Fit to be Fried

Switched to a temporary new design while I am being lazy, so at least all my posts will actually show up now. I am still trying to find the time to work the kinks out of my official new design, when it is finished there will be a complete re-launch of my site. Time sure has been flying by…

I am currently in the process of redesigning this site to reflect my new web-design/pc-repair business. In the very near future (I’m shooting for a week, tops), I’ll be upgrading my wordpress install, cleaning out a lot of old posts, and installing a brand-new, custom-built and completely badass theme for this site (good thing too, as my current install seems to be completely whacked. In the future I’ll be updating this site a helluva lot more often, be sure to check back soon!

Ok, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve written anything here, God knows. The electiona has come and gone and we have a new chairman… whoops, I mean communist… I mean, COMMANDER in chief. Needless to say the election took a lot out of me, and I haven’t been in the mood to say much since. In the interim, I’ve been working on the website for Roy Morales, Republican Mayoral candidate for the City of Houston- that’s scheduled to be posted tonight, if anybody’s reading…

I’ve also been hard at work at my full-time gig at VIP Systems/First Capital International, and today, we stumbled upon a major breakthrough in development of our Concierge line of software. I can’t say much about it yet, but it’s going to be big.

On the military front, I found out that I’m going overseas again, this time with the National Guard- that’ll be happening next year (actually, first quarter, fiscal year 2111. It’ll be interesting to see the differences between how the Marine Corps and the Army deploy- though I know I’ll probably be on a base somewhere, with a barracks, working eight hour days, as my unit is attached to Division HQ :), so I already know it’s going to be VERY different, to say the least.

More later, leaving work as I write this now.

Ever since I discovered Tim Wilson’s implementation of a flash-based theme for Wordpress a few days ago, I’ve been a man obsessed, I must discover not only how it was done, but how to do the same thing with my own sites. Although I obtained a copy of his website’s template, the code made little sense to me and I saw little use in only being able to use pages to display my posts. I instead sought out alternatives, and found a promising one in AMFPHP, a framework which allows one to make PHP calls from inside Flash. However, what the developers of AMFPHP fail to mention is that you need FlexBuilder to access the libraries needed to read the data AMFPHP returns to your Flash document. Bastards. That being that, after about 6 hours of trying without Flex, I surrendered and set about the task of finding myself a copy. My quest for a Flash-based Wordpress theme is, I fear, only beginning.

Y’all might’ve noticed the nifty bit of Flash at the top of this site that displays images linked to featured posts. That’s a plug-in for Wordpress developed by a guy named Rich Christiansen, who I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with when I had trouble installing his work. Even though Rich gives away this awesome plugin for free to any blogger willing to try it, Rich was more than happy to devote quite a bit of time to helping me out with all my problems. Rich is a real talent, and gracious to boot; he even listed me as a debugger on Featurific’s download page. Anyone who’s got a Wordpress blog really ought to try it out, it gives a real flair to the site. The free version offers quite a few themes and configuration options, and is pretty easy to put to your own needs through the wp-admin back-end. Anyone who wishes to get even more opotions, such as removing the “Featurific” logo from the bottom of the plugin which links to Rich’s site, oughtta pony up the dough for Featurific Pro, and support Rich for all the work he’s done. Thanks again Rich!

To download Featurific, please visit Rich’s Featurific download page.

The term “Claymore” was first used to describe a Scottish Broadsword commonly used to wreak bloody havoc in warfare from 1500 to 1700, a two-hand-wielded behemoth that could cleave a man in two under the force of it’s own gravity, let alone when being swung at you. The focus of this article is not, however, about this monster of a sword, or it’s sissy little brother of the same name, which was used after 1715 in Scotland, and had a basket hilt to “protect the hand while in use” (what a bunch of babies). No, this article is about the M18A1 Claymore Anti-Personnel Mine, a worthy successor to the name, for reasons I’ll now explain.

For one thing, the Claymore mine was invented by an actual Scotsman, by the name of Norman A. MacLeod. Okay, technically, the initial idea behind the Claymore was actually developed by the Germans during World War Two, utilizing the “Misznay-Schardin effect”¹.

The Canadians fielded a similar weapon known as “the Phoenix” to counter the German mines, but it was not until the Korean War that MacLeod began to develop his own utilization, and not until the Vietnam War was the M18A1 finally put into widespread use by the U.S. military.

