"Did he ever try and put the moves on Diana Troi? Or maybe Diana's mom tried to the put the moves on him after Picard spurred her advances;)"
That might've worked on the set of *The Brady Bunch,* but I don't think that's how the TNG set operated...:)
Comments, Wil?
Re:I suggested a similar scenario to TiVo
on
P2P and TV
·
· Score: 1
"Why wait for a DVD release in the US? Surely you can purchase a DVD from the UK as soon as it's available. My wife does that all the time with anime DVDs from Japan. You'll need a region-free DVD player or software to make a copy so you can watch it. It's not cheap, but it is legal."
That's gray market. Importing Region2 DVDs into a Region1 market are prohibited by the EULA. Buying the British DVD release not only distorts the British selling demographics, but it also reduces the future American sales figures as well.
Although I do agree with you that even though it is "gray market," it is still an improvement over strictly downloading because at least the BBC will get a kick-back off the sale (I'm also looking forward to iMP being implemented next year by the BBC). Hopefully, they'll be remixed with Dolby Digital 5.1. I'm also eager for a Blu-Ray release with the picture upscaled in the production studio to at least 720p since that should be possible even though the series is shot on DigitalBeta and not HD.
As for players, I really like the Philips DVP-642 DVD player ($60-$70) with the exception of its lame remote control. It can be set to be Region Free (from what I've read), and it can play Divx 3.0/5.0 and Xvid encoded video files off a burnt CD-R or a DVD+/-R disc.
Did anyone see the segments he recorded for the AFI Lifetime Achievement Tribute to George Lucas? Peter Jackson really slimmed down. Quite a remarkable difference to how he looked while making LOTR and his appearances at the Oscars. Congrats to him.
Now if Lindsey Lohan would just put back on the weight she lost...
I updated this morning, but the update leaves much to be desired for my tastes.
What I'd like to see is a more ambitious release for iTunes 5.0.
I'd like to see Apple release an iTunes Server package similar to say, KnoppMyth. Offer an *official* Darwin release that the user burns to a CD, and then pops it into a spare PC (especially if said user is a *switcher*) and it installs Darwin and iTunes Server. Obviously, no OS X GUI, and the software makes the spare PC a remote iTunes server that you control through your other Mac(s)/PC(s) through iTunes on your home network.
What about any citation about the loss of the chipmaking *contract* with Microsoft for the original Xbox? Originally, as it was reported by the game trades, the Xbox was to have an AMD Athlon processor at its heart, not an Intel Pentium variant.*
And what are the chances IBM, Freescale, and Via will join in the case?
*Something I've always wondered is why hasn't there been any mods to the Xbox that tried to swap the processor out for a faster PentiumIII? Or more memory, for that matter...
I suggested a similar scenario to TiVo
on
P2P and TV
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
After "Doctor Who" debuted/returned triumphantly back to British television and the SciFi Network here in America continuted to pass on the show, I wrote a personal letter to TiVo CEO Michael Ramsey (a Scotsman) advocating that TiVo make an offer to BBC Worldwide to make the series available as a download to broadband enabled TiVo subscribers that might be interested. I figured that most broadband enabled subscribers would also be viewers with scifi leanings, and it would be a success and would generate buzz.
While it might have been costly short term wise, I asserted that TiVo would be at the forefront of a potentially profitable new television wave. Charging production companies/studios to make available pilot episodes to TiVo subscribers to create buzz for certain properties. It would be a way to circumvent the networks saying "no" to shows that might otherwise be successes.
To this day, I haven't heard one thing back from TiVo about this. I think my idea had merits, and obviously an idea whose time has come.
To this day, no American broadcaster or cable network have picked up the rights to the new "Doctor Who" series, leaving potential American fans to *acquiring* the show through less-than-legal methods until an official DVD release in the States happens...which won't until the series actually is televised in America first.
"From the perspective of an investor, I'd question the ability of AOL management to maintain a viable business. Their ability with acquisitions is almost criminal. Geez, they've even infected Time/Warner with their incompetence, though they've not killed it. Yet."
