Allow me to sum up my weekend with this picture:



I flew up to Detroit for the weekend to briefly stop by ConClave 33 as well as hang out with the Michigan furries at girtygrin and nikvulper's place.

The lasers above were courtesy of gryph0n, who brought by his laser equipment and smoke machine.

I flew into Detroit on Thursday night and was pleased to learn that the sh*tty Smith Terminal there (complete with torn seats and ratty carpeting) has since been closed down. Having been around since the 1940s, it definitely outlived its usefulness, and needs to be destroyed. :-P

I stopped by ConClave briefly on Friday evening to visit some folks and then briefly on Saturday morning for the Big Argument Dorsai Irregulars business meeting. Somehow I wound up becoming responsible for the DI website during that meeting. Did I hear someone whisper, "Yet another Drupal installation"? That's what it sounded like to me!

Then it was off to Gir and Nik's place for cooking meat with fire, beer, and games. samurai_bastard, gen_talon, edhyena, and andrew7782 were all present, as were some local furs not all of who I know on LiveJournal. :-P





Later in the evening (read: after 1 AM), I played a little Dead Rising and had fun killing zombies. I hear the game is coming out for the Wii and can't wait for it.

Also, I need to never sing in Rockband 2 again. I completely failed at that.

As always, my full dump of pics can be found online at http://flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157607775873467/

Thanks for having me over, guys.

I didn't actually get to *hear* the debates last night, but I could *see* them on the TV at the gym. One thing I noticed is that Sarah Palin was wearing an absolutely gigantic American flag on her chest, almost as if she were overcompensating for something. I think at this point it is safe to say that Sarah Palin is a size queen.

In related news, Hustler producing a spoof of Sarah Palin called "Nailin' Paylin". In addition to having a guest "appearance" by Bill O'Reilly, there will be a 3-way sex scene involving Palin/Paylin, Hillary Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice.

At any rate, I think that Palin is weak, and the Republican party is entirely too soft these days. We need a real leader in the White House, someone who can get things done and lead us well into the 21st century. And I know just the hippo for the job:



"Vote for Dolph! You are all 100% assholes!"

Say what you will about Dolph, but at least he's honest and up front in his feelings. (Now with English translation!)


I'll be at work for just a few more hours today, then it's off to Detroit for the weekend. I'll be commuting to ConClave from girtygrin's place.

SEPTA decided to close Market East Station at 7 PM tonight for "police activity". This stranded myself and several thousand commuters both in the city, and in trains on their way to the city. Market East was completely evacuated. At the time I spoke to a SEPTA employee at Suburban Station around 8 PM, he stated that they were waiting on the "all clear" from the police before they could re-open the station.

Despite what the employee told me in the customer service office, he was almost immediately contradicted by a female employee there who stated that it was a "bomb scare" to another passenger.



These were not real times for the trains, but rather estimates on when SEPTA thought they would reopen the station.



A crowd of commuters gather at the closed station. SEPTA really dropped the ball here. They had NO signage or personal on hand. There were a few police officers inside of the station that were completely unhelpful in answering queries from stranded passengers. No announcements were made over the PA at Market East nor Suburban Station. Basically, we were left in the dark as to why the station was closed.



A crowd gathers inside of the customer service office.

I eventually got home with the help of a subway, light rail, and a 1.5 mile walk across town.

Just to underscore my comments above, I'm no security expert--there may have been a very good reason for closing down Market East. SEPTA themselves may have not even had a say in the matter, they might have just been told to close the station by police. What SEPTA could control is how they reacted to this crisis. They could have made announcements. They could have made signs. They could have put notices on the train status boards. And they could have drawn up some emergency action plan in advance, that provided alternate subway/rail/bus paths for passengers to take to their destination.

Did I mention I'm paying $116/month for this? You're doing a heck of a job, SEPTA.

Remember the post I made last month about the grandmother who was arrested for videotaping an altercation on board a JetBlue flight?

Well, JetBlue just couldn't leave the situation be. Instead of admitting they screwed up, or at least remained silent, they instead chose to send Marilyn Praver a nasty letter in which they accused her of of being "argumentative, condescending and belligerent", and chastised her for refusing to obey the instructions of crew members.

Guess what just got posted on YouTube. Yep, it's the altercation in question:


Nothing too shocking, just a couple of passengers arguing because one passenger couldn't (or wouldn't) control her "little angel". And that's what JetBlue was so upset about?

The blog Photography is Not a Crime has much more detailed writeup on the situation, including a copy of Marylin Praver's complaint letter to JetBlue.

