September 10th, 2004
Done
Have a good weekend; I'm done here. There will be no September 11th posts here (this time I mean it). I tried one (that some of you saw), but it was inappropriate. Silence is best.Never forget.
Posted by fad at 6:13pm
Avoided the Obvious Bad Joke
I'm sick of all this special treatment given to scientists. What makes them so different from me?Decaying pig corpses deposited in secret locations around London are providing scientists with forensic information that may help them solve crimes.Hog corpse burying used to be one of my favorite hobbies until the real pigs made me stop. It's public land. I should be able to use it however I damn well please. I used to think this was America.
Posted by fad at 3:31pm
Peter Gabriel
I watched the NASA streaming video of the Genesis craft's crash landing the other day. It was cool on that "WAM!" factor, but sucked on the lost science and wasted tax dollars front. All may not be lost.Optimistic NASA scientists said today they have recovered some intact materials from the wreckage of the Genesis space capsule,Good luck, space nerds.
[...]
"We should be able to meet many, if not all, of our science goals," said physicist Roger C. Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Posted by fad at 2:42pm
Scary Idiots
Wonderful. Some nutter is going after governors.The number of governor's offices receiving suspicious letters grew to at least eight Friday, the day after one that had been rigged to ignite when opened prompted evacuations at the Montana Capitol.They all appear to be from the same source. So far the states blessed with these gifts are Montana, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Idaho, Nebraska, Washington and Utah. Luckily no one has been hurt so far.
Posted by fad at 2:17pm
NPR
Had the fine opportunity to listen to an extended bit of NPR this morning. They are in begathon mode. Must've run through that $200 mil from Joan Kroc already. Anyway, 3 things jumped out:- Any time Iraq is mentioned some phrase like, "The increasingly disasterous" or "The evermore insecure and dangerous" or "That place Bush lied about so now people died in" is always attached.
- Mara Liasson can mention the new memos, but seems too busy to notice that their authenticity has been called into question.
- Most amusing thing I've heard in a while was the NFL being discussed on NPR. It was in the most dumbed down, talking-to-a-child manner. It was as if they assumed the majority of their audience had just barely, if at all, heard of the sport. It was almost as if talking about the goat carcass kicking games of some quaint, indigenous tribe.
Posted by fad at 2:05pm
More Memos!
If you want to show this image on your site, please download it and use your own bandwidth. Thank you.
Posted by fad at 1:57pm
September 9th, 2004
Games
Over the last couple years I've suspected that Al Michaels might have some right-wing/Republican tendencies. Tonight, I am almost convinced. After a "wacky series", as Madden called it, John said, "..that's what you call a flip-flop". As the game is in Massachusetts, Michaels responded with, "You're in the right state for that." That's clearly a reference to Kerry.Oh, and, what a hell of an opening game. Great plays and great wackiness.
Posted by fad at 10:58pm
End of Humanity
A robot that eats flies? Cool!To survive without human help, a robot needs to be able to generate its own energy. So Chris Melhuish and his team of robotics experts at the University of the West of England in Bristol are developing a robot that catches flies and digests them in a special reactor cell that generates electricity.Hmmm, but how will a robot attract flies?
The robot will most likely have to attract the hapless flies by using a stinking lure concocted from human excrement.That's how I attract all my meals. The neighbors don't like it, but I consider it more organic, more natural.
Posted by fad at 5:33pm
Closer
Under 3 hours to kickoff....must...hang...on.....
Posted by fad at 5:23pm
Stupid Bunnies
Tobasco, is there anything it can't do?Dutch farmers have devised a hot and spicy way to stop rabbits and rodents from munching their lettuce, carrots and wheat.Yes, but now they are breeding a new, mutant, heat resistant bunny. How far away can we be from being scourged by fire breathing bunnies? I decry, yes, decry!, this tampering with nature.
Spraying fields with the American sauce Tabasco sends the rabbits "three feet in the air" with shock and running for cover, said a spokesman for a local agriculture cooperative.
Posted by fad at 2:35pm
Word I Am Having A Hell Of A Time Typing Today
parameters
Posted by fad at 1:42pm
That Rotten Bugs Meaney
You know, taken out of the idiot partisan context of it all, that whole forged/real memo stuff is kind of fun on an Encyclopedia Brown level.
