When I was a kid, one of my favourite movies was Twister. When I first saw it, it was utterly terrifying, and created an intense fear of tornados whenever we had a thunderstorm. The fact that I lived in the mountains where tornadoes never, ever occur didn’t sink in for a few years, and losing my tent to a microburst while camping didn’t help.

After I got over my fear of tornadoes, I started to really enjoy this movie, and watched it a bunch of times. I even seriously wanted to get into storm chasing (again, not something readily pursue-able in the mountains) after watching it.

My interest in the film faded for awhile, and the next time I saw it, I thought the movie was patently ridiculous. It had gone from terrifying horror film, to exciting thriller, to pathetic comedy in the span of about eight years.

So, this evening, I was browsing The Nostalgia Critic videos. I don’t normally watch his reviews, because they’re really long, and usually about movies/TV shows I don’t remember. His review of Fern Gully, one of my all-time favourite movies, really rubbed me the wrong way, so I don’t really watch his reviews of anything I remember fondly. But, I saw that he reviewed Twister, and couldn’t resist. This is quite possibly the most hilarious video this guy’s ever done, in my opinion

I can’t count the number of times I’ve wished I could do something like this. Especially when people do it in a crowded parking lot.

Alternatively, I’ve had many occasions where I’ve wanted to put the brute force of my truck to good use and fix someone’s shoddy parking job by pushing them sideways until they’re properly aligned in the spot.

A graphic protest took place Monday at a Charlottesville fast food restaurant.

A member of the animal rights group PETA dressed as Ronald McDonald. He hung up-side down at the McDonald’s restaurant with his throat cut by a giant chicken under a banner reading McDonald’s cuts live animals’ throats.

McDonald’s says it slaughters all of its chickens in as humane a manner as possible.

PETA says it is protesting against the suffering McDonald’s inflicts on the birds.

PETA Protester Ashley Byrne says, “PETA’s chicken is getting her revenge today against Ronald McDonald for representing a company that tortures chickens in ways that would warrant felony cruelty charges if dogs or cats were the victims.”

PETA representatives called police when a man protested their protest by eating a chicken sandwich he just bought from McDonald’s. He left before police arrived.

Protest at VA Fast Food Restaurant on WHSV

Not much to say about this, except that people in this area have a great sense of humour about PETA. Anything they do is just a big joke, and locals always seem to invent fun ways to get back at them. I’m only sorry I missed this, I would’ve joined that guy in having a chicken sandwich.

I don’t doubt that residents of other areas have the same knack for making PETA protests look about as credible as a college frat party, but I hear about it the most whenever they come around here.

In my last post about VDOT, I railed the agency for cutting back pretty much all rural services and rest areas because of a budget screw-up that left them billions of dollars short of what they needed/expected. I wasn’t able to actually find any information on why they screwed up their budget, but admittedly, I didn’t look very hard.

The day that my rant was published, I came across this local news article, where a local state senator (who I loathe) called out VDOT for wastefully spending money on YouTube videos. I’m not usually one to side with Republicans, especially racist blowhards like Obenshain, but I have to say that this is a ridiculous investment for any government agency. I mean, it’s the Department of Transportation, why the heck do they need to make promotional videos? Half of them aren’t even useful, it’s just worthless fluff from an agency that really doesn’t need PR campaigns unless they royally screw something up.

Naturally, I had to check out VDOT’s YouTube Channel, and it’s rather entertaining just to see the lame tripe our tax dollars are supporting. I think this one is my favourite, just from the sillyness. Do they have salaried full-time employees sitting around with nothing better to do?

I think the best part is that, a few hours after the aforementioned news article ran, they disabled comments on this video.

I’m a little short on material today, so here’s an entertaining video. My Little Ponies performing Rammstein, found by akirashima

I found this on a friend’s blog, and decided to repost it myself. I wish I had this thing, just to watch the reactions on people’s faces when they saw it.

(more…)

My mind always conjures up images like this whenever people talk about having ridiculous NSA-grade security on their personal computer. Of course, I did it too, once upon a time, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t worth the hassle because no one cares.