No, it is Time Warner's incompetence that has infected AOL. Remember, they have a long tradition of mismanagement. Look up Warner Communications management of Atari, Inc. circa 1981-1984. Its the same thing practically all over again. Look at 1995 when Time Warner tried to sell off New Line Pictures after buying out Turner's company. The only reason why they kept it (and the future LOTR profits) is because no other media company would pony up $1 billion for New Line. Look at Warner Bros. Pictures wasting $100 million + on "Catwoman" or the sequels to "The Matrix."
"Does anyone else feel like AOL went around buying up software developers in competition with MS products just so they could kill it as part of a deal with Microsoft?"
No. AOL paid about as much for Nullsoft during the bubble economy as Time Warner received from Microsoft to settle AOL's antitrust case. AOL could've won $30 billion in damages but it would've dragged on forever in appeals and Richard Parsons has no stomach for that. People can draw their own conspiracy theories since Parsons is the most successful black Republican in corporate America and everyone knows which party Microsoft contributes the most to. And I must note that I myself am a Rep., but in the Teddy Roosevelt/John McCain tradition...:)
"All of this would indicate that the good people at Nullsoft are pretty cool with open source. So if the Winamp 5 source code is not going to be released, then I think we should blame AOL for that, not Nullsoft."
"Why would Google do any of those things? WA never made a dime for AOL, and in that respect was a poor investment. I'd say the same thing if Google were to do what you suggested. Unless they can make money off of it, it wouldn't be worth their time."
WinAmp would've more than paid off if AOL had successfully smashed the constant infighting at Time Warner and digitally distributed Warner Music properties. Now that Time Warner "spun off" Warner Music, WinAmp no longer matters. It is a strategy failed because it was never implemented thanks to the shortsightedness of Time Warner. AOL may have overstated their revenue, but it was Time Warner that fucked up the merger, just as the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications merger of 1990 failed to implement the promised synergies due to infighting. In a business world like this, no wonder Microsoft is the champ.
"I think that this is an opportunity for Google. They could buy up companies like this, combine them with various other companies or open source software and come up with a Google OS or a "fascia" for Windows."
I think Google will become everything people expected from the AOL Time Warner merger, the ultimate power in the internet universe. Google should buy all the good parts of AOL (AIM, Winamp property, Digital Cities, Mapquest, and the stake in TiVo) since Time Warner has no stomach for the biz and smashing Microsoft...
A Google Linux distribution or acquiring a strong stake in Apple would also be of extreme interest...
"Also a pattern of greed has already been established with Episode 1 first coming out on VHS and then, when every true fan that couldn't hold out, because they wanted to see the movie at least a couple times more had purchased it brought out the DVD of the same shit (I will quickly don the asbestos suit and then admit that Episode 1 sucked IMHO). Now do you really need further proof for greed at its lowest?"
That's not greed. Not everyone had DVD players back then, so the VHS release was justified. What wasn't justified was Lucas holding the DVD release of the same film for several months after the VHS release. I consider myself a true fan but I was smart enough to hold out for the DVD release because I've had a player since 97 and know better than to buy anything VHS since then.
"If he hadn't someone else would have. And the reaosn they do it is: TO MAKE MORE MONEY - and to save money (cheaper not having to make celluloid copies for instance)"
That's not true. No one else during that time period stepped up to guarantee a better theatrical experience besides Lucas. THX certification predated Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS. THX made it possible for others to improve upon the experience. Its just like Lucas was the man who championed digital camera usage for "films." Others have now converted like Robert Rodriguez. But it took Lucas first, whose company worked hand-in-hand with Sony and Panavision to create a suitable HDTV camera for theatrical productions.
As for your comment about making more money, that's the essence of capitalism. Lucas is a pure capitalist because like many economic theorists theorize, Lucas takes his profits and redistributes them into improving production techniques, whereas the majority of Hollywood just blows the money and operates on oligarch principles of capitalism, i.e. the bastardization of capitalist theory.
The fact that it saves a ton of money to distribute films digitally has not moved Hollywood into the direction of insisting that films be produced using digital cameras. Throw-away comedies would be a no-brainer to produce digitally and then save the added cost shooting with film adds to actual films that merit such expenses. But Hollywood bucks change even when it would be beneficial to them. It takes a George Lucas to change the system, just as it took Steve Jobs to change the commercial distribution of music even when it should've been painfully obvious to the RIAA that they needed to adopt digital download distribution as their business model years before the iTunes Store debuted.