And remember, taking pictures inside a plane isn't allowed, unless you're a JetBlue flight attendant, wiping another attendant with a tampon:



I think Sarah Palin should work for JetBlue. She'd fit right in.

Sarah Palin was asked what newspapers she reads. This is her response:


I love the look on the reporter's face around 0:35.

Seriously, is she for real? Is she trying bullshit the reporter? What would prompt a non-answer like that?

I drove down to Virginia for KainCon this past weekend and made a few side trips along the way.

On Friday night, I met up with Loki (joshvon) for dinner. It was the first time I really got to hang out with him since he got out of the military.

I made it down to Kain's place late Friday night and hung out through early Sunday afternoon. I got to see creatureshock, davinwarter and drakien1 again. Bill Cosby stahi was around, too. talon2303 was also there.

There was something about a pretty crazy game of Wii Tennis with sirkain, who totally stomped me in a Best 3 of 5 match.

On Saturday evening, we took a trip to the Todai sushi buffet, and I saw this on the way out:



More pictures from KainCon:



The full archive of pics is at http://flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157607568251631/, for anyone who is interested. I also created a Flickr group for KainCon photos at http://flickr.com/groups/kaincon/.

On Sunday, I went a little out of my way to visit ryvex in Maryland. It was the first time I saw him in uh, about 3 years or so. We grabbed a late lunch and got to play catchup on recent events in our lives.

I finally got home just after 9 PM that night. It was a fun and busy weekend.

Found an article over on Kiplinger.com that discussed the events that led up to the current financial panic, starting in about 2000 or so. It covers subprime mortgages, how they "infected" so much of the market, and what caused all of the defaulting on those loans:

http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2008/09/how_the_financial_crisis_started.html

Enjoy!

Ganked from kaarlo.

Take a picture of yourself right now.

Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.

Post that picture with NO editing.

Post these instructions with your picture.




As an aside, all the stuff that made it into the background was interesting and completely unintentional on my part. I count a few plushies, Dolph, and my DI beret.

After I made the previous post ("Heath Shake? More like Death Shake!"), I emailed the link on the Baskin Robbins website to The Consumerist.

Guess what? They picked up the story:

http://consumerist.com/5052633/baskin-robbins-death-shake-has-2300-calories

This is almost as sweet as that Death Shake. :-)

Thanks for pointing this out, lockemaison:



That's pretty much a day's worth of calories right there, in that one shake.

I'm amazed places can get away selling this stuff. I know that people have to take responsibility for what they eat, but I think there has to be some accountability for the companies that sell this crap, too. I'd be surprised if 1 in 100 customers who consume that shake have any idea how bad it is.

netcrimes tells us the story of the chipmunk that snuck into her garage.



Go! Read!

I had a couple of really twisted dreams last night.

Dream #1) I dreamed that I was in some real life version of this this Ventrilo harassment video. And I hadn't watched that video in at least a week!

Dream #2) I dreamed I was watching Deliverance backwards. So it turned into a family-friendly movie that was full of resurrection and healing. Almost religious, in fact.

Since people seem to be posting what conventions they went to, I suppose I'll do the same.

Anthrocon: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Camp Feral: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
ConClave: 2005, 2006, 2007
Confluence: 2006, 2007, 2008
DexCon: 2006
Eurofurence: 2004
FurFright: 2006, 2007
Furry Connection North: 2008
KainCon: 2006(?)
MagFest: 2007, 2008
MarCon: 2007, 2008
Midwest FurFest: 2002, 2003
Otakon: 2003

Years with links are where I have photos online. Bolded years are where I worked staff.


So that's 34 conventions in all. And I was staff at 22 of those conventions. Jesus.


And there are still more conventions I'd like to add to that list. Megaplex, Confusion, and Penguincon, for starters. And FurCoNZ, too. (I've never been to New Zealand before!)

Oh, and the next couple of months will be busy for me, as I'll be attending the following cons:

KainCon - A gaming con run out of sirkain's house over a weekend.

ConClave 33 - A science fiction con in Michigan. This is considered the "home" con for the Dorsai Irregulars, so I'm looking forward to seeing many other DI there.

FurFright - A halloween-themed furry connection in Connecticut.

Midwest FurFest - The big furry convention held out in Chicago just before Thanksgiving. I'm pleased to be returning here after missing it for the last few years.

I'll hope I'll get to see folks I know at at least one of those conventions! :-P

I'd like to suggest a more qualified Palin than Sarah Palin:


http://www.michaelpalinforpresident.com/

So, on Friday night we at the Save Ardmore Coalition were officially presented with our $20,000 Grant from the State of Pennsylvania:



From left to right: Ken Haskin is in the white shirt, I'm in the green shirt (with the shaved head), Scott Mahan is in the black shirt, Si Simons is in the peach colored shirt, and Sharon Eckstein is immediately to his right. It was nice of everyone to wear different colored shirts!

