Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts

100th Post

It's here. The moment you've all been waiting for - ND's 100th post. This little post here kicks off our mini-blog-a-thon. Some of the following posts may be short, but they will be entertaining.

For this post I thought I'd reminisce about how this blog came to be. Shawed, the original blog was inspired by Trevor Danger's old blog H8FUELED. After reading his crazy ranting and ravings (which were very educational) I decided that I too needed an outlet to inform the masses about the crazy and depressing predicaments caused by the state of the world today. My friend MisHou, used a fun word called "shawed" to proclaim she was both shocked and awed by something. At the time, with the anger behind my posts, this was the perfect nomenclature for this blog.

As time passed and I decided to branch away from anger, I decided it was time to revamp the blog and rename it to something more reflective of my personality, and thus No Disintegrations was born. At the time TD had discontinued H8FUELED (but now he's back with PCP), and I was feeling the burden of lashing out at society resting squarely on my shoulders. If you know me, you know I like Star Wars (okay, understatement of the year). So I tried Googling some great catch phrases from The Empire Strikes Back to see what was available. No one had latched onto Vader's direct order to Boba Fett, "I want them alive. No disintegrations," so I staked my claim and the revamp (prompted by Blogger's code update) proceeded.

Over the past almost 2 years, I feel I've covered quite a range of topics. Usually, I don't feel that I have enough material to create an entire post about certain topics. So, in celebration of the 100th post to this blog, I decided to create some mini (some mega) posts about topics I didn't feel I had enough material to cover in my usual posts. Thus, today's blog-athon. Love it or hate it, or be ambivalent. Just read and comment, or at least take the new poll.

To those who have been dedicated readers over the years (TD, MT, and maybe LT?) I thank you for continuing to wade through my crazy hodgepodge of writing. Thank you for your support and feedback over the years. To anyone else who has ever visited this blog or read it infrequently, I also thank you. Without random people, I would have no one to write for or mock. To my contributors I thank you for your contributions and hope that you will continue to occasionally add something. You guys have a lot of talent and I hope you will continue to share it. Special thanks to Dtrain for the DCN posts. I hope to see more of them as they are some of my favorites on this blog. And finally, I'd like to thank Pregremlin, Sam, and Gandalf for providing un-ending excitement in my life and for curling up next to my laptop (it's really funny to see Pregremlin do that).

Keep reading, keep writing, and keep hoping for a better future.

Your blog host,
dre222
Read More

Recycling Power + an update

They've finally found a way to recover our petroleum based resources through recycling plastic. Basically, they nuke the plastic at various microwave wavelengths until it returns to oil and gasoline. You can read the full article by clicking the title of this post. I'm hoping that this brings some value back to recycling plastic to make that effort more worthwhile.

Also, due to some other projects, this blog has temporarily fallen to the wayside. Hence today's post to let you know that this is still actively updated. I have had tons of ideas and incidents that would make great post fodder, but nothing long enough to merit it's own post. So, I have decided to stage a blog-a-thon of mini-posts. The time and date of this event is still TBD, but should take place sometime in the next 2 weeks. Please keep an eye out for it.

For my other contributors, I'll give you some advance notice, so if you want in on the action you're welcome to do so. These are just random posts and don't need to be full-fledged rants, stories, or articles. I'd love to see some non-dre action on here, so gear up!
Read More

The Force-Cast on No Disintegrations

No Disintegrations readers can tune in to the Force-Cast right on this page. If you enjoy Star Wars, or just good quality podcasts, you'll like this one. Sometimes you can't always download a podcast (like when you're at work), Now, with the new standalone player in our sidebar, you can listen to the Force-Cast without the need to download the episode.

The Force-Cast reviews Star Wars news, rumors and updates. This is the official podacast of www.rebelscum.com and www.theforce.net - two of the best Star Wars news sites out there.

