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News Archive - 07/2008 Tuesday, July 01, 2008 Skipped Day Because of technical difficulties with my hosting company, the results of the Caption Contest will be posted on Wednesday. Wednesday, July 02, 2008 Caption Contest Results
Congratulations to my Mom, who won first place in last week's Caption Contest. She wins a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com! Thanks go out to everyone who submitted a caption this time around.  In other news, I recently completed a six-month-long clean-up of the News Archives -- removing the News stories that no longer exist because Yahoo is too idiotic to realize that they should stop changing their URLs when they archive stuff, and adding height/width attributes to all the picture so that links to old entries actually take you to the right entry. Let me know if anything looks weird!  Mom grazed by son's sausage Manure thief falls into dung, flees naked Man stuck in pavement hole for two hourspermalink
| 3 comments Thursday, July 03, 2008 In Depends Dance Day  Tomorrow marks the 232nd (we were THIS close!) anniversary of the first time one of our Founding Fathers wore diapers and waltzed around a bonfire. To carry this tradition forward, American society instills this patriotic action in its youngsters at early ages by showing them DVDs such as this one The national government also comes to a near standstill as thousands of workers go on vacation while allowing the hemorrhage of bureaucratic money (also known as Fridays). Working for a government contractor means that you get this perk by association -- since everyone on the government side is off on a ten day vacation, there's no meetings to attend or customers to appease. In the spirit of the Founding Fathers (who did not blog), there will be no updates tomorrow. I plan to spend a good two-thirds of the extended weekend eating things wrapped in bacon, such as bacon, and doing shots of vodka out of bacon-cups (which you then crumple up like a Dixie cup and use to chase the shot). What are your plans for the weekend, other than entering Mike's Lyrics Contest? McDonald's sued over Happy Meal toy Truck hauling 12 million bees overturns Hold the tobacco, pass the potMonday, July 07, 2008 Weekend Wrapup  The actual 4th Holiday was spent in the wilderness of upper Loudoun County with some of Rebecca's extended family, celebrating Independence Day the way it was intended -- setting things on fire, shooting rifles, and eating venison. Along with the 12-pack of Yuengling, we brought with us a Bacon Salad (salad garnished with chunks of bacon and a dressing made from mayo and leftover bacon grease), and for the squeamish, a couscous salad (made from some fake grain and some pine nuts). After consuming some delicious chocolate cake, we wended our way down the mountain to Leesburg to watch the county fireworks, complete with All-American music a là the U.S. Customs line at Dulles airport. Unlike the clowns at the Nissan Pavilion, the Leesburg police department emptied out the pavilion of hundreds of cars in less than fifteen minutes and we returned home to Sterling.  On Saturday, we took a trip to Colonial Beach for the Spellerberg Fourth. Like the stones mined from iron deposits, traffic was Heavy, but we still managed to get there by noontime. We watched Ella learn such important life lessons as "You can only travel in two directions on a dock" and "All puddles are fun to run through but the oily puddles where car drives are the best".  Later in the afternoon, we took a few boat rides out onto the Potomac and made fun of Becca's tubing face while getting obliterated by biting insect. When everyone was pooped, all the kids retired to the living room for a repeat showing of The Adventures of Milo and Otis, the childhood classic which features a talking dog and cat narrated by Dudley Moore. We returned to Sterling late in the evening, but no so late that we couldn't have some leftover cheesy slow chicken for dinner (the "slow" refers to the cooking manner, and not the relative intelligence of the bird). Drug arrests were real; badge was fake Glass museum to commission 'Bacon Boy' sculpture Staunton rejects the bushmenpermalink
