Friday, November 03, 2006

Minor Pet Peeve

I have a pet peeve about pizza places and other restaurants that let you call in your order. If you have a web site that lists your phone number and menu, why don't you put the phone number on the same page as your menu? You get this right when you send out your coupons in the postal mail—the phone number is printed right there on the circular—so why can't you get this right on the web?

I admit it's minor, but still, I hate having to keep one tab open with the menu and the other tab open with the phone number.

Friday, October 27, 2006

My new Halloween costume - Crikey!

Read all about it: South Park mocks Steve Irwin's death  

Personally, I think it's hilarious. And I love the fact that the ray is still attached. Posted by Picasa

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Thoughts on the CNN Iraq Sniper Videos

I was in a hotel room in Vienna this week when I saw the CNN footage of Iraqi snipers shooting U.S. military personnel and I knew it was a subject that I wanted to blog about as soon as I got back home. When I saw the video, several thoughts came to mind. First, I thought it was about time that the mainstream news media finally reported on the true face of war. War is not pretty, people get killed or maimed and showing just how vulnerable American troops are when they are sent in to any war is what the American public needs to see. My next thought was, "Shocking? How can CNN think this is shocking? Hell, all that the insurgents are doing is the same thing that American soldiers do. How is the "enemy" using their snipers any different from us using our snipers? There was even a retired military officer saying the exact same thing - that the insurgents are using snipers because it works and we know it works because we use snipers as well. Plus, our smart bombs that we used extensively at the start of the war are essentially snipers with huge bullets - the atack comes from an unseen enemy. Why would anyone be shocked by this footage?

Of course, no one with any intelligence that cares to think about the consequences of Bush's illegal war on Iraq would think that this footage is shocking. Which is why its no surprise that CNN's decision to air the footage has been widely condemned by Republican leaders and conservative talk show hosts (see news story), which is exactly what I found when I got back home today from Europe.

On a side note, now that I'm back, I've downloaded the over 1,800 photos that I took during my vacation to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria from my camera to my computer and I'll be going through them and uploading the best to Flickr and blogging about the trip later. Stay tuned!

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Kids These Days


Teen Mishap (IMG_3629)
Originally uploaded by orayzio.
So I'm driving home through the neighborhood and this scene caught my eye. I rushed home, grabbed my camera and came back for this photo set.

According to a friend at the scene, two 16-year old kids decided to make a run to 7/11 for a Slurpee. They were on their way back, heading down this alley (probably too fast) when their right front tire caught the anchoring cable for the telephone pole. The car rode straight up the cable and got stuck there. The kid sitting down was the driver.

Incidentally, I was a member of the South Park Action Council when the mural on the wall was painted. SPAC sponsored the mural.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Schmapped for Flagstaff


Schmapped for Flagstaff
Originally uploaded by orayzio.
I just received word that 8 of my photos on Flickr have been included in the Schmap Flagstaff Guide. Cool!

I've created a photo set with the selected photos and added a link to download the Schmap Player and the Flagstaff guide to my sidebar.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Administration Leak Comes From the Very Top - "W" Hisself!


From U.S. News & World Report comes this wonderful bit of news about our commander-in-chief:
Animal House in the West Wing

He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

Yes, you read that right. Bush lets out a fart as a first impression. Thank you red state voters.

Actually, that sounds pretty much just like his domestic policy and his foreign policy.

Friday, August 18, 2006

New Floors, Part II- Finished!

Just a quick followup on an earlier post to say that our floors have been finished and we love them. I've updated the photo set with the final pictures. Now we just need to paint!

CUTEK, the Symitar conference, and the Village People


IMG_3561
Originally uploaded by orayzio.
Last year, Jim Stickley of Trace Security threw a great party during the Symitar conference. Billed as "I Hung with Trace Security", William Hung performed several songs and a lot of drunk clients, Symitarians and vendors danced and sang karaoke. It was a blast.

