just so you know, we got EVDO!

Although Fort Wayne has had Verizon's FiOS fibre optic internet service for well over a year now, they neglected to upgrade the wireless service here. Well, on the night of Friday December 8th, I noticed that they finally turned up the EVDO wireless broadband service. What's even more messed up is that they have been selling EVDO phones here for over a year and a half with no way to fully use them.

Well getting EVDO now is better than never i guess. here's to my city perpetually staying behind the curve when it comes to technology! w00t!

a good day at the BMV?!? (bureau of motor vehicles)

after retiring the old batmobile due to a bad engine, i decided to get myself a replacement batmobile (a 2004 ford focus sedan... also black like the suzuki), and well one of the tasks to complete after the purchase of a vehicle is to visit the bureau of motor vehicles to re-title it and to register it for a license plate. Normally I'd rather have root canals done in every one of my teeth without the use of anesthetics than have to visit the place. Even worse was the fact that i went on the last day of the month when there is normally a scramble by people to re-register plates that expire on that day. So i went there yesterday during my lunch expecting to spend a full 2 or 3 hours there... well, not only was there NO line and NO wait, a greeter actually opened the door for me and directed me to an available agent. Even stranger is that the people working there seemed almost pleasant and happy to be doing their job! I literally had to pinch myself to make sure i wasn't dreaming or accidentally tripped through some inter-dimensional portal into bizzaro-world.

If i was Roger Ebert, this review of the BMV would have been a bit longer and more detailed, but like him i will give the bureau two thumbs up for making customer service and expedient service top priorities!

Why aren't sitcoms as funny as this anymore?

Good ol' vintage Chris Elliot... from "Get a Life"

Vote Tom Hayhurst for Congress (IN-3rd)

We are 8 days away from election day here in the United States and I would like to make one final push for Tom Hayhurst to be the next representative in Indiana's 3rd district.

Like most of America, I too realize that a change in Congress is sorely needed and I believe that Dr. Hayhurst will be an integral catalyst for carrying out the changes needed to get Congress back to doing what it was originally intended to do - serving the people of this great nation.

Here's why Dr. Hayhurst should be elected:

-Healthcare. He is committed to bringing affordable healthcare to ALL Americans, having volunteered a good portion of his life at the free Matthew 25 clinic in Fort Wayne has shown him why this is necessary. Doing this will mean standing up to pharmaceutical, insurance and provider corporations that put profits ahead of serving people.

-Promoting energy independence. Again, this will mean he needs to stand up to Big Oil and fight for legislation that will help promote the use of alternative fuels, biofuels and renewable fuels to reduce our dependency on petroleum shipped in from foreign countries and help keep our fuel dollars here in America. He will also work to bring about more energy conservation and make incentives to promote more energy efficient technologies.

-Protecting Veterans. As an Air Force medical officer who served in Vietnam, Tom understands the needs of Veterans. He has already worked to save the Fort Wayne VA hospital from closure and will promote legislation that will continue to take world-class care of our Veteran brothers and sisters and make sure that these programs are not underfunded. These beliefs also extend to his view of taking care of our active duty military.

-National Security. Dr. Hayhurst understands that national security is tantamount to keeping the peace here at home. He will see to it that security needs are met with non-partisan or bi-partisan solutions and that no government contractors are favored which tends to yield a best-of-breed solution unlike the current republican administration which has been notorious for rewarding companies that are party benefactors and cronies.

-Immigration. His plan for dealing with Immigration is not to build another Berlin wall as was signed into existence, but to continue to enforce the existing laws while re-examining legal immigration quotas for Mexico and other central and south American countries and working with those nations to encourage their citizens to take the legal route.

-Jobs. Tom's mantra for ALL legislation that will guide his decisions is "Is this bill good for the working families of America?" Of course, his foremost priority is to ensure that the job market grows right here in the 3rd district, making sure that policies are put into place to keep American products competitive in the global arena and here at home. Helping to keep the area innovative is the key.


Our current occupant, Rep. Mark Souder when elected in 1994 advocated for 12-year term limits, and here he is 12 years later seeking re-election and reneging on a promise to rid Congress of career politicians to bring about reform. Instead, all he has brought about is a rubber stamp to allow the Bush administration to continue with their failed policies in Iraq and here at home. Mr. Souder's priorities are out of line with reality too. He pushed through Congress a bill that denies student aid to those with a minor drug conviction - and these are the people that generally need the aid the most! In addition to focusing on draconian laws that make it difficult for average citizen to purchase cold medicine under the guise of combating the meth problem despite the fact that meth is now smuggled in from other countries in large quantities merely shifting the manufacturing to large labs that the united states has no jurisdiction to shut down. He should have been instead focusing on the OTHER drug problem - which is that many seniors can no longer afford to buy their own drugs. He voted against allowing reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada and he hasn't pressured the pharmaceutical companies to make their drugs affordable.

Mr. Souder also wasted taxpayer time by avoiding common sense legislation to instead focus on such peripheral issues as lobbying to get Ronald Reagan's face on the dime.

I encourage you to do your civic duty on November 7th no matter which side of the political divide you might be on. America was built on this democracy, and we are all obliged to support it.

Electronic Behavior Control System

Ah yes, the 1990's were such a great time for electronic music, and more notably the videos. While i don't quite recall having seen this one on AMP (about the only place on the cable TV dial where you could catch electronica videos back then), I believe this was available on some wax trax collection video tape at the time. Here is "Electronic Behavior Control System" by Emergency Broadcast Network (aka. EBN)

keep yourself busy with some lemon jelly

its an oldie but a goodie... thought i'd share with y'all

Nintendo Wii pre-sales... where?

Last Friday, much to my dismay i was a few hours late in getting to the local EBGames and GameStop locations to put some money down for a Nintendo Wii pre-order. This post is basically a call to anyone that has any informations as to which stores (either offline or online) will be the next one to officially take pre-orders. Thanks in advance.

Holy rusted metal batman!

