I think my job is turning me into one of "those guys". Some of you might know what I mean. One of "those guys" that spend all day at work writing computer code, then going home only to do more coding. For example, I just spent the last few minutes writing a script that trawls an RSS feed for updates with a specific string every five minutes. Why? Well, I would tell you the truth, but I think it'd be more entertaining to let your imagination go wild. If you want it, the code is below (it's Python, by the way):

import urllib import sys import time from datetime import datetime url = sys.argv[1] thing = raw_input('What do you seek: ') lastDate = '' while True:   try: f = urllib.urlopen(url)   except (IOError): continue   body = f.read()   lines = body.split('n')   for line in lines:      if line.strip().startswith('<pubDate>'):          curDate = line.split('>')[1].split('<')[0]          if curDate == lastDate:             break          else:             if thing in body:                print "OMG! %s has been found!" % thing                sys.exit(1)             else:                print "There's an update, but it's probably nothing special"                lastDate = curDate                break   f.close()   print "%s -- %s" % (lastDate, str(datetime.now()))   time.sleep(300)

Less than a week remains to wait.

Why does time seem to slow when you're in a hurry?

I've had enough of this gay marriage debate. I say it's high time we go back to the traditional definition of marriage. No, I don't mean the lame one that gay marriage bashers carry like a banner: marriage = 1 man + 1 woman. I mean the real traditional definition:

Marriage = 1 man + n women : n = however many the man wants

That's how it was in the past, and that's how it should be now. The traditional ways are best, always. A woman is just property, after all. Physical beauty alone should also be a perfectly acceptable reason for marriage, unless political expediency is involved. Oh, and no age limits. Seven or eight is a perfect age for a girl to get married.

If that all seems to risqué, I ask: why should we even care about marriage at all? Didn't the great Paul-Saul-Muad'Dib write an entire chapter about how people should abstain from marriage altogether (1 Corinthians 7)? We should all, as a people, band together and obliterate marriage and allow only marriage to Jesus.

… Wait… I think I may want to rephrase that.

Good morning, everyone!
I hope everyone has a fun-filled and adventurous September 11th. I know I plan to.

... What? ...Oh, that thing? Geez, that happened nine bloody years ago. We can't go moping on about that all the time. I wonder how long it'll take before people stop caring. When did people stop caring about December 7th?

by Jimbo
Jimbo News Network - Religious Correspondent

A US church is causing shockwaves across the globe after its recent announcement of a book-burning ceremony wherein a pile of non-Christian religious texts will be lit ablaze late next week. The Church of the Multiplying Loaves and Fishes, located in a quiet suburb of Jimboville, was fed up with the religious persecution in the world and felt an old-fashioned book burning would send a clear message: don't mess with Christianity.

"We wanted to burn books in an unbiased way," said head pastor Jimbo. "We didn't want to look like a bunch of jerks." Pastor Jimbo explained how the initial plan was to burn just Qu'rans, but the congregation felt that that would seem too prejudiced. By burning an even spread of sacred texts, the church wanted to demonstrate that it didn't dislike Muslims specifically; they dislike all non-Christians.

Heads of various religions agree that the book-burning, while distasteful, has religious equality at its cornerstone. "While I am frustrated by their insistence to burn the Qu'ran, it does make me feel a little better that other non-Islamic texts are being put to the torch," says ibn Abihi, imam of al-Jimbo Mosque. Pastor Jimbo wanted to ensure that equality is very important to his congregation.

The list of texts is a lengthy one. There are expected to be many copies of the Qu'ran, the Bhagavd Gita, the Bardo Thodol, the Poetic Edda, the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Upanishads, and many others. "We're trying hard to find a copy of the Ramayana," said Pastor Jimbo. "We hope to find one before the big ceremony." He continues to say that he will offer a formal apology and promise to burn one at a later date if a copy is not found soon enough.

