Atomictumor

The Oak Ridger reports that Nashville has given its warm fuzzy blessing to Oak Ridge (and other, lesser cities) enacting licensing for rental properties in town, with a $20 fee to top it all off. The licensing would provide for annual inspections of properties, and would require landlords to take care of any nuisance or criminal claims. Woot.

Man, we don’t have a problem with this now, but a few months ago there was a troublemaker renting a house on our fair street, and the house was owned by some jerk that lived out of town. We’d call his ass, leaving messages like “Do you know what kind of people you rent to?” and “You’re making Jesus cry!”, but nothing would come of it. Meanwhile, the house quickly became a blight, garbage in the front yard, unmown grass, and paint peeling. Finally, they moved out, but I hate to think of what that kind of crap does to my home value.

Before that, we rented a nice place from a responsible landlord in the W’s, and it was a nice neighborhood. However, as time went on, and as the older folks out there died off and their properties ended up in the hands of renters, the neighborhood went from good to bad to worse. Driving through there now, it looks like a ghetto. The problems here develop entirely because people who don’t give two craps for the town rent the houses to people who should be living in cages somewhere, and as a result everybody suffers.

Anyway, I’ve lost the point. This is a good thing. Sure, landlords will bitch, but they’ll tack that $20/yr cost to the rent, raising it a whopping $1.67/month. Hell, they can even raise it to 2 a month, and make a 33 cent profit. Thats thinking smart.

In the meantime, those of us who have actually invested in this town won’t have to worry about that investment being ruined by a jackass making money at any cost.

I don’t know how it is, but there are a lot of librarians associated with the site. Beside the fact that one of the 4 contributers to this dump is a hardcore librarian, we have a few others that comment, and more beside that that lurk. Yes, I know about you lurkers.

It is with a small bit of glee that I bring you librarians this news of your people taking on and beating the FBI in a showdown over the National Security Letter (NSL), which forces a citizen to comply with its contents while maintaining a permanent gag order so that you couldn’t bitch, or blog, or otherwise tell anybody about it.

Thats right, it came from the Patriot Act.

ArsTechnica has the nuts and bolts, but I wanted to stick this on here, and raise my glass to the noble librarian. May you shush children with pride!

OK, last weekend MastaG and I got engrossed in the world cup match between Germany and Sweden. Now, neither one of us know jack about soccer, except that everybody in the world but us call it football and get in fights over it. I can get into that.

Normally, I detest organized sports. Here’s why:

Baseball: What’s the point? You have overweight, steroided out rednecks hitting a little white ball all over the place. Yes, there’s going to be a ball thrown. Yes, there’s going to be a ball hit. In the meantime, watch these men in their silly suits chew tobacco. Borrrrrrrrring.

Football (American): Hoo boy, I don’t like football. Overlooking the homoerotic overtones of the entire thing (which would probably be the most entertaining part of the show if it were played up), we have a but of overweight, steroided out rednecks throwing a ball, and knocking each other over. Yes, we can discuss the tactics of the game. Yes, we can discuss the fact that this guy weighs 300 pounds and eats raw chickens. Still sucks, and, with the possible exception of NASCAR, which I’ll get to in a minute, it’s the most irritating sport. Not quite as boring as baseball though, because of the possibility of severe traction.

NASCAR: This crap is as much a sport as professional wrestling. If it were real racing, these cars wouldn’t have all these sissy devices designed to power down the engine and keep the cars in the same place for handy camera angles. The hell with that. IF it were freakin RACING, the winner would be the person with the balls big enough to drop a massive 10 cyl beast with like 75 cubic meters of displacement onto a golf cart frame. You wanna win, by god have the fastest car.
No, NASCAR is entirely a waste of time. Notice I didn’t talk about the mullet wearing fans. Not gonna go there.

Hockey: Now, there are a few reasons that I don’t mind hockey as much.

1. Canadian heritage.
2. Ice skating while fighting.
3. The graphics they put on the puck when televised to make it easier to see. Tripped out, whoa.

Still can’t find myself watching it very much. I inevitably end up turning the channel to Extra, or Cheaters, or something mindless.

I digress. This whole thing was about the world cup, and I got distracted. Damn.