"From what I can tell, Lucas was abnout the art when he first started to pitch ep. 4, but since then, he's seemed to buckle against the very establishment he was fighting against. Once a movie is released to the public, I do not think it should be (sensitive eyes turn away) fucked with."
The original print of Star Wars is preserved in the Library of Congress. It was donated by Lucas. That was many years ago and a fact that escapes most of these news clippings.
"Re: Movies shown digitally. Yeah, too bad the movies will be about a sixteenth of the original effective resolution. Film has an effective resolution of 4000 pixels wide or so. The highest resolution I've heard about projecting movies digitally at is 1280x1024. Can you imagine that resolution stretched out to 50 feet wide? Hello pixellation. Plus, RGB color space has a smaller color gamut than film."
That's funny since I saw pixellation in Episode II in a film projection. The fireplace scene with Anakin and Padme was heavily pixellated and it appeared in the film stock. Roger Ebert liked the digital projection but still prefers a fresh film stock.
"Any dog will intimidate a criminal. They tend to associate a dog as an attack dog. There is a stat floating around claiming that most people who end up in prison never had a dog."
That is bull$hit. Most white-trash criminals own pitbulls. So much for that half-baked theory sponsored by PetSmart.
"If you want to see what real bilking is all about, take a look at the various versions/packaging of the Die Hard series. Or, how about the hosing taken by those who bought the South Park discs with four episodes a piece while the series is now being released season by season with more extras. In the "for kids" category it gets even worse with shows like Justice League and X-Men released in multiple un-numbered editions only to be collected in yet another edition - at particularly high risk for accidental re-buys since often the parents don't even pay much attention to the cartoons."
Don't forget about Paramount with the Star Trek TOS discs. Originally released with two episodes per disc and now its going to a season "box" set release.
I would expect two or three more releases of the Star Wars movies in the next decade-and-a-half. We're in store for HD releases on either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray in 1080i for sure. However, the restoration company has created a way to scan the film prints to achieve full 35mm quality in digital form. That means the display technology will have a ways to catch up, but the movie studios will have access to digial copies of 4000 lines of resolution. Crunch a few numbers and realize that Empire Strikes Back and ROTJ were both filmed in 70mm.
"You mean the building everybody refers to as the "Deathstar". We were talking about holding a Paranoia LARP there."
Yep, that's the one. During my time there, it was also commonly referred to as either "Hitler's Tomb" or "Stalin's Tomb."
I wouldn't do the pink balloon deal. You are bound to antagonize the midget cop, and after seeing the fury that Gary Coleman dished out when he was a security guard, I wouldn't want to bring that upon anyone else.
"Punishing the hard-working and law-abiding because some shiftless layabout can't be bothered to better themselves with the plethora of private and government assistance is not the answer. Last I checked socialist England has the worst crime in the world, and they've only got that little bit of island to look after!"
Don't call England "socialist." Just because it has national health insurance does not make it a socialist country. Feel free to open up a map of Europe and see the subject known as "France" for a better definition. Or maybe Sweden. Wait, scratch that. Swedish women are hotter than French women on average so they can be excluded from that negative association.
"A sentry gun. Ever since playing Half-Life (oh hell, ever since watching Aliens) I've been intrigued by the idea of the sentry gun. With recent advances in electronics, it's easier than ever to build something like this."
Check out the robots in "Doctor Who - The Caves of Androzani." Except you'll have to wear a radio frequency badge so that the robot can differentiate between you and every other human it is designed to blast.
"Too agressive. The last one we elected, invaded Iraq on some rather flimsy evidence of WMDs."
Could be worse. I suspect your choice of elected baboon for Election '04 received a purple heart for blowing up a VietCong's wok with a hand grenade and didn't run away fast enough to escape getting shrapnel embedded in his ass.
