I went down to Washington DC to watch the fireworks, just like every year for the seven years I've lived in Maryland. The draw is indescribable - big crowds, great food, and then the show - as a life-long pyromaniac, this is very satisfying.

I was close to the action, as I've had a few years to figure out the very best spot to be. I was so close, in fact, that I had to wash soot from my arms and legs when I got home, as the fallout rained down on me heavily. The area I was at was littered with unburned cardboard shell casings.

Little did I know that the best, this year, was yet to come.

Let me make this perfectly clear: ONLY MORONS DRIVE THEIR CARS INTO DC ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. If you're a real moron, you now have a new goal. Being a moron, you'll love being stuck in traffic for three or more hours as the streets fill with pedestrians. Since I don't qualify as a moron, I of course took the Metro subway.

The Metro, on the Fourth of July, has some good points and bad points. For once, the trains seemed be be running fairly quickly this year. Most of the people were probably out of the city by the time those morons stuck in their cars on 12th and G streets had moved half a mile. But the bad part is the people.

The Fourth of July in DC is an odd day in the sense that there are lots of people in town (and using the Metro) who only come to DC once every year (or less). In other words, tourists.

There's nothing wrong with tourists as a whole, but you don't want to be stuck behind twenty of them in a line to get a fare card. They don't know how the machines work, they realize they don't know how much money to put in, and send their kids off to read the fare map, and they're generally confused by the system. Then they get upset when they try to buy a $5 card with a $20 dollar bill from a machine that will give you a maximum of $5 change. It says so in big letters.

Because of this, getting into DC is cumbersome. Getting out is much worse, for different reasons. Mainly, there's a million people trying to leave the city all at once. Here begins my story.

I get on the Metro at Metro Center. It's damn crowded, but being very familiar with DC on the Fourth, and knowing my way around the Metro, I know exactly what to expect: nuts-to-butts crowdedness, hundreds of sweaty people in every direction packed like sardines, and a crowd of which 80% or more did not know what to expect.

I have another advantage: I'm alone. The wife doesn't like crowd scenes and that's completely cool with me. It makes getting around quicker - even if you're with someone who's just as fast, and in a hurry as you, two people move slower than one in this kind of crowd.

The red line and green line are sharing track, as they've re-routed the entire system in order to more efficiently serve the busiest Metro day of the year. This is the first time they've done that, and it did help quite a bit. My car is at the College Park station, which is nearly at the end of the Green line. The first bus that comes to Metro Center, however, is red.

Being a Metro-savvy guy, rather than wait in the sweltering and sweat-laden Metro Center for a green line train, I take the red line to Brookland CUA, with the intention of switching trains there, rather than at a more crowded station.

At Brookland, I get out and wait for a green line train to come. The first one is red, and when it stops, more people get off, some of which are also waiting for a green line train. This happens for the next five trains or so. Some of the tourists are getting bitchy; this isn't unusual, American tourists who come to DC on the Fourth generally expect shit to work exactly like they think it should, and are generally a whining lot when what I consider to be completely normal delays occur. The busiest Metro day of the year would just be a typically brisk Friday crowd at the London Underground in comparison - the suburbanite tourists, many of whom wouldn't set foot in DC on any other day, don't know how fucking good they have it. Jabbing another dude with your genderportions due to crowdedness is a rare occurrence on the Metro. In London, I had intimate relations with the purses of several ladies I never even met, we were packed in so tight.

So by the sixth train (I think), it's finally a green line train. The crowd rushes forward...
...and falls back, seeing that the trains are "full". Again, having seen the Underground, I know that these "full" trains could hold about 50% more people if they would just use their space more efficiently and quit bitching. So after the crowd eases back, the small numbers of people who aren't going to let a few tourists push them around go for the doors. I'm one of them.

Me and two strangers-in-arms head forward, to be met by a slightly pudgy pasty-white guy in his 40s who's wearing a "patriotic" T-shirt. In other words:
Tourist.
I'll call him Fred, for simplicity. I'd say he was about 5'10" and 210lbs.

