I just noticed something this morning, and it struck me as so obvious that I nearly hit the car in front of me (okay, not really, but you get the idea).

You may notice that toll booth barricades are broken (quite often!) by people driving too fast, or people trying to use the bus access ramps to the center lanes. It got me wondering what went into their construction so they can easily replace them (without it costing an arm and a leg, or being difficult to train work crews to do).

Then one day I was lucky enough to spy a repair crew at work. They barriers are run-of-the-mill, aluminum downspouts that you might have outside your typical house. They just wrap them in reflective tape, and take a power screwdriver and sheetmetal screws to it to affix it to the counterbalanced arm.

It struck me as rather odd. But then I realized how perfect an idea that was. The aluminum bends easily when struck, which saves the gate mechanics from damage. But it's rigid enough to be fixed at only one end. And it's pretreated to withstand the elements. Finally, it can be had for cents per foot at any landscaper or home improvement center.

It seemed hokey at first, I expected to be some kind of specially designed polyurethane assembly that they ordered bulk in advance. But now I'm guessing the toll booth equipment manufacturer probably thinks this is a selling point (less maintenance complexity). I have to give those engineers credit... don't reinvent the wheel when you don't need to.

Couple gets new AOL 9.0 CD in mail. They are ecstatic as it lets them complete their wall hanging fish sculpture crafted from various AOL junk mail media.

Enter Jerry Stiller, to tell them that while it has been getting a bit out of hand with those CDs, that they should give 9.0 a shot, and he bets they can replace that last CD with Snoop Dog.

Enter Snoop: "Now wait just a minizzle..."

WHEN AN ADVERTISEMENT FROM A COMPANY PARODIES ITS OWN ADVERTISING PRACTICES, YOU KNOW THE WORLD IS ENDING IN 24 HOURS!!! REPENT SINNERS!!!!

Hypothesis:
Eva "Miss Dynamite" Sirkowski and Tanpopo "Blackie" Chin are secretly lovers (or perhaps NOT so secretly).

Motivation:
Quickly browse the forums on Sirkowski's website, and take note especially of people ask him to draw that girl-on-girl stuff all the time.

They can get away with that because according to the comics, they don't really have sex lives, so you can use your imagination there.

But that's naive: you have to have a working model. So, it falls on my shoulders to provide it. From the following evidence, I have determined the most likely situation is in fact a lesbian relationship.

With this heavy lifting done, I will pave the way for everyone to write lemons without that pesky "plot" stuff.

Supporting Points:

1. If you read up on Blackie's back story, her idea of a relationship is a scam to get money and power out of guys.
   Powerful men have betrayed her, and it turn she does the same.
2. On the other hand, Eva is a loner. Also, she's intimidating. Maybe it's the cigarette.
3. And Eva and Blackie both are just too scary to keep men for very long.
4. In the backstory, Eva saves Blackie's ass. She didn't have to, and never previously held any allegiances to anyone. Then they team up, move in together.
   Bonnie and Clyde, as it were. As domineering their personalities are,they don't sabotage each other. Clearly some other forces are at work. It's not like they weren't doing well enough by themselves.
5. Blackie has the hots for Eva. This is explicit. Eva has this butch thing going, and Blackie thinks that's "cute". Observe:
   • exhibit a
   • exhibit b
   • exhibit c
   • exhibit d
6. As far as we officially know, the feeling isn't reciprocated.
7. Of course, we have to wonder what all this is about:
   
   What is she thinking there anyway?
   We so rarely get to see her guard down!

   What I'm establishing here is evidence against Eva as a stereotypical 2-dimensional character; a consistent hard ass. That is the image she projects so she can properly do her job-- it's her face she presents to the world. In fact, the reality is...

8. Eva completely trusts Blackie. Why else would she do things like this:

   Well, it's more personal than going out to a bar...and this...
   Do people normally do this with friends?
   There is clearly an undercurrent there, and it's not merely professional courtesy.

9. In a field when you can't have any friends without M.A.D. agreements, and the only real person you can trust wants to fuck your brains out, you may not have any other choices.
   Since they are the best in the business, and they prey on the weak, therefore everyone is weaker than them, and thus a mark. So unless they take pity on some poor soul, they'd never be able to maintain an equitable relationship with others.

10. And let's face it, Eva is intimidated by Blackie sexually, and that's the primary source of her frustration with Blackie's advances. Reactions of denial, anger, fear, and grief have all been exhibited by Eva (in roughly that order)

    According to some shrinks a lot smarter than myself, I believe acceptance is next.

Someone point out the flaws in my logic here.

I don't have the right links, (flash animations on newsgrounds), but Eva also exhibits outward jealousy and disdain when Blackie lusts after guys to satiate her needs (a freedom Eva does not enjoy).
Jealous! I wonder why.

Conclusion, further thoughts:
There's no person that who in their right mind would want to be in a prolonged relationship with either of the two nutbags. In two weeks they'd be out on the street with 10 bullets holes and their intestines spilling out, and a nice big hole in their pants where their wallet used to be.
Eva isn't the kind of person who would bounce from one guy to another (maybe Blackie is, but she doesn't even get emotional about it) Poor Eva. Masturbation can only carry you so far. :-) It's clear that in order to cope, she has at least a few times shared a special moment with her compadre. Or perhaps it's a full blown Ellen Dengeris/Ann Heche, only well hidden. Since we have no direct knowledge of the relationship, we can only guess as to how serious it is from the circumstantial evidence.
It's probably casual. It explains Eva's inability to cope with the way Blackie acts, especially around others. It's like she makes a big deal about saying "What, me gay!? No..." instead of just ignoring her.

