Rantings, mostly…

Despite the recent tragic loss of my niece, and the twice now horrible experiences we have had setting off a few fireworks, happy 4th people.

Monday, we tried setting a few fireworks off.  The police were called by a local drunk asshole we all know and hate.  Although the local newspaper is what notified us that the “burn bans” had been lifted, the officer threatened to confiscate our fireworks (thank God 85% of them were located in the house and not outside with us).

Then in some strange stroke of kindness (more like he realized he was an idiot) he just offered that we quit for tonight, or find a good field or something (um… but you were warning us about the burn ban?) and was on his way.

Well, tonight, one of my neighbors in all his drunken glory decided he would take one of my fountains (I didn’t care) and light it himself.

As my wife, I, and my four daughters looked on it amazement we realized not one second into the lighting that something was amiss.

The first shot of 16 fired, *PPOOOM!*, and that was what sent the fountain skittering on its side.

The fountain continued firing off round after round, *PPOOOM!  PPOOOM!*, sending these mini-mortars flying in my children’s direction, several of my neighbor’s directions and even down to the end of our street barely missing my last neighbor on my side’s *very* nice car.

Needless to say, I said screw this shite, and took everyone inside.  Luckily no one was hurt.

But is God trying to tell us something?  You know… like… “Fuck you!”

But it ended with a ton of fireworks-goodness!

It started out by us driving across states into Indiana.  We went to one of the newest Phantom fireworks outlets.

Anyway, we get there and to our joyous surprise, *EVERYTHING* is buy one get one free and you can mix and match anything above twenty dollars.

Everything was fine and dandy until I got to the register, rang up all of our stuff and the girl behind the counter with the cutest possible smile I am sure she could muster said:

“That’ll be $1,134.65 sir.”

Evidently, as I stared clean through her skull, she figured her joke sucked and opted to continue…

“Hu hu hu… just kidding”, she said.  It’s actually $568.69.  You saved $622.32 today!  And guess what?”

I mockingly said in an excited tone, “I dunno… wha… ?”

Before saying anything she realized I was making fun of her hick accent, and then said with a frown and sigh, “You get tons of free stuff.  Happy?”

“Um, well hell yeah!”, I gasped in anticipation.

I’ll skip the rest of the exasperated dialog, but I will tell you this.  The free stuff was:

2 Grand Finale Assortments ($109.99 a piece)
1 Thunder Mountain ($79.99)
1 Wolf Pack Radical Recoil Shells ($49.99)
1 Napalm Bomb ($39.99)
1 Palm Pyro Pageantry ($29.99)
1 Wolf Pack Assorted Rockets ($29.99)
1 Phantom Fireworks T-Shirt (and no, it isn’t the one employees wear!)

You got that right.  $449.93 in free stuff!  And only one of those items (Palm Pyro Pageantry) was discontinued.  Of course that’s not counting the t-shirt.

I have no clue how they can afford to give away so much free stuff.  I guess a business where you sell cardboard and low explosive pyrotechnics that you manufacture for a few dollars per item is pretty stinking lucrative.

Bastards think they’re slick.  Like I don’t know better.

But who am I kidding?!  I got $450.00 in free shit!

(You can click on the first image to see a larger view.)

http://blog.opendns.com/2007/05/22/google-turns-the-page/

You have got to be kidding me! Every goddamn good thing in this world eventually goes to shit. Why is that?

I mean, think about it.

Bill Gates - Software-stealing, bug-eyed, big-nosed bastard. He created the monstrosity that is Microsoft. (NOTE: Yes, I would love Bill’s money.)

Carphone Warehouse - Sold out to AOL for the “big bucks.”

Linux - Well, Linus Torvalds didn’t sell out. At least one good thing remains. However, several, OK, not several, tens upon tens of Linux distributions are commercially owned now.

Macromedia - Sold out to Adobe Inc., for the “big bucks.”

Microsoft - Despite *being* the Devil’s plaything, the DRM situation has screwed hundreds of thousands of users of legally owned music. Makes it hard to wanna’ go the legal route, that’s for damn sure.

Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals - Sold out to Microsoft for the “big bucks.”

Shawn Fanning, author of Napster - Sold out for the “big bucks.” Only to have this backfire on him. Bastard.

Steve Jobs - Sold his sold to the Devil to market a goddamn iPod. (NOTE: Yes, I would love Steve’s money.)

Time Warner - Sold out to AOL for the “big bucks.”

America is all about making money, and selling your fucking soul.

I guess the next thing we’ll see is PHP being retired in lieu of Microsoft PHP.NET; the EFF becoming AOL EFF; Adobe GNU, and a slew of other open-source or freeware entities going the way of the mighty dollar.

Goddamn you Google. You geek bastards made me fall in love with you, and then you go and crawl into bed with Dell.

Google, you skanky, white-trash, gutter-slut whore. You have broken my heart. Burn in hell for your transgressions.

Note to my more casual readers: Please forgive my use of expletives in this post. I felt the need to be colorful.

I just wanted to be one of the first to say Jordin Sparks won American Idol.
Besides, I have not blogged about anything else noteworthy, so, you know…

Anyway, Jordin just won American Idol. Congratulations kiddo. You definitely rock!

Has anyone besides me noticed that Jordin is like an Amazon? I mean, that kid has got to be 5′11″ or so, maybe a beefy 160lbs, and she is only seventeen!

http://www.americanidol.com/contestants/season6/jordin_sparks/

FBI admits they broke the law:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/03/09/D8NP15BO0.html

Here we go again, another clear case of law enforcement, government officials, basically anyone in the position to govern our freedom, abusing their powers.

How come we do not hear about these guys (and or gals) not being brought up on charges and sentenced to prison time?

Because they protect their own!

My mother and I were just conjecturing the other day too, about man’s ultimate demise deriving from man himself.

Sheesh.

I am watching “Disorderly Conduct: On Patrol” (A squad car is stolen by a handcuffed woman in Utah; a murder suspect is pursued by officers in Montana.) on SpikeTV.

Anyway, near the end of the show after the pursuit of the murderer one of the arresting officers was quoted as saying (I am doing the quoting, forgive me if it is not verbatim):

“Right as my front sight landed on his left eye, that was my target, his left eye…”

“Right as the hammer was about to fall and send a bullet down the chamber into his left eye, I saw both his hands come up and at that point I knew the fight was over and there was no point in executing this guy.”

Did you get all that? The police officer actually said that. So, amongst all of the horrible state of affairs that is our legal system and the current state of law enforcement, we actually have officers who make nonchalant statements about whether or not they should have executed someone.

Disturbing.