July 17, 2009
eBay sellers hidden profit source?
Jon, my virtual landlord, has had a love-hate relationship with eBay for a while. This morning, the "love" phase seemed short and under-used:
Bought a magazine yesterday. Four bucks. Seemed like a good deal. Auction notes that out-of-USA losers should ask for an invoice to get their shipping rate. Thinking that shipping would be, oh, I don't know, another four bucks or so, I figured what the hell, and use the Get Reamed Up The Ass Now button to buy the thing.
Shipping?
Twelve bucks.
Frig.
Thinking that this was, perhaps, a one-time thing — just a spot of bad luck — I looked around today for another book that I would like to have. Found the book. Brand-new reprint of a rather old book for twenty bucks. Again, a decent deal. Shipping to Canada? Twenty. Two. Dollars. So, no book for me.
No wonder there's a recession, the dumb wankers.
Speaking of wankers: I took at look at the new Schwarz plane book and thought "what the hell." So I started the online ordering process. Shipping to Canada for the book and a set of DVDs (on a topic that shall remain nameless)? Thirty. Two. Dollars. Cap-and-trade this, wood-boy. I did not proceed with the order.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Humph.
I've found some eBay sellers like this: they seem to feel that the extra labour of filling in a customs sticker requires them to make a profit of 2-3 times the actual cost of shipping. After getting burned that way once, I've always been careful to check shipping costs before bidding.
When I requested Jon's permission to use his email on the blog, he replied with this:
I guess so. What I sent is not nearly as memorable as the first draft, though. I originally had something in there about how, after Obama nationalizes their health care, I hope the eBayers all get scrofula and schistosomiasis and itch for the rest of their lives; but then I looked up scrofula and schistosomiasis to confirm the spelling and decided that wishing those on anyone, no matter how much they distend my rectum with their take-it-up-the-ass shipping rates (Rectum?! Damn near killed him!), was just a bit over the top.
How addicted to the internet are you?
Lore Sjoberg provides you with an easy checklist to discover how bad your addiction may be:
If the ancient Egyptians had the internet, there would have been 11 plagues in Exodus, with “unreliable DSL” tucked in between the frogs and the lice.
It’s a pain when your DSL goes down, but the bright side is that it gives you a chance to rate yourself on the Internet Dependency Scale. Just compare your actions to those listed below and you’ll know what sort of pathetic digital symbiont you really are.
Stage 1 Internet Dependency
Immediate reaction: Check the wires, see if you can steal a neighbor’s Wi-Fi, then get up and do something else.
What you do while waiting for the connection to come back: Read a book, watch a movie, go for a walk. Is this a trick question?
If it doesn’t come back in an hour: Call your service provider, then go back to whatever you were doing.
Tall photographer/Swedish girl gang mashup
Trust The Register to be on top of shocking stories like the "tattooed Swedish devil girls who jumped a cyclist":
Well, by an amazing coincidence, El Reg had its roving snapper on the streets of Örebro on 8 July, and although he was able to capture the action, his images were subsequently lost - for reasons which will become evident.
We did, however, get in touch with the Great Satan of Mountain View which, by an even more astounding coincidence, happened to have an Orwellian black Opel prowling the leafy suburbs of the Swedish town on that very day.
Google eventually agreed to provide its original uncensored Street View images of the assault, which we have forwarded to the appropriate authorities in the hope the merciless vixen attack pack might be brought to justice.
With bonus linkage to yesterday's photography story.
June 28, 2009
June 27, 2009
Tweeting California
Gerard Vanderleun sent this tweet last night, which ideally captures the destiny of California:
"The salvation of Calif. will be partition. The south gets Hollywood and Tiajuana. The North: All the water and marijuana."
Update: Bonus USA twitterage from Ghost of a Flea:
"My American cousins: Congratulations on cap-and-trade. You are now to the left of Canada."
"WAY to the left of Canada.
June 26, 2009
Movie review of the year
It's not a movie I was ever likely to see, so it took a really amazing review to catch my attention:
Critical consensus on Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is overwhelmingly negative. But the critics are wrong. Michael Bay used a squillion dollars and a hundred supercomputers' worth of CG for a brilliant art movie about the illusory nature of plot.
Oh, and I would warn you that there'll be spoilers in this review — except that, really, since I still have no idea what actually happened in this movie, I'm not sure how much I can spoil it.
[. . .]
Transformers: ROTF has mostly gotten pretty hideous reviews, but that's because people don't understand that this isn't a movie, in the conventional sense. It's an assault on the senses, a barrage of crazy imagery. Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one.
[. . .]
Where was I? Oh yes. So LaBoeuf, who's actually a fine actor, is the stand-in for the male viewers' greatest fears about themselves. No matter how great a loser they might be, they can't be as losery a loser as Sam Witwicky. And yet, Sam has awesome giant robots stomping around telling him he's the most important awesome person ever. And he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe, Megan Fox, for whom banality is a huge aphrodisiac. The more pathetic Sam gets, the more Fox's lips pout and her nipples point, like little Irish setters.
To make matters more awesome for the insecure males in the audience, Sam actually tosses aside his giant robot fanclub and his walking-pinup girlfriend, so he can have a normal life. Of course, this only leads to other robots and hawt chicks (who turn out to be robots too) throwing themselves at him and telling him how important he is. In the end, everybody learns to appreciate Sam just a bit more than they already did, and a booming voice tells him he's earned the "matrix of leadership" through his courage and stuff.
June 16, 2009
June 12, 2009
Cruise gets "Coshed"
One of the most brilliantly snide movie reviews I've ever read:
Valkyrie: Well, the son of a bitch did it. He found a way to make you cheer for Hitler.
Full list of mini-reviews here.
May 31, 2009
It's finally here: Duke Nukem Forever
For the humour-impaired . . . Duke Nukem Forever is the Flying Dutchman of game design. It was supposedly "in development" for over a decade with absolutely nothing to show for all the time and money put into the project. You might consider it the anti-Gold Standard for software development.
May 29, 2009
A glimpse of the near future
Over at Wired, they're previewing artifacts from the near future, like the "Curiously Smart" Altoids from 2017:
QotD: Coyote vs Roadrunner
If I had time for retweet theater, I'd use this: "Breathes there a man who, against his better judgment and prior experience, has not attempted to adjust a lawn sprinkler while it's running?" (exactly 140 characters, too!) Yet we try, over and over again, thinking we will outrun the sprinkler, or avoid a spritz in the puss. This is why men identify with the Coyote, not the Roadrunner. And well we should; a canine's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's an ACME catalog for? The Coyote paid sales tax on those items, I'd wager; the Roadrunner paid no taxes for the highways he used.
At least the coyote tried to solve a problem with technology instead of running around all day like an idiot.
James Lileks, Bleat, 2009-05-29
May 27, 2009
Scary, scary stuff
For all the talk about President Barack Obama's historic first 100 days in office, too little attention has been paid to what could happen next...
Now, from the horror masters behind The Auto Bailout, The Stimulus Package, and White House Poetry Night, comes a story of true terror...
128 Days Later: It Can Always Get Worse.
Candid Royal Camera
"It's good to be the, er, Prince."
May 25, 2009
P.J. O'Rourke's retrospective buzzkill
If you read P.J. O'Rourke's well known paean to the joys of teenage insanity (aka "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink"), you probably want to stop after reading Part 1 of Sobering Up Behind the Wheel:
"Part 1" above was published in the National Lampoon in 1978 or '79 when I was half my age. To not despise yourself when you were a twerp of 31 requires a more philosophical mind than this old fart possesses. The more so when that twerp was right. And he — that is, I — was right, especially about getting married, having a family, the mortgage, the liver, and the Country Squire (or, as it turned out, the SUV). Of course I didn't marry the teenage lovely in the tube top.
(Gosh, tube tops . . . As Alzheimer's creeps upon me, please God, let that be the last memory I lose.) True love and common sense intervened to make sure that I gained a beautiful spouse who can read and write and stuff and who does not want to drive from Boston to Mexico without stopping at several Ritz-Carltons. The other reason I didn't wed the teenage lovely in the tube top was that she didn't exist. I mean, she existed. I saw her every day on the summer streets of New York. But she didn't see me. I was dweeby, Brooks Brothers-clad, and invisible to her ilk. And so I have remained these thirty years. All for the best, I suppose.
May 15, 2009
News bulletin from a universe just next door
Damian Penny (who still seems to be managing to stay away from blogging) sent along this link from a dimension where Sarah Palin was elected President last November:
The first 100 days of the Palin presidency, according to a consensus of media commentators, have proven a near disaster. Perhaps it was Palin's scant two years' experience in a major government position that has eroded her gravitas, or maybe it was her flirty reliance on looks and informal chit-chat. In any case, the press has had a field day, and it is hard to see how President Palin can ever recover from the Quayle/potatoe syndrome. Here is a roundup of this week's pundit mockery.
LET THEM EAT MOOSE
"Ted Stevens may have gotten off," wrote Bob Herbert in the New York Times, "but he taught our Sarah something first — like using $100-a-pound beef for her state dinners. And what’s this $50 mil for her inauguration gala? Since when do you fly in your favorite pizza-maker from across the country on our dime? Or send the presidential 747 for a spin over the Big Apple for a third-of-a-million-dollar joyride? Does Palin think she's still in Alaska and has to have everything flown in from the South 48 by jumbo jet?"WASILLA CHIC
Also in the Times, Gail Collins weighed in on the already-tired yokelism of the new commander in chief. "What we're getting is Wasilla chic. That's what we're getting. She arrives in the Oval Office, and first thing sends back Blair's gift of the Churchill bust as if it's a once-worn Penney's outfit. Then she gives the Brits some unwatchable DVDs as a booby prize — as if she idled the old Yukon and ran into Target's sale aisle. Did Sarah send Bristol into Wal-Mart back in Anchorage for that 'engraved' iPod for the queen? And what's this don't-bow-to-the-queen stuff, but curtsy for a Saudi sheik? Maybe that explains why she brags to Stephanopoulos about her 'Muslim faith.' So far, the best things going for her are Todd's biceps.”
As Damian says, "Americans sure dodged a bullet by not electing that Palin idiot, didn't they?"
May 09, 2009
QotD: The down side of emigration
It is always better to stay where you are and face the music. Even if the music in question is the tinkling of your broken sitting room window or the screams of other prisoners in the showers or the gristly, gooey sound of your fingernails coming out.
The fact of the matter is this: every single person who ever moves to another country — with the exception of America where you go to grow — is a failure. Seriously, no one has ever woken up and said: "I am completely happy. I have a lovely family, many friends, a great job and plenty of savings. So I shall move to Australia."
It's always the other way around. "My wife has left me. My children don't want to know. The divorce cost a bundle and I don't have any mates. So I shall move to Oz." That's why they call us whingeing poms. Because the poms they get do nothing else.
Jeremy Clarkson, "Stand still, wimp - only failures run off to be expats", The Times, 2009-03-29
May 08, 2009
Dogs and their diet
James Lileks covers some local politics in Minnesota, sliding over into the dietary interests of canines (s'okay, there is a common point):
This week in lawmaking: Our elected reps spent an hour debating a requirement to post signs warning consumers that cocoa mulch is poisonous for dogs. Like a knucklebone eaten by a Pekinese, it passed, narrowly. In case the House wraps up early and still feels frisky, here are some other things dogs eat:
The meatless skeleton of a chicken dragged from the garbage in the dead of the night.
The federal tax code, if dipped in gravy.
You, if it comes to that, and you're not in a position to argue.
And so on. Dog's mouths are nature's version of Amazon's One-Click: Me Want/Me Have. Many years ago my dog harked up a straight pin an inch and a half long. I stared at the mess in amazement — are you auditioning to be a circus sword swallower? A pin? Branching out into the metal food group now? He was saved by the wisdom of his stomach, which serves as the closest thing to a conscience a dog will ever get.
Old car articles, revisited
P.J. O'Rourke has a new book coming out called Driving Like Crazy. Andrew Wheeler offers his initial review:
The most debilitating disease that can strike an aging writer isn't cancer or alcoholism or writer's block — no matter how many writers each of those has felled over the years — but the insatiable desire to argue with and correct his own younger self, the urge to redo and fix all of the things he now thinks he did wrong the first time through. That urge led Wordsworth around in circles, endlessly bulking up The Prelude while avoiding work on the much longer work it was supposed to be a prelude to. It led Asimov and Heinlein and many others to tie up loose ends — much better left loose — in earlier works, and countless others to clean up and rewrite and expurgate books that suddenly didn't look as exciting and vibrant as they had when they were written.
And now the same fever has struck P.J. O'Rourke; Driving Like Crazy is a collection of his writings on cars — mostly from the early 1980s — rewritten and reorganized and stuck together to resemble a book with a single narrative . . . which, of course, it can't be. He was smart enough to know that he couldn't touch his classic essay "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink" — which leads off this book, after the new, depressive introduction, "The End of the American Car" — but he throws in a new piece on essentially the same subject immediately after it to take a few jabs at his younger self, and, more subtly, to point out to the reader that the younger O'Rourke is not to be trusted and wasn't having nearly as much fun as he said he was.
In spite of the caveats, I'll almost certainly end up buying this one . . . although I have found the earlier P.J. O'Rourke books to be more entertaining reading than the more recent ones (Holidays in Hell and Parliament of Whores are both excellent).
May 07, 2009
Good news for Yankee fans
According to this report, the Yankees are reducing ticket prices:
Slashed Ticket Prices Allow Lesser Nobility To Attend Yankees Games
Dukes, barons, viscounts, and earls are applauding the Yankees' recent decision to cut prices on dugout and foul-line field-level seats in half, from as much as $2,500 per game down to an amount the minor houses consider far more reasonable.
"Naturally I am quite pleased to attend my very first Yankees game, a spectacle that my merely adequate standing had until now denied me," said His Lordship the Duke-Chancellor of Arkengarth-upon-Settle, who often listens to Yankees games on satellite radio while tending to his 683-square-mile estate in Wales. "Until now, I have had to satisfy my sporting curiosity in less costly arenas, often hosting three-day fox hunts or airplane races upon the grounds of our family estate. But by mortgaging only half my landholdings, I am finally able to see the Yankees play the Red Sox." [. . .]
Her Britannic Majesty the Queen of England Elizabeth II, Duchess of Lancaster and of Normandy, Lord High Commander of the United Kingdom and Defender of the Faith, has not held Yankees tickets since the spring of 1982, when they were sold to pay for the Falklands War.
I like this "blog"
Ken Olsen sent a link to "this" blog. I'm "happy" to "share" it with "you":
May 06, 2009
The cost of keeping pets
Jeremy Clarkson knows something about the hidden costs of keeping pets:
As Mr Darling and Mr Brown continue to ruin the economy, people are having to ponder on what they can no longer afford. And many, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Animals, have decided the family pet must go. Apparently 30 animals a day are being abandoned at the moment. Almost 60% up on last year. [. . .]
There is no doubt that some pets are extremely expensive to run. My labradoodle requires a professional shampoo and blow-dry after every rain shower. My golden lab is kept alive with nothing but cash. And the electricity bill for the fox-zapping fence that rings my chickens’ enclosure means that every egg they produce costs roughly £1m.
And then we get to the horses. I have spoken to my wife about turning them into glue but she maintains they are not luxury items at all, and that the only reason she burns the various equine bills is because they are too trivial and small to file away and keep.
Hmmm. They have sweet itch constantly and as a result are always draped in yashmaks that must cost £800,000 each. Plus they need new shoes every two days, and a visit from the psychiatrist every time they see a paper bag in a hedge. And that’s before we get to the fact that their absolute favourite food is the wooden post-and-rail fence that keeps them in the paddock. In a single night, they can eat about 500 yards of it. And fencing is unbelievably expensive to replace.
To stop them doing this, I have painted the new sections with a virulent chilli oil, but it turns out that what they like even more than wooden fencing is wooden fencing smothered in chillies.
I would estimate that the cost of keeping the horses where they belong, preventing Brer Fox from eating the hens, running a lab to hatch the eggs, blow-drying the dogs and retrieving the sheep that ramblers like to chase into the sea at my holiday cottage is about £4 billion a year. I definitely spend more of my earnings on animals than on my cars. Far more.
May 02, 2009
New technology for diagnosing flu
Craig Zeni sent along these two new sites, which can help you self-diagnose if you suspect you may be coming down with some form of flu: http://doihavepigflu.com/ and http://doihaveswineflu.org/.
May 01, 2009
Snark of the week
By way of a link from Radley Balko, the most snarky comment thread you're likely to find this week:
[From the posting by P.Z. Myers] Words fail me. What is a doctorate in homeopathic medicine? A blank piece of paper taped to your wall?
[Anonymous]: No, a doctorate in homeopathic medicine would be a blank piece of paper soaked in a 1:10,000,000 tincture made from the ink of an actual doctor's diploma.
[CJO]: It's in a 6-foot tall stack of blank diploma-sized parchment leaves. Damned if anyone can find it, but it's in there somewhere, trust me.
[W. Kevin Vicklund]: Take a doctoral degree, copy at 1% "darkness", copy the copy at 1%, etc. for a total of 100 copies. The final one is the one taped to the wall.
[JDStackpole]: You heard about the homeopathy patient who died from an overdose?
...
...
He skipped taking his meds one day.
April 30, 2009
QotD: The office
Not many people lie on their deathbeds wishing that they had spent more time in the office. Ah, the office: the mournful gloaming under the fluorescent strips, the monotonous swish of the photocopier, the "ping" as e-mails arrive from bullying bosses, work-shy colleagues, and backstabbing rivals. Much of it is little better than spam. In fact, spam is a blessed release: a missive from another world, sent by a transparent crook and wasting no more than a second or two. Real e-mail also comes from time-wasting criminals, but takes a lot more effort to deal with.
Tim Harford, The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World, 2008
April 29, 2009
QotD: Events
It was a Friday afternoon. Richard had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.
Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere, 1996, 1997.
April 26, 2009
Cataclysmic feedback loop barely avoided
Over at The Register, Lester Haines reports on a near-disaster:
[. . .] following the first spot of what we have dubbed a "surveillance feedback loop", we received further examples of the watchers being watched by the watchers who in turn find themselves being watched on Street View.
Our initial plan was to pin these incidents to a new Web 0.2 mashup, but no sooner had we connected the first test shot back on itself using a Street View link to create a self-referring closed reciprocal photographic image bounce, than someone from the Vulture Central particle physics lab ran screaming to the server room and hit the very big red button which closes down all third-party apps.
The reason, we gather, is that by plugging a surveillance feedback loop into the internet, it's possible for the logic resonance to grow at an exponential rate to such a degree that it becomes self-aware within twenty minutes and rips apart the very fabric of time and space in a desperate attempt to escape into a dimension where Google doesn't own absolutely everything.
H/T to Craig Zeni for the link.
April 24, 2009
I LOL'd
With all xkcd comics, make sure you mouse-over the image for the alt-text commentary (or if your browser doesn't show alt-text . . . "They'll pick music and culture that they know annoys you. Building in behavioural easter eggs is a fair retaliation").
April 13, 2009
QotD: Weird Al honoured
Apparently SNL has just bestowed upon me the highest honor imaginable — my name has become a metaphor for masturbation. So proud.
Weird Al Yankovic, Twitter, 2009-04-12 01:46
Email users by their choice of provider
PC World's Thomas Wailgum diagnoses the kind of webmail user you are by your choice of service:
@mac.com
An Apple Fanboy to the extreme, you have either an elegantly-designed tattoo of Steve Jobs on your body or an iPod pocket sewn into all of your clothing.Typical user: Usually found in the hippest non-chain coffee shop, typing on a US$3,000-precision-aluminum-unibody-enclosed MacBook Pro, white earbuds in proper position and iPhone 3G at the ready. And if Apple invented a laptop with a cumbersome wheel instead of a keyboard, you'd buy it. Fact.
April 12, 2009
QotD: Australia's Anti-Tourist Board
You probably know most of the cane toad story already because my country of origin, in order to ensure that its high standard of living should not be threatened by a population of excessive size, has a kind of anti-tourist board dedicated to making Australia look less attractive than it might be in the eyes of the world. After World War II, the anti-tourist board spread stories through overseas outlets about Australia's teeming range of poisonous spiders and snakes.
There were stories of the red-back spider that hides under the toilet seat to avoid publicity, and the taipan snake that was so poisonous it could kill a man on a horse after killing the horse, and would do both these things unprovoked, because it liked publicity. The anti-tourist board was scarcely obliged to exaggerate.
Australian spiders and snakes are really like that. So you're a prospective migrant and you're afraid of getting bitten a little bit? What are you, a man or a mouse? If you're a mouse, you've got no business going near a taipan anyway.
More recently, the anti-tourist board positioned its enormous influence behind a film called Australia, which was plainly designed to put immigrants off going to Australia by presenting, at enormous length, a prospect of a country where nothing happened except a 150,000 cattle moving slowly across the parched landscape, each beast pausing for an individual close-up at any moment when the director thought the pace was too hectic. But the most reliable weapon in the armoury of the Australian anti-tourist board has always been the story of the cane toad.
Clive James, "Raising cane", BBC News Magazine, 2009-04-10
April 10, 2009
When auto designers do drugs
See some of the least successful efforts of automotive design at the Peterson Automotive Museum:
1974 Highway Aircraft Corp. Fascination
Paul M. Lewis founded Highway Aircraft in 1962 with the dream of building "the economical, safe, smog-free, modernistic, quiet, easy-to-handle, easy-to-park car millions of people want." He built five of these instead.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
I liked the Fascination, but I was perhaps more impressed by the Amphicar 770, which somehow achieved the impossible: an amphibious car with Lucas electrical systems (Lucas was a British manufacturer with an enviable reputation):
- The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."
- Lucas is the patent holder for the short circuit.
- Lucas - Inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
- Lucas - Inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
- The three position Lucas switch - Dim, Flicker and Off.
- Q: Why do the British drink warm beer? A: Because Lucas makes their refrigerators
April 08, 2009
The perfect gift for your friends with the aluminum headgear
Dave Slater suggests that these would be appropriate gifts:
Now wouldn't you feel like a twerp if you happened to get abducted by aliens . . . and don't have a way of finding your way home afterwards?
April 06, 2009
QotD: Paranormal phenomena in Science Fiction
Most folks who read my science fiction novels probably notice that, unlike Star Trek, Star Wars, or Babylon 5 (to name three examples), I never write about phenomena like telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, precognition. There are reasons for this. Chief among them is that psychic doings make bad writing entirely too easy. Paint yourself into a corner, plotwise? Then have your hero teleport out of it.
Another is that science fiction deals in real possibilities, based on our understanding of the universe, and the way science has let us learn and do more every century. I write about starships because I have reason to believe we'll have them someday. I also think faster-than-light travel will be possible, perhaps even time travel. The most fantastic thing I write about is the possibility that someday we might be free — yeah, I know it's a stretch, but the possibility is there, nonetheless.
However psychic phenomena are an altogether different kettle of gagh. Very early in my life, I realized that, if such power actually existed, there wouldn't be a single politician or religious leader on this planet left alive and standing above his charred and smoking shoetops.
L. Neil Smith, "Zenna", Libertarian Enterprise, 2009-04-06
The horrific consequences of failing to pay your taxes
April 01, 2009
Best April Fool pranks?
Jesse Walker asks Hit & Run readers for their favourite April Fool's Day pranks:
FrBunny
In college I staged a serious 04/01 sit-down with my boyfriend of three weeks to tell him I was post-op.My ego has never recovered from the fact that he seemed to believe it without much convincing...
Pro Libertate
ThinkGeek has some funny fake products today, including Squeez Bacon (bacon in a bottle from Sweden), an ice dagger mold, a Tauntaun sleeping bag with a light saber zipper, and a wristband that shocks you when you speak certain buzz words.Warren
NPR started a great one this morning. They reported that the Justice Department is seeking to toss out the conviction of former senator Ted Stevens. Ted "series of tubes" "bridge to nowhere" Stevens lost re-election after being convicted of corruption.It looks like most of the big news outlets have bit on this one. Ha ha ha ha
Oh wait...
Matt
Here in Boston, they were talking on the radio about the new "10 and 2" law, which means a $100 ticket for anyone caught driving without both hands on the wheel. This being Massachusetts, I actually thought it could be true.SugarFree
You know some jerk congressman heard that and thinks it sounds like a good idea. The radio guy should get sued by anyone fined after it becomes a law.
Unfortunately, the comment thread went off the rails after that post.
Update: Of course, the new Gmail Autopilot™ is full of win.
The Guardian accepts the future, moves towards it
You can call the old Grauniad a lot of things, but old-fashioned is no longer appropriate — they're converting to Twitter:
Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink
• Newspaper to be available only on messaging service
• Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters
They're twitterating their entire archive, too:
1927
OMG first successful transatlantic air flight wow, pretty cool! Boring day otherwise *sigh*1940
W Churchill giving speech NOW - "we shall fight on the beaches ... we shall never surrender" check YouTube later for the rest1961
Listening 2 new band "The Beatles"1989
Berlin Wall falls! Majority view of Twitterers = it's a historic moment! What do you think??? Have your say
You'd have to admit that it really does capture the essence of Guardian coverage, wouldn't you?
March 31, 2009
Decoding the publishing world
Tomas Christensen provides a Rosetta Stone for determining exactly what is meant by certain key terms used in the publishing world:
ANTHOLOGY: An artifact that has been superseded by stacks of velo-bound photocopied pages, usually unnumbered and with text cut off at the edges, known as CLASS READERS.
AUTHOR: A large class of individuals (approximately three times as numerous as readers) serving a promotional function in book marketing or providing make-work for editorial interns.
AUTHOR BIO: A piece of creative writing whose length varies inversely with the attractiveness of the person depicted in the AUTHOR PHOTO.
AUTHOR PHOTO: Pictorial fiction. Authors always choose photos that emphasize that quality in which they feel most deficient.
AUTHOR TOUR: A hazing ritual intended to make authors compliant to their publishers.
H/T to Lois McMaster Bujold.
March 23, 2009
Coping
Rachel Manteuffel recounts her unsettling discovery that, even at 21, she still hadn't quite finished growing:
Puberty is such a strange thing to happen to people. Up to that point, you've been growing your whole life, but in a reasonable, measured way — you can do more things each year, but you're still the kid with the high voice. You're figuring out what books and TV shows you like, what makes you laugh that doesn't make your mom or your best friend laugh. And then your body changes completely. It's not what you remember, and it has nothing to do with you, really. It's like meeting your roommate on the first day of summer camp: Aaand this will be your body! You guys are going to have so much fun together!
And mostly, you do. But meanwhile, you're an introspective kid whose body suddenly starts screaming SEX at innocent passersby. You conceal your agents of fascination in any way you can — or you get tired of hiding and flaunt. And you start noticing that the guys you know are suddenly smelling really good. The breasts, though, get involved physically around Step 28 in the mating dance. Because at this tenuous moment in your development, Step 4 makes you blush uncontrollably, and you aren't likely to need your breasts in that capacity for quite some time, but there they are, waving like a red cape in a pasture full of bulls. They're your trump card but hardly a secret.
Meanwhile, they're still there, attached to you, as you go about your mundane life. Exercise affects them the way the tyrannosaurus affected the glass of water in "Jurassic Park." Sports bras are a maddening false promise: Above a cup size B, they are all marked for "low-impact" exercise, as if, for a woman above a B, there were any such thing. Breasts move if they want. They are extravagant, unserious things, largely parasitic, except for their application to certain steps of the survival of the human race. Otherwise, their main activity is to florp.
However, Rachel managed to cope:
Adolescence requires rebellion, and, if you happen to have large breasts, you might as well rebel against the Hooters-waitress cliche you are apparently destined to become. So I did, vowing that what's going on above my shoulders would forever and always be just as interesting as those things below. I would take intellectual charge of them — observe them anthropologically. Make up witty comebacks to "Are those real?" (I have never been asked, but if I am, I am ready. I will say, "No, you made them up.") Sure, some people will still call you "The Man Show" behind your back, and occasionally a guy will rollerblade into a tree in your presence. That could be coincidental.
But what I realized is that my reaction to puberty — fury — drove me further inside my head, which subsequently became a wild place, headquarters for my internal resistance movement.
I would dress strategically, which is to say, demurely, except at those times when I would not. In other words, I would always be in charge. I would not be soft. I would not bounce. I wouldn't lean an inch forward to get what I wanted. My lack of physical subtlety would be balanced by thoughts I determined to make impenetrable. I am not easy, in any sense.
Stare all you want; you'll have no idea what's going on in my head. Because if you're staring, I am probably thinking that I could smother you and make it look like an accident.
Harsh? I know. But with a rack like this, you can't be a doormat.
H/T to John Scalzi for the link.
March 22, 2009
QotD: The 60's Generation
Don't moan. I'm not going to "pass the wisdom of one generation down to the next." I'm a member of the 1960s generation. We didn't have any wisdom.
We were the moron generation. We were the generation that believed we could stop the Vietnam War by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns. We believed drugs would change everything — which they did, for John Belushi. We believed in free love. Yes, the love was free, but we paid a high price for the sex.
My generation spoiled everything for you. It has always been the special prerogative of young people to look and act weird and shock grown-ups. But my generation exhausted the Earth's resources of the weird. Weird clothes — we wore them. Weird beards — we grew them. Weird words and phrases — we said them. So, when it came your turn to be original and look and act weird, all you had left was to tattoo your faces and pierce your tongues. Ouch. That must have hurt. I apologize.
P.J. O'Rourke, "Fairness, Idealism and other atrocities: Commencement advice you're unlikely to hear elsewhere", L.A. Times, 2008-05-04
March 20, 2009
March 13, 2009
What's The Onion been up to lately?
Jon, my virtual landlord, clearly has been spending a lot of time over at The Onion, from which he recommended the following items:
Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work
Jon said "Hey, I have one of these!"
Jon also said "I am pertty sure that [this is a] Section 13 violation in Canada:"
In The Know: Are Reality Shows Setting Unrealistic Standards For Skanks?
March 07, 2009
QotD: Cereal-ity
No wonder this Irish trickster-spirit always reacted to the sight of children by saying "they're after me Lucky Charms." They had a history, going back to the very first encounter [. . .] I always sided with the Trix rabbit, too. It made no sense that he was denied Trix. Why? Some international convention, perhaps? Interpol has expressed its concern that the rabbit might have Trix. Great lesson for kids: you may be small, weak beings with few legal rights, but at least you’re not the rabbit. Laugh at him! Smack the bowl from his paws! It’s okay.
Lucky Charms was, and is, my favorite non-grown-up cereal. I don’t care if it’s compacted grain nodules studded with sucrose-dusted styrofoam; I love it. Whenever my parents knew I was coming home for the weekend, my Mom would always have a box of Lucky Charms in the cupboard. I still buy it when it’s on sale. The rest of the childhood cereals I’ve left behind, including King Vitamin — that stuff was like eating a mouthful of jagged metal. You brushed your teeth after that, and when you spat it was like a a boxer gobbing in the bucket after six haymakers to the jaw.
James Lileks, "Evening Commercial Break: Yellow Moons", Bleat, 2009-03-06
How do you say "gaffe" in Russian?
Tom Kelley sent me this link on an unfortunate translation error which may further degrade US/Russian relations:
After promising to "push the reset button" on relations with Moscow, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned to present Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a light-hearted gift at their talks here Friday night to symbolize the Obama administration’s desire for a new beginning in the relationship.
It didn’t quite work out as she planned.
She handed him a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift — a red plastic button on a black base with a Russian word "peregruzka" printed on top.
"We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" Clinton said as reporters, allowed in to observe the first few minutes of the meeting, watched.
"You got it wrong," Lavrov said, to Clinton's clear surprise. Instead of "reset," he said the word on the box meant "overcharge."
I'm guessing that there'll be a vacancy in the State Department's translation bureau by Monday morning.
Whole thing here.
March 06, 2009
USMC expands recruiting guidelines
The United States Marine Corps may have quietly changed their guidelines for recruiting to allow older recruits to join . . . or they've had some database normalization issues lately:
Still a couple of weeks away from retirement, Opal Blackwell Walker already has received another job offer.
The 79-year-old Crestview woman says the Marines has expressed interest.
Last Monday, recruiters from New Jersey sent a letter to Walker by Federal Express.
"I had to sign for it. It was sent priority overnight," she said.
The letter from the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command asked Walker if she thought she had the stuff to be a Marine.
"It says 'Dear Opal, Do you think you have what it takes to be a Marine? Are you prepared for one of the most demanding challenges you will ever face?' " said Walker.
"The fact is, if you have the fortitude, confidence and will to improve yourself, then the Marine Corps may be right for you," she continued.
"This just floored me," Walker said. "I thought, ‘well it's some kind of joke. Somebody's trying to play a joke on me.' "
The Crestview resident hasn't contacted local recruiters yet.
March 02, 2009
Social networking sites
A Completely Unscientific (Yet Accurate) Look at Social Sites:
Yep. Seems pretty accurate to me. H/T to John Scalzi.
February 25, 2009
Sending the Veep some lovin'
"Here's to you, Mr. Plagiarizing, Gaffe-Prone, Hair-Plug-Wearing Vice President."
February 24, 2009
A different kind of agony aunt
Don Childers indulges in a bit of "Dear Babby":
Dear Babby,
A dear friend of mine has been married to the same worthless lout forever. She's miserable in the relationship, and of course that means I hear all the messy details.
To begin with, he doesn't work, so he takes half of every paycheck, right off the top. He gives some of it back to her to help with the kids and such, but most simply gets spent for this and that. When she asks where it went, he just gives her some lame excuse and holds out his hand for more.
He also doesn't leave her much privacy. She knows that sometimes he listens in to her telephone conversations and reads her email and mail. There are some places she's not allowed to go at all, and he insists on inspecting her before she goes to some others. [. . .]
Read the whole thing.
February 09, 2009
February 08, 2009
The trials of a military musician
A friend of mine, formerly in the Canadian Forces, recounted some of the fun and games of being a musician in the military:
There were a couple of times where the powers that be wanted us to play outside in the cold. Like -15 to -20 C. So we took all took our horns with us /in/ the bus and made sure they were very warm. As soon as you get out into the sub-sub temps, the warm air in the horn condenses and the horn the freezes solid instantly. No more playing outside.
At those temperatures (much colder than it was in Washington for the inauguration) brass mouth pieces will suck the warmth out of your lips very quickly. Lots of us had mouthpieces with plastic rims. Much easier to play in the winter. Small brass instruments weren't too much of a problem in the cold cause the players' hands would be warm enough to keep the valves from freezing. "Hot Shots" or some other such hand warmers as hunters use could be wrapped around the valves to keep them from freezing as well. Trombone slides were brutal, because they act just like the cooling tubes in a radiator. We used to use rubbing alcohol generously to aid in keeping slides moving.
In the military we couldn't keep our mouthpieces in our pockets because there was no prescribed movement for "pocketing mouthpieces". Fiddling with pockets wasn't one of the approved stances (such as "attention" or "at ease").
We were doing a Change of Command Parade for the Airborne Regiment. Outside, in January at -20C. Horns were all frozen solid before we even got to the parade square. Even split a drum head or two.
When we arrived at the parade, we all had our greatcoats on and were all bundled up as toasty as can be. Then the boss saw that the Airborne weren't wearing greatcoats, so he had us take ours off. Of course, none of us were wearing warmer clothes under our uniforms. The Airborne were prepared, and of course, had several layers of warmer clothes under their dress uniforms. So our boss, who was not the most confident guy in the world, had us move off the parade square into the lobby of a barracks facing the parade square, and had us play from in there with the doors propped open. Not professional, and very embarrassing for the band. We were standing behind a row of Cougars when they did a "feu de joie" where they basically do a 21-gun salute with their cannons. Very loud in the frigid air. Concussion from the guns made the doors to the lobby close. The boss was outside the doors trying desperately to get into the building, but he was wearing his leather oxfords and slipping and sliding all over the place while the guns kept going off...
Ok, well, perhaps you had to be there. But seriously think about it. Freezing cold. The boss was flapping wildly around on the ice outside of the building...
Well, you get the idea.
February 07, 2009
Apple doesn't approve of "Wobble"
According to The Register, Apple is unhappy with the marketing of the iPhone application "Wobble":
Apple has ordered the developer of the iPhone Wobble application to remove the words "boobs" and "booty" from his publicity, despite selling more than 20,000 copies of the epically pointless app.
Jon Atherton took a call from a "nice fellow in developer relations" at Apple who told him those two words are not acceptable promotional terms and must be removed. However, a quick search of iTunes reveals 161 titles with the word "boobs" and more than we could be bothered to count featuring the word "booty", though interestingly "Bulgarian airbags" doesn’t get a single hit.
When questioned about the disparity between music tracks and applications, the Apple rep told Jon that he was only calling to discuss the Appstore and couldn't comment on iTunes policy.
The video in question (safe for work, mostly):
February 04, 2009
February 01, 2009
January 30, 2009
The return of the revenge of the Interior Desecrators
James Lileks has reposted the original Interior Desecrators site:
Tired of your dated, hippie-crap wallpaper? Here's how to get it off for nothing! Invite over a really straight friend. Slip some LSD in her drink. Put on a 45 of "White Rabbit" and set it to play over and over and over again. Just when your friend starts to trip, say "This is what the inside of Jerry Garcia's prostate looks like." Then leave the room and lock the door.
Come back in an hour, and she'll have scraped all the wallpaper off with her fingernails! Works better than messy solutions or steamers, and the blood washes right off.
Or it blends in with the furniture!
January 26, 2009
Invest wisely
Michael Pinkus offers some sage financial advice in these tough times:
If you had purchased $1000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1000.00. With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left. If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $49.00 left. On the other hand, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of wine one year ago, drank all the wine, then turned in the bottles for the LCBO recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.
Amusing, but I suspect that the quality of wine you could buy that would return $214 in bottle deposits would more than counteract any pleasure you might feel in being so economical. (20 cents deposit per bottle, so over a thousand bottles . . . retailing for less than a dollar per bottle! Your liver would never forgive you.) I suspect a decimal place got moved in the original calculation . . . perhaps after a few too many under-a-dollar bottles of wine?
January 24, 2009
QotD: Why men don't like spas
Then there's the overwhelming feeling of disappointment and pointlessness that comes when you get a masseur who doesn't work your soft bits hard enough. You know this from the very first touch when his/her pressure is akin to a tentative stroke of a friend's new puppy. Great, you think. Now I am going to have to lie here for the next hour, with no trousers on, basted like a Christmas turkey, bloody Enya simpering away in my ear, while some failed hairdresser rhythmically tickles away at my flabby parts as if petting a consumptive hamster.
[. . .]
Why don't men know how to spa? Well, we feel awkward, adiposal and clumsy. We feel vaguely absurd, incongruous and, frankly, rather appalled that we have surrendered to that chink in our masculinity that is required to get us through the door of one of these establishments.
If we sign up for treatment at a mixed facility, the experience is never anything less than sweat-inducingly humiliating. The girls on the reception desk appear to be making fun of us as we fill in the health questionnaire, the throwaway sandals are at least four sizes too small, and the gown is comically short in the leg and arm. We don't have the nous to say exactly what we want because we don't want to appear overly expert in such arrant girliness.
It is almost impossible to make things pleasurable for any man who isn't a spoilt, self-serving, over-indulgent Premier League footballer. The environment is skewed towards the type of narcissism that makes most men squirm. We simply do not know the form, and to cover our arses (quite literally, in those shorty gowns), we start to act like nervy, cowed saps, doing as we are told and never asking any questions.
We certainly can't relax. If it's a massage that we are in for, we are concentrating so intently on not farting or entering a state of visible arousal that our bodies tense up like England footballers during a semi-final penalty shootout. That is bad enough if the person doing the massage is a woman. If it's a man's fingers on us, the tension is trebled.
Simon Mills, "Why real men don't like spas: Ill-fitting gowns, whale songs and lavender candles... no wonder many men struggle with the spa experience", TimesOnline, 2009-01-24
January 23, 2009
January 22, 2009
DARPA's contribution to a better world
The Register takes the time to poke fun at both the new Obama administration and DARPA:
As we're all now fully aware, the world officially became a lovelier place* on 20 January when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th prez of the US of A — a heartwarming ceremony at which he promised sunlit meadows in which children might gaily gambol, just as soon as he'd dealt with this pesky global economic apocalypse.
Obama also laid out his multicultural agenda, describing America as "shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth", and expressing his hope that "the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve".
This obviously rang a bell down at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), previously described by El Reg as "the legendary Pentagon barmy-boffinry bureau", and which recently suggested to the president it could fix the US economy.
Of course, DARPA's activities under president #43 — including laser energy cannons, invulnerable killbots and other high-tech dispensers of death are not exactly what's required to bring peace and prosperity to even the humblest African village.
Cue, then, the quite sensational rainbow stealth aircraft, caught here (or here on Google Earth) uncloaking over Tangier island in Chesapeake Bay:
Update: Comment thread enabled.
January 21, 2009
Advertising's final frontier
Gregg Easterbrook discerns a trend, based on the announcement that the New York Times will accept advertising on the front page for the first time in its 158th year:
WASHINGTON (January 20, 2022). Speaking at the White House Presented by Gazprom, Eli Manning, the CVS 46th President, said today the United States would begin to accept advertising on fighter planes, naval vessels and Air Force One.
"Just think, the next time I fly to an international conference to be jeered, your company's name and logo could be right next to the stars-and-bars on Air Force One," Manning said. "Call me in my sales office and I personally will handle your order." As for ads on the sides of military aircraft and warships, President Manning said that none of the generals in the Lockheed Martin Air Force have objected, nor have admirals for the Cunard Navy 'N' Caribbean Fun Line.
U.S. government agencies and officials began to accept advertising in 2016, the final year of the Boysenberry Diet Pepsi Barack Obama Administration, after the federal deficit exceeded the Citibank Gross Domestic Product. "The bailouts of Lexus, Tiffany and the Harvard endowment were bad enough," said a White House source who asked to be identified only as someone who finds it easy and convenient to buy office products from Staples. "Unlimited direct federal subsidies for country clubs, yachts and private jets was, in retrospect, a misjudgment," the source continued. "But the bankers told us they would refuse to lend unless they had free country club memberships. We had to do it, no one under any circumstances is allowed to question a banker!"
Speaking from the CNN/ESPN/BBC/Nigerian State Television White House Press Room, framed by adverts for toothpaste, pizza delivery and drive-through colonoscopies, President Manning strongly denied critics' claims the United States is for sale. "We cannot be for sale, the Beijing Investment Trust already owns 51 percent of our preferred stock," Manning said. Negotiations are ongoing to find new investors willing to inject funds into the Capital One United States Treasury and Payday Loan Service, in hopes that Treasury bills will be raised back above junk-bond status. "Until that happens, you can still use your Treasury bills for discounts at Quiznos," President Manning reassured Americans.
In other news, Lands End First Lady Abby Manning lit the national Christmas tree, signaling the festive start of the 2022 Christmas season.
January 17, 2009
QotD: Bad SF/Fantasy Writing
[Responding to the question "what turns you off in SF/Fantasy reading:] Egregiously bad science. Backgrounds that don't hang together (vampirism should not be ancient, secret and prone to spreading like a virgin field plague. If starship navigators are rare and die after a dozen trips, there should not be a large population of tramp starships. Ideally, one should not equal two and the standard method of landing a spaceship should not be the crash-landing).
The number one thing that turns me off is when it becomes clear that the author considers most humans a waste of valuable meat. See Bova's Titan where it's clear most of the humans in the Saturn system have no productive value, despite being a collection of scientists annoying enough to have been sent almost 10 AU from home, or David Marusek's Mind Over Ship, which includes this little rant:
"So who needs people? People are so much dead weight. They eat up our profits. They produce nothing but pollution and social unrest. They drive us crazy with their pissing and moaning. I think we can all agree that Corporation Earth is in need of a serious downsizing . . ."
James D. Nicoll, posting to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list, 2009-01-17
Star Wars, sorta
Joe Nicolosi asks his friend Amanda (who's never watched a whole episode of Star Wars) to recount the story. Here's nearly four minutes you won't get back:
Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.
January 16, 2009
Turning TV Scifi to Movie dreck
John Scalzi risks everything to point out that it's a rare TV show that can survive the transition to the big screen. In particular, he enrages one particularly enthusiastic fan-base:
Speaking of fans, I've just marked myself for death among the "Browncoats" for suggesting that Serenity, based on the TV series Firefly, might somehow have been a miserable failure. The Browncoats love their favorite series with a passionate fervor that is usually reserved only for religious icons or the Green Bay Packers, and will not brook the idea that the series and the movie based on it were popular flops, even though the show didn't last a single full season and the movie had a terrible $10 million opening weekend. "Well, Fox didn't know what to do with the series!" they'll exclaim. "Universal didn't market the movie correctly! It did great on DVD!" Yes, yes. I know, Browncoats. Come here, have a hug. Would you like a tissue? No, that's okay, you can keep it.
Lesson: It's great to have loud, passionate fans of a series, but they're only worth $10 million in opening weekend box office. Also, making a movie out of a TV series no one but hardcore fans saw? Not a recipe for popular success.
Scalzi'll need bodyguards for the next few SF conventions he attends. Real ones, not just guys in Star Trek security costumes. Browncoats aim to misbehave.
January 15, 2009
QotD: Next leader of North Korea
Tyrannical dictator, action star (Team America: World Police), and opera theorist Kim Jong Il has reportedly named number-three son his successor to lead the world's worst country. As of press time, it was not immediately clear what the twentysomething Kim Jong Un had done to warrant such punishment.
Nick Gillespie, "Change North Koreans Can Believe In", Hit and Run, 2008-01-15
Fark.com headline of the year (so far)
Source article here. Fark thread here.
Martin The Mess: Hmmm...I sort of follow this area of research as an interested amateur (why certain physical features and character traits are considered sexually attractive, and the hormones and genes linked to them), and I can recall a couple other hormones and genes supposedly discovered to be responsible for all these traits. Couple that with the whole "Hey, if we call this the Marilyn Monroe gene, do you think we can get mainstream press coverage" tone of the piece, and the ridiculously named expert "Dr. Frances Quirk", I'm getting a strong whiff of shenanigans off this article. On the other hand, Professor Quirk does indeed seem to be a faculty member at the college in question, according to a quick web search.
Remember a few months ago when Jessica Alba's publicist had a story planted that claimed that scientists had calculated the most perfectly desirable waist-to-hip ratio for a woman, and it exactly matched Jessica Alba's, making her the scientifically-certifiable hottest woman alive?
DaSwankOne: In other news: Rich guys like to have sex with hot and horny girls, giving more attractive women the chance to "trade up" if they want to.
Son of Thunder: Damn! Is there any way we can petition to get this stuff added to the water supply like fluoride?
Not so fast. TFA also says that the hormone is associated with dissatisfaction with their current partner and a tendency toward upwardly-mobile serial monogamy. Fark is already a haven for bitter chronically-rejected beta males, so I doubt that widespread distribution of this hormone would be so great an idea.
(But, y'know, that doesn't include ME or anything. Alpha all the way. I'd explain more but I gotta be at the gym in 26 minutes.)
January 14, 2009
A Firefox review
Jon, my virtual landlord, had to troubleshoot some problems with Firefox the other day. This is the non-confidential part of the summary:
Just a note to let you know that I have installed the latest version of WebWorks Publisher and have created some test output. The Firefox problem with the "initial" links in the Index is still present — clicking on a letter at the top of the Index pane does not jump to the corresponding section in the Index.
It works in IE 7.0.5730.13, Chrome 1.0.154.36, Opera 9.25, and Opera 9.63 (but with some display issues due to how Opera interprets table cell backgrounds). I also tried it on Linux (Knoppix) and found that it works on Konqueror 3.5.5 and Iceweasel 2.0.0.1.
My analysis: IE, Chrome, Opera, Konqueror, and Iceweasel are fine browsers, crafted with care and an impressive commitment to professionlism and compatibility. Firefox is a fetid swamp of bugginess, plagued with poor code written by guys who probably have trouble finding their way home at the end of the day. Actually, that last part most likely is not true; they have no problem finding their way home at night because they have never left home; they still live in their mother's basement, where they spend their time writing sloppy code. One can imagine their pathetic simpering as they chortle to themselves with every release: "Ha ha ha! Look what I am going to do to thothe WebWorkth Publisther utherths!"
If he'd included a reference to shit waffles, he'd be getting a call from Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw about intellectual property infringement.
January 13, 2009
Dvorak's hate note to the spreadsheet
You think you dislike Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet package? You probably still think more highly of it than noted curmudgeon John Dvorak does:
2009 marks the 30-year anniversary of the now-ubiquitous spreadsheet program. And society as a whole has deteriorated ever since its invention. It was the spreadsheet that triggered the PC revolution, with VisiCalc the original culprit. Can anyone say that we've actually benefited from its invention? Look around: I think we've suffered.
For one thing, the spreadsheet created the "what if" society. Instead of moving forward and progressing normally, the what-if society questions each and every move we make. It second-guesses everything. Because of the spreadsheet we've been forced to "do the numbers" whenever possible; once the numbers are in the spreadsheet, the what-if process can begin.
In fact, the spreadsheet has resulted in the rise of the once-lowly accountant/bean counter to a position of influence — and often the executive suite. How often in years past — the pre-spreadsheet era, that is — did an accountant take over a company? When and why did the CFO become a title? These people, at best, were once known as comptrollers.
The spreadsheet became a sword, and the accountants knew how to wield it.
QotD: Marketing Obama
On that historic evening in November, as Barack Obama definitively made passé the notion that we cannot, the president-elect’s acceptance speech signified a triumph not just for his campaign but for motivational wall décor. Like a Successories catalog made flesh, Obama invoked burning beacons, long roads, steep climbs, and new dawns. He was lofty, he was declamatory, he was as aesthetically challenging as a majestic golf course on a crisp autumn morning. And yet his well-worn rhetoric managed to move multitudes. Could it be that all those corny corporate psalms to Character and Service, the ones hanging in regional sales offices and telemarketing call centers across the nation, have touched us more deeply than we realized?
Greg Beato, "The Successories President: The posterized secret of Obama's success?", Reason, 2009-01-13
Lileks quests for glasses
As I'll be soon shopping for new glasses, I have sympathy with James in his never-ending quest for something that doesn't look too dorky:
This prescription was never right, and had to be changed several times. It's the nature of the diagnosis: it's up to me to tell me if the prescription is right. Better? Worse? Better? Slightly better? Incrementally better? I don't know! You have the fargin' shingle on the wall, you tell me! The first prescription was weaker than my previous one, and I couldn't quite understand why I would want weaker glasses. Obviously I'm not walking up to strange women and telling them their lingerie tags are crimped up, and that must be uncomfortable. I don't have super-vision. Can't see through walls. Garrison Keillor's logic, yes, but a mole with an eyepatch could do that.
But they stepped me down, and I wandered around in a fog and a haze for a week before I went back, pointed to the sign on the wall that said I was guaranteed satisfaction, and asked for a different prescription. Whereupon they guided my hand to the actual position of the sign; I was pointing at the bathroom door. Which only made my point stronger.
I was never happy with the final results, and got my money back. Went three stores down in the very same mall, tried another place, got "hipper" glasses, and they were just as bad. Or so I recall. At that point I'd just given up.
January 12, 2009
Scott Brown: depressing tour guide
Scott Brown takes us on a guided tour of the near future:
It's a typical morning in 2011: I start my day by bumming a few joules off a pal's bicycle generator to power up my BlackBerry and surf over to FoodTube, where starving viewers like myself salivate over clips of the "carbo-rati" noshing on hoarded snacks. (I try not to read the comments: "omg she is such a ho for eating that Combo!" "shup azz! u go girl! eat dat Combo!") One stray click and I'm rickrolled, prankishly diverted to the now-familiar footage of Rick Astley being devoured by a pack of London cannibals.
I decide to use my remaining juice to log onto Facebook, which has been looking frightfully gaunt since the Identity Panic of '09. (Friends? Who can afford friends now anyway?) Millions of "Favorite Albert Brooks Movies" lists and "Hero Abilities" requests were decimated, and we were left scrambling for whatever chums were left on Orkut. (This was before the Linden dollar crashed and Second Life avatars started jumping out of windows—and not flying.) I'd check my email, but browser-based email is a thing of the past: Vagabond freeconomic refugees now communicate by personal ad, and sex acts are routinely traded for, say, maki rolls and Pilates classes. (Craigslist, it turns out, is largely unaffected by the Awesome Depression.)
Dejected, I head downtown, a busted Guitar Hero ax slung over my shoulder. On the corner, a pack of surly former programmers dressed in surplus CES hoodies are warming their carpals around a single dingy Dell. I give them a wide berth. Farther on, a ramshackle Cubeville has sprung up in the parking lot of a burned-out Ikea. Delirious drones sit at cardboard desks and pretend they still have office jobs to complain about, tapping out "IMs" on their "keyboards"—old pizza boxes.
January 11, 2009
A modern update to Strunk & White
Just when you thought it was all randomly generated, we now discover that those entertaining offers of erectile dysfunction drugs, pornography, and free electronic devices actually do follow a formal style guide:
Elementary Rules of Usage
1. Form the possessive of nouns by adding 's, just an apostrophe, just an s, a semicolon, a w, an ampersand, a 9, or anything.
My wifesd*porcupine hot pix for u.
11. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.
Upon receiving this couppon, the free iPOds will greet you!
The introductory phrase modifies you, not iPOds; therefore, it is necessary to recast the sentence.
Upon receiving this couppon, you will be greeted by the free iPOds!
Or, better still (see Rule 14).
This couppon entitles you to greetings from the free iPOds!
H/T to Stewart Dean.
January 10, 2009
Travel Tips for Visitors to Britain
Giles Coren offers some useful hints for visitors to Britain:
1 Do not pay full price. When shopping in Britain, bear in mind that the price marked is only a guide, it is always best to haggle.
Prices in Harrods, for example, may look ridiculously cheap to you, but locals cannot afford to pay even this much and if you pay more you will make life harder for them in the end. Do not damage their frail local economy with your powerful rupees.
2 When speaking to staff in shops, hotels and restaurants do not expect them to be solicitous, kind or helpful. What do you think they are, your bleeding butler? Effing nerve. What did your last servant die of?
3 If you do decide to make some purchases, do not forget that Savile Row suits and shirts from Jermyn Street may seem incredibly good value and look great with a tan when you're in that holiday frame of mind, but all that ethnic tat can look pretty ridiculous when you get it home.
4 Never ask a salesperson for help finding an item in your size or preferred colour - they will merely stare at you blankly as if you are an escaped lunatic and then tell you that everyfink is out on the floor. If you absolutely insist that they go and check the stockroom they will walk round a random corner, count to 30 and then go on a tea break.
5 Do not expect to find a full range of products in shops. Most shops in Britain are in receivership and merely flogging off old stock before being boarded up.
[. . .]
7 Take a good supply of colourful pens with you to give to the children who will flock around you asking for presents. And if you want to be really popular then give them knives, British children treasure these more than anything.
January 08, 2009
To confirm all of your suspicions about "abstract art"
Aelita Andre is having her work included in an abstract art exhibit at the Brunswick Street Gallery. This would not be particularly newsworthy, except that it came to light that Aelita is 22 months old:
Back in October, Fitzroy commercial gallery director Mark Jamieson was asked by a Russian-born photographer whose work he represented to consider the work of another artist. Nikka Kalashnikova showed Jamieson some abstract paintings by an artist called Aelita Andre; Mr Jamieson liked what he saw and agreed to include it in a group show, alongside work by Kalashnikova and Julia Palenov (also a Russian) at his Brunswick Street Gallery later this month.
Mr Jamieson then started to promote the show, printing glossy invitations and placing ads in reputable magazines Art Almanac and Art Collector, in which the abstract work was featured. Only then did he discover a crucial fact about the new artist: Aelita Andre was Nikka Kalashnikova's daughter, and she was then just 22 months old. She turns two tomorrow.
"I was shocked and, to be honest, a little embarrassed," Mr Jamieson said of his response to the revelation.
He thought hard about whether or not to proceed, and talked it over with his colleagues. "And then I thought, 'Well, we'll give it a go'."
Mr Jamieson says the Brunswick Street Gallery has a policy of supporting emerging artists, though that policy doesn't usually extend to artists quite so young. He stands by his decision to show the work but concedes some people will think the gallery is doing the wrong thing.
To be fair, Mr Jamieson deserves some credit: if he genuinely believes that the art is of professional quality, it should qualify to be shown with other abstract art pieces. I'm hardly a fan of that style of art myself, so I'm indulging in a little quiet amusement, but if someone is willing to pay (their own) good money for it, great. I'd be much less amused if it was a public institution putting taxpayers' money on the line, of course.
Update, 12 January: Very much related:
A controversy recently erupted in Sweden over an article published by the philosopher, Roger Scruton, in a magazine called Axess. He argued in it that Western art no longer had any spiritual, let alone religious, content; indeed, it had become afraid of the beautiful, from which it shied away as a horse from a hurdle too high for it. The result was a terrible impoverishment of our art.
The same magazine had published, shortly before, an article about Islamic art in which the author said that such art was inseparable from the religious ideas and beliefs that it embodied. This passed without remark: no one wrote in angrily to say, 'So much the worse for Islamic art.'
Professor Scruton's suggestion that western art had become impoverished as a result of its radical repudiation of anything transcendent in human existence in favour of the fleeting present moment, however, exasperated and infuriated the professional art critics of Sweden — as, indeed, it would have done the art critics of any western country. They reacted with the fury of the justly accused: for it is the professional caste of cognoscenti who have consistently applauded the trivialisation of art and its relegation to the status of financial speculation at best, and a game for children showing off to the adults at worst.
January 02, 2009
Belated 2008 retrospective, in song
H/T to "IllCentral".
December 31, 2008
The writer's craft: sex scenes
Sailor Jim discusses the difficulty of writing about the penis in sex scenes (caution: NSFW):
"There are some literary subjects that have become total clichés and attempting to describe an erect penis is one.
"I am writing a sex scene and my hero is now crossing the room while fully erect. So, basically, his stiff dick is bobbing lik e a demented conductors baton as he crosses the room . . . however, one cannot simply write, 'He crossed the room, his stiff dick bobbing like . . .' and so forth. Well, one could if one was writing that sort of scene (and one was half plastered), but this one cannot.
"To write anything referring to his 'turgid manhood' is also somewhat tacky. Hell, just the term 'manhood' to describe the penis strikes me as idiotic. A dick is no more one's 'manhood' than a hymen is one's 'maidenhood.' 'He strutted across the bedroom, his hard manhood pointing the way' sounds somewhat he owns a badly named seeing-eye dog. 'Sit, Hard Manhood . . . good boy.'
December 26, 2008
Al's gift to Toronto
Steve McIntyre pulls out the old story of how Al Gore saved Christmas for Toronto back in 2006, when it looked like snow was a thing of the past:
Nobody knew what do. Except for one little girl. (Hey, it's a story.) She wrote to a famous ju-ju man in the South asking him to come north and cast a magic spell and make the snow return.
The ju-ju man heard the plea of the little girl. He quickly decided that the situation was far worse than even the little girl thought. This needed his most powerful magic and, so in 2007, he visited Toronto not just once, not just twice but three times.
The magic worked! Soon Toronto was covered up in winter snow. The ju-ju man could only save part of the 2007 winter, but by 2008, his magic was in full force. Yesterday's snow made 2008 snowfall the highest since 1883, with a few days still on the clock.
And we owe it all to Al, the southern weather wizard!
H/T to Tom Kelley for the link.
December 24, 2008
For you is no iBoobs
As reported at The Register, iPhone and iPod users will have to struggle on without this little application:
An application that allows iPhone users to wobble a pair of breasts has been rejected by Apple's application store, denying iPhone geeks the nearest thing to sex they'll get this holiday season.
The application was rejected on the grounds of "objectionable content", though with the caveat: "If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that iBoobs does not violate the iPhone SDK Agreement we encourage you to do so." Though it's hard to see how that wouldn't detract from the core proposition:
The app was developed by Mystic Game Development, and we have to accept the possibility that it was done just to demonstrate their character animation middleware - in which case we can only congratulate them on a job well done.
Everyone's getting in on the action
H/T to Reason Hit and Run.
December 22, 2008
QotD: The extra-traditional holiday season
Almost every civiliztion in human history has had a midwinter holiday — a time when somebody finally said, "I'm sick of this lousy, miserable, depressing weather, let's light some candles, maybe even a bonfire, roast something large, get drunk, and sing and dance!" — and the earliest such holiday that my research has disclosed so far is Zagmuk.
Zagmuk commemorates the triumph of the Babylonian god-king Marduk over the Forces of Chaos (so I guess Marduk was an early incarnation of Maxwell Smart). I suppose that it's possible — no, it's absolutely inevitable — that earlier people, perhaps Homo neanderthalensis, or at least the inhabitants of 8000-year-old Catalhoyuk, beat the old Babylonians to this idea, but for now, what we've got is Marduk and Zagmuk.
So, in whatever manner you choose to celebrate it, a very Happy Zagmuk to you and yours, from me and mine. And because those ancient Babylonians apparently drank beer and wine, we hoist a bowl to you! Like Marduk, may we all overcome the Forces of Chaos in the year to come!
L. Neil Smith, "A Message From The Publisher", Libertarian Enterprise, 2008-12-21
December 20, 2008
QotD: Perfume
Most people don't realize just how intensely personal scent is. It interacts with the chemicals in your skin, so perfume that smells divine on one person (or in the bottle) can smell horrid on another. I have a friend who swears by the Philosophy line of scents, which make me smell like I've been ripening for decades in a nursing home.