The M18A1 is particulalrly effective against personnel (hence the name “Anti-Personnel Mine”), as it uses C-4 to fire about 700 steel ball-bearings in a 60° arc at nearly 4,000 ft (or 1,200 meters, for our friends across the pond), rendering anything fleshy directly in front of it into a fine pink mist, and leaving anything anywhere near it’s path in a condition much worse than it had previously enjoyed. It’s casing is made of a hard green plastic with the words “Front Towards Enemy”(duh.) embossed on it’s front. Below is some more info on the Claymore, for those who are interested.

from WikiPedia:

The Claymore mine is typically deployed in one of three modes: Controlled, Uncontrolled, or Time-delayed.

1. Controlled Mode (also known as Command Detonation)
   The mine is detonated by the operator as the forward edge of the enemy approaches a point within the killing zone (20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 ft)) where maximum casualties can be inflicted. Controlled detonation may be accomplished by use of either an electrical or nonelectrical firing system. When mines are employed in the controlled role, they are treated the same as individual weapons and are reported for inclusion in the unit fire plan. They are not reported as mines; however, the emplacing unit must ensure that the mines are removed, detonated, or turned over to a relieving unit. The M57 Firing Device (colloquially referred to as the “clacker”) is included with the M18A1 Claymore Mine so that it can be used in the controlled mode. When Claymore Mines are daisy chained together, one M57 firing device can initiate several claymore mines.

2. Uncontrolled Mode (also known as Victim Initiated Detonation)
   Uncontrolled firing is accomplished when the mine is installed in such a manner as to cause an unsuspecting enemy to detonate the mine. Mines employed in this manner must be reported and recorded as land mines. There are many mechanisms that can be used to initiate the M18A1 in uncontrolled mode, including the M142 Multipurpose Firing Device, M5 Pressure Release Device (mousetrap), tripwires, strikers, infrared sensors, acoustic & vibration sensors.
3. Time-delayed Mode
   Time-delayed firing involves the fitting of a short timed fuse and a fuse igniter to allow the mine to be used as a pursuit deterrent. This, anecdotally, may be combined with a CS grenade or bag containing the irritant contained in a CS grenade. The mine is emplaced, quickly oriented on the direction pursuers are most likely to take, and the fuse is ignited before the position is abandoned.

from Armystudyguide.com:

Once done installing the M18A1, how far behind the mine should the wire be secured?
1 meter

Describe the M18A1
A curved, rectangular-shaped weapon, with an olive drab molded case of fiberglass filled polystyrene (plastic). In the front portion of the case is a fragmentation face containing steel spheres embedded in a plastic matrix. The back portion of the case behind the matrix contains a layer of explosives.

What is the M18A1 primarily used for?
It was designed for use against mass infantry attacks

What is the first step in installing the M18A1?
Inspect the components

How much does the M18A1 weigh?
1.5 lbs

What color is a “training” M18A1?
Blue

How long is the wire that the M4 blasting cap is connected to?
100 ft

Name the components that are in the bandoleer of the M18A1
The M7 bandoleer has two pockets. One pocket contain the mine and the other contains:

* M40 test set
* M57 firing device
* M4 Electric Blasting cap Assembly
* Instructions

Where will you find the instructions for the employment of the M18A1?
Under the flap of the bandoleer

What color is a “live” M18A1?
Green

What is the effective frontal range of the M18A1?
When detonated, the M18A1 mine will deliver spherical steel fragments over a 60° fan-shaped pattern that is 2 meters high and 50 meters wide at a range of 50 meters

Who keeps the M57 firing device while the M18A1 is being installed?
The individual installing the mine

What Field Manual covers the M18A1?
FM 23-23

What are the two sites used on the M18A1 to aim it?
Knife-edge and slit-type peep sights

When aiming the M18A1 using the slit-type peepsight, how far above the ground do you aim?
2 and 1/2 meters above the ground

When aiming the M18A1 using the knife edge sight, how far above the ground do you aim?
You aim at ground level

What type of explosive is used in the M18A1?

1.5 lbs composition C4 (plastic explosive)

One M40 test set is included with how may M18A1 claymores?
1 in each case of 6

What is the killing zone of the M18A1?
About 20 to 30 meters

How far is the danger area to the rear of the M18A1?
16 meters (The mine firing position should be in a foxhole or covered position at least 16 meters to the rear or the side of the emplaced mine.)

semperfried76 is the last hope for humanity.
Too bad he hates you all.

