Felicia Day and The Guild Webinar

Who is this Felicia Day? What is "The Guild" webinar series?

First, let's get your attention:

Felicia Day's The Guild - Do You Wanna Date My Avatar video.

So, what is The Guild?

Its basically a sitcom shot for internet release-only on a web site. As Felicia puts it, if she hadn't been so beaten down by producers and the process in Hollywood, she would never have put pen to paper and come up with this show in 2007.

It now has three seasons online which she said they all get together to shoot once a month. It follows the life of online gamer "Codex" and her mismatched, nerdy, dysfunctional, online-gaming friends, who are all in an online, "World of Warcraft" (WOW) type "Guild".

Her show has won a "Streamy" and the show a YouTube award.

Here is Felicia winning the "Streamy Award" for best female actor in a comedy.

Yet another award, here.

From the attention she has gotten from The Guild, she was asked to be in Joss Whedon's (Buffy, Firefly,
Serenity, Dollhouse, etc.) now famous webinar series, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" with Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris and others which is also currently on stage at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (WICA) on, unsurprisingly, Whidbey Island in Washington State.

A Bollywood video Felicia and The Guild crowd did.

A PC Hook-up show interview with Felicia Day.

Basically, I find the lady very talented, attractive and if I were only younger and perfect, I'd be chasing her down. I don't know quite what I'd do when I caught her, but between the two of us, at a coffee shop, I'm sure, just absolutely sure, we'd come up with something. Anyway, I applaud her efforts and look forward to seeing much more from her. Game on, Girl!

Understand Fraud before it hits you

Do you know the warning signs of fraud?

I got this in the mail the other day and thought its always a good thing from time to time, to mention this kind of thing.

The warning signs of fraud; if something:

• Sounds too good to be true
• Pressures you to "act right away"
• Guarantees success
• Promises unusually high returns
• Requires an upfront investment - even for a free prize
• Buyers want to overpay you for an item and have you send them the difference.
• 
  
• Doesn't have the look of a real business


• Something just doesn't look right

• Never click on a link inside an email to visit a web site. Type the address into your browser instead.
• Its easy for a business to look legitimate online. If you have any doubts, verify them with the Better Business Bureau.
• Only 2% of reported identify theft occurs through the mail. Report online fraud to the Federal Trade Commission.
• Retain your receipts, statement and packing slips. Review them for accuracy.
• Shred confidential documents instead of simply discarding them in the trash.

Fraud Facts:

• 
  
• Your bank will never email or call you for your account number.


• Don't wire money to people you do not know.


• Be cautious of work-at-home job offers.


• There are no legitimate jobs that involve reshipping items or financial instruments from your home.


• Foreign lotteries are illegal in the U.S. You can't win no matter what they say.


• Check your monthly bank statements for charges you don't recognize.


• Order a copy of your credit report from each of the three national credit bureaus once a year from annualcreditreport.com, or check with your bank to see if they have a privacy protection plan that includes this.

For more information, see http://www.deliveringtrust.com/topten/

Famous and Favorite Quotes

Beauty's in the eye of the beholder.
-Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, quoted in Molly Bawn

Constancy is the foundation of virtues.
-Francis Bacon, De Augmentia Scientiarum Pt. i, bk. vi, sec. 23

Rugged the breast that beauty cannot tame.
-John Codrington Bampfylde, "Sonnet in Praise of Delia"

One joy dispels a hundred cares.
-Confucius

Beware the fury of a patient man.
-John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel Pt. I

Great actions speak great minds.
-John Fletcher, The Prophetess Act ii, sc. 3

Always listen to experts.
They're tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it.
-Robert Heinlen

Anger is momentary madness.
(Ira furor brevis est.)
-Horace, Epistles Bk. i, epis, ii

Nothing under the sun is accidental.
-Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Emilia Galotti Act vi, sc. 3

I have Immortal longings in me.
-William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra Act v, sc. 2

You cannot define talent.
All you can do is build the greenhouse and see if it grows. -William P. Steven

Win without boasting. Lose without excuse.
-Albert Payson Terhune

[We must] either find a way or make one
 -Hannibal

"Prevention is better than cure"
 -Erasmus

Taliban / Al-Qaeda - Country bumpkins with street thug mentalities

You know, I can't shake the thought today, that terrorists are nothing much more than a bunch of street thugs; inner city, gang member types only from the country side, without the inner city sensibilities; mere street punks who have somehow turned in their switchblade for a gun, a gun for an AK-47, for a grenade launcher, who have moved out to the desert and are now whining over their misery instead of getting up and doing something. They are so entrenched in their own self made religious misery, they seem to hate everyone.

