johnstewart.com

Thank fucking god*. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but at least they’re still turning.

Some of these poor sods have been holed up there for more than six years. And while I’m certain that some of them are evil motherfuckers, I think we all know that there are very, very likely some that were probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer." - William Blackstone

BBC News:

Foreign suspects held in Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in US civilian courts, the US Supreme Court has ruled.

It overturned by five to four a ruling that upheld a 2006 law that took away the rights of suspects to seek full judicial review of their detention.

So in a world in which justice and peace seem farther and farther removed from us in the United States of GeorgeBushIca, it’s nice to see a little light of hope shine through. All is not (yet) lost.

* god in the poetic sense, not the God of intervention as told in the Bible, Torah, and Koran… because only the former actually exists.

Apparently that is a penis.

I see the foot of a frog, but the ultrasound tech and doctor’s Rorschach Tests say that there is, in fact, a penis amongst the blurry blobs.

At any rate, they’ve convinced us that we’re having a boy!

More pics of our blob

I’ve loved every version of GTA from the first I played on the original Playstation (A game where the object is to steal cars and commit crime? No way!)

I’ve said for years that I would buy a PS3 or Xbox360 based on which played GTA:IV best. I went PS3 in a close heat (I already have a PSP, so I figured any coolness from pairing them would be icing on the cake… and I’ve always liked the Playstation controller form factor.)

So I’m sitting here trying to load my save for my second session of playtime ever… and it’s sitting there "LOADING - JAMAICAN HEAT". No HD access, just sitting there. If I quit, it crashes the PS3. Loading again gets me to the same place. Tried nuking my most recent save data. No joy. I guess the next step is to whack all the rest of my GTA data.

This is the second bug I’ve run into. This is worse, as the first time, I just couldn’t get a lapdance from a stripper who all of a sudden froze and went totally catatonic. Weird.

So far, not impressed, Rockstar.

Oh yeah, and no skippable intros on loading? Fuck you, Rockstar. [Edit - this is not the case. The intro screens do seem to be mandatory, bit it’s loading up the game while they show - I can now see HD activity. Previously running into the hang bug, there was no HD activity, so I assumed it was an unskippable intro instead of a loading screen]

Next Day:

Once I deleted all save game data, I was back…. however, when I loaded again, it fails again. The fix, I found too late, it to unplug ethernet. It seems this is a mutiplayer issue - probably the GTA servers are overloaded. Grr.

They took out side/rear look with the trigger buttons. Now you have to use L3 to look behind, and the right analog stick in general to look around. You can hit O to go into "cinema mode" and then when you release it, the view is centered forward. Being able to quickly center the view is important, but really L3 for rear look is a big annoyance. You have to either take your thumb off the wheel, or the brake/gas, in order to look behind. Grr.

It doesn’t look that great on my old school standard def rear projector TV, as well… so until I get HDTV (not bloody likely any time soon), the graphics really aren’t that much better than I recall in San Andreas.

So far, is it good? Yes. Still wonderful to have a world of GTA in front of me. It is much more realistic than any before.

I realized how different it was the first time I ran headlong into a guard rail at top speed. The car crunched to a stop as my body sailed clear through the windshield. Fucking cool.

After a Weekend:

All complaining aside, it’s really, really good.

GPS is nice - click a waypoint on the map and you’re directed there via a route on your minimap. If you’re in a high-end car, you’re like to hear "Turn left in… 100 yards… BING".

They did a good job modeling the strippers in action at the club.

The weapons system is improved. Hit L2 to duck into cover, then you can target enemies and pop out to shoot when they’re exposed.

The realism of the cars is much improved.

It’s quite clearly the best GTA ever made. The few flaws are more than made up for by the overwhelming goodness.

No, this is not an April Fool’s joke.

Susanna is due in October! We just had our 12 week ultrasound this morning; all looks good.

We were surprised at how much the little bugger looks human now, and how he was moving around quite a bit (his movements reminded us of Elaine’s spastic dancing).

Here are our pics of the little guy (Suz is convinced it’s a boy).

Yay! =) =) =)

For as long as I’ve been snowboarding there, Tyrol Basin has an annual belt sander race in the bar (the bar itself being among the best at any ski hill anywhere) near the end of the season. This year’s was yesterday, March 9, 2008.

Josh, the bartender, is always one of the favorites to win, but I understand he was unseated last year by one of the regulars, "Big". Alas (for Big), his entrant, the only one to ever do a sub 2 second run, didn’t hold up this year, and Josh regained his crown.

The final was between Josh’s two tread sander and one from his brother… I think. I didn’t get all the details, and was involved in too much drinking for a Sunday afternoon for all of the details to be clear.

I did shoot a little video.

As I’ve posted previously, we’re American Idol fans.

Last season, Melinda, a professional backup singer before Idol, was the picture of consistency. Every night she belted out a perfect song, and I personally think she should have won. However, every night you’d usually see someone else put on a performance that was an equal or near equal of hers… but the person who did so was different every night.

