Well, this has to be one of the weirdest stories I’ve heard in quite some time. The is a segment of our population that would like to see one or more of their healthy limbs cut off! This Salon article profiles a few of these people, in typical Salon fashion.

Of course, as any good Salon story, this article starts out to explain the disorder, and then throws in the gratuitous sexual references. Throw in wacked-out MDs that have records that put Jack Kevorkian to shame, fetishists, and knife-wielding Mexicans, and it makes for an interesting bit of a story.

Hey all, it’s back to school for me. “But ben! What about work!” you say. Well, i’ll be working, too. Full time. And at school full-time, too. Oh dear! Yeah, well, thanks to the deal I have with Corvus, I can work from home. Whew. It’s gonna be rough, but none of my classes are too terribly crazy.

Anyway, for me birthday (the 18th of August), my good friend hunter, (who, strangely, doesn’t have an account for thelocust.org) has offered to start posting new Revolver columns. The Revolver is a series of posts that Hunter had written to our friend mailing list called appropriately “theList”.
Well, i couldn’t be happier. So, i’ve started to add stuff to the site, like the User Accounts, a User Directory, and soon the ability for users to submit articles to a queue for review by the admin users here. If anyone, ANYONE, ANYONE! has any ideas about what you would like to see on this site, let me know.

Oh, and a word about the focus of this site. Originally, I had set out to make this site like Slashdot or NerdPerfect, and for the most part, it has. However, I knew that most of my friends aren’t too terribly interested what kind of processors Intel will release next or if the new Linux Kernel has been released. However, i do like the way that they are set up, and I haven’t seen any other sites that focus on non-technical stuff.

So! Here is my call to you, gentle reader, to get involved! Make conversation, give us news, drive other people to the site! I REALLY REALLY want to make this site as fun, informative, and user driven as possible.

Thanks

First off, i didn’t realize that there was such a following behind Lego trains, and secondly they had their own organization. But, that aside, I’ve loved Legos for such a long time. They are just so goddamned cool. Now as I’ve grown older, I’m more into the moving parts and such, so this train thing is just too neat.

Also, check the webcam here to see the current state of the track. It’s huuuge!

While we are on the subject of LEGOs, check out the Lego Mindstorm HOWTO, and the Public, Real-Time, Actual, Honest-To-God Magic 8Ball.

Are you afraid of clowns? Well, thanks to WebClowns, you will know what to do.

Well, for those of you who didn’t know, Alec Guiness has died. I’d like to say i’m grieving, but c’mon, really. I didn’t know him. It would be silly to say that I will miss Alec Guiness. True, it is sad that a person has passed away, but unlike many fans, I’m not too terribly shook up. It’s not like Brad Pitt or Ed Norton, or heaven forbid George Clooney kicked over. Oh well, here’s the story at CNN, which, I might add doesn’t mention Star Wars more than in passing. Thank goodness.

More on that point, when Mark Hamill dies, I think that he will be spinning in his newly occupied grave if every damned article about him says “Luke Skywalker is Dead”.

So, you want burgers with ultra-stealthy delivery? Well, i’ve got NinjaBurger for you. Now, they claim that they don’t server Fortune Cookies with their meals as “Fortune Cookie is Chinese. Stupid Gaijin”, however Kung-Fu Grip is most certainly of mainland Asiatic origin. Hmm. Oh, by the way, all the burgers are soy burgers.

Oy! Gary has raved and raved about Daily Radar for quite some time (to quote: “i LOVE daily radar”), and I check it now and then, but today i got into review their archives. HOLY SHNIKES! There are some truly hilarious bits in there. For instance: How To Survive a Bear Attack While Parachuting, their entire “Violence Week”, my personal fave, “Dude Your Mom is Hot Week”.

Each week, a different theme, like this week’s Cartoon Week, with plenty of Top-10 lists to boot!

Hey all! Well, I sucessfully installed Mandrake Linux on my main PC (which doubles as webcam server), and i got my Creative Webcam ][ up and running again. I don’t know what the heck was up with the Windows webcam software I used, but the stuff I’m using now gives me great pictures, and really smooth video (although, the webcam isn’t streaming anymore, it will be in the future — hopefully).

So, the cam updates every minute, and if you clicky on the thumbnail on the right, a little window will pop-up all happy like.