Curmudgeonly & Skeptical is shut down? What the hell?

Update: He's back. Dunno what happened.

Posted by: Ted at 10:29 PM | category: Links
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I admit it, I'm a font-lovin' fool. I've got a gazillion of 'em on my PC, and I'll spend time looking for just the right one when I need to add a little pizazz to a project.

Alan E. Brain posted this nice link to a slew of alien-style fonts from science fiction.

My favorite font resource on the 'net is Mary Forrest's Free Font Fiesta. The site has been around for many years, and she keeps the link list reasonably up-to-date. Here's her home page too, it's a fun place to look around.

Other resources I use:

Aquamarine's Fonts Place
Chankstore Freefont Archives
Eric Brooks

Google up "free fonts" for thousands more possibilities.

Posted by: Ted at 09:43 PM | category: Links
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The Carnival of the Vanities is up at Ambient Irony. Pixy has included lots of links to thoughtful and insightful posts there, but no pictures. Darnit.

Posted by: Ted at 09:11 AM | category: Links
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Fortune Cookie Maker

McDonalds Sign Generator

And lots more too. Thanks to J-Walk Blog for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 05:42 AM | category: Links
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Mark Oakley of Rocket Man Blog has spent the last couple of months moving and getting into his new job as chief propulsion engineer for TGV Rockets, one of the companies going for the X-Prize.

Things have settled down for him enough to resume blogging, and I'm looking forward to interesting times ahead. Stop by and welcome him back. Who knows, maybe we can work a deal for a 'bloggers discount' on trips into space?

Posted by: Ted at 06:11 AM | category: Links
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Knife Throwing 101, courtesy of Iron Bear over at Who Tends the Fires.

This is one of those things that is on my "everyone should know" list. You do carry a knife, right? At the very least, a Swiss-army or Boy Scout pocket knife should be part of your daily kit. Something larger and defensively-oriented should be in your car. And you should know enough about using it to be a credible threat, because nothing is more frightening than facing someone who obviously knows how to use that knife in their hand. And at some point, that might mean your only good option is throwing your knife at the target. Iron Bear has the best advice possible on the subject.

Even if you don't stick or cut your target, throwing a knife can have benefits. I'm assuming here that you have a backup like another knife, you don't throw your only weapon in most situations. The first benefit is pretty obvious, most folks will flinch if a knife is coming their way, probably a lot too, and that's a hell of a distraction. Use that distraction to get away, or to prepare for the disabling move you're going to win the fight with (like hosing him down with pepper spray). Also, since you don't lob or toss a knife - you throw it hard - another benefit is that even if you hit your target with the hilt of the knife, it should feel like a Randy Johnson fastball, and he's going to take a moment to do a quick check and realize that the blade isn't buried deep. Again, get away or use the time to win the fight.

Like many skills, accurate and effective knife throwing isn't technically difficult, but it takes time to develop the ability, and more time to practice and keep your skills sharp.

Guys, impress the ladies. Ladies, impress the guys and remember: nothing says "no" like a woman who can perform an impromptu vasectomy from across the room (that's 'Dad' talking, by the way).

Posted by: Ted at 05:59 AM | category: Links
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1 I used to carry a very small, girly pen knife (the blade was all of an inch long) on my key ring, but I had to surrender it going into a courthouse for jury duty and into the Reagan Bldg. for a meeting. Finally I decided I didn't use it enough to warrant the hassle.

Posted by: nic at June 07, 2004 01:28 PM (JijW0)

2 Ted,
I must disagree in part. While knowing how to use a blade is a skill I woudl recommened to everyone I think you went a little overboard:

"...nothing is more frightening than facing someone who obviously knows how to use that knife in their hand..."

Really? I take it it's been a while seen you've seen Raiders of the Losr Ark?

It's good to have a knife. Pepper spray - eh, I don't really think it's that effective unless you just use it to make sure your food is hot enough.

But the most frightening thing for an attacker to face is not a knife, but a firearm. The bigger the hole in the barrel the more intimidating it is.