On my way home from Pittsburgh, I stopped at the big travel plaza in Breezewood, as I always do, but I noticed something different since my last trip. They now have their own security officer. This facility isn’t particularly big, but they now have an old guy in a fake-cop uniform who drives a Security truck around the parking lot all night. And, apparently, he’s as bored as I imagine he would be, because when I pulled up, he spent a very long time watching me and driving a slow circle around my car.

Well, after grabbing a drink and such inside, I started wondering what the weather was like where I live. They were calling for a big snowstorm to blow through this area that night, and I wondered if I was going to hit it. Last time I came through this travel plaza, I used their overpriced internet kiosk to check weather reports, but that seemed silly, so I decided to fire up my laptop to find some free wi-fi.

After a few minutes of checking a couple access points, I found one, and proceeded to check the weather (completely clear skies for the next 6 hours, and I only had 2 hours of trip left). I also checked an email account out of boredom, but the whole process only took about ten minutes. So, I shut down my laptop, and started to leave, but I then remembered that my laptop case rattles like crazy, so I pulled up next to a gas pump to relocate it to my back seat.

Apparently, the aforementioned security jerk had been watching me the whole time, and had nothing better to do, so he was following behind me at a slow pace. He pulled up next to me, and gave me a really nasty stare. Didn’t get out of his truck, didn’t roll down the window, he just sat there and gave me the evil eye.

So, I did the only thing I could; I gave him the cutest, flirtiest wave I could muster (with a wink, for added effect), then got back in my car, and casually left the parking lot. No clue how he reacted, but it amused me

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In other news, today’s snow storm is the first time since last February that my hometown has had snow that stuck. The same town where, five years ago, four-wheel-drive was an undebateable transportation necessity. Trippy

There’s an article floating around the internet about how to write a college term paper, which basically consisted of how to procrastinate it all night. That’s kinda how my evening has been, except that I’m not writing a term paper. At this point, I’m sleep-deprived and delirious, so I figured I’d write some of this down.

1. Curl up in bed with laptop, nice and comfy, and get ready to start coding.
2. Read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
3. Realize that I’m thirsty, and grab some water.
4. Make a few posts on a forum I admin, because something needed to be dealt with there.
5. Curl up in bed with laptop, nice and comfy, and get ready to start coding.
6. Read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
7. It’s too quiet in here, let’s play a movie on the laptop in the background.
8. I wonder if there are any new messages on FA or DA? Let’s check.
9. Laptop’s whining about battery, go find charger.

10. When the movie’s over, read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
11. I’m not getting squat done, let’s try a change of scenery. Relocate to living room couch.
12. Thirsty, need more water.
13. Curl up on the couch with laptop, nice and comfy, and get ready to start coding.
14. Read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
15. Oh hey, my desktop computer just got a bunch of emails, let’s see what’s going on.
16. While I’m at it, let’s check LJ, as well as FA and DA again, just in case something happened.
17. Someone IMed me on AIM several hours ago, let’s see if they’re still around.
18. I’m hungry, let’s order pizza.
19. I’m not getting squat done, let’s try a change of scenery. Relocate to mom’s living room.

20. Pizza’s here! And, oh look, a cool movie’s on TV, and it’s one I’ve seen a million times, so I can use it as background noise.
22. Start writing LJ post.
21. Movie’s over, LJ post is posted. Read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
22. I’m not getting squat done, let’s try a change of scenery. Relocate to office desk.
23. Read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
24. I haven’t checked my watchlist on Wikifur all day, let’s see if anything major happened there.
25. I should check LJ, FA, and DA again.
26. Oh hey, tomorrow is trash day. Take out the trash.
27. Read over notes, and start planning in my head what to do next.
28. Chug a 20oz Coke, and pop a few pieces of caffeine gum, something I haven’t touched in years.
29. Commence marathon coding session, amend timesheet to exclude my ~10 hours of procrastinating. This is all overtime anyway. Oh look, daylight.