American Warmonger

Me and John Bambeneck - In the lion's den

Okay, so there's this site called Blogcritics that gets around 600,000 hits a month. Both John and I blog there as a propagation of your voices. We get free stuff as well, but that's a different matter. Ever since I joined up a month or so ago I've noticed an overwhelming majority of lefties roaming the place. No, none of them are as bad as the trolls we fisk with frequency, but they do hold the majority on the site. Many of them are even capable of thought! *gasp*

To tell the truth, I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this article other than to say that John and I are doing a splendid job of holding our own in vastly superior numbers. I would suffice to say that John is doing a much better job than I am if only for the reason he is writing much more than me. So, if any righties out there want to even things up and can speak politely we could always use another blogcritic to even things out a bit. As a kicker you get the opportunity to review books, DVD's, movies, CD's etc. for the low, low price of FREE! Yup, that's right, absolutely nuthin'.

So what are you waiting for? Go over to Blogcritics today and ask Eric Olsen to let you in.

New Video For Kill The King

For those of you who have seen my blog and know my internet moniker of "the nuke" can see right away that me being all over this new album and DVD by Megadeth is quite simply too fitting. It's like they knew before they put together the cover art or something. So anyway, I'm getting the distinct pleasure of reviewing Megadeth's new Greatest Hits: Back To The Start package coming out June 28th. You can take a peek at the playlist and place a pre-order here.

Can't wait to get some dirt your friends don't have on the new release? Well, I'm here to please. I have recently obtained...and watched, rocked out, etc. to a new pre-release video for Kill The King. For me the video was sort of choppy, but that could be my internet connection. I was given seven different versions of it so at least one of them should work for you.

A Quick Review:

Aside from the chop that is invariably on my end it was the same song that was put out in 2004...THANK GOD! It probably would have disappointed if they'd have tried to make an acoustic version or put in a symphony recording. It's a good solid Megadeth tune that stays true to their style. It's not my personal favorite Megadeth tune, (a toss up between Sweating Bullets and Hangar 18) but it's definitely worthy of being on the greatest hits album.

The video is what is different and the video is what I should be reviewing. If this were the debut release of a video on its own I would have felt let down. It chops from scene, to scene, to scene and back again. It would not help tell the story of the song in the least. Fortunately, this video has a different purpose. It takes snippets from footage throughout the career of Megadeth and stirs up memories of what the band is all about.

Bottom line, if you're looking for a standalone video to retell the Kill The King story this is not it. If you're looking for a reminder of accomplishment that gets you geared up for the release June 28th then this is the video for you. It's also a good piece of heavy metal nostalgia.

What? Not good enough for you? You want to see it for yourself? Fine, here you go:

Did I mention the GIGANTOUR this summer? It doesn't appear to be coming to the Hampton Roads area, but I have yet to see all the dates.

This post is also available at Blogger News Network.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/08/032345.php">This post is also available at Blogcritics.

Free Thoughts From Foreign Lands

Nickie "The Don" Goomba has given us all a directed blog launching. I can't really say that I blame him. Stefania's Free Thoughts has poor spelling, bad grammar, slow loads and unattractive design. So why am I giving her props after all of this? Because she tells it like it is better than most American bloggers I know. The best part is she isn't an American. She's off in Europe somewhere proving that not all Euros hade Bush and America...and she's doing one hell of a job. Go check her out and be amazed at how many people in the world actually love Bush and love America.

GO NOW!

Bunker Mulligan, May You Rest In Peace.

On Friday, July 3rd Michael "Bunker Mulligan" Reed passed on to the great big golf course in the sky. He left this earth early with only 52 years of life. It should have been more, but God chose to take him early for his own reasons.

I only knew him through the occasional kind comment and I would drift by his site occasionally and leave one myself. I had never known him to be brash or unkind to anyone else in the blogosphere. From the little I knew of him he would have a great friend to have, just as long as you like to golf...a lot.

For those of you who wish to pay your respects with flowers to the family they have requested that you instead make donations to Homes For Our Troops. They are a non-profit organization with the purpose of building new homes or remodeling existing homes to accommodate service members that return home with permanent disabilities. Please go by and see what you can do to help.

Services for Michael Reed will be at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, Friday, June 10th at 10AM.A link to directions can be found here. There are no restrictions on who may attend but I would suggest you contact the family prior to showing up at the funeral.

If you would like to see a photo-collage of Bunker to get a better look into his life you can go here. If you have the inkling please go pay your respects to the family. Bunker Mulligan, you will be sorely missed. To the family I offer my deepest condolences.

This post is also available at Blogger News Network.