I have no idea why the check is dated last December. Ah, Bureaucracy.

Also, some local folks swung by:



Yes, that's a Dolph plushie I'm holding. It's a long story. (But thanks for the hookup, wolfspawn3!)


Oh, the Philly Phanatic stopped by too:



Yes, he's standing in traffic on Lancaster Ave. Fursuiters, please do not do this at the next con. :-P

If anyone would like to see the full set of my pictures, they're at: http://flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157607164585627/

The user Mainline Clicks also took a bunch of photos of the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mainlineclicks/sets/72157607160295075/

The Ardmore VFW was also selling "social memberships", which I took advantage of and purchased one. So if of you vets out there decide to visit me, I can take you to meet other vets and drink with them. :-P

I had a pretty busy Memorial Day weekend.

First, omnibahumut came by on Friday night. We hung out and watched some TV shows. The usual.

I spent Saturday afternoon cleaning up the apartment [Edit: with some help from Omni!] so that we could have some friends over the evening:



I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning up the fur that was shed. :-P Then I spent some time that evening playing Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People. I never realized just how much of a jerk Strong Bad was. Also, I could have done without seeing Homestar Runner naked, kthx.

On Monday morning, mongologue came by and we spent most of the day taking care of Anthrocon business and testing out the registration system that I have been working on. I got some good feedback for the system and was generally pleased to see that my development efforts have been on the right track.

It sucks that I missed Eurofurence this past weekend, but I'm please that others who went had a good time. Oh, and if anyone saw a blue hippo plushie at the con, I totally don't know anything about that. Honest!

So apparently, the owner of Furry Art Pile up and decided to close the site last night.

No warning. No notice. Just gone. *poof*

I feel badly for the artists who lost any artwork or commission info from the site.

Guess I'll be visiting ArtSpots a lot more in the future.

My younger sister and my aunt had the idea of throwing a surprise 38th anniversary party for my parents so they could renew their wedding vows. While their actual 38th anniversary isn't until October, she felt that Summer would be a better time to hold an outdoor party, and especially since their last Summer was pretty much wrecked with a couple of hospital trips.

So on Saturday afternoon, about 80 friends of my parents arrived early in the afternoon, followed by my parents arriving around 2:30, and finding a big crowd of their friends waiting for them.



Then Monsignor Murphy walked out and renewed their vows in front of everyone, which was all sorts of cool.

I also got to chat with Msgr. Murphy for a little while, which I really enjoyed as he was a childhood hero of mine. No really--straight from the muzzle of Mr. I-hate-religion here. While I'm not a huge fan of religion, praying, or churches, I was raised as a Roman Catholic and went to church nearly every Sunday until about age 15 or 16. I got to see many of Msgr's homilies, and I never once heard a word about politics, gays, or evolution. What I did hear lots of was tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding. In other words, he acted the way a Christian should be acting.

Maybe I should change my name to Mr. I-hate-religion-mixed-with-politics.

Anyway... getting back to my post about the weekend, a cake maker was hired to create a replica of my parents' original wedding cake, and it turned out pretty well.

After the party, it was back to my parents' place to crash, then back again to my aunt's place on Sunday to finish cleaning up. I then spent the afternoon amusing myself by doing some channel surfing and playing pool against myself (I lost) while my parents chatted with Theo and Kathlene and played catchup.

The full dump of pictures can be found here.

Finally, we got to see some deer wander through the yard on Sunday afternoon:

And by "we", I mean The Save Ardmore Coalition. The state of Pennsylvania will be giving us a $20,000 grant in just over a week. I could talk about this more, but pasting in our press release is easier. :-)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUGUST 25, 2008
ARDMORE, PA
http://www.saveardmorecoalition.org/

SAVE ARDMORE COALIITION TO RECEIVE GRANT SEPTEMBER 5TH, 2008 IN ARDMORE, PA

Image and video hosting by TinyPic
The Save Ardmore Coalition is pleased to announce that we are to receive a grant in the amount of $20,000 from The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. in front of the Ardmore VFW in Ardmore, PA during our First Friday Main Line event with the American Troop Support Team (ATST).

This grant has been awarded to the Save Ardmore Coalition by State Representative Daylin Leach (149th PA), and is via the Department of Community and Economic Development’s Community Revitalization Program. $10,000 of this grant will be used towards a Community Mural and other streetscape beautification efforts.