Megan McArdle, "Holiday Gift Guide: Girl Stuff", Asymmetrical Information, 2008-12-17
December 09, 2008
Swift environmental action to save trees . . .
. . . er, oops:
Green campaigners called police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve — only to find the culprits were a gang of beavers. Environmentalists found 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and others marked with notches for felling at a beauty-spot in Subkowy, northern Poland.
[. . .]
A police spokesman said: "The campaigners are feeling pretty stupid. There's nothing more natural than a beaver."
H/T to Radley Balko, who writes that "they may have violated some wetlands regulations, too."
December 03, 2008
QotD: Modern Culture
Global imagination, like global climate, seems to have cycles — natural, man-made, or whatever. Sometimes what people imagine for the future is bogged down in the literal — call it "blogged" for short. The last thousand years of the Roman Empire, for example, were no great shakes. The Romans had all the engineering necessary to start an industrial revolution. But they preferred to have toga parties and let slaves do all the work.
The Chinese had gunpowder but failed to arm their troops with guns. They possessed the compass but didn't go much of anywhere. They invented paper, printing, and a written form of their language, but hardly anyone in China was taught to read.
And here we are in 2008. Name an avant-garde painter. Nope, dead. Nope, dead. Yep, Julian Schnabel is what I came up with too. But it's been a quarter of a century since he was pasting busted plates on canvas. He's making movies now. And movies are famously not any good anymore. Name a great living composer. Say "Andrew Lloyd Webber" and I'll force you to sit through Cats and Starlight Express back-to-back. Theater is revivals and revivals of revivals and stuff like musicals made out of old Kellogg's Rice Krispies commercials, with Nathan Lane as "Snap." More modern poetry is written than read. Modern architecture leaks and the builders left their plumb bobs at home. The most prominent contemporary art form is one that is completely unimaginative (or is supposed to be): the memoir.
To top it all off, we have just experienced perhaps the greatest technological advance in the history of humans. And what are we using the Internet for? To sell one another 8-track tapes on eBay and tell complete strangers on Facebook the location of all our tattoos. And, apparently, to tell ourselves what to do with the groceries we just bought.
P.J. O'Rourke, "Future Schlock", The Atlantic, 2008-12
SF books as they should have been titled
Eric Oppen sent these links to one of my mailing lists. They're too good not to share (if you don't read SF or Fantasy, this may not make as much sense to you, though):
MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits
MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits, Part Two
MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits, Part The Last
Some of these are flat-out brilliant:
November 25, 2008
Childhood memories
James Lileks casts his mind back to childhood, where mothers could cause incandescent levels of embarassment to their sons:
When I was growing up Jane Russell was the old lady in the bra ad. It lifts and separates! It's an 18-hour bra! These were mysterious concepts. What happened after 18 hours? Did it burst into flames? Did it drop and smush? Even the word PLAYTEX was strange, like some sort of moist clay-like plastic.
Bras are very unnerving to boys of a certain age. A trip to the department store often meant some red-faced time in Bra Land with Mom, looking up at acres of bras hanging like scalps from some strange war only adults knew about.
November 21, 2008
Bailing out Detroit
Jon sent me a link to Iowahawk's latest car ad:
All new for 2012, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is the mandatory American car so advanced it took $100 billion and an entire Congress to design it. We started with same reliable 7-way hybrid ethanol-biodeisel-electric-clean coal-wind-solar-pedal power plant behind the base model Pelosi, but packed it with extra oomph and the sassy styling pizazz that tells the world that 1974 Detroit is back again — with a vengeance.
We've subsidized the features you want and taxed away the rest. With its advanced Al Gore-designed V-3 under the hood pumping out 22.5 thumping, carbon-neutral ponies of Detroit muscle, you'll never be late for the Disco or the Day Labor Shelter. Engage the pedal drive or strap on the optional jumbo mizzenmast, and the GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition easily exceeds 2016 CAFE mileage standards. At an estimated 268 MPG, that's a savings of nearly $1800 per week in fuel cost over the 2011 Pelosi.
Even with increased performance we didn't skimp on safety. With 11-point passenger racing harnesses, 15-way airbags, and mandatory hockey helmet, you'll have the security knowing that you could survive a 45 MPH collision even if the GTxi SS/Rt were capable of that kind of illegal speed.
Which reminded me of Chip Bok's comic from last week:
November 20, 2008
QotD: Shooting Zombies
Seriously, man. I'm doing them a favor. They're zombies, after all. It's not like they have rich internal lives. The time for book clubs and PBS has passed for them, you know? And anyway, there's something oddly soothing about going to a high place with a scoped rifle and picking off their shambling asses. I wouldn't say it's a zen thing (it seems inadvisable to use the word "zen" with anything involving firearms), but it does get you into a contemplative frame of mind. At least until the zombies figure out where you are and swarm you. But until then: Bliss. I can't think of anything better.
Oh wait, I can: If they were Nazi zombies. Yes.
John Scalzi, "Man, If Blowing the Heads Off of Zombies With a Scoped Rifle is Wrong, I Don’t Ever Want to Be Right", Whatever, 2008-11-19
November 19, 2008
November 14, 2008
So what do we call the sodding island, anyway?
Believe it or not, I'm all in favour of not offending people (unintentionally). I try to avoid terms which I know have caused offense, wherever possible. Given that, I still don't quite know how to respond to this, however:
The word 'British' can be as offensive as 'negro' and 'half-caste', according to a race relations body.
The publicly-funded organisation's views have been adopted by Caerphilly council in South Wales for a leaflet advising staff on how to deal with the public.
In a section on what words or phrases not to use to avoid causing offence, the leaflet solemnly informs the council's 9,000 workers: 'The idea of "British" implies a false sense of unity — many Scots, Welsh and Irish resist being called British and the land denoted by the term contains a wide variety of cultures, languages and religions.'
Many Canadians object to being called "American" by ignorant Brits. Er, I mean "subjects of the United Kingdom". Er, oh, that offends people who don't recognize the crown . . . how about "inhabitants of the British Isles", oh, that won't do . . . perhaps "the north-western European island that isn't Ireland"?
So, we have a bit of a nomenclature issue:
- They can't be called "British", because that offends the Welsh, the Scots, the Rom, the Manx, the Faroese, the Shetlanders, the Lapps, the Bangladeshis, the Jamaicans, the Nepalese, the Fijians, and the Irish.
- Calling 'em "English" is right out: that's a good fight-starter in pubs across both major islands. Even the ones born in England seem to avoid the term.
- If they're Scottish, you can call 'em "Scots", but not "Scotch" (which is a whisky . . . not a "whiskey").
- If they're from Wales, you can call 'em "Welch" or "Welsh", unless they object (it's sometimes difficult to tell if they're objecting or if there's been a sudden shortage of vowels and they've been forced to double-up on "f" and "l" to compensate).
- If they're Irish, you're usually safe referring to them as "Irish".
- Nobody will put up with being called "United Kingdomers".
Supplementarily, you can't call it "Great" Britain, because that implies that other countries are not great, and that's offensive.
I ended up asking around in the office and only got two answers. Co-workers of Welsh and Polish ancestry agreed that the only way to refer to the "Island formerly known as Great Britain" was "Sharia Island".
November 07, 2008
October 31, 2008
Election lists, Scalzi style
John Scalzi is busy posting election lists. Here's number 3: Things Sarah Palin Has Shot Or Would Shoot From a Helicopter:
1. Wolves
2. Coyotes
3. Arctic foxes
4. Deer
5. Giraffes
6. Tortoises
7. Dolphins
8. Salmon
9. Katie Couric
10. That son of a bitch that divorced her sister
11. Kittens
12. Whoever made that Photoshopped picture of her in a bikini, holding a rifle
. . .
And don't miss People/Things I Would Vote For President Before I Would Vote For John McCain. Bob Barr made number 2!
October 27, 2008
QotD: Motorbikes
What I'm trying to say here is that, yes, bikes and cars are both forms of transport, but they have nothing in common. Imagining that you can ride a bike because you can drive a car is like imagining you can swallow-dive off a 90ft cliff because you can play table tennis.
However, many people are making the switch because they imagine that having a small motorcycle will be cheap. It isn't. Sure, the 125cc Vespa I tried can be bought for £3,499, but then you will need a helmet (£300), a jacket (£500), some Freddie Mercury trousers (£100), shoes (£130), a pair of Kevlar gloves (£90), a coffin (£1,000), a headstone (£750), a cremation (£380) and flowers in the church (£200).
In other words, your small 125cc motorcycle, which has no boot, no electric windows, no stereo and no bloody heater even, will end up costing more than a Volkswagen Golf. That said, a bike is much cheaper to run than a car. In fact, it takes only half a litre of fuel to get from your house to the scene of your first fatal accident. Which means that the lifetime cost of running your new bike is just 50p.
Jeremy Clarkson, "Vespa GTV Navy 125", TimesOnline, 2008-10-19
Posted by Nicholas at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2008
The "Tate" of the union address
An interview with meaningful impact. Brilliant delivery.
October 17, 2008
Episode 3: Policy Warrior
"Worried about the viability of Social Security? Unless you're already collecting it, you should be! Follow the animated adventures of Sonny, exactly the sort of youth who is set to get screwed by a system designed during The Great Depression, when workers were plenty and retirees rare. In Epsiode 3, "Policy Warrior," Sonny, John McCain, and Barack Obama compete in various game show contest and learn that a few tweaks aren't going to save anybody's retirement account."
October 16, 2008
Planning an escape to Canada?
Brilliant, just brilliant.
H/T to Diogenes Borealis (by way of SDA).
October 09, 2008
Advice for photo editors
Megan McArdle links to this helpful post providing guidance to photo editors on how best to select images to accompany various levels of market droop.
October 08, 2008
T-shirt politics
Ronald Bailey links to Teach the Controversy, for those of you who love to get your disputes right out in front of you:
'Big Science' is always suppressing The Truth with their blatant pro-evolution anti-wacko agenda: from the fact that UFOs built the pyramids to the reality of creationism and fact the universe is "Turtles All The Way Down". It is time to fight back and urge schools to Teach The Controversy with these intelligently designed t-shirts.
October 06, 2008
Weird Al: cultural pioneer
Weird Al Yankovic is far from being "thoroughly disposable":
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Yankovic's first music video, "Ricky," in which he reimagined Toni Basil's "Mickey" as an ode to I Love Lucy. The clip introduced the world to an accordion-playing spaz with a coif like Rick James and a voice like an urgent goose. Though many people at the time considered Yankovic to be thoroughly disposable — just another Reagan-era fad, like parachute pants or the Contras — he never went away. In fact, Yankovic had his biggest hit just two years ago, when he reworked Chamillionaire's rap hit "Ridin'" as the geek-pride anthem "White & Nerdy" ("X-Men comics, you know I collect 'em / The pens in my pocket, I must protect 'em"). The song was Yankovic's first track to break the Billboard Top 10.
But Yankovic isn't just popular. He is also the unlikely forefather of the infectious, hyperlinked, quasi-referential comedy that's become the lingua franca of the Web. Yankovic's influence can be seen in the slow-jam pinings of Obama Girl, the cross-cultural pairings that turn Yoda and SpongeBob SquarePants into hardcore rappers, and in the nimble hands of that couch potato who farts out "Bohemian Rhapsody" with his palms (1.8 million YouTube views and counting). You can even detect traces of his style in the perfectly metered wordplay of "Lazy Sunday," the 2005 Saturday Night Live short that earned YouTube — and viral humor — its first barrage of mainstream attention. "Ever since I was old enough to listen to music, I've been listening to Weird Al," says 30-year-old "Sunday" cocreator Andy Samberg. "For my generation, he's a huge influence."
October 03, 2008
QotD: Bush Administration: Special Victims Unit
I guess fighting one elective war isn't enough for the Bush administration. Or the Senate. Or the media.
But it's pretty clear that the White House, helped by a codependent Congress and media, has yet again manufactured a consensus for massive intervention. The last time they managed to pull this off, of course, the United States invaded Iraq. And that has worked out so well that they've decided to start a brand extension or spin-off series: Intervening massively into the economy. The bailout package as Bush Administration: Special Victims Unit.
Think about it and the parallels are disturbing: a high-ranking, respectable, above-the-fray cabinet member working the ropes to achieve bipartisan cooperation; a pliable Congress where appeals to patriotism always trump appeals to principle (sadly, those two things are almost always construed as oppositional); and a media that is fueling the fire (the dread MSM's role in spreading the Bush admin case for war has been pretty well-documented; in terms of the bailout, the most hysterical champions for intervention have been in the print and TV press). Time magazine's next cover story, I learned watching Morning Joe this AM on MSNBC, is actually an essay on "The New Hard Times" and compares our current day to those of The Great Depression. Ominous parallel or coincidence: In the Depression, people formed lines for free soup; today, people form lines to . . . buy iPhones?
Nick Gillespie, "The Iraq War, but This Time as Economic Pearl Harbor", Hit and Run, 2008-10-02
September 29, 2008
P.J. O'Rourke on mortality
I'd wondered why there hadn't been much sign of P.J. O'Rourke during the U.S. election marathon, especially given how much raw material for political humour was being produced this year. Apparently he's had a bit of a health scare:
I looked death in the face. All right, I didn't. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I've been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I'm told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it — as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound — my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.
I still cursed God, as we all do when we get bad news and pain. Not even the most faith-impaired among us shouts: "Damn quantum mechanics!" "Damn organic chemistry!" "Damn chaos and coincidence!"
I believe in God. God created the world. Obviously pain had to be included in God's plan. Otherwise we'd never learn that our actions have consequences. Our cave-person ancestors, finding fire warm, would conclude that curling up to sleep in the middle of the flames would be even warmer. Cave bears would dine on roast ancestor, and we'd never get any bad news and pain because we wouldn't be here.
But God, Sir, in Your manner of teaching us about life's consequential nature, isn't death a bit . . . um . . . extreme, pedagogically speaking? I know the lesson that we're studying is difficult. But dying is more homework than I was counting on. Also, it kind of messes up my vacation planning. Can we talk after class? Maybe if I did something for extra credit?
September 27, 2008
September 24, 2008
QotD: Cruise ships
I have never been on a cruise ship, but I'm intrigued by the concept. I enjoy travel, but I'm not so sure I enjoy traveling. My favorite travel generally involves sitting around somewhere new and reading, and generally there's an awful lot of fuss and bother required just to be able to sit and read among majestic glaciers or ancient Mayan ruins.
So you can see why the cruise ship model compels. It's not so much going places as going to a single place, and then that place goes places. It is travel without movement, a Zen koan with a seafood buffet.
Lore Sjöberg, "Silliest Cruises for Seafaring Geeks", Wired, 2008-09-24
September 23, 2008
Amusing "Cease and Desist" notice
John Scalzi links to this NSFW cease-and-desist notice that may or may not be actually from Ann & Nancy Wilson to John McCain:
Cease and Desist, You Old Fart
Dear John McCain,
When we first learned your campaign was using our admittedly awesome 1977 classic "Barracuda" to introduce your terrifying joke of a running mate, we tried to be civil. As we wrote in our press release, "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission, nor would they have been granted that permission. We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music."
It gets a bit, um, earthier from that point onwards.
September 19, 2008
"Bad move on my part" says Krugman
Radley Balko links to this highly entertaining little moment from an "Intelligence Squared US debate on state-provided healthcare:
PAUL KRUGMAN
And private insurance? That's the thing, I — Actually, can I just — I wanted to ask a question. And —JOHN DONVAN [MODERATOR]
Please — please do —PAUL KRUGMAN
— and I wanted to ask, actually two questions, to the audience. First, how many Canadians, would Canadians in the room please raise your hands. [ONE PERSON APPLAUDS, LAUGHTER]JOHN DONVAN
We have about seven hands going up —PAUL KRUGMAN
Okay, not as many as I thought. Okay, of those of you who are not on the panel who are Canadians, how many of you think you have a terrible health care system. [PAUSE] One, two —JOHN DONVAN
We see — almost all of the same hands going up. [LAUGHTER]PAUL KRUGMAN
Bad move on my part. [APPLAUSE]
September 18, 2008
A blast from the (distant) past
John Scalzi digs through the digital vault to come up with a post from ten years back, a tribute to Wiarton Willie:
To tell you the truth, the most disturbing thing is not that the groundhog died — certainly this animal earned his eternal rest — but that his handlers couldn't think of anything better to do but tell a festival crowd that he had croaked. Those kids in the crowd will be forever traumatized. Groundhog Day will no longer be a happy time, but a constant reminder of death and mortality in the bleak midwinter. 10 years from now, I expect that Wiarton, Canada will become the new North American epicenter of dark, gothic teenage poetry.
Lying frozen in the snow
The groundhog soul resides far below
Gone to a place of doom and gray
Now winter will always stay.
Die Groundhog Die!
Mommy and Daddy Lied!
But wait, there's more:
Now, on to the groundhog Wiarton Willie, who, as you know from yesterday’s entry, died before Groundhog Day and whose body was photographed lying in state in a dinky little pine coffin. Or was it? Now news comes from the sordid little burg of Wiarton, Canada, that the rodent corpse in the coffin was not Wiarton Willie at all, but a stuffed stand-in. The real Willie was apparently found so decomposed that the gelatinous remains were unsuitable for public display. So the town elders found a stuffed groundhog that just happened to be lying around (apparently the body of a previous "Wiarton Willie," who was no doubt poisoned by the current, and now rotting, Willie in an unseemly palace coup), plopped it into that Barbie coffin, and presented the remains to a horrified public. Here's the groundhog you’ve all been waiting for! And he's dead! Winter for the next ten years!
The people of Wiarton meant well, I'm sure. But I'm having serious doubts as to their combined mental capacity. First off, the real Willy was found in a state of advanced decomposition, which means he had been dead for weeks. Weeks. How could that happen? This rodent is the cornerstone of Wiarton's entire tourism economy for the month of February, and no one bothers to check on him from time to time? Did they just stick him in a cage after last Groundhog Day and then forget to feed him? Every kid in the world had a hamster they forgot to feed, but you’re usually, like, five at the time. These were actual adults. They say he was hibernating when he died. Sure he was. I used that excuse about the hamster.
A fisking! A fisking!
James Lileks indulges in a bit of fisking:
Anything in the Sarah-Palin-is-the-fifth-horsewoman-of-the-apocalypse-and-hence-rides-sidesaddle department? Well, there's this from the New Yorker:
There are two kinds of folks: Élites and Regulars. Why people love Sarah Palin is, she is a Regular. . .
Where was I? Ah, ye: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.
Sigh. Well, let's turn that around. I need a plumber, so naturally I call up a professor who specializes in Roman aqueducts, because what I really need when the faucet is broken is someone who can place it in the context of the ancients' understanding of fluid dynamics and potable-water storage systems.
The term "elitist" does not mean a smart person with an area of expertise. It means a person who occupies a narrow stratum of society, usually academic — although people in think-tanks who view the world through steepled fingers qualify as well — whose Olympian perspective is usually predicated on a set of assumptions about people tinged with equal parts indulgent condescension and faint amusement, as an anthropologist might bring to the study of a Cargo Cult. It also confuses proximity to the Washington Monument with access to truth.
September 16, 2008
Television will never be the same
Gregg Easterbrook outlines the new TV shows to premiere on the TMQ channel this fall:
"Detective Wormhole." A police officer from a mirror universe is teleported to New York City and must search for a scientist who is about to destroy the Earth by turning on a super-advanced atom smasher. Running joke: In his reality, New Yorkers are incredibly polite.
"Incomprehensible." Ten people of diverse backgrounds awake to find themselves on a beautiful island guarded by the Loch Ness monster. They locate a series of mysterious prophecies warning of the destruction of humanity. A stranger appears in their midst without explanation. Beneath the island are stairs leading to a cavern full of Mayan ruins. A rescue plane circles above the island, sending radio messages in an unknown language. Gradually they discover they are acquiring superpowers. They find an extremely strong power generator that appears to be of extraterrestrial design. Five figures dressed in white robes walk out of the water and refuse to speak. A room of scientific experiments is found, many in progress, as if the scientists had just left the room. They come across a table set for an elaborate feast. One day a child holding a lamp appears ...
"CSI: Park Service." Someone didn't take out the trash. Jimmy Smits and Jenna Elfman will stop at nothing until they find out who.
[. . .]
"How Low Can You Go?" Television network executives compete to win a big promotion by coming up with the most exploitive reality series. Weekly reality show-within-a-show is the highlight. In the pilot, Tom green-lights "Tenement," in which volunteers are locked in an abandoned apartment building full of famished rats. Stephanie backs "Platinum," in which attractive women have 24 hours to see who can make the most money as high-class call girls.
[. . .]
"Dexter and the Housewives." Cutting-edge situation comedy about a serial killer who tortures ditzy women to death in their over-decorated suburban homes. Zany, madcap action as the hero uses power drills and rotary saws on his helpless victims in extremely graphic scenes, all the while engaged in hilarious misadventures with a roster of wacky, zany friends. USA Today gushes, "Combines 'Hostel' and 'The Dick Van Dyke Show.'"
September 08, 2008
QotD: Pundit Googasm
Last week, Google released a web browser called Chrome, and the online tech media had a powerful Googasm. We were long overdue for another climax like this, having been lightly stimulated with half-baked Google web products in the four years since GMail was released.
Every time the media fires off its gravy so violently, it highlights how little some of the supposed "experts" actually know about computers. Case in point: People saying that Google Chrome is an operating system designed to compete head-to-head with Microsoft Windows. [. . .]
Users aren't going to decide which computer to buy based on which browser comes pre-installed, and even if they do, I'm going to guess that they will choose Internet Explorer (or - as it is known commonly in user parlance - "the blue internet that opens my web sites").
Ted Dziuba, "Chrome-fed Googasm bares tech pundit futility: It's a f***ing web browser", The Register, 2008-09-08
September 07, 2008
QotD: Stiletto heels
Someone once pointed out how brave and foolish was the first man to eat an oyster. And we celebrate the genius of Jenner for inventing vaccination, yet we never consider the idiotic heroism of the small lad who said, yes, of course you can slit my arm open with a knife and insert a cowpox scab into the gaping wound just to see what'll happen. So, we may venerate the master shoemaker Roger Vivier for the invention of the stiletto (named appropriately after the Italian knife favoured by assassins), but the first woman who slid her toes into these tortuous things is a martyr whose name is known only to God.
Setting aside the agony, which is not unlike having your toes forced into a blunt pencil sharpener, it's astonishing how difficult walking with anything close to elegance is. I caused much hilarity clopping around the kitchen like a bow-legged pantomime dame with third-degree piles. "Point your toes," the Blonde kept saying. I felt like a cross between a Tchaikovsky cygnet and a lipizzaner. What is so inexplicable about stilettos is not why women wear them, but why they ever wear them twice.
A.A. Gill, "When a man wears heels", TimesOnline, 2008-09-07
September 03, 2008
Profile of Bob Barr, Onion-style
The Onion includes a "profile" of Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr:
Views:
Pretty much the same as Ron Paul's, but without the avuncular charmIssues:
(1995–2007) Trying to control the faith, sexuality, reproduction, drug use, and national allegiance of every single American.
(2007–) Aw, Fuck it.Looks Like:
Effeminate maître d'Role In Clinton Impeachment:
Finger-pointerAverage Time To Summarize Libertarian Philosophy To Stranger:
4 hours, 16 minutesAs President, He Pledges To:
Use his platform to apologize for things he supported as a Republican
H/T to Radley Balko.
September 02, 2008
QotD: Faith and Science
I'm also given to understand that the rules of science begin to bend and even break at the extremes of the universe's scale. Down where everything is subatomic-sized, things tend to be a bit random with mesons, leptons, quarks, brilligs, slithy toves, etc., subjected to Strong Force, Weak Force, Force of Habit, and so on. Meanwhile, in the farthest reaches of outer space, matter, antimatter, dark matter, and whatsamatter are tripping over string theory and falling into black holes. God is not like that. He's famously there in the details, and He is the big picture.
In one way, however, faith in science does come easier than faith in God — if fear is any gauge of how real we believe a thing is. To judge by human behavior, people are not trembling before the Almighty much. But many of those same people are scared silly by science. They are frightened by a climate stuck in the microwave of technological advances, frightened by genetic modifications that may — who knows? — cross cabbages with kings and produce a Prince Charles, and naturally they are frightened by the clouds of mushrooms being grown in the science cellars of Iran and North Korea.
P.J. O'Rourke, "On God", Search Magazine, 2007-03
August 20, 2008
I had wondered about that . . .
Jon (my virtual landlord) sent me a link to a visual explanation of how they came up with the Beijing Olympic logo.
August 16, 2008
August 12, 2008
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Possibly the best television representation of the parliamentary form of government. On second thought, strike the "possibly" from the previous sentence.
H/T to Andrew L. at The Latecomer.
August 11, 2008
QotD: Worldcon
I don't know why anyone else goes to Worldcon, but I go to see many of my friends who aren't otherwise in the same place at the same time and have a big ol' ball staying up late and saying terrible, hilarious things. What sort of hilarious things? Well, let me just say this: The moment that I, Ian McDonald, Paolo Bacagalupi and Blake Charlton tried to sell an anthology to Lou Anders at Pyr Books by saying "Two words, Lou: Unicorn Bukkake" was not actually the most disturbingly, howlingly funny moment of the con.
(Also, if you don’t know what "bukkake" means, for God's sake don't look it up. Especially at work. For serious, man.)
John Scalzi, "Denvention 3: An (Oh, Probably Not) Brief Recap", Whatever, 2008-08-11
August 08, 2008
The irony meter overloads
I don't think there's any better way to describe this story than the submitter of the Fark link: Former Luftwaffe pilot flies to British city to say sorry for bombing it during the war - then decides he's going to dive-bomb it for old times sake.
A former Luftwaffe pilot who carried out 120 bombing raids on England has escaped unharmed after a plane crash near the city he once targeted for destruction.
Willi Schludecker, 88 — a survivor of nine wartime air crashes — was a passenger in a four-man Mooney M20T when the engine failed soon after take-off at Marshfield in Wiltshire.
Experienced pilot Richard Flohr-Swann was forced to make an emergency landing.
Update: Totally unrelated, except that it was linked from the first story . . . British women who've decided to live in the past:
Joanne Massey, 35, lives in a recreation of a 1950s home in Stafford with her husband Kevin, 42, who works as a graphics application designer. Joanne is a housewife. She says:
I love nothing better than fastening my pinny round my waist and baking a cake for Kevin in my 1950s kitchen.
I put on some lovely Frank Sinatra music and am completely lost in my own little fantasy world. In our marriage, I am very much a lady and Kevin is the breadwinner and my protector.
We've been married for 13 years and we're extremely happy because we both know our roles. There is none of the battling for equality that I see in so many marriages today.
What's wrong with wanting to be adored and spoiled? If I see a hat I like, I say 'Oh, we can't afford that' and Kevin says: 'You have it, I'll treat you.'
I don't even put petrol in our Ford Anglia car, which is 43 years old, because I think that is so unladylike. I ask Kevin to do it.
Well, whatever works for them, I guess, although it must be tough to find someone who shares exactly your own flavour of anachronism (without cheating and using something that wasn't invented in the 1950's . . .).
August 05, 2008
QotD: Literary Tattoos
Inspired by the Telegraph, John Stoehr believes a trend for literary tattoos is underway.
Some of them, like this one, a long passage from Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club, are very impressive — and they suggest a kind of depth of character, a kind of cultural sensibility, that one doesn't normally associate with those who want to adorn their bodies with indelible ink.
Which says more about his preconceptions than it does about ink enthusiasts. As for me, the letters "John" and "3:16" tattooed across the knuckles are sufficient literary allusion to get the point across.
Nick Packwood, "Literary Tattoos", Ghost of a Flea, 2008-08-04
August 04, 2008
Random pictures
Elizabeth and I had to get out of the house yesterday, as Victor was hosting an anime gathering for several friends. We drove up to Huntsville, where we discovered that as long as you disguise it as "art", you can get away with selling bird-torturing equipment:
In another store, I found an item that I had to take a picture of for Jon:
Explanation here.
August 01, 2008
Denial of temporal reality
James Lileks forces me to confront the ugly reality . . . it actually has been a long time:
I thought the video for "Brothers in Arms" was done by the same director; it had a hand-drawn style. Turns out the director did do a Dire Straits vid — but it was the "Money for Nothing" video, the one that really made everyone who had cable feel as if they were living in the future. Computer graphics and lyrics that referenced the medium itself: Marshall McLuhan would have approved.
Wonderful things were done in the few years between the rise of videos and the rule of computers; "Money for Nothing" was the Steamboat Willie of its time, I suppose.
Wikipedia says it best:
"The song's lyrics are written from the point of view of a blue-collar worker watching music videos and commenting on what he sees. To achieve the effect of such a layman making such casual everyday commentary, Dire Straits' lead singer and songwriter Mark Knopfler used a vocal style known as Sprechstimme."
By which I mean, Wikipedia’s anal tone and self-serious community has managed to suck the juice out of that plum, too.
Has it been a while? It’s almost been a quarter century.
Just gaze upon it, O Ye Boomers, and Despair: there are 24 year-olds out there right now drinking Starbucks and texting friends and using iPhone GPS to arrange dinner plans who were zygotes when this video came out. This video was an oldie on MTV when next month’s Playboy centerfold was born. To them this looks like a 1935 movie looks to someone born in '59.
July 31, 2008
Apparently the Irish translation of "Cuil" is "Trainwreck"
I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the folks at Cuil. First it was the less-than-stellar grand opening, then the snarky commentary from folks who tried the service but were unimpressed, and now it turns out that their name is uncool:
Seeing as how new search engine Cuil.com is, well, a search engine, its founders might have known that people could easily check online the company's claim that the word "cuil" means "knowledge" in Irish. Because, in fact, it doesn't.
Members of an online Irish language forum have been discussing the word and the company's claims of its definition. They say the word is most often translated to mean "corner" or "nook," but has sometimes been used for "hazel," as in the nut.
An online Irish language dictionary defines cúil as "rear." Another uses cuil to describe various kinds of flies. So while the word, or versions of it with and without accent marks, can mean a few different things, most Irish language enthusiasts say it doesn't mean anything like knowledge, despite Cuil.com's claims.
July 29, 2008
QotD: The new voting screens
I'm tellin' ya, they're gonna change the electronic voting screens to say, "Click here to accept Barack Obama's Friend Request" so that these dim-witted youth voters can figure out how to cast their ballots for Obama. It'll be like ballots in Spanish. You will soon be able to request your ballot in electronic youth-speak (l337).
"aero", Comment at Hot Air, 2008-07-29
July 28, 2008
Another modern artist under-appreciated by the powers-that-be
From a review of a recent work by Zeus Scalzi:
Zeus Scalzi has quickly established himself as a young master of the paper form, rending and shredding fibers as a way to comment on the fraying of the fibers of life, and how each of us, in the end, is wiped away by the progress of events; indeed, our expulsion and removal is necessary for the continued health of the whole, to allow space for new generations. Gazing upon the work, one can appreciate this new and vital metaphor for the inevitable pinching off of our continuity with the community, after the community has, with animal efficiency, extracted all that is valuable from us. Truly, a difficult work best contemplated through solitary effort, perhaps after a fine meal with companions.
Barack Obama's love affair . . . with the media
Steve Chapman tries to understand the complaints coming from the McCain team about excessive worship of Barack Obama:
I came into the office the other day, wearing an "Obama 2008" cap, a "Yes We Can" button, a "Team Obama" T-shirt, carrying an "Obama for Change" tote bag filled with Obama bumper stickers, made a stop at the Obama altar in the newsroom, strewed some rose petals, chanted a few hosannas, lit a votive candle and had a sudden thought: Is the news media's love affair with Barack Obama getting out of hand?
John McCain and his campaign staffers have a sneaking suspicion it is. They put out a video with footage of journalists acting gooey about the Democratic candidate, to the strains of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." According to the campaign, "The media is in love with Barack Obama." McCain's people say that like it's a bad thing.
July 24, 2008
That'd be an "oops"
The Telegraph reports that a New Hampshire newspaper had an unusually embarassing typo: the newspaper's own name:
This Monday readers of New Hampshire's Valley News were surprised to see the paper's name spelled "Valley Newss" on the front page masthead.
The following day the newspaper, which covers the Upper Valley area straddling New Hampshire and Vermont, published an "Editor's Note" acknowledging the error.
"Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday’s front page," it read.
"Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold themselves accountable for the mistakes, let us say for the record: We sure feel silly."
I'd actually expected the report to be about the Manchester Guardian, which was notorious for editing problems many years ago (hence the occasional nickname "The Grauniad").
July 22, 2008
Holy gristle resolves religious question
If you can't trust the BBC, then who can you trust?
What looks like the Arabic word for God and the name of the prophet Muhammad were discovered in pieces of beef by a diner in Birnin Kebbi.
He was about to eat it, when he suddenly noticed the words in the gristle, the restaurant owner said.
A search of the kitchen's meat revealed three more pieces which bore the names.
The meat was boiled and then fried before being served, owner Kabiru Haliru told newspaper Weekly Trust.
"When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind," he said.
The restaurant has kept the pieces of meat for visitors to see.
And to think that other religions have miracles involving flaming topiary, resurrecting the dead, great floods, and other such over-the-top demonstrations, when all you needed to to do was to inscribe your own name in gristle . . .
H/T to John Parry for the link.
July 16, 2008
QotD: Batman = Richie Rich
I was thinking about the upcoming Batman movie, and I suddenly realized: Batman and Richie Rich are basically the same character.
They both have butlers (Alfred, Cadbury), they both have sidekicks (Robin, Dollar), they both dress in ridiculous outfits (bat costume, short pants with bow tie) and they both have adventures in which problems are solved by the appropriate use of incredibly expensive material possessions.
The main difference is that Richie Rich's parents weren't shot to death in a filthy alleyway right in front of him, but tell me that wouldn't have improved Richie's back story.
Lore Sjöberg, Grading Batman's Gear", Wired, 2008-07-15
July 14, 2008
Definitely the iPhone
Video tutorial: unlock iphone
H/T to Bob Kopman, who liked Craig's link so much that he had to top it.
July 11, 2008
The weirdest music video you'll see this week
I tried to post this yesterday, and spent what seemed like hours getting the same server error instead of the "Rebuilding . . ." message.
By way of Hit and Run (where Jesse Walker labelled it "When I Hear the Word 'Gorbachev,' I Think, 'Zombies! Zeppelins! Cleavage!'"), comes a music video Tom Stern did for a Russian band called ANJ.
July 09, 2008
New record price . . . for pot
Rising prices are being reported everywhere . . . even in the drug trade:
During a routine traffic stop in Ohio, police discovered over 100 pounds of the most valuable marijuana ever documented:
Police curbed the gray, four-door Mercury Grand Marquis Ruci was driving after he allegedly committed a lane violation, the highway patrol statement indicated. A specially trained, narcotics-detecting dog was brought to the scene, and its reaction to the car signaled the presence of drugs, the statement said.
A search of the vehicle yielded 104 pounds of hydroponically-grown marijuana stuffed inside eight black plastic trash bags. Police said the marijuana had an estimated street sale value of more than $4.7 million. [Naperville Sun]
This is really an incredible discovery and I'm surprised it hasn't generated more attention. At $4.7 million for 104 pounds, we're talking about an ounce that's worth $2824.51! That just blows away everything listed at High Times's market quotes section, where ounces of high-grade marijuana in Ohio last month were listed at $400. It also overwhelms the STRIDE data collected by drug enforcement officers showing that U.S. marijuana prices averaged around $200 per ounce as of 2003.
So far, I haven't heard of anyone smoking this new type of marijuana, but that's probably because the police took it all.
Don't worry though: it's the usual middle-man markup by both the police and the media. Regular users shouldn't find this particular kind of sticker shock next time they are in the market.
James Lileks on old fogey music
James Lileks unloads his bile on Deborah Harry:
As for "Blondie," the song was "Tide is High," which I loathe, right up to and including Debbie Harry's yips at the end. Some people said that the song marked the End of New Wave, but for heaven's sake New Wave ended with the first Blondie song. Okay? New York "downtown" ethos meets pseudo-Moroder synths, uses square-headed frontperson for sex appeal, that's it for New Wave. Don't talk to me about this. I'm still bitter.
Not really. Although I do matter when these things mattered a great deal, and how we had to come up with new genres to describe every deviation from the style of the times, since it was the style that nurtured our souls and gave our lives meaning. We are living in an era when New Jersey garage rockers are successfully using the raw, nervy Kinks style and adding post-Beatles sensibility to create an entirely new style, which is as impossible to dance to as its antecedents! Actually, to tell the truth I did think the term "post-Beatles" today, and in the correct sense of "stealing specific chords and/or harmonies." I was driving around Lake Harriet shooting a video for buzz.mn — a big summer-long project about all the lakes, released sometime early in September — and "It's a Livin' Thing" came on the radio. Electric Light Orchestra.
There's always that moment of shame when you find yourself liking a song from a group that has long passed out of favor and into the realm of ignored bands good for a punch line, but not if you're talking to anyone under 20.
July 08, 2008
July 05, 2008
"Mr. Hubris? Call from Mr. Nemesis on line two."
There aren't enough shades of ironic to cover this one:
Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers has admitted that a laptop containing financial and personal details of thousands of staff, suppliers and contributors has been stolen.
After months of criticising "criminally careless" government departments for losing confidential records, the company has been forced to send out an embarrassing letter telling journalists they may now be at risk of identity theft, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.
There's a silver lining to all this — they can re-use all the headlines like this one:
Hard to disagree, isn't it?
July 03, 2008
July 02, 2008
Come to Canada . . . and freeze your butt off!
Philip Delves Broughton glances across the Atlantic to Canada — and sneers:
Despite banging its own drum for decades, calling on the world to gather on its shores, Canada still looks like one of those poor young girls at a trade show, thrusting flyers at disinterested passers-by.
It is the big, earnest, empty restaurant which can't understand why the scrappier joint next door is hopping. People just do not want to go.
[. . .]
Culturally, Canada does not hold a candle to Britain. Its museums and orchestras are resoundingly second tier, though it may have an edge in country music festivals.
This is, after all, the home of Shania Twain, whose full-throated warblings make Dolly Parton sound sophisticated.
In the dramatic arts, Canada's greatest recent contribution - unless you include Jim Carrey and Pamela Anderson — is the incomprehensible, semi-nude contortion act of Cirque du Soleil. And as for its newspapers, they are lifeless and hobbled by the provincialism which divides the country.
[. . .]
Sure, Canada has been through a food revolution similar to Britain's, but still the way to a Canadian's heart is not through fancy Newfoundland oysters, but with 'poutine' — chips smothered with cheese curds and gravy. It makes a chip butty look like the healthy option.
[. . .]
Ah yes, hockey. If you thought British sport was becoming crude and violent, try watching two teams of toothless brutes sliding around on ice and pausing every few minutes to beat the daylights out of each other. It makes the Premiership look like synchronised swimming.
However bad Britain may seem, trust me, moving to Canada is not the answer. Why not try somewhere more appealing. Siberia, for example.
"It's a fair cop, guv."
It's easy to understand why civilized, educated people would not want to come out to the colonies. Why, the servant problem alone is enough to drive you mad! And the weather is terrible, unlike the perfect weather we have at home. And worse, you're likely at any moment to be overrun by Cousin Jonathan and his fascist hordes. Better stay at home, where the loving eyes of the surveillance cameras can keep a better eye on you.
June 26, 2008
Coming soon . . .
Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.
June 25, 2008
Establishing what "community standards" really means
Katherine Mangu-Ward reports on a cool way of discovering what a given "community" might really be willing to allow, instead of what they say they believe . . . technology to the rescue:
A lawyer in a current obscenity case in Florida has adopted an unusual approach to finding out what the community is really up to — checking out what they're googling. The findings:
Except for brief periods near Thanksgiving, searches for "orgy" consistently outrank attempts to find information about "apple pie" in Florida . The rest of the year, orgy searches are closer in frequency to what might be expected to be a common activity in Florida, "surfing."
We always suspected the much-ballyhooed "community" wasn't quite as wholesome as its reputation suggests. Looks like we were right — our neighbors have been googling orgies all along.
As H.L. Mencken once wrote, "Evil is that which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake."
Messages to the stars
Lore Sjöberg takes it upon himself to grade the various attempts to communicate with extra-terrestrial intelligences:
The Pioneer Plaques
These are identical, gold-plated plaques attached to the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. They feature a picture of the solar system, a picture of the probes and a pictorial representation of the hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen. Ring any bells? No? Well, it also has a picture of a naked man and woman on it. Ah, yes. Now you remember.
Many people considered this nothing more than interstellar porn. Others objected to the fact that the man is the one waving his hand, presumably to give the woman time to bake the aliens a nice batch of muffins. My objection is that the people depicted have no body hair at all. Aliens are gonna come down and think we're living in symbiosis with our pubes.
Grade: CThe Voyager Record
I love that we sent an LP. It's so delightfully retro! I expect alien life forms to discover it and say, "Clearly, this is the work of a truly groovy civilization. We do not know what to expect when we visit their planet, but we should prepare ourselves for an extremely mellow experience." In actuality, the funkiest track on the album is "Johnny B. Goode," which I think is a poor choice. I mean, I'm not sure how one carries a guitar in a gunnysack, and I was born on this planet.
Grade: B
June 20, 2008
Just too appropriate for words
So many blogs . . . so little mindspace:
Despairwear
June 19, 2008
No, this is the least surprising study finding ever
The Journal of Consumer Research goes out of their way to find out if it really is true that men suffer from short-term poor judgement when looking at pretty girls:
Science proves that bikinis turn men into boobs: Sexy images rob male brain of ability to make wise decisions
You may have known this all along, but now it has been demonstrated scientifically: bikinis make men stupid.
This month’s issue of the Journal of Consumer Research features a paper titled “Bikinis Instigate Generalized Impatience in Intertemporal Choice,” which is a neuroeconomist’s (definition in a moment) way of saying that men don’t make good decisions while checking out pretty girls in bikinis.
It would have been much more surprising if they'd found that men's judgement was not impaired under those circumstances!
June 18, 2008
Buzzword Bingo
Jon sent me a link to this BBC News article on the most-hated management buzzwords:
Management speak - don't you just hate it? Emphatically yes, judging by readers' responses to writer Lucy Kellaway's campaign against office jargon. Here, we list 50 of the best worst examples.
1. "When I worked for Verizon, I found the phrase going forward to be more sinister than annoying. When used by my boss — sorry, "team leader" — it was understood to mean that the topic of conversation was at an end and not be discussed again."
Nima Nassefat, Vancouver, Canada2. "My employers (top half of FTSE 100) recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really."
Anonymous, England
For those of you daring enough to try playing Buzzword Bingo during meetings, there's a downloadable bingo card linked from the article.
June 16, 2008
Failure of design
The folks who come up with new designs for things bear a great responsibility. Sometimes, that responsibility is misplaced.
June 15, 2008
QotD: God games
It's an idea that many people seem to latch on to that if we were created by some kind of God, obviously he did it because he loves us so huggy-muggy much. Never are the holes in this theory more obvious than while playing god games, because it seems that when you place most people in the position of a god and give them responsibility over many tiny lesser beings then their attitude towards them may be less about beloved children and more about target practice.
Sim City Societies may, on the other hand, support the believability of your argument because if being God is this boring then unconditional love is the only reason I can think of for not having slaughtered the whole unstimulating lot of us around the time we were still squeezing our own smallpox boils for nourishment.
Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw, "Zero Punctuation: Sim City Societies", The Escapist, 2008-02-13
June 05, 2008
Headline of the day
The folks at Fark.com can be a little over-the-top . . . okay, seriously over-the-top, but some of the headlines are literal gems:
Newsday link here, and Fark discussion thread here.
June 04, 2008
Zero time to blog . . .
. . . late start to the day, early finish as well, followed by a soccer game. No available blocks for blogging, so I'll just leave you with the latest Zero Punctuation episode and head back to the salt mine.
May 30, 2008
Weight and measurement
At last . . . Sensible Units!
H/T to Craig Zeni.
Sometimes, the mistake is the more accurate version
This was posted last month by Tian at Hanzi Smatter:
With two previous posts about the same incorrect tattoo, one would get the hint this does not mean "courage":
[The characters actually translate as] (n) serious error; gross mistake; big mistake or shortcoming; (punishment in school, etc.) a major demerit.
May 28, 2008
"And we'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those blasted kids!"
Grant McCracken points to a very relevant source of political and anthropological insight — The Onion:
But I think things are a little different in the world of politics. Here, the real sophistication of the under-35 voter means that you really have to watch it, and when you don't, this voter will make you pay.
Hence the article today in The Onion. This captures precisely the sensibility of the under-35 vote quite precisely. (With the proviso that The Onion is necessarily a little more observant and unforgiving.) In this wonderful piece, The Onion nails the Obama camp for its artifice in image building. Look, it says with glee, we see what you're doing. And it's precisely because you appear to think we cannot see the artifice here that we must point it out and make you pay. Play us if you must, but don't play us for fools.
The entire piece is worth reading [. . .] but if I may let me quote my favorite passage.
Obama has reportedly been working tirelessly with his top political strategists to perfect his looking-off-into-the-future pose, which many believe is vital to the success of the Illinois senator's campaign.
When performed correctly, the pose involves Obama standing upright with his back arched and his chest thrust out, his shoulders positioned 1.3 feet apart and opened slightly at a 14-degree angle, and his eyes transfixed on a predetermined point between 500 and 600 yards away. Advisers say this creates the illusion that Obama is looking forward to a bright future, while the downturned corners of his lips indicate that he acknowledges the problems of the present.
Oh, sublime. So much of politics is an exercise is posturing (figurative and here literal) that it is hard to image what politics can look like once the new voter is factored in. In the meantime, we leave it to the likes of The Onion, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to point out to the would-be emperors that we can see right through that clothing they don't have on.
May 27, 2008
QotD: Same-sex marriage
We introduced same sex marriage up here after conservatives assured us this would result in wall to wall orgies. This promise was a lie, just like the one about how if we legalized upper body nudity for women in Ontario, Ontario would become a sea of naked boobs despite the climate. And the mosquitos and the blackflies. Conservatives are always promising promiscuity and licentiousness if only we will liberalize our laws and they never deliver.
On the plus side, the initial divorce rate was extremely low for SSM because we didn't think to change the explicitly "one male one female" language in the Divorce Act.
James Nicoll, posting to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list, 2008-05-26
May 26, 2008
QotD: Testifying before congress
I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not."
Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and prima facie evidence, lady? Do I have to file a U.N. complaint in Geneva that the House of Representatives is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?"
But that's why I don't get asked to testify before Congress.
Mark Steyn, "Your car can't run on Congress' hot air", Orange County Register, 2008-05-24
May 23, 2008
Yahtzee on "Painkiller"
Yahtzee goes back to 2004 for another hilarious (NSFW) review:
May 22, 2008
The real danger of reducing trade with China
Mark Steyn gets to the biggest danger in any potential reduction of trade between China and the west:
I don't mean the moments when he [Obama] gets carried away and announces that his Administration would "stop the import of all toys from China". As it happens, that's a policy I'm not unsympathetic to. Over 80% of American toys are made in the People's Republic and, while that may well be appropriate given the whiff of totalitarian coerciveness that hangs around Barney the Dinosaur, I can't say I'm entirely comfortable with contracting out US innocence to the butchers of Tiananmen. For one thing, come the Sino-American War, Beijing will have the ultimate fifth column inside the west: the nation's moppets, resentful at having their Elmos and Spongebobs cut off the duration, will be shinning down the drainpipe after dark in ski masks and blowing up power stations to hasten the day of liberation.
Scary stuff.
May 20, 2008
QotD: Greenery as religion
Since we were here to do things we had not done before, we decided to take in "The Circle of Life," a show about the interconnectedness of man, nature, and anthropomorphic cartoon characters. I hate to be a killjoy grump about these things, but oy, what a load of sanctimonious rubbish. The actual Circle of Life, as applied to animals, consists of birth, killing, consumption, excretion, copulation, and solitary death from small predators in the blood or nasty ones with big teeth. Sometimes there's death by fire, for variety's sake. It takes consciousness on the human level to extract the metaphorical weight in the whole Circle of Life thing, and while I think it's wonderful to appreciate and marvel at the intricate ecosystems of the planet, and tread as lightly as necessary, wordless choirs voicing ecstatic vowels over footage of wildebeest herds does not really equal a High Mass for spiritual impact or depth. All of which I kept to myself, of course. But I felt like the village atheist.
The plot was hugely ironical: Timon and Roomba or whatever the warthog is named were building a resort in the jungle, and damning a stream to create a water feature. Simba showed up to demonstrate the error of their ways. The hilarity of any manifestation of the Disneyverse criticizing an artificial lake to build a resort goes without saying. And it did go without saying, of course. Simba said that Timon and Roomba or whatever were acting like another creature that did not behave in tune with nature, and that creature was . . . man.
BOO HISS, I guess. Jaysus, I tire of this. Big evil stupid man had done many stupid evil bad things, like pile abandoned cars in the river, dump chemicals into blue streams, and build factories that vomited great dark clouds into the sky. Like the People's State Lead Paint and Licensed Mickey Merchandise Factory in Shanghai Province, perhaps? Simba gave us a lecture about materialism and how it hurt the earth — cue the shot of trees actually being chopped down, and I'm surprised the sap didn't spurt like blood in a Peckinpah movie — and other horrors, like forests on fire because . . . well, because it was National Toss Glowing Coals Out the Car Window Month, I guess. I swear the footage all came from the mid-70s; it was grainy and cracked and the cars were all late-60s models. Because I'm pretty sure we're not dumping cars into the rivers as a matter of course any more. You're welcome to try to leave your car on the riverbank and see how that turns out for you.
At the end Timon and Phoomba decided to open a green resort, and everything's hakuna Montana.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2008-05-20
May 17, 2008
QotD: Documentation
I have encountered far too many managers who couldn't recognize bad documentation at all. Until the flaws are pointed out to them, or they compare it with good documentation, they are oblivious. That is why there are also far too many people working as technical writers who should be wearing greasepaint and ruffled collars instead. Those of us who are competent should be continually educating our co-workers and managers by pointing out excellent examples of technical communication.
We have a lot of fun commenting on the bad examples, but I think we should be showing off the good ones much more than we do now.
Beth Agnew, posting to the Technical Writing mailing list TECHWR-L, 2008-05-15
May 16, 2008
Inconceivable!
Hands down, the funniest Day By Day cartoon ever:
.
May 15, 2008
In praise of gridlock
By way of Samizdata, some political wisdom from a man who calls himself "not just stupid", but a "student of stupidity": P.J. O'Rourke:
It occurs to me that America could wind up with a Democratic president. This scares me. Not because I hate Democrats — although I do, come to think of it — but because a strong Democratic president and a strong Democratic Congress could put an end to partisan bickering in Washington and result in politicians from both parties working together to solve America's problems. And then we're really screwed.
I have been covering politics for 38 years. Trust me: we don't want politics to quit. That's why we need a Republican president — not because Republicans are good but because we need gridlock. I love gridlock. Gridlock means government can't do things.
The two most frightening words in Washington are "bipartisan consensus." Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.
Bipartisan consensus — like the stimulus package that has been delivered to us courtesy of Congress and the president. A $168 billion stimulus package that is supposed to change the trajectory of a $13 trillion economy.
Now, even somebody who flunked high school physics — and I did — can tell you that the energy of $168 billion is not sufficient to budge $13 trillion worth of inertia. It's like trying to use Dennis Kucinich to push Hillary Clinton off the Democratic campaign platform.
Much more here (PDF document).
May 14, 2008
QotD: Sign of the times
Would you find it odd to walk into a place that billed itself variously as an "internet café" and a "cybercafé" in the year 2008, only to be told "Sorry, [we] don't have wireless [internet]?" This happened to me on Sunday and I am still trying to figure out whether I am the crazy one.
Colby Cosh, "This is a sincere question", ColbyCosh.com, 2008-05-13
May 02, 2008
Like shooting conservative fish in a barrel
Radley Balko posts a link to the most popular 50 pages on Conservapedia under the heading Compensate Much?:
May 01, 2008
QotD: The origin of the name Canada
"Canada" [. . .] is the ancient Ojibwa word for "kick me"
Kathy Shaidle, "I missed 'Pingu' for this?", Five Feet of Fury, 2008-04-30
Book reviews . . . of DOOM
You know those books you read but would prefer that nobody knew that you read . . . no, not those ones. The worst trash you read. Everyone seems to have some reading vice like that. David Hines knows exactly what you feel:
You think that paragraph alone would make this book awesomely bad, but no. IT GETS MORE SO. Yes, you will be horrified by a lot of this, because Mike Harmon's adventures are by turns awesomely horrific and horrifically awesome; I freely confess that I cannot stop reading these books, because *I have to see what Ringo does next.* I do, however, have a finely-tuned defense mechanism: whenever something trips my circuit breaker, causing me to cringe away from the page, I utter aloud a cry that resets my noggin. You will probably need it yourself, so I provide it here, as a public service: "OH JOHN RINGO NO."
GHOST is Ringo's own admitted Lord King Badfic, his id run wild. By his own account, he was trying to write several books he was actually contracted for, but GHOST kept nudging at him, and finally he just wrote the damn thing to *make it go away* so he could get back to fulfilling his contracts. Ringo locked the spewings of his id away on his hard drive, until he mentioned in passing on an online forum that yeah, he'd written another book, but it was *awful* and would never see the light of day. Naturally, folks were curious, and when Ringo posted a sample, nobody was more surprised than him to find that the response was, more often than not, "Hey, man, I'd buy this."
So his publisher put it out, and the books are now doing pretty well for them. I'm sure this is a pleasant surprise if you're Ringo or his publisher, but it's also got to be a little embarrassing; he's committed the literary equivalent of charging money for folks to watch him roll naked in a pile of dead and smelly fish. And then being begged for encores. As of this writing, I have only the first three books in the series, because dammit, I will buy crap, but I refuse to buy crap in hardcover. That's *expensive.* I mean, I could be spending that money on *guns.*
I've read a few of these, and David is being very precise in his review. Ringo is a very good writer . . . and this series is gut-churningly disturbing. David continues:
I feel about the PALADIN OF SHADOWS series the way that a lot of people feel about ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN: it is so horrifically awful that it becomes TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME. Unless, of course, you have triggers about some or all of this stuff, in which case my recommendation is TO RUN AS FAR AND AS FAST AS YOU CAN. I will, however, say that GHOST and its sequels are *excellent* for reading out loud to people, particularly friends who are horrified and actively begging you to stop. (And you will be inclined to disregard such pleas, because you will need to share the pain.)
Amusingly, John Ringo himself liked the review.
April 28, 2008
Medical humour
Ronald Bailey points to some new suggestions for easing the load on doctors and nurses . . . icons to replace medical charts:
Update: Jon sent along this related link: Giant microbe stuffed toys, and this link: 4 Veneral dolls.
April 26, 2008
The power of prayer
Regular contributor Roger Henry sent this little gem . . .
A Judge's Dilemma
In a small town, a person decided to open up a brothel, which was right opposite to a church. The church & its congregation started a campaign to block the brothel from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.
Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a lightning bolt struck the brothel and it was burnt to the ground.
The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the brothel owner sued the church authorities on the grounds that the church, through its congregation & prayers, was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his brothel, either through direct or indirect actions or means.
In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons for the act of God. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:
"I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, we have a brothel owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire church that doesn't."
April 01, 2008
QotD: Humour
[On the topic of satire and A Modest Proposal]:
It's not that it's harder to detect humour now. It's that having an internet address and the ability to email hundreds of people at once doesn't make you Jonathan Swift.
"Azalais Malfoy", posting to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list, 2005-06-22
March 28, 2008
QotD: Offensive Clothing
In the late 1990s era of no-logo vogue, cultural commentators fretted that the once-democratic medium of the T-shirt had been co-opted by corporations, and that T-shirt buyers were concerned only with raising the planet's Hilfiger consciousness and saving the FUBUs. "The slogans on contemporary T-shirts are increasingly meaningless," the novelist and columnist Russell Smith observed in The Globe and Mail in 2000. "Most of them are simply the brand name of the T-shirt itself."
Now that our T-shirts are so blithely outspoken — and deliberately offensive — on every issue from Medicare to Britney Spears, it sometimes seems as if we’d like to ban our way back to a more sartorially decorous era. Ultimately, however, the T-shirt skirmishes that continuously erupt are oddly reassuring. Can the public schools be as out of control as they're often alleged to be if all it takes to get suspended from one is an "I ♥ My Wiener" shirt? Has our public sphere grown as hopelessly coarse as our loudest cultural scrub maids insist if a shirt featuring a faux fishing theme and the phrase "Master Baiter" is enough to make Southwest Airlines ground you?
Shouldn't we take comfort in the fact that so many high school students are ready to fight for their right to champion the unborn, maternal hotties, and whatever else they can think of to test the limits of Tinker v. Des Moines? T-shirts may intrude upon our lives in the public sphere, but they're also our most vivid reminder that free speech is woven into the fabric of our culture.
Greg Beato, "I'm With Stupid: The perennially embattled free speech zone over our chests", Reason, 2008-04
March 27, 2008
LOLCat religion
I guess it had to happen . . . the LOLCat Bible Translation Project:
1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.
4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1
H/T to Elizabeth Holden.
March 23, 2008
March 20, 2008
Time travellers reminisce
Radley Balko points to a very amusing site:
" . . . everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what's the harm?"
March 18, 2008
QotD: Going Medieval
I go to law school parties with my wife sometimes, and inevitably one of the laywers-in-training will ask me what I do. I tell them I'm a PhD candidate in medieval studies, to which they usually respond with a baffled, "Wow, that's so cool. So, you, like read old books?"
If only they knew. Yesterday I spent an hour and a half at talk hosted by the English department that was nigh unto indistinguishable from an episode of Beavis and Butthead. It involved senior faculty snickering while looking at dirty medieval art and grad students trying to pretend that they were above such things.
Ostensibly, the subject of the talk was "Chaucer and the Relics of Vernacular Religion," but the handouts were mostly dirty pictures like this one, which I took from an online auction house's listing, because Prof. Minnis's photocopies wouldn't scan well:
Carl Pyrdum, "What it's Like to be a Medievalist", Got Medieval, 2006-01-26
March 17, 2008
Packers say farewell to Brett Favre
GREEN BAY, WI—The Green Bay Packers addressed questions concerning the current status, future plans, and whereabouts of recently retired quarterback Brett Favre by announcing Monday that they had sent him to the country to live on a beautiful farm with a very nice family.
"We know you loved Brett Favre, but he wasn't happy here. He couldn't stay here," Packers general manager Ted Thompson told hundreds of quiet but tear-streaked Packer fans assembled at the televised Lambeau Field press conference. "And he loved you, too — he loved you very much indeed — but he needed to go someplace where he could run and jump and throw his favorite football around. And he couldn't do that here anymore."
"So we took Brett out behind the Don Hutson practice facility last night, and we . . . Coach McCarthy and I, we . . . We gave him one last hug, and we said goodbye to him, and Brett went away forever," Thompson said, his voice breaking several times. "Those loud banging noises you heard were probably the truck backfiring. He went to the farm in a truck, you know."
Pure media hucksterism
I kept thinking this was an out-take from SCTV . . . H/T to Craig Zeni.
March 16, 2008
QotD: Morris Dancers
Morris dancers, for those of you who don't know, are cute people who dress up in little white suits with green sashes and pork-pie hats with feathers. They tie sleighbells to their feet and they strap long white hankies to their wrists. In any event, there's nothing really alarming about Morris dancers; they're actually quite harmless.
Except that from time to time they will arm themselves with some kind of cudgel or bludgeon or some kind of blunt instrument. And they will gather in a knot or a mob known as a clot, or a team. And they'll gather in kind of a mystic circle and, to the accompaniment of accordion and violin, they will rhythmically and ritualistically hit each other again and again and again, with these sticks.
This is supposed to be some form of British fertility ritual, or some form of entertainment, or something. Anyway, this next song has the sort of knuckle dragging Neanderthal beat that Morris dancers really love to dance to.
Stan Rogers, introducing the song "The Idiot" on the album Home in Halifax.
March 11, 2008
QotD: The Global Warming Creed
I believe in Gore, the Prophet All-Knowing, the Creator of the Internet, and in Global Warming, his brain-child:
Which was conceived from Global Cooling, born of his lust for power, after he suffered a stolen election and was considered dead politically.
He descended into Obesity.
The third year He rose again from the obscure, He ascended into media prominence, and sits at the right hand of Bono the Annoying, from whence he shall come to sell carbon credits to the suckers with guilty consciences.
I believe in the Mother Gaia, the holy Ecological Church, the communion of Hollywood stars, the forgiveness of consumerism, the recycling of all things, and life so miserable it seems everlasting.
Amen.
Chris Claypoole, "The Global Warming Creed", Libertarian Enterprise, 2008-03-09
March 07, 2008
Reviews of Playmobil's latest toy
You may have heard that Playmobil, the toy company, recently introduced a toy to help train children to become jackbooted thugs TSA workers. The reviews on Amazon.com are very interesting reading:
You can also read the Fark thread for more frothing-at-the-mouth goodness.
Winter Greetings
As we contemplate another 30cm of snow starting later today, I had to agree with Den Lippert, who sent this highly appropriate winter greeting (NSFW):
Something for the nostalgic comrades
An odd link submitted by "Da Wife", with the comment My mom heard the music and immediately recognized it. She heard it way too many times in the old country.