| 4 comments Tuesday, July 08, 2008 Revamp Day  We're just weeks away from the Thirteenth Edition of the URI! Zone, an epochal event which signifies that I've needed a better hobby for almost twelve full years now. Although I have rebranded the site every year with charmingly urbane colours and hip lingo (with Ocean Sounds), I've actually done very little under the hood to make this site any more useful or enjoyable (see also, Microsoft Word 97, 98, 2000, 2001, X, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008). In fact, the last time I actually made major changes to the gears in my site's pants was 2005, when I pretended to be like Florida-Mike and learned about two and a half chapters of PHP before hating it.  So as not to stagnate, I've decided to take a page out of the playbooks of successful world leaders, to achieve the same levels of progressive thinking and flourishing that their countries have seen. Here are some of the features I would like to include in my own "Five Year Plan", although it will probably take much less than five years to accomplish. No More Frames: Streamlining Content:  Post Tagging: Database-Driven Posts: RSS Feed: JSPs and Servlets: A New Site Host: Now it's your turn. What features do YOU think are missing from the URI! Zone? MLK was a Republican Saucy intruder whistles for homeowner Police say UFO was just the Moonpermalink
| 3 comments Wednesday, July 09, 2008 Game Day  One of the reasons why Apples to Apples has such an extended shelf life is the ridiculous number of game permutations you can come up with using the same tired decks of cards. To inaugurate the first day of a Frameless URI! Zone, here's one I made up last weekend, called Apples Poker, for three or more players. During each round, one player is the dealer/judge and does not get a hand. This player deals four red Noun cards to the other players. Even though the Adjective card is not revealed yet, players can choose to discard what they think is their weakest card and draw a new one. They can also sacrifice all four to get a completely new hand. A round of betting follows this (antes or blinds -- it doesn't matter). After the first round of betting, the dealer flops a green Adjective card on the table. Players must now try to create a four-card hand of Nouns that are best described by the Adjective. They can replace one, two, or three cards in their hand, but not all of them. Another round of betting follows.  When betting is complete, all players show their hands, explaining why each card is a good candidate for the Adjective card (creative answers are acceptable). If some of your cards are horrible, you do not need to show them unless Chris Smith is also playing. The dealer then goes hand by hand, approving or vetoing each card. The dealer can assign half points with discretion. At the end, each player now has a score between 0 and 4. The player with the highest score wins the pot. In cases of ties, the pot is split. You can also have Dealer's Choice rounds, where you play 4 Adjectives to 1 Noun, or use Antonyms and other crazy combinations. Enjoy! Children know more about Yoda than oak leaves Rick Moranis too rich for Ghostbusters "I like the FedEx driver because he's a drug dealer and he don't even know it"permalink
| 0 comments Thursday, July 10, 2008 Unfinished Day  In the past seventy-two hours, I've accomplished more on my website TODO list than all the progress the US has made in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vancouver1 in the past three years combined. All it took was consolidating my fanciful feature fragments into a concrete list with things to check off.  Though I would like to claim credit for being super efficient, I am no longer the accomplishment machine I was four years ago  1: The Canadian invasion has been in the making for years! In search of the magical penis thieves Batty for boobies Fake bouts showing men kissing draw suspicionpermalink
| 0 comments Friday, July 11, 2008 Friday Fragments  ♠ After over four years of living in Loudoun County, I finally signed up for a Loudoun County library card. It wasn't because I'm running low on books to read -- it was just because I wanted to check out back issues of Consumer Checkbook for Heating and Air Conditioning company reviews and I was too stingy to get a subscription. ♠ My library card is labelled in a low-tech way with a felt-tip pen, but at least the librarian had good handwriting. On the high-tech side, the card also came with two keyring-sized copies that seem to be all the rage these days. ♠ I have never had a keyring card of any kind, even for groceries or movie rentals. My keyring is quite bare, featuring only my house key and car key. However, this spartan composition will make it an excellent self-defense weapon on the day that Carlos Adolfo Dominguez with a bag on his head tries to attack me while I'm waiting for the bus to go to the movies  ♠ The other day, I met Rebecca at the Reston Town Center for a post-work dinner. After poring over a listing of movie times at nearby theatres, we realized that there's a distinct movie gap between 7:45 and 9:30 on weekday nights. Wouldn't it make more sense to start showing movies right around 8 so people can eat dinner and watch? Instead movies either start during dinner or so late that you might as well stay up all night afterwards watching one of your unnecessary cable stations. ♠ Speaking of unnecessary stations, XM Radio is promoting XM51: All Coldplay All the Time. Didn't they learn their lesson from the disasterous Led Zeppelin channel that barely lasted two months? ♠ This weekend, I'll be going for a bike ride, and also starting the Java rewrite of the URI! Zone, something that only took me twelve years to get around to.  ♠ Speaking of things taking twelve years, a recent hot topic in the news was the DNA-based clearing of the parents of JonBenet Ramsey in the 1996 murder case. Outside of the usual complaints about the media, I always hated the coverage of this case, because it introduced us to the phrase, "under an umbrella of suspicion", and then beat us over the head with it for the next twelve years. That phrase doesn't even make sense -- wouldn't an umbrella of suspicion keep you from getting blamed? Is there a hole in it that's letting the suspicion in? Why am I asking so many rhetorical questions this week? I'm under my umbrella of questioning! ♠ Every time I read the phrase "hot topic" in the newspaper, I picture Jim Gaffigan saying it ♠ Don't forget that tomorrow is 12 of 12! Have a great weekend everyone! Dicks stops sagging in Flint Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter Bat-in-the-bra one upped by bat-in-the-pantspermalink
| 0 comments Monday, July 14, 2008 12 of 12
See more 12 of 12ers at Chad's site Woman kills husband with folding couch Pringles are not potato crisps The cats in the hatspermalink
| 6 comments Tuesday, July 15, 2008
For this word, I envisioned nervous energy, constantly on the move, but slightly off-balance. I wrote it for a mythological banjo quintet that can ostensibly play without worrying about ranges because the homogenous nature of the sound seems to add to the frazzled feeling, making the listener frazzled as well. Miss USA glad that there's no balance competition Drunk infiltrates team of firefighters Rubik's Cube used to get on right side of octopusesWednesday, July 16, 2008 Amazon Day It's no secret that I overshop at Amazon.com. The fact that they store all order histories since the year 2000 provides an interesting snapshot of my life at the time. While I work on fun web site improvements like a JSP-based forum, enjoy this unabridged glimpse at all the deviant purchases I made from 2000 to 2001.  What's in your order history? Santas in civil war Why the Washington Metro needs more poles Officer downed by ice teaThursday, July 17, 2008 Amazon Day, Part II My online shopping increased in 2002, and especially in 2003 when I left the music world and had a disposable income.  Rejected panda adopted by cat San Francisco officials locked out of their network Dallas police find cocaine in car used by officers permalink
| 0 comments Friday, July 18, 2008 Friday Fragments below the equator, fragments flush in reverse  ♠ The plan for this weekend is the annual camping trip in Gore, VA to celebrate Sam E's birthday. Last year's trip ♠ Apparently there are no major book releases threatening this year's camping trip, although this weekend marks the release date of CHESS CRUSADE for the Wii -- because apparently it's much easier to move a pawn with a Wii Remote than your hand. ♠ In other Wii news, a microphone is being developed that will let you trash talk your opponents online. Mario Kart just isn't the same unless you can hear Mike swear when he gets hit with a Lightning Cloud. Until the microphone comes out, I'll just set up my laptop in the living room and send expletive-filled IMs.  ♠ My new laptop arrived on Monday and passes the important test -- World of Warcraft runs at 60 fps. Windows Vista is just as annoying as advertised (I missed the drop-dead date for getting Windows XP by a week). Pretty much every action (copy a file, run a program) pops up TWO separate windows asking for your permission to proceed. After just a day of this, I turned off the alerts and was greeted by an alert asking if it was okay proceed with alerts turned off. It's the computerized equivalent of a three-year-old who must get permission to put each foot forward when walking across the room. ♠ The laptop has already been put to good use, since there was an all-day meeting yesterday during which I answered emails and debugged things. In the days of yore, I would have had to find a seat next to a wall so it wouldn't be immediately apparent that I fell asleep during the opening comments.  ♠ When I was a music major, we had an event called Convocation every Tuesday afternoon. Every music major had to perform in a Convo at least once a semester and you had to get a card punched twelve times to get credit for attendance. Every fourth seat in the salon had a narrow vertical beam behind it, so I always made sure to sit in one of these for maximum head support during my weekly nap. Generally, Convo was only good for proving that just because you're a Music Education major doesn't mean you're fit to teach your instrument to children. ♠ The Recital Salon was also the backdrop for this poster ♠ Have a great weekend everyone! Man finds booby-traps in the lake Man finds booby-traps in the park Man finds booby-traps in his sandwichpermalink