State Representative Leach has be very supportive of the efforts of Save Ardmore Coalition in the community, and through this grant the Save Ardmore Coalition will be able to further its efforts as a group.

So please join State Representative Daylin Leach and members of the Save Ardmore Coalition in the shadow of the buildings in Historic Ardmore that we fought successfully to save from Eminent Domain for Private Gain. Join us as we take yet another definitive step forward into the future.

For more information on First Friday Main Line, please visit their website at http://www.firstfridaymainline.com/
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Save Ardmore Coalition P.O. Box 453 Ardmore, PA 19003 www.saveardmorecoalition.org

Been setting up a new machine for the migration of Anthrocon's webserver. This should address some of the speed issues we've been having as well as allowing us to use SSL on the site. Plus, since I now have root access and things like crontab available, I can start doing nightly rsyncs of the data.

Fun fact: Nginx lets you chain SSL certificates merely by appending the extra certificates on the end of your site's certificate. No extra webserver configuration requried!

Been building the pre-registration system for 2009, too. I expect that to be finished in the next few weeks. Also, I will be releasing the final product under the GNU Public License. I figure I can at least entertain others by letting them laugh at my code.

I slept poorly a few nights ago and must have done something to the muscles in my neck. This has resulted in me having headaches the last few days. Advil helps the symptoms, though.

Heading up north tomorrow to visit the family for a party. We're celebrating my kid sister's Masters Degree. Let her be the highest educated person in my family for a change. :-P

[Edit: Forgot to mention co-worker J. He wants to tag along with me to the next furry convention I attend, which would be FurFright. He has NO idea what he's in for! :-)]

For the morbidly curious, that pic was used on a paper tray liner at a Burger King at an airport. The original blog post about it can be found over here.

And yes, *what* is Burger King thinking? Pickles do NOT perform body cavity searches on onions!

Whoever made this had WAY too much time on their hands. But it's a job well done.



I'm unsure if they created their shaky camera footage or used pre-existing footage.

Getting new ringtones on your Razr without paying $1.99 or whatever Verizon charges is easy.

Send an email to yournumber@vzwpix.com, with the MP3 as an attachment.

When it arrives on your phone as a PIX message, the file has already been converted to the AAC format, and can be saved with the "Save Sound" choice under the Options menu.

It will now appear in your list of ringtones.

Thanks to this trick, my phone now has Dolph the Fascist Hippo ringtones on it. Guaranteed to confuse friends, co-workers, and family members alike!

http://www.elliott.org/blog/grandmother-arrested-after-refusing-to-delete-jetblue-fight-video/

http://consumerist.com/5036981/jetblue-has-grandmother-arrested-for-refusing-to-delete-an-unflattering-video-recording

http://www.kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=16860 (The most detailed writeup)

To summarize, there was a verbal altercation in mid-flight between passengers on JetBlue Flight 195 over a noisy child. That in itself isn't too unusual. Passenger Marilyn Parver, who was sitting a few rows back, recorded a video from her seat, with a video camera. Also not too unusual.

The unusual part is when the flight crew came around asking questions about the altercation, and when Mrs. Parver reported that she had video of the incident, was summoned to the back of the plane by the flight crew, who asked to see the video. After she showed them the video, they demanded that she delete it from her camera. When she refused, they attempted to bully her, and made threats that she would be arrested.

Sure enough, when the plane landed, Mrs. Parver was removed in handcuffs by two police officers. JetBlue again demanded she remove the video. When Parver refused, and asked the names of everyone present, she was "arrested", and taken to the police station. By now, JetBlue's story had changed, and she had "taken pictures of the cockpit, the galley and other suspicious things on board".

The best part is that since an arrest wasn't officially made, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department doesn't have any actual documentation of this incident. Funny, that.

I can't help but wonder what is on that video tape anyway, and why JetBlue is so insistent that it be deleted? I hope it gets posted to YouTube.

So, Gmail dropped offline for a little over an hour yesterday... and it was like a blackout or something. Hundreds of messages were written on various groups complaining about it, and a search on Twitter revealed dozens of posts about Gmail every second. Within an hour, CNET had coverage of the issue as well. The incident even caused Google to apologize in their blog, which is rare for them.

It's funny that even though the outage was just over an hour, many people (myself included) got all up in arms and acted like their world was coming to an end.

All things considered though, Gmail has an astonishing uptime, even for being a free service, and for being as heavily used as it is. I usually have Gmail running in a tab in my browser whether I'm at home or at work, and the last time I can remember a significant outage is at least a year ago. I can certainly say that they have better uptime than my current webhost (3-4 outages over the last year) and certain companies I have done business with in the past.

*goes back to hitting "refresh" obsessively on his Gmail*