The name "Trojan" is a bad name for condoms. I mean, think about it, the Trojan horse was sent in as a gift from the Greeks. The Trojans opened it up and out swarmed hundreds of Greeks. So what, a Trojan condom is sent in as a gift, and when it opens up, hundreds of sperm swarm out and take over Troy. Good thinking, Trojan Man.

It's a sad day when...

It's a sad day when you figure out how little you really make. Okay, I get about 4.5% on my money market fund (which has a balance of $0, btw). We'll round down to 4 just for simplicity's sake. If I had 1 million dollars to put in that account, I'd be making (4% of $1,000,000) $40,000! That's almost twice as much as I make. If it were a milllion and a half, I'd be rich (comparatively) off just the interest. Now $360 million... I can't even think about it. So all someone has to do is give me 1 million dollars (after taxes), then I can quit my job and live happily ever after.

Follow up to story about Cindy Sheehan

On MichaelMoore.com, Cindy Sheehan speeks about what happened:

Dear Friends,

As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.

There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened:

This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh. Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2,245 Dead. How many more?

After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

I got the ticket back from John, and I met one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee's staffers in the Longworth Congressional Office building and we went to the Capitol via the underground tunnel. I went through security once, then had to use the rest room and went through security again.

My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat.

I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled, 'Protester.' He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like, 'I'm going, do you have to be so rough?' By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, 'That's Cindy Sheehan.' At which point the officer who arrested me said, 'Take these steps slowly.' I said, 'You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps.' He said, 'That's because you were protesting.' Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, 'Protesting.'

I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for 'unlawful conduct.'

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, '2,245, huh? I just got back from there.'

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

What did Casey die for? What did the 2,244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shirt that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing.

I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable...that I would be arrested...maybe I would have, but I didn't.

There have already been many wild stories out there.

I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.

I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.

I am so appreciative of the couple of hundred protesters who came to the jail while I was locked up to show their support....we have so much potential for good...there is so much good in so many people.

Four hours and 2 jails after I was arrested, I was let out. Again, I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight.

Keep up the struggle...I promise you I will too.

Love and peace soon,
Cindy

CNN.com - Sheehan arrested in House gallery - Feb 1, 2006

CNN.com - Sheehan arrested in House gallery - Feb 1, 2006 - Cindy Sheehan, a political activist and voice against the war, was arrested on Tuesday, minutes before Dubya's State of the Union address.

Was she unfurling an anti-war banner as early reports claimed? No! She was wearing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan. She's being charged with "unlawful conduct", which seems to be the same sort of bogus charge as "interfering with city personell".

Was she there uninvited? No!She was a guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a democrat against the war (way to go Lynn!) from California.

Did she have a weapon? No! She was just speaking out for something she believed. And you can't blame her; her son was killed in Iraq. When she met with Dubya after her son had been killed, Bush didn't even know the guy's name, and he refused to look at pictures of him! So now Dubya has her arrested for speaking out!

Sound like a violation of her constitutional rights? Sure does! But, I guess it should surprise us that Bush is treading on that sacrosanct document once again. After all, wiretapping Americans isn't above him either!

CNN.com - Sheehan arrested in House gallery - Feb 1, 2006

CNN.com - Sheehan arrested in House gallery - Feb 1, 2006 - Cindy Sheehan, a political activist and voice against the war, was arrested on Tuesday, minutes before Dubya's State of the Union address.
Was she unfurling an anti-war banner as early reports claimed? No! She was wearing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan. She's being charged with "unlawful conduct", which seems to be the same sort of bogus charge as "interfering with city personell".

Was she there uninvited? No!She was a guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a democrat against the war (way to go Lynn!) from California.

Did she have a weapon? No! She was just speaking out for something she believed. And you can't blame her; her son was killed in Iraq. When she met with Dubya after her son had been killed, Bush didn't even know the guy's name, and he refused to look at pictures of him! So now Dubya has her arrested for speaking out!

Sound like a violation of her constitutional rights? Sure does! But, I guess it should surprise us that Bush is treading on that sacrosanct document once again. After all, wiretapping Americans isn't above him either!

Again, something it took forever to figure out...

FedoraForum.org - Lexmark z605 printer driver problem: "I successfully got the Lexmark Z605 to run under Fedora Core 3 on a Toshiba Satellite A65-S1070 via USB cable.

If you don't have the same FC release as I do, or different hardware, your mileage may vary.

Here are the step I took after reading this thread and the thread at Linuxprinting.org.

1. I made sure my cups and cups libs packages were up to date. Current versions are: cups 1:1.1.22-0.rc1.8.5.i386 and cups-libs 1:1.1.22-0.rc1.8.5.i386.

2. I downloaded the driver from Lexmark http://downloads.lexmark.com/cgi-pe...me=&fileID=1151 .

3. mkdir lexmark (creating a temporary directory to untar the driver file in).

4. mv CJLZ600LE-CUPS-1.0-1.TAR.gz lexmark/

5. cd lexmark

6. tar -zxvf CJLZ600LE-CUPS-1.0-1.TAR.gz (this will leave you with the original tar.gz file in your directory along with COPYING, README and z600cups-1.0-1.gz.sh).

7. sh ./z600cups-1.0-1.gz.sh -keep (this will create a subdirectory called 'installer' .. ignore the errors you see!)

8. cd installer/

9. su , then enter your password. up until this point your havn't been working as root .. right??