I recently began tuning into the Force-Cast in order to stay on top of Celebration IV news. Now I'm hooked and listening to back episodes. Jason and Peter are great hosts and they don't take themselves or this show too seriously. It's a good choice for folks with a long commute. Check it out now by using the player located in our sidebar.
Read More

JTT Revealed, Foreign Cars, Trans-fat, The State

NO DISINTEGRATIONS



Well, I think I've finally finished copying code and fixing links and making all the upgraded changes (at least for a bit). If anyone notices anything else missing, let me know.


CHRISITAN SLATER AND JTT?


If you're still on the edge of your seat about Christian Slater from a few posts ago, my theory is that Jonathan Taylor Thomas is his illegitimate child or something. Check out Jon (he hates being referred to as "JTT", the pompous ass) in Smallville or Veronica Mars if you have no clue what I'm rambling about. He's like a mini-CS, including smug facial expressions and phrasing.


STUPID BUMPER STICKER


Today I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, "Please don't put my flag on your foreign car." The sentiment is obviously trying to support American automotive manufacturers, but the truth behind the statement is pretty outdated. Considering we are now moving toward a global economy, people should take a few minutes and do some research about where and how things, such as vehicles, are actually being made. While many automobile companies could be considered foreign at first glance due to their corporate headquarters being in a foreign country, most are actually multinational so that we, the consumer, can get a better deal on a new ride. I used to work for a company that manufacturer automotive parts. While most of our business was supplying the Big Three, we also made parts for several "foreign" companies as well. So just remember that even though the name may be that of a "foreign" car, there's a good chance that many of the actual parts were manufactured right here in the good ole USA.


EATING AGAINST THE LAW


Another thing that has been bothering me for the last decade and continues to escalate is the trend in "fixing" our countries problems by introducing more laws. We are now legislating what people can and cannot eat. In the past these types of laws were disguised by saying that certain foods were banned due to health concerns (contamination by illness inducing organisms). Now we're just saying, "Hey, the country's fat and stupid. We'll never be able to take care of the stupid, so let's try to make it impossible for people to be fat." Since when did trans-fat instantly kill the population? Sure it's not great for you, but it's not a psycho killer lurking to get you the minute you put a fry in your mouth. This basically comes down to personal choice. There are SO many ways to acquire food in the country it's ridiculous, but we have to legislate to make sure that people are making "healthy" choices. Let people eat what they want and quit minimizing personal freedoms and choice.


RANT:
Will people ever learn that democracy is actually just a tyranny of the majority? Will someone finally point out to all of our citizens that our country is not based on democracy anyway, but rather capitalism? Will all this cause the US to lose its moniker as "Home of the Free" and instead become "Home of Legislated Choices"? Will the Preamble change to "We the consumers, of the United States of America..."?

Find out next time. Same blog time, same blog channel.


P.S. TV/DVD


Amazon is now offering downloads of 5 episodes of The State. Anyone who remembers enjoying this show should be excited because this probably means a DVD is in the works at some point.
Read More

Welcome to No Disintegrations!

After much consideration, I have decided to change the name and location of this blog. It will now be known as "No Disintegrations" and can be found by going to http://nodisintegrations.blogspot.com. I've been doing a lot of site updates under the new Blogger and have finally got the favorite icon working for most browsers.

This was a hard decision since I know many loyal readers (all 3 of you) have been checking this site constantly for updates. I think the new name and location is a better fit. I hope everyone realizes that I know nothing of bounty hunting, other than in a galaxy far far away, and that these references are to The Empire Strikes Back. While I am neither a bounty hunter, nor an empire, I am a big believer in striking back (whatever that means). I hope you will enjoy the new updates and approve of the new nomenclature.