Posted by fad at 1:12pm
Winners
Speaking of single issue voters.Earl Dodge of Denver, the Prohibition Party's candidate in every presidential election since 1984, is running again in November. But dissident members complain that he is more interested in his political button business than the party, and they say the 71-year-old Dodge needs to hand over power to a younger generation.Nothing like a teetolatin' throwdown to bring in the gawkers.
Because of the split, Colorado voters will have two anti-alcohol parties to choose from Nov. 2: Dodge and the Rev. Gene Amondson of the newly formed Concerns of People (Prohibition) Party.
"We both have a message that alcohol is for dumb people.["]Preach on, brother!
"I'd rather have 100 Al Capones in every city than alcohol sold in every grocery store," he said.I've been saying the same thing for years, and no one would ever listen to me.
For his part, Dodge runs his campaign from a room in his house, where the walls are full of political banners and other trinkets, including a Carry Nation coffee cup honoring the saloon-busting temperance activist.I've always wanted to write up a dialogue between Carry Nation and Lizzie Borden, but then I remember that I can't write.
Posted by fad at 12:14pm
Random Word I Am Strangely Obsessed With Of Late
Methinks
Posted by fad at 11:15am
Foolaballa
It's now just a little over 9 (it fucking starts at 9pm eastern?) hours away from one of the bare few reasons I bother to go on living. The start of the NFL season is finally here. I'm not totally sold on this Thursday start stuff yet. I prefer my opening day filled with as many games as possible. I don't want to slide into the season. I want to get popped in the face with the full slate. Despite all that, the important thing is tonight there's a game that actually counts. Suicide watch can be set aside, at least for today.
Posted by fad at 10:53am
Smash the System
Filthy capitalists try to buy immortality with money stolen from the very blood of the workers.A New York real estate magnate has given the University of Michigan $100 million, its largest donation ever, and the university's board voted on Thursday to rename the business school for him.How many healthy school lunches could have been bought with this blood money? Disgusting. First they steal it, then they waste it. And the shame that our universities, the places where our leading lights live and work, are participating in this.
[...]
[A] foundation headed by real estate developer William Cummings will give $50 million to its veterinary school over the next 15 years.
[...]
In recognition, the Tufts Veterinary School in Grafton, Mass., will be renamed the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
Posted by fad at 10:12am
Weak
Profiling! Your information being shared! Bookstores are no longer a safe refuge of privacy."It was sort of a crime ring that this mid-20-something gentleman and his girlfriend had going," said Peterson, who said they probably sold books at his store twice before being caught. The city's independent bookstores trade information with each other to prevent just this sort of crime, he said.Independent bookstores are keeping records on us, now. Not only that, but they are sharing this information with each other with no concerns for our privacy. Somewhere AshKKKroft is laughing over a welfare baby smoothee. Where the hell is the EFF and ACLU on this? I'll never shop at an independent bookstore again. Well, not that I ever did. They always seem to only carry them smart people books that I'm just plain too dense to understand.
"We do keep pretty good records of people who sell books to us," Peterson said.
Posted by fad at 7:33am
Lemming
As I've typed many times before, a former coworker of mine claimed that, when watching the 1997 "special" edition of Star Wars, once he processed the fact that Greedo now shot first, he walked out of the theater and has never seen another second of that version.The cantina shootout between Han Solo and the green-snouted bounty hunter Greedo is virtually identical, but now it seems their guns fire almost simultaneously.I'm not as psychotic about it as he was, but I'll still turn away and not look at that scene no matter the tweaking.
None of the other changes really bothered me at all (except maybe the stupid stepping on Jabba's tail bit). In fact, I was quite pleased that the "yub-yub" song was gone from the end of Return of the Jedi. I'm not actually even all that bothered by the insertion of Hayden Christopher to the very end of Jedi either, though that just seems like a waste of time.
Here endeth the geekout.
Posted by fad at 6:52am
Random Alternate Definition
- potential (noun)
- I have unreasonable expectations for you. Allow me to use guilt to try to make my problem yours.
Posted by fad at 6:39am
Again
Terrorist murder in Jakarta. As usual in these murders, the target is another country -- Australia here --, but it is the locals who are most often the victims. Tim Blair has the updating coverage.
