U.S. rattled as Mexico drug war bleeds over border

"Violence of this kind is common in Mexico where drug cartel abductions and executions are a daily feature of a raging drug war...But U.S. authorities now fear that violent crime is beginning to bleed over the porous Mexico border and take hold here."

Glad we worked so hard to secure our borders this last decade. Maybe now that it's too late someone will try and do something about it, but then will be called a racist for trying, and still nothing will get done.

I'm just glad I don't live in a border state.

Another Plane Crash

It's sad, really, to see the tragedy so shortly after the spectacular landing of a jet in the Hudson River. To see the widow of a 9/11 victim killed in an airplane. But it does, yet again, make me wonder...with the ever-present danger, which comes only after a thorough going over by airport security people who seem to be convinced that if they're polite to the passengers the terrorists win, and before you get to play baggage roulette and hope your suitcase ended up on the right wheel (let alone in the right state), why doesn't anyone take the train anymore?

Epic Fail

What is Epic Fail? It's a term, defined basically as a failure so bad that the mere word "failure" does not fully describe it. So why not call it "epic failure?" Well, that's because a bunch of folks were taking funny pictures of people being idiots and typing "FAIL" over them and putting them up online. So then truly spectacular failures got "EPIC FAIL" plastered on them.

Combine the new term Epic Fail with a mock-motivational poster creator at Despair.com and you have the new Epic Fail poster. One of the best ever can be seen at http://www.joesaidso.com/2008/08/tech-tidbit-epic-fail.html

Well, now it's my turn to add to the genre with a Yugo poster.

Luckybug Creations

My wife, Heidi, is the creative one between the two of us. Now she's getting to know the techie stuff, too. Soon she won't need me anymore. *sigh*

Anyway, that's my way of introducing the new Luckybug Creations blog design, which she managed to edit and upload without any help from me!

Luckybug Creations blog

Speed Racer

Normally, I would have viewed having to see Speed Racer as something that someone well versed in automotive culture must do. Actually, I really wanted to see if my son liked it. So when my wife rented it, I was eager to pop it in the ol' DVD player and have a spin.

It is, without a doubt, the most ADD-friendly, fastest-paced, most visually intense movie I have ever seen, car flick or otherwise. It is a full-force assault on the eyes and ears. Miss just a few moments, and something else later won't make sense. Miss just a few minutes, and you completely lose track of the film. A strange and ridiculous as the actual racing is, the Wachowski brothers (who wrote and directed The Matrix) really pushed the envelope of filmmaking yet again, delivering what is a masterpiece of explosive color and sound. And John Goodman was good in the role of Pops Racer.

Watching it, at times I'm saying to myself, "I can't believe I'm watching this shit," all the while staying glued to the damn movie because I just can't look away. I actually watched it twice, just to pick up the second time what I missed the first time. Which was a lot, thanks to the frenetic pace.

My son Elijah, over three-and-a-half years old when we first saw it, instantly fell in love with it. He was bouncing around the living room with a white and red car in his hand (the closest thing to the Mach 5 he could find) laughing all the time. It is definitely more of a kids' movie, although I could add it to my "guilty pleasures" list.

Stupid Security

I got a mention on the Stupid Security website recently, for submitting a link to an article about a new DHS anxiety detection screener. You know, so that people already anxious about flying can be subjected to extra body cavity scans and labeled a terrorist?

The original article I refer to is at Security Management. It's called Future Attribute Screening Technology, which makes the nice handy acronym of FAST. Isn't it lovely how government legislation, military and security technologies can always be described by acronyms that are also words, often words that describe the technology itself (like the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003)?

Proponents of the technology say that they can detect the difference between someone nervous about flying and nervous because they're about to land an airplane where there isn't an airport. Me? I'm skeptical. After all, it's described as working like a polygraph test. Except that polygraph tests aren't all that reliable. But it's not like a polygraph test because the person won't be connected to a machine at all, it's supposed to work as people walk past it. So it's supposed to be like a polygraph machine, but do more with less input.

I think I'll take the train.

Car Memories

Below is a little story about cars. I started writing down my automotive experiences in a little journal and I thought that maybe one day I'd gather them all together for an e-book. Well, here's the first part.

My earliest memory of a car is my parents' 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 station wagon. A big white beast to a grown man of 6'2", it was the Titanic to a 5 year old kid. It had a classic 70's maroon vinyl interior. It would be, of course, one of the cars that defines what an automobile is to me in the future. My earliest memory of it is what happened when it backed over a stray Hot Wheels dropped in the driveway on the way into the car. Often, kids living in peaceful little suburbs watching Saturday morning Popeye cartoons can have a distorted sense of their own invincibility. I could beat and bang on those little cars all day long, and not do any damage. The big Olds just mangled the thing with the slightest bump going down the driveway. That changed my perspectives quite a bit. I was actually a little afraid of that car for a while.

Maybe it's something about your parents' car, like your first true love or your childhood home. In your mind, it becomes The Way Things Ought To Be. And once something like that is lost, you try and replace it with something similar. Sometimes with cars it's about sentimentality for the past, reliving happy childhood memories a mile at a time in a classic car like the one you used to ride in as a kid. But a lot of times it's something deeper. Your experiences can embed themselves in your mind as the defualt settings for life itself. If positive, they take on the meaning of The Way Things Ought To Be. Since my happy years of camping trips and playing in the rear-facing back seat of the big Olds I always preferred station wagons over SUVs and don't understand why all modern car interiors must be in grayscale. I also grew to have a love of Oldsmobile, but this car was but a small part in that.

The Down Town

The new blog title is from a Days of the New song. I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for 90's music lately. And the lyrics are a good fit for me right now.

Previous blog titles (and artists):
Move Along (The All-American Rejects)
The Road I'm On (3 Doors Down)
The World I Know (Collective Soul)
Right Here (Staind)
Better Days (Goo Goo Dolls)