March 05, 2008
Jesse Walker on D&D
Jesse Walker notes the passing of Gary Gygax, the seminal figure in the fantasy roleplaying phenomena of the 1970's and 80's:
Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax has died. It was Gygax, more than anyone else, who turned Tolkien fandom from a premodern pose into a postmodern, participatory phenomenon: Rather than merely reading about hobbits and elves, fantasy fans could enter Middle Earth themselves and create their own adventures. Granted, most of those adventures tended to sound the same. (If you've ever endured a D&Der's detailed account of how he spent his weekend, you'll understand what I mean.) But we knew that from the title, right? On one level it's a liberatory vision, one where anyone can create a world for everyone else to play in. But Gygax gave it a Foucauldian twist: In the end, each of those worlds is still a dungeon.
The comment thread starts off rather well, too:
Episiarch | March 4, 2008, 3:44pm | #
Uh, did you ever play, Jesse? Dungeon crawls were usually the way people got introduced to the game but a campaign could take place absolutely anywhere.But if you are trying to say that D&D players' minds/imaginations are like filthy damp dungeons, that would be funny.
QotD: "Breeders"
If people choose not to have children, that's their decision. Obviously. You could make the argument that the future needs kids, and plenty of them, especially if you believe there should be an intermediary government entity transferring part of their income to you when you're old. You could make the argument that childless people are doing their part to save the earth, and the earth will be so grateful it will show up at your funeral and sit in the front row sniffling into a handkerchief. The other guests will nudge and point — is that the Earth? I didn't know they were close. I tend to believe we have reached an unusual point in human history when we have to debate the merits of reproducing, but there you go.
I'm not talking about the people who don't want their own kids but love kids anyway, and prefer the Cool Aunt or Cool Uncle role: bless you. I'm not even talking about the people who are indifferent to kids. I'm talking about the people who find some sort of personal identification in a militantly anti-kid stance. ( I suspect a lot of anti-kid people would be offended if you told them they wouldn't be a particularly good parent, because it requires skills they lack; the strenuously anti-kid types often believe that these skills are simply beneath them, and could be mustered if — God forbid — the occasion arose.) Granted, some people aren't parent material, and it's best they not do something they don't want to do.
[. . .]
So I don't judge people who don't want kids, but I can't stand "breeder" and "clones" and "crotchfruit" and all the other terms of derision. It's the worst form of misanthropy, and a curious protestation of ignorance: these people literally do not know what they're talking about, since there's nothing about parenthood you can observe from a distance that compares to the thing itself. Being irritated with poorly-socialized children in a restaurant does not set one up in a moral high chair. Believe me, parents are just as irritated with those people as you are.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2008-03-05
March 03, 2008
Canadian rednecks
ChuckerCanuck performs a service in identifying the characteristics of Canadian Rednecks:
Often, as we travel the United States, we pass folks who stick their patriotism on their bumpers — the stars and stripes pasted on their cars to advertise their unthinking love of America. For many Canadians, this overt patriotism is decidely foreign. And yet, in my corner of the world, where Liberals win ridings by margins that would make Bashir Assad blush, there is a growing prevelance of people slapping Canadian flag license plates on the front of their vehicles. Canada has rednecks. And to help you identify a Canadian redneck, I have put together a short checklist for your benefit.
H/T to Mark C. at Daimnation for the link.
February 29, 2008
Go green, young BOFH
Jon, my virtual landlord, sent along this BOFH link:
"So we'll end up with machines which'll slow themselves down at weird and inconvenient times and lose processing power while they ramp up in response to need?"
"No, I'm sure the bloke said you can tune them to only reduce to a certain point and to speed up recovery time. And with virtualisation you can tune them to consolidate virtual servers onto the least number of machines and shut the rest down till they're needed."
"Still sounds like Nancy-Boy boxes," I concur.
"?"
"A REAL computer has ONE speed and the only powersaving it permits is when you pull the power leads out of the back!" I blurt. "In fact, a REAL computer would have a hole in the front to push trees into and an exhaust pipe out the back for the black smoke to come out of."
"AND," the PFY adds. "they run so hot - even on screensaver - that they keep the room nice and toasty when you're not there - saves on heating."
"All that is a thing of the past though." the boss burbles. "The bloke was telling me that using mobile processor technology the..."
"What bloke?" I ask.
"The... um..."
"Mmm?" the PFY says.
"Bloke... from... uh..."
"..."
"...the... green consultancy..."
"So you and the IT Director talk to some yoghurt-eating fruitcake in a hemp suit and sandals and the next thing we know you're planning to replace our high power server environment with a poor imitation of it?"
February 27, 2008
QotD: Words that don't exist, but should
Straternization: Hanging out socially with people not because you like them, but for their strategic benefits (i.e., helping you get ahead in work, getting you closer to that cute young thing, raising your social status in the lunchroom, etc). Usually doesn't work nearly as well as people hope.
John Scalzi, "Today is International Make Up a Word Day", Whatever, 2008-02-27
February 25, 2008
February 15, 2008
Just to keep you occupied
H/T to Jenny Sessions for the link.
February 14, 2008
Happy Valentine's Day
To celebrate, try perusing the offerings from the denizens of Fark, with their renditions of Valentine cards to send to your ex:
Madonna as director
Peter Bradshaw at the Guardian sums up in just a few brief words. You can't accuse them of being over-kind:
Well, it had to happen. Madonna has been a terrible actor in many, many films and now — fiercely aspirational as ever — she has graduated to being a terrible director. She has made a movie so incredibly bad that Berlin festivalgoers were staggering around yesterday in a state of clinical shock, deathly pale and mewing like maltreated kittens. She is also the producer and co-author of the script. If she'd done the location catering as well, they'd have had a Jonestown situation on their hands.
QotD: The Mind
I recently spent three hyper-stimulated hours at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The Exploratorium is a hands-on museum, with devices and experiments that you usually only find in the proximity of "cool" high school science teachers with missing fingers. Various exhibits involving dry ice, piles of sand and other edu-thrilling materials allow you to observe all sorts of scientific principles. Have you ever spent an afternoon wondering why honeycombs are shaped the way they are? Then it's time you discovered something called television, and the Exploratorium can tell you how it works!
The latest Exploratorium exhibit is called The Mind, and it explores those precious 3 pounds of gray matter that keep our skulls from making a marimba sound when we hit our head on the car door. I learned something I've always suspected: The mind is a cruel, lying, unreliable bastard that can't be trusted with even an ounce of responsibility. If you were dating the mind, all your friends would take you aside, and tell you that you can really do better, and being alone isn't all that bad, anyway. If you hired the mind as a babysitter, you would come home to find all but one of your children in critical condition, and the remaining one crowned "King of the Pit."
Lore Sjöberg, "Don't Turn Your Back on Your Brain", Wired, 2008-02-13
February 10, 2008
QotD: Are Canadians Sexy?
As a people we have two problems. The first I would dub the Tilley Hat phenomenon. No-one looks good in a Tilley hat, but they're damn practical. When you live in a country where you spend eight months a year trying to stay warm and four more warding off mosquitoes you tend to lean toward the practical. Tilley hats and Sears down coats are not sexy.
The other problem arises from another innately Canadian character trait. We're so obsessed with fairness and inclusion we hand out the status of "sexy" the way a special-ed teacher hands out praise. How else to explain Defence Minister Peter MacKay's annual topping of the sexiest parliamentarian list?
Having begun with a hoary old quote, allow me to paraphrase another. The answer to the question of whether Canadians are sexy would appear to be "as sexy as possible under the circumstances."
John Moore, "Canadians - as sexy as possible", National Post, 2008-02-09
February 06, 2008
QotD: The "Scientific" Method
Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with.
- Steven Guilbeault, Greenpeace 2005, as quoted by Canada Free PressAfterwards, another activist clarified the remark by stating that of course taller can also be evidence of shortness, richer can mean living in poverty, baboons can mean chairs, giraffes can mean pencils and hello Ms. Robinson, your lacy trousers are well buttered with smoked trout, can you hear what I'm writing with my toaster?
"Samizdata Illuminatus", "The Scientific Method is over-rated", Samizdata, 2008-02-05
February 05, 2008
February 04, 2008
On the subject of "toilet humour" . . .
. . . there's this.
China Dispatch: Using the Squat Toilet
Rule One: Exhaust all other possibilities.
If you are truly in need and condemned to use the squat toilet, comfort yourself with the knowledge that you are several thousand miles from friends and family. No one has to know.
Proceed as follows:
Most stalls do not have toilet paper. This is the best time to realize this. Either take paper from the general dispenser in the bathroom area or preferably bring your own as it will be made of tissue and not plywood carpaccio.
It gets much, much worse.
Link courtesy of "Da Wife", who clearly isn't planning a trip to that part of the world in the near future.
February 01, 2008
January 25, 2008
QotD: Libertarianism, the scourge of the GOP
Without attempting to untangle the mess of that second graf — seriously, read it again — my question is this: Exactly where and how has libertarianism poisoned "public life"? Certainly not in the modern, Weekly Standard-approved national GOP, which has shot federal spending through the roof, created mammoth new entitlements, rammed through panicky regulatory nightmares, got the feds deep into local education, and lived out the doctrine of pre-emptive war. Of all the many, many things to complain about the party that has run most of the federal government for the past eight years, "dogmatic libertarianism" has to rank somewhere near the proliferation of Esperanto.
It's always flattering that libertarianism — almost uniquely among strains of modern political thought — is constantly challenged to defend itself against its most theoretical extremes.
Matt Welch, " 'The moral vacuity of dogmatic libertarianism is poisonous to public life'", Hit and Run, 2008-01-25
January 21, 2008
QotD: Bad SF books
[. . .] a lot of SF authors are more interested in the science than the people, so the psychological depth required for good writing is simply missing, whereas romance and mystery authors have to have some minor grasp of psychology, however bad they are. Written by Aspergers for Aspergers.
Rachel Ganz, posting to the Bujold mailing list, 2008-01-20
January 20, 2008
Comic strip crossovers
A sick, but still kinda touching, tribute to Calvin and Hobbes.
Apropos of the season, I always thought Watterson did a great snowman comic.
January 18, 2008
Offensensitivity goes wild
I spotted this mindboggler yesterday, but I was too busy with non-blog activities to link to it. James Lileks did me the favour of not only linking, but putting a far more entertaining spin on the story than I could have done:
This story made my eyebrows hoist. A "conservationist, columnist for the Daily Telegraph, and the chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust" named Robin Page won 2K pounds in a court award for false arrest. It took five years to do so. From the article:
He claims that in order to gain the attention of listeners at the gathering in Frampton-upon-Severn, Glos, he started in a "light-hearted fashion". His opening remark was: "If you are a black, vegetarian, Muslim, asylum-seeking, one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you."
Naturally, he was arrested for committing a hate crime. It made me think of a Jay Leno remark I heard excerpted on the Hewitt show; Chris Matthews was describing the GOP contenders in terms of the Iraqi political players — these guys are Sunnis, these guys are Shiites, Romney's the Kurd. Leno responded that "Larry Craig was the guy with the sheep." If you wanted to be offended, you could note that this equated homosexuality with bestiality, and cast Arabs as dispositionally zoophilic. Should he be arrested? Charged with inciting the easily incitable, with equating the newly-minted right to play jiggery-pokery in a lav with an aberrant behavior? If it's aberrant , that is. We're probably ten years away from bestiality japes entering the no-go zone. Within five years they'll probably remake "Flipper," and it'll be a hard R. Critics of the movie, if they’re on the right, will be subjected to the usual eye-rolling, because they can’t possibly be objecting to sex with animals; it’s part-and-parcel of their desire to return to the 50s, when Donna Reed was chained to a stove, deprived of footwear, perpetually pregnant and forced to vote for Ike at knifepoint. Oh, sure, you disapprove of sex-positive dolphin movies. Your kind didn't want the nation to see Elvis from the waist down. Doesn't mean the critics will be comfy with Flipper-gets-busy movies, but they have a dread of making common cause with the trogs. So the movie will be criticized on aesthetic grounds. If nothing else, its poor script and pedestrian direction will be a lost opportunity to advance a controversial topic.
January 17, 2008
QotD: Age and aging
Sometimes I suspect that everyone under the age of 50 or so thinks they need to get a promotion every few years in order to think of themselves as successful just because the characters on Star Trek all did.
It was noticeable that in the early series, pretty much every StarFleet admiral was either corrupt, insane or a traitor. They only seemed to ease off this unusual hiring policy once Kirk, Scotty, et al reached pensionable age.
Stuart Burnfield, posting to the Techwr-L mailing list, 2007-10-24
January 16, 2008
QotD: But what do you really think, James?
Insert slippery-slope argument here and an acknowledgment that decades on USENET has biased me in favor of crushing potentially destructive practices, exiling their adherents, sowing their homelands with cobalt-60, raising the temperature of their homeworld to one million degrees, detonating their sun and then ramming a galaxy into their home island universe.
James D. Nicoll, in a comment on Whatever, 2008-01-13
January 14, 2008
Flashman's creator
The Economist's obituary for George MacDonald Fraser includes a fond farewell to his his best-known fictional creation:
Mr Fraser had known him from the start of his career, when he was dragged bragging and hiccupping from the pages of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" and pitchforked out of Rugby; and he had followed him, like some devoted batman, through all his military campaigns, from Afghanistan to South Africa to the Indian wars. He had seen him frozen in a blanket in a corpse-strewn defile on the retreat from Kabul in 1842; almost split neatly in two by a grinning Chinaman in a top-knot while running guns down the Yangtse in 1860; struggling in an Indian swamp, after the great ghat massacre at Cawnpore, with what looked like man-eating crocodiles; and charging, by accident, for the Russian guns at Balaclava. As Flashman accumulated the tinware — the Victoria Cross, the Queen's Medal, the San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth ("richly deserved"), both he and Mr Fraser knew it was sheer terror that propelled him, delirium funkens, plus a large measure of luck. The great hero of Jallalabad was, in fact, "yellow as yesterday's custard". But he always emerged in splendour.
And with women. Every Flashman novel writhed with them, preferably all bum, belly and bust, giggling and bouncing at the prospect of an officer "who had raked and ridden harder than most". After the beauteous Fetnab (who "knew the ninety-seven ways of love . . . though . . . the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed"), came Lola Montez and Cassie and Susie the Bawd; and, finest of all, the Indian princess Lakshmibai, her "splendid golden nakedness" dressed in no more than bangles and a tiny veil. It was a serious disaster that could interrupt the tumbling for any long period of time.
If you didn't have to live through the 1970's
For those of you lucky enough to have skipped the 1970's (the first time around, any way), James Lileks encapsulates (perhaps that should be encrapsulates) the decade that never should have been:
[. . .] a dreadful 70s generic look that screams END OF AMERICAN INFLUENCE AND CONFIDENCE, plus Kojak-style urban decay. If you weren't around during the rise of the generics you might not recall how depressing these products were; yellow cans that said BEER, yellow boxes of gummint cheese, yellow generic cigarettes. You saw a world where retail would consist entirely of a 7-11 store with buzzing fluorescent lights and the stink of incinerated coffee, a fat greasy unshaven clerk looking at you between glances at a yellow-covered magazine whose cover simply said SMUT, shelves and shelves of generic food, CHUDs in the parking lot siphoning gas from your '77 Pacer — she was twenty years on, and parts were hard to find — while you put a few items in the filthy plastic basket. This was our future in 1975. Little did we know that things would turn around, and in a few years we'd all be spending money on gourmet jelly beans. Morning in America!
January 11, 2008
"Ask your dealer about a new Intercity 125!"
H/T to Craig Zeni.
January 10, 2008
Vamping it up in your library
A very amusing discussion broke out on the Bujold mailing list, after this gem from Marna Nightingale:
Ok, seriously, can somebody tell me what is up with the Vampires?
I mean, look. They undoubtedly have terrible breath, you'd have to give up garlic, a big church wedding is Right Out, and you really don't ever want to go on a holiday somewhere remote with one. And they don't help with the yardwork. Or the school run.
Presumably they don't mind getting up with the baby, assuming that
a) they have not eated it and
b) they're not out batting about biting the necks of other nubiles,but surely that's not by itself enough to overcome their other shortcomings as life partners to the extent that my library's romance section has almost entirely taken over by pointy-toothed dudes in penguin suits, is it?
January 03, 2008
It's contribute your link day . . .
Continuing the trend to reader-suggested links, frequent commenter "Da Wife" sent this one along with the comment "I just had to smirk and shake my head":
Malaysia's Muslim men are suffering sleepless nights and cannot pray properly because their thoughts are distracted by a growing number of women who wear sexy clothes in public, a prominent cleric said.
Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said he wanted to speak about the "emotional abuse" that men face because it is seldom discussed, the party reported on its Web site Wednesday.
"We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen," Nik Abdul Aziz said. "Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed."
I'd like to say that I, for one, don't at all object to women wearing "sexy clothes in public", and would encourage as much of that as possible . . .
January 02, 2008
Toys for little girls
It's a bit late for Christmas, but if you've just got to get a new toy for a little girl with a taste for "Hello Kitty" and serious firearms, here's your solution:
H/T to Raye Johnsen.
December 24, 2007
Testosterone . . . the source of all humour?
The British Medical Journal's end of year edition follows a long, distinguished record of fooling the BBC and other media outlets with spoof reports like this one:
Men are naturally more comedic than women because of the male hormone testosterone, an expert claims.
Men make more gags than women and their jokes tend to be more aggressive, Professor Sam Shuster, of Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, says.
The unicycling doctor observed how the genders reacted to his "amusing" hobby.
Women tended to make encouraging, praising comments, while men jeered. The most aggressive were young men, he told the British Medical Journal.
Previous findings have suggested women and men differ in how they use and appreciate humour.
Women tend to tell fewer jokes than men and male comedians outnumber female ones.
December 19, 2007
QotD: The key to generating blog comments
The secret to generating a huge number of comments on your blog: Write about Robert Heinlein and fanfic in the same week; each entry is at about 450 comments. By concatenation, this means writing an entry concerning fanfic about Heinlein books would come close to 1000 comments, and that writing erotic fanfic featuring Heinlein and Ayn Rand would generate so many comments that the entire power grid east of the Mississippi would collapse under the load. Given the severity of the weather at the moment, I am loath to do that. We’ll save it for summer.
John Scalzi, "Just In Case You Were Wondering", Whatever, 2007-12-16
December 18, 2007
December 17, 2007
Need a mission statement, fast?
At least as good as half the "real" company mission statements I've had to read . . .
H/T to Craig Zeni.
December 14, 2007
Singapore and the age of de-MILFication
Rogier van Bakel decodes a recent decision by the Singapore bureaucracy:
It's official, because Singapore says so: There's no such thing as an over-45 MILF. When a woman reaches the age of 45, no right-minded Muslim with a dick would say, "Yeah, I'd tap that."
Muslim women under the age of 45 will be barred from making the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca unless accompanied by a close male relative starting next year, news reports said on Monday in Singapore. The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore said it would no longer appeal to Saudi Arabian authorities on behalf of women who wish to make the month-long pilgrimage unaccompanied. "We should respect the laws they have laid down," The Straits Times quoted Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim as saying.
December 12, 2007
QotD: Huckabee's Energy Policy
I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.
Mike Huckabee, as quoted by Jesse Walker in "Energy-Free by 2017!", Hit and Run, 2007-12-12
December 11, 2007
QotD: The 1960s
The 1960s remain a volatile mixture of sacred birthplace and hallowed battleground, both Jerusalem and Gettysburg for our national politics and culture. The decade's reach is long, its grasp immense, alternately a continuing mystery needing unraveling or an ongoing problem requiring a solution.
As music, art, racial and sexual relations, and citizens' relation to the state all percolated and mutated in that decade, the resulting cultural and political heat weakened certain bridges across cultural divides. Whether the decade's tumult created those divisions or just illuminated them, they are still often read as defining America in our red/blue era. For one example, the '60s legacy led Andrew Sullivan to the mad expediency of declaring that only a Barack Obama presidency can reconcile the dueling meanings of that decade, the era when Baby Boomers' passions and concerns began their long march through all American’s institutions.
Brian Doherty, "Always on Trial for Just Being Born: Revisiting 1960s tumult in art and politics — and seeing what lasts", Reason Online, 2007-12-11
December 10, 2007
I guess it could be worse . . .
In the glamorous, high-tech, fast-paced world of technical writing, we sometimes run into situations where we have to document around software or hardware problems. It's the sort of thing that marketing might try, in the sense of redefining a bug as a "feature". But it could be much worse, if you're developing custom software for a client:
[The client] would buy new hardware and software, but it had to look and function exactly like the old systems. No touch-screens, no graphics and no cashier-friendly reminders; just a plain old text-based interface with obscure keyboard commands for navigation. After all, they had spent a lot of money developing training programs for these registers and had no intention of simply throwing them out.
The retailer had also invested in a whole host of back-office management and reporting applications. Some were PC-based and some relied on proprietary hardware, but they all interfaced with the old cash registers' proprietary database. And though many of those applications were antiquated as well, the retailer had no desire to retire them. The new software would just have to interface with them. On top of that, the retailer didn't want a "flash cutover" deployment. They wanted a seamless, phased deployment that would allow them to switch over one register at a time, and have it all look the same on the back-end. So, with the latest and greatest technology at their disposal, Dave's team built outdated and mediocre software that functioned and communicated exactly like the old software. It did everything it was supposed to do and it did it right. And therein lay the problem.
Shortly after they delivered the software, the retailer rejected the QA testers' build and sent David's company a list of bugs. But it wasn't a list of bugs that their software had — it was a list of bugs that it didn't have. When the retailer said they wanted the same functions, they apparently meant the same bugs as well.
December 07, 2007
QotD: Talking to your dog
In the meantime I was outside in the neighborhood calling for a lost dog. It seemed ridiculous: after all these years, now he runs away? I’d gone outside for a small evil cigar; my wife came out to chat, and yes, we Minnesotans stand outside when it’s 14 above and chat, and Jasper came out to stand with us. He went down to drill a yellow hole by the steps, and I thought nothing of it until I realized five minutes had passed. I went around the corner and gave the whistle, the sound I’ve used for so many years, the sound that usually brings the tinkle of a collar and a dog with pricked ears and wide eyes: will there be food? But nothing. I looked in the new snow; no tracks. I checked the side stairs: dog tracks. They went to the street. Ahhh, damn.
Went back inside, put on boots, and tromped around the neighborhood tweeting like a bird. Nothing. Dead silence. Up the block, down, down the hill, wondering if I’d have to head back to the creek; he loves it there. He could have picked up the trace of a squirrel, followed it down to the Falls, tumbled over the icy precipice.
JASPER I shouted. Nothing. I whistled: too-tweet.
Nothing.
I went back to the house to get in the car and drive around. As I came around the corner he came trotting up the steps. He looked at me: what? I looked at him: you dog. His ears went down and he looked away, then looked at me out of the corner of his eyes.
The most important conversations you have with your dog are silent movies.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-12-07
November 30, 2007
QotD: The Internet
God did not give us the Internet for porn, political fundraising, or pissing off the RIAA. (*)
[. . .]
* Those were Al Gore's contributions. Thank you, Al!
Jesse Walker, "The Rave Museum", Hit and Run, 2007-11-29
November 29, 2007
QotD: Dogs in Winter
It is cold as Mars’ Arse out there. I’m already tired of it. Not a good sign; it’s like a stitch in your side sixteen yards into a marathon. The fussy idiot wind doesn’t help any either, poking its nose into everything. The dog wants to go out; the dog goes out, rethinks the wisdom of the effort, then barks to be readmitted. A few minutes later he recalls why he wanted to go out, and he walks over to the door and paws the frame once. The door is opened, and a hand is put on his hindquarters to expedite his passage. Once outside, his nose hurts, and he announces a desire for the comforts of civilization. I wonder if there’s anything to be smelled at all when it’s this cold. I wonder if dogs lean into the wind, nostrils wide, and think: I’m blind.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-11-29
November 27, 2007
Glowing review
Jon, my virtual landlord, sent me this item with the comment "With a review like this, you've got to get one":
The Squircle could pretentiously be called a convergence device, but it's really just a glorified card reader. Zero internal memory, no screen, a rubbery shell and a peculiar shape aren't the best starting points for an MP3 player.
But play MP3s it does, and to boot it'll jack into your nearest USB cable for all the card reading fun you can wave a stick and an SD card at. For just £15, we felt we should give this little guy a chance.
Design
Find yourself a large lump of black Plasticine and squish it into a flat square shape. Then round off two opposite corners and leave it to go stagnant. The result is a lump of rubbery gunk that resembles half a square, half a circle — hence the name. There are also five large rubbery buttons that require significant pushing and endless patience. It's about as pleasant to use as putting your hand in a trouser press.
[. . .]
Conclusion
This truly is the most horrible excuse for an MP3 player we've ever heard. Don't be surprised if your toddler's first words are, 'Daddy, why does Noddy sound like he hates me?' As an emergency card reader it's not too bad. But perhaps the most redeeming feature is that it'll skim across a lake like no pebble you'll ever find on a beach. Expect even the most woebegone and wretched five-year old to think you're cool as a result.
A suitable alternative would be any MP3 player on CNET.co.uk, along with the cheapest card reader you can find in Argos. You may pay a little more but we guarantee your karma will benefit as a result. The fact that some dog toys cost more should push you in the right direction.
At least now I know what I'll be getting Jon for Christmas this year . . .
November 23, 2007
QotD: Coffee, slowly
Continentals who grew up on Hollywood movies where the guy tells the waitress "Gimme a cuppa joe" and slides over a nickel return to New York a year or two later and find the coffee now costs $5.75, takes 25 minutes and requires an agonizing choice between the cinnamon-gingerbread-persimmon latte with coxcomb sprinkles and the decaf venti pepperoni-Eurasian-milfoil macchiato. Who would have foreseen that the nation that inflicted fast food and drive-thru restaurants on the planet would then take the fastest menu item of all and turn it into a kabuki-paced performance art? What mad genius!
Mark Steyn, "For What the Thanks", New York Sun, 2007-11-19
November 20, 2007
Presentations not to be missed
As reported at Hit and Run, some presentations at the American Academy of Religion's annual conference are pretty much mandatory:
The presenters' titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. [Samuel] Snyder will speak about "Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster's Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion," while Gavin Van Horn's presentation is titled "Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master."...
But they also insist it's more than a joke.
Indeed, the tale of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers cuts to the heart of the one of the thorniest questions in religious studies: What defines a religion? Does it require a genuine theological belief? Or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?
In short, is an anti-religion like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism actually a religion?
Academia, schmackademia
James Lileks takes the governor off his cerebellum and goes for academic tenure:
Mr. Whipple, as I'm sure you’ve heard, has died. He appeared in over 400 commercials as the fellow who tried to impose rules he himself could not follow, and thereby revealed not only the essential hypocrisy of the puritan impulse, but the uselessness of imposing any sort of "standards" on human behavior. That he himself was rebuked for failing to stay his own desire to squeeze, some say, was proof of a Natural Law above Whipple and the society he represented, but this was seen quite correctly by critics as a reflexive sop tossed to the reactionaries, a way of undercutting the existential truths Whipple's failings represented. In a society without meaning or purpose, is there anything more absurd that setting up the petty bourgeois rules that keep people from applying manual pressure to Charmin in a public setting? Here, the reactionaries pounce: Whipple did not oppose squeezing; he merely attempted to establish some sort of public standard. But the personal is the public; how can the act of squeezing be acceptable in the personal realm and transgressive in the public sphere?
[. . .]
Inherent in his command is the assumption that the person has a home, which is a way of preferencing the currently-domiciled and excluding the non-housed, establishing them as an "other" whose desires must be denied, not merely moved behind the fiction of "private" property. If one cannot squeeze at home because one has no home, then the act of squeezing in a grocery store becomes more than personal gratification; it recontextualizes both the act and the concept of property. By squeezing the Charmin in the grocery store, the non-housed asserts a claim to the public realm, not just for herself, but for all.
Hence, of course, the necessity of Whipple's edict, and the threat of banishment that put the steel in his peevish irritation.
Could it be said that the land in which all were free to let their Squeeze Flag Fly was, indeed, a forbidden planet? Obviously; the message was quite clearly by using the robot from the movie with the same name, a move that had the extra effect of suggesting that the working class could be replaced at a whim with machinery:
Of course, there's another message, perhaps aimed at the Inner Party: Whipple himself could be replaced. He may have come to embody the message for the proles, but he was expendable as well. It is rare that the Establishment laid things out with such ruthless clarity; usually the messenger had the unassailable authority of the message itself — right up until the moment when he went down the memory hole — but such was the confidence of the Establishment that Whipple himself could be held up as an object of
THANK YOU, TENURE GRANTED. NEXT
November 19, 2007
QotD: Higher Education
Flirtin’ with disaster, as Molly Hatchet put it. Flirtin’ with Disaster! Wasn’t that a Molly Hatchet album? Weren’t they a southern-flavor hard-rock band with Frank-Frazetta covers, for no discernible reason? Probably so. Flirtin’ with Disaster! The album gave a motto to all those guys in the dorm my second year, the straight-ahead / good-time / dual-lead-guitar / Allman et al guys who lived in the triple room catty-whompus from ours, and would have kicked our assses on general principle for not being like them, and also for using the term catty-whompus. They loved that stuff. Played it all the time. It sounded like music to hear two hours before you truly and seriously get down the business of throwing up, hunched over the bowl making gargoyle faces. College. The enlightenment just rained down from the skies. No, that was the guy in the room above whizzing out the window.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-11-19
November 13, 2007
QotD: The Boomers
If there's one conviction that afflicts the keenest mind as it ages, it's the belief that Things Were Better Then, and Things Are Horrible Now, usually because no one has learned the lessons of your own generation and insisted on experiencing the world for themselves. (Frank Rich provided a neat example of this a few days ago, when he diagnosed Americans as "clinically depressed" and unable to capture the glories of his demographic, which Took It To the Streets, Man. And blew up a few buildings while they were at it, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking into a farmer's coop, stealing his chickens, setting fire to the coop and running off with the eggs, all of which you later misplaced because you were high.)
I'm so used to being lectured by sour Boomers I’ve come to think of them all as the Gratingest Generation.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-11-13
No matter how you slice it . . .
John Scalzi hardens his heart, girds his loins, takes the bit between his teeth, and . . . visits the Creation Museum:
Here's how to understand the Creation Museum:
First, imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we're not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we're talking colossal load of horseshit. An epic load of horseshit. The kind of load of horseshit that has accreted over decades and has developed its own sort of ecosystem, from the flyblown chunks at the perimeter, down into the heated and decomposing center, generating explosive levels of methane as bacteria feast merrily on vintage, liquified crap. This is a Herculean load of horseshit, friends, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Augeas.
And you look at it and you say, "Wow, what a load of horseshit."
But then there's this guy. And this guy loves this load of horseshit. Why? Well, really, who knows? What possesses someone to love a load of horseshit? It's beyond your understanding and possibly you don't actually want to know, even if you could know; maybe it's one of those "on that path lies madness" things. But love it he does, and he's not the only one; the admiration for this particular load of horseshit exists, unaccountably, far and wide. There are advocates for this load of horseshit.
And so this guy who loves this load of horseshit decides that he's going to do something; he's going to give it a home. And not just any home, because as this is no ordinary load of horseshit, so must its home be no ordinary repository for horseshit. And so the fellow builds a temple for his load of horseshit. The finest architects scope this temple's dimensions; the most excellent builders hoist columns around the load of horseshit and cap them with a cunning and elegant dome; and every surface of the temple is clad in fine-grained Italian marble by the most competent masons in a three-state radius. The load of horseshit is surrounded by comfortable seats, the better for people to gaze upon it; docents are hired to expertly describe its history and features; multimedia events are designed to explain its superior nature, relative not only to other loads of horseshit which may compete in loadosity or horseshittery, but to other, completely unrelated things which may or may not be loads of anything, much less loads of horseshit.
The guy who built the temple, satisfied that it truly represents his beloved load of horseshit in the best possible light, then opens the temple to the public, to attract not only the already-established horseshit enthusiasts, but possibly to entice new people to come and gaze on the horseshit, and to, well, who knows, admire its moundyness, or the way it piles just so, to nod in appreciation of the rationalizations for its excellence or to clap in delight and take pictures when an escaping swell of methane causes the load of horseshit to sigh a moist and pungent sigh.
When all of this is done, the fellow turns to you and asks you what you think of it all now, now that this gorgeous edifice has been raised in glory and the masses cluster in celebration.
And you say, "Well, that’s all very nice. But it's still just an enormous load of horseshit."
It just gets better. Read the whole thing.
November 08, 2007
QotD: SF clichés
These shows owe a lot to "Forbidden Planet," or perhaps vice versa; it was just how people saw the future. A logical extension of their own norms. We do the same, of course, which is why Star Trek: The Next Generation had a sob-sister grief-counselor on the bridge. There weren't any women on 50s sci-fi ships. The captain was hard-boiled, the engineers were laconic and practical, and the enlisted men were whooping rabble who'd get drunk and throw a rock through the window of a deserted alien city. You suspect that the authors of these stories were all WW2 Navy vets.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-11-08
November 07, 2007
Employment hurdles for the miseducated
A few screamingly funny examples of actual cover letters received by Killian Advertising:
"Skills: Microst word, excel, and power point. Mulitaks person, public speaking, and surveying.
Professional Associations
Chairwomen of Studnts Teaching Awareness and Responsibility organization Responsible for research of all 10 event topics, coordinating all campus chiarpersons."
[Editor's note: Despite the many and obvious limitations of SpellCheck, isn't it worth at least a try ... for instance, while you Mulitaks with the other chiarpersons?]"Who's better to spew out incite, than a college senior ... ?"
[Editor's lament: We don't have the "imaginatiation" to make up stuff like this.]An all-time classic sent in by a CLFH fan from the great state of Michigan, where the cyclical nature of the automotive industry leads to a lot of job switching. It's yet another example of why you can't just rely on spell-check to catch all your errors:
"I am seeking a new position as i have recently been laid."
[We wish her the best of luck in her career.]"I need real world experience and after reviewing your web site I get the impressing that your company believes in maintain a lax work environment while efficiently meeting the needs of it's customers (right?)."
[We replied to this college senior, on an ill-advised rescue impulse, gently suggesting he get some remedial help with his writing, since he had an error in every single sentence of his three-page letter. His furious four-page reply included some amazing stuff, such as]
"...you should be straight forward and ... simply state that your company is seeking a grammar teacher who lacks creativity but knows how to properly write a letter and knows exactly where to place punctuation. If your company takes such a serious position towards proper grammar then I think you guys are in the wrong profession. I believe even the leader of this country that we live in lacks proper grammar yet he is still our leader. I can assure you that he leaves grammar and punctuation to the proper authorities such as his receptionist or grade school English teacher. ...I am not precisely sure why you choose to take such a stance perhaps because you have nothing better to do, or maybe because you have personal insecurities that seep out and you feel the need to degrade or target others based on stupid little infractions to make yourself feel better, I don't know what the case is ... if I am out of line please let me know but if I recall properly your companies web site is not the most professional site there is. If you guys are trying to project a laid back yet hard working image through your site and request the same from prospective employees then you should not be so prudent about minor infractions such as punctuation and grammar.... (I reread it before sending it and it states my point clearly and unless you lack the mental capacity to make out the meaning without having exact and precisise grammar maybe you should seek a new proffsion, I hear this country lacks alot of grammar school teachers perhaps that would be a better fit for you) In conclusion I have indeed made many mistakes in this e-mail many on purpose and many accidentaly I did not have the time nor the patientce to deal with it I will leave the grammer checking to the professionals such as yourself."
[Editor's note: although his response fascinated us, you can understand why we no longer reply to the Differently Stable.]
And there's more . . . much, much more . . .
November 02, 2007
QotD: "the autumnal aroma of a burning straw man"
Are you still afraid terrorists will attack the Mall of America?
I was never afraid. I was always concerned. I still am; who wouldn't be? It's a big red target with great symbolic value. It never keeps me from going there, though. Somehow I've avoided the FEAR and PARANOIA and PERMANENT WAR HYSTERIA that we're supposedly fed 24/7. You know how it goes; if you believe there's actually a credible threat from Islamofascists — well, no, that's not the right word, because it's inflammatory, inaccurate, racist, and is used as a code-word for an exterminationist agenda founded in a desire to control all the oil in the Middle East and convert it to Christianity. So call it the Small but Legally Containable Conservative Religion threat, since that reminds us that all religions are equally dangerous when taken to extremes. I mean, Fred Phelps, Catholic priests, Timothy McVeigh, and that little thing called the Crusades. Also the Inquisition and the persecution of Galileo. No one has clean hands here, except for me, because I washed them before I put that clever COEXIST bumpersticker on my car. No, I'm more afraid of the Mall of America itself. You go there in December — not that I do — and see people walking around eating meat and shopping for things they don't need and shouldn't really have because they don't need them, and you can almost hear the planet shriek like the music in that scary movie about the psycho, whatever its name is. I didn't watch it. I don't support movies that promote violence against women. Wasn't she in a shower? Those are so wasteful. I clean myself with a pumice stone and the sharpened edge of a clam shell.
(Sorry; I just enjoy the autumnal aroma of a burning straw man.)
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-11-02
November 01, 2007
QotD: Political Experiment goes wrong
Political scientists at the Cato Institute announced Monday that they have inadvertently synthesized a previously theoretical form of government known as megalocracy.
"We were attempting to recreate a military junta in a controlled diplomatic setting, and we applied too much external pressure," said head researcher Dr. Adam Stogsdill, a leading expert in highly reactionary ruling systems. "The resultant government has the ruthless qualities of a dictatorship combined with the class solidarity of a plutocracy — it's quite a remarkable find."
Stogsdill explained that megalocracy is extremely unstable and can only exist in idealistic conditions for a few minutes before collapsing into anarchy.
"Political Scientists Discover New Form Of Government", The Onion, 2007-10-30
October 31, 2007
But what will they play for Cheney Putin?
Perry de Havilland shares a joke with an unknown military music director:
I was watching the Channel 4 news coverage of the state visit of the King of Saudi Arabia to Britain, when something I saw nearly made me fall off my chair laughing.
So what does the British Army band for the guard of honour strike up as The Man himself steps out of his limo to high-five Her Majesty?
The Darth Vader March from Star Wars (click on 'watch the report' to see for yourself). I kid you not.
Someone somewhere deserves a medal.
October 19, 2007
It's not news, it's a Drew Curtis interview
Over on Reason Online, Katherine Mangu-Ward interviews the moving force behind fark.com:
In the golden summer of 1997, small-time ISP entrepreneur Drew Curtis bought fark.com when he noticed all of the good four-letter domains were being snapped up.
Until early 1999, fark.com featured a picture of a very brave squirrel and nothing else. Which, as Curtis notes, "some would argue this is better than what we have now." He briefly considered building a database of Indian curry recipes ("I like to cook, mostly because my wife can't"), but decided to go with Plan B, a site mocking the media (and occasionally Floridians) for their stupidity. Fark, he decided, should be the word for "what fills space when mass media runs out of news." Since then, Fark.com has become the go-to "news" site for the bored at work and sick at heart.
Stepping back from the day-to-day inanity/insanity of the news cycle, Curtis tries to figure out guiding principles behind why networks think it's a good idea to give airtime to 9/11 truthers ("Equal Time for Nut Jobs") or why every issue of Cosmo has exactly the same headlines ("Seasonal garbage") in his new book It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News (Gotham).
October 18, 2007
QotD: Soccer
You can put Beckham on the field. You can put Rinaldo on Beckham's shoulders. You can add nudity, stilts, a roving herd of robotic horses that shoot lasers from their eyes — in a sports-saturated age in which Americans have already set aside most weekends to watch hillbillies drive around in circles and the approximately 493 commercials featuring Peyton Manning for some reason, no one man nor team of men nor ambitious attempt at mass hypnosis will succeed in convincing America to watch a sport in which the most common expression is "nil-nil."
And for the love of Mike don't go telling them how popular soccer is in the rest of the world — that only alienates them further. Americans prefer profoundly American pursuits, like football and obesity.
Scott Feschuk, "Who is Your Vagina Wearing?", Macleans Blogs, 2007-10-17
October 17, 2007
Missing passages from the Throne Speech
Scott Feschuk goes dumpster diving to find the excised sections of the recent Throne Speech:
Posted by Nicholas at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)Only this blog has the 15 key missing passages from last night’s Speech From the Throne:
1. "Honourable Senators, Members of the House of Commons, Ladies and Gentlemen . . . and whatever Stephane Dion qualifies as now that the Prime Minister has possession of his balls."
2. "Through the Speech from the Throne, the Government shares its vision with Canadians . . . along with a sinister mind-control ray that will make you our willing hypno-slave upon the utterance of the code word, 'Pheasant.'"
[. . .]
9. "Our Government will introduce legislation to place formal limits on the use of the federal spending power. This legislation will allow provinces and territories to opt out with reasonable compensation if they offer compatible programs . . . or are Quebec."
10. "Canadians want a government that is a competent and effective manager of the economy . . . which is bad timing, because obviously we're spending our nuts off over here."
October 05, 2007
First they came for Christmas, and I said nothing
Now that the battle has been fought and lost over Christmas "the Winter Festival", the moral guardians of western culture are taking aim at Halloween:
The two most devastating words any red-blooded American kid is likely to hear are "Fall Festival."
It can mean only one thing: The War on Halloween is once again upon us.
No, the War on Halloween won't induce the same zealous indignation that, say, the War on Christmas can. For me, though, it's far worse.
We're still weeks from this glorious pagan celebration, but you can already hear the sound of the pinheads sucking the fun out of life.
Recently, Halloween celebrations were banned at Kohl Elementary School in Westminster. The story garnered national attention after the principal sent home a newsletter alerting parents that their children's yearly Halloween party would be replaced by a — gulp — fall celebration.
Costumes? Forget it.
My favourite quote from the article is "Well, as one fourth-grade Kohl teacher puts it — and I paraphrase here — if even one child feels left out because of Halloween, we've all failed."
The newer, edgier G&M
Jon, my virtual landlord, sent me an email asking if I'd seen the front cover of yesterday's Globe and Mail:
I guess the Globe really does get that there intarweb-thingy after all . . . (if this is a bit obscure, try this link for clarification).
September 27, 2007
Wine without whining
Scraped off the bottom of rec.humor.funny, from August, 1996, and attributed to "PiALaModem@aol.com":
The Down And Dirty on The Fruit of the Vine
I'm going to do you a big favor. I'm going to free you from feelings of inadequacy that have been haunting you since sometime in your teens. I'm going to fill you in on the greatest scam ever perpetrated upon the consuming public. I'm going to tell you what I know about wine.
The bottom line is that wine tastes awful. It's just grape juice gone south (forgive me, dixiewhistlers). All the millions of poor slobs dutifully disguising the revolted pucker behind looks of thoughtful analysis, parroting gibberish of which they've no idea of the meaning, studying for hours so as not to be humiliated by menial restaurant employees once again, have fallen for a complex and insidious canard (see COLD DUCK). An "acquired taste" they call it. Well, you could acquire a taste for Ivory soap.
Herewith is a glossary of selected wine terms and what they really mean:
APPELLATION CONTROLEE: French for "Trust me"
AROMA: A bad smell that comes from the grapes; See BOUQUET
BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU: Wine so awful that it isn't worth aging.
BOUQUET: A bad smell that's added during processing; See NOSE
BRUT: Describes a wine that sneaks up on you and stabs you in the back. Or a wine dealer. From the Latin, "Et tu, Brute"
CHATEAUNEUF DU PAPE: The pope's new house was paid for by swindling buyers into paying the price for this wine.
DRY: Hurts your throat while swallowing.
FRUITY: Tastes like children's cough medicine. See ROBUST
NOBLE ROT: What well-born wine snobs talk.
NOSE: The total effect of AROMA and BOUQUET; something you wish you could hold while drinking.
ROBUST: Tastes like cough medicine. See FRUITY
ROSE: Many people mistakenly pronounce this to rhyme with Jose. A term for a pinkish wine, named for what an early commentator said his gorge did when he tasted it.
VARIETAL: Having the worst qualities of a single type of grape, rather than a mixture of sins.
VINTAGE: How many years we've been trying to get rid of this rotgut.
September 26, 2007
QotD: Kids' soccer
I do wonder about these mixed leagues, though. The kids are at the age where the boys' aggressiveness is starting to assert itself, despite all efforts to the contrary; do we really want to teach them that it's fine to bash into girls? I have the feeling that if I raised an objection, however leisurely and off-handedly and amusedly and don't-think-I’m-like-Larry-Summers-or-anythingedly, it wouldn't be met well by all. The idea that boys will be stronger and more aggressive and should treat less strong, less physically aggressive people with restraint is oddly taboo. On one hand, I want my daughter to be able to give as good as she gets, and she's solid enough to hold her ground. But say she's a skinny-mini, one of those three-ounce kids, and gets knocked flat because Bruiser McLaddybuck barrels into her trying to get the ball. This we should applaud? It would be fine if Bruiser knocked over Master Simpy Milquewater, because he's a boy, and part of being a boy consists of getting dominated on the athletic field often enough as a child that you realize your future rests in academic or artistic pursuits, leading to a lifetime of sneering at the jocks and gnashing your teeth when the smartsy artsy girls go flouncing off with the broad-shoulder crowd. THERE IS NO GOD. But in the end, it all works out. Nature has its way. If I'm wrong, explain why pro football isn't co-ed.
I should note to newcomers that I was the fat kid who viewed gym as an endless session of torture and humiliation, so I side with Simpy.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-09-26
September 20, 2007
A day late . . . how to speak Pirate
H/T to Lois McMaster Bujold for the link.
September 17, 2007
QotD: Gentrifying McDonalds
I have a feeling that the senior brass at McDonald's Canada have forgotten who their primary demographic is. So here's a brief reminder:
1. Kids
2. Kids with ketchup in their hair
3. Rambunctious kids with ketchup in their hair and bladder control problems
4. Parents of 1), 2) and 3).The reason that the Starbucks approach works so well for them is because their demographic target is a little different. If you walk into a Starbucks you can be reasonably sure that you will be shamefully overcharged for coffee and subjected to the staff's horrible musical taste, but you'll have the opportunity to take up their comfortable seating for an hour and surf the web on your laptop, without any interference from the McDonald's demographic.
I'm trying to imagine sitting in a leather club chair at Mickey D's, watching ESPN on the plasma and surfing the wi-fi web. While in the background, the deep fryer beeps away madly and inattentive parents are more focused on chatting with each other than on surpervising their offspring. Kids are playing tag throughout the restaurant, running and laughing as they bump into and hide behind other patrons. Yep, that sounds like a winning formula to me.
Chris Taylor, "Not Lovin' It", Taylor and Company, 2007-09-13
September 15, 2007
QotD: Helicopter Journalism
Polls show the public steadily losing respect for journalism, and the absurd obsession with using news helicopters to generate pseudo-drama must be one reason. News helicopters don't just roar above highway chases — although all the viewer sees is a jumpy image of a vehicle with police cruisers behind. Increasingly when a news event involves some place, agency, company or school, the local station has its helicopter circle overhead as a correspondent does a report from the scene. This is done to fabricate the impression that something more sensational is happening than actually is: The correspondent deliberately arranges the "stand-up" so she has to shout above the whomp-whomp of helicopter rotors, creating an illusion of drama. That is, the purpose of the helicopter is to distort the news, not report same. Twice in the past couple of years, my kids' high school has been involved in controversies, and each time, news helicopters have circled above the school as correspondents did their stand-ups outside. What could a helicopter contribute to a report on an educational dispute? Why, live footage of cooling fans on the school roof, of course! Last week, two stations of the subway line I commute on were closed by this incident; walking past one closed station, I noted three news helicopters circling above. Circling above a subway station — where, by definition, you cannot see anything from the air! Typically, local news stations spend about $1 million a year to maintain and operate a news helicopter. If that amount were invested instead in serious reporting, maybe the public wouldn't have so little faith in local newscasters.
Gregg Easterbrook, "TMQ: Overloading the shotgun", ESPN.com, 2007-09-11
September 14, 2007
Movies that could have been worse if they'd been more accurate
My friend Diane sent me a link to this set of mini movie reviews, letting us know that sometimes historical inaccuracies are our friends:
The Flick: Mel Gibson's earliest example of "loose" historical reenactment, Braveheart marks a promising start to a career later spent boiling complex political issues down to "Mel Gibson kills Englishmen with an axe" (The Patriot) and curiously drawn-out torture scenes involving his heroes (The Passion of the Christ).
The Inaccuracies: Far from a scrappy commoner who clawed his way up from the mud to defend his homeland, William Wallace was actually a knight from a noble family, and his father Malcolm wasn't killed by the English, but fought on the English side in exchange for political favor. Also, instead of kilts, the Wallace and his army wore saffron shirts.
Why It Would Have Sucked Otherwise: We have to imagine that if Mel Gibson were forced to play a role any more layered than that of the just and righteous warrior-king-redeemer, his face would melt off from the challenge, revealing the circuitry within. And as entertaining as that would be, it's not as entertaining as the actual movie, or the years of mileage we've gotten out of screaming "They may take our things — but they'll never take our FREEEEEEDOM!" when we have our nail clippers taken away from us at airport security.
Today's "what a surprise" entry
I thought this thread on Fark.com would be potentially entertaining:
Here's the link to the original article in New York Magazine. Some of the attitudes on display among the women quoted in the article are, um, odd.
Best comment from the Fark thread (at least in the first dozen or so):
Retardo Montalban: I can't wait to come back in the morning after the full-fledged flamewar has broken out. See you then Farkers!!
Do I need to warn you that, it being a Fark.com thread, the language is probably NSFW?
September 13, 2007
The great conundrum is finally solved
John Scalzi has the goods . . .
September 09, 2007
No matter how bad your meetings are . . .
. . . they could still be worse if they were more like online chatzones:
H/T to Craig Zeni.
September 07, 2007
September 05, 2007
Good description of Canada
Jeremy Clarkson enjoyed his visit to Canada, although he had some issues with the rental vehicle. Even if he thinks "no one in Canada ever wins on the horses, or escapes from a knife fight with their life, or has an orgasm. It is Switzerland with wheat."
When I'm faced with intransigence at a car-rental desk, what I like to do is summon up some little nugget of military history. It's never difficult. In Germany I tell them about Dresden, in France it's Agincourt, in Spain I wax lyrical about Drake, in Italy I'm spoilt for choice, and in Argentina, where I'm going next year, I shall be mentioning Goose Green.
In Canada I told the smiling girl at the Thrifty desk all about the massive superiority of General Wolfe over the pitiable Marquis de Montcalm and explained that if she didn't come up with a car — right now — I'd visit the Plains of Abraham on her desk.
It worked, and 10 minutes later I was driving through Canada . . . in a Dodge Grand Caravan . . . from a company called Thrifty. As recipes go, this is right up there with a plate of pork sausages and strawberry ice cream served in a puddle of tepid Greek urine.
H/T to Damian Penny for the URL.
QotD: Public Washrooms
My general philosophy on public restrooms was summed up by the late Derek Jackson, the Oxford professor and jockey, in his advice to a Frenchman about to visit Britain. "Never go to a public lavatory in London," warned Professor Jackson. "I always pee in the street. You may be fined a few pounds for committing a nuisance, but in a public lavatory you risk two years in prison because a policeman in plain clothes says you smiled at him."
Mark Steyn, "There were two creeps in the men's room", Orange County Register, 2007-09-01
September 01, 2007
Do not tailgate this vehicle!
You remember that old expression ". . . it fell off the back of a truck"? Here's an example of just what could be falling nowadays.
H/T to Roger Henry for the photo.
August 31, 2007
Music mash-up
The theme from the original Star Trek meets the theme from The Simpsons.
August 28, 2007
Just when you think you've read everything
They say you can install Linux on just about any hardware out there. Well, this is certainly out there:
Let's face it: any script kiddie with a pair of pliers can put Red Hat on a Compaq, his mom's toaster, or even the family dog. But nothing earns you geek points like installing Linux on a dead badger. So if you really want to earn your wizard hat, just read the following instructions, and soon your friends will think you're slick as caffeinated soap.
H/T to Scott Raun.
August 24, 2007
QotD: European wildlife and wineries
The vineyards of Germany are terrorized by Nazi Raccoons. Really. Introduced by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering in 1934 to enrich Germany's fauna, raccoons have no natural predators. Recently, a delinquent gang of them descended on the Brandenburg region, wiping out the entire grape harvest in days.
France suffers wild boars, but don't think they take it lying down. Always a country of action, they have decided to get the boars out of the vineyards by . . . feeding them in the vineyards. Truckloads of corn. If you think they'd understand that basic economic tenet: what you penalize you get less of and what you reward you get more of, then you haven't seen their welfare system.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Animal Delinquents: There's more to wine fauna than cuddly kangaroos", The Cork Jester, 2007-08-24 (link goes to her main website . . . this article will be posted there later)
August 23, 2007
My favourite eBay post so far this year
This is very amusing . . . an auction for a LOT OF POKEMON CARDS THAT MY KIDS TRIED TO SNEAK BY ME.
Do Not watch this at work
My thanks to Dick Margulis, who linked to the Impotence of Proofreading.
August 22, 2007
Odd reflection
Commenter Lickmuffin apparently bought something at Canadian Tire yesterday. The joy of the new purchase was tempered, though:
It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to know that my purchase today fed a couple of Chinese soldiers for a month.
August 21, 2007
They don't make 'em like that any more
In yesterday's Bleat, James Lileks took a gentle shot at the kind of folks who always wax rhapsodic about "the good old days":
Went to a wedding Sunday afternoon here. It was once the home of a dry-goods retailer; he paid $16,000 for the house, which would the cost of the front door today. Apparently it’s made of "old growth oak," as one fellow informed me, and no doubt was hand-rubbed with a mixture of ambergris, veal tears and unicorn semen every day to maintain its finish.
Suddenly prolific commenter "Lickmuffin" went out to find the appropriate modern equivalent (Warning NSFW!):
August 17, 2007
Badly written signs
There's been an amusing discussion on the tech writers' mailing list today about the plethora of badly worded signs. Melissa Nelson posted my top-rated comment so far:
My favorite misleading sign is one they put out in Michigan every summer during construction reminding people that it is against the law to kill construction workers with your car . . . It says "Kill a construction worker $7500 and 15 years in prison." Something about it has a marketing tone and I feel like it is saying "For a mere $7500 and 15 years in prison, you may kill a construction worker." I always get the urge to haggle and see if I can kill two for only $14,000 and 25 years or something. It is very badly written.
Then again . . . my ex was a construction worker . . . so I can never tell if I am just over-editing . . . or if I just need a really good shrink!
August 08, 2007
From parody to today's news in less than a year
Jon sent me a link which would have been lifted directly from The Onion only a year or so ago, but it's actually from more current times:
First the Rightwing Parody, Then the Leftwing "Reality:" Yes, They're Now Claiming Global Warming *Causes Volcanos, Earthquakes*
The Earth Fights Back, crows this Guardian piece, claiming that the planet has taken all it can take and is now set to go Rambo on us with all the means at its disposal — which includes, somehow, deliberately, willfully inducing earthquakes and volcanoes.
We've parodied this tendency on the left for a while, suggesting — for laughs — that the left would blame any calamity on global warming, even those that obviously could not possibly have any connection to atmospheric warmth, such as earthquakes and volcanoes. Which are of course caused by plate tectonics and pressures beneath the earth's mantle, and couldn't tell if the earth's temperature had increased by 1000 degrees, nevermind 1.
But last year's parody becomes this year's Inconvenient Truth. And the Cult of Mother Gaia, in all its illogical theocratic glory, officially takes the inevitable step towards deistic teleological anthropomorphization.
Jon wrote: "I LOL'd at this comment":
Deism takes a sorta' set-it and forget-it approach to the universe and the "God" of deism isn't anthropomorphic.
Theism is the anthropomorphic (actually it's not that God is man-like, it's that man is God-like, but this just depends on your perspective) and interventionist God.
In both cases they can impose a teleology on their creation.
But anyway, the greens tend to be pantheistic fags. An earth goddess permeating and being one with all her creation and so on and so forth. Real hardcore horse-shit.
They also tend to smell like that too. That would be a "holistic" approach I believe.
August 02, 2007
Star Trek Numbers Geeks
Here's an interesting exercise in real-work-avoidance: an analysis of "red shirt death rates" on the original Star Trek:
In my seminars, I enjoy teaching analytics because the fun is in finding effective and memorable methods to help people understand the concepts. One of my favorites is an analysis of the Red-Shirt Phenomenon in Star Trek.
What? You don't know about the Red Shirt Phenomenon? Well, as any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam to the planet with Captain Kirk, you're gonna die. That's the common thinking, but I decided to put this to the test. After all, I hadn't seen any definitive proof; it's just what people said. (Remind you of your current web analytics strategy?) So, let's set our phasers on 'stun' and see what we find...
Full article here. H/T to Geoff Hart, who posted it to the Techwr-L mailing list.
August 01, 2007
QotD: Architects
Can an architect design a home?
It may seem a reasonable question but the answer depends on the architect. If, for example, they consider a home to be "a consequence of the mainstream gestalt's insistence on outmoded traditionalist forms responsible for the desert of mediocrity the urban and suburban context by handcuffing domestic structural frameworks to such clichéd notions as doors, windows, rooms and walls and denying the full scope of responses to the necessity to accommodate the expanding universe of convergence with virtual realities and technological dynamics that are either existent, potentially existent or not yet able to be conceived as existent but which require flexible and award-winning reinterpretations of the conceptual envelope wherein dazzling with brilliance will always be the preferred scenario but baffling with bullshit has its own potentialities particularly where a structure's search for meaning is increasingly meaningless and the fullest dialogue between a structure and its publics and/or its inhabitants is preferably mute in recognition of their demonstrable inability to engage in meaningful dialogue with the fundamental subtext let alone the nuances whispered by what isn't there far more than what is thereby demonstrating the correlation between such inhabitants and the thickness of two short planks and leading to the inevitability of misinformed conclusions and a worst case scenario that generates reference to the legal gestalt frequently embodied in such articulations as "you'll be hearing from my lawyers, you bastards" with consequent inevitable realignment of conceptual frameworks to accommodate dialogues within structural references unimaginatively labeled Court 1, Court 2, etc. wherein the re-interpretation of the original brief leads to considerable client/award-winning architect acrimony in a process ripe for derision and such descriptive markers as "beneath contempt" that can necessitate realigning the design timeline to accommodate detention within structural forms colloquially known as 'the slammer'," then the answer may be no.
Attributed to an Australian journalist who wrote under the pseudonym "Dry Rot", but brought to my attention by the illustrious Roger Henry.
July 31, 2007
QotD: Major League Soccer
This week, MLS introduced international superstar David Beckham to its Los Angeles Galaxy franchise. Like Pele and a dozen guys whose names I can't remember before him, Beckham is the one-man show that's supposed to revolutionize what Americans think about the world's favorite game. This will never happen. When it comes to soccer, all PR is bad PR, because Americans just don't care about it. Even hockey had a better week than soccer, by simply keeping quiet and pretending it wasn't there.
As long as we have soccer in this country, football players could kill each other on the field; baseball players could jump in the stands, shooting needles in the butts of those in attendance; and basketball could just keep being basketball. None of these things are good things, but all of these things are better than soccer games ending in nothing-nothing ties.
Jonathan David Morris, "A Bad Week for Sports?", Libertarian Enterprise, 2007-07-29
July 21, 2007
QotD: Fnord
Okay, class, it's time for a review.
A "fnord", in case you've forgotten (or never knew) is a special symbol that, as Discordian teachings would have it, gets inserted in magazine or newspaper articles, or in radio or television programs, by our Secret Rulers (you know who they are), to alarm and terrify the population at an unconscious level, setting off a very carefully preconditioned urge to hurry to government authority for safety and comfort.
Discordian? A belief system, a comparatively new one, introduced by Greg Hill, Kerry Thornley, Robert Anton Wilson, and Robert Shea, with a surprising number of adherents, based on worship of — or at least a healthy respect for — Discordia, the ancient Roman goddess of confusion.
Known even better by her Greek name, Eris (her devotees also call themselves Erisians), she is, at least to me, the deity I'd venerate if I were inclined to venerate deities. Symbolically, Eris embodies an idea I find highly worthy of contemplating, that in chaos, there might just be room for a little freedom. Discordians tend to be anarchists at heart. The most dedicated among their number don't even care for the idea of natural law, because they feel that it cramps their style.
L. Neil Smith, "Islamofnordism", Libertarian Enterprise, 2007-07-15
July 19, 2007
LOLcats, Firefly style
I'm sure it's been done for other fandoms as well, but some of these are quite funny.
H/T to Colleen Hillerup.
July 18, 2007
Cautionary tale for prospective parents
John Scalzi wrote a one-month retrospective of parenthood several years ago, and for some reason decided to post it on his blog:
Athena celebrated her one month birthday last Saturday by spitting up what she had been drinking and then staying up all night and making a lot of noise. This pleased me immensely; she's already preparing for college life. Her mother and I, on the other hand, spent some time trying to encapsulate the whole parent-child relationship thus far, something that defines everything we are as caregivers and custodians of this small being. Here's what we've come up with so far: "John and Kristine: We haven't dropped her yet!" Which is absolutely true as far as Krissy knows, and I'll thank you not to tell her any differently.
We're also trying to explain life with baby to our unprogenated friends, who are curious, and understandably so. Having a baby is like suddenly sprouting a second head: The attention you get at the start is nice, but at the end of it, it's just another mouth to feed. Our friends want to know if the benefits outweigh the detriments. If they are one day to have children of their own (or, alternately, graft another head onto their spinal column), they need to have some inkling of what it's like, in terms they can appreciate.
