Happy Birthday?

Well, I made an attempt at creating a happy birthday for my wife today. My son had come up with the idea to make Mommy a cake. And it had to have cherries in it. So I found a fairly simple recipe for a cherry upside-down cake. Made it last night and it didn't turn out too badly. Today, I came home early, popped the cake in the oven to warm, and ran to my mother-in-law's to pick up my son so that we could surprise mommy. Things got crazy, we didn't go straight home. I just forgot one little thing. I left the cake in the oven. This was the result.

Oh, well. Happy birthday, little darlin'. Love ya'.

Cruise Liner

I am finally starting to take photos of my Lego creations, MOCs, in the parlance of Legoheads (My Own Creation). Here is a cruise liner I did. I promise my pictures and my designs will get better as I practice. You can view more pics here

Network Solutions? No, I think they're the problem

Back on Oct. 29, 1999, I registered my first domain name, cyberlizard.org. I went with Network Solutions as they were the primary (only? I can't recall) domain name issuing authority. Every year since then, I have gone on their site and renewed my domain. Along the way they got a fancy management system that you had to log into, but I never bothered. I had moved several times along the way and changed internet service providers more times than that. Therefore my email address changed since I had registered my domain. But it didn't matter because I could just go on to their site and renew my domain, no problemo.

Until this year. One day, I went to go to my little site and the name wouldn't resolve. I got some stupid generic page telling me that it had expired. Ok, I'll just go renew it. Except that I couldn't. You now had to log in to their system in order to renew a domain. Good grief, what a pain in the butt. So I call them up and explain the situation and that I want to renew my domain. Nope, they said. Can't do that till you get in our system, which means that you need to update the email address on our records. How to do that? I have to fax a form, along with a copy of my ID and a copy of a utility bill. So I do this.

Along comes an email, telling me my request has been rejected. My water bill is in my wife's name. My wife handled all the stuff when we moved, including getting all our utilities. ALL of our bills are in her name. It's never been a problem before; we have the same last name, live at the same address, what's the big deal? So I call them up. Well, according to Network Solutions, it is a big deal. Or, rather, no deal. They refuse to let me renew my domain without a matching utility bill. I explain that I don't have any bills that will match, they've all got my wife's name on them. In that case, they explain, we can send you a form to transfer the domain to her name.

So get this; they ask me what email address they can send it to. So they are going to send me a form that I can then transfer control of the entire domain to anyone I want, all with less verification than they require for me to give them my money and renew the damn domain!

Where is the logic in this world? Please, tell me. I really want to move there.

Don't get raped in Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, a 19 year old girl was traveling in a car with a male friend. They were kidnapped and raped by seven men. So, of course, the natural result is that the female victim would be prosecuted and sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes. After all, she was in the company of a male she was not related to. I mean, come on! Who wouldn't condemn this little harlot for the brazen act of riding in a car with a boy? There's probably a queue forming of people who want to wield the whip. I'm surprised the men who raped them weren't given medals for honorably punishing the tramp. She obviously was asking for it, being with a non-related man.

I don't like to generalise a whole society, but there has got to be something wrong with the water over there. I'd hate to visit the mind of the person to whom this makes sense.

Sarcasm aside, my question is, why do societies continue to punish women because the men can't be trusted to keep their dick in their pants?

You can have my gun, when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers

First of all, I don't own a gun, have never owned a gun and never intend to own a gun. I am a pacifist. What sparked this title was the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States of America is going to hear a case about the handgun ban in the District of Columbia. They last heard a case about the Second Amendment nearly 70 years ago. None of the sitting justices have heard a Second Amendment case, so we have no idea which way this will go.

The text of the Second Amendment states, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This has led to great controversy about the impact the phrase, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" has on the second part of the Amendment. If it simply stated, 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,' we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I think it's fairly clear why the Amendment was added. Our country was founded through a violent popular revolution. Had the ordinary citizen not been able to own guns, our history would be quite different. That being said, arms in those days were muzzle-loading muskets over 3 feet long. In addition, hunting was a necessary part of survival; the banning of guns would have left thousands starving.

Fast-forward to today. A handgun can be concealed damn near anywhere. The sole purpose of a handgun is to kill/harm a person. It's not like you're going to go after that 10-point stag with a 9mm Glock. One of the prevailing arguments for owning a handgun is self-protection. However, that argument has been solidly squashed. The instances where someone actually used their gun to successfully defend themselves against a home invader or an attacker are quite small. Far more people are killed either accidentally or deliberately with those same handguns purchased to protect them.

That all being said, I'm actually ambivalent about this issue. Some times I feel quite libertarian and want the government to get the hell out of my life. On the other hand, I can quite clearly see the need for government regulation to protect vulnerable populations. In this case, does the need to reduce death and injury by handguns override the "right" of people to possess something designed exclusively for the death of another human being?

Maybe I'm not so ambivalent. Britain seems to have done quite well banning handguns. I don't see their people suffering greatly from their inability to "defend themselves". At any rate, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out with a right-wing court.

Legos still rock

I have always been a big Lego enthusiast. I even have a small collection of bricks that somehow survived my childhood and various adult moves. My son is now 5 and has discovered the joy of building. And I've found some great sites to keep that enthusiasm burning.

• The Brothers Brick - a fantastic blog dedicated to the art of Lego creation
• Brickshelf - pictures of some amazing creations
• Brick Link - an astounding assortment of Lego sets/pieces to buy/sell
• MOCpages - a community dedicated to those who want to show their MOCs (that's My Own Creation, in case you were wondering. I had to look it up)
• Bricksmith - a really awesome Lego building software for the Mac. Let's you virtually create anything in Legos. Uses the LDraw libraries.

I will soon have some photos of some my small attempts at Lego greatness to view.

So check it out, get some Legos and start building!

My blog

I suppose that it's about time I actually started dumping this crap out of my head and out onto the net. Why should I suffer what's in my head when nobody else has to ;)

Anyway, this is going to be the home for random thoughts and other useless ephemera from the brain of the CyberLizard.

Bon appetit!