Sure, a guy or girl with a knife can cut you up pretty good if they know what they're doing but that requires some physical effort at the time (as well as mucho practice beforehand) & it also means they have to get close enough to reach you with their arm. That means there's a chance that the one person will be able to disarm &/or defeat the other person who has the knife.

With a firearm the amount of physical skill reuired is not anywhere near that of the knife. Most people can be shown in an hour or two how to be just as effective with a firearm as most cops are. Add to that practice once or twice a month & the person is more or less ready for anything short of a fire team.

Think about this, if a 6'2" 220 lb. guy tried to attack Mookie, do you think he'd be more scared of her having a knife or a .357? Firearms do something that no other weapon can do - it negates the physical advantage the strong & highly skilled would have with their bare hands or a contact weapon. If you face someone with a knife there's always the chance (proportionate to your skill level) that you can get close enough to take the knife away &/or defeat them.Even a well thrown knife won't instantly incapacitate someone (unless you get really really lucky). Not so with a firearm.

Knives are cool things to have & be able to use, but they are not an adequate substitute for a firearm.

Posted by: Publicola at June 07, 2004 05:18 PM (Aao25)

3 Uh... I agree with the firearm thingie...

But I want to learn to throw knives! I always have. Daddy! PLEASE!

hehe. I'm super hyper spastic today.

Posted by: Mookie at June 07, 2004 05:21 PM (ZjSa7)

4 Mookie,

Learn to do both.

Posted by: Publicola at June 08, 2004 01:15 AM (Aao25)

5 Thanks, Ted. ;]

*reads up at Publicola* 'Cola, I don't think I said anywhere in the linked article that a knife - thrown or otherwise - is a substitute for a firearm. And I'm trained with edged steel. For that matter, a firearm isn't a cureall. I've seen a few dead men who thought pulling a gun was a magic wand that made you invincible, and found out the hard way that it didn't.

Rule of thumb: a Shotgun trumps a handgun. A handgun trumps a blade. Cold steel and training are better than martial arts. Martial arts are better than untrained bare hands.

And all of the above are useless without mindset and attitude. A gun without mindset produces what in technical terms is called an "Armed Idiot".

All of them: guns, blades, hands are tools. Throwing, disarms, knife technique, knowing when to run, and knowing how to perform a double-tap are skills. Tricks, performed with tools.

Armed begins and ends between the ears. ;]

Ted's correct on the psychological thing. Cold steel has a visceral effect on a lot of people, even trained people, that other weapons often don't. It doesn't operate on a logical, rational level.

Counting on that visceral effect is the domain of a fool though - the man or woman you're dealing with may not be one of the ones it affects.

Posted by: Ironbear at June 08, 2004 01:32 AM (W7+oD)

6 Ironbear,

To be honest I haven't had a chance to wade into your post. (been meaning to but damned if the senate isn't about to get interesting - & I hate it when they get interesting). I was only commenting on Ted's post, not yourn.

My point wasn't that any firearm is always 100% the end all be all of solutions. I was merely making a long drawn out reply to Ted's saying that "...nothing is more frightening than facing someone who obviously knows how to use that knife in their hand..."

While I agree with damned near everything you said (well actually everything but I didn't want to sound like I was trying to cozy up to ya) the thing I disagreed with was Ted's assesment of what's "...most frightening..." I'll grant that anytime I've seen a blade in someone's hand it had one of those "visceral effects" but not quite as bad as when someone had a gun.

So a blade in the hand is frightening yes, but not most frightening. That'd have to go to the sound (absent the sight - makes for a much more dramatic sequence of thoughts) of a good old fashioned pump shotgun being cycled. Next would be looking down that .75" bore. & so on.

But don't mind me too much - some senators think that we need more gun control & are acting on it so I'm probably a bit crankier than usual.

Posted by: Publicola at June 08, 2004 07:20 AM (Aao25)

7 Nic, I’ve learned to not be ‘automatic’ about taking the knife. It’s there on a day to day basis, but I’ve gotten pretty good at anticipating when having my knife will be a problem (airport, etc.).