10. rpm -i --nodeps z600llpddk-2.0-1.i386.rpm

11. rpm -i z600cups-1.0-1.i386.rpm

12. Browse to the CUPS web interface, http://localhost:631/ .

13. Click on 'Printers'

14. Click on 'Add Printer'

15. Follow the self explanatory dialogues to set up your printer. Within a minute you should be printing a test page.

If something goes wrong, make sure you followed all of these steps in the exact order I did them.

f."

It took me forever to figure this out...

Sorry, this isn't really for you. It took me forever to find out how to make something work, and I don't want to lose it, so I'm going to post it here. If you're curious, it's how to make a Trident CyberBlade video card work with Fedora Linux.

this works for me:

-install in text mode
-once installed, restart, at boot enter grub configuation and append the folowing commands to the kernel line: vga=791 3
-boot
-/boot/grub/grub.conf must be changed to start always with framebuffer enabled


Code:
grub.conf

.....

title Fedora Core (2.6.11.8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11.8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb vga=791 3
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.11.8.img

.....


-edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and select as video driver fbdev


Code:
xorg.conf

.....

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "fbdev"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "Trident CyberBladeXp"
.....


-now run X and check if works.

The SMART Car!

The SMART Car! - aha! this video proves that my favorite automobile is safe! Click on the link to watch it crash into a wall at 70 miles per hour... and still protect the driver inside! Now those critics who say it's unsafe because it's so small don't have a leg to stand on. I can't wait until they're available in the US!

Ireland

Ireland trip pics are here!

Virtually There - Flight Tracker

Yay! Leaving tomorrow for Ireland. So, for you geeks out there, you can track our flights:

USAIR Flight 1466 - Pittsburgh (PIT) to Boston (BOS)
Aer Lingus Flight 132 - Boston (BOS) to Shannon (SNN) to Dublin (DUB)
Aer Lingus Flight 133 - Dublin (DUB) to Shannon (SNN) to Boston (BOS)
USAIR Flight 139 - Boston (BOS) to Pittsburgh (PIT)

Finally, a comic.

Sorry it took so long for me to finally draw another comic. No guarantees that I'll be able to keep any kind of decent schedule, as that last break demonstrates.

Anyway, here it is:

Religion/Spirituality Quiz

I know, people don't like to check these things out, but I find the results of this one interesting. I thought for sure it'd peg me as Taoist...

You fit in with: Spiritualism Your ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in your life, organized religion itself may not be for you. It is best for you to seek these things on your own terms. 100% spiritual. 100% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Memoirs of the Crimson Dwarf

You guys already know that I've been working on a novel entitled Memoirs of the Crimson Dwarf. It's the autobiography of a dwarf who lives in a land called Elysia, which is the world that PRO, Pittsburgh's NERO chapter, takes place.

Here's the first part in PDF format, including the preface and first chapter. This is how it will look, I think, when I publish it. Most of you have read this chapter in some form or other, but here it is for you again. I'll post more of it later, so I wanted you guys to read this first chapter again to refresh you memory or to see the changes I've made. I think it's about in its finished form now, this first chapter, anyway, but suggestions will be gratefully considered. I'll post chapter 2, maybe 2 and 3, another day.

CM

The Captain's Quarters

I just realized that I didn't post a comic today. I didn't even draw one. So, sorry, you'll have to deal with no comic. I'll try to catch up.

The Glass Ghillie 2005

The Glass Ghillie 2005 video is now available online in 4 parts.

Part A @ Ourmedia | Direct Link

Part B @ Ourmedia | Direct Link

Part C @ Ourmedia | Direct Link

Part D @ Ourmedia | Direct Link

Sorry, the quality isn't that great, but it's a sacrifice. If you want better quality, I still have copies of the DVD.

Pictures

I made a new blog just for pictures, a place where I can post all the pics I take. That way, I won't bore you here with lots and lots of pics, but I can put them somewhere so that you can view them if you're interested, and so that Katy and others can look through to find pics of themselves or important events. I'll probably put up all of my pics eventually, but for now, I'm going to post new ones. There are pics of Tess, our new cat, up there now. You can get to the pics through the link on the side-bar, or here. For those of you viewing via Livejournal, I'll post here whenever there's anything of particular importance.

"matt needs" - Google Search

This is from fleawort:

Go to Google. Type in "[your name] needs", in quotes, replacing [your name] with your first name. Find the 5 funniest things that come up in the search and post them to your blog.

Here are mine:

Matt Needs Spaz

"Matt needs to have his bottom bared and a paddling needs to be administered... "Matt needs someone to bend him over and give him 20 paddles in his shorts ...

Please donate to the "Matt needs new pants" fund.

Matt needs to start selling large blue foam "We're Number One!" hands.

And my favorite: Matt needs help washing potatoes.

CM

PS> Here's another one, and it hits a little close to home:
Still this "Matt" needs to make some form of sense to the rest of us... So this "Matt" needs to start interacting like a normal person and soon. ...

Comic for Friday, 7 October

Here's today's comic. Sorry for the laziness. You'll notice that I didn't really draw anything new... but Oh well, I bet well-know cartoonists do stuff like this all the time, and they get paid.

CM

Comic for Wednesday, 5 October

Here's today's comic! Enjoy.

Yesterday's comic.

Here's the comic that should have gone up yesterday. I know, it doesn't fit into the story-line. I just thought it was funny that I kept seeing really run-down places advertised like this.

Enjoy.

CM

PS> More comicky goodness tomorrow.