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ISSN: 1525-898X
Observations by and for the vaguely disenchanted by Kevin G. Barkes

 

Conceived above a saloon, delivered into this world by a masked man identified by his heavily sedated mother as Captain Video, raised by a kindly West Virginian woman, a mild-mannered former reporter with modest delusions of grandeur and no tolerance of idiots and the intellectually dishonest.

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network solutions made me a child pornographer!
The sordid details...

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Anniversary

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Requiem for a fictional Scotsman

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Oh my God! They killed Library!! Those bastards!!!

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Elegy to a Mostly Maine Coon

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It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day

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A Pittsburgher in the Really Big City

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Da Burg Annat

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I Have Issues

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Yeah, yeah, I'm inspired

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At least the rivers freeze in Pittsburgh

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He knows if yinz is a jagoff

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Please support KGB Report by making your amazon.com purchases through our affiliate link:
 

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dcl dialogue online!

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no. we're not that kgb.

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KGB, CIA linked

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The Carbolic Smoke Ball
Superb satire, and based in Pittsburgh!

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State

"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Article VI, U.S. Constitution

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Geek of the Week, 7/16/2000

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Cruel Site of the Day, 7/15/2000

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miscellany

Hard to describe.

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"a breezy writing style and a cool mix of tidbits"

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Our riveting and morally compelling...

Privacy statement

One of  52,045 random quotes. Please CTRL-F5 to refresh the page.

	kgbreport.com Web

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(July 2000 and earlier)

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Saturday, March 29, 2008
posted by KGB at 1:58 AM (permalink)

The secret of their Qapla'...

Documentation? baQa! Documentation is for sheep. Users must find the true way from within themselves!

Klingon functions have no parameters. They have arguments. Which they always win. Qapla'!

One cannot savor Dilbert unless it is read in the original tlhIngan Hol (Klingonaase).

That petaQ of a marketing manager demanded delivery before the code had achieved fullness. He has tasted the sharpness of the development team's Bat'leth. He will trouble us not again.

Indent my code? Sa'Hut! I say to you, I shall indent your skull!

Our users will know fear and avert their eyes. See them tremble before our software! Ship it! Ship it! They cower and beg for mercy, for they are unworthy dogs!

We do not release our code. We unleash it.

(Thanks to my resident moon goddess for the source upon which the above is based. For assistance with Klingonaase, just jump on over to the Klingon version of Google. Interesting note; you'd think the people writing computer spellcheckers would be Trek fans and adjust their products accordingly. No such luck. Outlook's spellcheck did not like "Klingon," and instead suggested... "Clinton". Barack Obama? Outlook accepted it in stride.)

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Friday, March 28, 2008
posted by KGB at 2:18 AM (permalink)

Connecting the musical dots...

... and it all started with the Turkish Post Office:

With the Turkish Postal Service Law of March 28, 1930, the Turkish authorities officially requested foreigners to adopt Istanbul (not Constantinople) as the sole name...

(the music starts about ten seconds in)

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks!

Istanbul (Istanbul)
Istanbul (Istanbul)

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks!

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks!

Lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy, music by Nat Simon, apparently inspired by Irving Berlin's 1929 "Puttin' on the Ritz":

And likewise providing the inspiration for Stan Worth and Sheldon Allman's "George of the Jungle":

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Thursday, March 27, 2008
posted by KGB at 2:44 AM (permalink)

Happy little blue birthday...

Pfizer's Viagra was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on March 27, 1998, forever changing the nature of prescription drug sales, television advertising, and most regrettably, the lyrics of Elvis' classic Viva, Las Vegas!

It also launched an entirely new category of jokes, my favorite of which being:

"A Democratic wife tells her husband to buy Viagra. A Republican wife tells her husband to buy Pfizer."

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
posted by KGB at 7:42 PM (permalink)

Well, this should settle the matter...

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posted by KGB at 3:09 AM (permalink)

Leonard Nimoy is 77 today...

... and he's branched out beyond Star Trek...

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posted by KGB at 1:27 AM (permalink)

A new HDTV and egregious privacy breach

When my 15 month old flat panel HDTV developed problems with its component inputs, I was glad I had purchased the extended warranty. As a rule, I avoid third-party, non-manufacturer service plans like the plague, especially after some really bad experiences in the 80s with a number of deservedly defunct regional electronics discounters. But I figured Best Buy was reputable, and a penny a day or so over the four years of the warranty was worth the investment.

The personable Best Buy service guy looked at the set- a quirkily-designed 32" Westinghouse LCD with a built-in DVD player and 1080p resolution- pronounced its main board defective, and informed me that replacement parts were unavailable for my model.

Before I could say anything, the tech noted my Best Buy policy required them to replace my set with another having comparable features. No manufacturer currently makes HDTV/DVD combos; not an issue, since I originally bought the set because of its picture quality and sub-$1K price. But it turns out that 32" sets with 1080p resolution are rare. I ended up with new Sharp Aquos "gaming quality" set worth about $400 more than what I paid for the Westinghouse.

What has this to do with privacy considerations, you may ask?

While entering the transaction, the Best Buy salesperson asked for my home telephone number in order to look up my purchase history.

The screen displayed not only my personal information, but the names, addresses and phone numbers of my son, daughter, and my ex-wife.

