Ryan’s Ramblin’

So… Tim over at Ctrl-Alt-Del recently set up CAD Premium, where he’s got an animated version of his comic among other nifty extras. I signed up for a one month trial, primarily just to throw him a few bucks cuz he HAS thoroughly entertained me with his comic over the last few years. However, I recently found out that either they are selling their email userlist to spammers, or somebody has hacked into their system, because I am suddenly getting ALL KINDS of spam to the email address that I used to sign up for the site. This email address is unique, ONLY used for that site, and never posted anywhere else, and it’s HARDLY the kind of word someone is going to use in a random “hey, this domain surely will have an address at this username” kind of way. In fact, it was cadpremium. Update: upon receiving another spam message to this address, I forwarded it on to Tim and the folks in charge of his premium site. Both responded, and it appears as though their mail list was hacked back in February some time, and they are taking steps to catch the person who did it. And I got a 1 month free membership for my troubles. Now THAT is class.

Woohoo! I’m going to Paris! Ok, it’s still not till the end of May, but I’m excited nonetheless! That’ll make it 5 different countries (not including Ireland) that I’ll have visited since my arrival here last September. It could possibly be 6, if I go to Belfast sometime before the end of May, and even possibly 7, if I have a chance to take a day trip to Morocco when I go to the Canary Islands. I don’t want to hear anybody say I’m not taking advantage of being here in Europe, with access to all these cheap flights, that’s for sure! Although funnily enough, for all the trips I’ve been on, I haven’t yet been on a single RyanAir flight! I think we’ve flown AerLingus every time, which is not only a) cheaper but also b) more convenient, since they actually fly to the major airports of the cities we’re visiting, as opposed to the silly out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere cities that RyanAir usually flies to.

Some of you may know Tucker Max (site not safe for work, or sanity). A lot of you may know him. Or not. I’ve blogged about him before. Basically, he is a huge asshole that gets ridiculously drunk, sleeps with whoever he can get his hands on, and then writes stories about it on his website. He’s a fantastic writer, really, despite the horrendous content of his writing.

Any way, he is being sued. Apparently people on his messageboards made fun of this Anthony Dimeo dude (I’ve never heard of him, but apparently he has a bit of quasi-fame and is really, really, rich) and generally said that he should be killed, should kill himself, should just die, is pathetic, etc. If you’ve ever read ANY internet messageboards, this should not surprise you in the least. But this guy is suing Tucker Max for defamation, among other things, including that new extension to the Violence Against Women Act that makes it illegal to use the internet to harrass someone anonymously. This is such a ridiculous over-extension of that law, but we all knew it was going to happen sooner or later.

Here’s Tucker’s own words from his blog entry about it
:

As you may know Anthony Dimeo is suing me:

The original news article

Here are two more articles about this:

One from today that has a quote by me

One from Friday that kinda misquotes me (but not that bad)

And then a GREAT piece that fully explains why this lawsuit is such a big deal. If you care about free speech or the internet at all, I suggest you read this article, its good. [Also, the text of the actual complaint is linked on that site]

As of right now, I do not have any further specific comment on the case, aside from this:

There is no question that on an average day, I am a huge attention whore, but that is not what is going on here. This is not about me; this is a very serious legal matter, not just for me, but for the entire internet. The issues at stake here could potentially affect every single website and individual who posts on messageboards and chatrooms.

I try not to ask much of you people, but please send the relevent links/my blog post to anyone and everyone you can who has a site that could talk about this and publicize it, and if you have a website, please post about and publicize this case.

In defending my rights I will by proxy be defending everyone’s free speech rights, and by writing about this you will be helping defend this cause. The more attention that we focus on this case, the better the chances that freedom will prevail and censorship will be beaten back.
Remember: I don’t ask that you endorse me or my site, but onlt that you endorse my fight against censorship.

Also, all the threads where we make fun of him are posted here:
http://messageboard.tuckermax.com/showthread.php?t=7980

You may not like Tucker Max, but this is pretty huge. Suing messageboard owners for the contents of their messageboards is getting into very dangerous territory. So I’m passing it along to my meager readership.

From this Ask Metafilter thread:

Q: What do you call a black man flying a plane?
A: A pilot, you fucking racist.

It narrowly beats out my previous favourite joke:

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other, and says “Hey, does this taste funny to you?”

And this was all precipitated from the “World’s Funniest Joke” news story at CNN:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.

He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

Personally, I don’t find that one as funny.

I’m currently reading It\’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, Lance Armstrong’s book about getting cancer, his life, etc. It’s a surprisingly engaging book, but I have to say that I get a sympathetic ache down in the boys whenever I read it. Chris went through the same thing several years ago, though not as serious as Lance’s (it only spread to the lymph nodes in his abdomen, not up into the major organs/brain), and I always meant to get around to reading this book. Liz borrowed it off a friend though, so I’m reading it now, and it’s fantastic! One thing I didn’t realize, is that he’s only 7 years older than me. For some reason, I always thought of him as being WAY older. Even before he was dating/engaged to Sheryl Crow, who is 16 years (and 1 day) older than me, I always thought of him as being much older. I guess not! Give it a read if you get a chance though, it’s a seriously kick ass book. Also, if you’re a guy, make sure you’re checking your boys out regularly!

Ryan sad! For some reason, my xbox stopped working. My guess is that I need to open that bad boy up and do some resoldering (as happens every couple of months, it seems). I wish I was a better solderer, so that this wasn’t an issue. Or maybe I should just get a solderless adapter so this isn’t an issue anymore? Oh well, it’ll give me something to do this weekend.

PS - I know I’m boring. I don’t care what you think! Until I get paid to do this, I don’t need to be interesting!

Since Michael’s doing it over at Eclecticism, figured I’d do it too:

Posts: 1543
Comments: 2938

That’s an average of 1.9 comments per post. Not bad, considering that these days, I get MAYBE 2 comments a week. But then, I’m only posting like once or twice a week anyway!

Vatican Model

Decided to try messing about with fake tilt-shift photos (to make real things look like models) as per Receding Hairline. Very cool stuff. See the tiltshift photoset.

feb282006snowdublin2

It snowed yesterday. Weee! I mean sure, it only snowed for about an hour, and 20 minutes later all the snow was melted. But it was still cool to see some snow on the ground in February. And it felt like a *real* Canadian winter, because I was feeling sick as a dog too. Not sure what I’ve caught, but a couple guys were off last week so maybe I caught what they had? I’m still achey and foggy-headed today, but I’m still at work. I’m a trooper, dammit!

So, a week ago or so, Apple announced that they would be introducing “fun new products” at a product unveiling yesterday. I was pretty excited, after seeing some of the iPod video rumours going around. Of course, being 5 hours ahead here, I didn’t really get to see details on the press conference until I got home from work, and I was feeling pretty crappy so I didn’t really do too much hunting for news. I have to say, I’m kinda disappointed. Wow, a leather iPod case! Great! You’ve only been able to buy those since, like, the iPod first came out! Oh, but this one is *made* by Apple. Ok then. And only $99! It’s a steal at twice the price! What else did they announce? The iPod hifi. Again, one of those things that’s really been available for AGES. Maybe not exactly the same, but hardly the pinnacle of innovation. And, lastly, the Intel Mac Mini. Now with two more USB ports! Wooooo! Oh, and let us not forget the IR port on the front. Yeah, it’s cool because it’s way faster than the old Mac Mini… but it’s still hardly some crazy exciting new product. It’s just an update of an old product. Apple, you’ve let me down this time. However, I still want a nano.