Geek Soap Box

I stayed away from opining on the entire Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Breitbart fiasco because it felt like a convoluted mess where all sides emerged tainted by association with it — the Obama Administration, the NAACP, the right-wing blogosphere, and the mainstream media alike.  Well, that and because I am extremely lazy and unmotivated to blog more [...]

“I, [name], do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.” It’s a simple and elegant turn of phrase, actually, and succinctly sums up the essence [...]

There exists a phenomenon among New York City subway riders that astounds and confuses me.  When I first noticed it, I reasoned that it had to be a mistake, a one-time example of poor attention to detail.  Then I realized that I have seen it reoccur approximately one time every month, if not far more [...]

Every so often, we the people are reminded of our civic responsibilities in this great society of ours and are called to serve a greater duty, a symbol of our individual, inalienable liberty. I speak, of course, of being called to jury duty. Nothing says democracy like spending a day or two sitting in a [...]

I haven’t talked much of my online dating exploits in years for a variety of reasons, mostly which involve maintaining the smallest sense of personal privacy a blogger/Twitter/Facebook/Foursquare user can have. Anyway, tired of the human cesspool that is Match, I decided to give Chemistry a try; it seemed at the time like it had [...]

I’m not sure exactly what it was that led me to the point of purchase.  Maybe it was the hype and nostalgia emanating from the Cranky Conservative’s site.  Maybe it was the relatively brief number of matches featuring an interesting array raw in-ring talent.  Maybe it was just that I, also, needed the closure of [...]

While on vacation this past week, I happened to become involved in conversation with an individual of, shall we say, a different political persuasion.  Now, this is rarely a big deal for me; growing up and living my entire life in a supermajority left-leaning region, I know how and when to pick my fights and [...]

The story of Joseph Stack is a tragedy, of an extremely confused and disturbed man who sought to terrorize innocent civilians and employees of the government in the interests of his own sick, twisted agenda.  It’s also, paradoxically, a tale of incredible fortune and serendipity. Unfortunately, it also seems to be an opportunity for partisans [...]

I could see the smoke from miles away on the Whitestone Expressway, a thick acrid black shroud of destruction tearing its way through a commercial strip in my hometown Jackson Heights.  In the aftermath, it would turn out to be a  four-alarm fire of questionable (or at least “unknown”) cause and all storefronts on the [...]

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution clearly states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be [...]

With so-called comprehensive healthcare reform all but passed in the United States Senate, it seems certain that our nation will soon nationalize a major segment of our economy and place it under strict, socialist government control.  I will spare you for now a thorough discussion on the merits and demerits of such a system, aside [...]

Seven Things I Learned While Watching 2012 1. It’s no Independence Day. I am a huge fan of one of Roland Emmerich’s previous works, Independence Day. ID4 was a nearly perfect reincarnation of the spectacular book and movie War of the Worlds, told for a modern-day audience. 2012 lacks every element that made ID4 so [...]

Fresh off the humiliating election of woefully over-matched President Barack Hussein Obama — accompanied by nearly filibuster-proof majorities for the Democrats in both houses of Congress — this year’s Election Day turns our focus to more local, personal roots, as several notable contests are underway in both the Empire and Garden states.  These campaigns, though, [...]

Without question, the Internet has proven itself to be a magical fountain of bottomless knowledge and human know-how.  I don’t think it’s an underestimate to say that more learning has been facilitated via the limitless collaboration and exchange provided by the global medium in the past decade than perhaps in any other period in human [...]

New York City’s massive commuter rail and subway systems and related infrastructure, filled with hundreds of miles of tunnels and thousands of cars, switches, and other electrical equipment, have often proven to be excellent barometers of the City’s economic fortunes throughout its checkered history. During the dark years of New York City — those times [...]

We live in a world unlike any other witnessed before by human civilization.  Unparallelled prosperity (current recessions notwithstanding) and access to information have left us with the entire world at our figurative fingertips.  No piece of knowledge is beyond a Google or Bing click away, and news from the farthest corners of the planet feel [...]

It only took a mere $10 billion in costs and nearly a year of unplanned delays before the newsmedia and certain elements of the scientific community began to question the value and process behind Europe’s Large Hadron Collider — the vast underground, super-cooled electromagnetic tunnels underneath France and Switzerland that will allegedly allow for high-speed [...]

Many New Yorkers woke up this past Monday morning to a mixture of shock and amazement, as a number of local Dunkin’ Donuts franchises operated by the Riese Restaurants corporation were replaced overnight by Tim Horton’s, the similarly themed chain famous up north in the frozen Canadian tundra.  The “beef” between Riese and Dunkin’ owner [...]

Browsing through the usual chatter on Twitter this AM, I was struck by random speculation and questions everyone has related to what is currently happening in Iran, and how/if the United States should respond. Let’s start with the Middle Eastern nation itself: while I have not yet seen Jimmy Carter personally step forward and endorse [...]

I usually read Hope n’ Change mostly to chuckle at its pithy, on-point cartoon critiques of the follies plaguing the current presidential administration. Today’s content, though, chills my bones and makes me ponder terrible thoughts. And though the media keeps saying that the (ahem) former terrorists will be in Palau’s “custody,” the men will NOT [...]

Stolen shamelessly from The Big Picture.

Does it chill anyone else out there to the very bone that NASA has started a program it tongue-in-cheekly refers to as “Singularity University?” In a spare one-room office at Nasa’s Silicon Valley campus, a small band of futurists is plotting to save the world. The means are not a revolutionary technology or a new [...]

Three interesting little tidbits from the world of celebrities and gossip that I’m too lazy to post individually: Gwyneth Paltrow has underway a campaign to fill the earth with smelly, greasy-haired pregnant women.  Apparently, according to an article in the rail-thin Madonna BFF’s online magazine allegedly authored by the celebrity herself, the magical elixir known [...]

The semi-famous utterance above originated with Joe Schmo himself, Matt Kennedy Gould, as he looked around and found himself the only hint of reality ensnared within an otherwise completely fabricated world.  Looking around at today’s incredibly whacked-out political scene, I can’t help but ask the same question.  Did the rest of the world take stupid [...]

Congrats to the owner and operator of the Web site Hot Chicks With Douchebags, who successfully had a defamation lawsuit filed again his book and site dismissed on the grounds that the uber-hott plaintiffs were suffering from an incurable case of douchescroatitis. A New Jersey judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by three women [...]