| 7 comments Monday, July 21, 2008 Camping Inventory Day  Vint Hill Farms, Spring Camboree 1989  Spring Camboree 1992  Spotsylvania County, every month for years  Camp Sinoquipe, every month for years Camp Big Mac, every year for 4 years Rock Enon, every year for 4 years Camp Goshen, 1994  Virginia Beach 2001  The Cove, 2007  The Cove, 2008 Cow Backpacks Trap Methane Gas Unrepentant on Facebook? Expect jail time Hotel of Doom wakes from its comapermalink
| 0 comments Tuesday, July 22, 2008 Newsday Tuesday A dash of lime -- a new twist that may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels  Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere... Shell is so impressed with the new approach that it is funding an investigation into its economic feasibility. There's nothing like the backing of a gigantic oil company that posted a $9 billion net income in the first quarter of 2008 to convince the world that your environmental idea is a good one. Not only does Shell think it's a great idea, they're actually chipping in a few bucks to fund a study to see whether it's worth the money to keep funding the study. Then again, when I owned the Shell Lego Gas Station as a child, gas was regularly under a dollar per gallon -- perhaps they really care about the Earth after all. Adding lime to seawater increases alkalinity, boosting seawater's ability to absorb CO2 from air and reducing the tendency to release it back again. The chemical symbol, CaO, of lime has been known for many years. However, earlier scientists tended to misinterpret the chemical equation for dissolving lime in water, leading to many unsuccessful experiments.  Tim Kruger [...] is the brains behind the plan to resurrect the lime process. He argues that it could be made workable by locating it in regions that have a combination of low-cost 'stranded' energy considered too remote to be economically viable to exploit - like flared natural gas or solar energy in deserts - and that are rich in limestone... Mr. Kruger also offered other examples of remote energy sources, including gassy rednecks in Ripley, Mississippi, outsourced Dalit on treadmills in India, or New York geeks standing in lime to buy the new iPhone.  The process of making lime generates CO2, but adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO2. The overall process is therefore 'carbon negative'. When asked what would be done with all the surplus absorbed C02, Mr. Kruger directed reporters to his new drink recipe, for a delightful concoction called an "Irish Carbonne". This project is being developed in an open source manner. To find out more, please go to [its] new website, launched today. For the uninitiated, open source development means that everyone from around the world will contribute fabulous ideas until they get bored or their free AOL accounts expire, leaving only two scientists left behind. These two will grow increasingly antagonistic as their approaches diverge, with one scientist spitefully deleting the other scientist's lime supply and locking the ocean until the slighted scientist gets fed up and leaves. At this point, OPERATION LIME will fork, with the Indian Ocean hosting the "obviously correct" solution for lime dispersal while the other oceans adhere to the "historically accepted" approach. Finally, an uninvolved third party will create jLime two years later, which has nothing to do with the original designs, runs in Java, and becomes the defacto standard in lime dumping. Willis says alcohol was involved. Police rescue, kill man. Alcohol may have been involved. Alcohol involved in second-degree burns on testiclespermalink
| 2 comments Wednesday, July 23, 2008 BU Begins origins of a superhero  Soon Bok Yoon, from the planet Wooie -- I may as well have been an extra in Star Wars.  Only six days after my birth, they already knew that I would be handsome, intelligent, and able to poop without difficulties.  As part of the Care and Feeding of Your New Alien packet, new parents are warned that all Oriental kids are plague monkeys.  Another part of the packet is a twelve page attachment, Communicating With Your New Alien. To all the ladies out there, Un Je Den Ji Nal Bool Ru.  It takes Americans months to obtain their passport, but little babies who are presumed to be Korean get them immediately. Homeland Security was lacking in those days.  When I flew over to the Great White Santa, my wrist was the size of Booty's leg.  Adopted! Introducing the vomiting dummy Little fishies to chew off your dead skin How not to do an American accentpermalink