I can't help them with that second head thing. But the parenthood issue is another matter. Here's what I tell them: One month in, it's like having another pet. And not a very clever pet at that — at this point in her life, Athena is the fifth smartest mammal in the house, after the dog and the cat.
Athena is now a bit older, and therefore much closer to the point that "will cause some therapist somewhere to give Athena the once over and think: Here's how I'm getting that new sailboat."
July 13, 2007
Some things just can't be parodied
From a post at Hit and Run:
You laugh, but in 1802 a pistol-wielding Aaron Burr single-handedly fought off a dozen Thuggees as they tried to invade the Senate floor and sacrifice Gideon Granger, the virgin postmaster general, to the devil-goddess Kali. Later Burr would use the same skilled gunplay to kill Alexander Hamilton. Of course, that was before the cultural rot of the '60s set in.
The kicker is . . . this hyperbole is restrained compared to what set it off.
July 12, 2007
QotD: Libertarians
Libertarians: Never got over the fact they weren't the illegitimate children of Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand; currently punishing the rest of us for it. Unusually smug for a political philosophy that's never gotten anyone elected for anything above the local water board. All for legalized drugs and prostitution but probably wouldn't want their kids blowing strangers for crack; all for slashing taxes for nearly every social service but don't seem to understand why most people aren't at all keen to trade in even the minimal safety net the US provides for 55-gallon barrels of beans and rice, a crossbow and a first-aid kit in the basement. Blissfully clueless that Libertarianism is just great as long as it doesn't actually involve real live humans.
Libertarians blog with a frequency that makes one wonder if they're actually employed somewhere or if they have loved ones that miss them. Libertarian blogs even more snide than conservative blogs, if that's possible. Socially slow — will assume other people actually want to talk about legalizing hemp and the benefits of a polyamorous ethos when all these other folks really want is to drink beer and play Grand Theft Auto 3. Libertarianism the official political system of science fiction authors, which explains why science fiction is in such a rut these days. Libertarians often polyamorous (and hope you are too) but also somewhat out of shape, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Easily offended; Libertarians most likely to respond to this column. The author will attempt to engage subtle wit but will actually come across as a geeky whiner (Conservatives, more schooled in the art of poisonous replies, may actually achieve wit; liberals will reply that they don't find any of this humorous at all). Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to "Get Off My Property." News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.
John Scalzi, "I Hate Your Politics", Whatever, 2002-03-22
July 10, 2007
License plate humour
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, y'all.
July 09, 2007
16,000 words per day?
Steve Chapman channels his inner Gary Cooper and painfully puts forward a few words on the 16,000 words per day issue:
This research torpedoes the popular assumption that incessant yakking is correlated with X chromosomes. Or as Pennebaker told USA Today, with an admirable economy of words, "It's been a common belief, but it just didn't fit." The evidence is convincing enough that neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, whose book "The Female Brain" cited claims that women speak at triple the rate of men, says those now "can be relegated to the category of myth."
All I can say is that if the average male is putting out 16,000 words every day, then I'm living in a verbal desert. Some guys I haven't met must be gushing verbiage like Old Faithful to make up for the ones I know, many of whom might easily be mistaken for victims of lockjaw.
That is not a description I would apply to many women of my acquaintance. The editorial board on which I serve used to be nearly all-male, but now has a female majority. I can describe the difference in two words: Longer meetings.
I have to admit that I also found the research to be less than 100% convincing, but perhaps it's just my old-fashioned, patriarchal, etc., etc. views of the world causing me to hold such an odd opinion. Chapman finishes off the article with some pithy words of wisdom:
But now I learn that the guys I know are wholly unrepresentative. Apparently for every one of us, there is some long-winded politician, preacher, auctioneer or "Hardball" guest who talks more in his sleep than we do fully awake. I hope not to meet any of them in this life. But if I do, I'll know what to say: Shut up.
July 08, 2007
Foreign dining
A not-particularly rigorous test of your knowledge of dining etiquette in other parts of the world (I managed 8 out of 11): Don't Gross Out the World.
H/T to Roger Henry.
July 04, 2007
A new insult
Jaquandor has some fun with John Scalzi's latest verbal fascination: the phrase "hideous arse candles".
July 03, 2007
QotD: Chicago's view of Canada
Happy Dominion Day! In la belle province, the concept of Canada may be regarded with indifference and contempt and dismissed as a weak sickly thing, but here in Chicago Canada is the baddest-@#! mutha ever to come swaggering in town.
For four months, the prosecution have regaled the jury with horror stories of the wild lawless swamplands to the north. You thought it was just one big wimp-o 24/7 Benetton ad celebrating diversity and UN peacekeeping and socialized healthcare and confiscatory taxation and all that other wimpy stuff? Hah! Get real. It's an offshore tax haven to which the world's executives stampede en masse because in Canada you don't have to pay any tax. It's a land beyond the rule of law where predatory thugs sporting sinister colours of terrifying gangs like the "barristers" and "Queen's Counsels" fall on helpless US trial-lawyers, eat 'em up and spit 'em out all over Larry King Live. Marauding hordes of corporate vice-presidents ride down across the 49th Parallel to lay waste to American boardrooms like Albanian Mafiosi pillaging Italy.
Innocent unworldly types such as secretaries of state, four-term governors, Pentagon advisors and chief nuclear-arms negotiators who think nothing of going mano a mano with the Soviet Politburo, the ChiComs and the PLO are forced to concede they're way out of their league with these ruthless Canadians. A maple-drenched godfather simply has to put the word out, and an apparently innocuous sentence such as "Toronto wants it" is enough to strike fear and terror into the hearts of big-time execs all over Illinois. And that's before they send in the enforcers from the badlands of "the Maritime Province".
Mark Steyn, "Canada Day in the Northern District of Illinois", Maclean's, 2007-07-01
June 30, 2007
QotD: The Clown-Pony Scream
Oh, how they mocked. But my momentary cowardice still allowed me to retain a shred of dignity, and so was worth indulging. Because if I'd gotten on that ride, my friends would have actually heard me scream. Like a little girl. Like a little girl who just woke up because somebody licked her foot. Like a little girl who just woke up because somebody licked her foot, and then when she turns on the light there's an evil clown sitting in the middle of her bedroom, eating her pony.
There's no comebacks from the clown-pony scream.
John Rogers, "Irrational Fear? IRRATIONAL?", Kung Fu Monkey, 2007-06-22
June 26, 2007
Important PSA: wear your safety gear
H/T to "John the Mc".
June 25, 2007
Old technology reduces car theft risk
As manual transmission vehicles become less common on the roads in North America, they become less likely to be stolen:
Two U.S. car thieves failed to make their getaway in a car they had just stolen because they couldn't figure out how to use its manual transmission, a witness said on Wednesday.
Only in America
Mark Steyn finds an unexpected source of illegal guns:
I love America! Even the anti-gun groups are full of gun nuts packing totally awesome heat.
June 20, 2007
Why James Lileks won't play
In today's Bleat, James Lileks gets to the real reason he's not willing to play Pokemon card games:
We got bales of paper in various form, a few Pokemon cards (I have made it clear I will not play the card game, because I do not understand the first thing about it. Seriously: Scrofulux is a psychic Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Dragon Master Platinum Level 90 Pokemon. Powers: can release horrible odors, give other Pokemons psoriasis. When played, the Scrofulux cannot wake a sleeping Pokemon but can turn a groggy Pokemon into a sub-level Anti-Pokemon Water Pokemon whose powers have a negative –20 effect on all subsequent cards played by the person on your left if their least powerful Pokemon card was purchased when you begged for 20 minutes on the way to the store in a high, singsongy whine, UNLESS the card has a shiny foil picture, in which case all play ceases while everyone looks at the picture because it’s cool and then you forget the game and swap doubles.)
Victor tried to get me to play the various -mon card games when he was a pre-teen. I couldn't get the handle on them . . . and I used to spend hours and hours playing complex wargames with arcane and mind-numbingly detailed rules, charts, tables, and matrices. Map sheets that covered several tables, and hundreds or even thousands of little printed cardboard unit counters (each with a plethora of numerical values to track). Clearly the ability to soak up arbitrary complexity and incomprehensible names peaks at age 8.
NBD: the latest online scourge
Lore Sjöberg discusses some of the obvious follow-on additions to the DSM IV:
Narcissistic Blog Disorder
This disorder is characterized by the creation of a blog in which the individual consistently denigrates not only the opinions of others, but the very fact that others have opinions, saying things like "nobody cares what some overpaid starlet has to say about global warming" and "nobody cares what some crusty career politician thinks is wrong with society today." Simultaneously, the individual assumes that people do care about what he or she has to say, in spite of the individual's only political or activist experience being watching the movie Dave twice.
Bookmark Loop Disorder
Web bookmarks remain a popular way to waste time when one should be working. You check a site or two, get something done for a little while, then check your bookmarks again. Careful research, however, has shown that at a certain point the list of bookmarks grows, the "get something done" period shrinks, until the reader goes directly from the end of the list back to the top, just in case there are new updates. Once entered, this "bookmark loop state" often cannot be broken until a couple hours after a sane bedtime.
Guilty as charged, M'Lud, but society is to blame.
QotD: High School
High school is often asinine and lame — I'm not telling you anything you don't know here — but on the other hand it's a place where you're actually encouraged to do two things that are a writer's bread and butter: to observe and to comment. Provided your teachers are not entirely defeated drones who have bought into the idea that their sole purpose is to detain you in soul-numbing classes so you and your fellow students won't set fire to the school with them in it, they will actually be pleased if you ask a few pointed questions now and then, and as a result, you might learn something, which is always a nice bonus for your day. School is a resource; use it.
John Scalzi, "10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing", Whatever, 2006-04-27
June 19, 2007
The machine that goes PING
In what sounds amusingly like an updated urban legend, a teenage accident victim unplugs a fellow patient's life support in order to get some sleep:
Police in Southern Germany are quizzing a 17-year-old car crash victim who turned off a fellow hospital patient's life-support machine because it was keeping him awake.
Frederik Moelner wound up in intensive care recovering from the accident, reports Ananova, but his attempts to have a bit of recuperative kip were stymied by the noisy life support machine keeping the 76-year-old in the neighbouring bed breathing.
I guess it's hard to sleep in the same room as the machine that goes PING!
June 17, 2007
QotD: Modern Architecture
Architecture offers quite extraordinary opportunities to serve the community, to enhance the landscape, refresh the environment and to advance mankind — the successful architect needs training to overcome these pitfalls however, and start earning some serious money. I get all kinds of people from the schools and universities and my job is manifold and various. Firstly, of course, it's visual. Young people use their eyes — to be a good architect in Britain today you need to more than use your eyes, you must have them surgically removed. But you don't just have to be blind to be a modern architect, you must develop a lively sense of contempt for your fellow man, so early meetings with borough planners and council administrators are essential.
Next a carefully planned system of mind-direction seminars, as we like to call them. In these we show our students film of old buildings, old village communities, interviews with noted conservationists such as the late John Betjeman and His Royal Highness Prince Charles. By disseminating toxic gasses and introducing mild electric shocks we induce a feeling of nausea, sickness and acute physical pain, which in time is associated with those images. Next we show film of large glass boxes, rough concrete towers and enormous steel girders, all the time stimulating the students with underseat vibromassage and soothing selections of Mozart, while they drink venerable clarets and smoke jazz cigarettes. By this means an aversion to old forms of architecture and a loving acceptance of the new can be effectively inculcated.
"Sir Jeremy Creep", Principal of the London College of Architects, quoted by Stephen Fry in Paperweight, 1992
June 16, 2007
R+J in L33t-speak
Ever wondered what might happened if you combined a literary classic with the internet language known as L33t speak? Wonder no more.
From the Fark thread, where user "Kublai Khan" wrote the immortal words:
I support IM speech. It's an excellent way for the stupid to effectively exclude themselves from positions of influence in society. It's a pyramid baby, and I'm on the top end!
June 13, 2007
Scientific juvenile humour
A detailed analysis of . . . farts.
H/T to Craig Zeni.
June 08, 2007
QotD: Canadian Immigration Policy
What worries me is when settled nations start to fetishize immigration to almost absurd degrees. In 1997, the government in Ottawa festooned the land with posters marking the 50th anniversary of Canadian citizenship and showing people of many lands holding hands around a globe — ie, Canada's idea of itself is as a great compilation of other people's hits rather than as a concept album in its own right. The idea that a nation expresses itself as merely an ongoing receiver of people from elsewhere, that it's Gate 57 at Heathrow writ large, no more or less than whoever happens to be standing in it, is very reductive.
Mark Steyn, "Re re re re re: Nation of immigrants", The Corner, 2007-06-07
The finest British motorbike technology
H/T to Craig Zeni.
June 05, 2007
Purest symbolism
Perry de Havilland has some innocent fun with a newly introduced logo:
What does it look like to you? To me it is obvious: a collapsing structure of some sort, perhaps a building at the moment of demolition. The sense of downwards motion towards the bottom of the page is palpable.
Breathtaking. I mean what truly magnificent symbolism. The entire Olympic endeavour has been a massive looting spree with already grotesque cost over-runs (and it is only 2007), so surely something that conjures up images of collapse and disaster is really on the money . . . and speaking of money, at £400,000 (just under $800,000 USD) for the logo, it perfectly sums up the whole 'Olympic Experience' for London taxpayers.
It should go without saying that he's not a fan of the Olympic project . . .
Update, 6 June: James Lileks has a few footling concerns:
Seriously, what is the matter with people who come up with this? And what is the matter with the people who approved it? Ads that showed the logos have reportedly caused seizures among British epileptics, but I think this thing would make a fossilized femur bone suffer convulsive muscle spasms. If you can't tell, it’s the year of the London games — 2012. I think it's also meant to imply a human form — say, a discus thrower, or a runner bursting from the blocks. Whatever it is, it's an aesthetic catastrophe, and would seem to indicate there's no one around in the London Games who had the nerve to bark "rubbish, that; try again, and give me a proper logo with some bloody numbers." I think there's a point at which people lose the ability to pretend they have any sort of aesthetic criteria, and embrace whatever's loud and ugly simply because loud and ugly is the style of the times. There's always a fair amount of coin to be had for dissing the traditionalists, of course; I imagine that if someone submitted a logo with a flag or a bulldog they would have suffered a gentle sneer: still pining for the empire, eh, Smithson. Well, Kipling's dead. Yes he is. Dig him up, you'll find Posh Spice's heel stuck in his heart, the coffin stuffed with I Heart Diana memorial teddy bears.
QotD: The Media
If you believe everything you read in the newspaper, try getting interviewed sometime.
Kate McMillan, "The Real Buzz", Small Dead Animals, 2007-06-02
June 01, 2007
Is someone running a pool on this one?
If they're not, then a good betting opportunity is being missed: waiting to find out who's the #1 on the list of people who are screwing up Canada.
Hint: neither Stephen Harper nor Stephane Dion have yet appeared, and the countdown is at 19. (David Ahenakew, Conrad Black, and Jack Layton have already been listed.)
The wine counter-culture testifies
Bored of the same-old, same-old in wine writing? All those tedious reviews that all seem to use some fancy gastronomic thesaurus to describe the smell and taste of wines? Then perhaps you'll find Deacon Dr. Fresh to be more your kind of wine writer:
World's Lurchest Wine Writer - The Gangsta of the Grape - The Sultan of Shiraz - Yellow Tail's Bane - Locus of the Ladies' Focus - Wielder of the trousered Hammer of Thor - I have arrived to rescue the wine world from overly-serious, rigid, deconstructionist, peckerwoods who'd never dream of gettin' a tattoo or crackin' a smile. I am without a doubt, the smartest, funniest and toughest sumbitch in the entire wine industry. And I aint goin' away. All disputes will be settled bare-knuckled in the Octagon. You heard me.
Update: He provides a secret decoder ring should you be a bit fuzzy on the exact meaning of the terms he uses.
May 31, 2007
QotD: The Next Presidency?
Of all the major candidates, Hillary Clinton is the one whose presidency is easiest to visualize in detail. No wonder we feel sick to our stomachs. [. . .]
[Barack Obama]'s the most charismatic politician to seek the presidency since Reagan. But where Reagan's priorities were crystal clear, Obama's are obscured by beautiful, meaningless rhetoric. What is the "audacity of hope," anyway? [. . .]
The only thing connecting [John] Edwards' policy switches has been popularity. He was for war when it was popular, against it after it became unpopular. [. . .]
Of all the Democratic candidates, [Bill] Richardson would be most likely to cut taxes. And after Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), he's the most open to reforming drug laws. If the party really wants to make a play for the "libertarian West," it'll nominate Richardson. [. . .]
If — make that when — [Joe] Biden loses badly, he could start hosting his own talk show. There'd be no need for guests! [. . .]
No one in Washington is sure why [Chris] Dodd is running. No one outside Washington is sure who he is. [. . .]
[On Dennis Kucinich:] It's a matter of how much you might enjoy peace on earth and legal marijuana while your tax rates rise to pre-Reagan levels. [. . .]
[Undeclared candidate Al] Gore today is more liberal than the candidate who almost won in 2000, both for better and for worse. [. . .]
[Rudy] Giuliani might be the most socially liberal figure to make a serious run for the GOP mantle since Nelson Rockefeller. He also might be the most personally authoritarian Republican candidate since Richard Nixon. [. . .]
Like Giuliani, [John] McCain comes to public policy from an authoritarian perspective, not an individualist one. He's good on some issues, but his bias is for the executive to take the reins to ram through change and vanquish his foes. That might not be the ideal philosophy to follow eight years of George Bush. [. . .]
[Mitt] Romney has the most impressive management experience of anyone in the race. Unfortunately, the impressive parts came before he entered politics. [. . .]
[Sam] Brownback represents a different shade of the "compassionate conservatism" championed by George W. Bush. But perhaps not different enough. [. . .]
The vision of "compassionate conservatism" promised by George W. Bush was actually practiced by [Mike] Huckabee, with all the flaws that entailed. He's the GOP candidate who'd probably get along best with a big-spending Democratic Congress. [. . .]
It would be nice to live in a world where Ron Paul could actually win. [. . .]
The ascension of [Tom] Tancredo to the White House might so terrify Mexican migrants that they stop coming across the border altogether. In that circumstance, forced to work on other issues, Tancredo might become a fairly libertarian president. This is an unlikely scenario. [. . .]
[Undeclared candidate Newt] Gingrich is more interested in big ideas and multipoint plans than a coherent philosophy for government. [. . .]
Ron Paul aside, [undeclared candidate Chuck] Hagel's stances make him the strongest candidate some libertarians could dream of — especially those whose chief concern is ending the war. But his only constituency might be the media. [. . .]
If he runs, [at the time undeclared candidate Fred] Thompson will be the most pro-Bush Republican in the race; he narrated Bush’s bio films at the 2004 Republican convention. If you liked the Bush era but wished the president’s voice had a little more bass, Thompson’s the one. [. . .]
Nick Gillespie, David Weigel and Jesse Walker, "Presidential Scouting Reports: A libertarian fan's guide to the World Series of politics", Reason, 2007-06
May 30, 2007
QotD: California
Is it a sign of U.S. cultural decline that the nuts are now leaving California?
Nick Gillespie, "Give al Qaeda an Inch...", Hit and Run, 2007-05-30
Content Management Software pitfalls
I used to work in the Document Management software field, so this little cautionary story rings just so true:
"You destroyed the originals didn't you?" I sigh.
"Of course. What's the point in scanning them if you're going to keep the documents?"
"What was the point in scanning them in the first place?"
"We needed space in the document vault for some new contracts."
"So you destroyed licence documents — some of which are proof-of-purchase, some of which are one-time licences and will not be reissued by the vendor."
"But as you say, they're still in the content management system somewhere. Can't you just do a search on the content management server and find them?"
"Don't be silly — no content management server allows that — or you'd be able to change systems to some cheaper vendor. No, a proper content management system makes it next to impossible to extract your content in any automated manner so that you're forced to use their product and pay their licence fees no matter how crap it is."
May 29, 2007
When fandoms collide
Clive sent along an amusing link to Harry Potter is actually Luke Skywalker:
Here's a one-page script treatment for the original Star Wars movie pitch, marked up to become a pitch for the first Harry Potter novel and/or movie. Hilarious send-up of mythical tropes that we seem to fall for every time. Joseph Campbell, eat your heart out.
Thanks, Clive. Sorry it took me nearly a week to post it!
May 23, 2007
QotD: Dogs
Took Jasper to the vet for a heartworm test. Gnat wanted to hold the leash as we entered, but I had to take the reins; you never know when Sheba the Death Mutt is waiting inside, ready to pounce and open throats. There was a Doberman inside, looking, as do all sitting Dobermans, like a living exclamation point. This dog did not like Jasper, and gave him a warning growl that had murder in mind. Jasper turned and walked to the door and looked out the window: I will go now please thank you okay great. But no, I had to drag him over and make him sit in the same room as Killer MacBully. Jasper was already nervous, since I'm sure the vet's room smells like fear and doubt. I tried to distract him with a good chest rub, which has a way of making male dogs zone out, but it didn't work. Some people talk to their dogs as if they understood the exact text: you'll like the doctor! She's nice! Yes you will! Mummy's widdle smuckums. I can't. It's one of the things about pet ownership that breaks your heart: they can comfort you, but you really can't comfort them. They don't have to know your language, but you can't know theirs.
Well, you can, but I'm not going to lick his face to express benevolent dominance.
There's a sentence that's going to get me some hits for all the wrong reasons.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2007-05-23
May 22, 2007
QotD: Boomers
It's a hoot to hear modern kids described as self-indulgent by the generation that created its own culture out of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Talk about a sense of entitlement: When the baby boomers came along, they (we) got the voting age lowered for their benefit. They also demanded that the drinking age be lowered, and it was — only to be raised once they were safely into adulthood. Narcissism? Not for nothing were boomers dubbed the "Me Generation."
Steve Chapman, "Have We Raised A Generation Of Narcissists?: It's 10 p.m. Do you know how big your child's ego is?", Reason, 2007-05-21
May 17, 2007
Mouseworld, part 3
James Lileks covers the third day of their Disneyworld experience:
It's like that all over. The Disney Experience is one of the most psychologically all-inclusive and seductive thing I've experienced in years. After a while you stop thinking outside the possibilities of Disney; it absolutely drives out everything else from your imagination. It hits you from every angle. It works your soft spots and worms in through the cracks; it finds your fascinations and feeds them. [. . .]
[. . .] It's as if Mickey exists both outside time and inside its specific examples. The effect is Total Mickey, Mouse without End.
The old tired Sinclair Lewis quote gets dragged out by the professional hysterics: when fascism comes, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible and etc. Well, friends, this is the Corporate State, right here, a world unto itself, bigger than two US states put together. They control the horizontal and the vertical, and the utility grid. The roads are private. The lakes are private. The control is hardly total — let Disney cease to pay taxes, and watch what happens. But the enormity of the area and the totality of the control is almost unprecedented. Surely it cannot be benign. Right?
James wrote something completely appropriate to finish this thought a few years ago, which I must recycle here: "Imagine, Winston, that the future consists of a boot pressing on a face. Here's the worst part, Winston — inside the boot is" MICKEY'S FOOT!!!
May 09, 2007
Pluto comes clean
John Scalzi lets the cat out of the bag on how Pluto is feeling:
The funny thing about the demotion is that I never actually wanted to be a planet, you know? I was out here minding my own business and then suddenly Clyde Tombaugh is staring at me. And the next thing I know, people start calling me and telling me I'm the newest planet. And I remember saying, I don't know if I want that responsibility. And they said, well, you can't not be a planet now, Walt Disney's already named a character after you. That's really what made me a planet. Not the astronomers, but that cartoon dog. People loved that dog.
Ironically, I'm a cat person.
I'm not going to sue. Who am I going to sue? You think the International Astronomical Union has any money to speak of? There's a reason the most popular event at an astronomer's conference is the free buffet. [. . .]
One thing about something like this is you find out who your friends are. Jupiter couldn't have been nicer during the whole thing. Saturn's been a real sweetheart, too. And Neptune — well, we go way back. We're simpatico, always have been. But some others, eh. Not so nice.
No, I don't want to name names. They know who they are.
Oh, fine. Mercury. I got into the club, and Mercury was suddenly my best buddy. And I thought, well, okay — we're close to the same size, both of us have eccentric orbits, we've both got a 3:2 resonance thing going on. Similarities, you know? So we hang out, get to know each other, fine, whatever. Then the IAU vote comes down and I haven't heard from him since. Like the demotion might be catching or something. He may be right; he's not exactly a brilliant lane-sweeper himself.
May 08, 2007
Political Autobiography, short form
Tim Cavanaugh saves you the effort of reading any autobiography by any politician, ever:
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can see that I was the Natural. I made a pledge, a pledge with teeth, not to carry water for the special interests. In a spirit of bipartisanship I reached across the aisle and found common ground, while building support at the grassroots and netroots levels. With straight talk, I fought as hard as I'd ever fought in my life for working families to keep our children safe.
I was a rising star with a big tent and a clear mandate. While others bogged down in cross-party sniping, I triangulated, working both ends to provide much-needed relief to our vanishing middle class. With a clear road map to real change, I put the pocketbook concerns of the voters first while saying no to the naysayers. The result was a bi-directional win.
Perhaps it was hubris to touch the third rail of American politics. I freely admit my Achilles' heel was that I ignored the elephant in the room. But I could not let a rogue actor continue to thumb his nose at the international community, while handing money hand over fist to the same old tunnel vision and short-term thinking. This is not about politics; it goes to who I am. To understand my decision, you'd have to go back to my recently discovered Jewish ancestor Madam Valdez, who arrived on the Mayflower. Those are the kind of deep roots and local values I brought to the Capitol. At a hastily called prayer breakfast, I consulted my deeply held beliefs, and mistakes were made.
After all that, you'd hardly be surprised to find him as a "goodwill ambassador" for the next 20 years, would you?
May 07, 2007
Joe Canadian, redux
An older piece in Reason provided me with all the encouragement to post my favourite parody of the Molson "I am Canadian" ad:
Tabernac, mon esti!
May 04, 2007
Where's your Jamie Oliver now, then?
H/T to SDA, with extra trans-fat sprinkles on top. Oh, and the language is a bit NSFW.
Proof positive that the moon landing was a hoax!
This should provide final, conclusive proof that the moon landing was faked on a soundstage in Area 51 by Elvis — who's still alive BTW — and Bigfoot. Then, the CIA shut everybody up. With extreme prejudice. Except Elvis, of course, 'cause even the CIA can't get rid of Elvis.
April 25, 2007
Interview hell
I've had some odd interviews (some of them recently), but thank goodness I've never had to put up with an interview like the one Captain Capitalism went through:
You see, at the time, Goldman Sachs was still a privately held company. So there was no way to know how much they made. And they fed me this line, "well, if you'd like to interview with us, then you'll have to fly out here for the interview on your own expense."
Of course, 5 years later they go public and I find out they made $47 trillion in earnings and could have damned well afforded my flight with my own personal team of redheaded Irish cheerleaders to cheer me on for the interview, but being a naive 22 year old, what did I know? So I fell for it.
Now the thing is, I didn't make $47 trillion in earnings in 1997 either. And I couldn't afford a flight out there, so my only option was to load up my rusty but trusty 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with some Moutain Dew, some deoderant (no tapes or CD's cause there was no deck), my best suit and head on out.
I scheduled myself two days to get there and two days to get back.
Of course there are logistical problems with planning a cumulative 5 day road trip and making only $16,000 per year without parental support. Namely, you can't afford lodging, which means you sleep in the back of your 1985 Cutlass Supreme. (which is actually quite comfy).
And that's only the start of it. It got worse . . .
H/T to Kate at SDA.
QotD: Australian Wine
A lot of people in this country pooh-pooh Australian table wines. This is a pity as many fine Australian wines appeal not only to the Australian palate but also to the cognoscenti of Great Britain.
Black Stump Bordeaux is rightly praised as a peppermint flavoured Burgundy, whilst a good Sydney Syrup can rank with any of the world's best sugary wines.
Château Blue, too, has won many prizes; not least for its taste, and its lingering afterburn.
Old Smokey 1968 has been compared favourably to a Welsh claret, whilst the Australian Wino Society thoroughly recommends a 1970 Coq du Rod Laver, which, believe me, has a kick on it like a mule: eight bottles of this and you're really finished. At the opening of the Sydney Bridge Club, they were fishing them out of the main sewers every half an hour.
Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is 'beware'. This is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.
Another good fighting wine is Melbourne Old-and-Yellow, which is particularly heavy and should be used only for hand-to-hand combat.
Quite the reverse is true of Château Chunder, which is an appellation contrôlée, specially grown for those keen on regurgitation; a fine wine which really opens up the sluices at both ends.
Real emetic fans will also go for a Hobart Muddy, and a prize winning Cuivre Reserve Château Bottled Nuit San Wogga Wogga, which has a bouquet like an aborigine's armpit.
Wine Expert (played by Eric Idle), "Australian Table Wines", Monty Python's Previous Record, 1972
April 24, 2007
QotD: Poll Results
In one recent survey, 37 per cent of New Yorkers said they'd leave the city if they could. Of course, since none of them had left the city, and since all of them could, the only proper conclusion is that 37 per cent of New Yorkers lie to pollsters.
Steven Landsburg, quoted by Tim Harford in "When sexual restraint is like pollution", Financial Times, 2007-04-22
April 22, 2007
This ain't your daddy's classical music
H/T again to E.D. Trimm.
Humour test
First, view this:
Then read this: How Laughter Works.
Feel more enlightened?
H/T to E.D. Trimm.
April 19, 2007
QotD: The Royal Family
[. . .] Prince William has broken with his girlfriend. My first thought was that this is a colossal mistake, since the good prince is rapidly coming to resemble his father, which will make it harder to attract another bride so good looking. The second thought is that of course, this is ridiculous, because of course it probably isn't hard to attract attractive women if you're the future king of England. I don't quite understand that, of course, since being a member of the royal family looks like possibly the worst job in the world that doesn't involve handling human waste. But the British always were a bit strange.
Jane Galt, "Good night, sweet prince", Asymmetrical Information, 2007-04-12
April 15, 2007
QotD: Movie geekery
[Nathan Fillion]: I love to go see movies.
[Choire Sicha]: And what have you seen?
[Nathan Fillion]: "300"! I'm always waiting for an opening for someone to say, "This is crazy" or "This is weird" — it has to be "This is" — and then I kick them and say, "THIS IS SPARTA." You have to have it ready. In your holster, cocked and loaded.
Choire Sicha, "These days, he's taking the lead", L.A. Times, 2007-04-15
April 08, 2007
April 05, 2007
The deep meaning of WC&GS
Courtesy of the inimitable Bob Tarantino, we have the latest evidence of why I'm so happy to be old, shrivelled, and no longer even aware of what's happening on the dating scene:
Japanese Culture, 101
The art and science of eating sushi . . . a much more intricate and culturally sensitive topic than you might think.
April 04, 2007
Religious discrimination in North Carolina
Pastafarian suspended from school for wearing distinctive garb of his religion:
A student has been suspended from school in America for coming to class dressed as a pirate.
But the disciplinary action has provoked controversy — because the student says that the ban violates his rights, as the pirate costume is part of his religion.
Bryan Killian says that he follows the Pastafarian religion, and that as a crucial part of his faith, he must wear 'full pirate regalia' as prescribed in the holy texts of Pastafarianism.
H/T to Wil Wheaton.
A shitty educational experience
Ah, Toronto public schools. Where else does the term "shitty education" get so literal?
A suspended Toronto elementary school principal has pleaded guilty to throwing feces (excrement) on a child.
Maria Pantalone, 49, was charged with two counts of assault — one against that child and one against another — but only admitted to one of the charges today.
"I couldn’t take it any more," she testified, in describing the provocative circumstances leading up to the incident last June 30.
But she agreed it wasn't in any way justified.
H/T to Hit and Run.
April 03, 2007
Scott Adams' latest economic theory
Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert-based economic empire, has come up with a new economic theory, which appears to be unrefutable:
We can test the validity of this theory by seeing how well it predicts behavior. For example, the Boner Theory of Economics predicts that eventually all shoe salespeople jobs will be filled by men with foot fetishes. The only reason it’s not completely true already is that the managers filling those jobs haven’t realized they are overpaying. I wonder how many interviews have gone like this:
Manager: "The job involves kneeling in front of women and touching their feet. Are you okay with that?"
Applicant: "Um . . . er . . . yes."
Manager: "The pay is $10 per hour."
Applicant: "I can only afford to pay you $8 per hour."
Manager: "We pay you. You don’t pay us."
Applicant: "Can we start over with the negotiating?"
March 30, 2007
"I want a . . ."
By way of Castle Argghhh, comes this amusing story of Marine Corps Drill Instructor humour.
March 21, 2007
The truth is out . . .
. . . about the cancellation of Firefly:
According to his signed confession released this past week, purported 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has admitted to a great number of heinous crimes in the name of Al Qaeda including hijackings, bombings, and murders. Most shocking of these was the admission that Mohammed had infiltrated the American media by becoming a high-ranking executive for Fox Television and was directly responsible for the devastating 2002 cancellation of Joss Whedon's Firefly after just a few episodes.
Fox Television, sister company to Fox News Channel, has vehemently denied ever employing the infamous terrorist, but anonymous sources at the network have reported seeing his name on a variety of emails and memos during that period.
"I never actually met him," says our source, "but I have to admit I liked the guy. He was so ruthless, so affably callous, that he fit right in."
Read the whole thing.
H/T to Justin Mohareb.
Update 22 March: Steve H. uncovers the even nastier truth.
March 19, 2007
Mac vs. PC, a British view
As I've possibly indicated before, I'm not over fond of Macs. This, however, takes it a few steps further:
The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign — the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show — probably the best sitcom of the past five years — in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui. [. . .]
Mac owners often sneer that kind of defence back at you when you mock their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so, you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear haunting their feeble, quivering soul — that in some sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but feels vaguely significant and creative each time they gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are.
QotD: Baby Boomers
A recent study showed that the most important generation ever to stride the Earth, the boomers, complain more to their doctors about minor aches and ailments. Not surprising. Their parents knew how to suck it up; if they went to a doctor it was for something good. "Sorry to trouble you, Doc, but I lost a leg in the auger the other day, and I had to sew up the stump with barbed wire. I wonder if you'd give me some salve for the itch." Many boomers, however, regard the minor afflictions of life, particularly those associated with the ravages of age, as a personal affront. I'm surprised they don't form a class-action suit to sue God for mortality. If that's not a product defect, what is?
James Lileks, "It's this or smell like Ben-Gay", Star Tribune, 2007-03-13
March 18, 2007
QotD: eBay Sellers
Clearly, [they] do not frequent EvilBay where every thing the seller has not seen before is R@RE, anything more than five years old is VINTAGE, and if not broken in pieces, MINT.
Supreme Ruler of the UniverseBob Netzlof, posting to Yahoo group "StillGrumpy", 2007-03-13
March 15, 2007
A really different version of a creation myth
Australian take on creation . . . and something to do with life saving, too.
H/T to Roger Henry for the link.
QotD: Vanderleun's Law
In my line of work, I have to look at the Internet for many hours a day. As a steady diet this is not good. As you all know, the Internet makes it drop-dead easy to find at least 30 things that really piss you off before your first cup of coffee cools. I don't care where you're coming from, this axiom (15 Minutes Internet = 30 Things That Frost Your Cookies) is universal.
Gerard Vanderleun, "Run, Jump, Skip, Hop", American Digest, 2007-03-05
March 13, 2007
Whatever, dude, whatever . . .
Foods That Make Your Children Cry: A Participatory Thread. And John has a daughter at about the right age for some of these suggestions to leave really lasting mental scars.
March 09, 2007
March 08, 2007
QotD: Fox News
It's impossible for a serious person to take Fox News seriously. But up until now, you never actually had to. We always knew Fox was comedy masquerading as reporting, but that was the whole idea behind it. Like Ali G, Fox was self-serious. This was the one thing that made it mildly interesting.
"The Half Hour News Hour" blows the whole joke out of the water. After all, this show is a "comedy" program. By running a "comedy," Fox is basically saying the rest of its shows constitute real reporting. Fox isn't a parody of the liberal media; it's just the conservative version of it. Instead of self-serious, Fox takes itself seriously — which is especially disconcerting when you realize this channel gave Geraldo's mustache a news show.
Jonathan David Morris, "Fox News: Fair, Balanced, and Completely Full of Crap", Libertarian Enterprise, 2007-03-04
March 07, 2007
QotD: Electrical usage
Stop me if you've heard this before, but the other day the Rev. Al Gore declared that "climate change" was "the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced.'' Ever. I believe that was the same day it was revealed that George W. Bush's ranch in Texas is more environmentally friendly than the Gore mansion in Tennessee. According to the Nashville Electric Service, the Eco-Messiah's house uses 20 times more electricity than the average American home. The average household consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours. In 2006, the Gores wolfed down nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours.
Two hundred twenty-one thousand kilowatt-hours? What's he doing in there? Clamping Tipper to the electrodes and zapping her across the rec room every night?
Mark Steyn, "How Gore's massive energy consumption saves the world", Chicago Sun-Times, 2007-03-04
February 25, 2007
Getting bow-ed over by music
The Stringfever quartet do an original interpretation of Bolero.
February 21, 2007
The Anglican-Catholic merger proposal
The Economist provides a quick overview of this proposed business merger:
A marriage made in heaven?
SCEPTICS are already casting doubt on suggestions, spread this week in parts of the British press, of a massive remerger in the global communications industry. But the prospect of a tie-up between a vast, Rome-based corporation, and a smaller rival with headquarters in southern England, has sent some analysts into a speculative spin. Early discussions are said to have taken place between representatives of two long-established groups. If successful, the deal would see a parent company rejoined with a unit that separated from it, somewhat acrimoniously, in the 16th century.
Some observers suggest that this deal may be at least as significant as the split and subsequent remerger of parts of the AT&T, a telecoms company that held a monopoly position in America until the 1970s. As with AT&T, the break up of a once-dominant organisation inevitably leaves deep scars. But over time, as new competitors with new ideas change the business landscape, the abuse of monopoly power and the pain of parting may be forgotten for the sake of mutual gains. AT&T’s eventual remerger in 2006 with BellSouth, a branch of the telecoms giant snapped off in the reformation of America’s telecoms business, was acknowledged by most as a sensible reaction to the changing competitive landscape.
QotD: Hollywood
In poor old Hollywood, it's pretty much the Brit-hit franchises that are keeping the floundering movie business afloat. If I were some bratty all-American moppet, I think I'd be feeling a bit oppressed by cultural imperialism. At school, you're told it's a wonderful multiculti world and have to sit through Swahili dirges for Kwanza and all the other Ramadan-a-ding-dongs, and then you get to the multiplex and every multi-billion-dollar kids' series features English schoolboys, and even when they're disguised as hobbits or fauns in Narnia they still live on toasted crumpets and elderberry tea and such. It can't be long before some studio exec starts mulling over a boffo convergence along the lines of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Wardrobe. Indeed, given that the most successful grown-up franchise is also British, I would have skipped Daniel Craig and opted for Harry Potter as the new Bond, with Aslan as M and Bilbo as Q.
Mark Steyn, "Bewitched by Boarding Schools", Macleans, 2007-02-15
February 20, 2007
Minnesota . . . the home of the Manly Men
Minnesotan males will be scrambling to attempt to recover their suddenly shaky claims to being manly:
All of a sudden, he spotted the "rat."
"Ryan comes out of the office screaming, and he says, 'It's huge!'" Bergman said. "It was the size of a cat."
"I guess he jumped on top of a desk and screamed like a girl who had seen a mouse," Starr said of Ryan Dethloff.
In the end, an employee shot and killed what turned out to be a muskrat.
Green Bay Packer fans were seen purchasing large numbers of stuffed muskrat toys in preparation for the next Packers-Vikings game.
February 18, 2007
QotD: "Campaign" Bloggers
Blogging is supposed to be rude, anarchic and distinctly "unofficial". Hiring a "campaign blogger" is like hiring a "campaign farter" or setting up a "campaign mosh pit." "Official" bloggers are to real bloggers what the Monkees are to the Beatles, except that's unfair to the Monkees, who actually put out some damn fine recordings. Make that "what Jazzercise is to jazz".
Kathy Shaidle, "'The Catholic Church killed a 100 million humans during its inquisitions and crusades'", Relapsed Catholic, 2007-02-14
February 15, 2007
Rewriting Puccini
Thaddeus Tremayne does a social and artistic good turn by updating the sordid, racist, western-hegemon-advancing Madama Butterfly:
This insenstive cultural anachronism is completely outmoded and needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. In fact, I have taken the liberty of writing a short synopsis of a new, modernised version of the Puccini opera which will more accurately reflect the values of a modern-day audience.
Act I
Murderous red-necked robot goon, Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton is sent to Japan by his ZioNazi imperialist overlords on a mission to oppress the indigenous people, steal their natural resources and poison their atmosphere with harmful hydrocarbon emissions.
While engaged in a random and bloody act of ethnic cleansing, Pinkerton happens upon a strong indigenous person of a different but equally valid gender. Unable to resist the impulses of his phallocentric culture, Pinkerton calls her 'butterfly' and demands that she love him long time for five dollars.
It's a valiant try, but as "Sunfish" points out in the comments, "You still insist on perpetuating the outdated dogma of audience nonparticipation, by insisting that only the cast and crew may be on stage during the performance. This reinforces their dominant position as the running dogs of the (generally white male) writer and composer. Further, by allowing this travesty to be carried on in a Western language, you marginalize the equally-valid and equally-useful languages of the rest of the world."
Tech support hell . . . 1300's edition
H/T to Phil Boswell for the link.
QotD: Archaeology
People's avid interest in sex and in the portrayal of sexuality in various media goes back far beyond that, historically, back beyond the lascivious frescoes and mosaics discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Archaeology abounds with examples of pornographic pottery. (I always leaned toward "The Babes of Crete" collection, myself.) It's long been my personal theory that articles like the Venus of Willendorf are not "fertility symbols" or "objects of religious veneration" — a conclusion academics always leap to with absolutely no justification whatever — but were, instead, the stone-age equivalent of Playboy or Penthouse, fashioned by cavemen, to be passed around and chortled over around the campfire after the cavewomen and cavekids had gone to bed.
L. Neil Smith, "Some Thoughts About Censorship", Libertarian Enterprise, 2007-02-11
February 13, 2007
Another self-selected audience analysis
Scott Adams has a bit of fun with his readers:
In yesterday's post, I asked how many of you guys would have sex with a robot if it was indistinguishable from a hot human woman. About 95% of the hetero guys said they would. The other 5% expressed a strong preference for lying.
Based on your responses, it seems that every guy has his own threshold for the quality of the robot. Some guys would only consider tapping the robot if it was indistinguishable from an attractive human woman. Other guys are already humping their TiVos.
February 12, 2007
QotD: Scrumpy
Scumble [in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels] is obviously a reference to West Country "scrumpy" or "scumpy" homebrew cider. Wunnerful stuff. Sweet, smooth, deceptive. I didn't think it was affecting me at all until I tried to stand up and apparently somebody had stolen my knees.
Susan Fox-Davies, posting to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list, 2004-04-17
February 10, 2007
Model Railways get a bad ass reputation in Europe
The Times suddenly discovers — and views with alarm — that some model railway fans in Europe are doing things a bit more, um, adult in nature with their displays:
Thomas the Tank Engine, the cleanest-living locomotive on the track, would not approve. Train sets on display at the International Toy Fair in Germany include scenes of policemen raiding brothels, battery-driven copulating couples and round-ups of immigrants. There is trouble in Toyland.
[. . .] But visitors to the trade fair in Nuremberg have been gaping at the antics around the railway lines. Merten, which makes train-set figures, is offering a nudist beach, a waitress wearing only an apron and stockings and a couple of lascivious pole-dancers. One scene shows a man urinating against a wall, watched by a woman. Another shows a couple performing oral sex. Look carefully at the scene depicting a brothel raid and, behind the naked prostitutes, you will see the figure of a priest trying to make a quick getaway.
Steamy, irreverent stuff for the train set veterans. Sometimes the Lilliputian world of Exhibition Hall 4A resembles a splatter movie rather than a children's paradise. A horse is about to be battered to death with a hammer by a butcher. A worker at the blacksmith's appears to have lost an arm. Blood is spread around liberally. Near a castle, a squad of soldiers have just executed a man. And that's just the start-up kit.
I guess it's a slow news weekend in London, then.
H/T to Roger Henry for the URL.
Update: Also from the same mailing list, Craig Zeni points out the wonders of capitalism unfettered:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/920-31015
"HO scale, $185.00, sold out at Walthers
This product is on-sale today for $99.98"Guess it could be on sale for $1 if that's the way it works . . .
February 09, 2007
Adventures in babysitting
Jon was taking care of a friend's children the other night. He also had to drop them off at their school this morning. This is his report:
Attached are photos of a bench in front of the school. We should not be too mean about these, as the bench is a monument to someone who is no longer with us. But still . . .
This is what I first spotted while dropping off the kids:
My first thought was that someone was trying to be clever in a poetic, pierce, tattooed, greasy, dreadlocked, plant-guerilla-marketing-devices-that-set-off-a-bomb-scare-and-paralyse-a-city-and-then-make-hair-jokes-during-the-press-conference-at-the-courthouse sort of way.
But then I spotted the front of the bench
Yup. My thoughts then were something along the lines of "Be proud! Wear the union label! Teachers are the future! But only because they own our children!"
Crickey.
February 08, 2007
The original "War of the Stars" unveiled
H/T to Craig Zeni.
February 07, 2007
Declining to dine Roman style
With the recent cold snap, we've had some uninvited guests join our household . . . mice. Our cats are both too well-fed and self-confined to areas of the house that the dog doesn't go, so the mice have set up housekeeping in our kitchen. We're working on getting the dratted little beasts out, but they're remarkably fast, agile critters, so it's taking some time.
This morning, Elizabeth found a quick way of getting rid of 'em, but it's probably neither economical nor particularly humane. She put some bread in the toaster, pushed down the lever, and suddenly the toaster started to scream in a high-pitched voice, and emitted some noxious smelling smoke.
Yep . . . toasted mouse.
I guess we've been effectively removing all the food sources they'd found when they first got into the house, so they're having to scavenge in new spots . . . and the crumb tray in the toaster hadn't been emptied for a while. So now we're in the market for a new toaster, too.
Perhaps we're not being adventurous, but even if toasted dormice were a Roman delicacy, we'll pass.
February 06, 2007
Not recommended for airline use
Dave Slater sent this message to one of the mailing lists I frequent:
For those who do a lot of traveling by air or train you may want to remember this one.. LOL
Subject: FW: Irritating fellow passengers >> If you are sitting next to someone who's irritating you on a plane or train.... >> >>1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case. >> >>2. Remove your laptop. >> >>3. Boot it. >> >>4. Make sure the guy who won't leave you alone can see the screen. >> >>5. Open your email client to this message. >> >>6. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky. >> >>7. Then hit this link: http://tinyurl.com/e8efm
January 31, 2007
QotD: Theodore Dreiser
Topping the charts is Theodore Dreiser's The Financier, which I've read and enjoyed (what's not to like about a book that spends what seems to be a 1,000 pages describing a battle to the death between a lobster and a squid and then following up with a plot about mass transit scams in turn of the century Philadelphia?). However, why it's at the head of a list of books supposedly chosen first and foremost for "literary merit" is a real brain buster. I have no interest in arguing whether someone is a "great" stylist (such aesthetic distinctions are by turns vapid and masks for other agendas, methinks), but really. Dreiser not only writes like English is his third language, he makes the reader feel that way, too.
Nick Gillespie, "The 10 Best Business Novels. Or Not.", Reason, 2007-01-25
January 30, 2007
Microsoft: Grabbing you where you're most vulnerable
Photo contributed by Jon, who writes:
What were they thinking at Microsoft? I saw this and the first thing that came to mind was:
Microsoft Vista: Leaves you hanging by your nads.
I showed the photo to our marketing person, and she came up with:
Windows leaves you hanging
-- and --
Microsoft has you by the balls
(Look closely at the photo for the . . . umm . . . attachment point).
Just thought I'd share.
January 29, 2007
QotD: Baileys is a Girl's Drink
Do not be fooled by recent television commercials depicting comely young hetero chaps guzzling that horrendous, barely alcoholic, sweet, creamy, Celtic muck known as Baileys (girl's drink). See this for what it is — a shameless attempt to broaden the demographic that consumes Baileys (girl's drink). It will not work. I do not care how many advertisements are broadcast showing Baileys (girl's drink)-clutching studly guys and their mates in bars catching the eyes of implausibly hot women. Baileys (girl's drink) is a girl's drink, and no amount of telemarketing sophistry can alter that fact.
James Waterton, "False Advertising", Samizdata, 2007-01-24
January 24, 2007
QotD: The Next Standard
[. . .] HD-DVD is the format that the porn industry is going to embrace. Even the creation of the hybrid players isn't as significant as this development, because any time there's been a format war before now, it was the format used by the porn industry that emerged as the victor.
It's particularly bizarre if the second story is true and Blu-Ray actively chose not to be involved with the porn industry. That's commercial suicide, and it's going to come back to haunt whoever made that decision.
Of course, all of this avoids the elephant in the room, which is that HD porn is a scary prospect on many levels. I'm not sure I'd want to see someone like Ron Jeremy in high definition. There are, after all, things you can't unsee.
"Moriarty", "Moriarty’s DVD Blog! Is The Format War Over?!", Ain't It Cool News, 2007-01-11
January 23, 2007
Just in case you need . . .
. . . some stinkin' badges:
H/T to Richard Zellich.
January 22, 2007
Helsinki Complaints Choir
"Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. Music composed by Esko Grundström."
H/T to Jerrie Adkins.
January 08, 2007
Giving birth on a train
Roger Henry sent this message to one of my various mailing lists, and I found it well worth stealing republishing:
The long awaited Taiwan bullet train looks set to actually carry passengers this year. Plagued with cost overruns — surprise, surprise — technical glitches and a couple of derailments! The operators have now discovered that the public has little faith in the train's ability to run on time and stay on the line. See http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/176135/1/.html or Google around on Taiwan bullet train.
Another train related news item advised of a Portuguese woman who gave birth to a girl while traveling on one of the country's trains. The rail operator has rewarded the mum, and the bub, with a lifetime free pass. Presumably because she didn't blab that the child was also conceived on the same journey.
This made me wonder what the reaction would be in other jurisdictions to a woman giving birth on a train.
London Transport would almost certainly prosecute for attempted fare evasion (That's if the Metropolitan police didn't shoot them both, just in case)
The NY Subway would . . . what? Congratulate her for not getting mugged in the process?
Washington Metro . . . Security staff would simply watch and observe, unless the mother put the baby on her breast then they would both be arrested for consuming "food" on a train.
Tokyo subways . . . Probably halt the train and make the mother reimburse the operator for cleaning costs, lost revenue and insist on a groveling, public apology. (You should see what they do to the TV weather announcers who get it "wrong").
Sydney suburban network . . . Train would be halted (for the tenth time on a four station trip). An ambulance would be called but would be directed to the wrong station. Mother and child would be separated and transported to different hospitals. TV stations would "sort" out the mess and woman (and child) would make a motzah out of teary, TV, appearances. Five different fathers would be located. Finally the poor woman would have to submit to having a P*L*T*C*AN fawn all over her and the child. He would not be able to pronounce her name.
How would it work out on your subway?
QotD: Hangovers
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim.
January 05, 2007
Alternative healthcare religion
Reason Hit and Run had a very brief link to this amusing little post:
It's almost like this Wicca shit doesn't even work. I've spent so much money on goddamned candles and incense and all other kind of whatnot. The worst was the dagger and silver plates, not cheap. Not to mention the cuts and other injuries sustained from sacrificing cats and shit. I just don't undertand, I got all the instructions from one of those girls who dyes her hair black and listens to metal. I mean, she would know right?
January 03, 2007
Hinterland Who's Ho
Jon briefly came out of hibernation and sent me a link to this: Remember those educational wildlife video fillers on TV when you were a kid...?.
Hilarious, as Jon wrote. Even so, I did find the ad running on the right side of the page to be a bit distracting . . .
QotD: Matching Wine with Food
"Americans need to start viewing wine as an everyday beverage," claim producers. Then, on the back label they write, "Pairs well with truffled oxen snout in finnberry reduction on a bed of flaked Andalusian taro." Sure. Every Thursday.
The front label is even worse. But winemakers refuse to see the problem. "Reading a Moravian label is easy!" they say. "Just three quality levels, ten regions and four grapes. Anyone can learn that!" Yeah, anyone who plans to spend the rest of his life in Moravia.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, from the Introduction, The Cork Jester's Guide to Wine, 2006.
December 27, 2006
A belated holiday entry
For those of you who find the seasonal festivities a bit too, um, festive, may I suggest that a visit to Cthulhulives.org is in order:
Three years ago the HPLHS recorded A Very Scary Solstice — a delightful yet hideous combining of over-commercialized holiday tunes and the unspeakable horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. However improbable, the enterprise proved popular. So, armed with more songs, more singers, and an honest-to-goodness musician (Troy Sterling Nies, composer of much of the score for The Call of Cthulhu), we set out to bring you some more holiday songs given the Lovecraftian treatment.
Both our solstice offerings provide a CD of songs and a fun annotated sing-along songbook. Both have introductions by respected Mythos authors, and both are really quite a lot of fun.
H/T to Jo'Asia, who says "And do not miss the link to A Shoggoth on the Roof".
December 22, 2006
QotD: Perspective
Frederick Crews's sequel, Postmodern Pooh, is infinitely more ridiculous than his Sixties original because in the past 40 years, the literary theory establishment has almost collapsed under the weight of its own jargon. I think that if I hear the word 'discourse' again, I'll scream, although it's when I go to 'Out of Bounds: Transgressive Fiction' that I get really annoyed. It's a seminar analysing Hermione Granger-Professor Snape fan fiction. That is to say, a relationship between a teenage girl and a fortysomething man, which often, it transpires, takes the form of a rape narrative. There are 200 women in the room. And a whole lot of talk about female empowerment and gender reversals, but, frankly, if it was 200 men talking about rape narratives involving underage schoolchildren, it would be a matter for the police, and I don't think this is empowering anybody.
Carole Cadwalladr, "Harry Potter and the mystery of an academic obsession", Guardian Unlimited, 2006-08-06
December 21, 2006
Obligatory Xmas-style post
Craig Zeni sent along a link to Pimp My Nutcracker. For those idle times during the run-up to the holiday, right? (Like anyone has spare time right now . . .)
December 20, 2006
Still some time left . . .
. . . to get your Santa's Visit Application Form submitted:
H/T to Roger Henry and the folks who originally created the form, of course.
December 15, 2006
LOTR, gamed
The Flea links to a brilliant little gem . . . Lord of the Rings, gamed by role-players who've never heard of the Tolkien stories.
The story itself is very funny, but even the throw-away lines at the end of the panels are worth the price of admission:
Yes, black dragons are powerful. So are level-20 fireballs, demi-gods, and huge mythic beasts. But there is no force in the game as powerful as the combined selfishness and apathy of your players.
December 13, 2006
QotD: Cologne
I hit Bath and Body Works, which provides the various Scent Profiles for my life, and discovered that the overpriced C. W. Bigelow line has added "Bay Rum" cologne and aftershave balm. I tried some. It's manly. It's damn manly. Makes Mr. Peepers feel like Hemingway, it does. It's a real alpha-male smell, but in the old-school sense. At some point the alpha-aroma became associated with musky bilge or pungent Hai-Karate type scents that indicated dominance — but only because the possessor obviously had no subordinates or associations who dared point out the fact that he had overclocked his smell-chip. Even those guys, however, respect the Bay Rum. It has that classic hats 'n' gats connotation. It's the kind of smell that says "I shot a Marlin with Bogart then kissed Bacall when he wasn't looking. And she liked it."
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-12-13
December 12, 2006
Funny images
A list of images you may already have seen and a few that may be new. My favourite was the suggested Microsoft ad:
H/T to Patrick Vera.
December 05, 2006
QotD: Wine tasting
I dropped into the bottle shop to see what they were selling; a nice young lady was handing out samples of two reds, one of which I'm regretting at this very moment. Starts sweet and ends dry, and while it's suitable, the bouquet might be described as Mummy's Underwear. It was better than the South African brand proffered; I swear you can taste the burning tires. It had a toady top note and finished not just with one note but a dozen, all taken from a 12-tone row by Schoenberg. Sometimes I think they pair a craptacular wine with an average one so you'll congratulate yourself for buying the better one.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-12-04
December 04, 2006
QotD: Every FPS you've ever played
You've seen stuff like this a bazillion times before. Gears of War is yet another first-person shooter in which you blunder through the post-apocalyptic boneyard of civilization, repetitively slaughtering a bunch of hulking, gibbering aliens. Creepy things lurk in the dark; fresh ammo packs are scattered improbably in open sight; and as the guts paint the hallways red, your teammates curse like a bunch of Tarantino wannabes. Name every single war-weary cliché of the run-and-gun genre, and Gears of War dutifully ticks it off.
And the game really is awesome. Indeed, it is staggeringly, derangedly so. I popped Gears of War into my Xbox 360 and sat in a cybernetic haze for three straight hours, emerging with my stomach in fist-size knots, so emotionally and cognitively depleted that I had to consult the instructions on the side of the box before I was able to cook a bag of microwave popcorn -- which, come to think of it, was my only meal for the rest of the evening because I had to go back and play until I collapsed.
Clive Thompson, "Why Gears of War Rocks", Wired News, 2006-12-04
December 01, 2006
Imagine having a neighbour like this
H/T to Tom Vinson for the link.
QotD: The English
According to the English model [. . .], the public self must be unassuming. No affectation, no self aggrandizement, no kinetic bid for attention. The public self should be modulated, burnished, restrained. In the language of Guest's most repeated screen appearance (This is Spinal Tap), one may not turn the social self up to 11. In fact, you shouldn't go much past 3. 4, tops. No, strike that. Not 4. 3.
The English are really Japanese. Any departure from due form puts the credibility of the social performance in jeopardy and the capital of the social actor at risk. They are an exacting, unforgiving audience. Anyone who dares claim too much or give too little will be found out and made to pay. So intensive is this scrutiny that many English people live under deep cover. Their social interests are almost always better served by concealment than revelation.
Grant McCracken, "Christopher Guest and the English Transformational Modality", This Blog Sits at the, 2006-11-14
November 30, 2006
Rome asked to apologize . . .
. . . for invading Britain. Two thousand years ago.
Since Britain just finished apologizing to for the transatlantic slave trade, it must seem fitting to some to have an apology from Rome for enslaving Britons:
Look at Britain today and you see a blighted land, its atomised culture diluted by outside influences, its people resentful and divided. But who would blame a whipped dog for howling? The fact is, these islands are suffering from a collective trauma, harboured for two millennia.
The Roman invasion of Britain left an open wound that cries out to be healed. Our Latin conquerors benefited enormously from enslaving us, and that has got to be put right. Italy's government must apologise and make reparations.
QotD: Big Music
It sometimes seems like the recording industry actually sits around a table a few times a week to brainstorm new ways to make its customers hate it.
Radley Balko, "As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly", Hit and Run, 2006-11-25
November 28, 2006
QotD: Christmas Gifts
Why did we give this book to our wife? For the same reason that inspires most holiday gift-giving: desperation. That particular year we did not start our holiday shopping until Christmas Eve at approximately 7:30 p.m. (Usually we start earlier, around 6 p.m.) We found a store that was open, and we did nearly all of our holiday shopping there. We selected the impressionist book because it was rectangular, which is the easiest shape to wrap.
You may laugh, but you probably are no better. We bet you have bought all KINDS of comically unnecessary holiday gifts for people, to reciprocate for the comically unnecessary gifts that you know they're going to give to you. That is the spirit of the holiday season.
Dave Barry, "What's behind Santa's Ho-Ho-Ho", Miami Herald, 2006-11-26
November 27, 2006
Xmas humour
Beware of the dangers of hanging Christmas lights!
November 22, 2006
Thank goodness the government stopped this illegal . . .
. . . sale of gasoline below cost:
This month, King Soopers and City Market (both owned by Kroger) were forced by a federal jury decision to cut out a program called Buy Groceries/Get Gas — which offered consumers modest savings on gas purchases.
Two "independent" gasoline stations in Montrose brought the suit and were awarded $1.4 million in damages. The jury found the big stores had violated Colorado's Unfair Practices Act, illegally selling gas below cost.
Yes, King Soopers was selling gasoline too cheap. It's illegal.
So let's quickly review an old economics adage: Charge too much and you're price gouging. Charge too little and you're predatory pricing. Charge the same as your competitor and you're in collusion.
We should all be grateful to those bold politicians, who realized that it should be illegal to sell an essential product like gasoline below cost! And even more, to the noble and public-spirited competitors who grassed them to the authorities!
Had it been left unchallenged, who knows how low these economic hoodlums would have been willing to go?
November 21, 2006
QotD: Urban "beautification" projects
[. . .] But I was talking about the Plans to revitalize downtown. One of the plans is aimed specifically at rolling the Head-On of Urban Joy on the skulls of the walkers: today's paper had a story about making the sidewalks more entertaining and welcoming, with the usual greenery and pots and signage. Again, I'm split: great idea, sure, but some urban beautification projects might actually make people more wary. When I see evidence of a big plan in a downtown, I think: it's in trouble. A healthy downtown gets what it needs. Think Manhattan — where the one-way is frickin' king, incidentally — and you realize that it's not the pots or street signs or occasional poor poisoned tree dying in a grate that makes New York such a feast; it's the stores and the people. WE don't have stores and people on the ground floor for most of the year, because they're in the skyway. That was our great contribution to urban design: the vast and ever-fascinating skyway system, a new urban paradigm. But now it's the enemy, because it killed the Street. Apparently it is more important to see people on the street in January, freezing, than to be among people in the skyway in January, walking or shopping or eating. The latter may be feasible and profitable and convenient, but the latter is preferable in the abstract.