The same baboon who authored an executive order for Willie Horton's Governor to sign advocating that the U.S. Federal Government not respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike against the Soviet Union in case Boston was obliterated by a nuclear first strike carried out by the Commie Ruskies. Such a policy decision, if implemented, would've turned the table over the doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" which had kept the *peace* since a few years after the conclusion of WWII. Yeah, I want that quality of an individual as MY Commander-in-Chief. Thanks but no thanks, I'll take the current baboon over him any day.
Speaking of, check out the History Channel's episode of "Targeted" dealing with Al Quaeda. You'll learn that back in 1998, the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance asked for permission from the CIA to storm an Al Quaeda/Taliban facility and kidnap Senior Bin Laden. The CIA wanted the Northern Alliance to go ahead with the plan but said they had to receive permission from the Administration of the Arkansas Baboon. That same Administration nixed the plan because they were too concerned that the Northern Alliance troops would "accidentally" kill the wives and children of the Al Quaeda/Taliban forces in the facility. Flash forward to 2001....almost 3000+ people murdered in the 9/11 attack by Al Quaeda. Now that's a smart baboon.
Adding further insult to injury, you have the former Secretary of State of the Arkansas baboon going on television today criticizing the current Administration's foreign policy. That same fat tool was the one who thought she could negotiate with North Korea's madman into giving up his nuclear weapons program with bribes - state aid, cough cough. Flash forward to yesterday with a mushroom cloud seen in North Korea. Again, great job by the Arkansas baboon.
So to recap, yeah, I'll take the current "too aggressive" baboon as my leader. Maybe Mr. Hussein didn't have WMD, but guess what? He certainly won't be getting any of them now. Can you say that about North Korea under the prior baboon president of the jackass (donkey) party? Nope.
I step down off my partisan soapbox. Yet I have a pondering. If the French aren't fans of soap, what do they call their soapbox?
"If you don't have any pets, consider getting a dog."
No. A pet midget is the correct answer. Because you can talk to the midget without people thinking you are crazy and/or desperate if you have the same conversation about astrophysics and tits with your dog in public.
Slashdot Mirror
What was it like working with television's Martin Sargent on "Unscrewed"?
Seriously, Martin Sargent needs a blog up. And not the fake one that was legally taken down a few months back.
"Did he ever try and put the moves on Diana Troi? ;)"
:)
Or maybe Diana's mom tried to the put the moves on him after Picard spurred her advances
That might've worked on the set of *The Brady Bunch,* but I don't think that's how the TNG set operated...
Comments, Wil?
"Why wait for a DVD release in the US? Surely you can purchase a DVD from the UK as soon as it's available. My wife does that all the time with anime DVDs from Japan. You'll need a region-free DVD player or software to make a copy so you can watch it. It's not cheap, but it is legal."
That's gray market. Importing Region2 DVDs into a Region1 market are prohibited by the EULA. Buying the British DVD release not only distorts the British selling demographics, but it also reduces the future American sales figures as well.
Although I do agree with you that even though it is "gray market," it is still an improvement over strictly downloading because at least the BBC will get a kick-back off the sale (I'm also looking forward to iMP being implemented next year by the BBC). Hopefully, they'll be remixed with Dolby Digital 5.1. I'm also eager for a Blu-Ray release with the picture upscaled in the production studio to at least 720p since that should be possible even though the series is shot on DigitalBeta and not HD.
As for players, I really like the Philips DVP-642 DVD player ($60-$70) with the exception of its lame remote control. It can be set to be Region Free (from what I've read), and it can play Divx 3.0/5.0 and Xvid encoded video files off a burnt CD-R or a DVD+/-R disc.
Did anyone see the segments he recorded for the AFI Lifetime Achievement Tribute to George Lucas? Peter Jackson really slimmed down. Quite a remarkable difference to how he looked while making LOTR and his appearances at the Oscars. Congrats to him.
Now if Lindsey Lohan would just put back on the weight she lost...
I updated this morning, but the update leaves much to be desired for my tastes.
What I'd like to see is a more ambitious release for iTunes 5.0.
I'd like to see Apple release an iTunes Server package similar to say, KnoppMyth. Offer an *official* Darwin release that the user burns to a CD, and then pops it into a spare PC (especially if said user is a *switcher*) and it installs Darwin and iTunes Server. Obviously, no OS X GUI, and the software makes the spare PC a remote iTunes server that you control through your other Mac(s)/PC(s) through iTunes on your home network.