He is my enemy, that which I must pass to gain entry to the vehicle of my deliverance. I boldly step forward and wrangle for space, politely but insistently urging people in the middle of the bus to move in. Fred is before me. I size him up, and since I'm of a median build at 6' and 180lbs, Fred is a worthy opponent, but not insurmountable by any means. I see a place I know I can fit in, but Fred positions himself in front of me. I feign right, then move left - Fred will not be so easily tricked. Wherever I aim my body, Fred's elbow is there, foiling my maneuver. When I try to gain ground, his forearm sabotages my efforts. He says something to me, and I think it included the word "asshole", but I'm paying attention to the the goal, not the goalee. I tell him, in my most civil, polite voice, "Sir, I will be getting on this train". Eventually, as his arm blocks me for many seconds, I give up. I step back, slowly turn around...
...and then quickly turn back around, again feign right and move left, and ... I'M IN! Well, most of me, anyway, I've still got to get my left leg in. Fred's footwork was too late to even have an effect, and I pop myself the rest of the way in.

Then to further illustrate the point that what most people call a "full" Metro train doesn't live up to my definition, I use some prodding to make sure the other two people who decided to brave the train nazis could get on.

It was a slow, quiet ride to the College Park station, but eventually, the trip ended. As we slowed and the doors opened, many people including myself edged toward the doors.

I turned around and said to him: "It's been a pleasure riding with you, sir." A few people chuckled.

Fred says, "I told you it was too damn crowded, asshole."

And then in one of those moments where you think of the exact right thing to say at the exact right time, I said, "I'll give your Elbow of Doom Kung Fu maneuver four out of five stars, but I'm afraid I can only award your lackluster repartee one out of five stars. Thanks for playing, and good night!"

I'm not going to get into that whole Jar Jar Binks "controversy", because I think anyone offended by the "inherent racism" of the floppy-eared dude is taking themselves way too seriously, and doing their cause a disservice.

But people taking themselves way too seriously is pretty funny, in and of itself:

Offense to God (O)(2):
repeated talk of subservience to gods
calling on a nonholy force for direction, protection, and strength
claim of a virgin birth
foreseeing the future
repeatedly equating "the force" with God's Will and His Control
repeated references to a human as "the chosen one"
levitation/psychokineses

Needless to say, someone who can find fault with Star Wars: The Phantom Meneace on a religious level awards the new South Park movie with their highest score yet:

CONTENT: (AbAbAb, LLL, VVV, SSS, NNN, A, DD, MMM) Anti-Christian, anti-God, anti-morality, intentionally immoral, with the most vile content in the history of mainstream moviemaking; 340 counted obscenities (there may be more that are muddled), 14 profanities & many disgusting bodily functions, including vomiting; bloody violence including ripping out heart, ripping body parts apart, splattering blood, & putting heart in micro-wave oven; extreme sex including homosexuality & pedophilia; extreme nudity including pictures of male & female genitalia, & jokes about the same; smoking by young boy & drug use including hash pipe; and, rebellion, theft, lying, cheating, & a surplusage of other depraved content

1. Whoa, a Ghia! Thankfully, police departments are somewhat limited in what they can use as unmarked cars. It has to be American-made, and in almost every case, it's a full-sized car, and usually of a fairly conservative design. If police ever cruised around in, say, a Honda Prelude or a Volkswagen Passat, I'd be screwed. Of course, if they did, then I'd promptly write the appropriate state or county government and demand an explanation as to why they're buying import vehicles instead of domestic. Given that the police community is, in general, politically conservative and blue-collar, that would be bad press. A sure case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Some states are fairly sneaky. Assuming a Mustang in Maryland isn't a cop is a sure bet. Making that same assumption in North Carolina on a fast rural interstate can land you a night in jail, especially when you try to race him.

2. Nice job on the tape, Fred. A missing headlight or a broken tail light means one thing: you may pass at will, at a speed of your choosing. Aside from incidental issues like paint scratches, police cars are impeccably maintained in regards to functional issues such as lights, tires, etc.

3. Roof-top satellite dish. Keep an eye out for strange antenna. The small one with the curlicue in the middle is the cell phone, the regular rod is the radio, and that big clunker with the thick round base is the CB. Anything more and you should stop and smell the bacon.

4. Honk if you Love God. I have yet to see an unmarked patroller with bumper stickers, with the rare exception of one for D.A.R.E. or some other police-sponsored program. They also don't have baseball hats in the back window, those asinine "crown" air fresheners (sure to be the flashback kitsch item of 2010), or Jesus fish.