Anyway, I see lots of planters and old-timey signs, I calculate the likelihood of getting sapped from behind just doubled. But here's what really amused me about the plan: greenery will be installed not just to make things green and lively, but to prevent "climate change."
You could raze the entire downtown core and plant trees, and it wouldn't effect climate change. I swear, it's become the secular equivalent of "peace be upon him."
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-11-20
November 20, 2006
QotD: The Legal Profession
I just got the California bar exam results back, and according to the website, below my name it says, "The name above appears on the pass list for the July 2006 California Bar Examination."
They couldn't just say, "You have passed." Even here they have to hedge and disclaim. Boy, how I hate
lawyersme.Russell Wardlow, "Just What the World Needs, Another Lawyer", Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0, 2006-11-17
November 18, 2006
"Things not to do" lists
This list, Things I am not allowed to do at Hogwarts, was directly inspired by the brilliant The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In the U.S. Army.
H/T to "Iestyn" for the link.
What Miles V. did for his summer vacation
A fan of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga has put together a brief summary of Miles Vorkosigan's: summer vacation.
H/T to Andrew Lambdin-Abraham, who says he found it referenced on John Scalzi's blog.
November 10, 2006
You knew it would come to this, didn't you?
According to this article in the well-known publication, The Onion, we have finally reached the holy land of fat-free snack foods:
According to Frito-Lay's website, the new snacks contain one-third of the fat, one-half of the calories, and one-1,000th of the irresistible flavor of Frito-Lay's classic line of potato and corn chips. The presence of trans-fats and saturated oils is avoided by employing a cooking process "strikingly similar to the method used to create particle board." Serving suggestions that will be printed on the packaging include "definitely not adding any salt or seasoning, because then you might die"; dipping the chips in "delicious plain yogurt, lettuce paste, or other ground-up Flat Earth products"; and enhancing the flavor by replacing the chip in your hand with a Hot'n Spicy BBQ chip.
In January, Frito-Lay will launch a Flat Earth marketing campaign based on the slogan, "Bet You Can't Eat Even One." Surprisingly, however, the company is also in talks with distributors to ensure that Flat Earth snacks are installed in every school vending machine in the country.
"Oh, they're definitely going in the vending machines," Carey said. "Everyone's going to share in this misery, not just a handful of Naderites with spastic colons or loser kids with no taste buds whose parents want them to grow up to be boring milquetoasts afraid to have any fun. And don't think we haven't forgotten you either, office workers on snack breaks and anyone who wants to serve a big bowl of disappointment at a cocktail party."
November 07, 2006
Borat for Presi . . . oh, wait
Borat was briefly elected President of Kazakhstan, but only in a Wikipedia hack:
Fans logged onto internet site Wikipedia and edited the page for the fictional character's home nation.
The alterations to the site said the country's motto is "High Five" and the national anthem opening line was changed to say: "Kazakhstan greatest country in the world. All other countries are run by little girls."
The Wikipedia page in question has been locked. High marks to Wikipedia's users, who flagged the hacked page in short order.
QotD: Fame
There are cheeses that last longer than some literary reputations.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-11-07
November 06, 2006
QotD: Teenage Spending
Richer teenagers spend more money on everything, including booze, fags and weed. Yet this is not purely an effect of extra spending power. The source of the money counts too. A teenager who earns an extra $1,000 through a job is 1.1 per cent more likely to smoke and 1.6 per cent more likely to drink and 0.6 per cent more likely to use marijuana. But when the same sum comes from pocket money, the effects are more than five times greater: a teenager with an extra $1,000 annual allowance is 6.2 per cent more likely to smoke, 9.6 per cent more like to drink and 4.5 per cent more likely to use marijuana.
It is not clear whether this difference is because part-time workers have less time to indulge, whether they come from different backgrounds (some effort is made in the research to allow for this) or whether there is a difference in character between the workers and the pocket-money scroungers. Still, the conclusion is clear enough: cut off pocket money for teenagers and lower the minimum wage at once. It's the only way to keep our teenagers living clean lives.
Tim Harford, "The Undercover Economist: Round numbers", FT.com, 2006-09-22
October 31, 2006
QotD: Halloween
Parents know: Nothing undercuts your moral authority like Halloween. Don't eat so much candy. Don't take candy from strangers. Except today. Today it's fine. In fact, I insist. I'll drive you to strangers' houses. It's like having a day where adults give each other packs of cigarettes.
The actual collection of treats may be the least important part of Halloween. The costume comes first. Alas, many schools have banned costumes in favor of Fall Harvest Celebration — but not in my day, no sir. We called it Hail Satan Day. Ah, the memories — the smell of apple cider in the classroom, the crisp autumn breeze, the plaintive bleating of the goat as we led it to the altar . . . no more, of course. It's not "politically correct." But even then you had parents objecting about the whole Satan thing. Some wanted to hail Baal; the fundamentalists wanted to honor Samhein. Can't please everyone.
James Lileks, "What do kids want for Halloween? More", Star Tribune, 2006-10-26
October 17, 2006
QotD: Fiction
There is a fine line between fiction and nonfiction, and I believe Jimmy Buffett and I snorted it in 1976.
Kinky Friedman, as quoted by Matt Labash in "Kinky Friedman Runs for Governor: But is it good for the Texans?", Weekly Standard, 2006-10-16
October 16, 2006
QotD: Social Security
Talking about social security is like attending a cocktail party full of accountants: everyone spends the whole time doing disgusting things to innocent numbers.
Jane Galt, "Social security sleight of hand", Asymmetrical Information, 2006-10-11
October 13, 2006
QotD: Flu shots
I dreaded shots as a kid; who didn't? The nurse had a trick: She'd hold a box up to my eyes, and ask me what color I saw. "Red," I'd say, thinking: Blood red! When it changed from red to green, she asked me again, and as my brain processed the new information and prepared a response, she jabbed with the drill bit into my tender arm. It certainly took my mind off the problem, but to this day I can't go through a traffic signal without feeling like I deserve a balloon.
James Lileks, "Daily Quirk: Roll up your sleeve; it's jabbin' time", Star Tribune, 2006-10-10
October 09, 2006
QotD: Autobiography
Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
George Orwell, "Notes on Dali",Dickens,Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture, 1944
October 03, 2006
September 28, 2006
QotD: The CBC
In their own quiet way, CBC people have become a remarkable cult, the proprietors of a vast reservoir of smugness they are incapable of recognizing as such. For generations, they have been constructing a body of impregnable, self-regenerating opinion. As employees they are pre-selected and their views are pre-recorded, like most of their programs. A single rule governs all personnel selection: Like hires like. That principle, followed for seven decades, produces seamless intellectual agreement in all corners of the staff. Occasionally a few oddballs somehow slip through the screening process. They are allowed to hold unofficial views, providing they have the good sense not to express them. Otherwise, the CBC encourages everyone to speak up.
CBC producers glory in what Wordsworth called "smooth and solemnized complacencies." They believe in universal one-tier medicare, feminism, the Kyoto accord, employment equity and the United Nations. They consider Israel an embarrassing upstart state and remain unimpressed by its accomplishments. They hate the Bush administration but they are routinely anti-American even when someone more agreeable occupies the White House. They don't much like business. In their view the free market causes more trouble than it's worth, and globalization is another word for evil. They believe unions are usually on the right side (even if they think their own unions are led by idiots). They have learned that there is one side to every question.
Robert Fulford, "The lessons I learned at CBC", National Post, 2006-09-23
September 27, 2006
Wow! It's an expansion to WOW
Lore Sjöberg puts on his slobbering fanboy hat to preview the newest expansion to the World of Warcraft:
The new World of Warcraft expansion is just around the corner, and people are atwitter with anticipation. Two new playable races! A whole new continent! Flying mounts! So many things to argue about! Some players are already composing long screeds about which of the new races sucks more, leaving places to fill in details as they become available.
The expansion is called "The Burning Crusade," which sounds like a U2 album. The new races are the Dranei — which sounds like Greek for "plumbers" — and the Blood Elves, which sound like the coolest thing ever if you're 14. The new continent is called Outland, which would sound goofy even if it wasn't a failed comic strip. The flying mounts are called Nether Drakes, which sounds like some sort of fetish that didn't exist before the web, probably involving Donald Duck and crotchless panties.
eBay follies
Careless use of an open browser window allowed a toddler to buy a car on eBay. According to the story,
Jack denied all culpability.
Asked if he had made the purchase, he simply squirmed and muttered, "No."
Of course, that's the same defence mounted by most men, when challenged about "unusual" purchases online . . .
QotD: 1970's ephemera
I saw an old wallet for $45, complete with original cellophane card holders. I remembered those — my very first kiddie wallet had cellophane holders, and they cracked and splintered after little use. They were replaced by thick plastic inserts that added an inch to the wallet's thickness — and now that I think of it, that wallet had a thick scuffed friction-generating finish that supposedly made it pick-pocket proof. Dippers couldn't filch your roll; the sides of the wallet put up a fight on your behalf. Of course, that meant you couldn't get it out unless you dug your entire hand into your back pocket and hauled it out, which made you look as if you had a full-cheek butt-itch. All that and crepe-soled platform shoes and rayon bellbottoms in a brown-and-white houndstooth pattern. It's a miracle anyone had sex in the 70s.
James Lileks, Bleat, 2006-09-25
September 24, 2006
QotD: Teachers
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Britain's teachers. If it weren't for them we'd all be speaking German. And French. And Latin. And be able to do sums.
Harry Hutton, "Frank Chalk", Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry, 2006-09-14
September 23, 2006
QotD: Hippies
The Aggressive College-town Hippie, of which the Berkeley dweller is an examplar, is ultimately a poseur in everything he does, and so must confidently (which usually means loudly) remind others of his chosen lifestyle. This includes his intellectual predilections, whereby he dutifully reads his assigned Chomsky and Marx — occasionally it's Foucault and Derrida; the actual content doesn't matter — and parrots the statements of his goatee'd teaching assistants and wire-rimmed professors in the unspoken belief that they have grasped something in the material that he's missing that makes it all seem sensible rather than intellectual masturbation. Because of this inner-anxiety, the ACH tends to forcefully assert his
reading assignmentsbeliefs at inappropriate times, such as random enounters with strangers in a store, restaurant or public restroom.Russell Wardlow, "Day 6", Mean Mr. Mustard, 2006-09-13
September 22, 2006
QotD: Being Thin
Whether or not models are, as their agents claim, naturally that thin (personally, all the models I ever knew had developed eating habits that would have struck an obsessive-compulsive as too demanding, but I've never met any supermodels or anything), the fact is that most women cannot be that thin without starving themselves to unhealthy levels.
"Jane Galt", "Dang", Asymmetrical Information, 2006-09-18
September 21, 2006
Oh, well, that explains it then
It may have come to your attention that the CBC just lost their chairman, as related in this Reuters story. The best comment I've heard about the situation was this:
Of course, our left-leaning community is in deep shock over the whole dismissal. They see this as a case of someone from the Reality-based community who was trying to speak truth to power being silenced by the chill wind blowing from the Chimpy McBushliburton puppet regime that's been installed in Ottawa.
Comments like that don't come around every day . . . oh, wait, yes, they do.
Creating a water shortage, feline style
This past month the people in charge of paying for the Feline Care Center's water bill (part of AZ RESCUE), discovered that the bill was inordinately high. They couldn't figure out what was happening, and thought maybe someone was coming in at night and turning on the water. But... as it turns out, the video caught quite a different kind of culprit, heehee.
Hat tip to Richard S.
September 18, 2006
Never too much Zidane action
Hat tip to Victor for the link.
September 16, 2006
I know that Opera is a cool browser, but . . .
. . . I didn't realize it was hallucinogenic!
Headline at Ananova news site: Opera fans 'prefer magic mushrooms'.
Then I realized they were talking about Opera music.
QotD: Heavenly Rewards
Oriana Fallaci has died at the age of 76. I don't imagine she believed in God, but if she was wrong and there is a paradise, she's in it now riding a suicide bomber like a donkey, shouting orders to the other 71.
"Occam", "Eurabia Sighs In Relief", Occam's Carbuncle, 2006-09-15
September 12, 2006
September 09, 2006
QotD: Blogging
"Blog" itself is short for "weblog," which is short for "we blog because we weren't very popular in high school and we're trying to gain respect and admiration without actually having to be around people."
Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it. One popular technique for building readership is to send e-mail to more well-trafficked blogs offering to exchange links with them. One popular response from those blogs is to laugh derisively and hit the Delete button.
Lore Sjöberg, "The Ultimate Blog Post", Wired News, 2006-09-06
September 08, 2006
QotD: The true essence of blogging
Sadly, I'm willing to bet a fairly hefty sum of money that almost none of the [. . .] bloggers who linked to it originally will link to my attempts to rectify their misunderstanding. Because after all the point of blogging is not to have an interesting discussion; it is to make fun of people who don't agree with us, in the company of like-minded companions who will reinforce our conviction that other opinions are risible. But we'll know, won't we, dear reader. And the important thing, of course, is that we all agree . . .
Jane Galt, Asymmetrical Information, 2006-09-05
September 07, 2006
QotD: Family
The latest study on how we get to be us claims our biggest influence is neither parents nor peers, but siblings. I believe it. When I was growing up, my sister Robin, one year older, was God. My sun, my playmate, my critic and my arbiter of taste, from the moment she first pried the safety cover off my bassinet, removed her diaper, and crapped on my stomach. Naturally, I took her judgments to heart.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Sibling Revelry: Beaujolais: Is not! Is too!", CorkJester.com, 2006-09-05
Note: the link goes to Ms. Rosen's home page, not to this specific article. The article will eventually appear on the home page. Thanks to Jon, who noted that "It makes you look like a putz. You might want to (note) that the link goes to her main page, and not the article itself. Or something."
August 31, 2006
QotD: Religion
I'm not religious, so I don't have a God in this fight [. . .]
Tim Blair, "Forces of Darkness Confronted", Tim Blair, 2006-08-26
August 28, 2006
Who could ask for anything more?
.
Original image hosted at http://jdbshow.com/images/sign22.jpg
Link courtesy of Craig Z.
August 27, 2006
QotD: California Wine
Not so long ago, the phrase California wine belonged in the same book of oxymorons as, say living poet and Dutch cuisine. You knew, on some level, that such things existed, but you didn't necessarily want any of them on your dinner table.
Jay McInerney, "Mondavi on Mondavi", Bacchus & Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar, 2002
August 24, 2006
QotD: Packwood's Law
Packwood's Law: Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from existential evil.
Nick Packwood, "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest (Team Canada)", Ghost of a flea, 2006-08-23
August 22, 2006
And now, the news in Swedish . . .
Swedish newscasters accidentally raised their ratings by accidentally re-broadcasting pornographic images:
Swedish state broadcaster SVT is in hot water after accidently broadcasting some sizzling Czech rumpy-pumpy as a backdrop to Saturday's midnight news, rather than the normal "output of other news channels", the BBC reports.
The "highly embarrassing and unfortunate" blunder occured on just one monitor, and only for 30 seconds before a panic-striken producer ran and switched channels, but that was enough for the Swedish tabloids which have predictably changed the show's name from Rapport to Rapporn.
There were no viewer complaints.
This is Sweden, of course.
QotD: Advice Columns
So I'm back at work, sitting in a cozy bar, sifting through a gigabyte or two of email, sipping fine tequila. Now before anyone lectures me about advising under the influence, please note that writing an advice column is a lot like bowling: Not only can you do it drunk, you're probably better at it drunk. My good friend Miss Manners won't even look at her keyboard until she's ripped to the tits. And Abigail Van Buren II? Her assistant has to leave a trail of shot glasses full of Grand Marnier from her bed to her desk in order to get that crazy bitch to bang out a column.
Dan Savage, "Savage Love", The Onion A/V Club, 2006-08-16
August 17, 2006
Dangerously funny stuff
If you think you could do a better (however you interpret that term) job of programming the President's speeches, this is the tool for you.
Hat tip to Barb and Jon L. (not the usual Jon . . . a different chap this time).
Economical humour
A brief wander into the things that make some economists smile:
Call me a masochist but one of the great pleasures of being at George Mason is that I am regularly insulted by Gordon Tullock. You have to undestand, however, that in my profession not to have been insulted by Gordon is to be a nobody.
In anycase, here is one from yesterday.
"Gordon," I asked, "do you think we should ban child labor?" "No, keep working."
The other day Gordon asked me to read one of his papers and I pointed out a few typos. "Excellent," he said, "this will surely be your greatest contribution to economics."
August 16, 2006
QotD: Terrorism
I had many things to discuss, but at the end of the day they all seem obvious. Terrorists = bad. People who think the arrests were a PR move = foolish. Likelihood substantial portions of the business fliers will subconsciously adopt the nuke 'em from orbit, it's the only way to be sure posture after learning they can't take their laptops on the flight = high. Seriously, when I learned that they were confiscating books today, I had a vision of a plane full of people all staring straight ahead, hands in their laps, waiting, waiting, waiting for it all to be over. No books. Because, you know, they might overwhelm the cockpit crew with a dramatic reading.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-08-11
August 12, 2006
QotD: Aromatic Wines
Vermouth is one definition of "aromatic wine." But what I had planned to write about was what wine schools and books refer to as "The Aromatic Grapes," namely . . . um . . .
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(Note: this error pops up when wine professionals from India to Singapore to Sweden use some term like it meant something, yet nobody agrees on what. )
Some use "aromatic" as merely an adjective to describe any wine that leaps up out of the glass and grabs you by the beard (I've been meaning to shave that thing), proclaiming its presence and lineage.
Yet not all that wafts from your glass is aroma. The word is supposed to refer only to smells that come from grapes. Nuances from winemaking, like toasty yeast, vanilla-coconut oak, or buttery malolactic fermentation, are known as bouquet. By that definition, a beefed up chardonnay might wave semaphores in your face, but it ain't aromatic.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "A Dab Behind the Ear: Just what IS an "aromatic" grape?", Cork Jester, 2006-08-11
August 11, 2006
QotD: Alcohol
Alcohol is like love: the first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you just take the girl's clothes off.
Raymond Chandler
August 07, 2006
QotD: Drinks
One of the fellows I can't understand is the man with violent likes and dislikes in his drams — the man who dotes on highballs but can't abide malt liquor, or who drinks white wine but not red or who holds that Scotch whisky benefits his kidneys whereas rye whiskey corrodes his liver. As for me, I am prepared to admit some merit in every alcoholic beverage ever devised by the incomparable brain of man, and drink them all when the occasions are suitable — wine with meat, the hard liquors when my so-called soul languishes, beer to let me down gently of an evening. In other words, I am omnibibulous, or more simply, ombibulous.
H.L. Mencken, "Reminiscence in the Present Tense", Minority Report, 1956.
August 05, 2006
QotD: Horses
[. . .] There were two police horses present, Wrangler and Oliver; the latter had been a racehorse before assuming constabulary duty. Gnat was duly awed; nothing about horse toys prepares you for the total horsitude of a real life example. They're among the densest looking animals around, for example. Cows look like they're retaining water; pigs are overinflated, and chickens are just bones and noise. But a horse? Solid flesh. Their hair is made out of muscle.
As much as I admire the art of the motorcycle, I understand why the derogatory term "hog" fits — it has a brash & grinning implication, it fits because it doesn't. Calling a motorcycle "Dog" would seem silly; horse would seem just wrong. (Calling a motorcyclist "Dog," however, is perfectly fine.) [. . .] The only word that synthesizes animals and humans is "horseman," and that makes perfect sense to anyone who's slid into the saddle and felt himself to be some chimerical hybrid. For the moment, anyway. Until the horse reminds you otherwise.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-08-02
August 04, 2006
QotD: Teetotalism
Teetotalism does not make for human happiness; it makes for the dull, idiotic happiness of the barnyard. The men who do things in the world, the men worthy of admiration and imitation, are men constitutionally incapable of any such pecksniffian stupidity. Their ideal is not a safe life, but a full life; they do not try to follow the canary bird in a cage, but the eagle in the air. And in particular they do not flee from shadows and bugaboos. The alcohol myth is such a bugaboo. The sort of man it scares is the sort of man whose chief mark is that he is scared all the time.
H.L. Mencken, "Alcohol", Damn! A book of Calumny, 1918
July 31, 2006
QotD: Life
The solemn proofs, so laboriously deduced from life insurance statistics, that the man who uses alcohol dies slightly sooner than the teetotaler — these proofs merely show that this man is one who leads an active and vigorous life, and so faces hazards and uses himself up — in brief, one who lives at a high tempo and with full joy, what Nietzsche used to call the ja-sager, or yes-sayer. He may, in fact, die slightly sooner than the teetotaler, but he lives infinitely longer. Moreover, his life, humanly speaking, is much more worth while, to himself and to the race. He does the hard and dangerous work of the world, he takes the chances, he makes the experiments. He is the soldier, the artist, the innovator, the lover. All the great works of man have been done by men who thus lived joyously, strenuously, and perhaps a bit dangerously. They have never been concerned about stretching life for two or three more years; they have been concerned with making life engrossing and stimulating and a high adventure while it lasts. Teetotalism is as impossible to such men as any other manifestation of cowardice, and, if it were possible, it would destroy their utility and signifcance just as certainly.
H.L. Mencken, "Alcohol", Damn! A book of Calumny, 1918
July 27, 2006
That's not what you want to see . . .
. . . when you look out of your office window.
Yeah, I know, even if it's a fake, it's still funny.
Update, two minutes later: Yeah, viral marketing is suspected.
July 26, 2006
Souvenir of the Czech Republic
Jon's in-laws just got back from a trip to the Czech republic. Among the photos was this visual souvenir of the World Cup:
July 23, 2006
Lost in translation
Lois McMaster Bujold sent this link to the Bujold mailing list "because some things have to be seen":
July 21, 2006
QotD: The Planet of Toronto
Some days, working in Toronto feels more like being on the Away Team to the planet of the Progressive Latte People.
Paul Canniff, "Stuff I Can't Make up: T.O. Edition", Daimnation, 2006-07-20
July 20, 2006
QotD: Hollywood
I can't talk about Hollywood. It was a horror to me when I was there and it's a horror to look back on. I can't imagine how I did it. When I got away from it I couldn't even refer to the place by name. Out there, I called it.
Dorothy Parker
July 18, 2006
QotD: Maturity
As grownups, we don't often find our inner three-year-old steering the ship, but it happens. You scream at your computer. Your body orders, pays for, and consumes a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone when your mind could have sworn it was dieting. My inner child goes ape in a group. Five minutes in a lecture hall, and I'm ready to turn the curtains into my own personal trapeze.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Rheingold", Cork Jester, 2006-07-13
July 14, 2006
A case of mistaken identity
I guess it's been so long since a Canadian prime minister said anything like this that the mistake is quite understandable:
Arab papers are carrying Saudi Arabia's condemnation of Hezbollah. That hasn't stopped the UN and EU capitals from denouncing Israel. Go figure. But
AustralianCanadian* PM Stephen Harper isn't having any of it:
Harper, who is in London for a two-day visit, called Israel's response to the kidnapping of three soldiers "measured" and "simply self-defence".
[. . .]
* Well, he sounded like an Australian!
Hat tip to Jon for the URL.
July 13, 2006
QotD: LOTR Musical
The recently announced closure of the "Lord of the Rings" musical was no surprise to the Flea partially because I had heard reliable rumours to the effect weeks in advance and partially because I have now seen it. And it is bad. Shockingly bad. And that is saying something considering I walked in expecting dancing Hobbits.
Nicholas Packwood, "And Eve Was Weak", Ghost of a Flea, 2006-07-12
July 12, 2006
QotD: Wit
Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
Dorothy Parker
July 11, 2006
QotD: Wine
"All wine would be red," said the late Leon Adams, "if it could." While I'm not convinced that the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's '95 Montrachet feels socially inferior when it bumps into a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau on the streets of Beaune, I can sympathize with Adams's sentiment. Many drinkers think of a white wine as foreplay and feel somehow unsatisfied with a meal that doesn't lead eventually to red. Which is why, though summer undoubtedly has many features to recommend it — hot weather, tiny bathing suits, long days — some of us can't help dreading it as the doldrums of the red-wine drinker's year. It's hard to think about opening that big old bottle of Beaucastel or Beychevelle when you're sweating like a . . . I was about to say pig, but in fact, as my animal-mad wife has reminded me, pigs don't sweat. Sweating like a horse, maybe. Whatever. Anyway, I'm happy to report that some read wines go well with suntan lotion.
Jay McInerney, "Summer Reds", Bacchus & Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar, 2002
July 10, 2006
This is why jobs take forever to complete
While this starts as a model railroad thing, it perfectly encapsulates so many tasks:
Click to see full-size cartoon
QotD: Prayer
And what's up with the people who pray for material things? If you believe that God answers prayers for merchandise, it means the gap between the Almighty creator of the universe and Walmart is closing. God still has the lowest prices and widest selection, but how long can that last?
I have to say that I wasn't surprised to learn that praying for sick people didn't help. If praying worked, convenience stores would have lines of monks down the block every time the lottery reached $100 million.
But I was delighted to learn that I can hurt people by praying for them. Now when I get mad at someone, I no longer need to say that I wish he was dead. I'll just say, "I'll pray for your health," thus killing him.
Scott Adams, "Praying for Sick People", The Dilbert Blog, 2006-07-03
July 07, 2006
QotD: Academic Expulsions
Ever and anon another so-called radical professor is heaved out of a State university, always to the tune of bitter protests in the liberal weeklies. The usual defense of the trustees is that the doctrines he teaches are dangerous to the young. This puts him on all fours with Socrates — surely a somewhat large order. The real objection to his ideas, nine times out of ten, is that only idiots believe such things. But that objection has to be kept quiet, for it is saying nothing aposite against a professor in the average State university to prove that he is an idiot.
H.L. Mencken, "Prima Facie", Baltimore Evening Sun, 1931-07-25
July 05, 2006
The inevitable eBay auction
After England's ignominious exit from the World Cup at the hands of Portugal, this was probably inevitable:
As any true Englishman knows, our national football team's traditional crash-and-burn in the World Cup is never as a result of our own shortcomings.
Previous top quality excuses have involved excess heat, unexpectedly low atmospheric pressure, the wrong kind of grass on the pitch, players' concerns over the political situation in East Timor, etc, etc.
Mercifully, though, the 2006 debacle can be attributed to just one cause: "cheating goofy england hating portugezer" Cristiano Ronaldo whose shameful protestations at Wayne Rooney's treatment of Ricardo Carvalho led to the normally even-tempered Liverpudlian's expulsion from the match.
Just in case it's not clear enough . . . you can look up the meaning of irony if you need to.
July 03, 2006
QotD: Universities
Let us not burn the universities — yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse . . . Suppose Oxford had snared and disembowelled Shakespeare. Suppose Harvard had set its rubber-stamp upon Mark Twain.
H.L. Mencken, "The Saving Grace", Damn! A book of callumny, 1918.
June 30, 2006
Kim's Grandad joke
Kim du Toit has an amusing twist on the grandfather joke.
Hat tip to Jon, as usual.
June 28, 2006
LOTR Musical drops into Mount Doom
Jon sent along a link to this Toronto Star story on the closing down of the Lord of the Rings musical:
Just three months after it opened to largely negative reviews, producers of the $28-million Lord of the Rings stage show have announced it is closing.
"If the critics think they don't have power, believe me they do," Rings producer Kevin Wallace told a news conference today.
The show will close Sept. 3. A revamped version will reopen next May 9 in London.
Wallace levelled much of the blame for the show's abbreviated Toronto run at critics, saying the show had had a "rough ride" on this side of the Atlantic.
Nothing I can say will express things better than Jon's summary:
Producer blames bad reviews.
Mayor blames 9/11.
680 blamed the high Canadian dollar.
I blame the 63 or however many movies it was; endless History Channel, TLC, and Bravo! mockumentaries on the topic; countless books exploring the tedium of everything Tolkien (Entomolodor! Towards Understanding The Role of Insects in J.R.R. Tolkien's Endless Blathering About Homoerotic Dwarves); and a whole bunch of spotty-complexioned dead-eyed sunken-chested D'n'D-playing never-kissed-by-a-girl freakjobs lurching around hissing "My precious! My precious!" for the public's over saturation in the damn franchise.
QotD: Argentina versus Germany
German onlookers revelled in England's travails, chanting "Deutschland" and "Lukas Podolski", the striker whose two goals had propelled the hosts into a quarter-final with Argentina, a game bound to confuse English viewers over who to support. Perhaps the ref.
"Bumbling progress continues for England", Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-06-27
June 26, 2006
QotD: Patriotism
Patriotism is conceivable to a civilized man in time of stress and storm, when his country is wobbling and sore beset. His country then appeals to him as any victim of misfortune appeals to him — say, a street-walker pursued by the police. But when it is safe, happy and prosperous it can only excite his loathing. The things that make countries safe and happy are all intrinsically corrupting and disgusting. It is as impossible for a civilized man to love his country in good times as it would be for him to respect a politician.
H.L. Mencken, "Patriotism", A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, 1994
Posted by Nicholas at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2006
QotD: Economic Motivations
If you're the owner of a women's shoe store, and you want to hire someone that will work for cheap and still love his job, you want a guy with a major foot fetish. That guy will never call in sick. He might need to take frequent breaks during the day, but it's a small price to pay for such motivation. The foot fetish guy will always work for less pay than the guy who's thinking "Eww, I have to touch feet all day." Over time, the free market system would drive out all the non-foot-fetish guys.
Based on the same economic theory, I predict that someday our entire military will be gay. If people are shooting at you, it goes down a lot easier if you're huddling in a foxhole with a chiseled 20-year old and you can use lines such as, "Bruce, we might die today. But before we go . . ."
Scott Adams, "Shoe Salesman Economic Theory", The Dilbert Blog, 2006-06-16
June 23, 2006
Testing the "universality" of Shakespeare
A link at Hit and Run took me to this fascinating story of someone attempting to prove that the themes in Shakespeare are universally relevant:
Slightly shaken, I continued. "One of these three was a man who knew things" — the closest translation for scholar, but unfortunately it also meant witch. the second elder looked triumphantly at the first. "So he spoke to the dead chief saying, 'Tell us what we must do so you may rest in your grave.' but the dead chief did not answer. He vanished, and they could see him no more. Then the man who knew things — his name was Horatio — said this event was the affair of the dead chief's son Hamlet."
There was a general shaking of heads round the circle. "Had the dead chief no living brothers? Or was this son the chief?"
"No," I replied. "That is, he had one living brother who became the chief when the elder brother died."
The old men muttered: such omens were matters for chiefs and elders, not for youngsters; no good could come of going behind a chief's back; clearly Horatio was not a man who knew things.
"Yes, he was," I insisted, shooing a chicken away from my beer. "In our country the son is next to the father. The dead chief's younger brother had become the great chief. He had also married his elder brother's widow only about a month after the funeral."
"He did well," the old man beamed and announced to the others, "I told you that if we knew more about Europeans, we would find they really were very like us. In our country also," he added to me, "the younger brother marries the elder brother's widow and becomes the father of his children. Now, if your uncle, who married your widowed mother, is your father's full brother, then he will be a real father to you. Did Hamlet's father and uncle have one mother?"
His question barely penetrated my mind; I was too upset and thrown too far off balance by having one of the most important elements of Hamlet knocked straight out of the picture. Rather uncertainly I said that I thought they had the same mother, but I wasn't sure — the story didn't say. The old man told me severely that these genealogical details made all the difference and that when I got home I must ask the elders about it. He shouted out the door to one of his younger wives to bring his goatskin bag.
June 22, 2006
Breasts are exposed! The Reg is there!
A cautionary tale about how to present your merchandise for sale on eBay.
QotD: Criticism
In all ages there arise protests from tender men against the bitterness of criticism, especially social criticism. They are the same men who, when they come down with malaria, patronize a doctor who prescribes, not quinine, but marshmallows.
H.L. Mencken, "Cassandra's Lament", Baltimore Evening Sun, 1929-11-18
June 20, 2006
A different take on childhood reading
Certainly not quite the way most of us remember Dick and Jane.
Hat tip to Craig Zeni.
QotD: Homeopathy
If homeopathic methods of drug administration work so well, why hasn't anyone started selling homeopathic whisky? This approach also strikes me as a great way to get round illegal possession of recreational drugs, as no trace of the offending substance will be detectable by conventional forensics. Big dealers must surely have explored this obvious trick, so the absence of homeopathic cocaine, cannabis and heroin suggest that there's nothing in it in more ways than one.
Roy Smith, letter from issue 2555 of New Scientist magazine, 10 June 2006, page 27
June 15, 2006
Harry Hutton taunts the proles
Harry Hutton has unique ways of enjoying the World Cup:
Oh to be in England, now that football's there, to drive around beeping my car horn like a cunt, and taunt my idiot countrymen in German. "Ha! Ha! One-nil, Englisher dumbkopfs." The expression of hatred on their dim resentful faces is one of the things that make life worth living.
Most of them are too thick even to insult me properly, though sometimes they'll come back with, "Two World Wars and one World Cup," which I always counter with, "Three World Cups and one economic miracle," and then Deutschland Uber Alles or the Horst Wessel Song. During Italia 90 I got in three different fights. It's always a magical time for me.
Update: Whoops! Forgot to tip the hat to Major-General Flea.
QotD: Rugby
Coming from Tasmania, where very little rugby union is played, I know very little about the code. I am sure they have rules, I just can't work out what they are.
Their positions are foreign to me. Who would let their young son play a game which has a player position called a Hooker? Rugby also has players called Props, which aren't airplanes. It has Scrumhalves which, presumably were Scrumwholes until they were chewed up by the Props. It has Outside Centres and Inside Centres. Clearly, no one of authority has ever pointed out that centre means right smack in the middle and it's not possible to have two of them. Then there are Weak Side Wingers and Strong Side Wingers. How discriminatory is that? What lesson does it send to kids? Superman probably plays on one side and Clark Kent plays on the other.
John Martin, "No son of mine is going to play with Hookers", Dunno, 2001-06-18
June 13, 2006
QotD: Homeopathy
A recent but short-lived line, which never caught on despite the best scientific recommendation, was Bearhugger's Homeopathic Sipping Whiskey. It is a founding fact of homeopathy that the effectiveness of a remedy increases with dilution. Jimkin decided, therefore, that this idea could profitably be applied to his own product.
Strangely enough, the slogan 'Every drop diluted 1 million times!' failed to attract custom even though, in theory, merely being in the same room as an uncorked bottle of the stuff should make the purchaser riotously drunk.
Terry Pratchett, The Discworld Companion
June 10, 2006
QotD: The Presidency
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H. L. Mencken
June 09, 2006
Finding that elusive common denominator
Canadians love to think of their country as being multicultural, diverse, unprejudiced, unbiased, etc., etc. Our federal police, the RCMP, are doing everything they possibly can to avoid being seen to draw the wrong conclusion:
Staff Superintendent Pauline Tumble: Wait, Sarge! The stupid floorsweep may be on to something. Look at those names: Fahim Ahmad; Zakaria Amara; Asad Ansari; Shareef Abdelhaleen; Qayyum Abdul Jamal; Mohammed Dirie; Yasim Abdi Mohamed; Jahmaal James; Amin Mohamed Durrani; Abdul Shakur; Ahmad Mustafa Ghany; Saad Khalid. Do you see the pattern?
Sgt. Warren Bollard: (adjusts glasses, peers yet more intently at the intricate graph) Yes . . . yes, I think I do see something. Something that rather leaps out at one, once one strips away all the distractions surrounding this confounding and inexplicable case!
de Funt: (still sweeping) Dey is all . . .
Sgt. Warren Bollard: They’re all male!
Hat tip to Martina P. for the link.
June 06, 2006
Accidental humour
I'm sure I'm misreading this:
But if you lived in Ontario during his Premiership, you might feel you've been well-acquainted with terror . . .
The media at work
Roger Henry sent this to one of my many mailing lists, and I found it hilarious:
Channel Nine sets up a TV interview between its Sydney studio and a camera somewhere in East Timor/Timor Este to interview the Brigadier commanding Oz forces in the capital city, where some extensive rioting has broken out.
Jessica Rowe, in studio "Well Brigadier, it seems to be a nasty and very dangerous situation where you are. I imagine that even you don't feel particularly safe even with some guards?"
Camera pans in on two burly, armed, soldiers standing behind the Brigadier.
Brigadier responds "No Jessica, I feel quite safe where I am. The two soldiers behind me were placed there by your stage manager to try and add some drama to the interview."
Jessica "Cough, hack, splutter."
Segment being re-run endlessly by competing channels.
Get that man a medal!
Update: Commenter Siggi points to the Youtube post with the footage.
June 03, 2006
QotD: Old Wine
[Aging wine was] a necessity back when young wine had the softness of Brillo and the finish of Drano. Nowadays, most wine comes ready to drink and doesn't get any better. A few can still go the distance, but they're not for everyone. The bottle giveth complexity, but it taketh away fruit. As winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff put it, "Appreciating old wine is like making love to a very old lady. It is possible. It can even be enjoyable. But it requires a bit of imagination."
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Encyclopedia of Wine Hokum, Vol A-F, or New Studies on Old Hogwash", Rocky Mountain News, 2004-04-10
June 01, 2006
Best question of the day
This has to count as one of the funniest things I've read this week:
I'm back from the NSF, the National Security Forum. For the last 53 years, the airforce has been having a get together for about a hundred or so civilians from various walks of life who get together with the graduating class of the Air War College (these are generally career officers, Lt. Col's or better, who spend a year in what is essentially an advance studies college), become part of a seminar class in which we interact with the officers and get to know the humans behind the military, and hear various lectures from professors, scholars, and such administration advisors as the Air Force chief of staff and the Secretary of the air force.
I can't go into detail about the specifics of what was said, although I will tell you that during one Q&A, I stood up and asked the Secretary of the Air force if the President ever sends him flowers on Secretaries Day.
Hat tip to Wizbang.
QotD: Movie soundtracks
Listening to the "Da Vinci Code" soundtrack, which has its moments. It's by Hans Zimmer, your go-to guy for ominous thrumming tortured-hero music. He uses the same rhythmic modules he used in the "Batman" soundtrack, and that's a good thing, although if you can't tell if the music is meant for the Son of God or a guilt-drenched billionaire in a rubber suit, you might want to fine tune your modalities . . . ah, there's the religious element. Choirs. It sounds absolutely agonized, though; it's like one long musical apology for the Shocking Truth the heroes are uncovering. Sorry about this, Jesus. At least it's not Enigma. You remember Enigma: moody Euro soft-corn porn soundtracks with sampled Gregorian chants, punctuated by a breathy chanteuse asking questions of the Marquis De Sade. In French, naturellement. "Etes vous . . . diabolique?" Prolly so, yeah; if the coprophilia wasn't a strong enough hint, let me tie you down and prick you with peacock quills dipped in the blood of infants. I think they got sixteen albums out of that idea.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-05-31
May 31, 2006
QotD: "Conservative" rock music
As for anti-authoritarianism, if there's one thing the last six years have taught us, it's that conservatism and authoritarianism are more than compatible — hey go hand in hand, so long as the authoritarians themselves are sufficiently conservative. Sorry. But Miller can't claim anti-authoritarian anthems like "Won't Get Fooled Again" or "Cult of Personality" (is there a better recent of Corey Glover's warnings about ceaseless devotion to political power than the right's bizarre allegiance to President Bush, despite his record?).
Of course, there's also something humorously desperate about trying to compile a list of songs from a style of music whose very existence defies the fundamental tenets of conservatism, and claim them for conservatism. Everything about rock n' roll, from its roots to its composition to its rise, was in defiance of the "tradition" conservatives hold sacred.
Radley Balko, "Reagan Rock", The Agitator, 2006-05-30
May 30, 2006
Andrew recasts Godwin's Law for Canadian debaters
Jon sent this link to Bound by Gravity, where Andrew has performed a very useful transformation of Godwin's Law, specifically for Canadian content:
Godwin's Law, Canadian Variant:
As a online discussion about Canadian politics grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the United States of America or a member of the Republican party approaches one.
Whenever a journalist, blogger, or commenter chimes in with a reductio ad americanum my respect for what they have written immediately drops a few notches, and I am less likely to take their point of view seriously. It is lazy rhetoric, and rarely appropriate. Even when the comparison is valid, the author's point could have been made (usually far more succinctly) using a different choice of words.
Bonus Snark:
Godwin's Law, Conservative/Libertarian Variant:
As a online discussion about left-versus-right politics grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the USSR or Stalin approaches one.
QotD: Spelling
I'm pretty sure nitpicking a geek's spelling certifies that I will be doomed to become one. Thank God it's too late for me to die a virgin.
Sheep count, right?
"ThisIsMyHandle", commenting in the thread for a post on Fark.com, 2006-05-29
May 27, 2006
QotD: Gender Imbalances in China
[. . .] in the east the so-called guang gun — "bare branches": since China introduced its "one child" policy in 1978, the imbalance between the sexes has increased to the point where there are 119 boys for every 100 girls, the most gender-distorted demographic cohort in history. The pioneer generation of that 20 per cent male surplus is reaching manhood now. Asked about this on the radio a year or two back, I suggested that maybe China's planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta, and promptly received a ton of indignant emails.
Mark Steyn, "The future is spelled C-H-I-N-A", Macleans, 2006-05-26
May 25, 2006
It had to happen sooner or later
Jon sent along a link to 1-900-Reality:
ANNOUNCER
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1-900-REALITY…ANNOUNCER
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1-900-REALITY…
QotD: Mark Twain
A good half of the humor of Mark Twain consisted of admitting shamelessly to vices and weaknesses that all of us have and few of us care to acknowledge.
H.L. Mencken, "The Ulster Polonius", Prejudices: First Series, 1919
May 21, 2006
New model cat carrier
Check out the new Tabby Tote® feline transportation system.
May 20, 2006
QotD: Bad Wine Reviews
While reading Parker can help increase your knowledge about wine, reading bad wine writing doesn't teach you much. Here's Robert Draper in the February 2002 issue of GQ, writing about the 1999 Bacio Divino: "The '99's fruit attack soars like a meteor shower, then seethes in the palate like a cosmic bath of nearly unplumable depths . . . like an unforgettable encounter with a raven-haired ingenue, one is left feeling exhilarated, intrigued, and ultimately covetous." Pfui! That's purple prose all right, and not because it's stained with wine. Besides saying nothing, the paragraph ought to be used in writing schools as an example of mistakes to avoid. Meteor showers don't soar, they fall to earth. Things may seethe on the palate, but not in the palate. The word is unplumbable, not unplumable. And while I may have been exhilarated and intrigued by my encounters with raven-haired ingenues, I've never been covetous. But I thank Mr. Draper for such a magnificent example of bad writing.
Jeff Cox, Cellaring Wine, 2003
May 19, 2006
Contradictory signage
Jon and I were at a Lick's burger joint earlier this week. Just above the cash registers were a pair of signs:
Click the extended entry to see clearer versions of the signs.
 |  |
Jon's comment: "How can we reward ourselves if they've got cameras on the cash registers?"
I guess you had to be there . . .
May 18, 2006
Florida . . . by Fark
The usual suspects at Fark clearly love Florida. You can tell by the loving care they've put into these suggested new specialty license plate designs.
May 17, 2006
I'm glad I don't get comments like this
Austin Bay gets the oddest comments on his blog, but this one is either the product of a terribly diseased mind or the most outrageous troll:
Mr. Bay, the problem you present has a basic fallacy. As any right thinking person knows it is White European Males that are the cause of the world's problems. The indigenous American population can not be faulted as part of the "man is the problem" school. One need only watch "Dances With Wolves" to fully comprehend this fact. Since White European Males were not on the North American continent at the time of the die off of the species in question, it is intuitively obvious that man was not the cause.
Where are the "re-education camps" when you need them? In the true sense of fraternal socialism.
Austin closed that item with this: "Yes, we are trying to correct the problem with the spam filter."
QotD: Sex
Every adult must at some point have paused during some slapstick piece of debauchery and thought, "Christ, this is ridiculous". Having testicles is like being chained to the village idiot. Sad, but there it is. And when we have solved every racial, political and economic problem, we will still be stuck with that one.
Harry Hutton, "Non-Kinky Sex is a Waste of Time", Chase me, ladies, I'm in the cavalry, 2005-01-31
May 16, 2006
May 15, 2006
The YouTube Strikes Back
Elizabeth sent this link to yet another Star Wars spoof:
QotD: The Da Vinci Code
Devout Christians, who perceive the book as an attack on their faith, have not taken this lying down. Cardinal Francis Arinze recently denounced the novel, urging legal action against Brown and issuing a vague threat: "Christians must not just sit back and say it is enough for us to forgive and to forget . . . There are some other religions which if you insult their founder they will not be just talking." The Church of England has taken a smarter approach, producing a user-friendly series of documentaries and a movie trailer that shows Jesus making a funny face — always comedy gold. (Not since the Falklands War have Anglicans proven so much better in a fight than Catholics.)
Tim Cavanaugh, "You're Already Part of the Phenomenon", Reason Online, 2006-05-12
May 14, 2006
QotD: Obesity
So forget fast food, TV, computer games, and the Internet. The truth is simpler (and at the same time, more compicated) than that. For the first time in its million year history — in fact, I'm a member of the first generation to find itself, full time, in this position — most of our species has too much to eat, rather than too little.
For this, Auntie Evolution did not prepare us. (Eventually she will, of course, as those whose blood vessels don't clog up with lard have marginally more offspring than those whose blood vessels do — or should I have said, "margarinally"?) Auntie Evolution prepared us for lengthy stretches of famine, alternating with occasional periods of starvation.
L. Neil Smith, "Candy From Babies ", Libertarian Enterprise, 2006-05-07
May 12, 2006
eBay pulls New Zealand auction
Apparently, New Zealand isn't really for sale:
With a starting offer of just one cent, brisk bidding for the prime chunk of South Pacific real estate quickly boosted the price to 3,000 Australian dollars before eBay pulled the plug on the auction this week. "Clearly New Zealand is not for sale," eBay Australia spokesman Daniel Feiler told the New Zealand Press Association, adding that 22 bids had been made before the company acted.
May 11, 2006
Woodworking anti-FAQ
I somehow missed seeing this year's annual appearance of the rec.woodworking anti-FAQ, but it's well worth reading:
This is the rec.woodworking anti-FAQ. This anti-FAQ will be posted annually to rec.woodworking on the first of April. The purpose of this anti-FAQ is to minimize the amount of chatter about wood working on rec.woodworking, thereby making the newsgroup more lively and interesting to read.
Suggestions for improvement should be kept to yourself. To be perfectly honest, I don't give a flying fig about your opinions. If I want to know what you think, I'll ask you. Just don't hold your breath.
I realize that putting FAQ in a header ensures that almost nobody will read it, but I'm doing this for my own satisfaction.
And an example question-and-answer:
2.2 SHOULD I BUY A TABLE SAW OR A RADIAL ARM SAW?
Buy a band saw instead. The cut wanders all over the place and they leave nifty decorative ridge lines. Then you'll get the chance to spend hours and hours hand planing the ridge lines and straightening and squaring the butchered wood with antique hand planes. (See Hand Plane FAQ)Speaking of butchering, the purchase of a bandsaw can more easily be justified to your spouse because it is absolutely indispensable in cutting frozen food.
You can also use band saws to cut thick stuff in half, such as yourself, other people, frozen bread and chickens, dead cats, and Ming vases, none of which can be handled by a TS or RAS. The most a TS or RAS can cut is little more than the thickness of a hand.
Hat tip to Avery Austringer.
QotD: NeoPuritanism
Over the years I've seen the neopuritans go into exactly the same kind of phony hysterics over comic books, video arcades, home video games whose themes they prudishly disapprove of, and pornography, each and every one of these things harmless, if not positively beneficial (Internet porn may be the only thing keeping the otherwise sinking American economy afloat), and certainly entitled to a more honored place in human civilization than the dogwhistles complaining about them.
"Dogwhistles?" I pretend to hear you asking. A marvelous concept from that splendid movie Strange Days. Dogwhistles are neopuritans whose assholes are so tight that when they fart, only dogs can hear them. Rude, but every bit as valid as Mencken's definition of the affliction.
L. Neil Smith, "Candy From Babies ", Libertarian Enterprise, 2006-05-07
May 08, 2006
Unintentional fun
Some friends of Victor decided to make a funny video. They got a bit more attention than they'd planned . . .
May 07, 2006
QotD: Fear
There were two sounds of terror: the Emergency Broadcast Signal, which you learned was the sound of the end of the world, and the sirens, which announced tornados. I had a Wizard-of-Oz notion of twisters — evil dirty-cotton fingers that wrote death on the land, throwing up fences and cows and houses. Before you understand death, or sociopathy, or evil in any form, you understand the implacable nature of, well, Nature, and how there's nothing you can do about it. Dad cannot make it go away. The President cannot command it to cease. It can kill Bozo and Mr. Greenjeans. It comes, and it is done when it's done. I was born in the year of a Tornado, and when I would look at the newspapers my parents had saved, it was like looking at the Pompeii Daily the day Vesuvius burst.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-05-04
May 05, 2006
A dumb criminal story
This is just too funny: Crap crim caged for four years.
Demotivator posters for the SCA
Yet another kick at the infamous "Motivator" poster meme: Demotivator posters for the SCA.
Hat tip to Rob Galbraith for the link.
QotD: The Newspaper Boy
A vanished breed, the Newspaper Boy. They neither hawk nor toss, except in some quaint hamlets where the publisher's son rises once a week to put an unrequested copy of the local paper on the doorsteps. Pity. I was a newspaper boy, and a very bad one; it taught me that the world depends on people who get up early on Sundays, and that I did not want to be one of them. The trick is to be the guy who pays them.
James Lileks, "First Day Covers", Lileks.com, 2006-05-03
May 04, 2006
I'm sure your IT folks aren't like this . . .
Snipped from the most recent edition of the BOfH papers:
"I talked to the security people and they said..."
"Sorry, you talked to OUR security?"
"Yes, and they..."
"About an electronic transaction?"
"Yes, and..."
"And you know their skills in computing are limited to putting a red card on a black card?"
"Or vice versa," the PFY says.
"No, they ring the helpdesk for that."
April 23, 2006
QotD: Blogging
I think blogging is way past the stale date and, if activity on many of my favorites from when I started writing is anything to go by, so do a lot of other bloggers. Yet it still chugs on, eating up the work day, proving once again that the greatest product of time-saving devices will always be more slackery.
Alan McLeod, "Now Returning You To Your Normal Programming", Gen X at 40, 2006-04-19
April 21, 2006
Because they don't run out of bullets
Hat tip to Chris Zakes.
April 20, 2006
Rube Goldberg's legacy continues
Christian Tucker sent this link to one of my mailing lists: http://www.newportharbor.us/computerworks.htm. If you like weird assemblages of auto parts, dominos, and other weird conglomerations, this is one make of mere electrons.
April 19, 2006
Wikipedia explained
Wikipedia is one of the oddest sites you'll ever encounter . . . well, if you don't go too far off into the tall grass that is. Lore Sjöberg gives you the key insights you need to begin to understand Wikipedia:
What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a new paradigm in human discourse. It's a place where anyone with a browser can go, pick a subject that interests them, and without even logging in, start an argument. In fact, Wikipedia is the largest and most comprehensive collection of arguments in human history, incorporating spats and vendettas on subjects ranging from Suleiman the Magnificent to Dan the Automator. As an unexpected side effect of being the perfect argument space, it's also a pretty good place to find information about all the characters from Battlestar: Galactica.
Why do people talk about Wikipedia so much?
Wikipedia is such a powerful argument engine that it actually leaks out to the rest of the web, spontaneously forming meta-arguments about itself on any open message board.
April 17, 2006
Another one destined for the "Special Hell"
He's going to the Special Hell? O RLY? NO WAI!!!
Some explanations are available here.
Hat tip to Geoff Hart, who forwarded the link to the Tech Writers mailing list with this comment:
Follow the link at the top to the WikiPedia article on O RLY for more amusement. This particular neologism has spawned many mutant offspring, including (bonus for fans of H.P. Lovecraft, but put down your coffee before reading on . . . ) O Rlyeh. <g>
April 09, 2006
QotD: Wine Writers
A typical wine writer was once described as someone with a typewriter who was looking for his name in print, a free lunch, and a way to write off his wine cellar. It's a dated view. Wine writers now use computers.
Frank J. Prial, "A Writer Many French Chateau Owners Rely Upon", Decantations, 2001
April 08, 2006
QotD: The male animal
In shared DNA, a man is actually genetically closer to a male chimp than to a human female (as many women observed, before science). Our brains are configured differently (whether by evolution or intelligent design), and it would follow that our behaviour varies accordingly. We look backwards in time (the only objective way to test propositions about human nature), and find that this has been acknowledged in all human cultures.
David Warren, "Manliness", davidwarrenonline.com, 2006-03-26
April 07, 2006
QotD: Wine Glasses
[. . .] I lack the knowledge of which glass goes with the proper wine. As I understand it, the long-stemmed glasses prevent the palm from changing the temperature of the wine — something I could understand if you had a fever of 104; otherwise, it seems a bit much. Tall stems make the glasses good for two things: tipping over when the table's bumped, and snapping off in the dishwasher. Me, I drink wine from a tumbler. (Hark! Hear the sound of heads striking hardwood floors all across the city, as wine connoisseurs swoon in horror. Sounds like popping corks, no?)
James Lileks, "Is the wine glass ironic or iconic?", Star Tribune, 2006-04-05
April 06, 2006
Conspiracy theories
Debbye is back to posting, and links to this post from Basketbawful on the Gatorade Conspiracy [Warning: adult content, only marginally SFW.]
This is just wrong
James Lileks talks about a fascinating new wine glass:
[. . .] the Sommelier: a glass version of the ubiquitous kegger cup, mounted on an elegant stem. It's aimed straight at those people who fret that their party's drinkware isn't sarcastic enough. Granted, they're only hip if you know they're a joke, which means you have to hand them out with the assurance that you are reveling in their amusing reinterpretation of an iconic shape. Or you could make an announcement: Folks, I know the glasses are ugly; they're elevating a pedestrian object to a class status it does not inherently possess. Enjoy! Then everyone can drink without wondering what happened to your taste.
April 05, 2006
QotD: 1970s TV
There's one period in the 20th century for which I have no love and less pity, and it's the narrow transitional window of 1969 to 1975, the period of [Dick] Cavett's prime. This era coincides with my early teen years, which is probably why it all leaves me unenthused — but it's also a time where the print media got ugly, and TV had this odd hard cold plastic sheen. A fatal combination of lighting and camera technology, color schemes, and set design. Everything looked happy and false and garish. Everything looks like Dean Martin's Vegas Mausoleum.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-03-14
April 02, 2006
QotD: Canadian Peacekeeping
Under the Liberals, Canada was the quintessential post-nationalist nation, and, indeed, so aggressively so that our post-nationalism became more jingoistic than conventional nationalism: "The world needs more Canada," etc. We were too busy promoting ourselves as the great peacekeeping nation to actually do any. We're currently at No. 32 on the hit parade of UN peacekeeping deployments, below not just the Great Satan (31) but also Benin (30), which I, with my typical dead-white-male Eurocentric arrogance, had assumed was the kind of Afro-Marxist basket case to which you deploy UN peacekeepers. Well, good for Benin for shouldering its share of the globocop burden. And, unlike Canada, it doesn't brag about it on five-dollar bills and in beer commercials.
Mark Steyn, "Enough with the globo-gab", Macleans, 2006-03-27
March 30, 2006
A different shotgun link
This one will be of interest to Liam and others who habitually "call shotgun"
March 27, 2006
Lame humour, part MMMCLXXIV
If you can't get enough giggles out of the old "Chevy Nova in Mexico" joke, you'll just love Rude Food.
Hat tip to "TOM"
March 21, 2006
QotD: The Publishing Industry
Publishing is such a stupid, stupid business. Not the people in publishing; they're smart and funny and a pleasure to be around. But the business itself — it's like designing elephants that give birth to small cars. No one knows quite how to go about it, but when they go to the zoo and see elephants and walk down the street and see small cars, they figure they must be doing something right.) (I have no idea if that makes sense, but it's entirely accurate.)
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-03-07
March 20, 2006
QotD: Climate Change
[Tim Flannery] suggests that if humanity were facing the threat of cold, rather than heat, the talking would have been over long ago and a strong plan of action would be in place. His point is that Homo sapiens is a tropical species which, having only recently spread to temperate and frigid climes, still thinks like a tropical species. It really fears the cold, but rather likes the heat. The word "warming", therefore, has positive overtones. So perhaps the underlying problem is not so much, as in the case of staying slim, that you have to trade a real sacrifice now for a potential benefit in the future, but that a lot of people who are perfectly willing to believe that global warming is happening don't really see it is a problem at all.
"Cold comfort", The Economist, 2006-03-02
March 11, 2006
QotD: Leftists and Political Islam
A tip for pro-Islam leftists: when next you feel the need to defend political Islam, just imagine you're defending anti-gay, anti-abortion, Darwin-opposing southern US creationists. You may be surprised at the change in your thinking.
Tim Blair, "Paradox Assistance Provided", Tim Blair, 2006-03-03
March 10, 2006
QotD: Modern Childhood
It is damn tough to be a kid growing up in today's America. According to the Monitoring the Future Study, an ongoing survey of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders, kids do fewer recreational (read: illegal) drugs, drink less booze, and smoke fewer cigarettes than their counterparts did 30 years ago (not for nothing did last year's remake of 1976's Bad News Bears substitute non-alcoholic beer for the real thing in the movie's final celebratory scene). Fewer of them are having sex, too, says the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (and it seems a foregone conclusion that, in a world with less drugs, booze, and smokes, what little sex they are having can't be very good). They start school earlier and go longer than ever before.
Perhaps most chillingly, scholars at the University of Michigan Survey Research Center have documented a stunning decline in unstructured, unorganized "free time," with kids losing a dozen hours a week of unfettered hang-time since the late '70s. As any pint-sized Pete Rose could tell you, time in organized sports has doubled over the same period and, as a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette account grimly notes, "the amount of homework increased dramatically between 1981 and 1997 . . . The amount given to 6- to 8-year-olds tripled during that time." Suffer the little children (and, in this case at least, their parents)!
Forget for the moment that today's kids will live longer and richer lives (the bastards). And that they face a future overstuffed with options when it comes to education, work arrangements, and lifestyle choices. Childhood has in some serious way been stripped of its essential aimlessness, of shapeless, formless, and seemingly endless days and nights spent whiling away the time doing precisely nothing that will help you get a Rhodes Scholarship or first-round venture capital for a startup. Between the Hooked on Phonics tapes and the Reader Rabbit computer games, between the increasing amount of obligatory "volunteer work" and the fast-becoming-mandatory SAT prep class, kids are now effectively on the career track by the time they step out of Pampers.
Nick Gillespie, Reason, 2006-03-03
March 09, 2006
QotD: Airport Security
I was directed, shoeless, into the little pen with the black plastic swinging door. A stranger approached, a tall woman with burnt-orange hair. She looked in her 40s. She was muscular, her biceps straining against a tight Transportation Security Administration T-shirt. She carried her wand like a billy club. She began her instructions: Face your baggage. Feet in the footmarks. Arms out. Fully out. Legs apart. Apart. I'm patting you down.
It was like a 1950s women's prison movie. I got to be the girl from the streets who made a big mistake; she was the guard doing intake. "Name's Veronica, but they call me Ron. Want a smoke?" Beeps and bops, her pointer and middle fingers patting for explosives under the back of my brassiere; the wand on and over my body, more beeps, more pats. The she walked wordlessly away. I looked around, slowly put down my arms, rearranged my body. For a moment I thought I might plaintively call out, "No kiss goodbye? No, 'I'll call'?" But they might not have been amused. And actually I wasn't either.
I experienced the search not only as an invasion of privacy, which it was, but as a denial or lowering of that delicate thing, dignity. The dignity of a woman, of a lady, of a person with a right not to be manhandled or to be, or to feel, molested.
Peggy Noonan, "Embarassing the Angels", Wall Street Journal, 2006-03-02
March 08, 2006
QotD: Clothing
So I'm standing in the men's department, looking at the ugliest tie ever designed. Looks like someone rolled a Pepto-Bismol bomb into the bathroom at the Colorblind Scotch Tartan factory. Wave this thing at blind people and they grip their stomachs; wear it near a kennel and dogs fall over, ears ringing. You'd be more popular if you walked around poking people in the eye with the neck of a broken Tabasco bottle. On the other hand, it was on sale.
James Lileks, "Just a nasty case of having to tie one on", Star-Tribune, 2006-03-01
March 07, 2006
Castle Argghhh helps Vancouver tourism
Those kind-hearted folks down at Castle Argghhh! take a bit of time to help answer some questions that potential visitors to Canada would like answered:
Believe it or not these questions about Canada were posted on an International Tourism website. Obviously the answers are a joke, but the questions are real...
Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow?( UK)
A. We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around and watch them die.
Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA)
A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.
Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto-can I follow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.
Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada? (Sweden)
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes.
