Why North Korea isn't a threat

In a statement following their nuclear missle test earlier this week, North Korea says:

"There is a limit to our patience. The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth's 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests."

As soon as I read this, something struck me as odd: how did they come up with 99.99%? After all, the only way to extract that remaining 0.01% would be if there were at least 10,000 tests. As it stands, even if North Korea had tested only ONE nuclear missle versus 2053 by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, that would still be 99.9513%, not 99.99%. It's a small margin, but pretty significant when you're vying for world credibility. Or say... in a missile guidance system: "Chong, we need some additional thrust for these missles? What do you mean how much? Make it like... Twelve ultra mega million trillions time faster."

It's this kind of bogus and arbitrary bullshittery that leads me to believe that North Korea simply isn't a credible threat.

Hubble

It's a great day for bland news. I'm sick of hearing about the Hubble telescope. So, some astronauts went and serviced the station.

Who. Gives. A. Fuck?

Have we discovered aliens? Have we created the Death Star? Can we ride through wormholes to stop Skynet from going online? No? Then get back when there's an actual fucking story.

There is only one group of people who care about this kind of shit: old, poor, white people. They ride out in their RVs to the closest allowable distance from a shuttle launch, and watch while the stupid thing flies into the sky. Then they cheer,"Woo hoo!! Yeahhhh!! America!! Take that, Russians!! Space is cool!!!"... Then they go back to their mundane, RV-park lives, not having been at all improved through their shuttle-watching experience.

H1N1... Can we move on now?

Look, the scare is over. 100 people dead is a terrible thing; but, relatively speaking, swine flu is quite tame. News outlets use this type of fearmongering as a tactic to attract an audience. Or maybe the makers of personal hygiene products push for more news on this issue to boost sales. Or maybe the government is causing panic so as to drive up visits to hospitals to create an artificial demand for healthcare so they may ultimately raise taxes the wealthy and H1N1-free population. Or maybe I'm looking way too far into this. Maybe not? Whatever, I'm sick of reading about swine flu.

Ferrari Sky

A while back, I told you about cars I hate. On that list was the Saturn Sky. In fact, it was on the top of that list.

Here's why...

Now do you understand?

More Shitty Actors

Half a year ago, I came up with a list of actors who pretty much fail at their jobs. I figured it's about time to add a few more people to that list. I'm not sure who they paid off to get the jobs they have now, but these are some of the most annoying and predictable people ever.

Steven Seagal

Every single Steven Seagal movie plays out the same way... Baddies have taken over some location and are holding some number of people hostage. Room after room, a bunch of bad guys are telling lame jokes and drinking beer while holding guns and kicking hostages. Steven Seagals enters each room, squints briefly, then breaks one guy's neck by touching him. Three other guys line up and start shooting at him, not realizing that he's fucking Steven Seagal. He takes the first guy, and throw him at the three other guys, and all four guys die from the impact of the throw. This repeats several dozen times, until Seagal gets super fucking pissed that he got his karate gi dirty. Now he starts throwing like two people at a time. (Somewhere along the way, there's a random damsel in distress who clearly wants to bone Steven Seagal. But he doesn't care, of course, because, again, he's Steven-fucking-Seagal.) The movie ends, and the entire United States government hails Seagal.

Jackie Chan

Here's Jackie Chan's character in every movie: "Look at me, I'm a silly Asian guy. I don't speak any English. OMG, am I getting in a fight? OMG, what's going on?! OMG, I'm totally beating everybody up! Please, I just want to go back to living my peaceful Asian life!" Except he can't say any of that because he really can't speak a lick of fucking English. So... he just makes holy-crap-I'm-playing-hot-potato-with-a-nuclear-weapon faces while doing kung fu for two hours.

Vince Vaughn

For what it's worth, Vince Vaughn plays his character well. But he plays the same washed-up, lazy divorcee who's bitter about life until he falls in love somewhere during the last fifteen minutes of the film. He says some smooth, comic insults, and generally behaves like a sarcastic prick for two hours while the audience groans at his inability to be actually funny.

Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy peaked with his standup act, Delirious... in 1983. And let's be real here: even that just wasn't that funny. I don't think anybody has informed Mr. Murphy that he's really just not that funny. Also, I don't think any actor's movies have trailers as terrible as Murphy's. Might be related to the movies themselves sucking.

Potency

Last weekend, I went to a little club in San Francisco with several friends. Everybody was pretty drunk, and I've been teasing Jenn and Leo (who didn't know each other prior to this evening) about them briefly dancing with each other. No, nothing dirty, but I felt like being a 12-year-old about it. Anyway...