If you don't, well then you're a scruffy looking nerf-herder!
Read More

Read No Disintegrations Safely

In my quest to continually improve this blog and make it better for readers, I've decided to create an escape route in case anyone is reading the blog at work. You now have a fast way to turn No Disintegrations into an acceptable site. In fact, I liked this feature so much that I updated the entire catalog of No Disintegrations Blogs (dre222's Short Stories, Black Beard of the Salt Sea's Travel Logue and Tales, and the GRRM DB) to include this feature. Just look for the following at the upper right hand corner of each blog:

Reading blogs at work? Click to escape to a suitable site!

Clicking this link will redirect you to the home page of your browser if you're using IE. I'm not sure if it works for other browsers, so feel free to test it for me if you're using something different.

I also decided to share this code snippet with other bloggers and folks who maintain other sites (yes, the code should work on your MySpace). Just copy and paste the following code:

Now when the boss or co-worker snoops up on you, you're a click away from stealth mode.
Read More

New Enhancement Feature

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've added a new feature to No Disintegrations (and the GRRM DB in the No Disintegrations catalog). Now when you put your cursor on a link outside Shawed, you will get a pop-up preview of the website the link is pointing to. This way you can get an idea of what kind of site you're going to be visiting if you click a link. For anyone wanting to add this to their website (must be able to edit and add "head" attributes), visit snap.com.
Read More

What Happened?

Well, I realized today that I haven't updated Shawed in over a month now. There are many reasons for this including, but not limited to, the holiday season. Basically, I've been having some major writing block. Each time I try to pen an epic or witty post for this sucker I get stuck before the first sentence is over. Usually I write about things that bother or amuse me. With my creative muse H8FUELED out of commission and a plethera of things bothering and amusing me that it wouldn't be appropriate to write about, I have let this precious blog fall into stagnation.

No fear folks! I have been amassing a collection of tidbits that may prove very entertaining in the next few weeks. First, I need to meet some deadlines so I can continue to pay bills. Yeah, I tricked you. This post is more of a "coming soon" than a "it's finally here" post. I just didn't want any loyal readers (all 3 of you) to think that Shawed had met its demise. In the spirit of making you click and wait anxiously, I will reveal a tidbit for a blog in the works:

I've located a person who must be Christian Slater's offspring in the most unlikely of places - movies and TV. Many people mistake this person as a separate entity, but I have a feeling they are of the same bloodline.

Until next time...
Read More

Upgrades, Loyalty Programs, and Imperial Fascists

Well, Blogger finally decided that it was time to make Shawed eligible for their Beta/Google upgrade. So, as of today, Shawed and all of the Shawed Family blogs are now running on the new platform. I not sure what will happen with this. Right now I'm still using the old template interface and don't see any widget options because of how Blogger converted the blog. That's good in one respect because I'm using the same interface (mostly) that I have been since this blog started and the tiny changes I'm seeing are pretty self-explanatory. On the other hand, I'm going to have to experiment with the new features and find out if there is a way to bring them into Shawed. I'm also not sure how this conversion will affect my contributors, so Super Fat Head, Anarchy and Mishou, you may want to log on and see if you can still post things. If they make you sign up for a gmail account (I had to to convert), there will be one grumpy blogger here.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really getting sick of this "loyalty" trend going on everywhere. Groceries, gasoline stations, and internet interface service providers are making people's lives hell.

Just yesterday I was out on my distribution route and I overheard a cashier trying to get someone to sign up for a loyalty card for the store. This poor guy had a huge bag of cat food and a bucket of litter. He'd already been standing in line for several minutes holding the items (this store is notorious for disappearing cashiers and empty checkouts) while the cashier gabbed with someone in front of him. He had a look on his face that told me he just wanted to buy the stuff and get out of there. So, the cashier looks at him and asks if he has a loyalty card. The guy says know and starts shuffling in his wallet (clear nonverbal that he's not interested). The cashier of course has a goal each month telling her how many loyalty sign-ups she should achieve. She begins telling him about all the money he'll save by signing up for this plastic card (and junk mail and email ads), and then uses a tone of voice that indicates he's an idiot if he doesn't do it since the membership is free. The poor dude was finally defeated by her peer pressure (there were other customers behind him and this was the only open line) and signed up for the card.