| 6 comments Thursday, July 24, 2008 Proposal Day  I spent yesterday afternoon writing up a Statement of Work for a proposal at work, which didn't leave me much time to write anything witty or tearjerking for today's update (especially since I spent most of the evening working on various Java improvements for the next edition of the URI! Zone). The best I could come up with was to title today's post ominously and trick a bunch of people, because it's not about that kind of proposal. That reminds me of the cleverest episode of Will and Grace I ever watched in Tallahassee (at 6 PM on channel 4 while the Banquet fried chicken was cooking in the toaster oven and Booty was going crazy, running up walls). Grace was trying to trick Harry Connick Jr. into proposing by asking him about a four person seating chart and mixing in the words, Will, you, Mary, and me. Harry Connick Jr. was also creepy in the serial killer movie, Copycat, which came out sometime in the 90s and was one of the few movies my sister and I ever went to the theater together for (she was on winter break and we went to the movie theater at Bailey's Crossroad where the giant Target sits now). That was also probably one of five total times we socialized together after junior high school. I could keep on stream-of-consciousnessing and reminiscing for several more paragraphs, but then I would steal Friday's thunder, and you wouldn't know where the lightning was without the ominous rumble and would probably die. So for public safety, I'm turning the podium over to you. There are 21 people pictured below who have posted a comment within the past two years. If you are one of them, your job is to either post an interesting story in the Comments section, or ask one of the OTHER 21 people a question that they then must answer. The winner of today's little game will be the person who was adopted from farthest away during the Carter presidency, and will win a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.  Worker prefers shed to home with wife Searching for the largest fishies Sex, blood, and baby names for gasolinepermalink
| 13 comments Friday, July 25, 2008 Friday Fragments bow-legged, knock-kneed, and legless  ♠ It's been a busy couple weeks for web improvements and I'm 100% pleased with Kattare as a hosting company. If you need a hosting company than can handle more complex sites with a support line that's actually useful, and don't mind given away a decent chunk of your disposable income, I would definitely recommend them (and not just for the 15% kickback I would get for referrals). Since I moved over, I've been busy writing a Java forum and gear database for my Warcraft guild ♠ For the less technical readers, the difference between a PHP-driven site and a JSP-driven site is like the difference between a homemade third-grade diorama in a Payless shoebox for a book report on The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and the diorama that was obviously made by the rich kid's mom, who went to Michael's to get top quality posterboard. Sure, the first one has a little charm in its Scotch-taped motorcycle and the mouse with no head (because it fell off on the bus ride), but the high-quality one is going to win the school contest and the Book It! pizza coupons.  ♠ I hated dioramas in elementary school, because although I was artsy (and crafty), I never had the patience to perfect my artistic vision, and the contents of the shoebox never looked anything like what I had in my head. This is also why I my sixth grade "Map Our School" assignment got an A+ for detail and a D for neatness. Had I based a career on this, I would have forgone architectural blueprints in favour of topographical maps of mountains in earthquake-prone regions.  ♠ Another fun graphical career would be to make the warning signs where roads converge in a nonconformist way (similar to Communist party meetings in the 1950s). Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between an intersection warning and a mutated stick figure that was murdered. ♠ This weekends' plans mostly revolve around relaxing. If I'm so inclined, I'll implement the next big URI! Zone feature: putting five years of comments into a database, so you can read all of Rachel's posts at once, or find out when the last time someone talked about Beavis was. I may also study for a Java certification, which is back on track now that I've gotten rid of that horribly useless Certification for the Learning Disabled textbook. ♠ My weekend plans will DEFINITELY not include anything related to my wisdom teeth, since the oral surgeon took all of two minutes to tell me that I'd run the risk of nerve damage if he tried to remove them, and that my original dentist was a freaking retard for referring me in the first place. Dentistry HMOs are the best. ♠ Have a great weekend! Scrabulous sued, Facebook put on notice Newspaper misspells its own name Global warming could lead to more kittenspermalink