I don't like those 5-Hour Energy commercials: the ones that say, "we all know what 2:30 feels like." They try to make going for a soda or coffee some sort of evil that will leave you in a constant cycle of sin, whereas just one shot of 5-Hour Energy will be enough, but I'm not buying it. If it's 2:30 in the afternoon, why on Earth would you need five hours worth of energy? That so-called 2:30 Feeling only occurs at work, so you only need enough energy to last you for the rest of the work day. Well, not even all of that; you just need enough energy to get you to the "oh boy, it's almost time to go home" energy surge. If you nurse a soda, that should be more than enough sugar to get you through the day and not make you jittery.

You know what? I think soda companies should run with this. I would love to see Pepsi release a commercial saying how its products can get you over that 2:30 lag, and be delicious, longer lasting, and cheaper. Candy companies should do this too. Maybe ice cream trucks should start patrolling the business districts instead of the suburbs. I can almost guarantee much higher business, especially from people like me. The gods know that by 2:30 I would do anything to leave my desk. Ice cream just sweetens the deal (no pun intended).

You will never, ever win me.

I hate trying to explain the Harvest Moon series to people. No matter how hard I try, it always sounds like something incredibly boring. You play a farmer who has to build up his/her ranch to continue building profit and win over a significant other. You water crops, milk cows, shear sheep, and take care of various other chores every single day in the pursuit of ever more money. You then go out on the town and try to build up relationships with the townsfolk. Even with this apt description, it fails to pass across just how fun and addicting the series is (except for Save the Homeland, obviously)

Grand Bazaar starts you off in the small village of Zephyr Town where you are given an oddly well cared for plot of land and told to do whatever you want, so long as you open a stall in the town's main tourist attraction: the weekly bazaar. Considering how much the mayor looks like a 12th century crusader who could rip you in half with one arm, it's a good idea to do so. With that, you are let loose into the world.

At time of writing, I'm close to finishing my first year in the game. This is taking longer than expected, as the in-game days seem longer than most previous games in the series. Maybe I have just played so many of them that I have reached the level of a deity and am just THAT GOOD, or, more likely, the game developers are trying to make the game more accessible. I suppose I can forgive them for this betrayal, but I would still like a hard mode or something.

The selection of bachelorettes in Grand Bazaar comes in at your standard five. You have the mayor's daughter, Sherry, who is named after an alcoholic beverage. There's the high-powered businesswoman, Freya, who is named after a Norse fertility goddess. There's the clumsy maid, Daisy, who's named after the dress-wearing, long-haired tomboy princess of Sarasaland. There's the azure-haired rich girl, Antoinette, who's named after the annoying Frenchman in Sonic SatAM. Finally, there's the cavern-bound shrine maiden, Emiko, who I can't think of a pop culture reference for just yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something later. I'm aiming for Antoinette, who's hard to visualize as being voiced by someone other than Rie Kugimiya, and I assure you it's for deeply profound and thought-out reasons (blue hair… swoon~).

Unlike previous titles in the series, there is no shipping bin for sending your produce out. Everything revolves around the game's titular weekly bazaar. While this makes things a bit more realistic, it also proves to be one of the game's few frustrations. In order to sell anything or, really, purchase anything meaningful, you have to wait for the bazaar that weekend. This can prove frustrating when you're trying to buy a cow or a chew toy or a specific type of seed early in the week, but can't because the bazaar doesn't start for another four days. On the plus side, it does make selling things a bit more entertaining and hectic.

Overall, Grand Bazaar is fun. It rates much higher than the mediocre Island of Happiness and positively stomps all over Harvest Moon: DS 'neath its mighty boots. To sum things up:

Pros:

• Return to button based controls
• Blue-haired rich girl
• Pimp hat
• Addicting

Cons:

• Artificial game-lengthening bazaar system
• Have to wait for things to be given to you
• No Popuri
• Addicting

Go and buy this game.

Oh dear, my mail has come. This evening can end in one of two ways:

1. I embark on a delightfully nostalgic return to my childhood and enjoy a movie from my past.
2. I am thoroughly heartbroken as I berate my past for watching such tripe.