Publicola, you are absolutely right with most of what you say, but I still think that the average person will be more frightened by a knife. A knife is personal, and at the gut-level people will imagine pain and wounds caused by stabs and slashes, whereas a gun just puts a vaguely-conceived hole in you. I’m not talking about the reality, I’m talking about instinctually. Everyone has had a paper cut, and knows that the small, almost invisible slice stings like the dickens. That’s a tiny taste of what could happen, and the imagination takes over. Few people have experience with gunshot (or similar) wounds, so there’s no frame of reference.

Personally, I prefer what Dad used to call “Iowa knife fighting” – a .45 in one hand and a big ol’ Bowie in the other. First: “POW”, then walk over and stick ‘em while they’re laying there.

Mookie, like Publicola suggests, if you want to learn to throw knives, you should also learn to handle a firearm. I’ve already mentioned it to Mom.

About the pepper spray, I’ve been tear-gassed for real during military training, and it’s some nasty stuff. I assumed that pepper spray was a milder version, but is it really diluted to the point where it isn’t effective? To my mind that’s even more dangerous than being unarmed, because you can have a false sense of security.

I think everyone has touched on a main point – personal defense should be multifaceted. Carrying a handgun is good, having a knife as a secondary defense is better, but on top of all that, the best method is to keep a clear head and know realistically what you can and should do every step of the way. And that includes knowing when to get the hell out of Dodge.

Thanks for everyone's comments and thoughts, this is great!

Posted by: Ted at June 08, 2004 07:43 AM (blNMI)

8 Ted,

pepper spray varies. That's why I don't have much faith in it except as an emergency seasoning. Some people will be instantly incapicitated at the first whiff, others will get really pissed of with no other effects.

You could say the same thing about a knife or a firearm: that not everyone will automatically stop trying to hurt you when you use one on them. There are plenty of examples of a person receiving a mortal wound but still having enough motivation to harm the person who just killed them.

But this is mucho exaggarated with pepper spray because of its non-lethal nature. It more or less tries to stop someone by making the person feel bad. Like I said on some people it is very effective but it's not a sure enough bet in my book to be reliable. Soem sprays are more effective than others in general, butneither is as effective as a well used knife, baseball bat or firearm.

Tear gas is a different creature than pepper spray & odds are your exposure to the former in the military was different than any real world situations involving pepper spray. Were you in a closed building that the set off a few tear gas grenades in? That's much different than someone trying to hit you in the eyes with a spray or stream from a few feet away in an open parking lot.

In certain national parks where carryig firearms is verboten the gracious public officials recommend a peper spray made specifically for bears. Most locals who are asked about it explain that the bears prefer their tourists seasoned. I'm sure it has stopped some bears from time to time but no way am I going to trust a little can of something that I have to shoot directly into a bear's eyes when there are perfectly good howitzers available. Ditto for humans.

what pepper spray can do in most situations is distract an attacker for a second or two. That gives you time to act on another plan. If the pepper spray incapicitates the person then you have more time. But knowing my luck if I relied on pepper spray as anything other than a distraction device (for that I could use a can of over cleaner with the same if not better effect) I'd pick the one person who rubs jalepeno's in his eyes & snorts crushed red peppers to try it on.

I really gotta look up "brevity" in the dictionary cause all I'm tyring to say is that no, I don't trust pepper spray or think its effective enough for self protection. Well, unless you know your attacker has an allergic reaction.

Posted by: Publicola at June 08, 2004 05:46 PM (Aao25)

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Nobody specifically asked, but I'm all about anticipating your needs, so I'm pleased to point you to a random surreal phrase generator that you can put on your sidebar!

Thanks to Chicken Soup for the Vegan Soul for the link, which I can't find again on her site, but my post-it note iPAQ says that's where it came from, so I must believe me. Or forever be lime. How surreal.

Posted by: Ted at 10:33 AM | category: Links
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A Rat to English dictionary.

Somehow, I think Victor and Nic already knew about this. They probably contributed.