Well, they topped themselves this year and CUTEK got to be a cosponsor. The 2nd annual "I Hung with Trace Security" brought back William Hung as the opening act, but featured an hour-long Village People concert. I even got to go back stage and meet the "people". (Well, actually, we were herded in for a quick photo and then herded back out.) They haven't given us that photo yet, but I did manage to take a bunch of photos myself during the show. You can see them here.

The party was great, the Village People were, well, they were the Village People so what else can you say.

The best part of both the Village People concert and the whole Symitar conference this week wss getting to see old friends, ex-coworkers and my clients, both from my many years at Symitar and my last year at CUTEK. It was really great, but am I ever exhausted.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Why the Hell Hasn't This Woman Been Sent Back to Mexico?

I live in San Diego and I like to read the newspaper, so I subscribe to the only daily newspaper available in San Diego, the Orange County edition of the Los Angeles Time. I receive delivery Friday through Sunday and a story from Friday's edition caught my eye. Here's an excerpt:
An illegal immigrant couple with six children were already living in poverty. Then the quadruplets arrived. They're still in a daze.

This story has everything: illegal immigration, drug smuggling, "trying for a boy" as a reason to have more children than you can afford, blind-faith in religion, and your tax dollars at work. Go ahead and read 6 + 4 = 1 Tenuous Existence and then come back for my comments... I'll wait.

First off, I'm a liberal. I'm not a Democrat and I'm not a Republican. I believe that governments have a duty to provide for the health and welfare of their citizens, guests, and visitors. I pay taxes and I'm happy to pay taxes because I believe that good government is a good thing. And that's why I believe that the goverment absolutely should provide for this woman and her children -- with the important distinction being that it should be her government (Mexico), not the U.S. government and not the California government.

This woman has spent 22 years in this country illegally and there is nothing in the article to indicate that she has ever been deported, that there has ever been any action by any government agency to ever try to deport her, and there seems to be no action to deport her now. Instead, she is allowed to live here illegally.

To add insult to injury, this woman admits to taking fertility drugs that were smuggled into this country from Mexico. Did she have a prescription for these drugs? Is our government investigating this illegal drug smuggling and illegal drug use?

Is this article supposed to make me feel bad for her? I don't. She and her husband already had two teenage daughters (not counting her husband's children with other women), were living beyond their means, when they decided to have more children by illegal means in a country that they were illegally living in. She even had her tubal ligation reversed so that she could try for a boy (her husband is quoted as saying, "I wanted a son because I didn't have one.")

Oh sure, she tried birth control, but gave that up "when it made her nauseated". And then she's "stunned" to find out that she was pregnant with quadruplets? The title of the article should have been "fertility drug abuse + failure to use birth control = consequences for stupid people".

I'm sorry. Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe she's not stupid, maybe she and her husband are just selfish. After all, she's one of 10 siblings herself. Never mind that they can't afford any of their children.

Or am I looking at this wrong? After all, "God never gives us more than we can handle" (paraphrased from I Corinthians 10:13). Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.



Lest there be any doubt, I am an Athiest; I don't believe in any god and I surely don't believe that The Bible is anything other than a collection of myths that, unfortunately, have had far too much influence on the world. Personally, I prefer The Boomer Bible.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

I survived another Comic-Com


IMG_3336
Originally uploaded by orayzio.
I spent 4 days at Comic-Con this year and I've got the photos to prove it.

My favorite sessions (in no particular order) were the screening of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (and the Q&A with the filmmakers after it), the Superman Returns blooper reel at the Bryan Singer session, Quentin Tarrantino and Robert Rodriguez discussing their Grind House double feature, the Daniel Clowes session and the Clerks II screening (with a Q&A with Kevin Smith after it).

Actually, the Clerks II screening was separate from Comic-Con, but since I found out about it at the View Askew booth and since it was populated heavily by Comic-Con attendees, it's related.

All-in-all, an exhausting experience.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Bush is Holier Than Thou

As he issued his first veto of his presidency, Bush also issued the following statement:
Yet we must also remember that embryonic stem cells come from human embryos that are destroyed for their cells. Each of these human embryos is a unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value.