5. Ooh, colors! Very hard or impossible to see at night, sometimes the low-profile behind-the-grill and back window blue/red flashers are visible in high sun. These just scream "back off, man".

6. Weave me a rug while you're at it. Cops, for all their good and bad, generally know how to drive. I have yet to see one weave around the road in a manner that makes me assume they're holding McDonalds coffee in one hand and reaching in the back seat to smack their kid with the other.

7. God, I hate Pennsylvania plates. Some states require two plates, some require only a rear plate. In Maryland, they have both. In Michigan, they only require a rear (something to look for in movies that are set in Michigan is front plates on cars - I laugh when I see that - do a little research). This, along with simply having an out-of-state plate, is a great way to tell from a distance if it's a car that you can safely leave in the dust. As far as Pennsylvania goes, they only require a rear plate. One of their license mottoes is "You have a friend in Pennsylvania". Since the front bracket is empty, fundies put in a fake vanity plate that reads "You have a friend in Jesus". This begs the question: have anyones' religious beliefs actually been altered by a pithy slogan?

8. Hey, it's Don King! Police in unmarked patrol vehicles don't weigh 350 pounds. They don't look like they just drove their parents' Crown Victoria to a whatever's-left-of-The-Grateful-Dead concert. They're not women with big hair. They're not 80. They're not wearing one of those ugly puffy jackets. It's that clean-cut (male) or crisp, hair pulled back (female) look that you need to watch out for.

---

I was touching my neighbor's cat sometime last night while waiting for my friends to show up, and then someone told me they were a vegetarian.

That's right, they were a fucking vegetarian. Now, I don't know if I'm the only one, but I'm pretty sure meat is food. The redder the better, too. I hate animals. They smell funny and eat grass and shit on my car. Animals DESERVE to be dinner, damnit. Whoever started this whole 'trendy-to-be-vegetarian' movement deserves to served up on a platter -- fucking vegetarians are always whining about saving animals. Why save animals? We breed them to be eaten, damnit, not to sit in a ranch and chew cud. Besides, if we DIDN'T kill deers and cows and rabbits, they'd just keep breeding and take up more space. That's not good either, since Canada needs to be kept wide open so we can PAVE it.

I like food, food is good, I like food, food is good, meat is food, I like food, food is good, meat is food...

---

While the vegetarian craze is mildly annoying, I'm glad to see someone else promoting the proper treatment of the 51st state.

I got a real deal - I bought my DVD player when Circuit City was putting all its DIVX/DVD players on sale, and ended up paying less than I would have for a DVD-only player.

So even though I never purchased a DIVX account (die DIVX die), I get another rebate from DIVX.

Take, for example, the key layout of the Microsoft Natural Keyboard. I like the idea of adding extra keys for things you do frequently, but what the hell is up with the "application" key? (Microsoft Natural Keyboard users - it's the one you never use that's next to the right Ctrl key)

If Microsoft's idea of saving time was to assign a common function to a new key, this is the key they should have added:

That would be a key I'd actually be using often. Hell, it would probably wear out quicker than the Enter key. It sure would make those FPS gaming sessions more interesting.

Brazilian catches a Frisbee of Death thrown by Slug{r33t}.
Brazilian dropped.
Slug{r33t}: yet another victim of cleaver Microsoft key assignments.

1 - Get off my bumper, and don't follow me in your big, ugly, jacked up SUV "luxury vehicle" at night - I can see the inside of my Mustang quite well enough without your goddamn headlights blazing down on me like a police helicoptor at a drug bust. I drive a sports car and I feel I'm one of the last people alive who thinks a baboon's netherportions are more attractive than a Ford F150, a Mercedes M-Class, or a Mitsubishi Montero.

2 - If I pass you on the left, I am, invariably, challenging your manhood. You have two choices - submit or accept the challenge. Either one is acceptable.

3 - If I pass you on the right, this can mean only one thing: you are a moron. If I pass you on the right, this is a clear indication that you are in the wrong lane.

4 - If you go 5 miles under the speed limit for no good reason and you're blocking me in, I have no compunctions about passing you on the shoulder, so just be ready for it.

5 - Don't bother telling me about my music or its volume - I don't expect you to like my choice. That's why I didn't ask you for a CD. I figure I'll stop using the road as my listening room as soon as the rest of you stop using it as your ashtray. And yes, if you're in front of me and we both have our windows open, I *will* smell you if you're smoking so don't be surprised when I suddenly bolt past you like a bat out of hell.

