There was an interesting-looking martial arts movie that was advertised in the American theaters last summer, I believe, with wire-fu and special effects galore.  Anybody have a memory of the name?

I’m out of the hospital, and the site, with comments, should be working again.

Surgery is on for this Tuesday, 17 October.  The mood?  Pretty much “impending doom”.  Leave comments if you wish.  I may not be able to respond for a while.

If you can see this, you are on the new server.  Email problems should have disappeared now.

Huggies diapers were introduced in 1978.  So were Laserdiscs, believe it or not.  Also, the game Simon, the villain Mystique, and the Sunkist soft drink.

Find your favorite year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:YEAR_introductions

My surgery, for all those following developments, has been postponed until the 27th of this month.  It was supposed to be today.  I was all psyched for it, and now I have to get re-psyched in a couple weeks.

I have free CDs from BMG.  What should I own that they offer?  This will get you started.

Oh my god.  Best Johnny card ever, and it’s a common.

Los Angeles Better Business Bureau’s Pluto Awards for worst companies.  The list includes “Girls Gone Wild”.

Also, scamwatcher.org which is, itself, a scam, and though it promises not to do anything untoward with your email address, rejects Mailinator (no-commitment) email addresses.

OK, I’m a dumbass.  A dumbass in a hurry.  I needed a Federal Employer Identification Number, for which you can apply for free online.  Problem is, the site doesn’t work with Firefox, at least Firefox 1.5.0.4 in Linux.  But I didn’t know that at the time, I just thought the online process didn’t work.

A workaround?  One of the Google Adwords advertisers who bid on “EIN” was federalnumber.com, who claims to be able to get you an EIN in minutes for a fee.  Now, I know that the IRS allows an agent to apply for an EIN on your behalf.  So, I figured, what the site would do would be to collect your information, collect your money, then submit it to the IRS as your agent, using a compatible user-agent or API.  And surely they wouldn’t charge you if they couldn’t successfully retrieve your EIN.  Reasonable, if you’re in a hurry.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  The whole site is a scam.  The site just charges you, then prints out what you entered with the main number for the IRS to call and arrange to get your EIN.  The site is run by one Alexander Kleyman, formerly of Forest Hills, NY and now apparently of Hallandale Beach, FL.  He’s been arrested for a similar scam in the past, that time against the Social Security Administration.  Interestingly, however, the registrant information in the whois entry for the domain lists what appears for all the world to be a residential condo address.  So I may actually have his home address.  If you’re interested, it is 1850 South Ocean Drive #3504, Hallandale Beach, FL, 33009.

He gave a contact phone, and my call at midnight went to an answering service with a real live person.  I’ve requested a refund, but fat chance of that happening, so I’ve also contacted the bank that issued my credit card for a chargeback.  When I was last scammed online, I had to have a document notarized, which cost something like $15, but it’s going to be worth it just to spite Fuckhead Alex.  Fuckhead Alex with my social security number and credit card info.  As I said, I’m a dumbass.  And haste precedes fuckups.  I could have done the scam research first.  So keep a couple things in mind.  There are a lot, a lot of fuckheads like Al out there, and a lot lot lot of them advertise on Adwords.  The Google don’t-be-evil thing doesn’t extend to its advertisers.  And if you see on the news that A-Kley gets run over by a commuter tram in Florida, keep in mind that he had it coming.  If only the universe really worked that way.

[In a sing-song:]  Gooooo, Wales!  (They ain’t got a chance, but) Gooooo, Wales!

Over here, we won’t even get to see the bloodbath to which Scotland will subject the Faroe Islands.

Breaking news.  A Federal Court Judge in Michigan has ruled the “Terrorism Surveillance Program” as unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments and illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  More here.