Bullshit, I say.

A human blastocyst
Yes, embryonic stem cells come from human embryos, but these human embryos are at the blastocyst stage. For those of you who missed or forgot human biology, a blastocyst is a very small collection of cells that have not yet been implanted in the uterus and might never be implanted in the uterus and might never grow to become a baby. To call a blastocyst a "unique human life with inherent dignity and matchless value" is to call an acorn a tree.

Bush likes to frame his issues in terms of moral values, but they're his personal moral values and not the moral values of the majority of Americans and they're certainly not my moral values.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Scientology Museum: Industry of Idiocy

I was driving along Sunset Blvd in Hollywood the other day when I passed by a building that proclaimed itself, "Museum of Psychiatry: Industry of Death". Only later, after someone forwarded me an email solicitation for a free "Personality Test", did I realize the building was a new Scientology museum. Los Angeles CityBeat reported on this new "museum" in an article earlier this year, shortly after it opened.

If you're an idiot or just curious (hopefully, my readers are the latter), you can read the press release from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

New Floors


New Bedroom Floor (IMG_3162)
Originally uploaded by orayzio.
We are in the process of having our carpeting and most of our tile replaced throughout the house with new hardwood floors.

The first phase of the project is complete and our master bedroom has a new wood floor.

The second phase of the project is demolition of the carpet and tile and nailing down of the new hardwood floors.

The third phase is final sanding and finishing.

We have finished the second phase and are waiting for the third phase to begin in 3 weeks.


I've posted photos of the process to my Flick site and will continue to add new photos as the project progresses.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

An Open Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California)

Dear Senator,

As one of your constituents, I was horrified to read your editorial in USA Today announcing your support of a constitutional amendment to ban "physical desecration" of the U.S. flag. You should know that such an amendment would effect the desecration of the first amendment by banning a (currently) protected form of political speech. I have a hard time believing that you call yourself a Democrat yet would have the constitution amended for the first time since the 18th amendment to take back our rights.

Of course, it should not surprise me that you support such an abomination as you have publicly supported another attack on the first amendment when you pushed for funding of religion in California (The California Missions Preservation Act).

You seem almost eager to repeal the first amendment and this is deeply troubling to me. I urge you to reconsider this issue, come to your senses, and realize that any constitutional amendment that takes away citizen's rights for political reasons must be rejected on the same principle and using the same arguments that you currently use to support it.

Thank you for your consideration,

Ray Pennisi

Monday, May 22, 2006

Google Conspiracy Theory Followup

As a follow-up to my previous post, Google Maps has changed their software and I get much saner results when I search for shooting range near 92102.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Blogger Template Tweaked Today

I spent several hours today researching and then tweaking the templates for both this blog and my GGHPC blog. I started with the Minima template and made the following adjustments:
  • Switched orangish colors to navy (mostly post headings)

  • Changed hover color to red

  • Changed from fixed-pixel widths to percentage widths

  • Changed the fonts

  • Adjusted margins

I also experimented with a custom styles for printing, but I could not get the results I wanted so I left printing alone. Everything looks great in Firefox, but IE looks terrible - the blog titles are partially obscured by the navbar and I can't figure out what to change to fix it. If you know what to do, please let me know.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Oh, those damn Mexicans and atheists

I need to brush up on mi español so that I can sing the national anthem in Spanish while waving my Italian flag and marching up Mt. Soledad to tear down the cross. Oh, and I need to do this while not buying anything... oh wait, that was May 1... damn, too late.

I consider myself lucky. I only received one or two racist emails (from people who should know better) that were absolutely outraged that the Mexicans were going to have a boycott. You know the complaint, how dare these illegals criticize America when they're the ones both (somehow) stealing our jobs and clogging the welfare rolls. Don't they know that freedom isn't free? Oh wait, am I mixing up my self-righteous indignation causes? Is it the Mexicans or is it al Qaeda that was responsible for 9/11? Or maybe it's those goddamned atheists that want to ban the pledge, take prayer out of the schools, and tear down crosses. Hey, I just realized - al qaeda... una quesadilla - OMG!