Me: Jenn doesn't remember dancing with you.
Leo: We didn't is why, idiot.
Me: Yes, you did.
Leo: No I didn't dude. We danced in the same general area.
Leo: I did not dance with her.
Leo: If I did, she would have kids.

White Tree Frog

I found this picture on Yahoo! News today. This frog apparently produces a peptide that can deter HIV. Not that I care/know half a shit about "peptides"; I just think it looks awesome. I'd love to buy a one of these. I can picture him sitting around on the top of my monitor at work. Just... staring... and judging me. I'd feed him bread crumbs and soda. When he becomes a man, I'll give him "the talk", then buy a ladyfrog for him to sex. Or another dude frog, if he's into that.

Cars of Tomorrow

On May 19, 2009, President Obama announced his plan for the future of the automobile industry. Namely, he outlined the upcoming requirements for new vehicles.

By 2016, all automobile manufacturers need an overall fleet average of 35.5 miles per gallon for their new vehicles. Additionally, the average for passenger cars alone needs to hit 39 miles per gallon, while the average for trucks and SUVs needs to be at 30 miles per gallon.

What does this mean for us? Frankly, that cars will suck going forward. How badly will they suck? Your favorite Dude did some research...

I figured we'd stick with a big (albeit hurting) brand: GM. Further, since I hate SUVs, I stuck with passenger-car data only. As stated above, that means we're aiming for 39 miles per gallon.

First, from GM's website, here is sales data from January through April of 2009, along with MPG ratings from www.edmunds.com:

Car	MPG		Units Sold	% of total sales
Buick LaCrosse	21		6,230	2.6152%
Buick Lucerne	20		10,209	4.2855%
Cadillac CTS	19		14,452	6.0666%
Cadillac DTS	18		4,963	2.0833%
Cadillac STS	20		2,057	0.8635%
Cadillac XLR	18		293	0.1230%
Chevrolet Aveo	30		7,602	3.1911%
Chevrolet Camaro	23		614	0.2577%
Chevrolet Cobalt	30		32,065	13.4601%
Chevrolet Corvette	19		4,459	1.8718%
Chevrolet Impala	23		45,047	18.9096%
Chevrolet Malibu	26		50,265	21.1000%
Pontiac G3	30		418	0.1755%
Pontiac G5	27		2,454	1.0301%
Pontiac G6	25		25,261	10.6039%
Pontiac G8	20		8,988	3.7729%
Pontiac Solstice	21		1,206	0.5062%
Pontiac Vibe	24		8,444	3.5446%
Saab 9-3	23		2,210	0.9277%
Saab 9-5	20		438	0.1839%
Saturn Astra	27		2,968	1.2459%
Saturn Aura	26		6,709	2.8163%
Saturn Sky	22		871	0.3656%
Total	-		238,223	100%

Note that not a single General Motors passenger car currently on sale makes the cut. And this is using the highest reported MPG for each model. That means, that instead of using the V8 Camaro's 19 MPG, I used the V6's 23 MPG, etc. You can imagine what happens when you factor in the ZR-1, the XLR-V, the CTS-V, and all other high-performance makes. For Obama's sake, I pretended those models (which everybody actually think of when they think of Corvette, Camaro, CTS, etc), don't even exist.

The weighted average for GM's passenger vehicle fleet is 24.47 MPG. Mmmm. Quite a ways off.

Additionally, in Obama's plan, fleet efficiency must be raised by 5% over each of the next years through 2016. But a 5% increase per year for 7 years is only:

24.47 * (1.05)^7 = 34.43 MPG by 2016.

That's 12% short of target, a rather large margin to cover.

Further, applying the same 5% math to each individual model, we see that only three cars would make the cut in 2016...

Car	MPG	2016 MPG w/ 5% per year
Buick LaCrosse	21	29.55
Buick Lucerne	20	28.14
Cadillac CTS	19	26.73
Cadillac DTS	18	25.33
Cadillac STS	20	28.14
Cadillac XLR	18	25.33
Chevrolet Aveo	30	42.21
Chevrolet Camaro	23	32.36
Chevrolet Cobalt	30	42.21
Chevrolet Corvette	19	26.73
Chevrolet Impala	23	32.36
Chevrolet Malibu	26	36.58
Pontiac G3	30	42.21
Pontiac G5	27	37.99
Pontiac G6	25	35.18
Pontiac G8	20	28.14
Pontiac Solstice	21	29.55
Pontiac Vibe	24	33.77
Saab 9-3	23	32.36
Saab 9-5	20	28.14
Saturn Astra	27	37.99
Saturn Aura	26	36.58
Saturn Sky	22	30.96

If you've noticed, these are the three crappiest little econoboxes available in GM's lineup. And let's not forget the fact that even other craptastic cars, like the Malibu, the Vibe, and the LaCrosse still don't make the cut.