I've spent decades thinking that we, the First World countries, the Westerners, the Imperialist Government types, have gone into these countries and robbed and pillaged these poor countries who had nothing. I thought we were the bad guys. And maybe we were. But do you fight back by blowing up women, children, the handicap, and even your own people? Really? Doesn't that sound, kind of, retarded?

Yes, I said, Retarded. Look it up. Slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress. The word isn't bad, just its use in relation to people who were handicapped, regarding treating them improperly, is. It used to refer to those who were underdeveloped, especially mentally and especially having an IQ of 70 to 85. We know many of the Islamic terrorists are highly educated. So that can't be it. But I seriously think, that on another scale, perhaps, socially, or religiously, they are of lower intellectual capabilities.

Anyway, I'm starting to understand that its not really just us. At some point, when two people are in a bad situation, both can have responsibility. Just try getting away with someone who punches you in the face, then you methodically, beat, then, to, death. Is he going down for hitting you? No, you are going to jail for the rest of your life for killing him, for using inappropriate force. For not stopping when he did and was no longer a threat.

Slowly, surely, I think I'm beginning to get it. If you are a third world country, you may grow up through the years with a first world country in your face, taking your resources. Do you benefit from it? Actually, yes? You usually do. Should you just allow that first world country to continue to take, to benefit almost fully, for themselves? No. At some point, you wake up, you grow up, you become educated enough that you stand and say, "enough".

And then, there is enough. You stand. Your government stands. They broker a new deal with you. You may even nationalize your resources and take back what was yours in the first place; but look, it was you who was too ignorant, too uncaring, or too deluded, initially, to give a rap about it. It doesn't make it right what was done to you, but you pick up yourself and move on, you don't dwell on it and commiserate on it forever.

We all tend to one day wake up and take back what we have been giving away out of ignorance, fear, or simply lack of education. But, when the school bully, to take extreme cases, is finally put in his place by you, do you kill him? No. You may even punch him in the nose, whatever it takes to get his attention. But you do not, try to destroy him, nor continue for EVER to try to destroy him. To kill his friends, his family, his children. Then, your own friends, family, your own people, you don't kill your own people.

Do you? Does that make any sense at all? If you said yes, you are retarded. Socially, damaged. Psychologically, unbalanced.

Lawrence Wright said recently that Al-Qaeda was a reaction, not a movement. They have no plans once they win, should that absurdity ever come to be. They are like the tribes in Lawrence of Arabia, when, once, they finally had control of Akaba (with the help of a British Officer who fought for and with them), these tribes had no idea how to run things, how to work together, how to have a plan after victory.

So maybe that is what they need to be doing. Stop destroying, stop luxuriating in your misery, your killing, your bullying and typically, your own people who are indeed scared of you. And just try to get something productive done.

Ask yourself just one question: what would be happening, what would they be doing, if these terrorists did not have religion to hide behind, to guide them into their insanity?

At least it would be more honest in what they are actually doing and what their real motivations, their real compulsions and their actual desires and fetishes are, and we could just get on with it.

Scale of the Universe

My brother sent me this. I think its completely awesome. One of the few times I really think that fits the scale of something. The music helps too. If you ever wondered at the scale of the size of things in the universe, wonder no more.... Scale of the Universe Have Fun!

Is Al-Qaeda coming back after being castrated?

The word is, Al-Qaeda is coming back. First, aren't terrorists by definition, cowards in that they strike where you aren't looking? Picking typically on innocents that can't even fight back, don't know its coming, or are basically harmless? I know that Bill Mahr, a favorite of mine, said they aren't cowards in slamming a jet into a building, but in many ways, I think they could be defined in that way. But that is not why we are here today....

We just need to make it stop, to stop them, stop it. So, let's make them seem Gay (Sorry Gays, this is to mess with their heads, not yours, they should be so lucky to relax and be open about who they REALLY are, yes?) to their potential advocates (or whatever they find most scary, disgusting or abhorrent).

Make them seem untrustworthy to their own.

Media campaigns. Commercials. Put the word out on the street:

"Spread the word, my friend is gay and just had sex with another Al-Qaeda member. Of course, I killed him, but he said about the member's member, God they are great!"
[again, this is nothing against Gays. Its all a about their own fears and personal horrors wherein this is truly relevant.]
Or,
"I was just ripped off by an Al-Qaeda member, he cheated at cards, never trust those guys."
Or,
"An Al-Qaeda member just raped my mother. And his friend, looked at my sister's bare face. They are horrible people! Death to Al-Qaeda!"

Whatever it takes to discredit them. Spread disinformation. Get with the Russian FSB, the children of the notorious KGB. They invented disinformation after all. Break their backs, bring Al-Qaeda to their knees. All the better to position them for their most humble and desirous, uh, desires.