Yesterday, Mrs. Mabus went into the garage and noticed water all over the floor. Puzzled, she looked around trying to figure out why this was and eventually laid her eyes upon our now-deceased water heater. My guess is that they don't work too good when there's a 4"x6" hole in the bottom of it. :)

like losing an old friend

As of September 1st, the only commercial, music-playing radio station in the city worth listening to will cease to be. Apparently Summit City Radio Group found it appropriate to sell X102 because it isn't profitable. This station played a great, eclectic mix of old and new alternative rock from Radiohead to the Ranconteurs along with Smashing Pumpkins and Panic! at the Disco. As a result, the only alternative rocker left is WCYT which is a terribly low-powered high school station that you can only pick up in the southwest corner of the city (and i live in the northeast). The station was sold to a group that will sign on as the first full-time commercial spanish language station in the city (ciento dos punto tres?) which is to be commended because there is certainly a sizable latino population here that is woefully underserved by the local media. Also to be lamented is the loss of MY 103.9 which played upbeat adult contemporary (From Gwen Stefani and Kylie Minogue to Coldplay and Outkast) in favor of the return of Rock 104 which was taken off the airwaves about three years ago or so. We really don't need another rock station as there is already 98.9 The Bear which was a clone of the orignial Rock 104 playing everything from classic standbys like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Metallica as well as newer hard and metal acts.

I guess that good radio can only only be found on the internet or on a satellite receiver any more... at least here that is now the case. Fortunately though, when i am stuck without an mp3 player or an internet feed, there is always the high-powered NPR affiliate which has great content along with a killer jazz program at night.

another city another entry

ah yes, here i am finding myself in the city of independence ohio, a suburb of cleveland to the near south. the first thing that i noticed about this city is that it has a very strict building code for commercial entities as well as a sign ordinance. i find cities like this to be very drab and uninviting despite its otherwise overtly antiseptic looks. And much like all other strict cities, it has the same "every building needs to be surrounded in standard brick colored in cat puke brown" feel about it. i was recently in the city of dublin, ohio and it too is like that, except perhaps more so. whats even funnier is that there is a two-story mcdonalds surrounded in that ugly brick that looks like something you might have found in some 1950's "the world is perfect now that the war is over" novel among houses with white pickett fences, mom, dad 2 and a half kids, and a golden retriever. I could never live in a city like this, and i'm convinced that the only reason people do live here is because they view their house as merely an economic investment and not a home and thus expect property values to sky rocket.

Could YOU live in a place like this? If so, tell me why - I'm truly interested!

fort wayne allen county government consolidation commentary

Much of the local media focus has been on the plan to consolidate the government of Fort Wayne with that of Allen County. If you ask me it isn't hard to see that this makes alot of sense. According to wikipedia, the estimated 2005 population of Fort Wayne is 248,341, while there are only 93,827 people in the rest of the county. Since the county government serves the un-incorporated areas, they would stand to greatly benefit from the increased buying power of a consolidated government as would Fort Wayne. Also, seeing as how Fort Wayne is the epicenter of commerce in northeastern indiana and some of northwestern ohio it is a no-brainer that we need to do what it takes to help the city to continue to thrive.

I'm getting really sick of hearing all these people from the outlying podunk towns whine about this as if Fort Wayne were like the borg and we're coming to assimilate them. I can assure you that this is hardly the case - if anything the services provided to our beloved rural communities stand to benefit from the increased services and gained efficiencies that will be realized by this consolidation.

craigslist fort wayne now online

This may be somewhat stale news - but to my fellow fort wayne readers that don't already know, craigslist.org now has a section for listings from the fort wayne area. enjoy.

ripoff report: the new coca-cola 20 pack

while browsing the grocery section of a local wal*mart i noticed that they recently started to stock cases of coke products that have 20 cans, yet are sold at the price point formerly occupied by the old 24-can cases. even worse is that the 24-can cases were nowhere to be found. i haven't yet seen these bastard children of the pop industry yet at other grocery or convenience stores, but i have a feeling its only a matter of time. since wally*world pretty much sets the industry standards anymore, i have a feeling that this may mark the end of 24-can cases everywhere.

lets just hope that breweries don't follow this trend... then again, the 30-pack is thriving in the beer industry - who knows, maybe by this time next year we'll be seeing $11.99 36-packs of PBR at wally.

bk quad stacker... 4 patties of beef = 1 case of cardiac arrest

I was at the mall last night picking up the kids from my wife so she could work one of her two weekly shifts at the arby's there in the food court. And right next door to arby's is the burger king stall. i happened to notice that burger king is now selling "stacker" burgers with two, three or FOUR patties of beef, not to mention that its topped with a milwaukee kilo of american cheese food product and the bacon from a thousand sows (well, two pieces really). I looked on bk's website and there is no mention of this product, so i therefore could not grab nutrional information, but i have a feeling the calorie and fat content would make the hardee's monster thickburger begin to look like a jenny craig appetizer in comparison.

i personally shun beef and pork in favor of poultry and seafood for my protein needs (for health reasons), and if anyone has the chance to try this monstrosity feel free to comment about it - i am actually interested to hear what the public sentiment is. And to think that i was shocked when a minor league baseball team in illinois introduced a burger at its concession stands that uses a sliced and inverted krispy kreme doughnut as its bun!

taco bell spicy chicken crunchwrap supreme review

Tonight, for my fourth meal (at taco bell no less) after seeing a new sign on the menu that i would have the spicy chicken crunchwrap supreme. Aside from the regular beef crunchwrap supreme where you have a tostada shell, cheese sauce, sour cream with lettuce and tomatoes surrounded by a grilled soft flour tortilla they substitute the spicy chicken in place of their taco-spiced ground beef. For $1.99 this has got to be one of the best values they've offered in a while - not only do you get a pretty decent portion of food, the ingredients blend well and their spicy chicken with its tantalizing gravy making for a decent meal for only two dollars. Now mind you, there is no comparison to REAL mexican food made with fresh ingredients and authentic recipes, but for a quick cheap food fix that isn't dripping in grease this is what you want.

I of course complimented mine with a few packets of their preservative-laden fire sauce, because just about everything from taco bell tastes better with it (even the 44 ounce baja blasts!), but only after i took a few bites without to confirm my suspicions that this is indeed a fast food winner. If you wanted to make this somewhat healthier you could opt to have them forgo the cream and cheese in place of more vegetables or the pico de gallo they use on the "baja" gorditas and chalupas - but no one goes there because they're on the nicole richie diet, right?