Sirkowski's a pretty echhi kinda guy. I believe that he really planned it this way, but would never say it explictly. Or perhaps he never thought about it, but subconciously liked the possibility, and it manifested itself.
If this is true, it was crucial that he did not express it explictly because it would cheapen the comic. Or maybe he's keeping that bombshell up his sleeve in case he needs to "jump the shark" or some shit. It's too easy to make gay jokes than it is to try to make political jokes, and as a bonus you can use the built-up homoerotic tension as a change-up pitch. It's perfect for slow days like Sept 11 when you don't want to piss off too much of your readership with a jab at some political idiocy.

Naysayers will bring up the vibrators issue. But let's not forget Blackie's a slut, and Eva's keeping her away from johns. You give a little, you get a little. etc.

Okay, I'm done. I hope this gets me a free commission if I post a link from the forums. They call me "Comic Book Author Profiler pr0ntab". Next stop, FBI, bitches.

Related:
Britney and Madonna, Cloud and Sephiroth, Elton John and Eminem, and Natsuki and Sakrua.

Keywords:
sirkowski, eva, blackie, OMFG, Guns, Lesbian, Gay, s3x0r5, yabbering, offsite linking, memes, pandering for free pr0n

Staind sucks my fat nuts. God they suck. So pretentious, and the bring so little to the table. This post-grunge trend or whatever the fuck it's called is really wearing on me.

Here's some real music for you cunt-pierced-whackers:

Life kid, suck; drink from the box, the juice kid, suck-
life kid suck the box drink, yeah.

Life kid, suck from the box, drink from the box, a scene from the box, kid suck life, kid suck the box, drink, yeah...

Bruce Lee

Skin taut as sails in a gale, hair always cut with a blunt tool, muscular but thin like springs but not steel...

Junkie? Criminal? Fugitive?
Four young men and old each one up in his own head ...
Holed up in these flat stinking boxes out of the sun
Piggy little eyes
holes in skin
just enough to let in the light

We've got the wrong bloke,
but he's going to die anyway
it's nothing more to it if he don't move
See how slumped up the wall in the crumpled blanket
My husband was late for days

(Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee ...)

Wrong bloke, drops the gun old black pistol onto the bed
heavy scars all over it the thing had been changing hands all its life
Suture gets up from the other room maybe went off accidental
maybe from ghosts in his head
eyes just enough to let the minimum of light in
maybe just having a laugh
Suture gets up from his bed in the next room and comes through
Target it's obvious the block on the other bed was the intended mark
starts rolling a fat joint, unfuzzed
his composure is evil he seems he's coming from a long way off
and now he's doing what he always planned for his moment
and you know he's a professional -- probably the only one there
and though he looks the same as the other three
something very different moves beneath his skin-

TAN BLONDE

I keep hearing people bitching about the horrible tragedy it is to release code under the GPL, when the BSD license is truely free.

Some of the complaints:

1) You can't make money off it or by improving it.
2) It'll infect anything you're working on if you use it.
3) It's communism.

I'm just going to answer all the complaints by saying this:
It won't "infect" your code so long as you don't try to link against an object, encapsulate the code, or patch it. It doesn't mean your router can't run the linux kernel or your proprietary learning firewall software will be forced open. You just need to leave the door open for someone to ask you to give 'em a copy of the kernel version you used.

But if you want to link, or extend, and don't want to release the source, here's what you have to do:

Contact the original licensor, tell them what you are doing, and enter a seperate agreement with them.

It's not that you can't do what you want with the code. It's just that the original author is given some ability to control what happens to the work down the line if it's going to be involved in IP entanglement or a closed product. If the author cares what her work is being used for and can't see the changes herself, she may want a way to decide whether or not the code gets used for such purposes where she gets closed off from further development.

For the author, it's a good deal. For a developer, it's not an issue; you do contact original authors for code snippets you pull out of magazines... right? You wouldn't want to plagarize them now, would you?

Give me a break.

BSD license is fine if you don't want to be bothered by such solicitations, or you want the fastest acceptance of your code. But people who are anti-GPL don't seem to understand the benefits or the extra insurance for the original author. I highly suspect a majority of these critics aren't developers themselves and just have an issue with RMS.

Get in line.

My idea... the memory-stick/e-pen
Store files, scribble notes and see them on a PC/pda, receive business cards, bluetooth enabled.

It's something to shoot for.

What do you all think; have I got Porsche licked yet?

Just a note to all y'all playa haters out there:

My foot is going IN YOUR ASS. So be prepared to be REUNITED with the dirt from whence you came. I'm taking you DOWN.

In other news, I have an extreme dislike of (and disrepect to) Sarah Michelle Gellar. She claims in her E Weekly interview that she was disappointed by the critics scathing reviews of Scooby Doo. She told herself that she was making it for all the kids who absolutely loved it, apparently.

Don't get me wrong, I love Scooby Doo. But that movie was ass. This real-life motion picture with CG and everything sucked about 10 times harder than the made-for-tv cartoon Scooby Movies. I think Mrs. Gellar just can't handle the fact that THE MOVIE WAS A PIECE OF GARBAGE and she made a poor decision. A studio can shit out anything and as long as it has an endearing franchise supporting it they can do no wrong (see also Inspector Gadget; they're raping my precious memories!). The kids who liked that movie have never SEEN a Scooby Doo movie. And they've probably seen 3 movies total, so how could they judge relatively? It's okay that the kids liked it, but combined with her career plan changes, BIG MISTAKE and she won't admit it.

So Mrs. Gellar is fooling herself when she believes that she can quit Buffy and be successful in movies until she ages enough to play adult roles. She'd make a great emotionless cop on some crime drama on CBS...