So, with current projected numbers, GM will have three cars that make the cut. All their other (i.e., better) cars will only hurt their required fleet average MPG. It's anybody's guess how they'll manage to squeeze out Corvettes and CTS-Vs...

I see a shiny new Aveo in my future...

PS: Obama, you're such an asshole.

Good lookin out...

Leo, trying to convince me to move up to San Francisco...

Leo: Move up, to SF.
Leo: We can get a loft together.
Leo: Sylv can sleep over once a week too.
Leo: Twice a week if you get married.

Star Trek

According to Star Trek, the human race is fucked. I warn you, this post contains a spoiler.

So when Nero brings his huge planet-fuck-fire-drill to earth, how is it that nobody figures to shoot it down? Does it really take superior Vulcan logic to figure out that a big pillar of fucking fire drilling into your planet is a bad thing? I mean it only took a few shots from a couple of blaster rifles to destroy the other drill on the Vulcan home planet. Instead, everybody runs around in panic. Even the Federation members! I can't even begin to suspend my belief and reasoning for the sake of enjoying such a shitty movie.

Hmm... I'm sure there's a good explanation for this...

Also, the main character looks like that faggot Zac Efron.

Ma-Ti

What was up with this guy in Captain Planet? Here's a little refresher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JeLcP7Xa5o

Just listen to the way he screams,"HEART" in his thick accent. That's after already hearing cool ones like earth, fire, wind, and water. Yeah, the power of fucking "heart" pretty much fails in comparison to the rest. The whole clip is actually pretty funny, though I seriously can't tell if it's part of an actual episode or a parody.

When I was in first grade and thought that homoerotic blue superheroes with mullets were cool, we would sometimes run around and pretend to be characters from Captain Planet. After picking all our characters (I always got to be Wheeler, the fire-dude, probably because I was the shit), we always chose this one weird Indian kid to be Ma-Ti ("heart"). If he wasn't around, we'd go find him across the schoolyard, because nobody else wanted to be "heart". I wonder if he always went home and told his parents that he got to be "heart" while playing Captain Planet. His parents probably made up some bullshit like,"Wow, that means you're the most loving and special person of alllll your friends!" while actually thinking,"Geez, maybe if you stopped being such a little fagboy, you'd get to be one of the tougher guys. Or even Captain Planet himself." Poor kid. Looking back, I almost feel bad for him. Then again... no, I kind of don't at all.

As a side note, we always let the one black guy in our school, Adam, play the role of Kwame, the African-American Planeteer who controlled "earth". Every time. In retrospect, it was incredibly racist, but 1) Adam was my friend, and 2) he would get really upset if anybody else got to be Kwame.

(Oh, and for clarification, nobody got to be Captain Planet. That would have been unfair. But if we did allow it, I would have been him for sure.)

Here's an article describing the Ma-Ti (and the rest of the Planeteers) in WAY too much detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planeteer#Ma-Ti

I wonder if this entry was written by some Captain Planet guru. I think it's safe to the say that the author has never seen a breast in his life. Ever.

OMG iT's DeLLa~*~*~~*~!!

A lot of good companies are hurting for business these days. Dell is no different. What with the economy the way it is, I wouldn't imagine many people would be interested in buying a new computer right now.

Introducing Dell's answer: DELLA!

Here's a link:
http://content.dell.com/us/en/home/della.aspx

Della is apparently a new initiative to target women specifically. As we all know, the regular Dell and Dell Small Business websites were incredibly sexist. At least a few times, I would be looking for a new computer, but then I'd be utterly disgusted by Dell's failure to recognize that I'm an independent woman, and that no man can tell me what kind of computer to buy.

I particularly like that these computers specify that they're made for a convenient fit. Even though they are the same exact computers as on the "regular" Dell site, I now know that, yes, these will fit into my purse or bag. Further, I loved the helpful review posted by "cherrydoll" on 03/30/2009. This can be found directly under the main image in the products page. The review is copied below:

"This is my first mobile computer or netbook I am very happy with this powerful little computer. The price is great with the economy the way it is now. I have it in Cherry Red and I love the fact that is fits nicely in my tote or case. You Rock!!"