Potential Ebola, Marburg Virus Vaccine Effective In Monkeys

U.S. and Canadian scientists in Winnipeg, Manitoba have reported the successful testing of a vaccine for both the Marburg and Ebola viruses in Nature Medicine Magazine this Sunday. According to Steven Jones, the lead scientist behind the study"

“The data would suggest that instead of 100 percent chance of dying, they would have an 80 percent chance of survival.”

This would mean that there are only another five to six years until safety tests for humans could be completed for these potential breakthroughs in medical science. This makes these vaccines about halfway through their development life-cycle of 10-15 years.

Ebola has been responsible for just under 1,300 deaths in mostly Sudan and Zaire with about a 70% chance of a violent death from severe blood loss within days of infection. Fortunately, it has not spread to more populated regions of the world with the exception of Reston, Virginia. A strain not dangerous to humans was found in a shipment of monkeys there.

The Marburg virus is considered equally as deadly in the same manner. It also has been isolated to parts of Africa, has similar effects and has an average death rate of about 80%.

This post is also available at Blogger News Network.

Political profiling

Jeremy's Political Profile

Overall: 60% Conservative, 40% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

These were actually some pretty direct questions. Not a bad quiz at all.

Taken from Toni at MyView.

Houses SUCK! part II

Well, happy birthday to me...do go down to Lowes and fix the kitchen sink!

Okay, here's the story. Our kitchen sink suddenly lost pressure on my birthday. It was bad, but we could get by. Yesterday was great. We had some friends over and my wife, as always, gets told to go into the restaurant or catering business. She's a fabulous chef that would probably be kicked out of culinary school because the instructor would CONSTANTLY be doing something wrong. Yes, she's that good and never went to school for it. Anyway, that's not the point of the story.

Today, the day after, it is my sole task to get the sink from low to full flow. So, at 4PM I went down to Lowes, found out what I needed to do and went home. Basically, it was assumed that I had a "ball-type" sink and was told how to take one of them bad boys out. So I go home and start to disassemble, with the water OFF, just in case you were wondering. I get down to the stem and can go no further. There is such a calcium build-up that it won't budge.

In my grand intelligence I take the parts that I have managed to take off and a couple of digital pics of what I have left back to Lowes for some help. Maybe there's a special trick to getting that last remaining bastard part off. The guy at Lowes takes one look at the picture and knows exactly the type of assembly I have:

Hey! I know that one! I'd recognize it anywhere! Yeah, we don't sell that assembly. The assembly you're looking for is solid brass and can only be found at this one specialty plumbing store and they'll have to special order it. It's shouldn't run more than 30-40 bucks.

Great, I'm already halfway there sooo, I guess I'll be taking a whole new faucet assembly. It's a nice one too. It has a button on the pull-out head that will change from steady flow to shower mode. All in all it ran about $85. It's not too horribly priced and gets us out of the woods. Besides, the old one is probably 25 years old. It's about shot.

So we get the new one home, start running through the installation with my son asking me about every 30 seconds if I'm done yet. Yeah, he's seven and it was cut for about the first 20 minutes.

So next, on taking out the old one I make my donation to the installation gods. Basically, this means I cut myself on a sharp edge. It's all good though. It's a sign the install should go smoothly. Everything seems to be going smashingly.

Okay, screw on nut to center copper pipe to mount faucet head. Hmmm...this nut seems to be giving me a problem getting threaded. It doesn't seem to want to go. Ah! Maybe it's one of those reverse thread jobbies. Let me look...WTF?....okay, where's the thread on this thing? There's supposed to be a friggin' thread on this nut! Well, I guess I can put that on tomorrow after I get the right nut from the guys at Lowes. I can still complete all the installation stuff, It just won't be completely mounted. It’s annoying, but small stuff that can be fixed with minor repairs. On to the install!

Alright, that should just about do it. Hmm..why the hot water valve leaking? It's completely shut off. Let me see what happens when I turn this on. That's cool, it only leaks when the valve is turned off. Since we want the valve in the ON position I can find somebody to do some solder work on the copper later.

Now, the moment of truth. Both valves on, lets flip this sucker on....*ffssshh*..*thud*...trickle.... Okay, so it's just as broke as the last one. It can't be. Damnit, there's something I'm missing. Okay, take some stuff apart, monkey with the fittings. Lets try again...trickle...great, it still doesn't work.

[continue the troubleshooting ad nauseum]

Turns out that one of the gaskets on my connection hose had disintegrated on the old hoses and had gotten clogged in the part that goes from the faucet body to the pull out faucet head. Total install time, excluding the two new problems that need fixed: 5 hrs 50 minutes. (4PM to 9:50PM)

1. Still need to get a THREADED nut.
2. Still need to fix the valve on the hot water under the sink.

Maybe I should just move into a big apartment and have someone else fix this sort of crap for me? I'm a computer geek, not a painter, or a plumber, or an electrician, or a roofer, or a builder......

...I guess I'm ALL those things now.