What about any citation about the loss of the chipmaking *contract* with Microsoft for the original Xbox? Originally, as it was reported by the game trades, the Xbox was to have an AMD Athlon processor at its heart, not an Intel Pentium variant.*
And what are the chances IBM, Freescale, and Via will join in the case?
*Something I've always wondered is why hasn't there been any mods to the Xbox that tried to swap the processor out for a faster PentiumIII? Or more memory, for that matter...
After "Doctor Who" debuted/returned triumphantly back to British television and the SciFi Network here in America continuted to pass on the show, I wrote a personal letter to TiVo CEO Michael Ramsey (a Scotsman) advocating that TiVo make an offer to BBC Worldwide to make the series available as a download to broadband enabled TiVo subscribers that might be interested. I figured that most broadband enabled subscribers would also be viewers with scifi leanings, and it would be a success and would generate buzz.
While it might have been costly short term wise, I asserted that TiVo would be at the forefront of a potentially profitable new television wave. Charging production companies/studios to make available pilot episodes to TiVo subscribers to create buzz for certain properties. It would be a way to circumvent the networks saying "no" to shows that might otherwise be successes.
To this day, I haven't heard one thing back from TiVo about this. I think my idea had merits, and obviously an idea whose time has come.
To this day, no American broadcaster or cable network have picked up the rights to the new "Doctor Who" series, leaving potential American fans to *acquiring* the show through less-than-legal methods until an official DVD release in the States happens...which won't until the series actually is televised in America first.
"The Ottoman Empire as a "prison of nations" brings depth to the thoughts I have on that period, so...."
:)
The same could be said of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...good thing the Brits toppled them both!
"From the perspective of an investor, I'd question the ability of AOL management to maintain a viable business. Their ability with acquisitions is almost criminal. Geez, they've even infected Time/Warner with their incompetence, though they've not killed it. Yet."
No, it is Time Warner's incompetence that has infected AOL. Remember, they have a long tradition of mismanagement. Look up Warner Communications management of Atari, Inc. circa 1981-1984. Its the same thing practically all over again. Look at 1995 when Time Warner tried to sell off New Line Pictures after buying out Turner's company. The only reason why they kept it (and the future LOTR profits) is because no other media company would pony up $1 billion for New Line. Look at Warner Bros. Pictures wasting $100 million + on "Catwoman" or the sequels to "The Matrix."
"Does anyone else feel like AOL went around buying up software developers in competition with MS products just so they could kill it as part of a deal with Microsoft?"
:)
No. AOL paid about as much for Nullsoft during the bubble economy as Time Warner received from Microsoft to settle AOL's antitrust case. AOL could've won $30 billion in damages but it would've dragged on forever in appeals and Richard Parsons has no stomach for that. People can draw their own conspiracy theories since Parsons is the most successful black Republican in corporate America and everyone knows which party Microsoft contributes the most to. And I must note that I myself am a Rep., but in the Teddy Roosevelt/John McCain tradition...
"All of this would indicate that the good people at Nullsoft are pretty cool with open source. So if the Winamp 5 source code is not going to be released, then I think we should blame AOL for that, not Nullsoft."
You mean Time Warner.
"Why would Google do any of those things? WA never made a dime for AOL, and in that respect was a poor investment. I'd say the same thing if Google were to do what you suggested. Unless they can make money off of it, it wouldn't be worth their time."
WinAmp would've more than paid off if AOL had successfully smashed the constant infighting at Time Warner and digitally distributed Warner Music properties. Now that Time Warner "spun off" Warner Music, WinAmp no longer matters. It is a strategy failed because it was never implemented thanks to the shortsightedness of Time Warner. AOL may have overstated their revenue, but it was Time Warner that fucked up the merger, just as the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications merger of 1990 failed to implement the promised synergies due to infighting. In a business world like this, no wonder Microsoft is the champ.
"I think that this is an opportunity for Google. They could buy up companies like this, combine them with various other companies or open source software and come up with a Google OS or a "fascia" for Windows."