Thanks to J-Walk Blog for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 12:40 PM | category: Links
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Like I said, I like to cook, but I've never gotten this reaction to one of my culinary creations:

This is an evil pie. If it was a human being, it would be the kind that your daughter explores her love of bondage and discipline with. If it was a flower, it would be a dandelion nodding its impudent yellow head on the 18th hole at Augusta. If it was a car, it would be the bastard love-child of KITT and the Batmobile--and the midwife would be Jesse James. It's a high-voltage vibrator-induced multiple orgasm for your tastebuds.

Posted by: Ted at 12:23 PM | category: Links
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Just last night, while Mookie was practicing her driving, we were talking and I mentioned an old pinball machine that I used to play at the NCO club. Funny how it happens, because this morning I come across this place: VPForums, where they live, breathe and eat pinball. Make sure to check out their sister site, where they have lovingly recreated 883 classic pinball tables!!!

I'll be perusing their database this evening, and hopefully I'll find that machine I remember so fondly.

Posted by: Ted at 10:23 AM | category: Links
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It's no secret that I like to cook, and just looking at me tells you that I love to eat. Years ago in high school, a science teacher said something that always stayed with me, which was:

Cooking is chemestry.

Everything that happens when you cook is either a chemical process or the catalyst for a chemical process, and that includes mixing, heating, blending, baking... all of it. We use recipes to control those chemical processes in a way that leads to (hopefully) edible food.

Alton Brown has a show on the Food Network called Good Eats. In it, he digs deep into the why of cooking, and he's entertaining as hell doing it. If you haven't had a chance to see it, you really should. His shows generally focus on one narrow theme - for instance, fish & chips - and as he cooks, you get the story on what's really happening to the food as you prepare it. And knowing the 'why' of things helps you to understand why certain things are done and to avoid potential problems.

J-Walk Blog pointed out a nice feature about Alton Brown in Wired. It'll give you a better idea of why this show is one of my favorites on television.

Posted by: Ted at 09:31 AM | category: Links
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It's bigger than it looks. In fact, I actually had it in my hand, all ready to give to the checkout lady, but my conscience kicked in and I put it away. Even so, it's very impressive and lots of fun to play with.

What?

Posted by: Ted at 06:46 AM | category: Links
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On the way home from Michigan, we passed a billboard with this website, which made me think of The Llama Butchers.

Great URL - "Lamalot" - which makes me think of Richard Burton as king, with singing and dancing Llamas all over the place. Very memorable image, which is what you want.

But, "Try Llamas - For Pleasure or Profit"?!?!? Ewwwwww.

Posted by: Ted at 02:49 PM | category: Links
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Mookie is the latest (first?) viewer/blogger to be posted on FuseBlog*, and has been invited to submit more posts. They've also added MookieRiffic and Fear Your Future to their blogroll.

In the traditional Munuvian manner: Yay!

*Fuse is a channel that does music videos, kinda like what MTV started out to be. I like 'em too, they rock.

Posted by: Ted at 02:58 PM | category: Links
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You have a dirty mind. Uh huh, I can see the smirk. It matches mine.

I haven't had the chance to look around yet, so these may be so yesterday's news.

From the Universal Church of Cosmic Uncertainty comes notice that the story about the lady who rode her motorcycle through the Cherbobyl area is a hoax. I know several bloggers linked to this one, but annika is the only one I recall at the moment.

Also filed under 'oops' is the story about the religious couple who couldn't figure out why she wasn't getting pregnant. Kevin of Wizbang exposes it as another hoax. Since everyone reads Wizbang (or should), you already knew this.

Posted by: Ted at 07:34 AM | category: Links
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This morning during the commute I was listening to one of my big band CD's. A song came on and brought back memories of classic black & white cartoons I used to watch on saturday mornings. These cartoons were before Hannah-Barbarra developed their cookie-cutter scenery style, and the music was lifted from the popular radio hits of the day.

The name of that particular song is "Song of the Volga Boatmen" and always seemed to be used for cartoon funerals or 'scary' skeleton dances. Another popular tune often used was "Sing Sing Sing", and I'm sure there are many more I'd recognize now.

