Pretend you’re an aspiring leader for a religious organization. You’re 19 years old, young and energetic, and eager to prove your worth. Which of these activities would not fall on your list of things to do?
- Study the scriptures
- Learn from older, experienced leaders
- Burn your infant daughter in a microwave*
The hero of the story, Joshua Mauldin, decided on the third course of action (it’s not clear whether he bothered with the first two). I suppose an advantage to this route is that spending 5 to 99 years in prison will toughen him up for the real world.
So what’s the mother say about this? “Satan saw my husband as a threat. Satan attacked him because he saw him as a threat.” She even set up a MySpace page called “Joshua Mauldin is not a Monster” (either MySpace took it down, or I couldn’t find it. MySpace has horrible search capabilities). Undoubtedly, Satan’s next step was attacking Maudlin just before communion, making him spike the wine or grape juice with psilocybin. I’m sure the congregation would have been sympathetic.
She also “described [his] weaknesses as an undisclosed mental disability, and that her efforts to get help for him have failed.” Any church that’s looking for a preacher who’s stupid and/or crazy, look no further.
(By the way, the baby survived, but did need hospitalization.)
Houston Chronicle: Mom blames Satan for burning baby in microwave
*If the baby’s an infidel, this may be acceptable for aspiring Al-Qaeda members.
May 27th, 2007
1 comment
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Burning Agony, In the News, Religion, Weaksauce Losers
Spiderman 3: There are very few movies in a given year that I actually look forward to seeing (and by extension, actually see)–this was one of them. Recommendation can be made very succinctly:
- If you liked the first two, you’ll like the third.
- If you didn’t like the first two, you won’t like the third.
- If you didn’t see the first two, watch them first.
It’s a shade below the “there’s nothing to complain about” level. 8/10.
Starcraft 2: If you’re not familiar with it, here’s the scoop: Starcraft 2 is a guarantee that, the day it is released, millions of people worldwide will not eat, sleep, or move away from their computers for the next 24 hours. This may not even be an exaggeration.
One of my friends was surprised–and slightly disappointed–about how similar the appearance was to the original. However, the game probably won’t come out until I’m 30, which should be plenty of time for Blizzard to tweak whatever they want to tweak. (Remember how ugly it started out?)
May 27th, 2007
1 comment
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Entertainment, Gaming
If you’re like most non-parents, you’re interested in having kids someday. I count myself in this category, and have made some basic efforts to maintain a decent sperm count. Like not wearing tight jeans or not dipping it in scalding water.
Apparently, this isn’t enough, at least not according to ISA Bodywear. (Please feel free to mock their website design and “audio”.) They’ve developed underwear to ward off the evil effects of cellphone radiation. While the pocketbook won’t be happy–they’re planning to sell a pair for $25–the sperm will mightily appreciate that protective silver weaving.
The ladies need to petition ISA for an anti-cellphone bra which will, of course, protect against breast cancer. Don’t expect us males to start putting your health first.
Engadget: ISA Bodywear underwear fends off cellphone radiation
ISA Bodywear’s website
May 26th, 2007
1 comment
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Snake Oil
As you’ve surely noticed, the blog looks different. I’ve installed WordPress to see how I like using this software (so far, so good). The old stuff is gone until my host gets the data back.
This is actually a good excuse to make a few changes. Maybe change the color scheme, or add a logo. Or sell some T-shirts. Or start a coup. Whatever you think would be good.
Short version of story:
Last week, a bunch of config files for the website were overwritten by the host, breaking the software. Uninstalled and reinstalled Serendipity (that’s the blog software). Tried to restore the blog’s database backup, but got an error. Contacted host; they “restored” the backup. The blog database was empty. I wrote back noting this. Their response:
Hi there,
Our technicians confirmed that they backed up the data available and expressed to me their concern that the tables were empty in the database that was restored.
I am sure this isn’t what you are wanting to get. Please let us know if you need further assistance.
Um, yes, I need more assistance. I need the blanking backup to work! Before this morning, I was frustrated at the blog being down, but was confident it would be up soon. That last response, though, actually made me angry (and that doesn’t happen often). Are they not going to try to figure out why the backup failed?
Until that’s resolved, all the old stuff is gone :_-(
Long version of story:
<flashback>A few months ago, the blog software was throwing up. I asked the web host about it, and they basically said, “We didn’t make the software; we can’t help you.” (Not blaming them; it really isn’t their job. However, they do offer Serendipity as part of their application suite, so it’s not like I uploaded some random program.) Thrown on my own resources, my research determined that changing a bit of code would solve the issue. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the permissions to change any of the files. So I requested a chmod on the directory, which the host quickly granted, and I fixed the issue.</flashback>
Now back to several days ago. The blog would show a blank page, but the other pages worked. At first, I thought maybe there was just some temporary oddball issue, but after 24 hours of this, this was clearly not the case. I looked at the files in the blog directory, and a bunch of them were changed on May 20. Aha! I wrote to the webhost asking them if they had made any changes. Some lady wrote back saying that my question was “confusing” since they didn’t create Serendipity.
Argh.
So I wrote back, expanding on and clarifying my question. Then I checked out the files. One of the config files had an error, preventing the page from loading. Once I removed the offending line, everything should have been good to go…right? Well, when loading the page, it would redirect to a random porn site.
Ignoring the few of you that may have preferred that, I reinstalled Serendipity, which wiped out the database containing all the blog entries, settings, etc. (Yes, I did a backup first!) The problem now is that there’s an issue with the backup restoration…so I have to wait on the host to get back to me on that.
Not only that, I tried to make a post, but no dice. I had to get them to chmod the serendipity directory again (they said I now had the power to chmod stuff in the webapps directory, but apparently that didn’t apply to any subfolders).
Then, this morning, I got the response on the backup issue (see above), which was less than helpful. (”The backup didn’t work. You didn’t want that. Do you need anything else?”)
So I installed WordPress, which, frankly, I’m rather liking. And wrote this rant.
May 25th, 2007
1 comment
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Burning Agony