March 05, 2006
QotD: Bestsellers
This is a fascinating mystery story. As someone who loves books and has worked in publishing, I have long been perplexed by the massive sales of leaden conspiracy 'thrillers' (as I have to write it, being really very ungripped) and of pseudo-histories.
These are strange alien artefacts in the literary world. They appear to be books, having the same physical manifestation. Yet the words in them have no rhythm, and make no sense, the world they portray is all surface, all banality: all invented, but paradoxically without imagination.
The familiar book, grounded in fact or rich in fiction, sells (mostly slowly) to an audience that comes back for more books. These . . . I need another wordname . . . reads are bought in vast numbers by people who do not otherwise read. You see them swarming on the tube, at bus-stops, in advertisements as book-club special offers, everywhere. And then they are gone. Where?
Few have the life-span of a book, it seems. But where do they go to die? They are seldom seen in second-hand shops. And why are they so successful when they are plainly so inbred?
Guy Herbert, "The case of the recycled tripe", Samizdata, 2006-02-28
March 03, 2006
Too dumb to live
Via Tim Blair, a story of a would-be criminal mastermind:
A woman who apparently thought a block of white cheese was cocaine has pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hit man to rob and kill four men.
Jessica Sandy Booth, 18, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Authorities said Booth hatched the plot after visiting the intended victims' home and mistaking fresco — a white, crumbly cheese common in Mexican cuisine — for cocaine. That inspired the idea to hire someone to break into the home, take the drugs and kill the men.
The hit man she hired turned out to be an undercover police officer.
March 02, 2006
Crunchy?
Radley Balko gets in the best shot against so-called crunchy conservatism:
. . . there's something inherently silly about waxing forlorn about the corrosive effects of modernity . . . on a blog.
Old memes never die . . .
Jon and I were discussing a viral marketing "thing" earlier on today, so I did a quick Google for it: Terrible Terry Tate, Office Linebacker. The one we both found hilarious was the Sensitivity Training video, with the "Badge of Shame":
March 01, 2006
More toilet humour
Following up yesterday's toilet restaurant report, there's more toilet trouble for the Colon family:
A family from Charlotte, North Carolina, is currently engaged in a stand-off with the local utilities company over who is responsible for cleaning up the aftermath of a toilet explosion which has forced them from their home.
Mum Marilyn Colon told local news outfit WCNC.com: "We heard a thump. Feces, urine, oil . . . it went all through the house. You couldn't breathe, your eyes would tear."
You'd think a news item like this would raise quite a stink.
February 28, 2006
Toilet humour . . . at the table
I posted a brief entry about this last year, but Samantha Burns gets to the bottom of the situation:
Many may have heard about it before, but I just couldn't live with myself without reporting on it.
Yes, you heard me correctly, Taiwan has a toilet bowl restaurant.
If you are lucky enough to dine at this elegant restaurant, you will not only get to sit on the piss pot, but you'll get to eat from it as well.
Castle Argghhh runs a caption contest
John of Argghhh! has some clean, innocent fun with a photo of a Canadian soldier being interviewed.
Economics joke
From Radley Balko's Agitator last year:
Three guys are in a jail cell. They start to talking and find out that they're all gas station owners.
The first one says, "I set my prices at a couple of cents higher than my competitors. I'm in here for price-gouging."
The second one says "I set my prices at a couple of cents lower than my competitors. I'm in here for predatory practices."
The third one says "I set my prices at the same price as my competitors. I'm in here for collusion!"
As Radley says in his wrap up: "It's funny 'cause it's true."
Well, at least I'm not this bad . . .
Apparently collectors are a dying breed, according to this WSJ article:
In Graytown, Ohio, 51-year-old Doug Martin has amassed a collection of 5,000 pencils, most of them never used. Some date back to the 1800s.
He sometimes wonders what will become of his prized collection when he dies. Will his children stick them in a sharpener and write with them? "It hurts to think about it," he says.
Young people today have little interest in the stamp, coin or knickknack collections of their elders, so an aging America can't help but wonder: What's going to happen to all those boxes in the basement?
It occurred to me a few years ago that collecting — in the sense of seeking out odd and unusual items to make an eclectic set — seems to have dropped right out of the class of activities that people adopt as hobbies in childhood and continue through their lives. Of course, this is only a tragedy to those who are still afflicted with the collection bug:
[. . .] most young people don't connect with their elders' collections. In Goodyear, Ariz., Zita Wessa, 72, says her grandchildren walk past her display cases of gnome figurines "and show no interest at all." Her 45-year-old son, Scott, says he'd be happy to inherit one of the giant cabinets she stores them in, but the gnomes "don't do much for me. If she begged me to take them, I would, because I love my mother. But I don't know what I'd do with them." (His mom says she paid $5,600 over the years for her 160 gnomes, but their current value is uncertain.)
William Adrian, 72, of Plainfield, Ill., collects miniature guns. He says his three children "wouldn't give you a twenty-dollar bill for any of it."
"Collecting is about memory, and young people today have a different memory base," explains Mr. Rinker, who is well known in antiquing circles for his books and personal appearances. He lives in a 14,000-square-foot former elementary school in Vera Cruz, Pa. He uses the classrooms as storage spaces for his 250 different collections. He says he doesn't care what becomes of it all once he's gone, and if his children opt to use his rolls of century-old toilet paper, "that might be the finest honor they can give me."
As a kid, I had lots of "collections", including stamps, coins, military badges, and so on. By their very nature, they were open-ended groupings of similar things. Others my age collected things like hockey cards . . . where it was theoretically possible to actually complete the set (and then stop?). My son's generation seems to have followed that "other" side of collecting: the finite set model (Pokemon cards being the obvious example).
I've long since stopped collecting most of the things that interested me as a child, but I don't think I'll be able to kick the book collecting habit. I don't buy 'em as "collectables": I buy 'em because I plan on eventually getting around to reading 'em. After that, however, I do confess I have a problem getting rid of them . . .
QotD: Firefly
I know a few of you are waiting for the "Firefly" review. Well. I watched the pilot. I should preface my remarks, by way of explanation, with a confession of prejudices. Western stuff doesn't do much for me — horses, six shooters — and it's not what I look for in my sci-fi. And I find myself less and less interested in committing to another sci-fi world, since the ones in which I invested anything either disappointed (Star Wars, Matrix) or went on too long (Star Trek. In fact, the only reason the last season of Enterprise was so good was because they went back to the source to explain the first series — a clever move, well done, but not exactly an endorsement of the story's vitality.) When "Firefly" first came out I read good reviews, and stayed away because I was certain it would be cancelled, and I would be annoyed. There was also a certain amount of Buffyness hanging over the project, and I'd managed to completely miss that one as well. So I watched the pilot Friday night out of obligation, really — arms crossed across the chest, remote in hand on the FF button, looking for an excuse to bail, because it just can't be that good.
About fifteen minutes in, I thought: well, this is just the best sci-fi TV pilot ever. An hour into it I hit pause, shrunk the screen and hit Amazon to see if they had any Serenity toy ships. I enjoyed every minute. Every half-minute. Sometimes I rewound and did a frame by frame so I could enjoy certain seconds at my leisure. I'm sure there will be lesser episodes and better ones; I don't care. I love it. And, as usual, I'm late. But at least I don't have to worry about it being cancelled; as far as I'm concerned, it's just begun, and it ends with a big movie. Happy day.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2006-02-27
February 24, 2006
Medievally amusing
Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. Hat tip to Helen Schulz of the MedievalSawdust mailing list for the URL.
Chip Bok on hate speech
Chip Bok's cartoons are often featured in Reason magazine. This is a good one.
February 23, 2006
The strange things they chalk up to "research"
The Register reports that science will not be denied:
Scientists: masturbation not as good as sex
And you thought you just weren't doing it right
It must have been a slow day in the lab to come up with that experiment proposal . . .
February 21, 2006
The Strand goes global
Victoria University (for some reason, I've always thought it was "Victoria College") of the University of Toronto has an obscure student publication called The Strand. As this article at Hit and Run implies, it's not going to stay obscure obscure for long:
Click here to view image and article
Image[Image removed at site owner's request] links to original article at The Strand
Commenter "RexRhino" at Hit and Run gets the situation exactly right:
Remember that Star Trek episode where Spock tell the computer "Believe me, I am lying", and the computer cannot handle the paradox? "If you say you are lying, it means you are lying that you are lying, you are telling the truth, but telling the truth you are lying... BZZZPPPPZZTTTHHH!!"
This is the same effect with the Political Correctness androids here in Canada when looking at this cartoon!
"Muslims are upset because the cartoon offends them by depicting Mohommed as homosexual... must make sure muslims are not offended... except that gays will be offended if we imply that there is anything offensive about homosexualiy... must make sure gays are not offended... but if we don't offend them we offend muslims... but if we don't offend muslims, we offend gays... Politically Correct brain cannot compute! BBBTTHHHZZZZPP!"
QotD: Advice for new grads
I've been asked to compile some Dilbert advice for new graduates who have no idea what's awaiting them in the business world. I'm talking about practical advice. Here are some of the ones that come to mind.
The person who sits nearest the boss's office gets the most assignments.
Your potential for senior management will be determined by the three H's: Hair, Height, and Harvard degree. You need at least two out of three. (Non-Harvard schools will be acceptable if it's clear that you "could have gone" to Harvard.)
Your hard work will be rewarded. Specifically, your boss's boss will reward your boss for making you work so hard.
Scott Adams, "Wisdom for Grads", The Dilbert Blog, 2006-02-18
February 20, 2006
Children's lit, gone wrong
Nick Gillespie casts a jaundiced eye at a new children's book:
Paul Wilbert sends scarifying news of the latest — and possibly the saddest — skirmish in the Red State/Blue State culture wars: A kid's book titled Why Mommy Is a Democrat, which should be subtitled Why Republicans Run All Branches of the Federal Government and Probably Will for the Next 20 or 30 Years. [. . .]
Note to Democrats: A two-party duopoly only works if both parties can throw a punch. I half-suspect this of being a GOP plant job.
Blasphemous Emoticons
Jon sent a link to Rand Simberg's post on how even basic emoticons can be used to invite a fatwah.
February 19, 2006
QotD: Blasphemy
We've all learned this week that people react badly when you make blasphemous insinuations against the central figure of a dominant religion. Nevertheless, that's not going to stop me from writing about Gretzky.
Colby Cosh, "Par for the course", ColbyCosh.com, 2006-02-10
February 18, 2006
QotD: The cartoon physics of politics
A generation or so ago, somebody — I think it was either Tiny Toons or the Animaniacs — identified and described the cluster of phenomena we've since come to know as "cartoon physics". Just as a single example, we now understand that the Law of Gravity doesn't actually apply to a cartoon character until he notices that it does, usually by looking down after he's accidentally run past the edge of a cliff.
In the 21st century, we are becoming forcibly acquainted with similar phenomena in politics. We have been presented, over the past few weeks, with an almost (but not quite) impossible number of absurd sights and sounds, associated with the publication, in Denmark, of certain cartoons deemed blasphemous by the dogwhistles of the Moslem world. [. . .]
"Dogwhistle?" I pretend to hear you ask. An extremely useful concept from the wonderful movie, Strange Days. A dogwhistle, says one of the characters, is somebody with an ass so tight that when he farts, only dogs can hear him. We have plenty of them here, in our part of the world, ranging from the type of folks who gave Hester Prynne her "A", to the morons who wet themselves over Janet Jackson's right nipple, to the idiots who censored songs by Mick Jagger that are probably older than the censors are, to Marxoid feminists against pornography.
L. Neil Smith, "Cartoon Politics", Libertarian Enterprise, 2006-02-13
February 17, 2006
Writers and editors
This article was forwarded to a tech writing mailing list, where our professional experiences are remarkably close to those of our reporting kin:
We writers, while getting the credit on the page, have to deal with a group of folks called editors. Editors are the threshold guardians of the printed word. Their job is to take a writer's vision and bluntly tell him that it's not clear and that he must state it in half the space.
(Ed. note: be careful, laptop jockey, this piece could be dropped...)
Editors are the heroes of the printed word, the kings of the First Amendment.
(Ed. note: well . . . a bit flashy but we don't want to get in the writer's way. keep this line.)
They can also be impossible, short sighted, and cruel . . .
(Ed. note: three of us think these are still compliments, two are unsure.)
. . . And, of course, clueless.
(Ed. note: it's almost unanimous that this is NOT the compliment section.)
Many times a writer looks at his finished work with sadness. He thinks of how much better it could have been had he been allowed to keep certain lofty and majestic lines.
(Ed. note: you mean the lines we put up on the dartboard at the office?)
Of course, I don't think this way about my own editor. Hi Anne!
Hat tip to Bonnie Granat.
February 16, 2006
No danish pastries for Iran
In something out of the pages of The Onion, Iran has renamed danish pastries:
Iranians love Danish pastries, but now when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad."
Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners union ordered the name change in retaliation for cartoons of Islam's revered Prophet first published in a Danish newspaper.
The move was reminiscent of a decision by the US House of Representatives in 2004 to rename french fries as "freedom fries" after France refused to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet, as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to Rose of Mohammad' pastries," the confectioners union said in its order.
February 14, 2006
For the anti-Valentine reader
Adriana suggests "don't say it with flowers, say it with bile".
As a public service to all those who feel the same way about the looming "unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance day", here is a site that might provide just what you need to get through it. [. . .]
Or as a friend once said: Valentine's Day is to love as tap water is to tequila.
Lileks geeks out on "Doom"
If you're the kind of geek who spent hours and hours (and days and days) playing Doom, you probably had the same impression of the movie as James Lileks did (here, scroll down past the Clara Bow image):
Producer: They won't see it coming, you gotta admit that. Then end with a big battle and save the world, whatever. Bring it in under 50 mil and we'll all be heroes for a day.
Writer: You understand that world of mouth will kill the movie almost immediately, don't you?
Producer: I'm not worried what someone says about the movie the second weekend as long as they show up the first.
Writer: But they won't. Someone will leak details, and you'll have to do damage control, show up at conventions with some carefully edited footage, assure everyone you're respecting the franchise, that sort of thing.
Producer: So what's the problem?
Writer: Everyone will hate you.
Producer: (Shrug.) Tell you what. When you write the script, you can put in all your buddies' names. Wherever you want. And you can all come to the set and hang out with whoever plays the hero, and everyone in your company who gets a "producer" credit on your games gets a leased sportscar for a year, just for signing on.
Writer: Deal. But the first guy who dies has to be named "Carmack.
February 13, 2006
QotD: The Subaltern
How to not completely fail as [a second lieutenant] (or, how to not be in the .5% that fail to be promoted to Captain):
If you think it is a good idea and your Platoon Sergeant thinks it is a bad idea, do the common sense check — ask a specialist. If the specialist agrees with the Platoon Sergeant, you were wrong. If the specialist agrees with you, you were definitely wrong and quite possibly were about to do something illegal.
"MP" at Fast Bunnies, 2006-01-29
February 12, 2006
QotD: The Westminster System
Endowing the sovereignty of the nation in an absentee monarch — as Canada, Barbados, Belize, Tuvalu et al. do — is an even more exquisite variation on the Weil theory: vesting power in its literal rather than merely political absence. But the Westminster system depends on a Westminster disposition. And the disadvantage, as we've seen in Gomery Canada this last decade, is that, if you're prepared to drive a coach-and-horses through the polite conventions, there's nothing very much that can be done about it. As Lord Acton almost said, all power corrupts but Liberal power corrupts very liberally. And the Grits' big red machine was by no means the first to realize that the Marquess of Queensbury doesn't always stand up to biker-gang tactics. The British system worked in India and Grenada and New Zealand. It proved less resilient in Zimbabwe and Iraq.
Mark Steyn, "Pip, pip for the Brits — despite the blips", Macleans, 2006-02-07
February 09, 2006
Dan Savage interview
Dan Savage, sex columnist to the geeks, is interviewed in the current Onion A/V Club:
AVC: You use your column to advocate freedom, but that often seems to scare people. Historically, it seems like there's a real terror that other people might somehow get the freedom to do the things we ourselves don't want to do. Why do you think that is?
DS: Because Canada got the French and Australia got the convicts and we got the fuckin' batshit crazy Christians. And that matters. We're all lied to in high school — "The Pilgrims came here seeking religious freedom." No they didn't. They were the Puritans kicked out of England. They went to Holland, Holland was like "Fuck you people," and they kicked them out too, so they came here. They came here seeking the ability to persecute everybody else — and each other — for their religious beliefs. And we are living with the descendants of those nutjobs, and we have to fight them.
We also have to concede some things to them. There's a big mistake the left has made with talking to religious people, which is attempting to talk them out of their interpretations of the Bible, attempting to have theological debate with them. When I'm on right-wing whackjob radio, when people call up to inform me that I'm going to hell, I concede the point. [Laughs.] "I'm going to hell. Yes. Can you leave me alone now? Isn't that enough? Isn't punishment for all eternity enough? Do you have to screw with me here on Earth, too? Can't you just sit back content that I will roast on a spit in hell right next to Ronald Reagan, adulterer?" And often if you concede their theology and let them have their crackpot religious beliefs, you can make a little progress. The left has made a mistake trying to argue with religious people about their religious beliefs. They have a legitimate beef when it comes to thought police from the left getting up in their business and telling them how they should interpret Leviticus. Well, who gives a fuck how you interpret your fuckin' Grimm fairy tale?
QotD: Hockey Anagrams
I was playing with a new piece of anagram software today, plugging in the names of various National Hockey League teams. It began to dawn on me that, despite the best efforts of franchises like the Minnesota Wild, there isn't nearly enough poetic, surrealistic imagery in hockey. Rearranging the letters in the team names opens up a whole new imaginative universe to the hockey fan. You tell me — why would you cheer for the pedestrian New York Rangers when you could root for the Narrow Green Sky? You're already thinking of how beautiful the uniforms would be, am I right? And isn't it true that a much more evocative and accurate name for the Toronto Maple Leafs would be the Lame Forest Platoon? It summarizes their entire history perfectly, and you wouldn't even have to change the logo.
Colby Cosh, "Engages No Skills", ColbyCosh.com, 2006-02-04
February 08, 2006
Flea-bait?
This is something I'd have expected to find referenced at Ghost of a Flea; it has all the necessary elements for passing the Flea-worthiness test (Japanese pop culture, media tie-in, and hilarious understatement):
Maid cafes dot Akihabara, which has become a second home for Tokyo's "otaku" — roughly translated as "geeks". They're known for their devotion to comics and computer games and can easily be identified by their standard outfit of track suit, knapsack and spectacles.
In the cafes, girls dressed in frilly frocks inspired by comic-book heroines wait hand and foot on customers, mostly male, who might have once been obsessed with naughty schoolgirls and nurses.
Emphasis added. "Might once have been", eh?
H/T to Fark.com, where the comments include a very funny image comparing Anime to real life.
Update: I should know better than to try to jump on a Flea topic before the Flea himself does. I am so PWNED.
QotD: Chihuahuas
I was taking a intro to genetics class in college, the instructor was using canines as an example of differing morphology in a species. At one point he said "For example, the chihuahua was bred to fight rats", at which point I said "Yeah, and they took home war brides".
Patrick McKinnion, posted to the Bujold mailing list, 2006-02-03
February 07, 2006
Tarantino wields words like blunt objects
. . . but in a good way:
[I]t's these sorts of big stakes gambles that everybody, including me, has thus far doubted Harper's ability to win — and been consistently proven wrong. That sound you heard today? (you mean the grinding screech as the CPC slid from the moral high ground? no, the other one, the thud) That was the sound of Harper pulling it out and laying it on the table.
Read, as they say, the whole thing.
February 05, 2006
QotD: Superbowl Half-time show
ABC will apparently tape-delay this year's Super Bowl halftime show, fearing any futher "wardrobe malfunctions." Given that this year's halftime entertainment is the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin, I would think that football fans the world over would applaud in appreciation.
Radley Balko, "Halftime Hijinx", The Agitator, 2006-02-03
February 03, 2006
Amusing photoshop/biology experiments
I visit Fark.com every now and again, partly to see the latest zaniness in the Photoshop threads. Here are some non-Fark photoshop entries (featuring few, if any, of the typical lazy Fark 'shop efforts):
- Surf and Turf Land and Sea, crossbred. (32 entries)
- Surf and Turf 2 Land and Sea, crossbred. (40 entries)
- Surf and Turf 3 Land and Sea, crossbred. (20 entries)
Hat tip to Lois McMaster Bujold, who sent the link to her eponymous list.
QotD: Authenticity
[I]n an age when professional writers write autobiographies for celebrities and personal heartwarming anecdotes for political candidates and stilted dialogue for reality TV shows, it seems a bit picky to insist they eschew the gravy train of the bestselling memoir just because they didn't personally experience the events they're writing about. The memoir industry may be approaching the condition of the Australian art business, where so many fashionably primitive Aboriginal female painters were unmasked as wily male Caucasian opportunists they passed a law making it a crime to claim falsely to be a native person.
Mark Steyn, "Why should he have to live what he writes?", Macleans, 2006-01-30
February 02, 2006
Natalie Solent goes all out for freedom of speech
Posting over at Samizdata, Natalie Solent writes
I am fully aware that the disclosure I am about to write may cause outrage even among people who think of themselves as absolutists when it comes to free speech. I must apologise in advance to Perry and the others who have extended me the hospitality of this site for what may seem to be an abuse of it. I realise that there are some people who may think that, having said in public what I am about to say, they can never associate with me again. Forgive me. I feel I have to say this.
The rest is in the extended entry. Don't click if you're easily disturbed.
Don't say I didn't warn you:
"Mornington Crescent" is not a real game. The rules and strategies you hear quoted by players are made up on the spot. Its only purpose is to have a laugh at the expense of those not in the know.
There.
The secret is out now.
More (much more) information can be gleaned here, here, and especially here.
February 01, 2006
Radley Balko sinks to a new low
In a quick-hit post, wrapping up several unrelated items, Radley Balko commits a terrible joke:
Here's a prosecutor who's enthusiastic about his work:
During his closing argument, prosecutor Robert Nelson re-enacted the bondage session that allegedly killed Michael Lord, 53, of North Hampton, N.H., in July 2000.
Donning a leather mask and speaking to the jury through the zippered mouth, he said Lord flailed about and died while strapped to the rack in a makeshift "dungeon" in Asher's Quincy condominium.
[...]
The prosecutor pointed and hollered at Asher. He dumped a box full of hoods, collars, and paddles onto a table, and proclaimed that Asher was trying to protect her business.
"That's why she didn't call the police," he said.
With both hands, he reached back and clutched the top of a blackboard to simulate Lord being strapped to the rack.
He paused as his head hung forward as if to simulate Lord's alleged death.
The defendant . . . um . . . got off.
Sorry.
QotD: Canada in 2006
Canada remains in 2006 largely what it was in 2005 — a country where cigarettes are taxed 300% to 400% but heroin is free to addicts; where gay widowers have an easier time obtaining their pension entitlements than World War II veterans; and where a woman can go topless in public unless she has hate literature tattooed on her breasts.
Colby Cosh, "The great right North?", L.A. Times, 2006-01-27
January 31, 2006
Modern-day dung beetle
Sculpture by David Trant
Dave told me about the sculpture he was working on last week, and I liked the idea of it so much that I asked him to send me a photo of the piece when it was done. I still really like it.
QotD: Wal-Mart
You know, to me Wal-Mart is a lot like George W. Bush. It's not that I'm that big a fan in the abstract, really, it's just that the viciousness and stupidity revealed in its enemies tends to make me view it more favorably than I otherwise would.
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit, 2006-01-26
January 30, 2006
An extremely alternative view of last Friday's blogfest
Canadian Headhunter also attended the blogger bash on Friday night, but he must have me confused with someone else:
And did I mention Nick Quotavicious? I love that guy. His goal in life is to memorize every nasty quip that's ever been said and find a way to use it in his everyday life. He mumbles something nasty every time he passes by me but I can't quite make it out so I don't care.
Update: Antonia Zerbisias also has a blog entry up on the gathering . . . including the photo I took of her and Greg Staples (using Greg's camera, not my light-challenged Treo).
January 27, 2006
The tribulations of being a public figure
Brian Mertens has a good post about the down side of being a public figure:
No wonder Paul Martin goes to a private clinic — for privacy.
For future reference, if I ever become a public figure: If I have been rushed to the hospital unable to breathe, and I'm wearing a backless gown . . . it's going to be a NO COMMENT. Thanks.
I can't wait for the Citizen's next interview with Harper, conducted from the stall next to his in a Tim Horton's bathroom:
"Had a lot of coffee this morning, huh? Mr. Prime Minister?"
January 26, 2006
QotD: Canadian Nationalism
If Maude Barlow, David Orchard and Mel Hurtig (remember him?) really thought the AmeriKKKans were going to take over our country and kill us all, they'd be demanding that Canada get its own nuclear deterrent.
Damian Penny, "Imitation of the Day", Daimnation!, 2006-01-19
January 25, 2006
Youth is wasted on the young
Jane Galt harks back to the good old days:
I mean, a lot of you may think that I'm smart now. But when I was in school, I was a supergenius. Any old idiot can get to be a genius merely by dint of having a 150 IQ, but my intellect was of finer stuff altogether, faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful then the people who get to decide whether or not you make it onto American Idol. Even better, I knew everything*. My intellectual superiority to the rubes who did not attend my august institution — and many of those who did — was a tangible, glorious thing, which animated my days and warmed those dark nights when the boiler broke and I had to sleep in my entire wardrobe.
Best of all, I thought that I had invented snotty. Waxing sarcastic about the opinions of others was just so wickedly fun, especially when those other people were right there where I could watch the backs of their necks turn red. It honed my verbal skills to a sharp edge. It impressed the hell out of my fellow students, proving to everyone that I was exactly the supergenius I thought I was. The fact that other, older people, were not snotty confirmed my opinion that I must be some sort of genetic breakthrough, far outstripping the mental powers of my doddering elders. [. . .]
* In a job interview a while back, I was being quizzed by an economics professor about how I had liked graduate school, and the intervening period. "When I graduated from grad school," I said ruefully, "I thought I knew everything important there was to know. Four years later, I've been humbled."
"Everyone thinks they know everything when they get out of grad school," he said solemnly. "Count yourself lucky that you got over it--a lot of my colleagues never do."
January 24, 2006
Fark re-envisions Middle Earth
Fark.com has a photoshop contest on what Tolkien's Middle Earth would look like after its industrial revolution. There's a stray Paul Martin image in there, too.
Sick link of the day
Some of the most disturbed artwork I've ever seen.
Hat tip to The Agitator.
QotD: Canada
John O'Sullivan, a former editor of National Review and Thatcher's long-time adviser, observed that post-war Canadian history is summed up by the old Monty Python song, "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK", which begins as a robust paean to the manly virtues of a rugged life in the north woods but ends with the lumberjack having gradually morphed into some transvestite pick-up singing that he likes to "wear high heels, suspenders and a bra" and "dress in women's clothing and hang around in bars".
I'm not saying Canadian men are literally cross-dressers — certainly no more than 35, 40 per cent of us are — but nonetheless a nation that in 1945 had the fourth-largest armed forces in the world has undergone such a total makeover that it's now a country that prioritises the secondary impulses of society — government health care, government day care, rights and entitlements from cradle to grave — over all the primary ones.
Mark Steyn, "A Howardesque leader", The Australian, 2006-01-25
January 23, 2006
QotD: Politicians
Politicians are like diapers — they should be changed often, and for the same reason.
John Wallner, 1992 Libertarian Party congressional candidate for California's 49th US House district
January 22, 2006
QotD: Elections
Government is a broker in pillage, every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
H.L. Mencken
January 20, 2006
"That's a fact"
Via Political Staples, a link to a Rick Mercer rant on attack ads, and the Canadian Forces.
QotD: Work
It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.
You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.
And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn't a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.
But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share.
But I get it without asking for it — at least, so it appears to me — and this worries me.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
January 19, 2006
Tinfoil hat time
Tinfoil hat located on the monitor of a co-worker at the office.
He assures me that it's just a prop, and that he doesn't believe it's effective in reducing the power of the orbital mind-control rays.
Creative Writing
I've often said to people who want to be creative writers that the worst possible job for them would be to go into technical writing. A good technical writer is always concerned with writing too much . . . a good creative writer is most often concerned with writing too little. These folks should probably consider careers that do not involve creative writing. Or any kind of writing.
Hat tip to Greg Slade.
January 17, 2006
QotD: Elections
We participate less in politics for the same reason we stopped going to drive-in movies the way we used to, getting married as teenagers, making dinner at home, and, for men at least, wearing blue suits with white shirts and red ties: not because we can't, but because we don't want to. Our flesh is not weak when it comes to voting; it's just not willing.
The center of gravity in American life has shifted away from partisan politics and into other areas of activity in which individuals (and groups of individuals) have far greater hopes for gaining satisfaction. The big story in American life over the past few decades is not the decline in voter participation but the ever-increasing proliferation of options, of choices, and of identities in everyday life.
Nick Gillespie
January 16, 2006
Samizdata calls for action
It's such a well-written parody piece that lots of people will completely miss the humour:
Governments should ban Linux
Linux has been growing in popularity, now enjoying a higher market share than Mac OS. However, I fear that in all the hype and hysteria, the dangers have not had enough attention. We face a real possibility that the future of the creativity will be a barren world: a "tragedy of the digital commons" in which no one will create any content.
The truth is that Linux is one of the biggest threats to human creativity worldwide Some of you will find that statement remarkable, but it is true. As Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has said, "Linux is cancer." Ken Brown of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has said that: "Linux is a leprosy; and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector."
January 15, 2006
QotD: Wine Tasting
[. . .] once during a magnificent five-day Bacchanal in the Burgundy and Beaujolais region which included visits to Lameloise, Troisgros and Bocuse, I stumbled (not literally) into the great market or whatever they call it in the center of Beaune. There in this great museum-like, minimalist grotto there were bottles for the tasting displayed in grand array.
"When in Rome . . . er, Beaune . . ." they sip and spit. So, for once in my disgusting life, I sipped and spat. I even rinsed with water and "cleansed" my palate with cheese niblets and crackers and tiny squares of baguette.
What did I learn? I learned that for me, I achieve sensory overload and taste-bud burn-out in about five wines. Sip, slosh, snort, gargle, and spit. Sure, there's some flavor there. And, yep, this one seems pretty good, but that last one was better, I think. Ooopss, my tongue is numb, my teeth are furry and the insides of my cheeks are on fire. Can I taste much? Nope. Screw it, let's go to lunch and sit down with a bottle of something . . .
Ed Rasimus, posting to alt.food.wine, 2005-02-25
January 14, 2006
QotD: The Corporation
Corporation (n): A miniature totalitarian state governed by an unelected hierarchy of officials who take a dim view of individualism, free speech, equality and eggheads. The backbone of all Western democracies.
Rick Bayan
January 12, 2006
Potential cabinet ministers in a Tory government
Rick Mercer has some dynamite suggestions for cabinet posts if Stephen Harper forms a new Tory government after the January 23rd election. Although he does make the following admission:
Many sports fans spend their days building fantasy football or baseball teams. Likewise there are a handful of nerds out there who create fantasy cabinets. I do this all the time. I often kill time at the airport compiling my dream cabinet in the back of a scribbler. This week for example my dream cabinet would contain John Crosbie, Geddy Lee and Justin Pogge. Luckily for the Nation I will never choose a cabinet so we will never know what kind of damage I could wreak on the country.
QotD: Desperate Politicians
[Paul Martin] has nothing left to say to Canadians other than to tell them that unless they vote Liberal, the sun will not rise, spring will not come, and volcanoes will destroy the earth.
NDP leader Jack Layton, speaking in Hamilton, Ontario, 2006-01-11
January 11, 2006
Construct your own Liberal ad
David Janes has some fun with a Liberal-Style Attack Ad Generator.
Damian Penny goes Liberal . . . sorta
Damian Penny shows us the next set of Liberal party ads, before they're released to the media. Stephen Harper has a dog and President Kennedy is gunned down in Dallas, Texas.
They're much better than the first set of Liberal ads, released yesterday.
Hat tip to Jon.
January 10, 2006
QotD: Polls
Big poll out this morning. People in red have a certain look in their eyes. The only concern the Tories might have is that it is not two weeks from now.
Alan McLeod, "Day Forty-Two: Monday And The End", Gen X at 40, 2006-01-09
January 09, 2006
Musical humour
Liz Clark sent this to a mailing list I lurk on: Faerie's Air and Death Waltz (from "A Tribute to Zdenko G. Fibich").
"Shock therapy may be necessary to finish"
QotD: Book Reviews
[Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell] seems to be rather a victim of its own hype, then, alas. Which does happen to perfectly fine books. When the reviews that pan a book make you not want to read it, that's one thing; when the reviews that *praise* a book make you not want to read it, it's . . . the other side of the same thing, actually.
Lois McMaster Bujold, email to the Bujold mailing list, 2006-01-06
January 03, 2006
Mixed drinks
Alison Proteau posted this to the Canadian Browncoats list, and I thought it amusing enough to inflict on you non-Firefly fans:
I got my husband a book on cocktails and a shaker for Xmas this year (The Cocktail Handbook by Maria Constantino). And what to my wondering eyes should appear on page 90 but a drink called Firefly!
You build the drink in a highball glass of your choice.
Ice
2 measures vodka
4 measures grapefruit juice
1 tsp grenadineFill glass with ice, pour in vodka and juice, carefully drop the grenadine in the center of the drink.
A man walks around with a drink like this in his hand and folk know he's not afraid of anything! (it's a bit pink..:oD)
QotD: The future of television
The networks will all be creating exciting, innovative new spin-offs of today's shows. Approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI-based, including CSI: Des Moines, CSI: New York but a Different Part than Gary Sinise Is In and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin' '70s beat. (Jerry Bruckheimer will also have conquered Broadway with the CSI musical "FOLLICLE!" starring Nathan Lane as a frenetic but lovable blood spatter and Matthew Broderick as lint.)
Lost has that one-of-a-kind alchemy that really can't be copied. Therefore, look for the original series Misplaced, as well as Unfound, Not So Much with the Whereabouts and Just Pull Over and Ask!
In a stunningly cost-effective move, CBS will air How I Met Your Biological Mother, That Bitch, which is just old episodes of How I Met Your Mother with snarkier narration. HBO's Westminster will continue the trend pioneered by Deadwood and Rome by making 19th-century England really dirty and weird, like Jane Austen with Tourette's. (Actually, I can't wait for that one.) Also, the constant slew of cable mergers will result in the creation of CinePax, a channel that's just very confused about its morals.
Every year another film actress gets "too old" for film leads and finds a (sometimes much better) home on TV. This trend will continue a few years hence when the aging but feisty Dakota Fanning headlines CSI: Vancouver Made to Look Like Chicago.
Joss Whedon, "Guest Columnist Joss Whedon Eyes the Future of TV", TV Guide, 2005-12-24
January 02, 2006
QotD: Wine Tasting
I don't like the rug pulled out from under me, and wine is a master of this trick. I fight back by taking detailed tasting notes so I can accurately recall a wine whether I tasted it in moonlight with the winemaker holding it to my lips and whispering sweet sales pitches in my ear, or in the neon light of a physics lab with a nerd whispering sweet chemical formulas.
But even the best notes can be foiled by your own, personal chemistry. In sickness and in health, medicated or stone cold sober, sweating or shivering, sleepy or buzzed — all of these states and more can totally change your perception. Immune to my obsessive note-taking, a white might scour like Brillo one week, and go down like lemonade on a hot summer's day the next. Velvety, generous reds can go tarry and bitter, only to resume the seduction a few weeks, months, or flu seasons later.
When it happens in your own mouth, it's easy to grasp how profoundly different wine might taste to someone else. Debating "red" with your spouse might be as relevant as arguing "green" with the color-blind.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "And You Can't Make Me!", Rocky Mountain News, 2005-12-27
December 31, 2005
QotD: Boxing Week Sales
I've done a few tours of duty behind a cash register. The job takes your soul, twists it like a wet chamois and runs it through the shredders they use to turn car hoods into tinfoil strips. [. . .] When I lived out east, the relationship between cashier and customer was the same as that between a German gunner and the troops disembarking at Normandy.
James Lileks, "Backfence: Beyond new store's hype, genuine smiles", Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2004-08-03
December 30, 2005
QotD: The Web
To the World Wide Web, I say "Hosanna in the Highest!" Without it, I couldn't possibly bring you important wine stories like: Cleaning Lady Mistakenly Tosses Romanian Dictator's Priceless Wine Collection in Trash, and Feel the Blast with Finnish Nuclear Wine.
I'd never have survived back when the job required long days in the reference library, where they don't look kindly on working in your underwear, let alone dancing around to Zulu drum music when you need to clear your head out.
Now that the world is spilling its entire contents online, however, the problem is not where to find info, it's where to stop. Start researching Verdelho, and next thing you know you've downloaded three songs, found your fourth-grade teacher, ordered prescription pain killers from Denmark, and there goes the afternoon.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Gone Surfing", www.vinchotzi.com, 2005-12-05
December 27, 2005
QotD: Canadian Elections
Every 12 to 36 months, the federal Liberal government is exchanged for another, identically-staffed federal Liberal government, in a traditional ceremony known as "Exoneration". Many Canadians have come to deride the procedure as an obsolete relic, but it should be noted that voting in Canada is now considerably faster and more convenient than, say, purchasing beer.
From what I can tell, the new government will take office in late January, and will likely be a Liberal "majority" government rather than the current Liberal "minority". In plain terms, this means that some of the public funds now being used to bribe "opposition" parties will be freed up to bribe voters directly. However, kickbacks and naked theft will continue at customary levels.
Evan Kirchhoff, "Coronation Announced", 101-280, 2005-11-29
December 25, 2005
QotD: Christmas
Ebenezer: [taking off his tall hat] Oh, splendid! Let me see... [opens up a card he has picked up from the desk] "A Very Messy Christmas." I'm sorry, Mr Baldrick — shouldn't that be 'merry'?
Baldrick: "A Merry Messy Christmas"? All right, but the main thing is that it should be messy — messy cake; soggy pudding; great big wet kisses under the mistletoe...
Ebenezer: Yes... [going to hang up his coat and scarf] I fear, Mr Baldrick, that the only way you're likely to get a big wet kiss at Christmas — or, indeed, any other time — is to make a pass at a water closet.
However, be that as it may... [Baldrick gives him the card again] "A Merry Messy Christmas." 'Christmas' as an H in it, Mr Baldrick.
Baldrick: Oh...
Ebenezer: ...and an R. Also an I, and an S. Also T and M and A...and another S. Oh, and you've missed out the C at the beginning. Congratulations, Mr Baldrick! Something of a triumph, I think — you must be the first person ever to spell 'Christmas' without getting any of the letters right at all.
Blackadder's Christmas Carol
December 24, 2005
QotD: Ecological doom-mongering
I think that the Scandinavians were the folks who started that whole chromium hoohaw, much to the embarrassment of the Californians, who got scooped and had to play catch up to regain their pre-eminence in the eco-panic arena.
Ken Olson, responding to a question about paint formulation, 2005-12-08
December 23, 2005
Merry Christmas!
And also try this for your (very) non-vegetarian dose of humour.
Hat tip to "John the Mc".
QotD: Varietal Wines
Why are we hung up on single-grape wines? Marketing, again. After a few American decades of "Chablis" and "Burgundy," about as authentic as Cheez with a Z and Krab with a K, we asked ourselves "What Would Mondavi Do?" and ended up tagging wine with the name of the grape — a practice known as varietal labeling. (n.b.: Grapes come in varieties. Only wine is varietal. If you confuse the two, you're liable to draw derisive laughs from the three people who actually care about this distinction.)
Europe, meanwhile, has always blended. Some of the world's most famous wines — the likes of Hermitage, Bordeaux and the Turbo-Tuscans — are mergers. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a stew of up to thirteen varieties, including white grapes Bourboulenc and Marsanne as well as Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Dopey, Sneezy, and Pluto.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "E Pluribus Vinum", Rocky Mountain News, 2003-06-13
December 21, 2005
Letterman under legal restraint
Every day, in every way, the legal system gets that little bit more absurd:
Lawyers for David Letterman want a judge to quash a restraining order granted to a Santa Fe woman who contends the CBS late-night host used code words to show he wanted to marry her and train her as his co-host.
A state judge granted a temporary restraining order to Colleen Nestler, who alleged in a request filed last Thursday that Letterman has forced her to go bankrupt and caused her "mental cruelty" and "sleep deprivation" since May 1994.
Nestler requested that Letterman, who tapes his show in New York, stay at least 3 yards away and not "think of me, and release me from his mental harassment and hammering."
I can't imagine why Letterman's lawyers are even bothering to challenge this restraining order. I guess they have to show that they're earning their retainer fees.
December 19, 2005
Amtrak, Peter Bagge's view
Peter Bagge presents his last Amtrak trip in cartoon form: "Traveling Soviet-Style Aboard America's $30,000,000,000.00 Nostalgia Toy!"
December 17, 2005
WMD: weapons of musical distress
Tom Vinson sent this dire warning to the Bujold mailing list:
Be afraid, be very afraid
We were over at Borders last night for a local music group's CD release party. While browsing through the magazine racks I glanced at the current issue of "Guitar World". It includes a free training CD for teaching yourself "Stairway to Heaven".
On the other hand, it could have been worse . . . it might have been a freebie with Piper & Drummer magazine!
QotD: The Legal Profession
So much of the legal world is a racket. First of all, we have a guild system that maintains nice caps and absolute barriers to entry to make sure lawyers cost a lot of money. It's the kind of scheme that the most corrupt, market-distorting union bosses regard with envy. Then there's the big firms that charge $400 an hour for an associate to do drudge work that a competent parallegal could do just as well, mostly because so much of the big firm world is based around prestige, and big clients are willing to pay it. And that's just the funky economics of the legal profession itself. I'm not even going to get into the stuff everyone already knows about, namely the creation of a whole new profession of permenant victim-plaintiffs ready to sue the nearest deep pocket.
But don't think it's just us screwing over everyone else. We also screw over each other by making prospective lawyers jump through the mostly useless hoop of a 3 years of stultifying law school curricula. You can think of it sort of like the beating given to new members of a gang. Gangs do it as a counter-intuitive but no less effective means of fostering unity in the group. Everyone has to take their lumps, so everyone feels like they've accomplished something to get in.
I doubt that's the reason for law school, though. Lawyers tend more often to be backstabbers and sharks. I figure it's just because they're sadists.
Russell Wardlow, "Law School Rant", Mean Mr. Mustard, 2005-12-14
December 16, 2005
The good news is that he's going to get help
. . . from the Governor of his state, Tim Pawlenty:
Hugh Hewitt: Well, it's a pretty long list. I've got three things I need, I hope you'll consider. First of all, Lileks, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist and blogger, has now twice in a year backed into his garage when it was closed. And this is obviously is not a citable offense, because it's his garage. He just backed into it. Is there any way we can get the state police to swing over there and maybe test his driving or something?
Governor Tim Pawlenty: Well, you know, kind of recurring incidents, traffic incidents and others, I'm told can be a sign of other problems or issues than life, Hugh. So it may not be so much a law enforcement matter as it could be a social intervention. But it certainly seems to be a cry for help. And I think you, and his friends, and others might rally to that cause.
Background kinda explained here. Kinda.
December 15, 2005
QotD: Families of Writers
I followed my parents and siblings into the word business. We read each other's stuff and even choke out a few compliments when forced to. But the few attempts any of us have made to write together resulted in sustained air strikes followed by significant combat action.
That's why the dynastic nature of the wine world has always intrigued me. So many families working together and so few murders! How do they do it?
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Family Affair", Rocky Mountain News, 2003-04-19
December 14, 2005
Cats and Christmas Trees
If cute cat photos bother you . . . don't bother to click here. And I thought our cats were bad with Christmas tree decorations!
Hat tip to Jerrie Adkins.
QotD: Web Awards
I don't think I've ever voted in their little awards. I could be wrong about that, but, like Steve said, it always struck me unfair, and, more annoyingly, just a ploy for traffic by people who don't produce enough quality to generate enough readers.
Not that I have a problem with mediocre blogging that doesn't bring in traffic. That's my bread and butter.
Russell Wardlow, "We Don't Need No Steenking Awards", Mean Mr. Mustard, 2005-12-12
December 10, 2005
QotD: Satiety
How good one feels when one is full — how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained. One feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digested meal — so noble-minded, so kindly-hearted.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
December 09, 2005
Christmas Story, re-interpreted
Via Boing Boing, A Christmas Story is re-enacted (30 seconds' worth) by bunnies.
December 08, 2005
For all your Vogon poetry needs
David Trant tripped over this Vogon Poetry generator. You can send condolences or hate mail as you choose.
Here's an example (below the fold, to spare the unwary):
See, see the elderly sky
Marvel at its big puce depths.
Tell me, David do you
Wonder why the sharpei ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel murderous.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your filxnatzik facial growth
That looks like
A mustard.
What's more, it knows
Your niggardly potting shed
Smells of bogie.
Everything under the big elderly sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm limbergers.
December 07, 2005
QotD: Wine snobbery
I drink Yellow Tail. It's from Australia, the current hip continent for wine. I had an Aussie pal over for Thanksgiving, and he told me a secret: The winery was founded by expat Italians. It's really Italian wine pretending to be hip Aussie wobble-juice. That's your how-to tip: If served Yellow Tail, note how much you love the Italian wine-making tradition. Actually, it's Australian, your host says. Actually, it's grounded in Italian traditions, you say as you swirl it around in your mouth (dribbling on your shirt in the process). There. You are now a wine connoisseur.
Or "jerk," as the vernacular has it.
James Lileks, "A fine whine about connoisseurs of the vine", Star Tribune, 2005-12-02
December 06, 2005
The truth, just as you've always suspected
Christian Tucker sent this link to a mailing list I never seem to get caught up on: Interview with an Honest Boss (Flash required).
Tim Blair solves the global warming puzzle
Tim Blair has the blindingly obvious solution to our impending global warming worries:
Oil use, your number-one warming cause, must be addressed. Hybrid vehicles, using a combination of petrol and electric power, are widely believed to be an ideal interim remedy to gross oil overconsumption. This response might excite the mechanically minded, but a low-tech solution is perhaps more workable. [. . .] I propose that automatic transmissions be banned, and that all cars so equipped be removed from the planet's roads. The reason? Automatic cars use around 5% more fuel than their manual equivalents.
My mandatory-manual law would, at a stroke, effect a far greater positive environmental change than any plastic bag campaigns or hybrid-buying frenzies now underway. In the US, where the massive majority of vehicles sold are automatic, some 113 billion barrels of fuel were consumed in 2001 by passenger cars (reports the US Energy Information Administration: "That fuel consumption by light-duty vehicles, stored in a tank the size of a regulation football field, would require the tank to have walls nearly 50 miles high.") Assuming a 5% drop across the board, fuel savings would be in the range of 5,650,000,000 gallons per year [. . .] And the only consumer sacrifice required would be minimal occasional movement of every driver's shifting hand.
Multiply those savings throughout the wheeled world and you're looking at a green dream of ecological super goodness. An added benefit: those unable to drive a manual car would be removed from our roads, thus reducing traffic levels.
Jon sells out
Jon contacted his local Conservative candidate and asked for a big campaign sign on his front lawn. But this is how he asked:
Please place the sign in front of the effigy of Martin that's hanging by his ankles from our tree, and a little to the right of the effigies of Layton and Duceppe that are... well, I can't really say what they are doing in an e-mail; you'll see 'em when you come to install the sign. Also, if you could drop off Harper's promised $2400 for my two kids a little early, that would be greatly appreciated. Of course, that $2400 is my money anyway, but let's not go there.
December 05, 2005
QotD: Beer versus Wine
Are beer drinkers really stupider than wine-drinkers? According to a Danish study from the Annals of Internal Medicine, August, 2001, wine drinkers are psychologically healthier, better educated, and have a loftier socio-economic status. Beer aficionados are more likely to smoke and abuse drugs and alcohol. What's more, the average IQ of beer drinkers is 95.2, compared with 113.2 for wine drinkers.
Does drinking wine make you smarter, saner, better educated and more successful? No, but if you are, you probably drink wine.
Now that I've tossed that grenade onto the battlefield, me and Denis are going back and have a beer.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Intelligent Life After Beer", Rocky Mountain News, 2003-02-15
December 04, 2005
QotD: Cats and Dogs
We got up tolerably early on the Monday morning at Marlow, and went for a bathe before breakfast; and, coming back, Montmorency made an awful ass of himself. The only subject on which Montmorency and I have any serious difference of opinion is cats. I like cats; Montmorency does not.
When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.
I do not blame the dog (contenting myself, as a rule, with merely clouting his head or throwing stones at him), because I take it that it is his nature. Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
December 03, 2005
QotD: Astrology
[Astrology is] a system of belief for people who cannot handle the intellectual demands of Scientology.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-12-02
December 02, 2005
QotD: Early Civilizations
There's evidence to suggest that the transition from spear to John Deere owed more to the lure of the grape harvest than the thrill of the pigsty.
The move to agriculture brought food surpluses which begat cities and cuneiform and . . . sewage. So many people, so little water. Given the difficulties of delivering virgin spring water to a megalopolis, and since any running water around doubled as a bathroom, wine, for millennia, was the only safe thing to drink.
What would your life be like if your first cup in the morning were not a double low-fat latté, but a Cabernet? It would be a drunken fog, that's what. Virtually every invention of Western society, up until the 1600s, when coffee, tea, and hot chocolate got people boiling water, was made by someone half-crocked. Now, it's not as bad as it sounds. Wine, at that point, had about a quarter the alcohol of your average California Zinfandel. It was also sweet, sour, and pretty awful. You can imagine how bad, if they added seawater, lead and tree sap to make it taste better.
Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen, "Western Civ 101: How wine saved history", Waiter, There's a Horse in my Wine, 2005
December 01, 2005
Another Serenity summary
Emergency Naptime Procedures Implemented:
Mal: I learned this joke from Indiana Jones. *KABLAM*
Operative: Too bad for you my motto is "be prepared!"
Mal: I can still triumph the old-fashioned way!
Operative: Oh, and I also have a black belt in Smackdown Fu.
Mal: *SMACKDOWN FU'D*
Hat tip to "parpalack" of the Canadian Browncoats mailing list.
QotD: Democracy
Restraining people from demanding ever bigger hand-outs of other people's money is the chief role of government in a democracy. Alexander Tytler, an 18th century Scottish historian and judge, used to insist that democracy could only last as long as people didn't realise that they could vote themselves as much as they wanted from the public treasury. Democracy has in fact survived that realisation, but only because voters have been persuaded that the other systems of government are so awful that they'll get more under democracy. And they do: in a democracy, everyone steals from everyone else, whereas in all the other systems, a small political elite plunders the population with a ruthlessness and efficiency the people as a whole can never quite manage to do to itself.
P.J. O'Rourke, "I'd love to hear a politician say: 'We'll get the second-best minds together on this'", Telegraph Online, 2005-11-13
November 30, 2005
Wine Tour 0: Jon attempts to liveblog my wine tour
Jon has had enough of my blathering about wine . . . he's now doing his own version of my wine tour blogging:
Our first stop was Hillebille, which has made great strides in improving the atmosphere of their tasting house; they've taken the wheels off and have leveled the trailer with some bottle jacks, and we saw evidence of some new cinder blocks being prepared for the new foundation. Inside, they've taken down the old water-damaged paneling and have put up some new chipboard, which gives the whole tasting room a warm and woody desconstructivist look.
The still was still ( ha ha! ) cooling down when we arrived, so all that was on hand for us to taste today was HilleBille Blue, which the winery touts as being good down to -40° C. Blue provides the palate-cleansing sensation of, say, turpentine, but without the overt sweetness of Canadian Tire Winter-X Heavy Duty Antifreeze (although it much resembles the latter in the glass). Blue will go well with bad piercings, belly shirts, drinking in the garage, and yelling "Whooooooooo!" whenever the Leafs score.
Bren was having trouble seeing when we left, so rather than risk travelling very far, we staggered down the hill to Spottswoode Estates. Mr. Spottswoode himself seems to have trust issues, and he required us to perform various acts upon his person to prove that we could be trusted. This totally confused my palate for the rest of the day, and as a result, all I can say is that Spottswoode is indeed round and full in the mouth.
Jon also wrote, "When I came up with that, I was thinking of Spottswoode from Team America. Unfortunately, there really is a Spottswoode: http://www.spottswoode.com/.
November 27, 2005
QotD: Politicians
Politics is very gruelling. But then politicians deserve it: they deserve to be gruelled. That's the nice thing about picking on politicians: you never have to feel bad about doing it. When you pick on other people, there's an element of human pity that always comes up — but that's completely absent with politicians, which makes it a lot easier to tell the truth about them.
P.J. O'Rourke, "I'd love to hear a politician say: 'We'll get the second-best minds together on this'", Telegraph Online, 2005-11-13
November 25, 2005
Are you corrupt?
I didn't want to ask what Jon was doing when he found this link.
QotD: Rent
The two heterosexual white male characters at the center of "Rent" have all these cool minority friends. Indeed, "Rent" functions as a sensitive liberal man's wish-fulfillment fantasy about a new and improved form of diversity. Hanging with diverse pals demonstrates your moral superiority over other Caucasians, but, frustratingly for young white social climbers, actual live minorities are seldom content to play their assigned roles as silent props in your fashionable lifestyle. In particular, real black friends might insist on playing their hideous rap music and real gay friends their sissy disco music. In "Rent," however, the diverse trendsetters all like 1970s white boy guitar rock, thus validating the two straight guys' hipness quotients.
Steve Sailer, online excerpt from his review in The American Conservative, 2005-11-22
November 24, 2005
The "Dilbert" death-toll
Last weekend's Dilbert comic was particularly amusing. I thought so, anyway. Apparently, I'm nearly alone in thinking that:
Recently I killed thousands more people. I don't have exact numbers yet. The problem stems from my comic that ran on 11-20-05, implying that retail stores might harvest organs from bad customers and sell them on eBay. I've received dozens of letters (long ones!) from very angry people who assure me that the Dilbert comic will reduce the number of organ donors. The concern is that people will think their parts will end up on eBay and so they won't be inspired to donate.
This would only have an impact on exceptionally dumb potential organ donors. But as you know, that's a large block of the general population. Now I have to wonder how many people are smart enough to read an entire Dilbert comic and still dumb enough to think that the first person on the scene of an accident might be there just to harvest organs for eBay. It can't be more than 1%. Let's see, we estimate 150 million people read Dilbert, so 1% would be 1.5 million. And only 10% of them might have donated an organ anyway, so I'm probably killing 150,000 people.
It's times like this when "oops" doesn't seem sufficient.
Hat tip to Samizdata.
QotD: Cool and Dorky Wines
Though it's fashionable to pretend otherwise, there are indeed such things as cool and dorky wines. I took the question to an assorted in-crowd of master sommeliers, opinion-making wine press and early-adaptors. What wines, I asked, are hotter than hot? What do sommeliers drink and discuss in breathless whispers when they're alone with their own kind?
Here's what I learned. What's not cool is money. Forking over wads of cash to have giant, manly, trophy wines decanted is so over.
The concept of the moment is terroir-wine. Wine from, say, a single, half-acre vineyard on a precipitous mountainside in East Fraxistan. Weeded, harvested, stomped and vinted by one old guy with callused hands and the artistic sensibilities of a concert violinist; so in-tune with life's cycles that the grapes talk to him. He has to be into some sustainable-earth cult involving ancient amphorae, lunar cycles, rune-casting and babbling in tongues. The wine should be quirky, perhaps with a putrid smell you have to get past before you suck it in, gurgle loudly, and proclaim it: "pretty funky stuff." Funky is good. It speaks of earth and of the fine line between disgusting and delicious. A line the general public, with its bland, corporate taste, is too cowardly to approach.
Jennifer Chotzi Rosen, "Chasing Cool", vinchotzi.com, 2005-11-23
November 23, 2005
What's the schlockiest 70's song?
Wizbang asks "what's your choice for schlockiest 70's song? The Pina Colada Song? Afternoon Delight? The Night Chicago Died? Muskrat Love?"
A few choice cuts from the comment thread:
What about "She's Having My Baby," by Paul Anka?
brown eyes blue (blew?)
you light up my life.
torn between two lovers
"Midnight at the Oasis."
"Feelings"
As several commenters found, the whole decade is jam-packed full of candidate songs. I'd have gone with "Seasons in the Sun" as the worst, but reading the comments is inducing faint nausea: "Muskrat Love", "Sometimes when we touch", "Tie a Yellow Ribbon", and (ugh!) "Do ya think I'm sexy". I think I need to go schedule a bit of brain surgery to get those tunes out of my memories. What a skid-mark of a decade, musically speaking.
QotD: Fandom
"Amber, if it exists, I guarantee you there's a fandom community for it. Every social group behaves just like the fans we make fun of.
"There's factions who want things the way they were when they were kids and think anything new is corrupting and evil, counter-balanced by young sycophants who roll their eyes at anything from before they were born. Every new development is heralded as the slippery slope into the end of days.
"Politics, organized religion, PTA Meetings. They all function as identical overlapping microcosms of the same human behavior. It doesn't matter if they're celebrating Strawberry Shortcake, the King James Version of the Bible or Adolphe Menjou. Fandom is Universal."
"Highways."
"I can point youto the newsgroup. Some think the new Hwy-49 is an insult to the old Hwy-49."
David Willis, "Shortpacked", 2005-11-17
November 22, 2005
Inevitable result of "reality" TV
I guess it had to happen, although I still find myself a bit surprised that not only would a major network name a show "Wife Swap", but that they were not prepared for the obvious lawsuit risk:
An Oklahoma man is suing for over $10 million after the show "Wife Swap" exchanged his wife with a gay man.
Jeffrey D. Bedford of Haileyville filed his $10,225,000 suit in Muskogee's U.S. District Court, claiming that ABC Television misled him by not sending a woman from a heterosexual family to his home.
In his suit against Walt Disney (the parent company of both ABC and the show's producers, RDF Media), Bedford claims that when he conducted a Bible study for the Haileyville Baptist Church in his home, his gay "wife" invited a gay group as well.
Words fail me. Again.
It's remedial spelling time, kids!
I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never visited the notorious "MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" before today. I guess I was expecting something a bit less coherent and rather more ranting than what I found. Almost the first thing I read was directly in line with my thoughts on a pet peeve: atrocities in English on the web:
Time for another English lesson
Dammit, internet. Now I’ve got to break out the bullwhip AGAIN.
Too late for St. Crispin's Day
. . . and too early for Christmas. Marna Nightingale commits The Ballad of Agincourt Carol, Sweetheart of the Regiment:
T'was the Eve of St Crispan, and all through the camp
The soldiers were surly, and drunken, and damp.
The English waxed valiant in spite of their cares,
In hopes that the victory soon would be theirs.
The Frenchmen were bragging all safe in their tents
Of horses and women and ransoms they'd spent.
And good Thomas Erpingham, an old man and grey
Lay contented on turf and awaited fair day.
But out in the camp where Fluellen stood preaching.
King Henry was prowling for the common man's teaching —
Humble "Harry Le Roy" he gave as his name,
To escape from his station, to hide from his fame.
He walked 'mongst his men, though there's no doubt they stank,
And disputed theology, warfare and rank.
And then, as great monarchs have done through the ages
He stepped to one side, and he whinged — for three pages![. . .]
QotD: Politicians
Just once, I'd love to hear a politician say: "We're going to bring the second-best minds together to work on this." The second-best minds are all much more practical people than the first-class guys. More importantly, they are not going to try to do anything very much. They'll fix lunch or take the dog for a walk before they get on to pressing political problems of the day — and by the time lunch is over, it's time to take the dog for another walk and prepare dinner. That's the right order of political priorities. The greatest danger in politics is people who try to do things.
P.J. O'Rourke, "I'd love to hear a politician say: 'We'll get the second-best minds together on this'", Telegraph Online, 2005-11-13
November 21, 2005
QotD: Stupid Commercials
By the way, speaking of the counter culture, have you seen that iPod add where everyone is walking around in the street in their own exclusionary poddy bubbles but singing the same Christmas carol. Oddly, none of them seem to get hit by cars and, laughingly, they all carry the tune. Has no one broken the news to these people that people singing with headphones in their ears sound like scalded but urgently amorous cats?
Alan McLeod, "1 + 0 = 2", Gen X at 40, 2005-11-15
November 18, 2005
Everything you ever wanted to know about OSM but were too bored to ask
Jon sent me a link to this very informative article on Iowahawk:
What is "Open Source Media?" Open Source Media is a new multi-aspect business concept in which many of the top superstar and mega-hyper superstars of the internet blogosphere have formed a powerful alliance to create shareholder value, and piss off Ann Althouse.
November 17, 2005
QotD: Wine Ratings
They can say that in France because to the average Frenchman "wine" means "French wine." And in a country where truckers buy splits of Bordeaux at highway rest-stops, golfers chug burgundy, not Bud, and a glass of red costs less than a medium coke, face it, they drink a lot more and know what they like.
But Americans, the kind who don't collect vintage-chart flash-cards, are faced with a paralyzing array of choices. They can resolve never to venture beyond the few, usually well-advertised, brands they know. Or they can check the ratings. Not just Parker's. Numbers from Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Wine & Spirits all appear on the shelf-talkers. And what's wrong with that? Doesn't knowing that SOMEONE considered it a Best Buy make you feel a little less in-the-dark when coughing up $15-$20 for an unfamiliar bottle?
Perhaps your local movie critic weeps over female bonding, while your tastes run more to female bondage. At least you can read his opinion, even as you take it through a filter. You won't agree with all wine critics, either, but that's no reason to knock the whole concept.