I think Google will become everything people expected from the AOL Time Warner merger, the ultimate power in the internet universe. Google should buy all the good parts of AOL (AIM, Winamp property, Digital Cities, Mapquest, and the stake in TiVo) since Time Warner has no stomach for the biz and smashing Microsoft...
A Google Linux distribution or acquiring a strong stake in Apple would also be of extreme interest...
"Also a pattern of greed has already been established with Episode 1 first coming out on VHS and then, when every true fan that couldn't hold out, because they wanted to see the movie at least a couple times more had purchased it brought out the DVD of the same shit (I will quickly don the asbestos suit and then admit that Episode 1 sucked IMHO). Now do you really need further proof for greed at its lowest?"
That's not greed. Not everyone had DVD players back then, so the VHS release was justified. What wasn't justified was Lucas holding the DVD release of the same film for several months after the VHS release. I consider myself a true fan but I was smart enough to hold out for the DVD release because I've had a player since 97 and know better than to buy anything VHS since then.
"If he hadn't someone else would have. And the reaosn they do it is: TO MAKE MORE MONEY - and to save money (cheaper not having to make celluloid copies for instance)"
That's not true. No one else during that time period stepped up to guarantee a better theatrical experience besides Lucas. THX certification predated Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS. THX made it possible for others to improve upon the experience. Its just like Lucas was the man who championed digital camera usage for "films." Others have now converted like Robert Rodriguez. But it took Lucas first, whose company worked hand-in-hand with Sony and Panavision to create a suitable HDTV camera for theatrical productions.
As for your comment about making more money, that's the essence of capitalism. Lucas is a pure capitalist because like many economic theorists theorize, Lucas takes his profits and redistributes them into improving production techniques, whereas the majority of Hollywood just blows the money and operates on oligarch principles of capitalism, i.e. the bastardization of capitalist theory.
The fact that it saves a ton of money to distribute films digitally has not moved Hollywood into the direction of insisting that films be produced using digital cameras. Throw-away comedies would be a no-brainer to produce digitally and then save the added cost shooting with film adds to actual films that merit such expenses. But Hollywood bucks change even when it would be beneficial to them. It takes a George Lucas to change the system, just as it took Steve Jobs to change the commercial distribution of music even when it should've been painfully obvious to the RIAA that they needed to adopt digital download distribution as their business model years before the iTunes Store debuted.
"From what I can tell, Lucas was abnout the art when he first started to pitch ep. 4, but since then, he's seemed to buckle against the very establishment he was fighting against. Once a movie is released to the public, I do not think it should be (sensitive eyes turn away) fucked with."
The original print of Star Wars is preserved in the Library of Congress. It was donated by Lucas. That was many years ago and a fact that escapes most of these news clippings.
"Re: Movies shown digitally. Yeah, too bad the movies will be about a sixteenth of the original effective resolution. Film has an effective resolution of 4000 pixels wide or so. The highest resolution I've heard about projecting movies digitally at is 1280x1024. Can you imagine that resolution stretched out to 50 feet wide? Hello pixellation. Plus, RGB color space has a smaller color gamut than film."
That's funny since I saw pixellation in Episode II in a film projection. The fireplace scene with Anakin and Padme was heavily pixellated and it appeared in the film stock. Roger Ebert liked the digital projection but still prefers a fresh film stock.
"Any dog will intimidate a criminal. They tend to associate a dog as an attack dog. There is a stat floating around claiming that most people who end up in prison never had a dog."
That is bull$hit. Most white-trash criminals own pitbulls. So much for that half-baked theory sponsored by PetSmart.
"If you want to see what real bilking is all about, take a look at the various versions/packaging of the Die Hard series. Or, how about the hosing taken by those who bought the South Park discs with four episodes a piece while the series is now being released season by season with more extras. In the "for kids" category it gets even worse with shows like Justice League and X-Men released in multiple un-numbered editions only to be collected in yet another edition - at particularly high risk for accidental re-buys since often the parents don't even pay much attention to the cartoons."
Don't forget about Paramount with the Star Trek TOS discs. Originally released with two episodes per disc and now its going to a season "box" set release.