And to wash the whole mess down i followed it with a berghoff dark, with its bold, creamy, nutty flavor serving as the perfect compliment to a perfect fast meal.

heck yeah we got the house!

like napoleon dynamite might say, this is flippin' sweet!

not only did we get the house today, the closing costs were over estimated so i got some money back outta the deal! today we spent our time changing locks and cleaning. since we have until the end of june to move out of our old town house there is no big rush to move in too quickly although i hope to have it finished sometime soon. even better is that the neo-mabusland compound is much closer to work so i will get to sleep in later! boo yah! plus our hot realtor chick even gave us a lowe's gift card to boot! (yeah...i know lowe's pales in comparison to your neighborhood Do it Best store - but that's beside the point). i'll be sharing more pics in the coming days as we start to really move in as well!

pretty soon i'll be having a housewarming throwdown replete with beer and comistables to which anyone who drops me a line is invited. fun shall be had by all!

namaste.

closing on the house tomorrow

okay kids.. its official! we're closing on our mortgage tomorrow to take possession of the NEO-MABUSLAND COMPOUND (i figured the old name of the mabusland ranch sounded too passe).

My guess is that we will spend the majority of this weekend just cleaning the new place up before we actually start moving in. Fortunately, we have until the end of the month to get everything out of our old place so we need'nt be too terribly rushed.

This means we also get to dump comcast like a hot potato.

By switching to Dish for TV, moving to FiOS for internet and Vonage for our phone lines we'll be saving about $50/month! Now if only we could find a way to ditch AEP for electricity (hmm... maybe i should think about putting solar panels on the house eventually)

2 minutes of Gondry's "The Science of Sleep"

Enjoy it while it lasts kiddos! Here's two minutes of "The Science of Sleep" by the notably acclaimed director Michel Gondry.

al gore on SNL?

yep al gore was on there this week! i figured i'd post this since i really haven't had time to write here since work has been keeping me up at nights, not to mention we've moved a few vanloads of our old stuff to my father-in-law's house for a huge community garage sale, which is good since we're moving soon and need to buy stuff for the new house like a lawn mower. enjoy the clip.

we're getting the house!

after a few rounds of negotiations, we finally reached an acceptable one with the seller of the house! not only did we get the house for $2,400 less than asking price, he's throwing in a new HVAC system (the old one was >30 years old), a new dishwasher (the old one was broken), a home warranty, and he's paying $1,000 towards closing costs. The rest of the appliances were already part of the listing, so they stay too.

I don't know when we're closing just yet because our attorney has yet to look over the agreement paperwork before we sign it, and monday we'll probably figure out a closing date with the lender and the seller's agent.

we're pretty stoked about this.

The next mabusland ranch

Okay... we made an offer on this house today. If the guy accepts, it'll be ours by the end of May.

Here's the front:


Here's looking out the back sunroom to the back yard:


Here's the kitchen:


Here's the fireplace:


Overall, its 1870 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2.5 car garage, 150'x80' lot and seems to be a great house with a great price. We're pretty excited about this. Also, in the room where there is the fireplace, there is beautiful cedar paneling underneath the wallpaper, which we would promptly strip.

so much to do, so little time

I realize that I haven't been taking care of my bloggerly duties of late. This is due largely to the fact that my normally sedentary lifestyle has literally become ridiculously active. In addition to a newborn son and working 50 or so hours a week, I have been:

• house hunting since we finally have a workable mortgage solution
• preparing for a big-ass garage sale
• volunteering time to Dr. Tom Hayhurst's Congressional campaign
• mini-mabus' soccer

In addition to that, mini-mabus wants to join cub scouts, and we're seeking out art and reading camps for him this summer. All this leaves little time for me to write these days. I'm really not sure what's next because i have never been this active of a person. At the very least I will try to keep updates here about the house situation - as it stands, we've already toured 9 and have a bunch more lined up. There is one that we're already really interested in and the seller is apparently very motivated and willing to negotiate the price down a bit - It's a 2-story 3br/2.5ba with a 2-car garage, fireplace, huge kitchen, fenced-in backyard with large wooden deck and a working hot tub. It's listed for $109,900 but we're going to try to get it for $100k flat plus seller pays closing costs. I'd be amazed if they accept that, but who knows? Believe it or not, that much money will get you a decent house in Fort Wayne, Indiana - where my parents live, in Aurora IL, the same house would easily go for well over $250k - and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $500k in San Francisco... Amazing the disparity in real estate prices nationwide, eh? In any event, its the first house we'll have ever owned and as such are very excited.

LASER CATS!

Everyone likes cats! Everyone likes lasers! Here's what happens when you put the two together!

procastinators of the world unite! my taxes are done!

just this morning i finished and filed the annual tax return for the mabusclan... and as usual, my tax estimating skills are supreme - i owed $88 to the feds, and got $97 back from the state. i think its becoming a tradition to have my taxes filed just before the deadline - even if i know i'm getting a refund.

my tax estimations for 2006 are going to be off and i know it because mrs. mabus stopped working and we plan to buy a house, for which you can receive federal credits and we had a baby this year giving us an additional deduction.

meet with Dr. Hayhurst on Saturday, Rep. Mark Souder on Monday

Mark Souder is coming to my work on Monday.

Yep, the man himself, the congressman who represents the 3rd district here in indiana.... and if you've been paying attention to me (okay, so you haven't - i don't blame you) you'll know that i am not too fond of him. in fact, i'm going to a campaign rally saturday night for Dr. Tom Hayhurst who is running against him in the fall elections.

Aside from the fact that the executives at my work think they can bring in politicians to whom they've personally donated alot of money to their campaigns, with which i disagree, I will be doing my homework this weekend and trying to come up with some really tough questions to pose to him in front of a large audience. I don't want to defame or ridicule him, but rather just put him on the spot to let my coworkers realize just how little he cares about serving his constituents in return for advancing the agenda of his poltical party. In any event, it should be interesting.

They did this before the 2004 election as well when they brought in the candidate for governor. I just tend to think that this is a huge breach of ethics, because the executives seem uninterested in bringing in campaigning politicians with differing viewpoints or those that the execs have not donated money to their campaign. Since I really love my job and my company, as I feel they take excellent care of my family in return for hard work, I am saddened that they are trying to now preach political values to my and my co-workers. Fortunately the meeting is optional, but nonetheless I believe that equal access to candidates from a company that prides itsself on being an outstanding corporate citizen would only serve to bolster its image in the community.

While its not hard to find info on Rep. Souder since he's held the seat since 1994 (despite his 1994 promise to limit congressional terms to 12 years for any single person), finding info on Dr. Hayhurst is a bit more difficult. But in any event, Dr. Hayhurst has been an elected councilman for Fort Wayne for the last 10 years, co-founded and operates a free pulmonary clinic, and works at the local Tuberculosis clinic. One position he shares with Souder though is taking better medical care for our Veterans and even started an activist group - Veterans for Better Health Care.