Posted by fad at 6:19am
Fine, Be That Way
I can't stand single issue voters. They are the spoiled brats of the electorate. If a candidate doesn't toe their precise line on their issue, they stamp their feet, bitch and whine, then take their vote and go home. And the fact that they won't be voting is rarely due to a decision on their part. No, they blame the candidate for not wanting their vote. It's just like those "straw that broke the camel's back" people. Instead of having the courage to say they don't want to vote for someone, and give the reasons why, they wait around for some excuse to jump on. Once again, this makes it not of themselves, but the candidate's fault. See, they were going to vote for him, despite it all, but now they just can't. These people would rather watch the world burn than budge from their narrowness. Oh, I know how they will often go on and on about how their single issue is the one that actually underpins all other issues, and that compromise today just adds more lube to that damn slippery slope which seems to be everywhere (and someone really should sue the city planners for putting so many of them around), but that just adds to the annoyance. But what really sucks is that I find myself turning in to one.
Posted by fad at 6:12am
September 8th, 2004
Thanks
I just realized I passed 20,000 visits on the ole, totally inaccurate* sitemeter thingy. Thanks to all who continue to visit. One of these days, I hope to make it worth your while.*Beyond its other inaccuracies, the heavy use of rss readers and such makes a lot of this image based counters less and less accurate.
Posted by fad at 5:52pm
Free Calls
I have to admire this ingenuity.The Cook County sheriff's department says inmates have found a way to trick victims into paying for the inmates calls. They're calling random numbers and asking those who answer to dial star-72 (72) followed by another phone number.Since I have no long distance on my landline right now, I think I need to give this a shot. You know, just for research.
That allows the person at the other number to accept collect calls that will be billed to the victim's number.
Posted by fad at 4:19pm
More Stupid
Damn, it took me a while to figure this out.
Posted by fad at 2:37pm
One More
I know when I think art criticism, I think pilates.Michelangelo's David, far from representing the epitome of male physical perfection, was a wreck, according to a posture expert.And when I think "pilates", I think "trendy-DVD buyers".
An analysis by pilates pioneer Alan Herdman found David would have had a bad lower back, a weak hip and ankles, hammer toes and poor flexibility.
Posted by fad at 12:48pm
Another Break
For some reason I found this amusing. Well, not really "amusing". More a mildly interesting way to pass a few seconds of the day.
Posted by fad at 10:29am
Back on Topic
Back in my early school days, I found myself explaining to a couple others how super smart I was. Another sign you are not really that smart: Not only do you have to explain to others that you are, but you actually feel the need to do so. After the litany of my various genius, I was going to conclude with a simple, humble statement recognizing the obvious by saying, "So, you see, I'm actually quite a genius." However, it came out, "So, you see, I'm so genius."They rightfully laughed at me, and the phrase "I'm so genius" came to be used whenever someone either did something harmlessly stupid or when they did something that should have been obvious to make something work. "So I added a semicolon and it compiled. I'm so genius."
Posted by fad at 7:23am
Brief Break
Speaking of pretense, check out the bookends on this review of Jenna Jameson's book.Sing, Muse, of your meteoric ascent from a seething pit of pure, all-American white trash.If you ever catch me writing something like that, and I haven't already killed myself because of it, you have my permission to hunt me down and put us all out of my misery.
Sing, also, of five-figure fees for one evening's striptease, and of six-figure film contracts for the company you built.
Sing of rape and addiction and suicide, of thieves and junkies and lies, of vodka, Vicodin, and crystal meth.
But most of all, sing of Sex.
[...]
So sing, Muse, of a messed-up kid from a ditch on the wrong side of the tracks who climbed to the top of a $3 billion industry, using only the power of her ambition and body.
Sing, Muse, of the glory of America.
Posted by fad at 6:53am
Theme Day
"We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation."This was one of my favorite quotes when I was younger. So delightfully misanthropic. In fact, when doing a search to make sure I had the quote right in my mind, I found it listed quite often as a humorous quote. Part of what delighted me about the quote was the sure satisfaction that I would easily pass inspection as being worthy. For you see, I was a genius. I knew eventually the world would recognize that. And if only the world were properly ordered, it would subsidize and support me as appropriate for a genius. I also had a suspicion, as a genius, that there was a very good chance I would be on that board were it to exist. Of course one problem with this is that I am not a genius. First sign that you are not a genius: you think you're a genius. Second sign is that you are me, but that only applies in very specific cases. I was nothing more than an idiot squirting pretense from every pore.