While many places do have good loyalty programs with decent rewards for frequent shoppers, most places that offer these cards just use them to be able to charge folks who don't want ads more for the same products. Also, every card can only be used at one franchise. So if you shop multiple places like I do, you end up carrying around tons of bits of plastic. I always use the keyring-sized cards and put them on the ring on my wallet. Apparently most cashiers aren't too fond of that. Well, too bad for them. I don't want to pay more than loyalty members, I'm not going to have room for that many full-sized cards, and the safest way to remember to take them with me when shopping is to physically attach them to my money source so they are not forgotten. I have an enormous amount of them too, so finding a specific one usually takes at least a few minutes.

Here's my idea for all the people who started these blasted things and want to continue using them:

Give everyone a UPC code (Universal Person Code). They can go online or somewhere else that's designated and sign up for this card. Then, all of their mailing information and everything is stored in one database. When a person wants to sign up for a store loyalty card, the store scans their master UPC card and pulls their info in from this database. The store then inputs their customer identification code into the master UPC system. Now the store can track the person's purchases or whatever they get out of it, and the person only has to carry one card and not fill out 3,000 forms. Basically the master UPC would be cross-referenced with the customer ID housed by the store loyalty database. Consumers could then sign up for more loyalty programs faster, only have to carry one card for all stores, and be able to receive the "special benefits" granted to loyalty shoppers. If a person doesn't want to join the program, they can decline. If the person isn't sure they are a loyalty member, a quick scan of their master UPC will let them know.

The government would also benefit because then they could track every store and purchase you make. That way they can stop people when they begin exhibiting terrorist behaviors such as buying vinegar and baking soda in the same purchase or whatever other advanced algorithms they use to decide to turn someone's life upside down. I know that many have given up on the dreams of ultimate mailing lists and a 1984-esque society, but I think if we all pull together and use some common sense, we can finally achieve total loss of individual freedoms and attain absolute fascism. That or the Bush family can finally form the Empire they've been working on for the last 18 years. Now, who's with me?

An interesting side note dear readers - please take a look at the statements below concerning a particular type of government philosophy (copied form the ever erroneous Wikipedia) and see if they remind you of anything. Click "What's this from?" to see the source.

1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions;
2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits;
3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts;
4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint;
5. fear of foreign `contamination.'

What's this from?
Read More

Sad Times: Blogs, Raccoons, Lions, and Sea Lions

Well, I meant to do this sometime last week, but time just kind of slipped away like it often does when projects, papers, and other crap gets in the way. Lately I've been reading some very sad and at times terrifying news.


GOODBYE H8FUELED



First, the inspiration for this blog, H8FUELED, has announced that it is ceasing publication indefinitely. The reasons are laid out pretty clearly, so I'll let you read them for yourself. What I'd like to do instead is pay tribute to this masterpiece by listing my top three favorite excerpts:

"This is going to be another short post, since Happy Fun Ball Hyphen Danger is taking a nap and I FINALLY have some time away from the "aaeeeuuugghh"'s and "eeeeeeeEEEEE!"s that she uses to communicate to the other woodland animals (or velociraptors, I haven't quite figured that out yet). But I loves her."

I loved this one because I know HFB-D and she does make woodland sounds. The part that had me ROFLMFAO was the aside about velociraptors. The worst part was I was at work and I'm sure people thought I was having a seizure because I was shaking so hard.

"To try and squeeze SOME kind of enjoyment out of this arduous process, I engage the stripper in some deep, meaningful conversation.
FILTHY STRIPPER: Hey, sexy. What's your name?
ME: Leopold, but you can call me Barry.
WHORE: Hello, Barry. I'm Roxanne. How are you feeling tonight?
ME: Pretty down. I really hope we don't go to war with Iran.
WHORE: Yeah. That would suck. Are you in the military?
ME: No, I just really like Iran as a country.
WHORE: Oh. So, do you want...
ME: I think it all goes back to the time I read the Koran from cover to cover. Fascinating book. Have you ever read it?
WHORE: Um, no. Say, do you want to...
ME: It's really informative, even if the ending is pretty cliche..."