Dr. Hayhurst's web site
Rep. Mark Souder's web site


I plan on trying to get some media online for the rally on Saturday night which i'll forward to Hayhurst's campaign. Also, I will try to get some pictures of Souder's visit on Monday to post.

PS: Mr. Souder, with all due respect, I really do feel that its time you move on and go back to your family business so that us Hoosiers from Fort Wayne, Northeast Indiana, the nation and the rest of us in the 3rd district can be better represented.

1986 world series game 6... as played out in rbi baseball for the NES

yes, this is only the end of the game, but a darn good re-creation of that fateful game nonetheless.



fortunately for the red sox they were eventually vindicated in breaking the curse of the bambino

i'm now officially a soccer dad

mini-mabus plays his first soccer game tonight. He's in a 6-8 year-olds division that only plays games, and no practice. we think that the casualness of it will help us and him to truly gauge his interest in the sport. seeing as how he is tall, lanky and pretty quick on his feet, we're hoping he does well. we already got the shoes, shin guards, socks and shorts... we'll be getting his jersey at the game tonight.

if i have a chance, i'll post pictures later.

a public thank you to Dr. Tom Hayhurst

I spoke with Dr. Tom Hayhurst on the phone tonight for about 10-15 minutes in regards to his campaign for representative of the 3rd district in Indiana. Your words have further assured me that you are the most qualified person to lead my district in the future to represent the needs of the citizens of Fort Wayne, Indiana and the country as a whole. Your charitable work as a doctor and your vision as councilman of Fort Wayne are an unparalleled inspiration. I look forward to meeting with you at your next rally and hope that I may provide you with technical expertise and networking that may not otherwise be available to you.

For all interested parties, please visit http://tomhayhurstforcongress.com/

please help me to unseat mark souder

This is a public call for your help. I would like to build a website dedicated to providing the facts about rep. Mark Souder's (IN-3rd) actions in Congress and how they have failed us as a nation, and also us who live in that district. From advocating isolationist foreign policy, acting as a rubber stamp for the Bush administration's whims, authoring draconian and unreasonable drug policy, and seeking to eliminate vital social programs, his record speaks for itsself and it is time for him to go. Like Orrin Hatch, Bill Frist, Arlen Specter and right-wing extremists currently in our government action IS required!!! Thus, a website and a social network are needed to support this cause.

Primarily I am looking for researchers, writers, web developers and graphic designers who would be interested in volunteering some spare time for this effort. I will be providing the web space, bandwidth and domain name. If you are interested, please send me an email at souderproject@mabusland.com (serious inquiries ONLY please)

Thanks in advance to anyone who volunteers for this effort!
-Marc

nintendo's revolution "virtual console" to emulate non-nintendo game systems

According to an article at USA TODAY, the "virtual console" service of Ninentdo's upcoming Revolution game system will emulate games that originally appeared on Sega's Genesis (aka. Mega Drive) and NEC/TTI's TurboGrafx (aka. PC Engine and TurboDuo) in addition to emulating the older Nintendo hardware as well. These games will be available for download at a price through their online service. Admittedly, I like the older games from these systems and their simplistic style moreso than the graphically rich games of today.... and while I do play modern games, I'd rather have this console that lets me pick from all the older games while supporting all the new ones too. If you think about it, this is the same model they've used with Game Boy and DS where they support the games all the way back to titles from the original black-and-white screened game boy of 1989.

Between that, wi-fi out of the box, free online play for purchased games, a mocap controller and a price that will likely spank that of the Xbox360 and PS3... what more could you want? After years of declining market share, it looks like Nintendo might have the right formula to re-establish themselves as the leader in home video game consoles.

My only major concern is that I wonder what their strategy is to capture the dollars of the FPS console players that currently flock to Halo and other titles of the genre which haven't enjoyed success on nintendo consoles since Goldeneye on the N64.

Ask Mabus

Seeing as how all manner of people like to ask me strange and offbeat questions, I like to start answering some of them in a new column in my blog called "Ask Mabus". While the questions may have otherwise straightfoward answers, I'd like to draw a different perspective on them for you.

And, without further adieu, I'd like to answer the first question and it comes from Ralph Taggart in Norman, Oklahoma. Ralph writes: "Dear Mabus, why is drinking gasoline so dangerous?"

Well Ralph, aside from the obvious dangers that befall most gasoline drinkers such as death and polyneuropathy, there are other lesser known dangers that are certainly more heinous. The most notable of them being its propensity to cause chronic halitosis and to make you stink like the dickens should topical exposure occur (and due to its volatility, this is likely to occur when imbibing some of shell's finest 93 octane). No breath mint currently marketed exists that is strong enough to cover up gas mouth... not even an entire tin of altoids washed down with a cocktail of binaca and scope will kill it. Same goes for the body odor - you might as well have rubbed the business end of a skunk on yourself. The expensive colognes and perfumes will only serve to make you smell like joan rivers and george hamilton wrapped in saran wrap and baked in a steam sauna for 3 hours on high. You might be able to barely cover the stink with a combination of impostor axe body spray and red cabbage juice, but thats only slightly more tolerable.

So Ralph, I'm not sure if you were considering the consumption of gasoline, but if you we're, I'd highly recommend that you do not. Take it from me as I learned the hard way. I always do so you don't have to.

Anyways, if you have a question for me that you'd like to see answered in a future edition of "Ask Mabus", feel free to comment here, contact me in the forums or email me at .

Namaste.

futurama to return!

Another 26 episodes of futurma are set to be produced shortly! This news was confirmed by Billy West (is the voice of FRY) on his website. He said: "they're doing 26 new episodes of
''Futurama'' for TV and we're hammering out the deal now."

Now... if only Mr. West and John Kricfalusi would get back together to produce more of the original twisted episodes of Ren & Stimpy, we'd be all set. And yes, this is my formal plea to them both!

tv shows you'll never see

they get this cool stuff in japan... why can't we have an american counterpart?

Wonder Showzen is back!

I might be a few days behind in reporting this, but season two of wonder showzen drops MARCH 31st on MTV2! If you couldn't get enough of the irreverent humor the first time around, well its almost time to catch it again! A conglomeration of muppets, learian psychadelia and a dark side as if written by rob zombie, you can't go wrong with this series!