6 - Don't race me unless you mean it. 75% of highway racing is about how you drive, 25% is about what you drive. I have both the "how" and the "what" covered quite well. Driving a Dodge Neon "sport" and "revving" next to me at a spotlight is simply going to embarrass you.

7 - If I'm driving late at night and I'm only going 5 miles above the speed limit in the right hand lane on a major Baltimore-Washington highway, I strongly suggest you do the same. I have radar and I'm familiar with the prime cop hideouts.

8 - Pay attention and stay in your own damn lane (the right one). Don't be reaching back in your Chevy Malibu to slap your ill-behaved kids while you're driving 70 mph. That puts you at risk, and that makes me need to pass you much quicker and at a wider berth. Save us both the trouble. If you can't take a cell phone call and drive straight, don't try - pull over or tell them you'll call them back... ...or better yet, learn how to handle your vehicle.

9 - During heavy traffic jams, I'm not an unreasonable person. I try to let someone in front of me once at every inlet unless they're trying to "beat traffic" by getting off the road, onto the entrance ramp, and back onto the road. You'll be amazed at what a friendly wave can do to get you in a new lane with less hassle. It's a trick I use pretty often. (hint: use all five fingers, not one)

10 - If you park badly or aren't good at judging how far to open your door before something hits it, park somewhere with plenty of open space. If your options are limited, you might find that treating a parking lot the same way you would treat a urinal bathroom to be instructive. Men, you should know this already, but if you don't, head on over with your female friends to a short informational presentation on the subject.

Then I went about my business for the rest of the day, and urinated just before going to bed. Again, an unusual fragrance; this time it had an even stranger smell. It had a distinct citrus aroma, a "fresh, clean scent". I know, this sounds odd, but it's true. I had eaten a lot of York Peppermint Patties during the day, and very little else - maybe there's a connection.

You might not be aware of this, and that's understandable, because so very few people are.

You would think of slugs as r33t if you knew how they mated. If you've ever seen it, it's one of the most disturbing thing to watch that doesn't involve a close-up of childbirth.

You might not believe it if I didn't show you, hence the picture. They find a sexy branch, the male convinces the female that it will respect it even more in the morning, and then the real fun begins.

They hang from the branch via a string of gluey mucus, twist around each other, and expose their blue sexual organs. This goes on for about 90 minutes, which is a lot longer than the time needed to prepare this stunning dish:

I never understood how this commercial was supposed to prompt one to buy an Intel Pentium III. Then I watched closer. I actually paid attention and absorbed the commercial in.

At the end, I felt as if I had ... lost something. I felt ... less intelligent - hell, I nearly plunged from "less intelligent" to "downright stupid".

Citizens of Britannia - a candid look at some of the smack-layingist brothers UO money can buy.

Everyone's a Hero

You see it on the news all the time, survivors of tragedies are always "heroes". People who overcome obstacles, either of societal making or those imposed upon them by genetic chance, are always "heroes".

Perhaps some examples might be in order for those who wish to label everything as "heroic" would be in order.

High school shooting: The girl who survives because she hid in a locker was not a "hero". Such a feat might earn her the label "resourceful", "lucky", or "a quick thinker", but luck does not a hero make.

Random shooting: The kid who gets shot in the chest and manages to survive the experience after months of grueling physical therapy and general recovery is not a "hero". Again, "lucky" or "determined" might be an obvious choice.

The Cerebral Palsy sufferer who gets a college degree: Yet again, what the hell? There are so many better words than "hero" that we can use here. "Determined", "hard-working", "driven", etc.

The sports star: Now how is doing your job and getting overpaid for it heroic? I'm certainly not suggesting that you should reject any position in life where you're overpaid - far from it - but being able to score 30 points in a basketball game, getting paid $20 million dollars to do it and then donating $10,000 to a local AIDS charity doesn't make you a hero, though it might make you media-savvy.

Let's not make a virtue out of everything. It's like calling an overweight person "gravitationally challeneged", as if it were some sort of mark of greatness in and of itself. Using today's colorful language of inclusion, we could refer to anyone in "hero" terms. Perhaps a sexually promiscuous girl could be "heroic" for being "abstinence challenged". Perhaps a boorish wife-beating scumbag could be "heroic" for being "compassion challenged".

