Tag: Things Having Nothing to do with Anything

I Love Virtual Machines

I can’t describe in words how much I love virtual machines. When I made the virtual OpenBSD server that hosts this website I stupidly made the partition holding this website too small. Needless to say the tiny partition was filling up fast and I need to expand it. With a physical machine this could be a daunting task because screwing up would mean really screwing up. Fortunately on a virtual machine I need only take a snapshot of the server in a working condition before fiddling with things and I know no matter how badly I screw up salvation is only a snapshot restore away. The first time I attempted to expand the partition I royally screwed it up and the server would no longer boot. My second attempt was far more successful. The partition holding this website is now, as far as OpenBSD is concerned, on its own drive. Putting the partition on a separate virtual drive will make it easier to expand in the future when the need arises.

Words of Wisdom When Traveling

Wednesday I flew to Phoenix for a work related meeting and ended up back in the Twin Cities around 06:00. After I returned I spent the better part of Thursday sleeping. I learned that trying to stay awake most of a 24-hour period with a cold is a bad idea. The only sleep I managed to get was a few minutes here and there laying across three seats at the airport. Needless to say I felt rather miserable for most of Thursday so I didn’t even manage to haul my lazy ass out of bed long enough to write any blog posts.

Here’s my tip for those of you traveling: if you’re sick don’t try to get to your destination and back home within the same 24-hour period. Give yourself an evening of rest, otherwise you’re going to feel like crap the next day. Also, if you’re in Phoenix, Arizona and looking for a good place to eat I highly recommend Brat Haus. They have plenty of outdoor seating (which feels amazing after being cooped up inside all winter), their brats are great, and their beer selection is pretty decent. I also recommend that you eat before returning to the airport if you’re scheduled for a red eye flight since all the restaurants seem to close sometime before 22:00. The only establishments that were open at that hour were a bar and a convenience store, neither of which sold any real food.

A Shocking Accusation

Raise you hand if you find this accusation shocking:

A former member of the Westboro Baptist Church who recently published a book about leaving the hate-mongering group has also revealed that founder Fred Phelps’s anti-gay ideology may have spawned from a gay experience.

Nobody? I didn’t think so. When a person hates another person or persons with an high amount of zeal it often means that person sees in themselves, at least some of, what they hate in their targets. It shouldn’t surprise me if we later hear that Phelps participated in one or more gay orgies.

Joe Biden is an Arrogant Ass

I know, I’m not saying anything that the general public is unaware of but I really must state, for the record, that I think Joe Biden is an arrogant ass. Consider the following statement made by him:

During a press conference on gun safety in Philadelphia, Vice President Joe Biden said that any reports that suggest that he was trying to take weapons away from gun owners was a “bunch of malarkey.”

“I know that’s a word that you’ve never heard before, although it’s now in the dictionary,” Biden boasted.

He knows that malarkey is a word that I’ve never heard before? He could have fooled me. Needless to say the rest of what he said was equally idiotic.

For the Record

Buck Yeager has a habit of saying really stupid stuff. Apparently challenging anybody who called him a coward due a duel wasn’t enough, he decided to go on YouTube and threaten civil war if new gun control laws are passed.

I’ve heard a few people in the gun rights community either voice their concern about new gun control laws sparking civil war or claiming they would spark a civil war themselves if new gun control laws are passed. For the record I just want it know that if a civil war breaks out in this country I’m going to be hearing about it from a different country. I’ll probably pick somewhere tropical since I’m getting sick and tied of dealing with winter here in Minnesota.

I am not a patriot, I have no loyalty to this country, I’m not even a fan of the Constitution. My loyalties lie with my friends and family who I plan to take with me if things turn violent. Civil wars have a nasty habit of leading to new, usually more tyrannical, states and I’m not going to help bring in a new age of tyranny.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

This lesson shouldn’t need to be taught but you can’t always believe what you read. Case in point, I noticed a couple of individuals posting this story, which purports to provide evidence that the Sandy Hook shooting was more than meets the eye:

(Thomas Dishaw) More twists to the Sandy Hook narrative. On December 11 Google indexed the United Way website that offered condolences to the family’s of Sandy Hook.

This is a full three days before the actual shooting that took place on December 14 2012. You can view the Google page here and the United Way page here.

If you go to the Google link provided in the story you’ll notice it’s a search for the results of “sandy hook united way” that appeared on December 11th, 2012. Since the shooting occurred on December 14th, 2012 you wouldn’t expect any results but results appeared for the United Way Sandy School Support Fund webpage. In of itself this appears to be a little fishy but rest assured there is a simple explanation for these results, Google’s date searching mechanism is a little wonky. To demonstrate this I did a search for “sandy hook shooting” on the date of December 1st, 2008 (click to embiggen):

Either the Sandy Hook shooting conspiracy was accidentally leaked to the Internet over four years ago or Google’s search by date function is a bit unreliable. I’ll let you be the judge.

Making the Big Leagues

Well it has finally happened, I have finally received my first death threat via this blog’s e-mail address. Overall the threat was a fairly standard affair, consisting of the same tired ramblings one has come to expect from gun control advocates:

Dear Christopher Burg,

How does it feel being responsible for the death of children? Shit stains like you are directly responsible for Sandy Hook! It’s time somebody put you gun fucks in your place. Your [sic] pretty fucking stupid putting your real name on your site. I live in Minnesota as well and I’m going to find you and fucking kill you. Your days are numbered asshole. Its [sic] open season on NRA shills!

I will give my secret admirer some credit for having decent spelling in grammar. A few points must be deducted for the misuse of your instead of you’re and its instead of it’s. These are rather minor issues though and are commonly made by individuals who haven’t yet entered a 6th grade English class. Benefit of the doubt regarding his age will be given to my secret admirer as I don’t want to discourage an inspiring writer.

With that said I think my secret admirer will be relegated to writing canned vampire romance novels. I say this because he shows a remarkable lack of creativity in his threat. That shouldn’t discourage my secret admirer though as the sales of canned vampire romance novels such as Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey have been phenomenal. One doesn’t have to be a genre defining author to make money. With that said if my secret admirer is reading this and wants to be a genre defining author instead of a writer of canned vampire romance novels I have some advice. First he needs to drop the NRA shill remark. Advocates of gun control have been using that line for ages now and it demonstrates a lack of creativity. Spice things up a little bit. There are other gun rights organizations out there. He could refer to me as a Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) shill or a Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership (JPFO) shill. Better yet he could stop basing his insults on organizations appearing on my blog’s side bar and try writing something entirely his own. A truly creative writer shouldn’t be playing follow the leader, he should create his own games.

I would also recommend he reduce his reliance on the word fuck. He probably believes it’s a very edgy word to say right now, and at a young age it certainly is, but such an over reliance is generally off putting as it makes writings appear unintelligent. I’m sure this is a problem that will correct itself with time.

Overall I give my secret admirer a seven out of ten. It’s far better than a majority of death threats I’ve seen posted by other gun rights activists but could certainly stand some improvement. I hope my secret admirer takes the criticisms I’ve made in the spirit they’re meant and not a personal attack against his character. I would be interested in seeing more death threats from my secret admirer in a few years to see how much his art form has improved.