Sadly, the M18A1 Claymore, along with most other landmines, is a weapon whose usefulness in war has been gutted by anti-mine treaties which severely limit it’s use to certain guidelines. Most notably of these is the use of the Claymore in uncontrolled or “tripwire” mode, which requires the most stringent guidelines, including clearly marking the area which has been mined to avoid civilian casualties².

In my post two days past, "Dead will rise…" , I predicted that “Undertaker” Mark Callaway would be returning to the WWE in time for SummerSlam, next month’s pay-per-view event. Tonight at the end of Smackdown, Edge met up with GM Vicki Guerrrero in the ring to apologize for cheating on her, spearing her at the Great American Bash, and teling the whole world about her granny-panties. Or, to make a long story short (too late!), for being a complete douchebag. Guerrero decided to stand by her man, but made it clear that she was still angry with the “Rated R Superstar”, and that, to retaliate against him for his various crimes, she would be re-instating none other than the Dead Man, and that he would be her hubby’s opponent at SummerSlam.

I fucking told you so.

Jesus, can’t we all just get along?

I installed Opera, Flock, and Safari along with my default Firefox 3 and IE8 installs to test how a site I’m doing for work would look, and it seems that the inconsistencies never fail to keep right on coming. Safari, the default Mac browser, won’t render hardly any css correctly, and won’t display a .png file as a background image. Opera won’t load all my images, no matter what I set the “load images” setting to. The difference between the two surprises the hell out of me, they used to have very similar rendering. IE and Firefox didn’t disappoint, and Flock uses Firefox’s rendering engine (as does Netscape Navigator) so testing it just confirmed how well the site looked in a Firefox-based browser. IE 5 & 6 are still a problem though, as png transparency isn’t supported and their css support is spotty. My boss never updates his browser, and has been usin IE 6 for years, so when he saw how badly they rendered the new site’s logo and page backgrounds, he started flipping out and ordered the new site to be taken down, and the old one to be put back up. It’s been so long since this has seemed like a problem for me, that it came as a shock to me when he called and told me the site wasn’t working. So now I have more work to do tomorrow… sigh…

There’s been much speculation in wrestling fandom as to whether or not we’d ever see Mark Callaway, aka the Undertaker, step into the ring to wrestle again, and why he left to begin with. His dubious loss to Edge a couple of months ago in a “Loser Leaves” match definitely left a lot of us scratching our heads, to be sure. In a previous post, ("Undertaker ends 24 year career in loss to… Edge????!!!") I railed about the match, and how it didn’t seem right that such a legendary WWE Superstar would go out like that. It stuck in my craw so badly that I decided to do a little research and craft this follow-up to my obituary on the Undertaker’s career. It seems now that obit may have been premature (I know, I know, and given the Callaway’s in-ring persona, this should surprise absolutely no one.

To be honest, I was pretty much disgusted by the current state of the WWE, not because it had been rocked by scandal and tragedy¹, but it had just become boring to me. I tend to go through phases like that with all my interests, so I knew eventually I’d be back. This being the case, I really didn’t put much effort into uncovering ‘Taker’s reasons for leaving until recently. It was while listening to the Mancow radio show on AM 950 that I first heard of the sex scandal involving ECW writer David Lagana. It was revealed in Matthew Randazzo’s book Ring of Hell, that Lagana had repeatedly approached wrestlers with an offer to help their careers if he were allowed to perform oral sex on them. This alone, although thoroughly gross, wouldn’t have been enough to pique my attention, as sex scandals in the WWE are nothing new. What caught my ear was how the situation was resolved; after having been harassed by Lagana, ECW wrestler Kevin Fertig (aka Kevin Thorn) went to the Undertaker, who in turn blew the whistle on Lagana. Of all the wrestlers involved in this story, it seems the Undertaker alone had the clout to get something done about Lagana, as Lagana was let go from the WWE, and replaced by Dusty Rhodes.

I thought for a while that this might’ve been part of the reason why Callaway left the WWE to concentrate on his real estate ventures in Colorado, but I’ve also heard that he was originally scheduled to return to the ring as a draftee to RAW in last month’s interbrand draft special, as a trade for Umaga to Smackdown. Of course, the Draft has come and gone, and Callaway was nowhere to be seen. Word is now that he will return at Summerslam. All of this, including my own guesses regarding David Lagana, are purely speculative,

semperfried76 is the last hope for humanity.
Too bad he hates you all.

and his absence seems more likely to be the result of a recent major shoulder surgery he underwent, and his subsequent recuperation leave. Odds are he will be at Summerslam, if not, he will return probably no later than September. Rest assured, though things are dark right now, it’s doubtful we’ve seen the last of the Dead Man.

