definitely has some heft to it, which makes it just feel nice and solid in the palm of your hand... but i guess the real question is: would you trade your iphone in for one?

my answer: nope.

if i was still on verizon and really didn't want to switch over to AT&T for the iPhone, i'd definitely pick one up if i was in the market for a new phone... it's not the iphone, for sure, but it has a lot of the same features and gets close... man, even with the new droid, it just hits home just how fucking smooth and slick the UI is on the iphone.

p.s. do you guys say "my iphone" or just "my phone"? not sure if i'm in the minority here or not, but i've been saying "my iphone" since i got it... though sometimes it just seems a little weird when saying it more than once in a conversation. just curious.

update: here's the Droid user-agent, for the curious...

75.197.120.60 - - [06/Nov/2009:13:48:32 -0500] "GET /cfr HTTP/1.1" 404
769 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.0; en-us; Droid Build/ESD20)
AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17"

These games are a cherished part of my life, they helped to shape my young mind, they gave me challenges and vastly improved my English, opening the door to a whole new world of literature, music and people from all around the world. What I have achieved, all my research, how I have been able to travel even though I'm always broke, the hard work I've done to convince people to fund a start up for cheap biotech for developing countries and regular folks, none of that would have been possible hadn't I learned English through video games.

Now, thanks to the tiny horizons of the cast of morons who govern me, thanks to the stupidity and ham-fisted authoritarianism of the local authorities, so beloved of so many liberals, my 7 year old brother's chances to do the same could be greatly impacted.

man, that really sucks... i'd probably go a little ape-shit myself if a couple dumbass politicians decided for me that i couldn't play some video games... or what i could and could not play... ugh, fuck that.

Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) -- A picture began to emerge Thursday of the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings as a mental health professional who worked to help others in high-stress situations.

The gunman was identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, a law enforcement source told CNN. Hasan's office at the base's Darnall Army Medical Center is about a mile from the shootings, where 13 people were killed and 30 were wounded.

Hasan had been telling his family since 2001 that he wanted to get out of the military, said a spokeswoman for his cousin, Nader Hasan. Hasan told his family he had been taunted after the September 11 attacks, the spokeswoman said.

"He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy," his cousin told the New York Times. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there."

An owner of a 7-Eleven at Fort Hood said Hasan -- whom he knows as "Major Nidal" -- came in for coffee and hash browns most mornings, including the morning of the shootings. Surveillance video from the store obtained by CNN shows a man who according to the store owner is Hasan at the cashier's counter at about 6:20 a.m. Thursday, about seven hours before the mass shooting. He was carrying a beverage and dressed in traditional Arab garb. Another surveillance video from Tuesday showed the man in scrubs.

"He looked normal," the owner said. "Came in had his hash browns and coffee as you see in the surveillance video."

so he went about his business as usual, going and getting his morning cup of coffee and whatnot... talking and smiling, before he turned around and went on a murder spree of his fellow soldiers.. there really is some sick fucking irony here, in that he didn't want to be deployed to Iraq so he turns around and starts killing everybody.

the whole thing is still kinda unreal... and yeah, it's all over the news over here — i wonder if the reports of him yelling out "Allah!" or "Allah Ackbar!" before shooting is true.

p.s. Peaceful preaching inside, violent message outside a New York mosque

i've never even seen a hairless bear before, but that's totally wicked... if i saw something like this come running at me in the woods, i'd shit myself silly. seriously.

A new wife was given a nasty wedding night surprise when she discovered she was allergic to her husband's sperm.

Mike and Julie Boyde had been going out for two years when they got married and decided to have unprotected sex for the first time that evening.

But almost immediately the bride was in unbearable pain - and eventually they discovered it was because of Mike's sperm.

Now they have been forced to abandon their plans of conceiving a baby as it seems her own body destroys the sperm.

Mike, 27, and Julie, 26, from Ambridge, Pennsylvania, started going out while at university and became engaged two years later, finally having a dream wedding in 2005.

But following the reception, as they enjoyed their first night as a married couple, things went badly wrong.

'Before we were always very careful and used protection - this time we didn't,' said Julie, 26.

'We figured, "we're married, if we get pregnant, we get pregnant".'

dude, i can't even imagine it... talk about a serious bummer -- wonder if that's grounds to get the marriage annulled?

...and since it's all about weezer at the moment, here's that great snuggie informercial.

{{{ walks away humming the song once again }}}

p.s. i'm seriously thinking about getting some of these snuggies for my parents come christmas.

As President Obama decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, we should remember that most of the conventional pessimism about Afghanistan is only half-truth.

Remember the mantra that the region is the "graveyard of empires," where Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, and the Soviets only three decades ago inevitably met their doom?

In fact, Alexander conquered most of Bactria and its environs (which included present-day Afghanistan). After his death, the area that is now Afghanistan became part of the Seleucid Empire.

Centuries later, outnumbered British-led troops and civilians were initially ambushed, and suffered many casualties, in the first Afghan war. But the British were not defeated in their subsequent two Afghan wars between 1878 and 1919.

The Soviets did give up in 1989 their nine-year effort to create out of Afghanistan a Communist buffer state — but only because the Arab world, the United States, Pakistan, and China combined to provide the Afghan mujahideen resistance with billions of dollars in aid, not to mention state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.

While Afghans have been traditionally fierce resistance fighters and made occupations difficult, they have rarely for long defeated invaders — and never without outside assistance.

Other myths about Afghanistan abound.

i haven't been following it all that closely, but i'm not exactly sure why Obama hasn't sent in more troops into afghanistan as the generals over there have requested... why the hold up? what's the alternative, to let the taliban regain control as they've been steadily doing now for the last year? not sure i really follow...

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army psychiatrist set to be shipped overseas opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post Thursday, authorites said, a rampage that killed 12 people and left 31 wounded in the worst mass shooting ever at a military base in the United States.

The gunman, first said to have been killed, was wounded but alive and in stable condition under military guard, said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort Hood. "I would say his death is not imminent," Cone said. Col. Ben Danner said the suspect was shot at least four times.

The man was identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old, eight-year veteran from Virginia.

President Barack Obama called the shooting at the Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening, "a horrific outburst of violence."

"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas," the commander in chief said. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

There was no official word on motive. Hasan had transferred to Fort Hood in July from Walter Reed Medical Center, where he received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

dude.... what. the. fuck.

p.s. the coolest stuff made out of shredded money you'll see all day...

NEW YORK – The New York Yankees bolted from the dugout even before the last grounder was scooped up. After waiting nine years for championship No. 27, no one would dare hold them back.

"It feels better than I remember it, man," captain Derek Jeter said. "It's been a long time."

Hideki Matsui tied a World Series record with six RBIs, Andy Pettitte won on short rest and New York beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-3 in Game 6 on Wednesday night, finally seizing that elusive title — the most in all of sports.

Paint the town in pinstripes! Nearly a decade after their dynasty ended on a blooper in the desert, the Yankees are baseball's best again.

Matsui, the Series MVP, powered a quick rout of old foe Pedro Martinez. And when Mariano Rivera got the final out, it was ecstasy in the Bronx for George Steinbrenner's go-for-broke bunch.

What a way for Alex Rodriguez and Co. to christen their $1.5 billion ballpark: One season, one World Series crown — the team's first since winning three straight from 1998-2000.

"The Yankees won. The world is right again," team president Randy Levine said.

heard the bad news on the radio this morning on my commute into work, and my first thought ran along the lines of "son of a bitch! those fucking whorebags..."

i don't even like baseball, but i can't stand the g'damn yankees.