This is what I don't understand: Disinformation. Clever, irrefutable, incessant. Break them by word of mouth. Set up fake situations for people to see and spread the word themselves through the streets, on web sites, via cell phone text messages. Why are we spending so much on bullets when other methods are also effective in the long term?

But, do not do what the Egyptians did years ago when they first captured these people. Locking them together in jails for years to teach one another. Then torture them repeatedly. Have them raped by dogs (no really, they did that, the Egyptian jailers bragged about it to reporters), humiliate them, humiliated their religion. I may think religion in general is a primitive issue, but at least I try to allow people their own, albeit foolish, thoughts and pursuits (and they should do the same for us, yes?).

Humility is one thing. But to humiliate someone is to ask, to beg, for repercussions. Its to beg for them to come back as guerrilla fighters. And oh, we got what we asked for. No wait, Egypt, got what they asked for, but we're paying for it too! So let's drop the disgusting behavior of some of our friends and of our enemies and get back to being ourselves again:

Intellect, over the primitive.

Al-Qaeda calling for attack on D.C. restaurant at Noon

Good Morning.

Al-Qaeda has called for yet another terror attack, this time on a crowded Washington D.C. restaurant at the lunch hour: Washington | October 12, 2010 12:01:13 AM IST

So, if you are going to be in the D.C. area, you might want to be aware of this news item. Depending on how you see fighting terror, if you tend to go out to lunch in the D.C. area, at least be aware of this situation. You might also want to be aware, or careful, if you are going to eat lunch in Washington State, most likely, that would be Seattle, but you never know. Going on that train of thought, if you work for the government in most likely any major or semi major city, and you eat lunch with many of your coworkers around, that is, there is a local hang out for government workers, its possible some yahoo might take it on themselves to blow that place up.

There is no indication that this has anything to do with Washington State. However, as these things go, we are talking about espionage to a degree, a consideration that has much to do with double or opposite meanings, misdirections.

"Being aware" means, noticing anything unusual, packages left at odd places, or without an owner; people, especially, Middle Eastern but even western types (pretty much anyone now a days as wannabe terrorists from the US are even drawn to the insanity and desire of doing pain to others in order for them to feel empowered) acting strangely, overly nervous for no reason, insane looking idiots driving trucks being used as human lawn mowers, etc.

The way to fight terrorism as a normal, nondescript citizen, is to take life as normal, but with an enhanced attitude yet relaxed demeanor about safety and security.

Also, PLEASE remember that MOST Middle Eastern people, MOST Muslim or Islamic people are simply NOT terrorists. Its only the few, the disaffected and in some cases the mentally unbalanced to worry about. Be concerned only if there are other obvious issues should you be concerned and also aware that it will most likely be nothing; but remain aware, cautious, not paranoid, or over reactive. Don't you be a fool. Just be aware that there are other fools out there who you need to be careful of being near to.

This from WebIndia today:

Al-Qaeda has called on American jihadis to carry out a terror attack on a crowded restaurant in Washington to massacre US government workers.

The terror threat was unearthed from the second edition of Al-Qaeda's English-language magazine 'Inspire'.

"A random hit at a crowded restaurant in Washington, D.C., at lunch hour might end up knocking out a few government employees," the New York Daily News quoted Yahya Ibrahim, as having written in the 74-page propaganda magazine.

"Targeting such employees is paramount and the location would also give the operation additional media attention," he added.

According to a copy of the magazine obtained by the SITE intelligence group, Al-Qaeda also urged those bent on murdering for Islam to use everything from pickup trucks to improvised pressure-cooker bombs to kill.

The trucks can be fashioned into "the ultimate mowing machine", with steel blades welded to the grill to "mow down the enemies of Allah" by running down Americans on crowded sidewalks "to achieve maximum carnage" in a "martyrdom operation".

"This method has not been used before," advises Al-Qaeda in its "Tips for our brothers in the U.S."

The 74 pages long magazine also features "exclusive" comments by radical cleric Anwar Awlaki on "The Mardin Declaration", a condemnation of terrorism issued in March by Muslim scholars meeting in the Turkish city of Mardin.

Awlaki, who is now hiding in Yemen and has been tied to the Fort Hood shootings and the failed Christmas Day plot, has called the declaration a "disgrace" and "not worth the ink and the paper it's written on".

The first edition included articles by Osama bin Laden and Awlaki. It encouraged the Western readers to "conduct attacks in the West and to join the 'jihad'.

Highlighting the threat due to the magazine, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had earlier said: "DHS and the FBI are concerned ... that the sophisticated, colloquial English-language magazine could appeal to certain Western individuals and inspire them to conduct attacks in the United States in the future". (ANI)

I would direct Al-Qaeda to the Islamic Terrorist Chant released here yesterday. Read it, learn it, live it, love it.