I'll tell ya though... heed the show's disclaimer and don't let yer kids watch it, because while it may look like a kids show it is anything but.

Here's a sneak peak of what's in store:

simpsons intro with real life actors

It was only a matter of time before this was made... I think it has something to do with the oft-anticipated feature length simpsons movie, but I'm not certain.

i almost killed a second vehicle in as many weeks

driving home tonight from the in-laws, I nearly hit one of two deer crossing the highway. fortunately, i saw the deer from a relatively safe distance, however i still needed to lay it on the brake pedal pretty thick - so much so that the ABS kicked in. I came to a stop about 2 metres in front of the deer, which was close enough to see the snot in his snout. The whole ordeal about damn near gave me a heart attack. I've never hit a deer before, and this is the closest I have ever come to doing so and i hope to never have to repeat this scenario again.

Aside from racking a buck, I also bought an atomic clock this weekend.... what did you do?

$2500 to rebuild the engine

yup, that's right my suzuki's engine gave up the ghost over the weekend and initial estimates are $2,500 to rebuild the engine. Hopefully i can find a place that will do it for less, as I'm going to call around for other estimates. Also, there's a slight problem in that i don't have $2,500 on-hand, but i'm working on solving that too.

At least, in the meantime, my wife isn't working so i'm using the van and will likely borrow one of my father-in-law's vehicles for a short time until we get this mess solved. One thing i'd like to avoid is financing another vehicle altogether.

Get a free buffalo chicken sammich at KFC

First, go to http://www.kfc.com/buffalosnacker/ and watch the ad... if you follow the directions, you will figure out how to get the code for the free sammich.... but since i know yer lazy, i've done the hard work for you already.

The code word is "Buffalo"

cats and kids and other family matter updates

Contrary to how we thought our three cats would react, all have them have taken very well to the new baby. Its obvious that they are still somewhat apprehensive of a mini-human (well, Vicky more than the others) but overall they love coming up to Myles and sniffing him and giving him those small head-butts which are a sign of affection coming from cats. Of course though, we never ignored the cats when we brought the baby home so as to let them know they are still loved, but i guess that we were concerned with them being somewhat jealous about a new life form in the house but that was simply not the case. Perhaps the fact that Hunter seems to have developed a decent rapport with the cats (especially Gabriel who sometimes sleeps with Hunter at night), that might have allayed their fears about mini-humans.

In any case, I'd like to say that I'm proud that my kitties have accepted into their home a new baby human as one of their own. Because yes, we are under the impression here that the cats run the house and they are simply gracious enough to allow us mere homosapiens to live with them. LOL.

Now my father in law's great danes are a different story completely.. but then again, one of them is affectionately referred to as "scooby dumb" which is an accurate description. They do okay around the baby, but their large size, clumsiness, and general oblviousness about their surroundings have caused trouble. At least Myles doesn't get too upset when they bark like crazy, which is quite loud.


Although unrelated to the rest of the post, Myles is now 33 days old and is growing like a damn weed... he nurses on Lanette until she's as dry as bone and yet still keeps eating like a little machine. We just pray that he keeps up this habit and stays healthy. We love ya little guy!

Also, in other news, we took Hunter to a behavioral specialist today so that we can start helping him to bring his behavior more in line with what his potential shows. Since he has ADHD, we know he struggles, but regardless we want to be effective parents and give him the most effective tools to deal with his condition while learning ourselves out to deal appropriately him from a discipline standpoint. Instead of just simply throwing medicine at him and hoping the problem goes away, we want to take the proactive approach, but if medicine continues to be an aid in his therapy and one of the bullet points in our plan to ensure his success, then so be it. We just want him to fulfill his life's potential - to do otherwise means we've failed as parents.

sonic drive-in coming back to fort wayne

according to carol tannehill's column in the fort wayne news-sentinel today (2/21/06), sonic drive-in is set to open a new restaurant in april at maplecrest and rothman. normally i don't get too excited about YAFFR (yet another fast food restaurant) opening up in this franchised hellhole they call a city, but sonic's non-standard, high quality fare in the market segment coupled with the drive-in concept really stands out here. unfortunately for me, this one will be a much further drive than the one on lima road that closed down over a year ago, but again the great food makes the drive worth while.

in general, we've been starting to see more restaurants invade the area that don't follow the mcdonalds/applebees/taco bell mold but instead offer more progressive menus than we had typically seen before in this formerly meat-and-potatoes stronghold. about the lone, singular genre that had defied that convention was the locally-owned greek restaurants whose diverse fare and generous portions seem to thrive nearly anywhere they are operated.

last year we saw culver's and moe's franchises enter the area, and this year so far sonic is set to come back.... it can only make me wonder (and salivate) about what restaurants await us during the rest of the year.

butter beans and a ford f-250.. what do they have in common?

Yesterday, whilst driving home from MAL*WART i was behind this modern Ford F-250 that had this magnetic sign on the tailgate that said BUTTER BEANS in a rounded arial-ish font and the letters were all rotated at different angles that were all less than 20° or so from normal. Oddly though was that this was your typical redneck truck that had a lift kit on it. There seemed to be no brand name or any other marks that would identify this as some sort of advertisement and makes me wonder if the owner just simply has some sort of fetish for the legume in question. In hindsight, i shoulda snapped a picture from my phone, but i'm not sure it would have turned out too well. Anyways, if anyone wants to offer up a theory aside from the legume fetish, i'm certainly more than willing to entertain it.

new pictures of the baby and family online!

powerball record jackpot

i don't normally buy lottery tickets very often because i'm aware of the statistical improprieties designed to give the state the advantage, however when the PB jackpot grows to a record amount, i suppose that dropping $5 a few times a year for that infinitesmal shot at extreme wealthiness at least satisfies my curiosity where i might otherwise think "if i would have bought that ticket, it could have been me that won all that money"

and what would i do if i had that kinda scratch? i'd start figuring out how to do some good with it like fund and start up a non-profit service organization dedicating to serving the public. sure i'd probably buy a house and a new car, but putting the money into a socially responsible cause seems like the right thing to do.

here's to dreaming big.

raped again by the ticket bastard!