In the best of worlds, you would always have a trusted œno-professional or wine-geek friend help you. Otherwise, letting someone else plough through the business of comparing hundreds of wines for you makes sense, even if the result is rating an artistic creation with a number. Not perfect, but certainly helpful.
Jennifer Rosen, "The Rating Game", Rocky Mountain News, 2002-07-02
November 16, 2005
QotD: Government
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
"Samizdata Illuminatus", "Samizdata quote of the vote", Samizdata, 2005-11-10
November 15, 2005
SUV bashing
I mentioned Spray-on mud back in June as being the product guaranteed to make an SUV owner look like a total wanker. Autoblog puts the knife in:
While we're on the topic of posers, we shouldn't forget all those SUV and 4x4 owners whose off-road exploits consist of pulling onto the shoulder of the highway before calling AAA to change their flat tire.
Suffer the shame of a spotlessly clean SUV no longer; a company in England has developed a specially formulated spray-on mud-like substance that H2-driving soccer moms can squirt on their rig to make it appear they’ve just finished slogging through the countryside.
So far the most popular use of the Sprayonmud seems to be hiding number plates so traffic cameras can't read the letters, which is of course illegal in many areas. The Sprayonmud site goes out of its way to mention this several times.
Overheard in the cubes
" . . . well YOU try to come up with an emoticon for self-detonation!"
In honour of the new HP movie opening
Jim Rodgers sent me a link on the Harry Potter theme:
Head of Mattel Character Brand Development Shari Cloer: Folks, we've been handed a golden franchise on a silver platter. A gold platter, I mean. By a butler with a golden arm and like gold teeth. OK? And the only thing worse than not having a golden franchise is having a golden franchise and blowing it. You'll note this week I'm speaking in a calm, even tone of voice, not using swears or resorting to immature name-calling.
Mattel Product Designer [Boys, Entertainment, Games & Puzzles] Jennifer Koo: Kudos to Demerol.
Cloer: So I'm thinking the best way to thank me for this serene approach is by delivering some new Harry Potter product ideas that won't blind me with rage.
Mattel Ass't Product Designer [Girls 8-12] Davis Sinagra: Boss, we got scads.
Cloer: I am going to mentally count backward from ten and then will force a pleasant smile to my face and listen.
And thanks to the wonder of the Google Cache, we can view some early customer reviews of the product.
An unrelated link was mentioned on Hit and Run yesterday: Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy:
This Essay examines what the Harry Potter series (and particularly the most recent book, The Half-Blood Prince) tells us about government and bureaucracy. There are two short answers. The first is that Rowling presents a government (The Ministry of Magic) that is 100% bureaucracy. There is no discernable executive or legislative branch, and no elections. There is a modified judicial function, but it appears to be completely dominated by the bureaucracy, and certainly does not serve as an independent check on governmental excess.
Second, government is controlled by and for the benefit of the self-interested bureaucrat. The most cold-blooded public choice theorist could not present a bleaker portrait of a government captured by special interests and motivated solely by a desire to increase bureaucratic power and influence. Consider this partial list of government activities: a) torturing children for lying; b) utilizing a prison designed and staffed specifically to suck all life and hope out of the inmates; c) placing citizens in that prison without a hearing; d) allows the death penalty without a trial; e) allowing the powerful, rich or famous to control policy and practice; f) selective prosecution (the powerful go unpunished and the unpopular face trumped-up charges); g) conducting criminal trials without independent defense counsel; h) using truth serum to force confessions; i) maintaining constant surveillance over all citizens; j) allowing no elections whatsoever and no democratic lawmaking process; k) controlling the press.
QotD: Antiques
Why, all our art treasures of to-day are only the dug-up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago. I wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers that we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes. The "old blue" that we hang about our walls as ornaments were the common every-day household utensils of a few centuries ago; and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over, and pretend they understand, were the unvalued mantel-ornaments that the mother of the eighteenth century would have given the baby to suck when he cried.
Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of to-day always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house?
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
November 14, 2005
"Welcome to Ontario. We're all doomed."
Damian Penny links to a very useful article by Lorrie Goldstein — a tour through the mind of a typical Ontario voter:
Hi there, folks. Today, I want to explain to you in the rest of the country that, contrary to popular myth, we here in Ontario are not all fickle, idiotic dingbats who will vote Liberal no matter how venal, arrogant, greedy and corrupt they become. Far from it, we here in Ontario are in fact . . .
Wow! Did you hear? Paul Martin is promising us tax cuts if we vote Liberal in the next election! It's going to be right there in his economic statement tomorrow! Whoopee! Happy days are here again! Boy, I sure hope the Liberals promise to scrap the GST. That would be great! I wonder why they've never done it before?
Now, where was I? Oh yes, you must understand that from the point of view of the sophisticated Ontario voter such as myself, voting for a government is much more complicated than simply reacting to the obvious corruption exposed in the sponsorship scandal. In Ontario, we tend to look at issues from a broader, pan-Canadian perspective and . . .
Alright, that does it! I am totally outraged! I completely agree with Paul Martin. How dare the opposition even think about forcing Canadians to the polls over the Christmas season? Even if they've backed off now, it just goes to show you their raw, naked lust for power. Disgusting! You'd never see the Liberals pulling a stunt like that.
Abandon hope all ye who enter Ontario.
November 13, 2005
QotD: Toronto
What did Peter Ustinov say about Toronto, that it was "New York City as if run by the Swiss." (And I think Bjork says something like, "I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me." I believe she meant "Canadian.")
Personally, I blame the likes of Margaret Atwood. You could get everything Ms. Atwood knows about the well springs of contemporary culture into a phone booth and still have room left over for roughly a dozen college students. The lit crit crowd has an embargo on certain kinds of thinking and Toronto appears to be engaged in a building frenzy, as if a dynamic culture could be imposed in the form of daring new architecture.
Grant McCracken, "Networks are our networth: Notes from a hotel room", This Blog Sits at the, 2005-11-02
November 10, 2005
QotD: Swimming
It is the same when you go to the sea-side. I always determine — when thinking over the matter in London — that I'll get up early every morning, and go and have a dip before breakfast, and I religiously pack up a pair of drawers and a bath towel. I always get red bathing drawers. I rather fancy myself in red drawers. They suit my complexion so. But when I get to the sea I don't feel somehow that I want that early morning bathe nearly so much as I did when I was in town.
On the contrary, I feel more that I want to stop in bed till the last moment, and then come down and have my breakfast. Once or twice virtue has triumphed, and I have got out at six and half-dressed myself, and have taken my drawers and towel, and stumbled dismally off. But I haven't enjoyed it. They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind, waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early morning; and they pick out all the three-cornered stones, and put them on the top, and they sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of sand so that I can't see them, and they take the sea and put it two miles out, so that I have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop, shivering, through six inches of water. And when I do get to the sea, it is rough and quite insulting.
One huge wave catches me up and chucks me in a sitting posture, as hard as ever it can, down on to a rock which has been put there for me. And, before I've said "Oh! Ugh!" and found out what has gone, the wave comes back and carries me out to mid-ocean. I begin to strike out frantically for the shore, and wonder if I shall ever see home and friends again, and wish I'd been kinder to my little sister when a boy (when I was a boy, I mean). Just when I have given up all hope, a wave retires and leaves me sprawling like a star-fish on the sand, and I get up and look back and find that I've been swimming for my life in two feet of water. I hop back and dress, and crawl home, where I have to pretend I liked it.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
November 08, 2005
Hmmmm
James Lileks, in his most recent Screedblog entry, summons up a scene from the Mary Tyler Moore show:
There was an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show in which Rhoda expressed frustration towards her job, and said it was like "trying to make love in a straight-jacket."
Hey," said Mary, with a lickerish grin. "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
Clearly that show was much racier than I recalled!
November 07, 2005
QotD: Pink Floyd
"Wish You Were Here," the much anticipated followup, is one of those albums that seems made for concerts. By which I mean you can get up and leave your seat and go take a leak and buy a beer and come back and they're still going on about it. Oh, and it's about Syd Barrett, who took acid and went nutters on everyone, which was apparently a great tragedy for Western culture akin to J. D. Salinger's silence. "Animals" is just as long, but somewhat better. The target of the massively wealthy rock group's scorn, however, seems to be men who are reasonably content in their office jobs. If there was any justice the world would have best-selling authors who took time off as a middle manager to write brilliant scathing novels about bitter stick-thin tyros who parlayed three chords and fashionable scorn into a license to get his groinal area pogo'd by interchangeable doxies while he suckled on a magnum of good champagne. Nightly.
Is there anyone luckier than the drummer for Floyd? Talk about an undemanding job with great benefits.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-11-04
November 06, 2005
QotD: Depression
Of course, I do not want to get depressed; it no longer has the romantic connotations it does when you're a teen. (Followed by that all-important crucial emotion of the 20s, Anger. Just as Teenage Depression means you're sensitive, 20something ANGER means you're smart. Anger pays little, though, which is why so many choose its hipper cousins, Cynicism and Irony, the Olson Twins of the lazy mind.)
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-10-25
November 05, 2005
QotD: Sea Voyages
A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked.
You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
November 04, 2005
I think I prefered the "rejected" cartoon
Scott Adams tests his readership's collective perceptions of sexual harassment in the office.
And I still preferred the rejected cartoon . . .
Colby Cosh sells out!
Colby Cosh finally decides to go for the traffic, by posting a link to SI Cheerleader Halloween Costume photos. How can a fine, respectable blogger like Colby sink so low as to post a link like this? I just don't know.
Of course, I have no idea if the link works . . . I wouldn't go there myself, you understand . . . but the Denver Bronco cheerleading squad must have brass ovaries to wear costumes like that.
Rummy's no dummy
Kathy Shaidle links to an interview with Donald Rumsfeld:
SPIEGEL: What kind of sanctions [against Iran] are we talking about?
Rumsfeld: I'm not talking about sanctions. I thought you, and the U.K. and France were.
SPIEGEL: You aren't?
Rumsfeld: I'm not talking about sanctions. You've got the lead. Well, lead!
SPIEGEL: You mean the Europeans.
Rumsfeld: Sure. My Goodness, Iran is your neighbour. We don't have to do everything!
SPIEGEL: We are in the middle of regime change in Germany . . .
Rumsfeld: . . . that's hardly the phrase I would have selected.
I love that last line!
November 02, 2005
Marketing software to niche markets
Jon sent a link to an older Microsoft effort to reach new markets for Microsoft Word.
Update 8 November: I don't know why but this particular post has accumulated dozens of spam comments, so I've turned off comments and trackback pings.
November 01, 2005
QotD: Minnesota Vikings
We all grow up playing on grass. We all grow up playing outdoors. We all grow up playing in the weather that you grow up in. East Coast guys learn to play tackle football in the snow as kids. Guys in the south learn to play in humidity. Then we get outside, and it's like we've never played outside in our whole life.
Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Tice, quoted by Kevin Seifert "Injury to Insult: Carolina 38, Vikings 13", Star Tribune, 2005-10-31
October 31, 2005
Label says one thing, object says another
A little bit of found humour. On the way back from lunch, Jon asked me to snap a photo of the vehicle beside us:
In case you can't quite read it, the government vehicle, the big ol' gas-guzzling Chevy Suburban with a monster V8 says Environmental Enforcement.
I thought it was funny, anyway.
New crime: theft of "Hybrid" badges
The city of Baltimore is planning to offer parking discounts to hybrid cars. I predict a quick increase in reports of vandalism as "Hybrid" markings are pried off cars and sold to owners of hybrid-look-alikes.
QotD: Blogging
The beauty of blogging, as compared to writing a book, is that no editor will be interfering with my random spelling and grammar, my complete disregard for the facts, and my wandering sentences that seem to go on and on and never end so that you feel like you need to take a breath and clear your head before you can even consider making it to the end of the sentence that probably didn't need to be written anyhoo.
If that doesn't inspire you to read my blog, I don't know what will. You can find the Dilbert Blog at
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/
Scott Adams, Dilbert Newsletter 61.0, 2005-10-25
October 30, 2005
QotD: Siblings
It's only natural to feel competitive with your siblings. I recall all of those Christmas mornings, as my brother and sister and I compared gifts to figure out which one of us was the least beloved. This was important information because we adjusted our levels of misbehavior to match the rewards. There's no point in being extra good if the presents are just okay.
Mealtime was competitive too. The winner was the one who moved the greatest percentage of my father's income through his or her digestive system. I was in my thirties before someone told me that eating is not a speed sport.
Scott Adams, Dilbert Newsletter 61.0, 2005-10-25
October 29, 2005
QotD: The Metric System
Please don't assume that we're all brainwashed with that-there limp-wristed French measurement system. (I bet that few of you know that the basic unit of linear measurement in metric — the meter — was originally defined as being 1/10th the diameter of Monsieur Jules Metrique's distended anus after a thorough session of . . . research . . . at the Paris Brothel of Brotherly Science and Technology. Betcha didn't know that.)
Jon Piasecki, 2002-01-18
October 28, 2005
QotD: Hypochondria
It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.
I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch — hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into — some fearful, devastating scourge, I know — and, before I had glanced half down the list of "premonitory symptoms," it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever - read the symptoms — discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it — wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance — found, as I expected, that I had that too, — began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically — read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat
October 27, 2005
The Meatriarchy's rules for life
I may have been the last one to see this post at The Meatriarchy, but just in case you didn't see it already, I'm posting a link. It all started when,
Someone who I respect a great deal and who really should know better sent me an email chain letter today. Perhaps you have received one like this at some point or another.
This one was about "karma"and how to live my life. It also had a picture of the Dalai Lama and stuff so you know it was special and spiritual and full of meaning. The email insisted that I had to send this to 5 other people within 96 hours and something good would happen to me.
Then he gets down to the details:
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
My Karate Sensei used to say that the person who won the sparring/kata championship at a tournament was the only loser because all the others would go away with things to work on. So again your precious email hasn't taught me anything that I don't already know — and I'm supposed to pass this on to 5 people?3. Follow the three Rs:
Respect for self
Respect for others and
Responsibility for your own actions
Gee I wish all the leftwing new age types who worship this guy would take that last one seriously. If everyone lived by that mantra alone we wouldn't need a parasitic welfare state to prop up those who blame their shortcomings on everyone else but themselves.[. . .]15. Be gentle with the Earth.
No problem I hate gardening.
October 26, 2005
Rowling, by way of Pratchett
Another hat tip to a member of the Bujold mailing list, Rachel Ganz, for providing this amusing link: Dumbledore's death in the style of Terry Pratchett.
It's bloody funny
Hat tip to Laura Gallagher of the Bujold list for the URL.
QotD: Air Pollution
These days a haze still lingers over the heart of Los Angeles, but you need some distance and elevation to make it out. There are days when the wind and weather collaborate that shine crisp and clear. Even though the automobile population of Los Angeles has more than quintupled since my childhood, a great deal of progress has been made in smog control and reduction. Compared to my childhood, the air of Los Angeles is pure and pristine.
Alas, to the Progressives of today, all this progress is no progress at all. A Progressive is a person for whom any improvement shy of perfection is no improvement whatsoever. Automobiles remain. Pollution remains. Los Angeles remains. Curses, foiled again!
Gerard van der Leun, "The Hybridization of America", American Digest, 2005-10-12
October 25, 2005
Softwood lumber
Jon passed along another interesting link, this time on the Canadian-US dispute over softwood lumber:
America has been accusing the Canadian government of heavily subsidizing softwood allowing Canadian producers to sell softwood for low prices to Americans. Think of it as a kind of double-coupon day on Canadian wood products.
This of course is a terrible thing in that American consumers do not take congressmen on important fact finding/golfing missions as US softwood producers do. America remedies this untenable situation by levying duties on the wood products coming in from Canada thereby ensuring that rather than going to American consumers, the savings go directly to the federal government where they belong.
What a great idea for a website
Jon passed along a link to a new online comic strip, with the comment that I'd identify with the character in the strip.
I think he's right: how about a new website called Discover the Great Wines of the Regional Municipality of Durham, Ontario? Wouldn't that just set the site meter spinning?
Intelligent Design
Planet Moron reports from the front lines of education:
Professor Michael J. Behe argued yesterday in a Pennsylvania courtroom that the phenomenon of thunder is far too complex to be explained away by unsubstantiated theories involving low pressure areas and ionic discharges and as such strongly suggests that other explanations, perhaps involving a "thunder god" of some kind, should be made part of the curricula in our public schools.
Biologist Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University had argued in earlier court testimony that such systems are easily explainable using the scientific method and that the circumstances giving rise to thunder are really quite ordinary. He had planned to continue his testimony later this week but was stoned to death for being "witchbreed" while catching a quick lunch at Applebee's.
The issue arose when the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania issued a requirement that science teachers begin presenting material regarding intelligent design that casts doubt on the theory of thunder as it has been taught in classrooms for generations.
October 24, 2005
And I thought "ordinary" Karaoke was bad
Apparently, things can get much worse:
Porno karaoke is similar to traditional karaoke — but, instead of standing in for Whitney Houston or Frank Sinatra, contestants belt out the soundtracks of adult movie stars.
Players pair off in male-female teams as an XXX film is loaded into the projector. With the sound turned off, each duo is handed two microphones, and has one minute to provide the aural fireworks for the action on the screen.
The crowd, which tends to find the show more comic than erotic, then chooses the couple that has given the most convincing, creative, and ecstatic performance of faking an orgasm before hundreds of strangers.
October 21, 2005
QotD: Modern Government
[N]ow that both parties have become dedicated to monstrous government, we won't have to wait for an election to get started. It will also take a government dedicated to butting-in to the private lives of its citizens in an unprecedented manner. This too will prove to be no speed bump at all. Those that currently hold positions of power at the local, state, or federal level are exactly those citizens who take a great, almost sexual, pleasure in butting-in to their neighbors' lives at every opportunity. (Indeed, it is a source of continuing disappointment in every American's life that whenever one feels a strange hand groping around one's buttocks, it is never an attractive stranger, but merely some large or small politician searching for one's wallet.) [. . .] Having evolved a society that is incapable of letting individuals decide anything of importance for themselves, all the pieces are in place for the ultimate government meddle and muddle.
Gerard van der Leun, "The Hybridization of America", American Digest, 2005-10-12
October 20, 2005
Hog On Ice does a PSA
Steve H. published a valuable public service announcement, specifically for women who need to know what men are really saying in their "pick-up lines":
I was looking at that list of psychopathic behaviors, and I realized it's a pretty good description of the way men act at singles bars and clubs. All men looking for one-night stands are psychopaths.
Think about it. I'm not totally sure why women go to bars, but men go to get laid. You try to look as good as you can, you may even change your sheets and clean up your apartment before you go, and you plan your behavior in advance. You look around, pick out possible targets, and then you drink some liquid courage and walk up to them and hand them your patented line of CANNED BULLSHIT.
"After college, I want to go in the Peace Corps and help Amazon Indians build family-planning clinics so their women can have the SACRED RIGHT TO CHOOSE. Oh, God, I get so emotional when I think about the way our patriarchal society tries to tell women what to do with their own beautiful bodies. Thank God I'm not afraid to cry BOO HOO HOO HOO HOO I have a Porsche. I wrote a poem in praise of menstruation, which I think is beautiful and not terrifying or repulsive at all. Do you want to hear it now, or later while I'm hammering your sweet ass in the jacuzzi and using your hair as a bridle? Where are you going? Bitch! Okay, next in line!"
Screedy goodness
James Lileks cuts to the essential differences between brutal, all-conquering American culture and kinder, gentler, weak-willed-and-easily-led Canadian culture:
Another day, another international conference, another meaningless display of unity. But with lovely gift bags, we're sure. The latest example: a UNESCO compact, sanctified in October at a Tunisia conference, supporting the rights of nations to control the import of entertainment from other countries, all in the name of "cultural diversity." Otherwise Bugs Bunny cartoons would pose a mortal threat to the state-controlled monoculture of most nations. The United States opposes the compact, because we're mean and hate everyone, if you read the press. But was the US vote correct? Let us consider.
The original sponsors were France and its stepchild Canada; figures. No country is more prickly about preserving its own culture than France; they regularly have le panique attaq whenever small fragments of other tongues infect their pristine lingo. Their cinema is heavily subsidized, producing endless movies about older-yet-unquestionably-masculine men who pensively smoke while contemplating a girl's knee observed on a beach in 1972. Canada also mandates local content, because there's so much difference between someone who grew up in southern Manitoba and someone who grew up in upper North Dakota. The North Dakotan grows up without a sense of what it's like to be annoyed by bilingual candy-bar wrappers, for example. Might as well be from different planets.
October 18, 2005
Bookstore funnies
Jon and I were in a bookstore at lunch today, and Jon noticed a book on the sale table:
"Look, it's that new history of the Liberal Party!"
I guess you had to be there.
QotD: Digital SLR Cameras
I've been doing research into the "prosumer" digital SLRs. I have spent enough time with photographers to know that Canon and Nikon are really the only options for the neophyte seeking a camera religion. So the choice with the entry-level cameras seems to boil down to:
Canon: A flimsy, ergonomically offensive body that comes with a subpar starter lens.
Nikon: A sturdier, better-designed body with a versatile first-class starter lens PLUS catastrophic hardware problems and customer support imagineered by Lavrenti Beria.
Have I pretty much got this right? The overall message I get is that nobody really wants my money yet.
Colby Cosh, "Best to remain a cranky unbeliever for now", ColbyCosh.com, 2005-10-12
October 17, 2005
Different parental experiences
I think I'm just as lucky not to have been the father of a girl, if James Lileks' experiences are typical:
But fathers of boys usually don't have sham-wedding practice; fathers of girls do, and this helps settle your mind. The other day I officiated the marriage of Rapunzel (Child) and Her Prince, played by Jasper the Family Dog. He was not entirely certain what was expected of him for this tableau; he rolled over and whined in submission. Good start. Rapunzel stared straight ahead, radiant. Do you, faithful dog prince, take this Mattel-licensed character to be your lawfully wedded inter-species soulmate?
(whimper)
Fine. Do you, fairy-tale archetype co-opted by the Barbie marketing juggernaut, take this prince to be your husband?
Child paused, sniffed her flowers, and looked stricken. "I — I don't know," she said, and she fled the scene. The dog sat up, his quizzical clueless face channeling every jilted groom who ever saw his beloved bolt the altar.
The enormous richness of the English language
Christian sent this link to a partly-sorta-semi-serious attempt to enumerate all the euphemisms for the female breast.
October 14, 2005
QotD: Language
There is a tide in the linguistic affairs of men, and it usually comes down to a quotation (often incorrect) by Shakespeare.
Steve Muhlberger
October 12, 2005
Serenity in 2K or less
Serenity in two thousand words or less . . . spoilers ahoy, for the couple of readers who still haven't seen the movie.
WEIRD ASIAN-LOOKING ADVERTISEMENT: I'm not a subliminal message!
SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: River, set kickass mode ON!
RIVER: Miranda! *Kicks everybody's ass, including Jayne's*
SIMON: (In Russian) River, set kickass mode OFF!
RIVER: *Faints*
MAL: You got some 'splaining to do!
WASH: Tell me the story again, I love it when Jayne gets his ass kicked by little girls! Especially since he can't stop me from teasing him about it because he's scared of my wife!
Hat tip to Rachel, from the Canadian Browncoats list.
Work Psychosis . . . a micro case study
Part of an email exchange with a co-worker:
Frustrated Co-worker: How many times do I have to re-ghost this frickin' machine to install this shit?
Me, attempting to be helpful: "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind."
Is that the end of that verse? ;-)FCW: I was thinking along the same lines.
"Up against the wall, m-f-er!"
Oops. Sorry. That's something else. Same era, though.
Damn this [Acronym] crap. Damn it to hell!
[Acronym]! It's . . . people!
Sorry.
Not quite sure what I'm channelling here.
Thomas J. Anderson. That was Neo's name, by the way. Just came to me now.
They must have changed something.
It's a trap!
I need an exit.
Anna has a bad musical experience
Anna has to put up with some unfortunate musicians:
Whoever said shit rolls downhill obviously has spent time outside my office window while the neighbor boy and his best friend practice guitar and sing from their 2nd floor bedroom.
Beautiful California October nights dictate an open window policy but one can only turn chroniX up so high in attempts to drown out these two at midnight.
Imagine Simon and Garfunkel with head colds, their testicles bound tight with baling wire, warbling into an electric fan with a mouthful of Skittles and you'll get a sense of what I'm listening to right now. If I had a boom mike with a long stick I would attempt an audioblog because you simply cannot appreciate how this moment translates into words.
Customer Service Follies
Elizabeth just got off the phone with a Rogers representative. We'd received a mailing from Rogers, offering us a special "Digital VIP" package to replace the plain old "VIP" package we already had. Well, actually they were informing us that they were discontinuing the "VIP" program and replacing it with the "Digital VIP" instead.
The letter was long on words, but short on numbers . . . it didn't actually say anywhere how much it was going to cost us to take the new package or how much it was going to cost if we reverted back to the unbundled costs for our service.
Elizabeth called to try to get the straight story. Almost the first thing out of the sales rep's mouth was "It is very confusing, but most of the time, when the husband explains, it's clear." Does the phrase "waving a red cape in front of a bull" sound familiar to anyone?
QotD: Anthropology
Anthropologists are trained in a particular kind of pattern recognition. They are obliged to think of a culture all at once because, according to the post Kantian idea here, a culture, given its druthers, orders all the world all at once.
Or, this is what anthropologists used to think before they cavalierly took "culture," the field's most powerful notion and valuable asset), and bet it at the epistemology table. In a couple of rolls, they lost the whole thing, rendering themselves still less clueful, still more provincial, and now pretty much the poor cousins of the social sciences. (Oh, those French croupiers! Never trust them!) Fortunately, the culture concept was spirited away by other disciplines and certain anthropologists just in time.
Grant McCracken, "Story time 11: Ferreting and the new conditions of corporate knowledge", This Blog Sits at, 2005-10-07
October 10, 2005
QotD: Canadian Films
Shout Factory included two nice bonuses on the disc, including an actual Hinterland Who's Who ("The woodchuck . . ."), and an explanation of Goin' Down The Road meant for Americans (and Canadians under 30 blessed with no memory of the film). Beside the fact that Jayne Eastwood was in both the original and the parody, it included scenes from Shebib's movie that brought back awful memories of just how . . . dreadful, how . . . dismal and grey and drab and ugly Canadian movies were back then. It was like they'd never actually seen a film, but had them described to them, got handed a camera and told to "go out there and give'er, lad!"
Rick McGinnis, guest blogging at Daimnation, 2005-10-04
October 08, 2005
QotD: Cellphones
Rome was buzzing. Quite literally. Absolutely everyone had a mobile phone, and absolutely everybody was calling absolutely everybody else absolutely all the time. I wondered if there were some law making them compulsory. Frighteningly, it's possible, these days. I swear I saw a street beggar stop and take a call on his cellular. I even heard a trill from a baby carriage, but it turned out to be a toy mobile phone. They start dickhead training early in Italy.
Rob Grant, Incompetence, 2003
October 07, 2005
October 06, 2005
This has no relationship to real life
Really. Right, Elizabeth?
October 04, 2005
The "Ouch-my-brain" post of the day
Tim Cavanaugh finds an essay just chock-full of brain-crogglement:
The tipping point as to why we can lose the war in another way, is self-explanatory, to wit — when we let a bunch of marijuana-smelling, Beetle hair-styled, dirty-faced wild guitar-playing zombies, capsule-upper-downer-dependent brush artists from the dark side of art for art's sake, heroin-sniffing metallic rockers and their Woodstock, cheering drug-addict teenage fans and followers, politically drunk Hollywood activists, school drop-outs, alcohol-soaked bike-riding beatniks, moonstruck religious freaks, urban drifters and their kind, lord our streets and win the war for the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese army.
I'm not sure, but I think we just surrendered to Proxima Centauri.
Stevo Darkly summed it up well in the comments to the original post:
I think the seed of a potentially apt metaphor fell upon the all-too-fertile droppings of rancor, and sprouted into a clarity-smothering kudzu vine of unrestrained berserkery.
Local amusements
Like many of you, we receive a weekly local paper. It's not normally a source of much other than strictly local news, but it undoubtedly more than earns its keep as a wrapper for the ads. I was astonished to find that it does occasionally print amusing stories, like this one by Neil Crone:
Halfway through this spectacle I caught myself smiling. It was not a lecherous or puerile smile. It was more the kind of smile you find yourself wearing when you get a chance to watch your favourite hockey star up close, or when you get your first real glimpse of a mountain or an ocean. I suppose it's awe.
Although, in this case I will admit there may have been a trace of envy in there too. Boil any man down to his essence and I'm afraid we're all just like that bad boy in the field. Deep inside every guy, regardless of education, manners or culture, there's a bovine straining at the halter. Yes, it's a short life, and all too soon, you wind up on a styrofoam plate in Zehrs, but while you're here man, you're living out loud.
It's just eat, drink, fight and please the ladies 24/7. Come to think of it, I guess it's like being Russell Crowe.
Never let it be said that the local newspaper is full of bull. Except in this case, of course. Neil Crone also maintains a new-ish blog.
Hat tip to Elizabeth for pointing out the article to me.
October 03, 2005
QotD: Sexual stereotypes
What an interesting news day.
First, Drudge links to a ridiculous story saying the English are going right past normal sex to in-vitro fertilization. Because sex is a bother.
This seems to confirm something I say all the time, which is that women have vestigial, wimpy, off-and-on sex drives compared to the always-on, intense, decision-impairing, porn-industry-supporting sex drives with which God has afflicted men. And the story seems to confirm my belief that a lot of them marry men in whom they have very little sexual or emotional interest (you find that out after the ring goes on). I would be surprised to learn that English men are the problem here. Yes, a lot of them seem sort of gay by American standards, but I'm that's just the accent and the mannerisms. Not every effeminate man wants another man.
Although it's kind of hard to think of one who doesn't.
Steve H., "Asexual Reproduction and Gay Priests: Soon Only Priests Will be Having Decent Sex", Hog on Ice, 2005-09-25
September 28, 2005
Synchronicity
I had to go to the bank at lunch today, so I grabbed a paperback off the vast collection of as-yet-unread books and drove into town. No problems enroute, got my cheque deposited, and decided to be lazy and get lunch out rather than going home and making something for myself.
We now have a selection of fast-food joints in the village (Mary Brown's Chicken, Tim Hortons, Pizza Nova, and Subway), which is a big change from just a while ago, where there was only one greasy spoon and one full-service restaurant.
I decided to get a sub, in spite of the big "Help Wanted" sign in the front window. There was a line-up of about a dozen people ahead of me, so I opened my book and started reading. By the time I'd gotten to the front of the line, I'd read three chapters. (No, I'm not a speed-reader.)
There were only two people on duty, and while they were very pleasant to deal with (unlike at some other Subway locations), they were slow. I placed my order and eventually it was assembled for me and I paid for it. Their Coke machine was suffering a distinct lack of syrup, so that the small drink I'd poured looked more like soda water than Coke. I mentioned it to one of the staff members and she told me to take a bottle from the cooler instead.
Planned break for lunch, 15 minutes. Actual time elapsed from arriving to sitting down with sandwich, 30 minutes.
To make the connection complete . . . the book I was reading? Incompetence by Rob Grant.
QotD: Hindsight
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.
Joss Whedon, announcing the cancellation of Angel at http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~hsiao/media/tv/buffy/bronze/20040214.html
September 26, 2005
Words as weapons
On one of the various "Browncoats" mailing lists, someone found the opportunity to drop the name of a course she's taking at university:
Goddess Mythology, Women's Spirituality, and Ecofeminism
As a mental exercise, just imagine dropping that one, as a straight line, in a room full of conservatives.
Good, clean fun all around.
September 23, 2005
Volvo: gender discrimination criminals
Volvo, the automotive incarnation of Sweden's social democratic model, has been convicted of gender discrimination:
Volvo's Sweden division has been convicted by the Sweden Labor Court of gender discrimination and ordered to pay the equivalent of $5,200 to a woman who was denied a job at a plant because she was too short to work on an assembly line. How their legal department missed that one, we have no clue. Evidently the gap between denying someone a job for being too short to denying someone a job because she's a woman was bridged by calling it "indirect gender discrimination."
According to the plant's hiring policy, employees must be between 5'5" and 6'5" to work on the assembly line, and the court ruled that since this excluded more women than men, it was gender discrimination.
You'd have to say, based on the legal reasoning, that this is a fair cop. Being ridiculous is just a side benefit.
September 21, 2005
QotD: Medical Advertisements
I don't understand commercials for medicine anymore. I mean, I understand what they're trying to say when they advertise a medication and list its possible side effects. I just don't understand why they bother anymore. Nobody takes these advertisements seriously. The other day, I saw a spot for something called Restless Legs Syndrome. I was stunned when it ended without turning into a "Good news; I just saved 15 percent on my car insurance by switching to Geico" commercial. That's how bad it's gotten. It doesn't even matter how legitimate the affliction is. It could be cancer at this point. It could be a pill to stop spontaneous human combustion. Wouldn't matter. I see these commercials and instinctively shrug them off. I suffer from Grain of Salt Disorder.
Jonathan David Morris, "Thoughts On Health", Libertarian Enterprise, 2005-09-18
September 19, 2005
QotD: Ren Faires
They had spent the day at the Renaissance Festival, and my wife was still shuddering over the event. I did a story on the event almost ten years ago, and while it had its annoying aspects, it was a rather benign and gentle thing. Apparently it's changed, and now it's full of louts and Goths and lewdenesse; half-naked Creative Anachronism types happy to unfurl their great white guts for all to see, fleshy snaggle-toothed watermelon-jugged exhibitionists in costumes more appropriate for a bar called The Teatery, theatrical bits full of cheap single-entendres, grim meat-shops that swapped a fiver for a jot of pale stringy meat and an indifferent shrug. All this and ankle-deep mud in the parking lot. At least it's authentic.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-09-05
September 14, 2005
QotD: Pornography
It's interesting to contrast today's mainstream porn actresses, with their breast augmentations and Brazilian waxes, with the variety of natural bodies from earlier years. These women have breasts, bellies and hips. They have body hair. Some are skinny, some are fat, most are somewhere in between.
And they're beautiful.
They pose nude or in skivvies, alone and in groups, as pinups and in hard-core activities that prove the internet generation didn't invent kink — our great-grandparents did.
Regina Lynn, "This Old Porn Is New Again", Wired News, 2005-09-09
September 13, 2005
QotD: Music
The music here is "free-form jazz," which appears to be several heroin addicts chasing a melody glimpsed in a hallucination.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-09-05
September 12, 2005
St. Ratfood?
James Lileks' weekly Matchbook feature this week fulfils his non-mandatory Canadian Content quota for the year: Ali Baba Steak Houses in Stratford and Waterloo:
I'm guessing that one out of 20 waiters eventually snapped after hearing a customer say "open sesame!" for the 298,026th time, and stabbed the diner with a corkscrew. Maybe that's why the Stratford one seem to have closed down.
If you look at the purple part long enough, the second word starts to look like "St. Ratfood." If you look long enough, that is, and are thinking "St. Ratfood." Try it.
September 09, 2005
Soccer as a replacement for barbarism
Instapunk has a few notions about "the beautiful game" to share:
In the bad old days, a meeting between Norway and Scotland would have resulted in beheadings, disembowellings, rapes, and enough arson to make California wildfires seem like marshmallow roasts. Now we have a somnolent interval marked only by fights in the stands and deranged announcers who live for the remote chance of being able to yell "G-O-O-O-O-O-O-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-L!" once or twice a year. What could be better? If you want to calm down to a state resembling coma, then all you have to do is click here.
Of course, I'm biased: I spent too much time last night watching Randy Moss in his debut as a Raider, followed by about half an hour of soccer as Canada played a "friendly" against Spain.
QotD: Google
At some point, you realize that the Internet's promise of instant access to any fact can be rather annoying, since you feel obligated to find out the answers to the most banal or useless question. How often do manatees ovulate? Which unsung industrial designer invented the Pez dispenser? Or, that one nagging question, what was I thinking? I hate to plug that one into Google for fear it'll tell me.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-09-05
September 08, 2005
No power in the 'verse can stop them . . .
. . . from making a parody of Firefly:
I've posted the entire 11 minutes of the Mosquito: Behind the Scenes Preview comedic fanfilm up for download. Sorry, there's only a 92MB Windows Media file on there right now. I'll get to a QT version later.
Overheard at work
"I'm not an employee! I'm just a frickin' House-Elf!"
September 07, 2005
Comic Relief
Steve H. asks why Cox and Forkum have not yet received a Pulitzer Prize. With yesterday's cartoon, it's hard to come up with good reasons why not.
September 03, 2005
QotD: The 70's
It should be noted, though, that it really was kind of gross to be alive during the '70s. You can't unsee all those hairdos, medallions, and Day-Glo typefaces. You just kind of have to put your head down like a shell-shocked veteran and stride your way grimly through a happier age.
Colby Cosh, "Cinema: recently seen", ColbyCosh.com, 2005-08-19
September 02, 2005
QotD: Vikings Running Backs
Michael Bennett has a neck injury. Mewelde Moore has a bad ankle. Onterrio "Cheech" Smith is in his basement trying to build a better Whizzinator so he can play next year. Moe Williams is more of a short-yardage back.
So Friday, the Vikings will throw young [rookie running back Ciatrick] Fason overboard to see if he can swim.
That's not a bad practice. Years ago, that's how a lot of youngsters really did learn to swim. Before the era of 24/7 nurturing, a father or older brother would take a boy out to the middle of a lake or river and push him into the water.
It's quick, and it saves hundreds of dollars on swimming lessons. That's how I learned. The only problem, as I recall, was getting out of the plastic bag. But after that, it was a cinch.
Tom Powers, "Opportunity knocks for quick-healing Fason", St. Paul Pioneer Press, 2005-08-31
September 01, 2005
Border crossing trauma, deconstructed at LIB
Bob at Let it bleed does a bit of friendly knife-work on a whiny Toronto Star contributor:
Journey with the writer of the column, a self-described "white Canadian boy" as he encounters the horrors of the US Border Patrol. Did Jonathan Mendelsohn scamper across the Rio Grande, skirmishing with armed constabulary who chased him down with helicopters? Er... no. He took a flight through Toronto's Pearson International. Was he abused, thrown in gaol, denied entry? Um... nope. The customs agent had the temerity to ask him for an address in the US where he would be staying. He was taken aside and questioned. And the agent confiscated a pear he was carrying. Plus, she was an asshole. Now, for anyone who has been lucky enough to travel, bumping up against a surly border control guard hardly merits notice. But for this delicate flower, the incident was so traumatizing he felt compelled to write more than a thousand words on the matter. And a Toronto Star editor was so shocked (shocked!) by the terror inflicted that he or she felt the need to get this story out there rightnow!
I must assume that the original author has never crossed an international border before this, because it's one of the necessary unpleasantnessess of the modern world. Bob mentions that he's actually had less trouble travelling internationally since 9/11 than he did before, and he's not the only one who's said that. I got held up at the border the last time I flew to the States, but there was sufficient reason for it: I didn't have my passport with me, and the other forms of ID I was carrying were not enough to convince the agent that I was who I said I was. I eventually got through, but I had to take a later flight . . . and then apologize profusely to my wife, who had to put up with an unexpected call from US Immigration to vouch for my identity!
QotD: The early World Wide Web
Welcome to Cyberspace! It sounds so mysterious and thrilling — but anyone around in 1995 remembers it now as a sea of grey pages and blue links: 39,932 sites, half of which had already won an award.
James Lileks, "On the 10th Anniversary of Netscape", The Institute of Cheer
August 31, 2005
Hmmm . . . does this mean I should emigrate?
Kateland scored the same on the test as I did:
| You Passed the US Citizenship Test |
 |
QotD: Modern Families
While you're contemplating whether 22-year-old Matthew Koso's relationship with his 14-year-old wife, Crystal, whom he impregnated when she was his 13-year-old girlfriend, should be treated as rape, here's another legal question to ponder: Should their decision to name their infant daughter Samara, after the evil ghost in The Ring, be treated as child abuse?
Jacob Sullum, "I Hope They Don't Have a Well", Hit and Run, 2005-08-30
August 30, 2005
Serenity in the comics
The "next" comic after this is nasty to fanfic writers. But probably justly so. . .
QotD: Travel Writing
The poor-but-oh-so-happy sentiment pops up without fail in any crappy travel magazine version of a visit to Myanmar, Laos, or Nepal (and probably any other desperately poor and badly governed country), in which "the people" are always gleeful, generous, and colorful. I'm not exactly sure what it is about being ruled by insane dictators that makes people so damn nice, but here's an idea: If you're a Western travel writer, or, say, German tourist, and you're going to an impoverished country full of hungry people in which you clearly stand out as someone with money to spend, people might be extra nice to you.
Kerry Howley, "But the People Are So Friendly", Hit and Run, 2005-08-18
August 29, 2005
Graveyard Humour, Mississippi Style
Debbie offers some out-takes from Mississippi Public Radio's broadcast day today:
"This is not your Mama's hurricane."
"If the rain is moving horizontally and the debris is moving horizontally, your car should NOT be moving horizontally."
"Do not wade into the water. Remember where it came from. The rain moved horizontally through the Gulf swamps. There may be some alligators that got moved horizontally too."
"ALL highways to the Coast are closed. The wind is too strong for anything taller than a Corvette, and anybody with a Corvette shouldn't risk it in this weather."
And a bit of graveyard humour from the Bujold mailing list, courtesy of Laura Gallagher:
Karl's comment du jour, after hearing about people thinking they can call for rescue in the middle of the worst of the storm:
Updated police telephone protocol: "911, sucks to be you, may I take down your last words?"
QotD: Luck of the Irish
Making dark comments about the likelihood of an unhappy outcome is the way we Irish Catholics deal with anxiety, dread, and uncertainty. It's our special pact with God: If we expect the worst, obsess about it, worry about it, drink about it, indulge in black humor, and honestly convince ourselves that something awful is going to happen, then God will step in and prevent said awful thing from happening just to mess with our heads. But you have to sincerely expect the worst, not just go through the motions. It's when you expect good things to happen or keep happening — when you presume upon God — that bad things happen. Remember what happened when the Irish presumed upon all those potatoes?
Dan Savage, "Welcome Black", AndrewSullivan.com, 2005-08-08
August 27, 2005
QotD: Wood
If someone today invented wood, it would never be approved as a building material. It burns, it rots, it has different strength properties depending on its orientation, no two pieces are alike, and most cruelly of all, it expands and contracts based on the relative humidity around it. However, despite all of these problems, wood is the material of choice when building houses. In fact, we can use wood better than we can use steel, masonry and concrete.
Joseph Lstiburek, Builder's Guide to Cold Climates, 2000
August 25, 2005
QotD: Champagne
I only drink champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it — unless I'm thirsty.
Lily Bollinger
August 23, 2005
QotD: Air Travel
The thought of people being able to use cell phones on airplanes during flight is almost too horrible to contemplate. But I understand why the airlines are considering it: They've run out of new ways to make flying unpleasant. Long lines, inexplicable delays, lost baggage, no food, filthy airplanes, unhappy workers (is anyone else worried about planes being flown by despondent pilots who've had their pensions stolen from them?) — allowing people to use their cells phones is the only way for the airlines to freshen up the hell they've created for us.
Dan Savage, "Terror Cells", AndrewSullivan.com, 2005-08-09
August 20, 2005
QotD: Activist Actors
It was never a practical project to silence the acting profession. These people are famous. Having acquired their fame, they then want to use their fame to do good, and in the process to become even more famous. This is only natural, especially when you consider that doing good and being heroic is what, according to the entertainments these people spend their lives making and acting in, life is all about. Trying to stop famous actors from expressing what they consider to be virtuous and heroic opinions in public is like trying to stop the wind from blowing or the sea from being wet.
Brian Micklethwait, "Minnie Driver and the changing meaning of goodness", Samizdata, 2005-08-01
August 19, 2005
Found humour
This is a door on the floor below where I work:
You can't argue with an authoritative sign like that, can you?
Presenting the news, Canadian style
Today's big story, as filtered through the Rogers portal:
Yeah, a rumour about a couple of members of the Royal family being asked to do voice work for an episode of The Simpsons is far more interesting than a rocket attack on US Navy vessels. Par for the course.
August 17, 2005
The history of blogging
David T. sent me a link to this rather amusing Six Apart presentation on what it would have been like if Blogging had been around much, much earlier.
QotD: Coffee
Is it a bad sign if, instead of calmly removing the lid from the can of coffee in the morning, you claw at it sort of like a rabid animal?
Not that I know anyone who does that.
Steve H., "Caffeine and Socialism", Hog On Ice, 2005-08-05
One of the commenters asked "Canned coffee?", to which Steve made the obvious response: "I am not a coffee connoisseur. After all, we are talking about medicine, not a beverage."
August 16, 2005
Steve H. tries to thin out the Libertarian herd
Steve H. is doing everything he can to remove the last vestiges of Libertarianism from the United States:
Attention, Libertarians
I know I have a bunch of Libertarian readers, and we all know Libertarians are just conservatives who take a lot of drugs. For that reason, I am making a limited-time offer. For fifty bucks, I'll email an envelope full of hallucinogenic millipedes to any location in the U.S. For an additional fifteen dollars, I'll guarantee live delivery. These millipedes are fresh and guaranteed to knock you flat on your ass. If you die, that is your own problem. Email me for PayPal instructions.
Jon often accuses Libertarians of trying to get high on swamp water and toxic waste puddles. Clearly Steve H. is of the same opinion.
Politicians out of touch, part of a continuing series
Back in 2001, Andrew Rasiej was presenting information to a group of Democratic politicians on how to make modern technology work better for them. He'd just finished his presentation. . .
Here are two responses I got. First Senator Dianne Feinstein raised her hand and said, "Senator Daschle, the Internet is full of pornography and pedophilia, and until that's clean up, I don't think the Senate should be on the Internet." (And she represents Silicon Valley!) Afterwards, another senator came up to me and said, "Andrew, I get 10,000 emails a day into my office. How do I make it stop?"
I feel his pain. So to speak.
The metric system as an anti-feminist plot
Tom Palmer unravels an intricate plot to seriously damage the status of women in modern society:
My own take on [metric systems replacing Imperial measurement] is that such "rationalization" is nothing but an assault on the special power held by women in society. Non-metric systems give special power to women, who are, um, let's see . . . more in touch with the natural rhythms of Gaia. Right. Consider: when you want to know how many pints are in a quart or how many pecks are in a bushel or how many teaspoons are in a gill, do you ask A) the oldest male in the house, or B) the oldest female in the house? (Of course, today you can just go to the internet, which is, as we all know, male-dominated . . . and "digital". . . kind of like "metric," and, in so far as it rests on the superiority of the "digit" over the "zero," an example of a phallocracy, to boot.) Real, Gaia-based feminism is, you know, not into the whole 10×10×10 thing and is based on organic immersion in a lived experience. That kind of stuff. So the bottom line . . . oops, um, at the end of the 24-hour day, women have lost the special prestige they enjoyed as the gender capable of mastering non-metric systems. That was the now-lost compensation for the generally lesser upper body strength that gave men advantages in state-building, as they could hit other people harder. At least, that's a good enough reason for me to resist learning the Celsius system, which is about as absurd as you can get, what with chilly (15.5 degrees C) and really hot (32 degrees C) temperatures being pretttyyyy close together, unlike, say, 60 degrees and 90 degrees, which are far enough apart to tell you that one is cool and the other is hot.
Hat tip to Hit and Run.
August 12, 2005
Dan Savage's Secret Shame
Dan Savage, renowned gay sex advice columnist (that is, he's gay and he writes a sex advice column, not that the column is only for advice on gay sex), is currently guest-blogging at AndrewSullivan.com. Here is a shocking admission of his secret shame:
A confession: I had three beers last night. For most Irish Catholics this would not be a big deal. My brother Billy pours three beers over his cornflakes in the morning. But I am the freak of the family — not for THAT, that subject that I shall not touch on today. I'm the only lightweight in Savage family. Three beers on Tuesday night means a wicked hangover on Wednesday morning.
August 11, 2005
Have you heard the latest Silvio Berlusconi joke?
Well, it isn't actually a joke, according to The Scotsman:
The Italian premier has given his backing to the book, written by the press director of his Forza Italia (Go, Italy!) party, which collects comments, both light-hearted and vicious, made by the left-wing opposition about Italy's billionaire prime minister.
Called Berlusconi, I Hate You, the collection of more than 500 insults — all reported over the years by Italy's national news agency, ANSA — is being published by the Mondadori publishing house, part of Mr Berlusconi's media empire.
The tamer insults include "clown", "bandit" and "Premier Pinocchio", while others such as "megalomaniac", "extremist", a man who speaks like a "drunken hooligan" and who behaves "like a Taleban" are more cutting.
"Berlusconi is like AIDS: If you know him, you avoid him," said Antonio Di Pietro, an anti- corruption magistrate turned centre-left politician, in 2002.
Hat tip to Jon.
QotD: Teens
At some point I stopped wanting to go to the farm on Sundays; I was suffering from Sudden Onset Self-Addled Sullen Disengagement Syndrome, which strikes when you blow out 14 candles.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-08-10
August 09, 2005
QotD: Armchair Generals
Why, it appears that we appointed all of our worst generals to command the armies and we appointed all of our best generals to edit the newspapers. I mean, I found by reading a newspaper that these editor generals saw all of the defects plainly from the start but didn't tell me until it was too late. I'm willing to yield my place to these best generals and I'll do my best for the cause by editing a newspaper.
Robert E. Lee, quoted at American Digest, but sounding like he'd written it last week.
August 06, 2005
QotD: Televised Debates
As televised liberal-conservative dust-ups go, this one doesn't quite hold a candle to the celebrated Bill Buckley vs. Gore Vidal cat fight during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. After wordsmith Vidal insisted that, no, really, the author of God and Man at Yale was a "pro-crypto-Nazi," Buckley (who famously signs his letters in National Review, "Cordially...") stopped speaking in his native Latin and declaimed: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in you goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." That's good stuff — and it was on broadcast TV for god's sake.
Nick Gillespie, "Bob Novak: 'That's Bullshit . . . Goodnight, Everybody!'", Hit and Run, 2005-08-05
August 05, 2005
QotD: Method Acting
Fortunately, pop Wonka is played by Christopher Lee — or, as one of my kids exclaimed, "It's Count Dooku!", that being the name of his splendid turn in Star Wars. Lee is having a grand old time at the moment, doing ten minutes in every blockbuster around. My favourite moment in the Lord of the Rings movies isn't actually in any of the movies, but in one of those 'the making of' documentaries that appears on the DVD. It's the scene where Saruman gets stabbed by Grima Wormtongue, and Lee explains to director Peter Jackson that the backstabbing sound isn't quite right, because in his days with British Intelligence during the war he used to sneak up and stab a lot of Germans in the back and it was more of a small gasp they made. Jackson backs away cautiously.
Mark Steyn, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", The Spectator, 2005-07-30
August 03, 2005
Jack Knox beats the war drum
Just in case you still think of Canada as the 98-pound weakling of North America (and let's face it, who doesn't?), Jack Knox thinks the upcoming war with Denmark is a slam-dunk:
The problem with going nose to nose with Greenland is the Inuit think it's foreplay.
Which is why we're going to fight Denmark instead, dropping the gloves in a border war.
This will come as a shock to those who were unaware we even share a border with Denmark, which we don't, really.
Our actual neighbour is the aforementioned, quasi-independent Greenland — the Danish Factory Outlet Store, as it were, way out on the edge of town beside Ellesmere Island and Costco.
Greenland, Denmark, whatever — bring it on, we're going to war.
Hat tip to SOMNIA.
Steve H. proposes a solution to the energy crisis
The ever-resourceful Steve H. has cogitated deeply and come up with a unique solution to not just one, but two pressing issues of the day:
Oil prices are out of sight. Liberals have succeeded in banning nuclear plants, which produce the only safe, inexpensive energy. Cows are farting us into extinction. Farts are flammable. Do the math, and you end up with . . . the fart-powered Prius!
It's simple. Cows are used to the indignity of milking machines, so it will be no trouble at all getting them used to wearing collection bags hooked up to their sphincters. We pump the gas into storage containers, pressurize it, and distribute it from ordinary filling stations. Then celebrities and other gullible guinea pigs will be encouraged to buy Priuses specially designed to run on farts.
We are truly privileged to be on the same planet with a mind this, er, fertile.
QotD: Sports Writers
Sportswriters suffer from an eternal inferiority complex. Their media buddies in the other sections of the newspaper get to cover life and death stuff. So on those rare occasions when a sports story spills over to the front page, all of these hacks get the jones to do some real writing on issues even Congress seems to care about. See John Rocker. Ron Artest. Augusta National.
Hence, the spectacle of the mustard-stained ink rat who dines on donuts, ballpark kielbasas and press box buffets using his column to lecture a guy like Palmeiro about what he puts into his body.
Radley Balko, "Palmeiro", The Agitator, 2005-08-02
August 02, 2005
Fantasy RPG for Dummies
Nick Packwood posted a link to an almost-review of a new-ish book called Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies. The reviewer liked it, saying that he
[. . .] was dazzled by page after page of deep discussions on building characters, the ebb and flow of gameplay, tips for running a campaign, great references to pick up, and so on. "This isn't D&D for Dummies!" I said to myself. "This is more like D&D for intelligent, literate people who want to examine and explore the various ins and outs of this exciting and dynamic creative social activity."
Never fear. He leaps into the fray with the first draft of his own book: D&D for Complete and Utter Idiots.
The Presidential BMI
Radley Balko points out some amusing little facts about the US government's addiction to Body Mass Index measurements and the current President:
Critics of critics of the BMI often counter such claims by saying they're aberrations — that when we talk about how the government classifies world-class athletes as "obese," we're being disingenous because most people don't have the muscle mass of world-class athletes.
But the president isn't a world-class athlete. He's a guy who exercises six times per week. He is exactly what the government says we should aspire to. And yet the government still says he's overweight. Which means if we all worked out as often as the government says we should, we'd probably add to the government's overweight and obesity statistics, not subtract from them.
July 28, 2005
Bulwer-Lytton remembered
It's not technical writing, although much so-called technical writing might qualify:
A man who compared a woman's anatomy to a carburetor won an annual contest that celebrates the worst writing in the English language.
Dan McKay, a computer analyst at Microsoft Great Plains, N.D., bested thousands of entrants from the North Pole to Manchester, England to triumph Wednesday in San Jose State University's annual Fiction Contest.
"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire," he wrote, comparing a woman's breasts to "small knurled caps of the oil dampeners."
The competition highlights literary achievements of the most dubious sort - terrifyingly bad sentences that take their inspiration from minor writer Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford began, "It was a dark and stormy night."
July 25, 2005
World War II as an online game
This got posted to a mailing list I belong to, but it had originated (without attribution) somewhere else. If I manage to find out who to credit, I'll do so. . .
If WWII were an online RTS game ------------------------------- *Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.* *Eisenhower has joined the game.* *paTTon has joined the game.* *Churchill has joined the game.* *benny-tow has joined the game.* *T0J0 has joined the game.* *Roosevelt has joined the game.* *Stalin has joined the game.* *deGaulle has joined the game.* Roosevelt: hey sup T0J0: y0 Stalin: hi Churchill: hi Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks! paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks T0JO: lol Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression! benny-tow: haha america sux Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool? Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever Stalin: cool deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me Roosevelt: get antiair guns Churchill: i cant afford them benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is? paTTon: stfu Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army paTTon: yah hurry the fock up Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck *deGaulle has left the game.* Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k? benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair? benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head? Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u Hitler[AoE]: wtf Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me! T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol benny-tow: haha benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1 T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help Roosevelt: yah thats right ***** im comin for ya Stalin: church help me Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here Stalin: dont be an arss Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late Eisenhower: LOL benny-tow: hahahh oh sh1t help Hitler: o man ur focked paTTon: oh what now biotch Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol *benny-tow has been eliminated.* benny-tow: lame Roosevelt: gj patton paTTon: thnx Hitler[AoE]: WTF eisenhower hax hes killing all my sh1t Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record Eisenhower: Nuts! benny~tow: wtf that mean? Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker Stalin: rofl T0J0: HAHAHHAA Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city *Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.* benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL Stalin: OMG LMAO! Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows *Hitler[AoE] has left the game* paTTon: hahahhah T0J0: WTF my teammates are n00bs benny~tow: shut up noob Roosevelt: haha wut a moron paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now? Eisenhower: yah me too T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol Eisenhower: fock u paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie Stalin: go to hell lol paTTon: fock this sh1t im goin afk Eisenhower: yah this is gay *Roosevelt has left the game.* Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join *tru_m4n has joined the game.* tru_m4n: hi all T0J0: hey Stalin: sup Churchill: hi tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff! tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets T0J0: wtf is nukes? T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****! *T0J0 has been eliminated.* *The Allied team has won the game!* Eisenhower: awesome! Churchill: gg noobs no re T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck *T0J0 has left the game.* *Eisenhower has left the game.* Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for **** Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss tru_m4n: l8r all benny~tow: bye Churchill: l8r Stalin: fock u all tru_m4n: shut up commie lol *tru_m4n has left the game.* benny~tow: lololol u commie Churchill: ROFL Churchill: bye commie *Churchill has left the game.* *benny~tow has left the game.* Stalin: i hate u all fags *Stalin has left the game.* paTTon: lol no1 is left paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep *paTTon has been eliminated.* paTTon: o sh1t! *paTTon has left the game.*
Hat tip to Martin Cracauer.
July 24, 2005
QotD: Ideas
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
George Orwell
July 23, 2005
QotD: The Draft
What frightened me was not going to Vietnam. What frightened me was going in the Army. The haircut, the uniform, the discipline: If I'd been allowed to go to Vietnam in my old clothes. . . The minute the draft disappeared, the whole hippie-dippy thing just went up in smoke.
P.J. O'Rourke, interviewed by Scott Walter, "The 60's Return", American Enterprise, May/June 1997
July 22, 2005
Securing an abandoned train
Police are investigating a suspicious abandoned locomotive and 44-car train in San Diego:
The 44-car train was left idling along Interstate 5 on the 1400 block of West Morena Boulevard in Bay Park at about 10 p.m. Because of the recent terrorist bombings in London, officers notified the Homeland Security Department and the FBI about the incident.
I'm sure you'll all feel much more secure now, as Homeland Security is on the job. Of course, they'll be mighty busy fixing this one: it's a federal law for train crew to leave the train — immediately — as soon as they've worked the legal maximum number of hours.
As someone (on the mailing list where this link was posted) predicted: watch the poor railway employees get hammered for obeying the law.
Update, 25 July: According to a knowledgeable source, the railway employees would be subject to a $10,000 personal fine if they'd stayed on board the train after they'd "expired" or done anything to move the train after that point . . . no wonder they just tied up and left!
July 21, 2005
Paul Wells, movie reviewer
Paul Wells tries his hand as a movie reviewer:
A whole bunch of us saw The Wedding Crashers the other night, and as God is my witness, I think Vince Vaughn should win the Best Actor Oscar. I haven't laughed this hard since Paul Martin said he wanted Belinda because he admired her ideas about government.
July 20, 2005
Colby Cosh on Pottermania
Colby Cosh has some bones to pick with multi-millionaire author J.K. Rowling in his latest National Post column:
All best-selling fiction books, the truly elite ones, are baked with generous helpings of naivete. What seems to distinguish the Potter series is its exponentially expanding complexity. For every character Rowling kills off, she begets 20 more: her story is now thronged with choruses of people, all with names like Febrimius Churlcape or Columba Slobmouth. And they're all embedded in their own mini-dramas. Sorting it all out is the sort of hypnotic, compulsive activity children love. Perhaps Rowling's hero should have been called Harry Pokemon.
Ouch!
QotD: Pharmaceuticals
Don't tell my parents that I work in the pharmaceutical industy. They think I am working in a brothel.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
July 19, 2005
QotD: Wine
I was amused this week to see to see a sign outside my local Wine Rack store which read "Sawmill Creek Bin End Sale." Bin end usually means the last few bottles or cases of the lot. For a wine that arrives in Canada by the boatload, "bin end" sounds a bit far fetched. Then again, "Tanker End Sale" doesn't sound quite as dignified.
Richard Best, The Frugal Oenophile Newsletter, 2005-07-13
July 18, 2005
QotD: Marital Fidelity
Both sexes have a genetic-diversity incentive to screw around, but it manifests in different ways. Again, the reason is parentage uncertainty. For a man, diversity tactics are simple — boff as many hot babes as possible, accepting that you don’t know which of their kids are yours and counting on stronger maternal bonding to ensure they will have at least one devoted parent around. Because a woman can be more sure of who her offspring are, her most effective diversity tactic is different — get married to a good provider and then cheat on him.
Under those circumstances, she doesn't have to value good character in a mating partner as much; hubby, who can't tell the kids aren't his, will supply that. Thus the relative value of handsomeness goes up when a woman is taking a lover on the sly. Marrying the lord and screwing the gardener is an old game, and from a genetic-selfishness point of view a very effective one.