This year, we’ve seen the same thing from David Archuleta, a cute, humble little kid who just oozes natural charisma. Every song I’ve seen him perform has been astoundingly good… and in most cases, better than the original version. However, in contrast to last season, this guy’s got no real competition. No one else is coming close. He’s been the clear best on every night.

Here’s his latest performance of John Lennon’s Imagine. I don’t like the fact that he didn’t sing the first couple of verses, and instead started on the "no possessions" third verse instead of the "no heaven/hell" first verse and "no countries/religion" second verse.

However, it’s a great tactical move - no need to piss off the religious folks out there.

And he sang it beautifully.

This is a video from a call-in show on cable access in Austin about atheism.

One of the hosts here, Matt Dillahunty, calmly and reasonably has a long discussion with a caller who is trying to make the point that atheism is a state of faith. He really clearly lays it all out… the difference between belief and knowledge, the different "types" of atheism.

And the call also engages in reasoned discourse. Both are polite… until the very end when the theist caller gets a little frustrated.

I don’t know what I just squished my right foot into. I expect from the right leg is where the tentacles will begin to enter my torso when it begins to spread.

I let the mutt out and on the way to make a deposit in the back yard, she managed to shake off her little LED glowstick. It’s snowing. It’s cold. I have others and they are cheap; I was going to abandon him out there until spring.

But I could see him, sitting atop the fresh snow, in the zero degree air, still bravely glowing.

"Don’t leave me, man."

…

"Never leave a man behind!"

…

"I’m dyyyyiiinnng… . . .. .

Shit, I couldn’t leave out there like that, so I pulled out these big rubber boots from the garage to begin my mission out into the cold yard.

A second after I put my right foot in the boot, I decided it felt very cold, even for having been sitting in the frigid garage.

Five seconds after I put my right foot in, I decided it felt very wet.

Ten seconds later and I decided "Omyfuckingshit gotta get this fucking boot off of me. What the fuck is that?!?"

I pulled out this sock.

This is what I could see down the boot.

It smells oily.

These boots been sitting in the same spot since we moved into the new house six months ago, folded over tightly enough that I don’t think anything bigger than an insect could have made its way in or out.

They previously sat in my even more disorganized garage at the old house. I could have spilled in some oil or something at some point… but what fluid is this color of bright red? Transmission fluid? I don’t know. I certainly don’t remember working with any such.

Did a mouse make his home in my boot previously, and then in the move get trapped… and this is his decomposing remains, partially preserved by the lack of air?

Am I in a zombie flick, and I’ve just infected myself with some ancient or alien parasite? Or perhaps a genetically engineered weapon gone amok from some government lab? Either way, I’m a goner.

They’re still back in the same place in the garage (now with included sock) if you want to take a look the next time you’re in the area. It would be nice to know what in the hell this is. If you have a plausible hypothesis, please speak up.

Coda

By the time I got a different set of boots on (with shoelaces eaten off; thanks, Marley; nice touch) and peered back out the back window, the red glow was gone.

Private McLighty was no more.

My namesake is dead… no, not the Jon Stewart who comes up when you google "John Stewart" (dammit, people, can’t you spell?). No, not me.

This one:

The one who wrote "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees.

The one who was in the Kingston Trio.

The one to whom a few emails were intended, but were sent to me.

Rest in peace, dude.

NFL blocks Packers Radio Network from Madison area

Jason McMahon  —  1/18/2008 7:40 am

If the Green Bay Packers deliver "the dagger" against the New York Giants on Sunday to seal a Super Bowl berth, Madison-area fans of the Green and Gold may not be able to hear it on the radio.

Don’t worry, Packer backers — the NFC championship game at Lambeau Field will be broadcast on both your AM and FM dials. But it won’t be familiar voices coming out of the speakers.

Play-by-play announcer Wayne Larrivee — fond of identifying a game-clinching play as "the dagger" — and analyst Larry McCarren will be on the mic, but their call will be blocked from reaching local radio listeners due to the NFL’s exclusive contract with nationwide network Westwood One.

[…]

WIBA didn’t have a choice in the matter. Unless a station is in its team’s home market, Westwood One’s contract requires its affiliates to give priority to the national outlet for the conference title games and the Super Bowl.

And Madison is not considered a home market for the Packers, a point already driven home to local Green Bay diehards who were denied a chance to see their team on broadcast television when the Packers’ Nov. 29 game was aired on the NFL Network.

[…]

The broadcast team assigned by Westwood One adds a bit of insult to injury to local listeners who are accustomed to their pro-Packers radio announcers. Fassel is a former Giants head coach, who led the team to its last Super Bowl berth seven years ago. He is in his first season in the radio booth.

Man, that is really, really, low.

The headline seems to blame the NFL for this, because Madison is not in the home market for the Packers.

However, in the article, it really seems to be an issue with Westwood One, who appears to own the radio stations in town where the Packers Radio Network is normally broadcast.