Welcome back, viewers. You are tuned in to Cooking with Jimbo on J-TV with your host: me! Now, last time you may remember we cooked up a delish-dish known as kadhai murghi. Let us continue to build on that success with another scrumptious dish: Zucchini Primavera. Now, I should warn you all ahead of time that this recipe does call for some advanced cooking skills, like boiling water, so the faint of heart should change channels immediately. With that little disclaimer done, let us move on.

Step 1: Purchase the Ingredients
Regular viewers should be well acquainted with this step by now. All great recipes start by acquiring the necessary ingredients through any means. Even if you have to lie, cheat, and steal, you will get them. Fight the power! Anyway, for this particular recipe, you'll need 2 (two) tsp (teaspoons) of olive oil, an onion, 0.5 (zero-point-five) teaspoons of salt, a bell pepper, a zucchini, 3 (three) cloves of garlic, one (1) pound of penne pasta, 1.5 (one-and-a-half) cups of peas, 0.75 (three-quarter) cups of crumbled feta cheese, and 0.5 (five-tenths) a cup of white wine. The wine is of particular importance. It doesn't matter if you need to sell a kidney or remortgage your house, you must purchase the most expensive wine available. If you don't, this recipe won't work.

Step 2: Prepare the Ingredients
Even though you have all of the ingredients spread out across your counter / table / aircraft carrier deck, they are mostly worthless to you until you have them prepared. Don't worry; it's simpler than it sounds. First of all, you must take your sharpest cutting utensil and avoid cutting your fingers off. While doing so, you must cut your veggies. Cut the zucchini lengthwise, and then thinly slice it. Next, peel the onion and dice it up the way you like. Mince the garlic into tiny pieces: the smaller the better. If you have a microscope, be sure to cut it down at the cellular level. The bell pepper is a little tricky. You need to use all of your strength to pull out the core by the stem. Some wussies would suggest cutting a ring around the stem first, but they don't know what they're talking about. After that, cut it how you like.

Step 3: Bring Water to a Boil
Take a pot big enough for all of that penne pasta and fill it with water. Put it over heat and wait for it to boil. The amount of time this takes varies with the heat source. It will take very little time over a nuclear reactor or your car's hood, but it will take significantly longer over a space heater or a stove top. Just be patient.

Step 4: Cook Pasta and Ingredients
With the water boiling, dump in the pasta and follow the directions on the box. If you purchased pasta that did not come in a box, then you don't even need to cook it. You can eat it raw, dummy! Anyway, heat the oil in a pan over medium-high nuclear reactor heat and add the onion and salt. Cook it until the onions just start to turn brown. Next, add the pepper and zucchini, and cook until they start to become soft. Hopefully you chose a big enough pan, or you will likely be making a mess by this point. Stir in the garlic and cook for a little while until the heavenly smell of garlic fills your lungs, and the nostrils of every person in the household. Pour on the wine and let it simmer for one (1) to two (2) minutes. By this point, the pasta should be done cooking. If it isn't, throw everything away and start over. If it is, great! Save half (0.5) a cup of the water and drain the rest.

Step 5: Mix the Ingredients
For most intents and purposes, the cooking should be done. Return the pasta to the pot, pour in the saved water, dump on the ingredients from the pan, and mix in the feta cheese. That is it! As soon as the feta cheese liquefies from the pasta's radiant heat, you will be ready to pretend to enjoy the meal while watching TV and burping.

I think it's time for me and my bowels to have a good, long sit down. There's been a lot of pressure lately, a lot of rumbling in the pipes, and I just want to settle this before there's an explosion. I know there is going to be some friction, especially when the paperwork gets involved, but I'm sure it'll mostly proceed smoothly. These events have happened regularly in the past, and I have no doubt it will be resolved in a quick and painless manner. Oh yes, we'll definitely have to put something on paper for this little doozy. It's the only way we can properly clean-up after all is said and done. As always, though, I'm sure the output of this pow-wow will just end up going down the tubes.