Thanks to cherrydoll, my fellow empowered-woman computer-buyer, I know everything I need to know about my next purchase. For starters, I now know that this is a very powerful little computer. Being that I'm a woman, I don't like looking at fine print and numbers and gigapixels and RAM systems and floppy hard flash disks and stuff. Also, I don't need to shop around; I just want somebody to tell me if the price is good or not. Finally, I need to make sure that this will fit in my tote or case. Thanks to cherrydoll, me and all my 12-year-old, grammatically-challenged girlfriends can make an educated purchase.

Also, I love the Della logo! The three spots help me relate to the brand, as they resemble the spotting of my vagina-pads at various stages of my menstrual cycle. Finally, a company that understands and appreciates me for who I am!

Wolverine

Last weekend, I went against my better judgment and decided to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After all, despite being superhero movies (which I hate with a passion), the first two X-Men movies were decent. Now I feel that I owe better judgment an apology.

The good thing about this movie is that it does away with the silly costumes from the previous films. Also, it... wait, no, there's nothing else good about it. The movie starts with a couple of really shitty kid actors being lame, then degrades into a few really shitty adult actors being lame. Yeah, there were some cool effects, but nothing we haven't seen before.

Worse still, the movie was so cheesy that I almost didn't need to buy nachos. When it comes to superhero movies, it seems that the writers try to write fagtastic lines that they expect loser 9-year-olds to repeat over and over while running around on a playground with their other loser friends. I can just picture one out of every five kids in America saying,"Ohh, SHINY!" or "I'm gonna cut your head off, see if that works." Maybe those weren't the actual lines, but who gives a fuck?

Further yet, why was the movie such a raging cockfest? I counted two women in the movie: the sad-looking, egg-shaped-head girl who wanted her sister back; and the sister, who was a diamond-encrusted leper with maybe half a line in the whole fifty seconds she was on the screen. The rest were dudes, and not particularly cool ones either. In fact, except for the main character, I've already forgotten all their names. There was the gay prettyboy ninja, the gay lightbulb guy from Lost, the gay black cowboy, the gay Asian dude who apparently had no skill except shooting a gun well, a handful of gay lumberjacks, the gay French gambler, the gay evil doctor, and of course Wolverine's gay Russian brother. And we all know Cyclops is gay (did somebody order a one-eyed monster for the one-eyed monster?).

According to my girlfriend's buddy, Tina, the movie was a "hotness overload". Yeah, no.

Tranny-Bar

Jenn, a good friend of mine, is graduating from a prominent graduate school in San Francisco. My girlfriend and I are heading up that weekend to live it up in The Bay. I thought I'd be funny and suggest going to a well-known transvestite bar...

Me: Let's go to Asia SF.
Jenn: Ok sure. You wanna go?
Me: Yeah.
Jenn: You DO know what it is, right?
Me: Yeah.
Jenn: Okay. What time do you get here on Friday?
Me: 6-7ish.
Jenn: Oh okay. Do you wanna go Friday or Saturday?
Me: I'm kidding. I'm not going there.
Jenn: Oh, why not? I went with Jason, Mike, and Rob last time. Hahaha.
Me: Cause I'm not gay... Did you trick them?
Jenn: Uh no... They took ME!... Or it was their idea..
Me: Because you look like a tranny.
Jenn: Die bitch.
Jenn: So wait... You DO want to go or not?

Protective Covers

I don't understand the logic behind protective cases for your phone, or for any other electronic gadget. Let's take a look at the following facts, and you tell me if my reasoning makes sense...

1) You buy a nice new gadget, and you love how shiny and new it looks.

2) You want to KEEP your new gadget looking shiny and new. Nobody wants an ugly gadget.

3) You buy a case to protect your gadget. It covers all but the screen (well I guess sometimes it covers even that).

4) The case makes your gadget look ugly.


Doesn't fact #4 violate fact #2? Because you now have this ugly case attached to your gadget at all times, you have rendered your gadget UGLY. The cover defeats its own purpose!

I can think of only one exception to this: if you upgrade to new gadgets regularly, and want to retain maximum resell value for your current ones. If this isn't the case, what the f is the point of buying a cover? That'd be like dating a supermodel, but forcing her to eat five whole cheesecakes a day so that she'll become unattractively obese (as opposed to attractively obese, of course) to everybody else. Somewhere deep down inside, you know she's drop-dead gorgeous, but nobody (not even you) can enjoy that beauty.