We all now have different addresses and telephone numbers. My married daughter even has a different last name. I assume what ties our records together is that at some time in the past eight years we all shared the same telephone number and/or street address.

I find it disturbing enough that a retail store computer system permits an individual's information to be displayed in public view. But to cough up the details of an entire family is really crossing the line.

Assume an ex-spouse is abusive. The abused spouse moves and/or changes his/her telephone number. The miscreant spouse can go to a Best Buy, make a purchase, and watch as the screen dutifully provides current information on the former partner.

I knew my ex had recently purchased a house. I now also know her street address, phone number, and that last month's alimony payment has apparently been used to acquire some major appliances. (For the sake of full disclosure, I should note that I had all this information before I entered the store. I just didn't expect Best Buy to confirm it.)

It's been a while, but I believe Radio Shack's customer lookup screens work in a comparable manner and, undoubtedly, many other stores use similar systems. I doubt anything can be done about it, but it emphasizes how exposed one's personal information is these days. It seems Scott McNealy's succinct observation is correct: "You already have zero privacy- get over it."

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
posted by KGB at 10:57 AM (permalink)

An answer to Cheney's "So?"

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posted by KGB at 2:50 AM (permalink)

Diva Birthdays...

Aretha (66) and Elton (61).

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posted by KGB at 1:45 AM (permalink)

A comment from The Vice President of the United States

Martha Raddatz, ABC News: Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

Cheney: So?

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Monday, March 24, 2008
posted by KGB at 10:40 PM (permalink)

Ok, Leslie...

Gee, that really turned out well.

"[A] memoir of your life in six words or fewer," as requested by Leslie, who's recovering from road rash.

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posted by KGB at 4:25 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

She's got the treasure and the wooden leg. All she needs now is the eye patch and the parrot on her shoulder.
-Jay Leno (on the Heather Mills/Paul McCartney divorce settlement)

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posted by KGB at 4:18 AM (permalink)

Science fact of the day

Biologists at the University of California at San Francisco have found that male fruit flies exposed to high levels of alcohol become hypersexual and try to court practically anything with wings, including other male fruit flies. Eventually the revelry turns into a dysfunctional orgy, with "a chain of males chasing each other," says one insect expert. As the flies get increasingly tanked, their chance for mating success keeps dropping. This is one more reason why the fruit fly is a great model for studying humans.
-Discovery Magazine

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Sunday, March 23, 2008
posted by KGB at 2:49 AM (permalink)

But it leaves little batteries on the carpet...

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posted by KGB at 2:04 AM (permalink)

Peeps!

(From the Showtime Special: Elayne Boosler - Live Nude Girls © 1991 Brooklyn Productions)

I like (my mother in law) Mrs. Viking. I called Mrs. Viking up and I said "Happy Easter." "Happy Easter to you, oh it's not your holiday." I said "Yes it is, I embrace any holiday based on candy. It is my holiday."

How long ago was Easter? I'm still going through Peeps withdrawal. Peeps, Peeps. Marshmallow chickies and bunnies. Pink sugar, yellow sugar.

Oh, I love them so much I can taste the difference between the pink sugar and the yellow sugar.

I can taste the eye, and it's only painted on.

You don't love Peeps? Maybe you haven't had them properly aged yet. They're only good stale. You buy them. You slit open the package. You go away for a few days. Come back, when you can knock on the counter you got some Peeps there.

Oh, Peeps are good. They're seasonal. We can't just go get them now. We probably want them now. Gotta wait. Peeps molt in spring like soft-shell crab.

Then they come out and they're 49 cents a box, not too bad. Day after Easter- ten cents a box!!!

Eat em 'til you faint. Think- "I'll never want these things again." A week later, you're looking for drug dealers. "Hey... Hey! I got $100, you got Peeps?"

(via Tom Heald on the ABC News World News Now Discussion Group on Google Groups.)

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Copyright © 1987-2025 by Kevin G. Barkes
All rights reserved.
Violators will be prosecuted.
So there.  
The kgb@kgb.com e-mail address is now something other than kgb@kgb.com saga.
kgbreport.com used to be kgb.com until December, 2007 when the domain name broker Trout Zimmer made an offer I couldn't refuse. Giving up kgb.com and adopting kgbreport.com created a significant problem, however. I had acquired the kgb.com domain name in 1993, and had since that time used kgb@kgb.com as my sole e-mail address. How to let people know that kgb@kgb.com was no longer kgb@kgb.com but rather kgbarkes@gmail.com which is longer than kgb@kgb.com and more letters to type than kgb@kgb.com and somehow less aesthetically pleasing than kgb@kgb.com but actually just as functional as kgb@kgb.com? I sent e-mails from the kgb@kgb.com address to just about everybody I knew who had used kgb@kgb.com in the past decade and a half but noticed that some people just didn't seem to get the word about the kgb@kgb.com change. So it occurred to me that if I were generate some literate, valid text in which kgb@kgb.com was repeated numerous times and posted it on a bunch of different pages- say, a blog indexed by Google- that someone looking for kgb@kgb.com would notice this paragraph repeated in hundreds of locations, would read it, and figure out that kgb@kgb.com no longer is the kgb@kgb.com they thought it was. That's the theory, anyway. kgb@kgb.com. Ok, I'm done. Move along. Nothing to see here...