--- Did some research in

--- Did some research in the wee hours of the morning about obtaining the non-director’s cut of Last of the Mohicans.
Someone on the IMDB boards did the math: the theatrical release is 107
minutes long; the extended version is 114 minutes long. The version
that’s 107 minutes is available on DVD in Europe and Australia. They
said that if you have a DVD player that is good for all regions, you theoretically
should be able to purchase a theatrical release DVD from amazon.co.uk
and be able to watch it on your TV, smirking the whole time at how you
outsmarted Michael Mann’s best efforts to frustrate you.
Which led to my next question: what region is my DVD player good for?
If you actually open up read the frigging manual, the instructions are
written in both English and French. Woohoo. Maybe the bilingual nature of my instruction manual has given me a clue? Why
would they put out the instructions manual in English and French if
they’re expecting only Americans to be buying the silly things? Who
speaks French here other than little kids in immersion classes? No one,
that’s who. I’ll bet it’s good for all regions! The manual
said I could find this information on the back of the player. So, I
marched into the living room, heart full of hope that I could finally
get this taken care of, even if I had to do it in such an international
way. I could deal with that. I like getting packages from amazon.co.uk: it’s cool.
After much wirely manipulation, I was, however, stumped. I couldn’t
find the information anywhere on the back of the DVD player. Huh? I
know it’s made in Japan; I know not to stick it next to a full
bathtub or the meanies at UL will come over and beat me with a rubber
hose before I can electrocute myself; I know where all of the speaker
wires go in, but for the life of me I couldn’t suss out what region
the DVD player was good for. Hmmm. Went back to the instructions manual
for more information and Eureka! There was a copy of the design. Oh.
Here I had been expecting words when it was obviously one of those
cases where they came up with a clever little design for everyone in
the world to be able to use. Aha. Then I just about lost interest. I
didn’t want to pull the DVD player out again: it’s jammed rather
effectively into the small space we had available on the TV
console-thingy. You have to move the DirecTV box to get at it, and
because it’s a receiver and a five disc DVD player, it’s kind of
big and bulky---and hard to move. Even the thought of having my very
own copy of the movie and the availability of being able to watch the
very yummy, loinclothed, Daniel Day-Lewis run up that rocky hillside,
his gorgeous long hair flowing in the breeze, whenever I wanted to
wasn’t enough of an incentive to pull the damn thing out again.
Hmmmm. Pondered on this for a few minutes and then I remembered we
still had the boxes down in the storage room. I’ll bet it’s on there.
Ran down three flights of steps in my jammies, praying the downstairs
neighbors wouldn’t pop their heads out of their door to see my boobs
hopping jauntily as I blew by. Fortunately, I made it to the storage
room without incident, found the box and there it was: a big ol’ 1 on a truncated map of the globe, declaring that I’m screwed because I’m an American.
Damnit! I don’t know whether I’m more pissed off that I can’t
outsmart Michael Mann, or that I wasn’t tech savvy enough to know to
purchase a DVD player that was good worldwide. --- Michele over at A Small Victory has an interesting piece today. You can find the original link here.

Seems the animal rights activists have gone a wee bit to the fringe side of things. Yeah, I know they already are
fringe, but it seems as if the thought of someone murdering mice for
biotech research has finally pushed them into the deep end of the pool
of hysteria. If this isn’t threatening, I don’t know what is. "All customers and their families are considered legitimate
targets," the group wrote. "We have given all the collaborators a
chance to withdraw from their relations from (Huntingdon)," the note
continued. "We will now be doubling the size of every device we make.
Today it is 10 pounds, tomorrow 20. Until your buildings are nothing
more than rubble. It is time for this war to truly have two sides. No
more will all of the killing be done by the oppressors, now the
oppressed will strike back."
The oppressed will strike back, eh? I don’t know about you, but I
have this hideous vision of one of those industrial sized rats with a
lump of C-4 strapped to its back, detonators poking randomly out of the
plastic explosive, waddling its way around an empty and dark office
building. But, of course, this would never happen in the real world:
rats obviously have more rights than humans: besides, because of their
low levels of intelligence they can’t exactly detonate the damn thing
and not be killed at the same time, so they would never be used in the
first place. Because, of course, not one animal can be killed for
anything, and anyone who does is just mean and deserves to die. Just one more instance of my imagination going to waste. Sigh.

But wait, if you thought that little threat wasn’t good enough, have no fear, there’s more:
In its anonymous message Tuesday, Revolutionary Cells wrote that
Chiron has not seen the last of the group and warned that the chairman
of the biotech firm's board and the rest of "the company's team" is in
danger. "How are you sleeping?" the message said. "You never know when
your house, your car even, might go boom. Who knows, that new car in
the parking lot may be packed with explosives. Or maybe it will be a
shot in the dark."

Yikes. I’m
scared and I’m not a target. What a great way to get your message
across: scare the living daylights out of some secretary who took a job
there to be able to pay her mortgage and feed her kids. Now, instead of
worrying about feeding, sheltering, and educating her kids, she also
has to worry about some nutjob planting a bomb in her car because,
according to their communiqué, she’s a “member of the team.” If
I were her, I’d probably quit. Who needs the hassle? But why should
she? She hasn’t done anything but type up letters and answer phones?
How is she responsible? She’s guilty by association? Simply because
she needed a job that would cover her mortgage and maybe had good
benefits? What’s amazing to me is that anyone who levels a threat
like this is usually called a terrorist. We generally have no
reservations about doing so, either. But not in this case: the FBI’s
the only one who’s calling a spade a spade: everyone else, including
the writer of this article, is dodging the issue. If memory serves,
there’s a guy in jail right now named Ted Kaczynski. Ted was a
seemingly harmless guy who lived in a shack in Montana. The neighbors
stayed away mainly because he smelled and muttered to himself a lot,
but since he kept to himself and didn’t bother anyone, they left him
alone. Turned out, Ted wasn’t so harmless after all. He’d been
sending out mail bombs that killed people and penning lengthy screeds
about academia. Ted was a terrorist. And no one fudged on that
description. He terrorized people, hence he was a terrorist.
What I would like to know is why is the SF Gate describing these terrorists as “militant animal rights group”? What? Is terrorist
too nasty of a term for people who try and save fuzzy little rodents
from being used in experiments? Why do these people get a pass with
“militant” when anyone else who did the same thing would be called
a “terrorist”? Call a spade a spade, would you? Don’t dress it up
or explain it away. These people want to kill people. They want to terrorize people into doing what they want. If they’re not terrorists, what are they?

--- I’ve been slacking with the Chuckle of the Day this week. So, here’s a humorous little tidbit the husband sent my way.