So i bought my ticket to the stereolab show in chicago tonight... since i live 4 hours away, going to the venue's box office to get the ticket was out of the question... and the only other way to get the ticket was to order through ticketmaster.com or by phone through ticket master. Somehow a ticket that was supposed to cost $20 ended up being $32.82... As you can see that ticket master likes to double dip their customers - not only did i pay a "convenience fee" (whose convenience? mine or theirs?) and an "order processing fee" which gave them $11.55 or roughly 58% percent of the original price. what a crock of shit i say. Whats even more appalling is that i could have printed my ticket at home for an additional $2.50 - now why would i pay $2.50 to save them $0.39 in postage? they should have paid me the $0.39 to print it out for myself!!!

you could say i'm frugal (read: cheap bastard), but 58% just seems ridiculous.

Commentary on olympic curling

Okay, I, like many other people around the planet, have been watching the winter olympics on television. Most notably however, I've been sucked in by the sport known as curling. I'm not really sure why I like it because it is a particularly slow-paced game and not only requires precision motor control to deliver good shots, but because it is also very cerebral as each throw of the stone requires intricate planning. Maybe its the ice, maybe its the odd intonations uttered by the players who speak other languages, or maybe its the canadian accents of the announcers that makes this sport so compelling for a geek like me to watch. The flow of the game is very entrancing (save for the occasional time-out) and the level of etiquette amongst competing teams is incredible.

Being American and not living near the Canadian border, we rarely see this sport on tv so maybe that also adds to the mystique and wonder about a game that is little-known amongst us staters. In any regards, this post is an open call to ESPN and other sports networks to start carrying more non-olympic coverage of this outstanding sport instead of inundating us with 24 hours a day of high stakes poker among people who show little to no emotion.

i feel miserable!

Not only did i oversleep by over 45 minutes, when i awoke i was extremely dicombobluated. I'm really supripsed that i didnt' trip and fall over anything. It was as I was acting out the drunken bum that when the bar closes he sleeps ouside the bar.

most be a case of the mondays LOL

UPDATE: ambien and benedryl do not go well together... either i want to sleep or i want to supress my alergies but not both at the same time... ACK. They potentiate each others worst side effects.

cigarettes... only $7.59 a pack! what a bargain!

According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times, the average price of a pack of Marlboro's in the Chicago will rise to $7.59 starting March 1st. The total tax on a pack will be $4.05, with $2 of it going to Cook County. I'm not going to fully editorialize the issue now, but I see this as a step in the right direction as it will encourage more smokers to either cut back or quit completely thereby reducing healthcare costs incurred as a result of smoking.

IMHO, vices such as alcohol and tobacco should be taxed such that it is uneconomical to make a habit out of them. And this is coming from a guy who really likes to drink beer. But, there comes a point where something is taxed too much and the black market opens up to fill in the void thus causing other problems. The idea is to strike a balance where excessive use is discourage, but at the same time making a black market not profitable enough to seriously exist.

My guess though, is serious smokers in chicago might just make the short trek to northwestern indiana where they can buy in bulk and get packs for less than $4 thereby shunting the cook county tax effort completely. oh well.

i'm getting sued for 28 bucks part 2

reference: http://www.mabusland.com/blog/2005/12/im-getting-sued-for-28-bucks.html

today's the hearing at small claims court. I never received any calls from the attorney, and despite us sending the doctor office a check for the originally billed amount, they never cashed it.

I will update this later when i get back from court. Attorneys don't scare me, and I'm not about to sell out my principles to settle this thing in their favor. I'm almost hoping this will get ugly, because it will cost them more than it does me as they could be fighting cases where the recovery amounts are greater.

oil industry mad at the bush administration

President Bush's proposed budget cuts will eliminate $50 Million that was supposed to go for new oil and natrual gas exploration R&D at the department of energy. This has the oil industry fuming mad, which in my opinion doesn't make sense. I mean its not like the oil industry needs this money - seriously... ExxonMobil reported over $35 Billion in profits alone for FY2005. Chevron reported $4.4 Billion in profits last quarter as well.

Many people can't afford to even gas up their cars anymore to drive to their minimum wage jobs, so did the industry even need that $50 Million? I'm thinking not. As much though, as I want to laud the Bush administration for helping reduce America's dependence on foreign oil by fostering support for the R&D of alternative energy sources, my thinking is that this is not a large enough step to turn the tide in that direction. If anything, his tax cuts are also cutting out of other important social programs like financial aid and medicare and all these tax cuts are mostly realized by the upper 1% of all income earners so the money will all eventually flow back into the oil industry anyway. Those who pay less in taxes, have more to invest back into these companies that see ridiculous profits at the expense of the common man. My thoughts are that these tax cuts are only serving to widen the income gap and eliminate the middle class, not to mention we have record spending deficits of over $350 Billion for the United States next year.

Since I voted for Dubya in 2000, I can rightfully state that he let us all down... whatever happened to his promise of "ushering in an era of responsibility"?

mabusland is BACK online!

w00t!

we're back! moving the site to the new host was not as painful as it could have been. despite the fact that my router at home does not want to let go of the old IP address for the site in its DNS table, i was able to work around it and get the site moved and tested.

i can't guarantee that everyone will be able to access it immediately, but given enough time the DNS changes should propagate to most areas within 12 hours.

i need a beer or 7 now.

MABUSLAND OFFLINE (only temporary)

starting at 10pm EST tonight, there will be periods where mabusland.com is not available as i'm changing webhosts so i've gotta move files and repoint the DNS entries. i'm hoping to be back online by tomorrow morning.

my old webhost sucked and i need to make the move.

thanks for bearing with me.
~/\/\

pop candy interviews mike mills

Whitney Matheson (author of the "Pop Candy" column at USA Today) has interviewed director Mike Mills (and Lou Taylor Pucci) who worked on the movie Thumbsucker. This is interesting because I am a big fan of Mills' who has previously directed some incredible music videos and DVD's for the likes of Air and Moby. Mills appears to follow in the footsteps of other notable directors like Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and F. Gary Gray who all went from music video directing and turned their respective creative cachets into incredible screen work for major motion pictures.

more pictures of the baby!

there's more this time, so i didn't want to flood my blog with them this time, so instead i uploaded the pictures to flickr, where you can see all the thumbnails at once, and view the full-size ones too.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PICTURES

ATTENTION! I will be changing webhosts soon!

Since November, my site has experienced three multi-day outages and it is damn near impossible to contact the host and have these things resolved timely. I will be ditching filefarmer.com for greener pastures (with hopefully more up time and faster responses.)