Call me "politeness challenged", but in my opinion the label "hero" only applies to those who put themselves on the line for the safety or betterment of others with little concern for their own safty or reward.

For example:

You'll notice the date is May 21, rather than May 19. SHOCKING, NO? They still had tickets for the 19th, but I figure this way the people who are going with me (my wife and four of our friends) can actually go out drinking afterwards and not have to call it quits early.

The Senator in north-central Baltimore is a top-notch single-screen theater, and boasts Maryland's only Dolby Digital Surround EX. This theater hosts a lot of event regional premieres, especially those from local filmmakers such as John Waters. They upgraded an already technologically excellent theater just for this movie.

In other words, r33tness.

It's true. Every single person on the internet is an anarchist bomb-makin' gun-totin' malicious computer hacker pedophile cultist. They're all dangerous serial killers jacked up on crystal meth and violent first-person computer games. They're a danger to you and your community, and use secret illegal encryption to hide their deeds from the government. They use the internet to gain access to your medical records, your credit cards, your childrens' schools, and your tax returns.

Warez, as a concept, is great. The execution really bites sometimes, though.

Several things really piss me off:

Every few weeks it seems like I've got to get another goddamn archival program because the warez groups seem to pick a new flavor. I don't want some wimpy-ass GUI version where I have to open each file and it doesn't know what to do with spanned archives. I want a command line version that knows what to do with complex archives and accepts multiple files for extraction. I have to hunt down YET ANOTHER command line archival program that I'll probably never use again, yet I can't delete it because if I do, all of a sudden EVERY warez group will start using it again and the page with the command line version of it will be out of commission. Public shareware/freeware archives like www.winfiles.com and www.download.com always seem to have 20 GUI compression utilities, but never the command line equivalents. This time around, the flavor of the week is Ace1.1 for ".ace" files, as if zipped rarred arjed cab files weren't bad enough, or better yet zipped rarred arjed self-extracting executables.

USE ZIP, IF THAT AIN'T GOOD ENOUGH, USE RAR. DON'T ZIP THE RARS. IF YOU RUN A WAREZ SITE, DON'T BOTHER MAKING AN AUTOMATED ROUTINE TO ADD YOUR FTP SITE .NFO FILE TO THE ZIP. NOBODY READS THOSE FILES.

QUIT MAKING 14K OF ASCII ART IN YOUR .NFO FILES FOR 2K OF ACTUAL TEXT, NOBODY ACTUALLY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR PATHETIC ASCII ART, THE 80'S ARE OVER, MAN! THINGS "OWN" AND "ROCK" NOW, THEY'RE NO LONGER "K-RAD". And ANSI/extended character art! What the hell is *that* about? Do you have any concept of the fact that 99.9% of the people who read the one USEFUL .nfo file (the one from the group who actually did the crack) don't view the .nfo file in a font with the proper extended characters anyway? Clue: It's not because they don't know any better, it's because they really don't give a flying fuck about antiquated TEXT-ART bravado.

NOBODY READS YOUR FUCKING "GREETZ" OR YOUR COURIER GROUP HISTORY. Nobody with a life, anyway.

Feel free to spell "games" and "apps" with an "s" at the end, rather than a Z.

I wish crack and courier groups would leave the bullshit at the main gate. No funky-ass formatted .nfo files, no (or at least minimal) "greetz" and "member lists", ad nauseum. Use zips or rars, don't multiple-compress releases. No "custom installers" that play shitty MIDI music. When I see a warez group installer, the first thing I do is get anti-virus beta data files that have been updated in the last few days and scan the living hell out of them with several AV programs. This is up a few notches from my already thorough anti-virus regimen. It's not because I think that anyone plants a virus in them on purpose, rather that I won't make the assumption that everyone else (i.e. the writers of the installers) is scanning and updating their data files as often as I.

I don't have much confidence that anything will change though, as this is the way it's been since the mid 80's when the warez scene centered around the Commodore 64...

Of course, this strategy runs a serious risk. If I finally get into a theater a week after opening, it's very well possible that some bleary eyed Jolt-addled junkie might lean over and tell me:

"OK this is my 38th time seeing SW1, I'm going to focus on paying attention to Queen Amidala's left ear the whole time, while trying to decipher hidden messages in Jar Jar's lisp."