Thursday, February 28, 2008

Watch Original Star Trek Series Online Free!


The entire original Star Trek series has been uploaded, all three seasons (1966-1969), which can be viewed online for free as part as part of CBS' initiative to move archived programming online.

The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver and Melrose Place are also online. Additional series are expected to be added.

Strictly speaking I am a Star Wars fan, but this is a great way to get reacquainted with some classic television shows.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Bork! Bork! Bork!

Do you have what it takes to join the Swedish Armed Forces?

Take this test and find out....

The word Swedish Armed Forces, that's an oxymoron isn't it?

Friday, February 22, 2008

Star Wars According To A Three Year Old...

This little girl's interpretation of Star Wars Episode IV is so cute.

Obi Kenobi...puts a smile to my face everytime she says it.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Election 2008...

Come November 12th, we will (well, hopefully) know who our next president will be. Pending anything truly bizarre happening, it will most likely be John McCain, Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton.

If you want to compare how the presidential candidates for 2008 stand on particular issues you can use this candidate comparison tool to see two presidential candidates side-by-side.

You can also use this short quiz to compare your views versus that of the candidates and see which is the best match.

Although I do have a favorite candidate, I've been fairly apathetic regarding the political process this time around. It feels like I am just going to end up voting for the lesser of two evils (again).

Makes me wonder if maintaining the status quo of this two-party system that we have isn't detrimental to the concept of democracy.

Perhaps Montgomery Brewster might of had the right idea about voting "None Of The Above"...



Go Hackensack Bulls!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Catch Up!

Mia Wallace's Fox Force Five joke from Pulp Fiction -

Three tomatoes are walking down the street - a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him...and says, Catch up!

If there is anybody left who still reads this I am going to attempt to catch up this old blog of mine and get it up to date. There will probably be some disjointed posts until then. Wish me luck!

A Hope For Cuba...

In the early days of his five-decade social experiment, Fidel Castro set himself a novel key performance indicator. He told CBS anchorman Edward Murrow: "When we have fulfilled our promise of good government, I will cut my beard."

To that extent at least, he has been a man of his word.

Yesterday, Fidel shuffled off into belated retirement sporting a track suit modelled on the Cuban flag with his straggly, white beard intact. His singular failure to deliver good government should come as no surprise to anyone. Communism has been an abject failure wherever it has been tried, and Cuba is no exception.

Yet that Cuba is an exception is precisely what its Western apologists claim, even though none of them has ever been so enamoured of the Cuban miracle that they have chosen to live there. A queue of leftist intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were happy to have photos taken with revolutionary pin-up boy Che Guevara and help out with literacy campaigns, but the same people were rather more close-lipped as newspapers and printing presses were shut down. Half a century on, Ignacio Ramonet, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, is still eulogising the Cuban revolution but he's not enthusiastic enough to actually take a job and live in the workers' paradise.

The cappuccino communists and the latte Left have always been conveniently myopic about Cuba under Fidel's shortcomings. If only their political short-sightedness could be corrected with the discount eye surgery Cuba offers to medical tourists. But there is no known remedy for wilful blindness, and the middle-class Canadian and European tourists whose hard currency keeps Cuba going these days love to marvel at the universal healthcare, ignoring the incovenient truth that the standard is appallingly low. The facilities are run down and the doctors are paid a pittance, as are all skilled professionals - teachers, engineers, scientists, managers. Taxi drivers earn more than any of them.

Deprived of the ballot box, Cubans have voted with their feet, or rather their flippers. About two million Cubans have fled across the water to Florida since 1959 in search of political freedom and economic opportunity. More than seventy thousand have drowned in shark-infested waters in the attempt. To the best of our knowledge, only one person has so far swum in the opposite direction, Australia's Susie Maroney - and she only stayed long enough to collect a medal and catch a plane home.

Cuba's apologists claim that the economic hardship in the country is all the fault of the US-led trade embargo. The illogicality of this claim is as striking as it is persistent. Communists claim that capitalism in general and the US in particular exploits workers. If this were true, then why would Cuban communists even want to trade with the US? Despite the rhetoric, the US sells and Cuba happily buys three hundred and fifty million dollars in agricultural products. Exiled Cubans also send home to their not so fortunate families one billion dollars in remittances each year. Most importantly, twenty thousand Cubans are accepted into the US every year, providing a valve to the pressure cooker without which Cuba would have exploded long ago.

We should not delude ourselves that with the departure of Fidel from the presidency, the transformation of Cuba will be immediate or painless. But given that every other country in the area has a democratically elected government, a market economy, freedom of speech, respect for human rights and a functioning independent judiciary and rule of law, one would hope that it is only a matter of time before Cuba finally makes some real changes, but I've been hoping for over thirty years now.

I don't expect any real developments towards democracy until Castro's regime is gone.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Much Ado About Nothing...

Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president early Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying in a letter published in online official media that he would not accept a new term when the newly elected parliament meets on Sunday.

The eighty-one year old Castro’s overnight announcement effectively ends his rule of almost fifty years over Cuba, positioning his seventy-six year old brother Raul for permanent succession to the presidency.

I certainly dont want to rain on anyone's parade, there is, after all, a little bit of happiness that comes with this bit of news, but...does this really mean anything?

For all intents and purposes, Raul has been in power since Fidel ceded his powers to him back on July 31, 2006.
So, what does this change? Nothing. Cubans are still oppressed, the island is still a hell hole and the man in command still bears the last name Castro.
The day that there is real change in Cuba will be - When Castro's dictatorship/regime is truly and completely gone.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Happy Presidents Day!


A little frivolous fun to help you celebrate/honor
Presidents Washington and Lincoln Day!
Abraham Lincoln: statesman, leader, beloved President and America's favorite boozehound! "Hard-Drinkin' Lincoln" shows us the real Honest Abe: a loud, lewd, obnoxious guy in a big hat.
The kind of guy you sit behind in the theater and just want to shoot.
So come knock one back with The Great Emancipator!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Star Wars Valentine's Day Card...

I just wanted to show off the Valentine's Day card I made for Gabriel.

It's a Clone Trooper from Star Wars.

I hadn't drawn anything in a while and I like the way this turned out.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day!

A little video of Love Games from The Mighty Boosh to help commemorate today, the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other...

Monday, February 11, 2008

Draw Four, Sucka Fool!

Do you remember those good 'ole family times when you'd be sitting around a table playing Uno? Yeah, me neither...but the Xbox 360 has a version of this classic card game that you can play via Xbox Live.

If you happen to run into Season on there prepare for a beat down!

There’s no doubt that those who do decide to invest the Microsoft Points for UNO will find that it’s a totally addicting, but strangely relaxing game.

The graphics are about as good as you can get for this game, but that elevator muzak will slowly drive you insane. Luckily to make up for this the game supports custom soundtracks. It also has full voice and video support so players have plenty of ways to smack talk, especially when you consider that the game isn’t exactly the most mentally taxing thus leaving plenty of brain power to come up with a witty cut down.

What I like about UNO is the way things can suddenly swing in and out of your favor. One minute you could be ready to lay your last card down, the next you could have just picked up six cards for a misjudged challenge. There is a thin line balancing good judgment, effective strategy and pure luck and that is what can make the game a lot of fun to play.