Mucus Turd

“The one and only solution to internal pollution is purification.” I am so f'ing grossed out right now. I don't even want to think about what's inside my guts. I just hope the copious quantities of hot peppers that I eat have killed it. Click the picture for more (found via We Like It Raw).

To be very clear: I did not take this photo!

Surprisingly good advice

It's a really simple overview, but Marshall Brain (of “howstuffworks.com” fame) has a surprisingly accurate presentation on how to make a million dollars by starting your own business. There's already a ton of successful entrepreneurs on IAM, and there's definitely space for more.

Via kottke, who has his goal set at $15,000 rather than a million.

Rrrrribbit!

One of the fascinating things about George “My Democracy” Bush is that with all his claims of wanting to seed the world with democracy, he really seems to despise the concept… Seeing as he's said it at least three times publicly, I'm sure everyone remember's Bush's commentary that “a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier.” Keep that in mind when you read this story that 62% of Americans (and growing) disapprove of the President's Social Security plan. His response? “I don't care what all the naysayers say”, or to put it in different terms, “I don't care what the majority says.”

Along the same lines (and contradicting the claims of Bushies that the insurgency is mostly “foreign militants”, and that “the average Iraqi is happy we're there”), US Major General Joseph Taluto in Iraq has described “99.9%” of the insurgency as “good, honest Iraqis” who are “offended by [US] presence” in Iraq. They want a democracy he says, and the voice of their democracy appears to be saying one thing to America — go home.

Stories about over-the-top recruiters continue to fill the news as the military misses its recruiting goals month after month and hemorrhages current staff sick of being mistreated — let alone getting killed by roadside bombs, currently the number one killer in Iraq. While maintaining that it is “unlikely” to be used, the draft system is on full alert and ready to start calling people up, be it for another deceitful war, or an extension on a current one.

Back at home, Bush continues to fearmonger and promote the police surveillance state, while at the same time continuing to work against the American people and for the American corporation. In a recent anti-tobacco lawsuit, not only were the Justice Department pushed from above to cut their demands, but government lawyers actually asked two of their own witnesses to make their testimony less damaging… So that's what hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Bush and the Republicans buys you.

In more pleasant news, my old friend Bryan has been working on a site called ExoTrail, an exotic pets site built with some of the same layout ideas as BME uses (with full permission). It has a lot of potential, but of course he needs your help. If you're interested in the subject, click the picture above to jump to it now (there are also some photo galleries you can look at already, and a forum system as well).

Pleasant Peasant Food

You may have noticed that I use the same ingredients days in a row. That's because I cook just for myself (Rachel likes different food than me), or for at most Nefarious and I, and it's not like she eats very much. So it takes me a while to go through a bag of whatever item I happen to be working with… Anyway, here's what I ate today:

That's chopped cactus fried with capsicum and jalapeno and garlic, along with fresh quartered tomatoes. These were fried in sesame oil with cumin. I also cooked in some rice and corn that Nefarious's nanny made earlier, and then at the end flash-braised it all in a little balsamic vinegar and fresh lime. The links are explanations as to why I choose to eat these things by the way — I push my body more than I should in some ways, be it substance abuse or be it just working extremely long hard hours most of the time (or accidentally hitting my head on stuff), and eating healthy food is essential in keeping me going.

What I did today

First another not-terribly-exciting editing of “what Shannon ate”. Today I made a tomato sauce with various fresh vegetables; fresh tomatoes, green pepper, cactus, white onion, whole young onion, garlic, and mushrooms (they were canned though; it's hard to get good fresh mushrooms in La Paz for some reason). Spicing is pretty basic; salt, pepper, some powdered chile, and a bit of paprika and cumin, and then lightly cooked in olive oil and the vegetable juices.

Certainly a lot nicer than Ragu from a can, no offense intended to the fine folks at Unilever Corporation.

Other than that I've been working hard refining the BMEvideo software (the stuff that lets me add and process videos, build the site, issue memberships, and so on), tweaking it as I slowly add everything from my current archive. I should mention that as a thank you to the people who are part of the initial posting, I'm issuing extra long memberships.

If you have a video (or better yet, lots of them) you'd like me to include, just email it to me at films@bmevideo.com. I can use any content that would go on BME/HARD or BME/extreme, both procedural stuff (ie. modifications being done), show-n-tell clips (ie. mods being shown off), and play videos (ie. pretty much anything that would normally be posted to BME/HARD).

I can accept videos in any format and any quality.

Help me make this site great!

PS. If you'd rather mail in content, just write me and I'll give you a snailmail dropsite, and in a week or so I hope to have an FTP dropsite set up as well for those that have email caps that don't allow them to send videos.