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution … It was never the intent of the Framers to give the President such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

From a Snapfish email:

Add fun mystery text and a photo to a puzzle for you’re a loved one (will you marry me? and photo of a ring)

This does actually mean something.  At least if you insert a comma after ‘puzzle’.  And some quotation marks.  And maybe a colon.  Just nothing like what they intended.

mcgees.org has officially sold old.  Discuss.

I actually experimented with Google Adsense for a bit (you may have seen it briefly), but, to be honest, the main reason I’m opting out is all the Christians and New Agers who try to advertise on my atheism posts.  Who needs a free market when you can have, say, a publisher-slash-dictator (me)?

So all the banner ads you see will be personally vetted by me.  Many of the companies I have personal relationships with and can recommend, and would have anyway.  The others seem above-board and useful.  I try to tailor the ads to topics visitors of my site might be interested in.  I need your help to tell me if I need to yank an advertiser, due to a bad experience you have with them.  I don’t expect this to happen.  But click-through revenue is not worth sending my readers on bad leads.

Seriously, discuss.  Do the ads bother you?  Enough to stop visiting?

- Josh

Bzzagent.  And Tremor.  And others.

Word-of-mouth advertisers that allow you to sell your soul for free product samples.  Talk up products on your website, at work, at parties, and earn points to get, say, an iPod.  Free mint samples to turn yourself into a corporate shill.  MetaFilter addresses here and here.  More than a year ago.  I’m out of touch.

It Figures, from In Praise of Argument.  Jay Heinrichs reveals rhetorical tricks and pitfalls in the news.  I guarantee you’ll love it.  (Quick: What technique is that?)

(This edit is to see whether Dave’s host does trackback verification on his posts.)

The Nostalgia Factory.  Buy original movie posters and press kits for surprisingly little money and with low shipping charges.  Also, the official provider of poster images to IMDB.

New iteration of the unpeated living bottle:

• 5 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
• 10 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
• 15 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
• 20 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
• 25 mL Glen Moray 16
• 30 mL Glen Garioch 8
• 35 mL Aberlour 100
• 40 mL Aberlour 10, bourbon casked, Duncan Taylor bottling for Trader Joe’s
• 45 mL Balvenie Doublewood (aged in bourbon and finished in sherry)
• 50 mL Macallan 10, bourbon casked, for Trader Joe’s

Nose: Oiled leather, sherry, honey, sweet, soft, white rum

Palate: Leather, strong honey, very sweet, almost raisiny (but in a good way), lychee

Finish:  Leather, perfume, oak.  Enticingly sweet.

Notes:  Really a charmer.  92/100

This is the best it’s been so far.

Irène Jacob turned 40 on Saturday.  Famke Janssen is 40, too.  Lena Olin is 51.  All the hottest actresses in Hollywood are over 40 now.

No big deal?  You must not mind getting old as much as I do.  Our fantasy women get older as we get older.  Bummer.

So maybe it’s time for a new generation.  Christina Hendricks, A.J. Cook, Morena Baccarin, Michelle Williams (thinking of the Oscars here), and Keira Knightley are all ‘78ers or later.  Long may they live, and never get older than I.

Add contributions as you will to the comments page.

This will cover two incarnations of the bottle.  A couple weeks ago, I tried the next iteration of the living bottle.

1. 6 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
2. 13 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
3. 19 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
4. 25 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
5. 31 mL Glen Moray 16
6. 38 mL Glen Garioch 8
7. 44 mL Aberlour 100
8. 50 mL Aberlour 10, bourbon casked, Duncan Taylor bottling for Trader Joe’s

It’s not very good.

Nose: Light sherry, cherry sours.  Spirity, fruity.

Palate: Simple.  Tastes spread out and vatted.

Finish: Undistinguished.  Slight fruit.  Grainy.

Finish: I hope this improves on subsequent iterations, as it’s not very good right now.

