Let's get this straight right off the bat: InvertedMind is not accusing Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael "Ron Mexico" Vick of being a member of al Qaeda.

South Carolina inmate #40948-018 beat me to it.

Mike Vick is a number of things.  First of all, he's a thorn in the side of society.  He's nothing more than a pimple on the face of Liberty, but he most certainly is cruel to dogs.  And probably to kitties.  He's also an insult to the good name of the NFL quarterback position.  I would imagine he probably cooked ants with a magnifying glass as a child (or maybe even last week, if he is really as bad as his reputation would have us believe).

But in a lawsuit filed July 23 with the U.S. District Court in Richmond, the aforementioned inmate stopped just short of blaming Vick for Global Warming.  I won't spoil the rest, though.  See the entirely hand-written filing for yourself. 

I wanted to let you, my faithful few readers, know that updates will be sporadic for a little while as InvertedMind and the InvertedFamily are sorting through two very private, very personal issues right now.  Some details will come with time, but until the time comes when I feel comfortable sharing, it will remain private.  I can assure you that my sense of humor is still intact, and that my sense of reality is as detached as ever.  However, words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

In time, all will be resolved.  Thanks again for visiting regularly, and please keep the entire InvertedFamily in your prayers. 

Well, it’s been a little over a week since I last blessed cursed your world with my thoughts. This week has been a tough one, but I won’t bore you with the details.

What I will do, though, is give you the latest Cool Crap of the Week!

Everyone who has seen or used a Mac but doesn’t own one knows that, while the utter lack of useful things like mouse buttons and the shallow reach of software into the Mac world, one thing is true: even with the advent of Windows Vista, Mac OS is still light years ahead in appearance. It’s got a slick interface, nice animations, it’s intuitive enough that even the dumbest of the dumb can figure it out (once you get past that whole mouse buttons thing), and it has some nice little desktop “widgets” that are both useful and attractive.

What’s a “widget”? Well, speaking strictly from the technical side of things, it’s almost anything. We programmers use the term in a lot of different ways, but it’s basically a cross between a whatchamacallit and a gadget: too small to call it an application, but too useful to not have it anyway.

Unfortunately, Microshaft Microsoft thinks that the only tools that are useful cost at least $400 and take up half your hard drive. So we don’t get widgets. We do, however, get a talking freakin’ paper clip.

But there’s an alternative. Two, in fact. The first, and slightly less popular, is Google Desktop (GD). GD basically tries to be an all-in-one solution for the desktop: a place to put all your information, in the form of “Desktop Gadgets” in Google terminology; as well as a desktop search tool. Basically, it replaces the Windows Search functionality, which was never very good anyway. It also integrates into Google’s Web site, so you can see a combo of local files and Web search results. Don’t worry, your local results are “injected” into Google results. No personal data is ever transmitted to the Googleplex.  There are several hundred to maybe around a thousand gadgets available.

 

Yahoo! has taken the __dget idea to a whole new level, aesthetically.  While Google’s gadgets lean toward simplicity, the majority of developers for Yahoo! Widgets are pushing appearance to the extreme.  Making great use of alpha channel transparency, they–…what?  You don’t know what alpha channel transparency is?  Never mind, just know that it makes things look really, really awesome.

 Does that make one better than the other?  Not really.  It all comes down to what you need.  If appearance and a clean look is important to you, go with Yahoo! Widgets.  If you need the peak of functionality with desktop search capabilities, Google’s your ticket.

So, what does InvertedMind use?  Well, it’s sure not a Mac.  I’ll just leave it at that, and let you decide for yourself which one you like best.

Sometimes you see, hear or read about something that absolutely must be shared with the world.  It becomes your moral, social and spiritual obligation to enlighten the rest of the population.

Here in North Carolina, we pick up a great morning radio show called the John-Boy & Billy Show.  If you haven’t heard them, you need to.

Today on the show, they asked a trivia question with what I feel is a very obvious answer: “This American Corporate icon can be recognized by more people in the world than the Christian Cross.”  The parts in bold are the things you need to make sure you absolutely understand, and continue to understand, because the first answer that someone gave may make you dumber, and you don’t want to forget the right answer after you hear this.

A man from Springfield, Georgia, responded with, “it’s the swashtika…uh…swastik…uh…that Russian symbol.”

There is so much wrong with that, I couldn’t even begin to imagine where to start.  However, it was my obligation to tell you about it, in order to prevent you, too, from confusing the symbol of the German Nazi party with that of the Golden Arches of McDonald’s.

Some things can’t wait a week.

Some people jump off roofs in roller blades. Some guys break boards over their buddy’s heads. And then there are those crazy asians, who play extreme Roshambo (Rocks, Paper, Scissors, not “first I kick you in the nuts, then you kick me in the nuts, and the first one to scream loses”).