OK, so me and the boy watched the thing. Eventually, GAC sat down with us, and we saw Germany kick the poo out of Sweden. Those boys are quick.
Here’s what I’m thinking is going to happen next, right. Be aware that I have as much knowledge of soccer as I do of international espionage, or flying rockets, or pretty much anything else.
Friday, Germany is going to beat the hell out of Argentina. Nothing against Argentina, but Germany’s the home team, and they’ve probably got some kind of magnetic thing underneath the field helping them win. I say this with full confidence knowing that no Germans, or Argentieniananan(ans?) read this site, and therefore will not beat me up.

After that, also on Friday, Italy and the Ukraine are up. Now, Italy previously beat Australia 1-0, and Ukraine took down Switzerland 0-0, which really confuses me. For this reason, I think that the Ukraine have witches on their side, which will certainly win against the full body hair attack of Italy.

Meaning match 61, gonna be Germany/Ukraine.
Before that happens, Saturday England is going to deal with Portugal. Now, pretty much all I know of Portugal is that they have their own language, and evidently got the short end of the stick when it comes to consolidating land in the middle ages. For that reason, they’re going to stomp England, because England is chock full of colonizing wankers. That, and I’d love to see Beckham get knocked down a peg, and Posh Spice end up on welfare. Hell yes. I’ll go as far as making a prediction of the score on this bad boy, 700 - 0.
It’ll be ugly. Like watching Mike Tyson beating up a girl scout.

After that, we have Brazil and France, knocking another Portugese speaking team against a, well, French speaking team. Don’t really have much of an iron in the fire on this one, so I’m saying Brazil, because wasn’t Pele from Brazil? I don’t think he plays soccer anymore, but they’ve probably taken all that money they get for clearcutting the rain forest down there (and from drunk college students) to clone a team of Peles, so France doesn’t stand much chance there. They’ll be saying things like “Sacre Blu! C’est Pele!” and then crying.
Which kinda comes back to a drunken conversation from the weekend, where somebody was saying something like “France Sucks” and me, being so sick of this whole American rah rah rah France Sucks bullshit started up on them, when I was reminded, that, as a whole, they do suck. They’re stereotypically rude, they’re incredibly anal about their language and intellectual sovereignty, like a kid with a big chip on the shoulder, and, they generally suck. I was also reminded that I had held this opinion based on 10 long years spent studying their language (of which I remember very little), and culture. Yep. Good to be back home.

Again, I digress. After Brazil spanks France, we’ll have a Brazil+Portugal match, which Brazil will easily be able to win with both its tourist industry and insanely talented Pele clone team. Those boys are dynamite, tell you what.

Now, this leaves Pele Clone Team Brazil against the better of Germany (underground magnetic fields) and the Ukraine (witches). Match 61 is a tough one to call, but as much as I hate to say it, its going to be Germany. They just have that home team advantage.

So, the final match, by my reckoning, will be Brazil/Germany. I will begin taking wagers now.

Oh man, the teaser trailer for Spider-Man 3 is out, and after the lamenitude of X-Men 3 and Superman Returns, along with the fanboy loser wetdream that is Ghost Rider, the Spider-Man 3 trailer freakin rules.

Even the normally not-with-the-geek GAC squealed, or at least didn’t throw something.  Dude, she’s such a B—- sometimes…

But shes a hot b—-.

On Sunday we headed to friends’ house so AT could tinker on their computer and we could have a lovely meal.
The lovely meal was accompanied by lovely home-made wine. Quite a lot of it, actually. Wine was followed by more friends showing up, which was followed by champagne, followed by Scotch, followed by beer.
Followed by room spinning, followed by vomiting. Up until that point, I had a ton of fun.
GAC’s alcohol poisoning equation:

3w+2c+1(finger)s+1b=vomit

I think I might have that tattooed on me so that this never, ever, ever happens again. I don’t know if it was the over-all quantity of alcohol, or the mixture. I’m sure others at the get-together wagered over that while I was locked in the bathroom.
We spent the night (obviously) and when I woke at 6:30 needing to vomit yet again, I got AT to take me home. Where I just happened to have some phenegran. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have taken it. I should have stayed sober(ish) so that I could rid my body of the toxins, but the idea of a puke-free slumber was too much. I slept soundly until 12:30, threw up some more, watched Magnum P.I., munched a couple crackers, had some water and began to feel a lot better.
As is the way with drunken conversations, touchy-feely things were said and oaths were made. Though I’m not sure if oral agreements are legal and binding when both parties are in their cups. I’ll do some research and get back to you on that..