So please bear with me, as I expect to have the funds to make the switch at either the end of this week, or the end of the next. Once I have a new hosting contract, I'll update here and on the forums what any planned outages will be so that I can make the move.

My new webhost has an uptime guarantee and 24/7 phone support - two things filefarmer.com could never do.

thanks for all the well wishes!

Thanks for all the well wishes! We do sincerely appreciate them!

THE BABY'S HERE!

Without further adieu, I introduce to you MYLES EDWIN DAVINCI. He was born on January 20th at 5:14pm and is 7 pounds 3 ounces and 20.5"... Both baby and mother are very healthy.

an idea that could revolutionize privacy

In this internet age of instant connectivity and 24/7 data availability, we often times give alot of information about ourselves to various companies, and sometimes they pay for the data on you as well. It can be kinda scary to think that some internet company (lets take Yahoo for example) not only probably knows your name, age, address and telephone number, but they probably know what things you like to search for hence they know your preferences for foods, cars, readings, political slants and maybe what size shoe you wear.

Unfortunately, I see all this data mining these companies do as an ever-increasing extension into daily life and that the trend won't soon reverse itsself despite whateve ethical concerns there are about it. Therefore I propose the following solution. Why not have legislation crafted to allow regular joes to either get for free or buy for a small fee a report by these large companies so you can find out specifically what kind of information they have on you.

Now, the idea is only half-baked yet, but I'm hoping with some input we can turn this into something real. Here are my concerns: where do we draw the line on which businesses are forced to offer this? I think you want to draw economic and categorical lines here because not every small website or locally-owned business could easily comply.. I'm thinking more along the lines of the Googles and Yahoos of the world... even banks and advertisers too. Another concern is that of privacy. Contrary? No, not exactly - but people need to be protected from having Jane order Joe's "personal data collection report from XYZ company"... the recent problem where anyone can buy other peoples' cell phone records illustrates my point. I still think that these records are private and confidential and that companies should not be allowed to sell or release them to third parties without express consent.

In the end, this isn't going to change privacy or even give you more privacy or shelter from data collection methods, but at least you can see what companies know about you making the idea slightly less scary. Also, this "open disclosure" of records to individuals might have an added benefit of making companies not want to collect intimate details of a person's life and could make the companies who collect very little data on people more favorable for private people with which to do business.


Being somewhat of a privacy freak myself makes me wonder why we don't have more laws in place to protect our privacy, yet give us this access to data about us.

my apologies

Mabusland was offline from sometime last night to about 4pm EST today. My web host was slow to respond to my request to find out why i was offline.

I'm looking to switch hosting providers sometime soon to one that is more reliable, but alas, we're having a baby in two days which is obviously a higher priority for us. I do promise to have some pictures available and maybe some video as well.

bittersweet season finale for arrested development on fox

According to an article at THE MYRTLE BEACH SUN-NEWS, Fox will air the final four episodes of the season in a 2-hour block on Friday, February 10th.

Why is this bittersweet? Two reasons - AD normally airs on Monday nights, why they shunted this into a Friday night is beyond me. The other reason is that the opening night for the Olympic Games will air on NBC that night. If you ask me, it sounds like Fox purposely found the absolute worst time on TV to air these episodes almost as if they were trying to blacklist AD so that no other networks would be interested in picking it up, despite the rumors surrounding Showtime's arousal over the series.

If it wasn't for the fact that the episodes are notoriously costly to produce and have a linear plot, it might almost do better in syndication.

music

"interlock" by stereolab goes on in the background..... tell me, do you like it?

yikes!

both the colts and bears lost today. it is a sad day indeed.

i can only hope that next weekend is better.... maybe a new baby will help the mabus clan feel a bit better after the travesties witnessed today.

GO COLTS!

indiana anti-muni broadband bill SB245 needs to be defeated!

Everyone deserves to have an affordable broadband connection these days, right? Internet access is becoming nearly as much a vital necessity as other utilities such as running water and electricity, especially as it relates to people and their ability to conduct commerce and banking activities over the internet. That being said, I am taking issue with SB245 in Indiana as it will de-regulate the telecom industry allowing the large providers (Verizon, SBC/at&t, Comcast, et. al.) to cherry pick and serve only the most profitable regions with broadband service.

As you may or may not know, save for the Indy metro area, Fort Wayne, South Bend/Elkhart and Lake County, the rest of the state is largely comprised of rural areas with many small towns scattered about. Only in those four metro areas can competing broadband services be commonly found while the rest of the state is left out to dry. In a large portion of the state, inadequate dial-up access is the ONLY option.

In these small towns, often times the local telcos and cable companies do not offer broadband simply because the infrastructure investment is not worth the return and doesn't look good to executives serving only to increase a company's stock price. Often times, it IS economically feasible for a small co-op or municipally offered, in fact there is a good white paper with case studies and sources HERE that provides much insight about the economics of this.

While I have no problem with competition to offer broadband services, I have a problem when telcos and cable companies lobby hard to get this type of anti-municipal legislation railroaded through state congresses. Heck, the de-regulation part of the bill doesn't even bother me, so long as there is still some oversight by the IURC.

If the industry gets their way, Indiana's small communities and rural areas will continue getting the shaft when it comes to broadband access as we fall further and further behind other nations in broadband deployment. If you agree with this, and are a Hoosier, please do call or write your local Senator and explain to them why they should vote down this bill, or at least push to have it re-written without the anti-muni broadband provisions in it. And for a little bit of a history lesson, a similar bill was introduced into the House last year and subsequently defeated.

Concerned citizens should make their voice heard to the Congress, because by golly the voices of the industry are certainly heard by them through lobbyists paid by the industry.

Just as an aside, so you know the score, Comcast's internet service (without cable tv) is $57.95 a month and Verizon's DSL service isn't even available without having landline service through them which is an extra cost. With a landline, the DSL cost is $39.95 a month currently.

Here is the link to the bill: http://www.state.in.us/legislative/bills/2006/IN/IN0245.1.html

Link to the Bill: http://www.state.in.us/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2006&session=1&request=getBill&doctype=SB&docno=0245

why michigan will always be better than ohio

According to an article at WIRED University of Michigan researchers have created the first quantum microchip. (Take that ohio!)

