBLE graphics in their email messages. They need some help in the design department for sure.

The easiest thing of all is to deceive one’s self; for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.

~Demosthenes

The woman that I love was a teenage mother. She never let herself be typecast in this life, though. And although it seems that certain people try to knock her down at nearly every turn, she’s going to be a registered nurse, soon.

She’s vocal when she knows she’s right. If you don’t believe me, try proving her wrong. I dare you.

She’s a woman who stands up and says what she needs to say.

She’s an excellent mother who cares about her son’s future more than her own. She knows that getting through school will provide her monkey with a great example of how to overcome adversity and beat the odds.

She’s a thinker - and trust me, it’s nice to be around somebody who “thinks too much,” like me.

She’s stylish, classy, and intelligent - it’s a very sexy combination.

She’s my best friend.

I’m extremely proud of you, Tracy. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Check out this story from The Guardian about a guy in the UK with an MP3 player who got the full treatment by the police.  Oh yeah, this also plays into the whole Server In The Sky program I mentioned a while back.  Be sure to keep an eye out for that.

 

Also, check out the kind of weaponry the cops carry there. DAMN!  I guess this dispells all of those old Benny Hill skits!

Thinking or talking about the past unnecessarily is one of the ways in which we avoid the present.

~Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

A polarbear skeleton in the desert? It even has a Dharma Initiative Hydra Station logo on its collar!

Miles Straume, professional Ghostbuster! General A-hole.

Why did the “rescue crew” bring biohazard equipment to the island with them?

And why are they looking for Ben? And what’s with this picture where Ben is in a tacky suit, going through airport security?

Thanks to DarkUFO.blogspot.com for the screen caps!

According to CNN.com

A group of four men stole four impressionist paintings today from a collection in Zurich, Switzerland.  The paintings done by Van Gogh, Dega, Cezanne and Monet are valued at $163 Million dollars.  There is a $91,000 reward for information leading to their return.

**Comment:  $91K reward?  The paintings are worth 1791% more than the reward!

It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master’s fame.

~Orison Swett Marden

From the makers of Groupie Hero… haha…

Chelsea Clinton is coming to the UWM Union Ballroom tomorrow morning at 10:45. That’s awesome. I mean, who better than the dog-faced daughter of the world’s foremost ice queen to really connect with young voters. Sheesh. I’m glad that I don’t have classes tomorrow - campus is going to be a perfect mess.

Hat tip: the most beautiful girl in the worrrrrrrld.

I don’t get to watch a whole heck of a lot of television, but when I do it is usually something that I recorded earlier on my DVR (thank you, Charter)! Today, since it’s colder than a [expletive deleted] outside, I’ve had a couple hours to watch a movie on FX. Every time the commercials come on, I reach for the remote to fast forward. Whoops.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Google! I was paying somewhere around $4 a pop anytime I needed to use 411 on my cell phone. Now Google has a free 411 service for finding businesses.

1-800-GOOG-411

Check out the details at: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/goog411/index.html

To find yourself jilted is a blow to your pride. Do your best to forget it and if you don’t succeed, at least pretend to.

~Moliere

Holy crap this MTV commercial is old…but I remember it like yesterday.  Dennis Leary from 1992.  If you don’t know any of the bands he’s talking about, you are REALLY REALLY young.  (”Who are the Pogues and Jethro Tull?”) This video IS SAFE for work.

An article posted on SportsIllustrated.com tells of a (now removed) YouTube video showing New York Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez and Hall of Famer Juan Marichal participating in a cockfight.

It will be interesting to see if there is any type of fan backlash against these athletes, a la Michael Vick.  Don’t expect any arrests or contract terminations, as the cockfight was held in the Dominican Republic where cockfighting is legal.

I know that the Bible says that I should not covet my neighbor’s wife… but Lisa just snowblowed my driveway. Haha! Thanks, Lisa. Oh, and Phil, you can keep her… I hear she snores. j/k.

If it weren’t for Phil and Lisa, I’d have gone insane in this craptastic town.

US Defense Department officials say that  Al Qaeda is recruiting and training boys as young as 11. 

The video shown on CNN.com shows a group of over 20 young boys clad in black hoods carrying weapons from handguns to rocket propelled grenade launchers.

In the video they are shown taking a grown man captive, searching a car and storming a compound/house while being prompted by the camera man. (You can see in this screen capture, the small boy pushing his gun into the neck of a grown man).

Another shot shows the kids holding weapons and holding their hands up in a #1, like some kind of demented sports team photo. The whole thing is like a summer camp of the worst kind.

In my best Bill Walton voice:

A lot of people understand what not saying anything means, so, in effect, not saying anything is really saying a lot.

~Bill Walton

As a father of a young child, I was concerned when I heard the opening news blurb “toxic chemicals in your baby’s products“.  So, I waited around for 20 minutes for my local news to show the piece before becoming frustrated and checked out the piece on CNN.com.

Thalates may cause cancer and birth defects…and they aren’t required to be listed on ingredient lists. Even worse, CNN declines to disclose WHICH products MAY have thalates in them. Well, great coverage, real top notch investigative work folks.  Some chemical that may be in some product your baby uses every day MAY cause some problems, but we won’t tell you which products.  (Does anyone have a flashback to the original Batman movie and “Joker Products”?) 

Instead, the reporter goes on to chuckle about how she uses olive oil instead of lotion on her baby.

*hiss*