Anyway, these racist emails advocated shopping on May 1 to counteract the effect of all those damn immigrants not shopping on May 1. Wow. Now, that's a grasp on economics that you can only get by listening to Fox News (or getting drunk at Yale with your daddy's money). Of course! The solution to the immigration problem is more shopping!

I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert at world affairs or that I understand what drives the global economy, but I've paid close enough attention over the years to realize that the people that are complaining the most are the same people that got us into the trouble that we're in. NAFTA was signed by the first Bush in 1992 and, it could be argued, is what caused this huge increase in illegal immigration. Well, at least China's economy is getting stronger.

If you want my thoughts on the matter (actually, I don't care if you want my thoughts or not - this is my blog), amnesty is a bad idea. I'm not against immigrants, but I am against illegal immigration. Amnesty would be unfair to all the legal immigrants that have been waiting 5 or 6 years for a green card. Also, with a current 5-6 year backlog and the Republicans averse to funding anything, any amnesty program that they propose would never have enough funding to actually work. No, my suggestion is to crack down on anyone that hires an illegal immigrant. Impose stiff fines or tax penalties on these companies and make it not worth their while to hire someone that is not here legally. Then, use those funds to actually fund the existing system to allow the immigrants that are here legally to get their green cards in a more timely manner.

But, enough about immigration, let's get back to something more dear to my heart. The Mt. Soledad Cross. Not the cross, itself, of course. I hate the cross. No, it's the 15-year old case to take down the cross that is dear to my heart. The case of the Mt. Soledad cross is clear to any reasonable person; a giant Latin cross on public land is painfully obvious as a violation of both the U.S. constitution and the California constitution. And it was ruled unconstitutional back in 1991. And every court in the land has agreed with this decision since then. The cross needs to come down, the cross should have come down, and if there is any fairness in the law, the cross will come down soon. Of course, our gutless elected politicians will spend as much public money as they can to appease the Christian majority in this town and to keep fighting for the cross and against what is the right thing to do.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Friday, March 24, 2006

Wimps, Sausages, and TV

I really wish the Democrats would get their act together and actually do something. Bush's ratings are at an all-time low, the American public has overwhelmingly turned against the war in Iraq and is convinced that it's a "bad thing", the majority of Americans know that Bush broke the law with his domestic wiretapping program, and yet, the Democrats are afraid to support a censure of George. Come on! It's a no-brainer... just like W himself.

No, the Democrats are too easily intimidated by words. Words from Republicans that claim that if you're not for the administration, you might as well be giving handjobs to the terrorists. I've always been disgusted by the Republican leadership, but the Democrats have shown that they also serve the Republican leadership with their inactions.

Off my soapbox, let me check in with my local world. Kara and I just had a wonderful dinner at The Linkery, followed by coffee at Rebecca's Coffee House. We dined and sipped with our friends and former-closer neighbors Tony and Edith. The Linkery is a local restaurant that specializes in homemade sausages and serves delicious food with an extensive and varied menu. This is our third time dining there and the food has been excellent each time. Tonight, I had seafood sausage tacos (made with mahi mahi, scallops, and shrimp) and the "sun salad" and we all shared the picnic plate appetizer with a chicken tarragon sausage. They have a menu on their web site as well as a blog that read regularly. Rebecca's is our local coffee house with the best scones in the world (I don't think they have a web site, so I can't link to it).

Finally, I want to mention that we've finally given up on Netflix due to their discriminatory DVD distribution process (the more DVDs you rent per month, the slower they ship new DVDs to you). Also in the last month or so, we've upgraded our TV antenna to DirecTV (with a DVR) and opened a membership in Citizen Video, a brand-spanking new DVD rental place in our neighborhood that specializes in foreign and independent movies. Thanks to the DVR, Kara has been able to watch all those Law & Order (all the different flavors of L&O, of course!) episodes that she never got to see before and I get to catch up on Daria.