Score: 80/100

Tonight I’m tasting the next iteration, after adding Balvenie Doublewood a couple of weeks ago:

1. 6 mL Glendronach 15 sherry cask
2. 11 mL Aberlour a’bunadh, euro bottling (heavily sherried)
3. 17 mL Glenturret ‘80/’00 (Blackadder)
4. 22 mL Glen Moray 12 Chenin Blanc finish
5. 28 mL Glen Moray 16
6. 33 mL Glen Garioch 8
7. 39 mL Aberlour 100
8. 44 mL Aberlour 10, bourbon casked, Duncan Taylor bottling for Trader Joe’s
9. 50 mL Balvenie Doublewood (aged in bourbon and finished in sherry)

I’m writing the notes as I taste.

Nose:  Much improved.  Oiled leather, sherry.  A bit spirity.  Cherries.

Palate:  Maraschino cherry, book leather

Finish:  Still getting a lot of cherry and leather.  Vintage port.

Notes:  Really very nice.  I’m glad I didn’t give up on the bottle.  I wouldn’t have pegged it for a vatted malt.  I might have even guessed it as port casked Speysider.  Now the question is, how much of this change is the composition, and how much is variance in my tasting apparatus from week to week?  Could adding 20% Balvenie Doublewood really swing the profile this far?  I think it’s possible.  It certainly is responsible for emphasizing the leather.  In any case, I would buy a bottle of this.

Score: 91/100

I’m adding another whisky.  I’ll bring another installment in a week or so.

Welcome, visitor from St. Helena (.sh)!  They visited lots of web posts nearly simultaneously, including the original WAC post.  I don’t know how they found me, but they were using IE 6.0.

154 down, 110 to go.

What CDs should I buy that BMG Music Service offers?

mcgees.org is greatly increasing in popularity:

month	#reqs	#pages
Sep 2004	9724	4335
Oct 2004	23731	8472
Nov 2004	37397	10772
Dec 2004	41505	14372
Jan 2005	40392	12464
Feb 2005	28114	8711
Mar 2005	28691	10056
Apr 2005	33438	11588
May 2005	42738	13566
Jun 2005	37692	13974
Jul 2005	39418	15335
Aug 2005	46708	16379
Sep 2005	36619	12735
Oct 2005	26718	10947
Nov 2005	49764	17737
Dec 2005	57466	20962
Jan 2006	58086	19534
Feb 2006	47430	17399
Mar 2006	61174	28580
Apr 2006	104228	56745
May 2006	134744	97006

Neat.

Welcome, visitor from Antigua and Barbuda (.ag)!  This is a bit of an odd one, as the referrer log lists the agent as MSIECrawler, meaning, apparently, that someone bookmarked a page on mcgees.org while offline.  Normally this would be followed up by the application downloading the site when the user is next online, but this didn’t happen (or hasn’t yet happened.)

153 down, 111 to go.

For those of you who haven’t found it yet, USA Network’s The 4400 is a really good show.  It has kind of an X-Files meets X-Men vibe.

I was watching the Brazil-Ghana match, and the play-by-play announcer narrated on one play that “a moa chases it down for Ghana”.

This is really not fair, having giant extinct ratites on your football team.  They are so tall, so big, so fast.  A stray kick can shatter the ribcage of a grown man.  Their backwards-bending knees give major unpredictability to where a penalty kick is aimed.  Unfair, but a genius move nonetheless.  Must be the Mensa contingent on the Ghana team.

(Also, I cannot justify a whole post for a bad pun, but someone has to say that Beckham “puts the freak back in free kick“.)

Either there is sky-splitting thunder and lightning in the next valley, or the Inland Empire is being bombed.  I suppose I’ll know tomorrow.  Or later today, that is.  I still can’t fucking sleep.

Welcome, visitor from Albania.  Distressingly, he or she was searching for “yahoo login cracker download” on Google, which matches my site because of a visitor comment that I allowed rather than deleted.  It is to be hoped that the site will welcome more respectable visitors from Albania in the near future.

Regardless, though, 152 down, 112 to go.

Err … nice.  I hope the system’s just temporarily offline.