Anytime you're browsing the site and see the drama set up, you know you're in for a treat. If TD doesn't ever blog again, he should at least look into a career as a sitcom writer. His skits are a lot better than most of the crap being shoveled right now (excluding The Office as awesome, which may have also opened the door for TD's style).

"Enjoy your drunkeness, for you've earned it. Nevermind the reasons WHY you drink: You could simply fear sobriety and the constant paranoia you face thinking about the government; you could just want the numb embrace of liquor to save you from realizing how fucking stupid our world is; or, you could just be a miserable sumbitch who's only solace comes with a bottle of scotch. Remember, though, that no matter how bad life is, you've always got a way of coping. Healthy or not, drinking is still cooler than listening to Linkin Park."

If the sitcom thing doesn't work out, maybe he should consider a career in lobbying for alcohol. The passion is definitely there as well as ample justifications.

While this doesn't give you the whole picture of the blog - so much of it is so damn good and so well-written - it at least gives you a taste of what we're now all missing out on. Just remember TD, you always have an open invitation to Shawed any time you feel the urge to post. H8FUELED and its contribution to the blogosphere will be sorely missed by many, many non-commenting bastards.



RACCOONS

Apparently raccoons have been forming gangs in California so they can now participate in gang violence. These little scavengers have been attacking dogs and shredded one up pretty bad. People are beginning to get scared. They can't let their dogs out unsupervised or enjoy sitting on their porches. California laws prohibit removal of the clever fiends due to the living with wildlife policy. What do you want to bet there suddenly becomes a high demand for coonhounds in Cali?

I feel sorry for the people and their dogs, but I also feel bad for the little critters. Food must be pretty scarce or the population is getting too big because it takes some big fuzzy balls to face down people and their dogs when you're only about 18" high.

LIONS

Rare Abyssinian lion cubs are being poisoned at a zoo in Ethiopia because the staff cannot afford to keep them. Their solution? The dead cubs are sold to taxidermists for $170 each to be stuffed and sold as decorations - even though they are the national symbol and there's only about 1,000 left in the wild. Hmm... seems to me that if I were running a zoo and couldn't afford to keep an endangered species I would try to find another zoo somewhere to take them. No let's kill them and stuff them so one day when they're all gone somebody will discover a stuffed one in an attic somewhere and that's closest anyone in the future will ever get to seeing a real one. I know the zoo officials have a budget to maintain, but there has to be some other way to handle this situation. I know, how about if someone poisons the genius behind this plan and stuffs them?

SEA LIONS

It's another attack story. Sea lions are apparently becoming very vicious off the Californian coast. Attacking swimmers and fisherman and such. Of course weighing in at approximately 1,000 lbs and being so strong in numbers makes them a big threat. The sad part is there's a big suspicion that the sea lions have turned so ferocious from eating fish that are contaminated by a toxic algae bloom caused by agricultural pollution. A food shortage further down the coast and the habit of fisherman feeding them seafood scraps hasn't helped the situation any. In fact, a group of sea lions managed to take out a yacht. Of course once the sea lions form the ultimate alliance with the raccoons, we can kiss Cali goodbye.

WWF

If you're feeling in a giving mood this holiday season, why not give something to the World Wildlife Fund? They work to try to find and support habitats for wildlife to protect the humans and animals from each other. 83% of the funds they receive go directly to the local programs they support. For a worldwide program of their size, that's really, really good. Right now you can adopt a variety of wildlife for as little as a $25 donation. Of course they'll be grateful for any amount you're willing to send their way.
Read More
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)