I'll have to do some more research on this, because I don't have enough things to fill up every waking moment of my life. In the meantime, here's a site called Mike's Classic Cartoon Themes & Images. It concentrates on stuff newer than I'm talking about above, but it's still pretty cool. Seems to be fairly complete too, I mean, who else besides me remembers Marine Boy?

Posted by: Ted at 01:36 AM | category: Links
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If you're here because of a Google search for "Calgary Flames Breast". You'll find them here (not work safe).

Credit where credit is due: Eric of Off Wing Opinion.

Posted by: Ted at 10:14 AM | category: Links
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The hockey season isn't over, it just seems that way now that my beloved Sharks are out of the playoffs. Apparently there's another sport being played this time of the year...

Let's lead off with a little baseball history, shall we? The question is: "who is the ninth man?"

He is out there somewhere in spring training. He's probably 20 or 21, maybe 22. And he will retire in the year 2016. He will be the grand old man of baseball. And they will say, 'He's so old that the year he broke in, Eddie Murray was still playing.' And he will become the ninth man. Eddie Murray's the eighth man. When he broke in, Brooks Robinson was still playing. And when Robinson broke in, Bob Feller was still playing. And when Feller broke in, Rogers Hornsby was still playing. And when Hornsby broke in, Honus Wagner was still playing. And when Wagner broke in, Cap Anson was still playing. And when Anson broke in, Dickey Pearce was still playing. And when Pearce broke in, Doc Adams was still playing. Adams played for the Knickerbocker club inthe first organized game of baseball in 1846, number one of the eight men whose careers cover the 152 seasons since. And somewhere out there is the ninth man.

In the #2 spot we have Roberto of DynamoBuzz telling us about taking the family to see a minor league baseball game.

Moving the runners along, QandO reports on "Terror Math" and what exactly it means to find a single sarin-filled artillery shell in Iraq. This is scary stuff. In related developments, John and McQ have added Dale Franks to the blogging team, removing them from the Beeblebroxian category and placing them squarely in the realm of three-headed knights of Holy Grail fame. Ni! (I know)

Batting cleanup, we find this from the flea ethereal:

Bruce Campbell says there is "some validity" to rumours Ash could take on Freddy and Jason.

Up next is Lemur Girl, who says:

...we all have the same love for the sun. So when it next peeks out from behind a cloud and people rush down to bathe shirtless and in tiny tops I will gladly join them.

Batting sixth is Angelweave's Heather, who has figured out that the cicada's are actually Zerg! Yikes!

In the seventh slot, we have Daniel, who brazenly displays a deep and penetrating understanding of mysterious technological mysteries. Jen steals the sign and calls the balk!

Seventh inning stretch! Jello shots, courtesy of Lawren.

Batting eighth, and consistantly going deep, is Debbye Stratigacos. Way to shut the home team down!

And finally, batting ninth with a funny bat, we have Simon. If you love football, you're daft, according to him.

Hitting the showers was never this much fun.

That's it, complete game. Now will someone please tell McCarver to STFU?!?!?!

Posted by: Ted at 05:28 AM | category: Links
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1 We are on a Quest, you see. A Holy Quest to obtain a shrubbery.

Posted by: Jon Henke at May 21, 2004 11:05 AM (EHefn)

2 ooo! I got linked!!! i'm so proud

AxXx

Posted by: Lemurgirl at May 21, 2004 03:31 PM (ZZQbd)

3 Thanks for a baseball-y link! It is a beautiful game.

(Phlly just lost to Tampa Bay. Boo hoo hoo!)

We don't get McCarver up here, but have a lot of sportcasters who should take your advice. They also babble in hockey ...

Posted by: Debbye at May 22, 2004 09:46 PM (HM4Jw)

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An interactive map showing the locations of 20th century wars. Nifty.

Thanks to J-Walk Blog for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 12:02 PM | category: Links
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If you're one of those people who loves to jump on the bandwagon, join the parade, be part of the 'in' crowd, can't say no, or never met a cause you couldn't get behind, well, today is your lucky day!

Memeblog!

Posted by: Ted at 02:35 PM | category: Links
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