Holy crap, Batman’s in jail.

Or at least he was, for about four hours.

For beating up his mom.

Allegedly.

Christian Bale, star of the recently released “The Dark Knight” turned himself in to a London police station after his mother and sister made allegations that he assaulted them. He was not charged, and continues to deny that an assault took place.

Unlike in his role as the Batman, in which he completely kicked the asses of not only every evil-doer in the film, he also completely reigned over every other film out right now. Bale, known for intense performances such as 2000’s American Psycho, 2006’s The Prestige, and of course, Batman Begins, has cemented his ownership of the role that almost saved Michael Keaton’s career, portraying what many are claiming to be the greatest Dark Knight to date. Bale’s Bruce Wayne is the billionaire playboy straight out of Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One”, a role within a role; as Wayne he must appear to be shallow and conceited, enjoying the life of privilege he was born into, and bored with any sort of responsibility.

As the Batman, he reveals a tortured soul, yearning to set right the wrongs in the world, even if he must become one of those wrongs to do it ¹. This theme, often overlooked in the past in film, television, and the comics, is explored in depth in The Dark Knight, yet another facet that makes this flick a jewel of a film. Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey “Two-Face” Dent is also a welcome sight to anyone whose introduction to the character might’ve been from Tommy Lee Jones’ portrayal in Joel “If you’re a homo and you know it, make a Batman movie” Schumacher’s God-awful 1995 travesty, Batman Forever, in which Jones and Jim Carrey’s Riddler both seemed to be channeling Cesar Romero’s Joker from the old 60’s TV show ² I still think Schumacher should’ve stuck with Tim Burton’s choice for Dent, Billy Dee “Stop calling me Lando, you pimply crackers!” Williams, but hey, the past is past. Eckhart does a great job as Gotham’s golden boy Dent, a dedicated, take-no-prisoners District Attorney who, along with his fiancee Rachel³ gets caught in the crossfire of the Batman/Joker war. Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine also return in this outing as bat-allies Lucius Fox, Lt. James Gordon, and Alfred Pennyworth, respectively, and all three should be given due credit for being the backbone of this series.

Of course, one can’t review The Dark Knight without paying homage to perhaps the greatest Joker ever to slap on the grease-paint and grin, namely the late Heath Ledger. Although I’d been looking forward to seeing this film anyways, I thought, before seeing this film, that all the posthumous platitudes he’d been receiving were mere meaningless hyperbole given to an actor who died young just before the release of his final film. In short (too late, I know) I thought everyone was just being nice. Boy, am I both glad and at the same time saddened to admit I was wrong.

I’ve long been a fan of Ledger’s work in such films as A Knight’s Tale, The Order, and, inexplicably, the Brothers Grimm⁴ I didn’t like all his films, but he had talent, and boy, did he ever prove it with his scary-ass psycho portrayal of the Joker in this movie. I never thought I’d be able to say it, but even the venerable performance Jack Nicholson put in for Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman can’t hold a candle to even a minute of Ledger’s scarred, vicious Clown Prince of Crime. A complete, stone cold sociopath caring for nothing except violence, destruction and mayhem, there have been few moments even in the comics that exemplify the sheer craziness of the character quite as well as here. Ledger seemed to be drawing directly from the mind of (comic scribe)Grant Morrison, who’s written (bar-none) the scariest Joker in comics for at least the past decade, and for that alone, he ought to be commended. Could this be the first comic-book inspired film to win a Best Actor Oscar? It should be. Everything everyone has said about Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker is true- he ceases to be the boyish heart-throb he’s been known as in nearly all his previous body of work, and instead becomes the face of nightmarish insanity. Just think of what the world’s missing out on, now that this talented young actor is no longer with us-

semperfried76 is the last hope for humanity.
Too bad he hates you all.

he could have been the next DeNiro, and this would’ve been his Taxi Driver. No, Ledger wouldn’t have brought world peace, or ended hunger, disease, or inhumanity towards our fellow men, but art and culture are both lessened for his passing. At least he guy went out like Elvis, without making any of the mistakes the King did when he kicked the bucket⁵.

OK, that’s enough gushing about The Dark Knight. Go watch it already, what are you waiting for, a switchblade to the corners of your mouth?