I would expect two or three more releases of the Star Wars movies in the next decade-and-a-half. We're in store for HD releases on either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray in 1080i for sure. However, the restoration company has created a way to scan the film prints to achieve full 35mm quality in digital form. That means the display technology will have a ways to catch up, but the movie studios will have access to digial copies of 4000 lines of resolution. Crunch a few numbers and realize that Empire Strikes Back and ROTJ were both filmed in 70mm.
"You mean the building everybody refers to as the "Deathstar". We were talking about holding a Paranoia LARP there."
Yep, that's the one. During my time there, it was also commonly referred to as either "Hitler's Tomb" or "Stalin's Tomb."
I wouldn't do the pink balloon deal. You are bound to antagonize the midget cop, and after seeing the fury that Gary Coleman dished out when he was a security guard, I wouldn't want to bring that upon anyone else.
"Punishing the hard-working and law-abiding because some shiftless layabout can't be bothered to better themselves with the plethora of private and government assistance is not the answer. Last I checked socialist England has the worst crime in the world, and they've only got that little bit of island to look after!"
Don't call England "socialist." Just because it has national health insurance does not make it a socialist country. Feel free to open up a map of Europe and see the subject known as "France" for a better definition. Or maybe Sweden. Wait, scratch that. Swedish women are hotter than French women on average so they can be excluded from that negative association.
"A sentry gun. Ever since playing Half-Life (oh hell, ever since watching Aliens) I've been intrigued by the idea of the sentry gun. With recent advances in electronics, it's easier than ever to build something like this."
Check out the robots in "Doctor Who - The Caves of Androzani." Except you'll have to wear a radio frequency badge so that the robot can differentiate between you and every other human it is designed to blast.
"Too agressive. The last one we elected, invaded Iraq on some rather flimsy evidence of WMDs."
Could be worse. I suspect your choice of elected baboon for Election '04 received a purple heart for blowing up a VietCong's wok with a hand grenade and didn't run away fast enough to escape getting shrapnel embedded in his ass.
The same baboon who authored an executive order for Willie Horton's Governor to sign advocating that the U.S. Federal Government not respond with a retaliatory nuclear strike against the Soviet Union in case Boston was obliterated by a nuclear first strike carried out by the Commie Ruskies. Such a policy decision, if implemented, would've turned the table over the doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" which had kept the *peace* since a few years after the conclusion of WWII. Yeah, I want that quality of an individual as MY Commander-in-Chief. Thanks but no thanks, I'll take the current baboon over him any day.
Speaking of, check out the History Channel's episode of "Targeted" dealing with Al Quaeda. You'll learn that back in 1998, the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance asked for permission from the CIA to storm an Al Quaeda/Taliban facility and kidnap Senior Bin Laden. The CIA wanted the Northern Alliance to go ahead with the plan but said they had to receive permission from the Administration of the Arkansas Baboon. That same Administration nixed the plan because they were too concerned that the Northern Alliance troops would "accidentally" kill the wives and children of the Al Quaeda/Taliban forces in the facility. Flash forward to 2001....almost 3000+ people murdered in the 9/11 attack by Al Quaeda. Now that's a smart baboon.
Adding further insult to injury, you have the former Secretary of State of the Arkansas baboon going on television today criticizing the current Administration's foreign policy. That same fat tool was the one who thought she could negotiate with North Korea's madman into giving up his nuclear weapons program with bribes - state aid, cough cough. Flash forward to yesterday with a mushroom cloud seen in North Korea. Again, great job by the Arkansas baboon.
So to recap, yeah, I'll take the current "too aggressive" baboon as my leader. Maybe Mr. Hussein didn't have WMD, but guess what? He certainly won't be getting any of them now. Can you say that about North Korea under the prior baboon president of the jackass (donkey) party? Nope.
I step down off my partisan soapbox. Yet I have a pondering. If the French aren't fans of soap, what do they call their soapbox?
"If you don't have any pets, consider getting a dog."
No. A pet midget is the correct answer. Because you can talk to the midget without people thinking you are crazy and/or desperate if you have the same conversation about astrophysics and tits with your dog in public.
Hey, he might not be the Yeti, or Chewbacca, but Mr. Red Monkey might scare away your urban dweller problem:
http://www.theredmonkey.com
I'd imagine he'd be especially apt at scaring away any female intruders.