Author: Paul Tomblin

Heavy Stuff, Don’t Read

I can’t decide which I hate worse – the atrocities done at Abu Ghraib prison, or the apologists who think that torture, including rape, can be excused.

Even the erstwhile “Lean Left” gets it awfully, awfully wrong, linking rape and threats of rape with homophobia and sexuality. Rape isn’t sex. It’s merely the most degrading and damaging thing you can do to another person. Worse, far worse than murder, or maiming or physical torture or psychological torture.

What is going to appear below the cut line is pretty heavy, you probably don’t want to read it.

Continue reading “Heavy Stuff, Don’t Read”

Disconcerting juxtaposition of the day

I’m listening to an audio book right now. It’s P.G.Wodehouse’s “The Cat Burglars”. I’ve never actually read a Jeeves and Wooster book before, and I’m enjoying this one. But the narrator sounds disconcertingly like my ex-mother-in-law, in spite of the difference in genders. It’s a little bit jarring.

Petty annoyance of the day

I’m watching my web server logs scroll by, and every minute, I see the following:

216.239.69.45 - - [10/May/2004:10:04:18 -0400] "GET /getlatest.glh?PV=6.0.5.27&OS=WIN&L=en-US, en, *&LID=1033&ch=120+90+0+0+0&ch=72+53+0+0+0&ch=52+739+0+0+0&ch=33+923+0+0+0&ch=73+166+0+0+0&ch=97+108+0+0+0&ch=118+14+0+0+0 HTTP/1.0" 404 1063 "-" "RMA/1.0 (compatible; RealMedia)"

Now, if Google can be trusted, and believe me, it can, it appears that this bozo somehow has his DNS screwed up so that it thinks I’m channels.real.com.

If only I had some suitably BOFHly way of handling this – like causing his RealPlayer to suddenly scream at him to shut the fucking thing off.