There is a down side to this. Quantum computing will be many orders of magnitude more powerful than the most powerful supercomputers we have now. As a result, current cryptographic algorithms will be made obsolete as quantum computing can crack traditional crypto schemes without breaking a sweat. What does that mean for you? All the computing you thought was secure (banking, online commerce, etc...) will all be vulnerable. The upside though is that they cost far too much to put them in the hands of most people... you are likely only to see them at universities, governments and other large institutions.

What rhymes with Alito? Burrito?

Okay... just like every other good American, I've been following the Senate judiciary committee hearings. And just like those other good Americans, I've got an opinion on him too.

If I was Dr. Phil, and President Bush was on my show and we were discussing Alito's nomination, I'd be saying "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" and here's why.


ABORTION

The guy has already ruled in cases as a circuit Judge where it was very clear in his stance against abortion, and written strongly worded papers that argued against the right to choice while he worked as an assistant in the Office of the Solicitor General. All clues that he wants Roe v. Wade overturned despite the rhetoric he spewed in the hearing.

DOMESTIC SPYING and EXECUTIVE POWER

Big issue lately. Wiretaps and the like are supposed to have judicial oversight to protect Americans against unconstitutional uses, yet Alito has written documents defending executive authority to the contrary. And while I think that we as a people have the right to be protected against crime and terrorism, it should be done so with some oversight so that people don't end up incarcerated for years without charges filed, or worse: dead. This is really a no brainer people! Our civil liberties that we have enjoyed since the First Amendment are seriously at stake if Alito is confirmed.

POLICE AUTHORITY

Alito dissented on a case where a 10 year old girl was illegaly strip searched without a warrant and sided with the police. Why, pray tell, would anyone side with the police on an action like that involving minors? It is absolutely ludicrous and an extreme overstepping of authority, but if Alito has his way, he'd allow things like this to take place. If you have children, you most likely would agree.

ROLE OF JUDICIARY

Now, if what I just described up above sounds like he doesn't care about personal rights (which he obviously doesn't), let me tell you what he said on the issue: "My general philosophy is that the judiciary has a very important role to play ... the judiciary has to protect rights. And it should be vigorous in doing that." That is just a straight-faced lie.


Please, call your senators, write them or send them a telegram via the pony express... but whatever you do, express your discontent with Bush's nomination of Alito and do it soon!

I have a feeling, call it a hunch, that all of the goosestepping republican senators are going to vote yes instead of listening to their constituents. All 55 republicans senators. I can only hope I'm wrong and the senate really does act to serve the people for once.

NEW HOMEPAGE!

Yes, mabusblog is now my new homepage because the old one just plain sucked!

You can still access the forums via clicking on the "forums" graphic at the top or by pointing your browser to http://www.mabusland.com/forums

Verizon wireless is up to no good again.

Admittedly, I use Verizon's phone service because it's pretty reliable with excellent geographical coverage. However, the carrier has had a history of disabling important features on their phones that they sell to their subscribers. In fact, the current phone that i have from them (Motorola E815) came with disabled bluetooth functions, file transfer functions and even disabled camera functions. I ended up needing to buy a $40 data cable and software to hack the phone's firmware to restore these functions on my phone (and on my wife's phone - she has the same model). Not only was this a waste of my time, but it makes Verizon look bad. The reason they do this is obvious, they want to force customers to use their network services that perform similar functions which are often more slow anyways - like transferring a ringtone to the phone or pulling pictures off of it. And these services can be very costly to use.

Well, they are at it again, this time disabling the ability to play MP3's. According to an article at C|Net's news.com:

The company's new song download service, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, is being built around Microsoft's digital-media technology. As part of that service, Verizon decided to eliminate the phones' previous ability to play MP3 files, hoping to keep the phones' music features simple, a company spokesman said.

Even worse is that they try to spin this as not a way of disabling a phone's built in features:

"We don't view this as restricting functionality," said Jesse Money, Verizon's director of consumer multimedia services. "We wanted one music player on the phone with a simple and consistent look and feel throughout the player. If we were to leave (the MP3 support intact), then there would be two players with different experiences."

Now I don't know about you, but anyone that doesn't use iTunes usually just uses plain old non-DRM restricted MP3's because they work anywhere and are damn near universal. Also, why do they think they need two separate players - one for DRM'd files, and one for regular MP3's? iTunes will play both, so will windows media and real player (rhapsody). Trying to force the customers' hands generally only results in alienation. When my contract is up in a year and a half, i may seriously consider a switch of providers if Verizon is still trying to pull this crap. I think they would do better to give the customers a choice and build their service around a model that really does provide value and perhaps offers something better than just transferring MP3's - that's what apple did for the iPod with iTunes, and look at how successful they are. In fact apple's model is so successful, due to ease of use and simple pricing structure, that it has drawn the ire of the record industry, who is trying to force Apple to bend and raise their prices. This comes as the traditional model of selling albums on physical media continues to decline.

In any event, I urge you either not to buy one of these new phones, boycott Verizon Wireless altogether, or just buck the system and hack your phone like I did.

I'm now a colts fan for life!!!!!

There's four cheerleaders for the Indianapolis Colts and one mabus in the picture.... can you guess which one is the mabus?

Its fun to be stalked by a mob once in a while!

headache remedy or toxin?

I've been seeing alot of ads for this stuff called "Head On" in ads on TV. Well, since I get the occasional headache myself, I thought I'd look into what this stuff is. According to drugstore.com the product contains two active ingredients. Potassium Dichromate and White Bryony. Both ingredients are purportedly homeopathic remedies.

The first one, Potassium Dichromate, according to the Comenius - European Cooperation on School Education, the principal hazards associated with it are listed as:

• Potassium dichromate is toxic if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. It is corrosive and may produce severe eye damage.
• Chromium (VI) compounds are carcinogens.
• Potassium dichromate may act as a sensitizer.
• This material is a strong oxidizing agent and reacts vigorously or explosively with a wide variety of reducing agents.

Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't exactly want to be rubbing that on my forehead. The other ingredient, White Bryony, also seems to be a pretty nasty active ingredient. According to herbalremedies.com it acts as an irritant and often causes inflammation where it is applied and it is toxic as well. Ingesting this herb can cause vomiting, kidney damage, convulsions, and abortion, therefore, it is prescribed mainly by homeopathic practitioners to be taken in extremely small doses.

Okay, so you might not be eating any of this stuff.... but the ingredients ARE absorbed sublingually and will make it into the bloodstream via epidermal capillaries.

I have a feeling that this stuff causes more headaches in the long run than it cures.