--George Bernard Shaw
But the real problem with this quote -- one discovered later after actually looking into the character of the man -- is that he was completely serious. Including the "liquidation" part. That's a very specific word not used by accident. It is almost always used by totalitarian regimes and plotters as what must be done to those who interfere with the coming utopia. The kulak class, the capitalist class, whatever stands in the way. Shaw was a dedicated totalitarian*, who unironically nominated Stalin for the Nobel Peace Prize, not despite of, but partially because of his full knowledge of the mass murders, starvations and purges. The unworthy were just a drag on society. Liquidation by the properly ordered state (the power behind the "board") was a noble thing.
Since learning all this, the quote, and the mindless giggles over it, fill me with a sort of horror. As does my former infatuation with it.
*I'm not interested in lectures or essays about specifics. Allow this generalization to go, please, rather than any condescending, lengthy explorations. There will be a time for that, I'm sure.
Posted by fad at 6:28am
September 7th, 2004
Fine Tooth Comb
One of my favorite hobbies is to get a case of headlice, then try to find new and more painful ways to get rid of them. It's the challenge of it all, you see. Makes me feel alive. But now some goody-goody doctor wants to make it too easy.The treatment, called Nuvo, is a lotion that is applied to the child's head, then dried using a hair dryer. The lotion forms a "shrink-wrapped" film that suffocates the lice. The dried lotion is left on for a minimum of eight hours.Where's the sport in that, I ask you? I will be no part of this. Our modern world continues to march onward to complete alienation to actual living in this world.
Posted by fad at 2:57pm
Communist
The best part of the sunburn is the peeling. Days and days of free entertainment all at your fingertips.
Posted by fad at 2:38pm
Post for Posting's Sake
Since I have nothing else, I'll link this. Look carefully at the third picture down.
Posted by fad at 1:16pm
Some Thoughts From Lunch
- For years I thought Wallace Shawn played Mindy's dad on Mork & Mindy.
- I get the feeling it bugs the hell out of him that his vote counts just as much as the vote of an idiot like me. Heck, you could argue mine counts more since I'm in a "battleground" state.
- Kitty Kelly is still alive?
- The world did not need yet another cover that that song about paving paradise to put up a parking lot (obviously for no reason. Just a parking lot out in the middle of nowhere; its existence solely to deprive some rare vole of its habitat). Yet, turns out there is one. Heard it over lunch. I contacted all major presidential campaigns to see if they have included any plans to prevent this from happening again. So far only the Nader campaign has gotten back. He says that in his administration, the mass recording of music will be strictly controlled so as not to waste precious petroleum resources making plastic jewel cases. Each song will be limited to two lifetime covers.
- At least no one has done a cover of that "If I had a hammer" song lately. Well, as far as I know. And I'm happy not knowing.
- If either of these songs are now playing in your head, good. Welcome to my hell.
Posted by fad at 12:51pm
Wherein An Idiot Attempts His First Post Of The Day
"Boy, look at that blank screen. Blank, blank, blankity blank-blank-blank. Can't think of a thing today. Just a fludge of sludge. Cotton-brained blankness. Hmmm...maybe that story? Nah, every will have seen or posted on that. No good jokes either. Blank, blank, blank. Maybe something about blankets? No, that's just stupid. Just like you, you idiot. I don't know why you bother to think you have anything to post anyway. It's better that the screen is blank rather than polluted with your bad jokes and grammar. Yeah, maybe that's better. Blank is better than looking stupid. Not that you can help that much, but every little bit is still better than exposing your rank idiocy over and over again. Yeah...blank is best."
Posted by fad at 9:38am
September 6th, 2004
Random List
Top 5 Languages I Wish I Could Read- Russian
- French
- Latin
- German
- Japanese
Posted by fad at 1:31pm
Continued Speedy Recovery
Bill Clinton is doing well after his surgery.
Posted by fad at 12:58pm
An Open Letter
Dear Low-Carb People,I hate you.
Sincerely,
me
Beef prices are insane around here, and I choose to blame those low-carbers for driving up the demand and price. But since this is Union Fatcat Day, I am required to grill lest my kneecaps get broke. I think I'm going to try a variation of George Bush's Steak.
Posted by fad at 10:54am