But wait, there’s a twist. Well, not a twist. The end result is more like a statue. Watch below to see what I’m talking about.

There is, without a doubt, absolutely nothing I can add to this video to make it funnier, except that “size matters.”

Without further adieu, this week’s Cool Crap of the Week.

I really didn’t know where to put this — Mindless Ramblings, or La-La Land — so I just put it in both.

Her Cuteness has spent the majority of the day cranky. Well, that doesn’t quite cover it. Let’s just say that if she was a dragon, I’d be living in a pile of ashes by now.

This morning, I took her for a walk around the block. Usually she sleeps really well after a walk, and she was due for a nap. Boy, was she ever due for a nap. When we got back, I put her down and took a shower so I could go for a haircut. She was still stirring when I left, but she was quiet. And Her Hotness was trying to catch a few extra winks in our room. I don’t know why, because Her Cuteness let us sleep in today. I didn’t even have to get up until 8:07!

When I got home, Her Hotness was in the guest bedroom, and it turned out that Her Cuteness had just recently fallen asleep. This was an hour after I had left, and almost 90 minutes after I first laid her down. I regret now that I didn’t see this as a harbinger of the doom to come today.

It wasn’t a bad early afternoon.  Her Cuteness slept until about 12:45, and she had lunch around 1:00.  Ahh, an hour of peace.

By mid-afternoon she was clearly not in a good mood.  The problem was that it was way too early to put her to bed, but way too late to give her a second nap.  So we tried to give her a banana for a snack.  We should have taken this is the second indication that it would go no where but further downhill as the afternoon and evening progressed:

Note: This is why I repeatedly ask Her Hotness to be blunt with me.  It’s exactly for situations like this.  It’s because I can hear your words just fine (assuming you talk loud enough to my slightly bad ears these days), but I can’t read signs to save my life.  If you asked me to read your tea leaves, I’d probably tell you, “it’s Earl Grey.”  And that’s just because it’s the first type of tea that comes to mind.

All day long I had been cooking ribs.  The one thing I know about cooking those things is that you have to do it ssssllloooooowwwwwwwlllllyyyyyyyy.  If you don’t have a smoker, here’s what you do: throw them into your crock pot, preferably with some sort of dry rub.  I have a homemade one I use, and I moistened the meat with terriyaki sauce.  Cook it for about four hours on high, then turn it down to low for about 15 minutes (to suck the juices back into the meat).  Then, throw them onto a 500-degree grill with some barbecue sauce to get a good sear on the meat.  I bought two and a half pounds of meat for less than a half rack would cost at any decent restaurant, and it was just as tender and tasty.

I mention that because it was the only — the only — moment of serenity I had after about 3:00 p.m.

I won’t go into any more details, because it’s all a bunch of mush in my head at this point.  The bottom line is that we lais her down before 7:00 because she was so tired that she had no idea why she was even crying.  She then proceeded to cry for no reason for another two hours.

And then Dale Earnhardt, Jr. got caught in a wreck he had nothing to do with.  It’s been a real friggin’ fun night.

Case in point: the highlight of the evening, aside from the ribs, was watching Kevin James (I bet you wondered how he fit into this whole thing) give the command to start engines at this evening’s NASCAR race.  For anyone who saw Matthew McConnaughey give the command at the 2006 Daytona 500, let’s just say that Kevin James just removed ol’ Matt’s manhood tonight.  If there was any more testosterone in his command, he would have spontaneously grown a Z.Z. Top beard, right there on television.

In other news, we bought an ice cream maker this week, and made two batches last night.  Her Hotness made a roasted pecan and toasted coconut concoction that is really good.  And I hate coconut.  I made what I can only call “Caramel Latte.”  Coffee-flavored ice cream with a heavy caramel overtone and a subtle chocolate note in the middle of each bite.  The only way I can describe it is “javalicious.”

It takes a lot to be added to my list of heroes. Well, okay, you really just need to pour me a decent cup of coffee on a Monday morning, or make a Website like “You Park Like an A$$hole” (lightly censored, because I care).

See, my second-biggest pet peeve is people who don’t give a rat’s behind about how poorly they park (preceeded only by people who don’t give a rat’s behind about how they drive). My goal in life is to go through it quietly, help as many people as I can, collect thank-yous as repayment (except where money, food, or the aforementioned Cup of Joe is more appropriate) and simply avoid inconveniencing others. You don’t have to like me for it. I just figure that the easiest way to avoid a black eye is to not do things that might make someone want to slug me.  If you don’t mind getting the snot beat out of you, though, then you’d be more at home at IParkLikeAnIdiot.com.