| 0 comments Monday, July 28, 2008 Comments Day The newest feature to grace the URI! Zone is a custom-written database-driven Comments section which is light years ahead of the old file-based one. From a layman's perspective, having a file-based system would be akin to tracking my budget by writing on a brand new Post-It note every time I bought something and sticking it up on my wall for reference. This was fine in the days where it was just Mike complaining about exclamation points and Rob as Finicky correcting my grammar, but after years of hard use and heavy drinking, there were over a thousand little comments files (containing 3805 comments) littered across the server like so many rabbit droppings. Putting it all into a database also lets me analyze the comments in life-changing and amusing ways. For example, who are the most prolific commenters in the history of the URI! Zone?  What are the names of posters who have only ever posted a single comment? Hay, Cecilie, !, One less thing in sets of three, Jay-Z, Eleanor, hubcap, Maria, Dan, Teena, 12 of 12 Fun, Mr. E.P!, Jennifer Saunders, Elena, Bec, JaeTree, Zpitzen, That pickled person story, Alias, snowelf, Casper, l33t gur1, James, anti-political/pro-morality, The General Populace, Allison, Har har, some1, Catie, Joy T., mute, Seriously., Mike Saunders, Elaine, Lynda, Hubster, Could this really be an internet plot against me?, Alyssa Milano, Poun, Key West Chompy What were the final posts of some readers who vanished into the ether?  What was post #222?  How often have people mentioned the following words in their comments?
What were the longest comments sections ever? Aggressive Driving Cheese Puns Hurricane Katrina Piglet with a monkey face Angry man shoots lawn mower for not starting Dying eight-year-old marries his sweetheartpermalink
| 13 comments Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Ethics Day As part of an annual recertification at work, every employee must take an online course in Business Ethics. Because the denizens of the URI! Zone are a shady bunch, these highlights might be helpful in your own lives.
Unfortunate Domain Names UPS Driver gets final special delivery Six-legged deer finds a new homepermalink
| 5 comments Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Review Day  Charlie Wilson's War: Final Grade: B+ The Bank Job: Final Grade: B+ Be Kind Rewind: Final Grade: B+ Complaints about giant penis lead to arrest Robots learn when people are happy and sad Man deposits millions, one tattered bill at a timepermalink
| 0 comments Thursday, July 31, 2008 
The URI! Zone will return with new updates on Monday, August 4, 2008 for its thirteenth consecutive year of llamas, boobies and ocean sounds. Thank you for your patience and your continued visits! Driver kills sharks in car crash Tree shrew is a heavyweight boozer Customs not slipped up over gay lubeThe newest news on the front page is always at the top. Archived news is in chronological order. You can always contact me at The entire URI! Zone is © 1996 - 2008 by Brian Uri!. Please see the About page for further information. |
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4:48 AM: Thumbs down for the ungodly hour that a guest cat woke me up at. Catsitting is overrated.
7:14 AM: After Caturday morning breakfast, I got a couple more hours of sleep before waking up at a much more agreeable hour.
7:45 AM: Reading the Post while having a breakfast of cream cheese with bagel.
9:54 AM: Taking the front wheel off my bike so it will fit in the back seat for "Bike Around Arlington" Day.
11:55 AM: After a six mile bike ride from Falls Church to Shirlington, we enjoyed cold cut trios at Subway.
12:16 PM: Wondering if there are any laws on the books about operating non-motorized vehicles under the influence.
12:42 PM: Apparently in Arlington, it's acceptable for everyone to bring their dogs to a creek and call it a dog park.
2:36 PM: The pool was closed for renovations so we just took showers and relaxed on the couch. Hot day biking can get pretty rough.
5:49 PM: At a Lebanese restaurant in Clarendon with Rebecca's parents.
7:03 PM: Returning home to find the cats (and guest cats) impatient for dinner.
7:21 PM: Hot day biking results in lots and lots of laundry.
7:31 PM: Pouring a beverage to keep me company while I post my 12 of 12.
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