Eric S. Raymond, "A Unified Theory of Male Slobbishness and Female Preening", Armed and Dangerous, 2005-01-06
July 17, 2005
QotD: National Music
What does the soul of a people sound like? With the Germans, you have adequate proof; Wagner spoke for them, for better or worse — grandeur and myth that elevated the soul as easily as it rotted to the soundtrack for a meglomaniacal death cult. Italian music — well, no one ever marched off to war to Respighi's ode to a peacock. Music for life, lived without lasting consequence. (They did their part in the Roman times; they've earned a nap.) French music is best expressed by the gauzy wash of Debussy and his comrades, music that doesn't confront the ear but gently appeases it. America: cheerful tootling Souza marches or great broad optimistic Copeland yawps. Or jazz. Or rock and roll. Or country twangs. (It's not that we have no sound — we have many, and each is as much a part of us as the other. Few cultures can pull that off.) Russian music has that delicious third-drink moodiness. Canadian music — no such thing, really, which is telling. Unless you define it as American style music recorded in a Canadian studio to satisfy a government requirement.
James Lileks, Screedblog, 2005-07-08
July 15, 2005
QotD: Feminism
I am a staunch feminist, in spite of all those women's magazines.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
July 14, 2005
Punctuation is very important
John Turner sent me this link a long, long time ago. For some reason (me being deathly ill with the flu, if I remember correctly), I never checked out the link. Until now. Now I must insist that you also find out the secrets of email punctuation. You'll need to listen very carefully to the presentation.
July 11, 2005
QotD: Journalism
[J]ournalism is now, and perhaps always has been, really nothing more than a marketing tool. And as long as there is a need for marketing, there will be journalism. Look at papers like the [Toronto] Star — any paper that has a "Lifestyles" section cannot really be considered to be real journalism.
Jon Piasecki, Private email, 1999-08-21
July 10, 2005
QotD: Nursing
Nursing would be a dream job if there were no doctors.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
July 07, 2005
Guestbook entries you don't want to read
From a Car and Driver article:
Entries in the guest book at Barker Ranch, an old vacant stone house high atop Death Valley National Park; the ranch was the last hiding place of Charles Manson and his zombies:
December 30, 2001
What a creepy place. Sometimes I think I see shadows. Here I am, middle-class, middle-aged, eating lunch at a cult leader's house. Only in America.March 20, 2002
I'm coming back to kill all the people in this cabin. I got all your names from this book. Prepare to die!
July 06, 2005
SGML tagging is bad for your mental health
A co-worker of mine finally snapped over an exchange with an SGML/XML advocate, and sent this email to our boss:
In other news...
<total_disbelief>I just re-read [SGMLguy's] e-mail where he talks about <he's_got_to_be_kidding>SGML</he's_got_to_be_kidding> and <no_way>tagging everything manually by hand</no_way>.</total_disbelief>
<query>He is kidding, right?</query>
<I_mean,_come_on,_work_with_me_here>It would take absolutely <emphasis>forever</emphasis> to write something the length of, <for_example>[one of our book titles]</for_example>, if you had to <bloody>tag</bloody> everything by hand. And what happens when a writer forgets to <it_blows_up_real_good>close a tag?</it_blows_up_real_good></I_mean,_come_on,_work_with_me_here>
Oh well. I should not let it bother me.
Too much
July 05, 2005
QotD: Taste
The villa itself is beautiful, a tasteful combination of traditional Javanese and Balinese influences with a secluded pool and tropical garden. The architect should be commended. The decorators, however, should be fed to wild pigs. To call the interior "kitsch" is to be too kind. Gilt framed mirrors compete with gilt framed pictures and massive gilt encrusted chandeliers. Understatement and elegance are in short supply. Indeed, they've fled the premises in horror. Vulgar tchotkies, however, abound. A life size porcelin tiger crouches in the entry way. Cherubs peer down from walls and [the owner is] a Muslim for christsake.
It's as if a Las Vegas wedding chapel designer had been abducted, brought to Indonesia, and forced, at gun-point, to lower his standards. One half-waits for the Elvis impersonator to come down the staircase.
Conrad, "The Long Weekend", The Gweilo Diaries, 2004-09-28
July 03, 2005
QotD: Belief
Faith felt good, faith always feels good, it probably feels better than heroin and that's why faith has done much more damage. [. . .] What's the difference between God and a sock monkey? There is a sock monkey.
Penn Jillette, quoted in Reason 2004-12
July 02, 2005
QotD: Pharmacology
The Pharmacological industry is the art of making billions from milligrams.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
July 01, 2005
QotD: Legal Tactics
This is what I like to call a "reverse insanity defense". You raise the defense in the hope that the judge is certifiably out of his friggin' mind and grants it. Sadly, it rarely gets clients off the hook. It is, however, an excellent method of destroying your credibility with the court.
Conrad, "The Reverse Insanity Defense", The Gweilo Diaries, 2004-09-28
June 30, 2005
QotD: Dentistry
Is my dentist not bound by the Geneva Convention?
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
June 28, 2005
QotD: Modern Medicine
You can't treat a car like a patient. A car needs love.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
June 24, 2005
Curry is addictive! Film at 11!
I'm a fan of many of the traditional Indian dishes we generically call "curry", but apparently I'm also addicted:
Mr Mohamad, an MP in Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's party, says the food is laced with opium poppy seeds — known as kas kas in Malay, and used legally by chefs around the world.
He told parliament that it had become the norm for young Malaysians to hang out in Mamak restaurants into the small hours of the morning.
He believes they and many others have become addicted to the food and he called for kas kas to be banned.
However, Mr Mohamad stopped short of demanding that offending restaurant owners be locked up under Malaysia's Internal Security Act.
Now I understand why I get those inexplicable cravings for Dal or Channa Masala, or even Aloo Ghobi: it's not hunger, it's chemical withdrawal!
Hat tip to Fark.com.
June 23, 2005
Brooklin's new newspaper
To my surprise, our little village now has a local newspaper:
The Brooklin Citizen is published as an insert to the Whitby This Week distribution in north Whitby. I'm sure they had some interesting ideas for naming the new publication. If they'd polled the original residents, I think we'd have ended up with names like this:
- The Brooklin Invader
- The Brooklin Outsider
- The Brooklin Go Back To Toronto, Yuppie Scum!
- The Brooklin Alienation
The village has grown over 500% in the past 15 years, with the current population estimated at 13,500. The original residents, to be polite, were uncomfortable with all their new neighbours.
QotD: NFL Team Owners
It's probably also worth noting that the new Vikings owner is very big on family. By my count, Zygi used the word "family" 1,068 times during the 45-minute interview session. He mentioned his family, the Vikings family, his partners' families, local families and the family business.
Asked about meeting the other NFL owners for the first time, Wilf said — you guessed it — they are like a family. Which I can see, particularly when I envision the Corleone family.
Tom Powers, "No news is good snooze with Wilf", St. Paul Pioneer Press, 2005-06-17
June 20, 2005
Error messages you may have seen
Fark has a thread on software error messages. I'm sure I've seen several of these before. . .
New humane program for the suburbs
A rising problem in the suburbs is addressed with this innovative new catch-and-release program:
Suburbia Safer with Trap-and-Release Program for Lost City Dwellers
A new trap-and-release program for city dwellers found wandering aimlessly around the suburbs of major Canadian cities is bringing positive results, say officials with Suburban Environment Canada. [. . .]
McIntyre took us out to check on some of the traps, which are cleverly disguised as entrances to TTC subway stations. The first two were empty, but the third trap held a robust specimen, which McIntyre deftly stunned with a tranquilizer dart and then tagged with a small radio transmitter. As two assistants loaded the unconscious individual into a cage on the back of his pickup, McIntyre noted that of some 45 wayward city dwellers returned to Toronto since April, only three have subsequently been re-trapped in the same suburb. All three were neutered as a deterrent, although this later turned out to have been the result of a clerical error.
Feeding the Persecution Complex Department
Victor is off on a school trip to Quebec City today, so (of course) the "For Sale" sign went up on the lawn about five minutes after he left. We'll be able to get the entire house emptied by Wednesday evening, and the new owners can take possession at noon Thursday, just in time for Victor to arrive back on the doorstep Thursday evening.
Forwarding address? Why would we want to leave a trail?
"Ha ha HA! Mine is an evil laugh..."
QotD: Healthcare
From year to year, it is becoming more obvious: the goal of medicine is not health but the extension of the health system.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
June 19, 2005
QotD: Nine-Inch Nails
Nine-Inch Nails [is] inspirational music for serial killers. Background music for having sex with dead bodies.
Steve H., "Music to Slowly go Insane By: A Partial List of Popular Musicians Who Should be Publicly Dismembered", Hog on Ice, 2005-06-13
June 18, 2005
QotD: Canada
[Y]ou can end all argument on any issue in Canada by saying a proposal is "American-style". I'm waiting for someone to seriously argue for abolishing elections, since they lead to "American-style argument, disunity and wasteful spending on political campaigns".
Damian Penny, "More Chaoulli-related thoughts", Daimnation, 2005-06-13
And Dave Rudell formulates a Canadian version of Godwin's law in the comments to this post:
Maybe we need an analogy to Godwin's Law for political discourse in Canada. It could be something like; as the length of a political discussion among (between) Canadians increases, the probability of someone using the phrase 'American-Style' approaches one. Of course, we'd also have to add the corollary; the person who invokes the phrase 'American-Style' has probably just lost the argument.
June 17, 2005
Search Engines
Every now and again I check to see where some of my traffic originates. A large percentage comes in from Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines. Not that this is a bad thing: it's nice to have folks find my blatherings from outside the traditional blogosphere (sometimes it seems as if almost everyone who visits here is also a blogger).
Sometimes, however, I wonder just how my blog hits the search criteria shown. For example, among the last 100 visits, these have been some of the search strings used:
- Pappenheim Rapier — okay, I've referenced my renaissance fencing activities a few times, so that's fair.
- Rona Ambrose — Four hits here. I've mentioned her all of twice that I can remember, and I'm sure the folks on the Blogging Tories list are much more likely to have referenced her much more frequently than that.
- NHL strike effects — I've mentioned the entire NHL in one posting (I'm not a particularly hockey-mad blogger, I guess).
- Cilento wine — A brief review of one of their wines (2002 Shiraz).
- Political simulation — A post about a Stardock game called "The Political Machine".
- Order of canada ahenakew — Okay, this is a reasonable search. I did write about Ahenakew and referenced him being a member of the Order.
- Football AND metaphor — A recent QotD post.
- Canadian 1st SSF badge — Fair: a specific mention of the 1st SSF and the US Combat Infantryman's Badge.
- Skinhead bloggers — Two hits for this one. One of my most-requested photos: from the November 2004 Toronto blogger get-together at the Bishop and Belcher.
- Tina the brittle tech writer — Another fair cop: I mentioned Scott Adams' brief visit to the main tech writing mailing list and the almost immediate creation of the "Tina" character in his Dilbert comic.
- Health effects of defoliant testing in gagetown — I referenced the then-breaking news about the Canadian government secretly allowing defoliants like Agent Orange to be used at CFB Gagetown.
- Price of Remo Farina 2001 Valpolicella RIPASSO — Ah, yes, a wine I didn't give a good review for. I hope the searcher had a better experience with that particular Ripasso than I did.
- Ratzinger "gay pope" — I've only mentioned the new pope once on the blog, but the string "gay pope" did appear in a Colby Cosh quotation in that entry, so this was a valid hit.
- Movie-Mondovino — For a movie I haven't yet seen, this has shown up several times in my posts. I should get around to seeing it sometime soon.
- Strict training AND S&M — This one had me scratching my head: I couldn't think of anything that seemed to match, until I remembered a throw-away line on the "hog slapper" post. What's worse: I foolishly ran that particular search on Google, and I showed up in the top 70 hits for that string. I suspect my PG-13 rating is suddenly at risk. . .
- Words "boo daddy" — I was a bit puzzled at this one, but the string appeared in a quoted section back in September, so I guess it's reasonable.
- Battle of Bosworth reenactment 1985 — I've mentioned good King Richard a few times . . . and it's only fair, as I was his chosen successor.
- Toronto channel 47 TV show "night drive" — A false positive, I think: Garnet Rogers' song "Night Drive" is one of my favourite pieces, but I think the searcher was looking for a TV show of that name.
- Saskatchewan diamonds — Another Colby Cosh article referenced under that exact title. Probably a valid search result.
- All Saints Estate "Late harvest" Marsanne melbourne — I mention wine a fair bit, but I don't think anything here would be a good match for that search string.
- What is a diktatorship — I've mentioned this idea several times, so perhaps it was a useful hit for the searcher (in spite of the speelign eroor).
- Belinda Stronach nude — To my astonishment, there was only a single search for this in the past hundred hits. usually it's more like one in 20.
- Group sex Edmonton Balaklava — I don't think this searcher found anything useful here, either.
- Diane Schroer outside the beltway — Ah, yes, the transsexual former Army colonel who was illegally denied a job in the Library of Congress.
- Oppossum Ontario Canada — I've used the word Oppossum just once, and it was a reference to an etched brass detail for modellers. Probably not a useful result.
- Where do rivers run uphill — I've quoted David Friedman's "and the rivers will run uphill" a few times, almost always to indicate that something is incredibly unlikely.
- Mike Giuliano film — I linked to an article by Mike Giuliano, but that's about it. 50/50 chance of that being a useful hit.
- Geek culture mainstream — Okay, another 50/50 chance on this one: I'm geeky enough and link to plenty of Geek-friendly material.
- JTF Presidential unit citation — This was news back in December.
- General Rick Hillier — I've mentioned General Hillier several times, although I don't think I'm a primary source of information on him or his tour of duty at NDHQ.
- Hollywood vines wine — Probably not a useful search, unfortunately: I don't write very much about Californian wines.
- Fake prosthetics for passing drug urine tests — Ah, yes, Onterrio Smith's most recent claim to fame. The Vikings' running back has been suspended for the 2005-2006 football season, so hopefully we won't hear any new idiotic stunts from him.
Argghhh's History Post for Today
The lead item in today's "what happened in military history" post at Castle Argghhh! is of interest both to Canadians and also to those Americans who still think the way to solve US-Canadian differences is by invading:
1745 American colonials capture Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island, from the French. Why is this significant? 1. It's the first time we Southrons (from a Canadian perspective) successfully invaded what is now Canada, and, (grump) the only times we've ever been truly successful is under Brit leadership engaging in French-bashing. 2. It set the stage for 1755, which marks the start of Cajun Cooking in what would become the US. The Brits expelled the Acadians (french colonists) from Port Royal... resettling them, among other places, in what is now Louisiana... "Cajun" is derived from Acadian (say it fast and drunk... ducking thrown crawdad heads).
Of course, Jon would still encourage you all to "Invade us! Invade us now!", but he's just a tiny minority voice up here in Soviet Canuckistan. And as soon as the authorities track him down, he'll be a very quiet voice indeed.
June 15, 2005
While I'm on a wine kick
A quote posted at Wise Wallet Wine to prove that wine review language can be even worse than you think:
The Open Mouth, Insert Rotor Blade Very Painful Quote of the Week: "This dark wine . . . helicopters into the mouth with spinning blades of intense fruit." (Andrew Jefford, Financial Times of London on a Georges Duboeuf 2003 cru Beaujolais.) Enjoy it tonight with novacaine and a transfusion.
June 14, 2005
Steve H. gives both barrels to the jury
I didn't follow the Jackson trial. I have little or no interest in whether Andrew Michael Jackson did or did not commit certain crimes. What little attention I've paid to the situation leads me to presume that he's guilty as sin, but he's entitled to a fair trial.
Steve H. explains why legal shenanigans not only continue to happen, but are part-and-parcel of the whole legal system:
My dad always says jury work is the lowest form of legal work. He says a jury trial is just a contest to see who is most popular among twelve simpletons.
The Jackson case proves it. The jurors admit they turned Jacko loose because his victim's mother was obnoxious. Yes, folks, it's true. In California, you can be raped legally, as long as your mother is a bitch.
Don't you ever wonder why it is that lawyers get away with what we do? Has it occurred to you that we can't ruin the world unless we can find imbeciles to help us?
No lawyer ever awarded anyone money in a tort trial. All we do is con the cretins in the jury box.
And, even more generally:
Just remember, for every greedy lawyer who wins a case, there are six or twelve certified pea-brains who deserve most of the credit.
Think about that, the next time you see a warning label on some harmless product like a paper bag or a pot holder.
SUV owner accessory kit
I shouldn't poke fun, as I drive a small SUV, but this item will go a long way to prove that most SUV owners are sad, pathetic little wankers.
June 13, 2005
Ordering Pizza the new, no-privacy way
I'd seen this a long time back, but forgot to bookmark the site. Here's how ordering a pizza will become a trip through your personal life (requires Flash player).
Hat tip to Eric Kirkland.
Hobbies with a sense of humour
Yet another example of injecting humour into leisure-time activities: model roadkill for 1/160th scale hobbyists. Samples include a turtle, a raccoon, an oppossum, a lawyer, a feminist, a liberal and a conservative.
An amusing notion
This is something I happened upon, on a link from one of my various mailing lists:
Lawyer
Paleontologists measure food consumption by the Tyrannosaurus rex in lawyers, after the scene in the film Jurassic Park in which a lawyer is consumed in one bite.
June 12, 2005
News from a universe just next door
Paul Wells entitles this post "Earthquake", and for good reason. First, read the quoted material below, then check the extended entry for the punchline:
"It is false and tendentious to establish a link between private-sector participation in the health-care system and the degree of progressiveness of a society. How can you claim that societies like France, England or Sweden are less socially advanced than Quebec on the basis of private-sector participation in their health systems? It's easy to see this makes no sense.
"The Scandinavian countries themselves have private participation in their health systems. As far as I know, nobody accuses them of being socially backward."
Here's the alternate universe part of the whole thing:
This statement was made in Quebec's National Assembly during an emergency debate on Friday by Philippe Couillard. He is Quebec's minister of health.
He is a Liberal.
QotD: Government
[M]ost libertarians see the government as the mafia's mildly retarded big brother.
Jonathan David Morris, "The Non-Aggression Principle", The Libertarian Enterprise, 2005-06-05
June 11, 2005
QotD: Hospitals
In a hospital, half of the patients get better food than at home.
Gerhard Kocher, Vorsicht, Medizin! Aphorismen zum Gesundheitswesen und zur Gesundheitspolitik, 2000 (English translation provided by the author)
June 09, 2005
Kids today, a curmudgeonly take
Gerard Vanderleun has had it with modern "permissive parenting". At least, I think that's the easiest way to summarize this post:
Children, having had some time to practice at life and get small motor skills and a sailor's vocabulary without losing the ability to screech like a disemboweled wombat at any instant and for no reason at all, present a more interesting buffet of brain disorders. Napoleonic complexes and the belief that their backsides produce nothing but moonbeams are common. Ditto a distinct inability to understand any time lapse at all between desire and gratification. Add onto those three items the realization that we have, as a society, decided that no actions of children — no matter how awful — are to have any consequnces other than a disappointed look and a time out, and you have the recipe for the inmates across the land to run their asylum homes. Which they do with predictable results.
In a simpler time, children's misdeeds and psychotic outbursts ( A frothing temper tantrum involving heel pounding and floor revolving on being denied a pack of gum was observed recently at a local supermarket), were controlled simply by referencing the "father" who would "get home soon." No longer. There is often no father that will be home anytime in the next decade and even when there is he is often inhibited in his impulse to renovate the insane child by the knowledge that the child knows how to dial 911 and will.
I no longer regularly travel by public transit, but one of the worst things was taking a bus or streetcar when the kids were getting out of school. Mob scenes, random violence, gang dynamics, and all sorts of pathological behaviour was on full display from the time the vehicle doors opened.
Some restraint, at least in the clothes and personal hygiene sense, remained among the private and Catholic schools who had school uniforms. Public schools, however, let the barbarians in the gates long ago:
Of course, by the teenage years, this ability to dress in a myriad of ways suggesting the increasing degeneration of the cerebral lobes has paired itself with the ability to attack parents in their sleep with edged weapons, so all restraint is lost. This accounts for many children — during the peak teenish years of their unbridled psychopathic and sociopathic insanity — to emerge from their million dollar homes and their personal SUVs with the look of a feces-smeared Balkan refugee with multiple facial piercings and a 'message' t-shirt promising to fight for the right to party like demented schnauzers.
Any responsible adult appearing in any of our cities and towns with this "look" would immediately be reported to Homeland Security, surrounded by Navy SEALS locked and loaded, and find themselves on a one-way flight to Guantanamo. But for our children, its "Hey, they're only kids. What can you do?"
Guest blogger tries to appeal to da Canadian values, eh?
In a bid to widen her already vast audience, Kate's guest blogger Jeff goes for the traditional Canadian market:
In which I attempt to curry favor with Canadians by carefully caressing their cultural sensibilities
Is there anything in the world better than Anne Murray? No. No there most certainly is not!
Unfortunately, he misses the mark. "Sean" helpfully provides some clues in the comment section:
You know what would be better than Anne Murray? Rita McNeil in a G-string and pasties. Oh yeah, and Ashley MacIsaac standing behind her and flogging her pallid flesh with his violin bow while ripped on acid and screaming obscenties at the audience. And let's have Gordie Lightfoot table dancing somewhere in the background. Just because.
Those are some Canadian cultural sensibilities I could get behind.
Not.
All I can say is there must be some part of Canada where this would be considered good entertainment.
June 08, 2005
Greg "the junkie" Staples needs a fix
Poor Greg has been overdosing on his daily fix, and the supply has suddenly tapered off:
I need more of it or stronger doses to get me worked up. You mean no one has crossed the floor today. No back room deals have been made. There is no explosive news at Gomery. You mean I have to discuss issues! If the MSM doesn't do it how can I be expected to (that ones for you Paul Wells).
Hopefully some MP will go off their rocker today so I have something to talk about.
The sad, sad spectacle of the political junkie. Parents, don't let this happen to your kids!
The Babbler goes for the patriotic angle
Damian provides some fodder for the would-be patriots among us:
Of course, I bring this to your attention because I feel strongly that we should celebrate our triumphs on the world stage, not because she's hot.
What's that? Why yes, I am sticking with that story, thank you very much for asking.
For those of you who are more visually oriented, he also provides a photo. . .
June 07, 2005
D-Day, if it had been reported by today's media
Murdoc Online got an Instalanche for the comments on this post. Some of the more amusing ones:
Roosevelt, with only his poodle Churchill backing him up, escalates total war in Europe; rather than finding work for them Roosevelt sends thousands of underprivileged Americans to their certain deaths. Civilian casualties expected to be in the unacceptable range. This is too heavy a price to pay; bring the troops home now!
Charles"Mistakes and miscalculations lead to hundreds of unnecessary American deaths on Omaha beach."
"Risky airborne operation ordered by Eisenhower"
"Thousands of paratroopers missing and feared dead after disorganized jumps"
"Allied troops untrained and unprepared for combat is Hedgerow country"
"Ike ignores advice of de Gaulle and orders risky invasion of France anyway"
BramUS Soldiers Desecrate French Church by Killing Sniper in Tower
D-Day Protesters in New York: No Blood for Brie!
Sanctions Would Have Worked, Says League of Nations
BrainsterUnified Europe faces threat from US-led Assault
Eco-Disaster: The Normandy Coastline. Will it ever recover?
Bumperstickerist
Yes, media bias was alive in 1944, but between military censorship and a greater awareness among newspaper and magazine reporters, even bad news was presented very differently than it is today.
June 06, 2005
QotD: Pop Music
One of the pleasures of middle age is the utter freedom you feel when you realize it's no longer necessary to care about pop music. This emotion takes several forms; at its worst you become a peevish coot suffused with suspicion: These youngsters are wearing their hats in a style that fills me with unease. But at its best, you realize that there's more to life than pop music. You need not worry whether the sludgy thrash-rock ground out by yowling scowlers is post-punkabilly infused with a neo-hippie sensibility, or the other way around. If something new comes along that you like, fine. But don't think it makes you hip. You're not hip. Hip, like Trix, is for kids.
James Lileks, "Turning into an old crunker", Star-Tribune, 2005-05-29
June 05, 2005
QotD: Bike Gangs
The "Liberal Party of Canada" isn't the catchiest name for a Quebec biker gang. On the other hand, it's no more clunkily uncool than, say, the Rock Machine or any of the province's other biker gangs. The Liberal party is certainly a machine and it's proving harder to crack than most rocks, and it's essentially engaged in the same activities as the other biker gangs: the Grits launder money; they enforce a ruthless code of omerta when fainthearted minions threaten to squeal; they threaten to whack their enemies; they keep enough cash on hand in small bills of non-sequential serial numbers to be able to deliver suitcases with a couple hundred grand hither and yon; and they sluice just enough of the folding stuff around law enforcement agencies to be assured of co-operation. The Mounties' Musical Ride received $3 million from the Adscam funds, but, alas, the RCMP paperwork relating to this generous subsidy has been, in keeping with time-honoured Liberal book-keeping practices, "inadvertently lost."
Mark Steyn, "Exit strategy", Western Standard, 2005-06-15
June 04, 2005
QotD: Music as a career
Last day of Gnat's school. They had a picnic outside with a band: a guy with a guitar and a guy with a bass. Nice patter and good musicianship, but they should tour high school and teach the kids a very important lesson. Look at us! We're in our late forties, excellent musicians, skilled in the Path of Rock, and in the end it's parties for four year olds. No doubt they enjoy their work; that's irrelevant. Point to young rockers: they are not living in a mansion with a limo in the bedroom with gold-plated champagne spigots in the backseat Jacuzzi; nor do they have a stable of foxy groupies waiting in the van. Maybe it's enough to keep playing and enjoy what you're doing — in fact, given that most who take up the Path of Rock fall by the wayside and foreswear the Axe, they're ahead of the game. A gig is a gig. And the audience not only loved them, but was entirely sober, for a nice change. Still: if you young rockers out there think that the Path will lead to awesome debauchery for, like, forever: heed the Bear. It's not all TV sets tossed off motel balconies. Sometimes it's leading kids around a meadow making choo-choo sounds on your wirelessly miked bass.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-06-03
June 03, 2005
Political shopping
I was just at Political Staples. Greg has Google Ads appearing between posts. This is a screen capture of the current ads on the page:
I thought it was funny, anyway.
French Fighters grounded in New Jersey
Nine French fighter jets and a radar plane stayed overnight at Atlantic City International Airport after one suffered a mechanical problem and bad weather prevented them from returning to their aircraft carrier off the Virginia coast, authorities said Friday.
The U.S. State Department was contacted by French officials after one of the pilots tried to buy fuel Thursday and couldn't because he didn't have the available funds on his credit card, a Philadelphia television station reported.
I mentioned the story to Jon and he responded "Must have maxxed out his card at the casino. Or at the escort service."
QotD: Wine
[. . .] I have had to deal with the incessant drone of wine bores commenting on how the wine they just bought scored 90 points or higher without actually connecting with wine on their own terms. My favourite was the one who failed to realize his Rober Parker 94-point Bordeaux was 100 per cent corked. When I mentioned that the wine seemd "a little musty" to me, he scurried off in search of Parker's review. Returning triumphantly, he held the newsletter aloft and proclaimed "Parker doesn't say anything about this wine smelling musty."
Pam Droog, letter to Vines magazine, May/June 2005
June 02, 2005
QotD: Intelligence
I've often said that mathematically inclined people generally get that way because God takes everything in their skulls and pushes it over to the left. Tensor calculus? No problem. Understanding that it's disturbing for a grown man to speak Klingon? Sorry, the part of the brain that ordinarily handles that is busy thinking about the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Steve H., "Star Wars Still Sucks: 'Quick, Someone Put More Minwax on Natalie'", Hog on Ice, 2005-05-26
May 31, 2005
Humour is where you find it
I sent this link to Jon, merely to confirm all the nasty suspicions he harbours about us expatriate Brits.
He responded with a quote from the article, "Slag off, ya barmy punter," and implied that that would make a good name for a blog. Followed about five seconds later with "Actually, add an 'Eh?' to the end of that, and it's a Red Ensign blog."
QotD: The Beauty Myth
Another example: the elaborate piety over "the beauty myth." The poster child for this particular form of false sensitivity is the "plus-sized model," whose hefty dimensions are intended to teach us there are many different ways to be beautiful, that physical attractiveness is irrelevant. Fine: except, take a look at her. Aside from the rolls of flesh, she's gorgeous, in the most conventional, looks-are-everything way.
The sensible way of thinking about this, it seems to me, is not to pretend that beauty is irrelevant, or that everyone is beautiful "in their own way." It's to accept what you are. Some people are more attractive than you, some people (hopefully) are less attractive, but either way it's no big deal; and while physical beauty is a marvellous thing that we ought to celebrate for what it is — a happenstance of nature — it's one of the less important things you can say about a person. The same could be said about intelligence.
Andrew Coyne, "False Sensitivity", andrewcoyne.com, 2005-05-07
May 30, 2005
New class of ships?
I take a short break from blogging (okay, from just about everything beyond basic body functions, but that's not the point . . .), and everyone seems to get to the good stuff while I'm away. Hot new rumours about a new class of aircraft carrier being investigated by the Navy have, if you'll pardon the expression, surfaced.
QotD: The French Referendum
Tonight's referendum rejection of the European constitution by French voters is surprisingly strong for three reasons: the brute score for the No, 55%, is unusually high (it was a hair over 50% for the Yes in the 1992 Maastricht referendum); the last-minute polls which suggested the No camp's momentum was fading turned out to be inaccurate; and perhaps most important, the robust 70% participation rate makes the final result impossible to discount. France thought hard about this question and came out in great numbers to make a clear decision.
Because Belinda Stronach was not involved, expect most Canadian news organizations to ignore this news more or less completely.
Paul Wells, "Sens et non-sens d'un vote", Inkless Wells, 2005-05-29
May 28, 2005
QotD: Multitasking
I think it's probably true that everyone multitasks more than they used to, and some of us multitask virtually all our waking hours.
In short, we are all teenagers now. This was one of marketing research revelations of the 1990s: that teens could watch TV, take a phone call, do their home work, monitor a conversation in the other room, and ignore their parents all at the same time. But some 10 years later, it looks like kids were merely the early adopters.
Grant McCracken, "We are all teenagers now", This Blog Sits at the, 2005-05-24
May 26, 2005
This is what happens when comments go off the reservation
A post on Hit and Run yesterday had a brilliantly funny line in it:
[. . .] in congressmanship (as Rep. Yoda here might put it) one definition is having three brain cells to rub together and sufficient regard for free speech not to go slinging around the word "treason" like rhesus feces.
Then the comments thread got just a bit weird. As in, starting at PG-13 and rushing straight through R to X rating in bare minutes. Hilarious, but not things I'm comfortable posting here. . .
May 25, 2005
A quick link for you Star Wars fans
Shortpacked! for May 23rd. Hat tip to James Reynolds for the link.
May 24, 2005
Europe plagued by singers, dancers
A sidebar item at American Digest led me to some scary stuff:
- Eurovision, day 1: "Manolo says, Ayyyyyyy! The symptoms they are presenting. . ."
- Day 2: ". . . already it worse than the ten plagues that the angry Yahweh meted out to the unjust Pharoah and the Egyptians."
- Day 3: "Manolo says, Ayyyyyyy! The angry God he continues to punish his wayward children by visiting upon them the horrors of the Eurosvision Song Contest."
The horror. The horror!
Tipper expands on the "Facts of Life"
Tipper uses a list from the QandO blog:
Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.
I have to admit that I don't hear this one as often as I used to. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that!
Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.
I hear a lot of this "blame someone else" from kids these days. It never actually seems to be the fault of the speaker, it's always someone else's fault.
Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.
This one has been an issue since the first cave teenagers started daring one another to throw stones at sabre-toothed tigers. Most of my teenage friends survived that period, but my younger sister's peer group had a significantly higher number of funerals to attend.
Update: I realized I missed an important comment on Rule No. 1. Maybe it is
Rule No. 1a. It's absolutely true, "life is not fair" and you should never expect it to be. But I still expect you to play fair, always. And though neither of us will ever be perfect, I expect it of myself too.
Well said. Rule 1a is sometimes the toughest one to follow in real life.
The BOFH on love . . . and curry
The BOFH provides worldly advice to his young assistant.
QotD: Discount Airlines
Some thoughts on discount airlines. The ticket price sounds good, yes, but the discount is eaten away by overweight baggage charges and the price of rail/coach tickets each way to and from your destination city and hinterland airport. Big savings for the inconvenience and expense are retained by the airline are while each souvenir of your visit jacks up your fare to exactly where it would be had you flown with a proper carrier. At least, such is the guestimate of the travelling book collector. If stamps and other light-weight antiquities are your game you may not face the same problem.
Nick Packwood, "Sic transit gloria mundi", Ghost of a Flea, 2005-05-23
May 23, 2005
Buying a new car, Minnesota style
Well, I try not to post links to the same authors too often, but this article by James Lileks is too funny not to link:
We're buying a car, and I've learned one thing: Don't tell anyone you're buying a car. You'll be drowned with well-intentioned but useless advice. Such as:
Hey, how about that new Chevy Gazunga? That's one sporty little number. Of course, I've read that it hydroplanes in dew, but you gotta admit it's sweet. What, you're not buying something fast, small and impractical? What sort of a man are you? Why don't you just cut to the chase and wear a skirt, then? You disgust me.
[. . .]
Have you considered a Hummer 2? Then everyone will hate you as a wasteful American, a tool of the Saudis and a gross, rapacious killer of this ineluctably fragile thing we call Earth. It's legal in 14 states to key a Hummer, did you know that? I had one once, but it had a blind spot, and I kept backing over things, like playgrounds. But it comes with some nifty accessories, like a trampoline for getting on the running board. And the keys are made from depleted uranium. The manual comes in a baby-seal pelt, and includes a photo of the seal being clubbed. Signed by the clubber!
I'm actively resisting the notion of looking for a new car this year, so this column hit home very accurately.
Lileks raves about "Team America"
I forgot that our American neighbours fail to honour the memory of Queen Victoria today, and therefore are all hard at work (suckers!). As a result, I only thought to check some of my usual sites for interest a little while ago. James Lileks has an interesting review of Team America:
[. . .] I had some exposure to the South Park creative team, so I wasn't surprised by anything in "Team America." Oh mercy, it was funny. Maybe I'm just a sucker for interminable puppet puking, but I thought it was brutal, cruel, mean, unfair, and hilarious enough so you still wore a rictus during the so-so parts. You could almost hear the writers jumping up and down laughing and screaming when they saw the rushes for Janine Garofalo's death scene: man, who knew a puppet could have its head blown off so expressively? I wasn't completely comfortable with using 9/11 as a punch line, but I'm a humorless scold about some things, that being one. I have to admit, though, it's a brilliant satire of all those US-forces vs. the terrorists movies we've suffered through in the last few years. You know, the ones with the Arab militants as the bad guys. The ones full of jingoistic drivel about Special Forces. The ones that feature all sorts of slam-bang action designed to make you feel good about our side and hate the other.
You know, those movies.
"Team America," in other words, maybe the first movie that satirizes a genre that doesn't actually exist.
But . . . it could have existed. Therefore it's legitimate to poke fun at it, gaining political points for the excesses of your unworthy opponents for things they didn't do. If you follow Canadian politics, you can quickly grasp the concept: it's practically the number one operating instruction for the Liberal Party, after all.
And, dare I say it, you might just find large groups of Americans who actually believe that such movies have been made in large quantities since 9/11.
Things not to do next time you direct Shakespeare
A recommended link of the day on one of my mailing lists: Things I Will Not Do when Directing Shakespeare list:
2. I will not cast anyone who can accurately be called a "teen idol" simply to draw in the trendy set.
3. I will not put the cast in Victorian costumes for want of a better idea.
4. I will not imply that Hamlet is sleeping with his mother, or wants to.
. . .
13. Richard II's minions will not be made to wear pink.
. . .
26. I will not cut important scenes simply because I do not like them.
27. If I am running an annual Shakespeare festival, I will acknowledge that there are plays beyond A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night.
. . .
40. Titania should not be portrayed as a dominatrix.
. . .
53. Actors should be told that these are characters interacting with each other, not people reciting lines. They should be hurt if they forget that.
. . .
68. I will not aim for realism in my fight choreography when both armies together only number about ten people. Especially if I have a big stage.
69. Richard III will not be portrayed as a whiny little prat who couldn't seduce or murder his way out of a wet paper bag.
. . .
88. I will not portray Mercutio as a speed addict and Tybalt as his dealer. I will try to do the world a favour and cease from modernising Romeo and Juliet.
I've been involved in fight choreography for Shakespearian productions, and I was laughing out loud through most of this list . . . which continues down to item 359!
Hat tip to Marna Nightingale for posting the original URL.
Disguising yourself as a Canadian
One of the bloggers at Castle Argghhh!, CW4BillT, is heading over to "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey"-land for his 20th anniversary trip with his wife. One of the helpful comments on that post gave tips on how to disguise himself as a Canadian:
Ciggy briefed on May 23, 2005 09:45 AM
You're headed into hostile territory. Best to camouflage yourself as Canadian, just to avoid problems. Don't forget to practice your Canadianness:
1. Any "OU" dipthong is "OO" not "OW"
2. All things Canadian are superior to all things of the U.S., but inferior to all things Eurotrash, because Canadians suck up to the Eurotrash the same way the Eurotrash suck up to the Islamofascists (which is why the Eurotrash love Canadians!)
3. Maple syrup is a condiment.
4. Beer is a survival supply.
5. Amerind tribes are referred to as "FIRST NATION", not "NATIVE AMERICANS".
6. PC moonbattery goes out the window when you have to shoot a grizzly bear to get safely to work in your morning commute through the backwoods. (Some Norwegians and Finns understand this exception to the rule, too.)
7. Remember not to find any irony at all in the fact that your "nation" is tolerant of the intolerant (Islamofascists) and can still consider that to be tolerance. Pretend to be nonplussed when asked when the beheadings will start up, in Toronto.
May 17, 2005
More Campaign Slogans
Thanks to The Librano Generator, we can test some campaign slogans for the next election:
Hat tip to Small Dead Animals.
Random office conversation
My virtual landlord was leaning over the cube wall, commenting that I was lucky that my Libranos poster hadn't been torn down yet. He then suggested that I should print out a picture of Belinda Stronach and add it to the poster.
I pointed to the space below the Libranos title and asked, "Right about here?"
I guess you had to be there.
Update: I worried that this post was getting a little far down the poor-taste meter, but Damian Penny links to a CP story that goes much lower:
They started off as a political golden couple, but wound up a wincing example of why you shouldn't date someone from work.
"Never dip your pen in the company ink," as one Conservative insider put it. With news reverberating around Parliament Hill of Belinda Stronach's blockbuster bolt from the Tories to the Liberals, the indelicate question was unavoidable: "What about Peter MacKay?"
Stronach's well-publicized romance with the Conservative deputy leader could hardly have come to a more stunning end.
Update the second: Publius expresses his strong distaste for Belinda Stronach in this heartfelt post:
Let me expand upon my earlier comments: Bitch, Whore, Weasel, Coward, Skank, Ho, Traitor, Sludge, Swine, Rich White Trash, Spoiled Brat, Rich Bitch and so on and so on. Words fail me, as they have Andrew Coyne. What the heck do you say. All that comes to mind is a stream of profanity and various rude gestures. The conspiracy theorist in me recalls that her father, that's the one who actually earned the money, was a staunch, if right-wing, Liberal.
Could his and his daughter's support for the Conservatives have been part of a power struggle within the Canadian economy? Was Frank not getting enough of the pie, being muscled out by Power Corp and its courtiers? Has an agreement been struck allowing the Stronachs' back into the fold? Or was this betrayal, as Stephen Harper suggested, part of her ambition to become Prime Minister? Pure and simple power lust. The MSM has been typically clueless, save Mike Duffy and Don Martin. On CTV's 24hr news channel the two dim twits spent almost an hour gossiping about how poor Peter McKay must feel. Hello, ladies, this isn't a beauty parlour or a coffee brunch. You're newscasters, try to act the part once in a while.
Lileks overplans his daughter's summer
James Lileks does his level best to ensure that this is "the bestest summer ever". He also reminisces about his own "Norman Rockwell" childhood:
Summer school. When I was a kid, the very phrase seemed a cruel joke — only a species as devious as adults could join the two words together. "Summer school" was like "spider ice cream" or "Barbie gun" — a ruined mutant you did not care to experience. Summer school was for the bad kids who spent the year lounging in the back row, smirking, blowing pin-darts into the soft pink necks of the attentive eggheads. It was the Big House, in other words — you could just see yourself sitting in a class, listening to the teacher drone on and on and on about Peruvian exports, watching kids pass by on their bikes en route to the pool. The thought of dweebs in the changing room whose butts would go unsnapped by wet towels — well, it gnawed at their very souls.
As a former dweeb, I say it served them right. Oh, they got paroled in August, but by then the summer was just a well-chewed cob. They'd show up at the pool with jailbird pallors. Everyone knew.
May 16, 2005
Antiwar posturing at "Huffington's Toast"
Steve H., proprietor of Hog on Ice, is also the demented mind behind the parody site Huffington's Toast. There have been some brilliant bits of knife-work posted there since they counterstruck the original site. Here's a line I'd have expected to be used about the French:
If God wanted us to go to war, why did she give us two good knees to surrender on?
I haven't bothered visiting the site Steve and his team are satirizing — why bother? It couldn't possibly be as entertaining as the Toast. I don't really follow any of the "celebrities" that are supposed to be writing for the Huffington site. In fact, I don't even recognize half the names being tossed around as "celebrities".
May 15, 2005
Liberal Campaign Slogans
The ever-helpful Andrew Coyne has posted some useful suggestions for Liberal campaign slogans:
A friend of mine suggests, in light of the Liberals' evident strategy of promising every province, city, or interest group whatever their heart desires — together with a warning that all of these goodies will go up in smoke if they are defeated — a possible Liberal slogan: "Vote Liberal and nobody gets hurt."
And from the comments on that post: "Vote Liberal — We haven't been corrupt lately." Or "Vote Liberal. We have no convictions" (yet). Or perhaps "Vote Liberal: We're Organized." And even: "Vote Liberal and Fuggeddaboutit!!"
Update: Aaron provides some extra content on Grandinite.
May 13, 2005
Advance warning
Minority of One has managed a real news coup: an advance copy of a royal proclamation to be delivered during the Queen's visit to Canada next week:
Tuesday, May 17, 2005.
Her Royal Highness, Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain and of Canada, today made the following pronouncement, from the House of Commons, Ottawa.
"It has come to our attention that our Dominion of Canada has proven itself incapable of maintaining a functioning, autonomous government. Within this vast part of our realm, a single, oligarchical political party has emerged, that has corrupted, distorted and preempted the great tradition of the Westminster parliamentary democracy that we have bequeathed unto our Canadian subjects. As their sovereign, it is my responsibiliity to my Canadian subjects to revoke the British North America Act. As of now, Canada will be ruled by the Minister for British North American Affairs, Westminster, Lord Black".
Gomery Funnies
Greg Staples links to a Christie Blatchford article in the Globe and Mail:
About 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon, there was a sort of muffled roar — it was the kind of noise you hear a block or two away from a construction site — that echoed within the Guy-Favreau complex here, where the Gomery inquiry has its Montreal home.
For a few seconds, the place fell silent, as though a roomful of ears were cocked.
In the witness box, Daniel Dezainde leaned into the microphone and said, "Don't worry — I have no car parked here."
It was funny, and everyone laughed.
But as a metaphor for just how far the Liberal Party of Canada has fallen, it was impeccable.
Why the Governor General hasn't acted
At lunch today, we were discussing the whole constitutional position of the Governor General, and what her options actually might be. I mentioned my post earlier today, where I asked why she hadn't already taken action. I also said I'd started another post about what the political angles might be from her Excellency's point of view, but I decided it wasn't worth publishing, so I trashed it.
At that point, it became crystal clear what was going on: she hasn't acted yet for a real, valid reason. The problem is that she'll have to fly to Sicily and ask the Don's permission to dissolve parliament, and she's afraid she'll wake up some morning with a horse's head in her bed. Yes, I'll pass up the opportunity to say that she might wake up on any given morning with a horse's ass in her bed, but that's no way to refer to the Governor General Consort.
Blog registrations to be mandatory?
Apparently the good folks in the BC Elections office have decided that bloggers are actually advertising if they mention political parties, candidates, or advocate for or against issues. This requires the bloggers to register with the nice folks at Elections BC and conform to the rules of the Election Act. Kate at Small Dead Animals and Angry in the Great White North have more information.
Kate suggests that an inundation of blog registration requests from outside BC might help to stem this little bit of stupidity.
Angry points out that this measure, if applied on the Federal level (and you know damned well that Elections Canada would love to do so), would do a great job of stifling free speech. The specific provisions of the BC Elections act require that anyone advertising during the election must list a valid BC contact (either address or telephone number), the name of the sponsor and indicate that the sponsor is registered under the Election Act. So much for anonymity.
Update: Mucked up the link to Angry. Thanks to Jon for noticing and letting me know I'd screwed it up. Should be fixed now.
May 12, 2005
Federal Liberals gear up for election campaign
Kate, at Small Dead Animals links to some undercover work at Debris Trail, showing the new Liberal Party pins being ordered.
May 11, 2005
Spamalot nominated for awardsalot
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the musical Spamalot — "lovingly ripped off" from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail has been nominated for 14 Tony awards.
QotD: Blogging
That's the big problem with blogs, of course: who cares what X thinks? It all depends on the quality of the thought, the uniqueness of the product, the value added. In the blogworld, a celebrity name adds no value whatsoever. If the blog's good, the celebrity may earn some blogcred (oh, Lord, shoot me now for that one) for not sounding like someone who just emerged from the isolation tank of LA culture. But I really don't care what Larry David thinks about John Bolton. I care what Larry David thinks about the itchy tags on shirts that scrape your neck, because I know that he can make a 12-part TV series that revolves around that detail, and George Will can't.
We'll see. In a way blogs are the refutation of the old joke: "The food's so bad here." "Yes, and such small portions." Dole out crap in large amounts all day and you don't guarantee traffic; eventually people will tired of poking through the heap with a stick looking for diamonds.
Somewhere in there, there's a metaphor.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2005-05-10
May 10, 2005
The Flea, creating new images of Canadians abroad
Nick Packwood, adrift in London, achieves new cultural heights for all Canadians travelling overseas:
I could sense every mind within earshot putting me in the ugly American box because I had the temerity to assume this was a business that had to, like, compete by offering the occasional special offer. But I had the last laugh. This was an ugly Canadian. Think of Canadians being bad and letting everyone think we are American as the flip side of those apocryphal Americans trekking about Europe with maple leafs sewn to their backpacks.
May 09, 2005
Canada's ever-changing National Anthem
For those of us who don't keep careful watch on the slippery nature of Canadian heritage, the Canadian national anthem appears to be about to change: visit The London Fog to hear an advance copy of the new version.
Pajama Media controversy
I don't carry ads on my blog, so this is not something that directly concerns me. The summary at Moxie's blog sums up the whole thing really well . . .
The first rule of Pajama Club is — you do not talk about Pajama Club.
The second rule of Pajama Club is "42" *
The third rule of Pajama Club is "bend over."
QotD: Politics and Music
"A good song should make you wanna tap your feet and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cops and set fire to the suburbs. I'm only interested in writing great songs."
So says Tom Morello, guitarist for the Los Angeles-based band Rage Against the Machine. He and his bandmates are not simply against cops and the suburbs, of course. They also stand for the Zapatistas and the Shining Path, for freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier, for giving California back to Mexico, and for destroying stores where rich people like themselves shop.
That's pretty strong stuff coming from work-for-hire employees of one of the great cogs in the global capitalist machine, the megaconglomerate Sony, which wholly owns and distributes Rage's music and even is a co-owner of the group's publishing. Since 1992, Rage has sold nearly 7 million records, and it's safe to say that nobody has benefitted more from that commerce than the band's unabashedly capitalist paymaster.
Brian Doherty, "Rage On: The strange politics of millionaire rock stars", Reason, 2000-10
May 06, 2005
Read the Interweb-thingy offline!
When you don't have time to read that newfangled interwebnet-whatsit online, you can now read it offline.
What will they think of next?
May 05, 2005
Conversational checkmate
Part of a conversation (obviously non-work related) this afternoon:
". . . most teenagers have to hate little kids: it's practically in their job description."
"If that's true, then why do so many teenagers end up having kids?"
"Oh, that's just <pseudo-intellectual voice> a radical manifestation of their existential self-loathing </pseudo-intellectual voice>"
Pause
<Hillbilly voice> "Is that just a fancy way o'saying they's horny?</Hillbilly voice>"
I guess you had to be there.
Not that there's anything wrong with that . . .
Ann Althouse has an awkward moment.
May 04, 2005
QotD: Cyber-Addiction
Researchers at the University of London Institute of Psychiatry say the distractions of email and such extract a toll on intellectual performance as similar to that of marijuana. The study of 1,100 volunteers found that attention and concentration could be so frazzled by answering and managing calls and messages that IQ temporarily dropped by 10 points. The resulting loss of focus due to "Crackberry," in fact, was judged to worse than that experienced by pot smokers.
This, of course, cannot really be a surprise. It is a great hallmark of modern life that over-indulgence in practically anything can be turned into pathology given enough time and clinical studies.
Jeff A. Taylor, Reason Express, 2005-04-26
May 03, 2005
If the country was a computer program
We'd be seeing the public clicking the default button on this error message:
Image courtesy of Atom Smasher's Error Message Generator.
QotD: Toronto
Toronto is a sucking vortex of stupid due to being the axis about which the world revolves. But you already knew that having become dizzy from your slow orbit so far from the centre of things.
Nick Packwood, "And while I am being annoying", Ghost of a Flea, 2005-05-02
April 29, 2005
Jon continues the Earth Day celebrations
Jon had me drive the getaway vehicle as he took some drive-by photos of ecological devastation along Highway 404 yesterday afternoon. Go see a small sample of all the trees being destroyed to allow an HOV lane to be added to the highway.
April 27, 2005
ADSL Speed Challenged
Ami Ben-Bassat provides striking proof that even Snails are faster than ADSL!
April 24, 2005
QotD: Cats
Like 95% of men in America, I am one hundred percent in favor of cat-hunting, although I am not part of the 75% who support hunting non-feral cats living in their girlfriends' apartments.
Steve H. "Time to Shoot All the Cats", Hog on Ice, 2005-04-14
April 22, 2005
I'm shocked, shocked . . .
The Register reports that:
Porn represents 20 per cent of police IT capacity
Randy coppers in New Zealand waste so much time surfing for porn while on the job that fully 20 per cent of police computer system capacity is devoted to storing the images, an official audit has revealed.
The investigation, begun five months ago, found vast reams of sexually-explicit material, some involving violence or simulated violence, and some even involving bestiality. The material in question was discovered accidentally, during an investigation of alleged police misconduct unrelated to porn surfing.
Staff hoarding images described by Police Commissioner Rob Robinson as "shockers" include a superintendent, three inspectors, and about 40 women officers or civilian staff, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Well, it just goes to show that police officers are human beings after all, eh?
In an unrelated story, The Register also reported that:
Email destroys the mind faster than marijuana
Modern technology depletes human cognitive abilities more rapidly than drugs, according to a psychiatric study conducted at King's College, London. And the curse of 'messaging' is to blame.
Email users suffered a 10 per cent drop in IQ scores, more than twice the fall recorded by marijuana users, in a clinical trial of over a thousand participants. Doziness, lethargy and an inability to focus are classic characteristics of a spliffhead, but email users exhibited these particular symptoms to a "startling" degree, according to Dr Glenn Wilson.
Celebrating Earth Day in the Office
Jon followed his own advice for celebrating Earth Day, taking a Cox & Forkum cartoon and enlarging it:
That's his poster, propped up on the meeting room window ledge behind both our cubes. I don't know if he's got the stones to leave it there all day . . .
Update: Jon has posted some explanatory material here.
April 21, 2005
QotD: Culture
The first generation to experience a cultural innovation, and almost every generation is the first to experience something, usually takes it hard. There is no parental wisdom on offer. There is no "oral culture" that records the misadventures of the previous generation. There is only a new imperative that has to be satisfied. (Personally, I believe this is the only way to explain the disco clothing innovations of the 1970s.)
Grant McCracken, "Gender Watch", This Blog Sits at the, 2005-03-24
April 20, 2005
Hitchhiker's Guide reviewed
The BBC had a review of the new Hitchhiker's Guide movie today:
Don't panic — The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not as bad as I had feared. Then again, it is not as good as I had hoped.
Stuck in development hell for the best part of 26 years, Douglas Adams' book has finally reached the big screen — four years after the author's death.
Adams' deceptively complex novels are crammed full of witty erudition, great gags and lengthy digressions, so it was always going to be a struggle to turn it into a neatly packaged two-hour movie.
April 19, 2005
Online Fame Measurement
On a mailing list I belong to, the topic of how to measure your "Internet Fame" came up. Here is the canonical method of measuring your own Net Fame Score (refined from original sources by Bob Netzlof):
What you do is:
- Do a Google search on your name. Write the number of hits on line 1.
- Do a Google search on "Monica Lewinsky". Write the number of hits on line 2.
- To obtain your Net Fame Score, divide the number on line 2 into the number on line 1.
- Report your NFS as some number of Lewinskys, milliLewinskys, or microLewinskys, as appropriate.
There seems to be little point in reporting Net Fame Scores in the nanoLewinsky or smaller range.
If, as some argue, the declining popularity of Monica Lewinsky as a subject of web pages and usenet posts is inflating Net Fame Scores, the base could be shifted to some other well-known personality. One could then compute scores in Jacksons, or Wojtylas, or Tuckers, or whatever. It would be desirable to limit the number of different bases, to reduce the number of conversion factors needed.
As the carefree days of the Clinton White House fade into distant memory, it will be necessary to adjust the scale to accommodate the even-faster-fading of temporary celebrities. For a more 2005 variant, try using "Paris Hilton" as the baseline value.
QotD: Moore's Law
Moore's Law is a violation of Murphy's Law. Everything gets better and better.
Gordon Moore, quoted in "Happy Birthday: Moore's Law at 40", The Economist, 2005-03-26
April 18, 2005
QotD: Wine from Wal-Mart
Only in America
Did you know that Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer of wine in America? Rumour has it they are working on a line of inexpensive private label brands to compete with Yellow Tail and Two Buck Chuck. Ideas so far have included:
- Martha's Sour Grapes
- Shotgun Chardonnay
- Chef Boyardeaux
- White Trashfindel
- Chateau Traileur Parc
Billy Munnelly, "What's hot, new & happening", Billy's Best Bottles Volume 21, No. 4, Spring 2005
April 17, 2005
QotD: Taxes
Not paying taxes is against the law.
If you don't pay taxes, you'll be fined.
If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed.
If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot.
Thus I — in my role as citizen and voter — am going to shoot you — in your role as taxpayer and ripe suck — if you don't pay your fair share of the national tab.
Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, "Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?"
P.J.O'Rourke
April 15, 2005
Nasty, Funny, Football Welfare Queens
Matt Welch claws the eyes out of those billionaire welfare bums, the football team owners:
But These Welfare Queens Are Manly!
The state of New Jersey has finally spread 'em wide enough for football's "New York" Giants to accept building a new $750 million stadium in the swampy Meadowlands. Battered-wife quote of the day goes to acting Joisy Governor Richard Codey: "This will be the best deal for the taxpayers of any stadium deal in the NFL."
Hamster History of England
An odd link of the day from yet another mailing list I rarely participate in: The Hamster History of England.
April 14, 2005
I'd often wondered . . .
TNT explains the mysteries of bra sizes.
Wine Snobbery
Natalie MacLean publishes a free email newsletter on wine (you can subscribe here). This is from yesterday's edition:
QUOTATION REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF NATALIE MACLEAN
While I'd be loath to stock in white zin (or other beverages that are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike wine), Natalie makes a good point here. You should be drinking wine to enjoy it: if you happen to enjoy drinking sweeter, less strongly flavoured wines, then that's what you should do — and ignore the Robert Parker-wannabe who sneers at you for your choice. You wouldn't impress someone with that kind of attitude no matter what you chose to drink, so why pretend to bother?
Update, October 2006: I've noticed a number of Google searches coming to this entry looking for "Conrad Edgeback". Clive mentioned this name in the comments. If you're still interested, the gentleman you're looking for is "Konrad Ejbich".
April 13, 2005
The hi-tech version of "The British Disease"
Back in the dreadful 1970's, the British working man was renowned throughout the world for, well, not working. Strikes, go-slows, work-to-rules, job actions, pickets, and skiving off were the common complaints of both employers and the general public. The Register does some hard investigative journalism to discover that nothing has changed:
New figures have shown that Brit workers lead the world in "desk skiving" — the art of aimlessly faffing about at their posts when they should be lining shareholders' pockets with filthy lucre. Shockingly, the maths demonstrate that a third of workers may be taking fourteen days extra hols a year while a hard core of eight per cent admit that they are texting, doing personal emails or surfing the web for interesting stories on skiving British workers for an astounding 12 weeks per annum.
QotD: Politics
[T]here is a clear similarity between the Prime Minister's cabinet and the wardrobe/closet from the Narnia Chronicles: neither has any back to it and people who spend an excessive amount of time in either find themselves in a fantasy land.
Eric Kirkland, 2005-03-24
April 12, 2005
Duelling quotes at Bound By Gravity
Andrew has a talent for picking up apposite quotations. He demonstrates it wonderfully here.
QotD: The Liberal Party
I keep replaying Scott Reid's comment in my mind . . .
. . . "Paul Martin is the wire brush that will scrub clean this stain on Canadian politics."
Honestly, now, if you moved this metaphor any closer to the bathroom, there'd be no room for anybody to sit down. What have we come to when the communications director for the prime minister of Canada comes within an ace of referring to his own party as a filthy toilet in need of some elbow grease?
Colby Cosh, ColbyCosh.com, 2005-04-09
April 10, 2005
Yesterday's trivia
I was out and about all day yesterday, hence no blogging. It was a great day, weather-wise, and I managed a personal best: the earliest day in the year I've ever managed to get a sunburn. Of course, I was assisted in this by my ever-receding hairline . . . my forehead and my scalp under the thinned-out hair on the top of my head are now glowing red. And that was from just two hours of sitting in the bleachers yesterday morning, watching Victor's first Rep soccer try-out of the season.
Victor wasn't happy with his performance, but he's got three more chances to improve (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings).
Elizabeth and I drove out to Port Hope in the afternoon to have lunch at Dr. Corbett's Inn, but unfortunately it was also some high pagan holiday in town: "Toss Your Granny On Her Fanny" or some such tomfoolery. The place was just hoaching with tourists, some of 'em rolling monster inner-tubes and wearing odd costumes.
We did manage to squeeze in to the bar at Dr. Corbett's (thanks Dave!), and eventually the crowds subsided enough that we could walk the streets safely again. Elizabeth noticed an odd piece of furniture in one of the antique stores, which claimed to be a "Gustav Stickley" tea trolley. I'll post some photos of it later, but it certainly didn't look very Stickley-like to my untutored eye.
I also overheard an amusing conversation in "Furby House Books", an independent bookstore on the main street:
Customer: Have you met many of these authors? [pointing at small table of Canadian authors who had done book signings in the store]
Store employee: . . . oh yes, I met this author [pointing to a book by Ted Barris], and he was very nice and friendly even if he does write books about evil things like war [said with a very pronounced sneer, as if Barris was a convicted child molester].
I also met David Suzuki [said caressingly, with true love in the voice], but he was too important to speak to insignificant people like me . . .
April 08, 2005
Weird eBay auctions
Some wanker is offering to sell permanent advertising space on his John Thomas, The Register reports. Starting bid is reportedly £3,000.
April 07, 2005
QotD: Coffee
Without a quart of coffee in the morning, I will be functionally retarded. I will stare at the wall like a stunned carp until noon. I will take things out of the refrigerator and put them in the pantry when I'm done with them. I will put toothpaste on my toothbrush and then attempt to shave with it. I will open peanuts, throw out the insides, and eat the shells. People at the grocery store will remind me to run home and put on pants. I will never turn my turn signal off. When my cell phone rings, I will answer my wallet.
Steve H., "I'm Going to Kill Myself: It's as Simple as That", Hog On Ice, 2005-03-18
April 06, 2005
The Babbler Crosses A Line
Babbling Brooks just called me his "favourite Wine-Swilling, Quote-Spouting, Lazy-Ex-Reservist blogger". This is just a tad too far: you can accuse me of a lot of failings (goodness knows the selections are wide and varied), but I do not swill my wine. Unless it's that sweet crap they used to sell to underaged drinkers in Ontario back in the 70's and 80's . . . and even then only to pigs I didn't like.
QotD: Whisky
I'm from Kentucky, and people tell me I should be loyal to Bourbon, but I see the whiskey hierarchy sort of like this:
- Scotch. Nectar of the Gods. Complex, smooth, and just the right thing to fill yourself up on before painting yourself blue and riding off to kick the crap out of a bunch of English gits. Lagavulin and Macallan (16 years) are the reason people have been able to tolerate life in the scrubby, bleak landscape of northern Great Britain. Or whatever the island that contains Scotland is called. For all I know, "Great Britain" includes the Falklands.
- Bourbon and sour mash. Only good for mixing, unless you spend at least forty dollars, because Bourbon is usually harsh. And that includes Wild Turkey. But the better ones are smooth and full-flavored, albeit about as complex as a Kool Pop. I like Blanton's. Maker's Mark gold is okay, but only if your friends are serving it free of charge. People holler about Knob Creek all the time. I'm suspicious of old-timey-looking products that didn't seem to exist until 1985. I suspect that it's a gimmick aimed at yuppie suckers, but I have not actually tried it.
- Irish whiskey. Wonderfully smooth; especially Black Bush, which is my favorite. Great subtle flavor. Even the cheaper brands are pretty good. But zero complexity.
- Canadian. This makes a good substitute for windshield-washer fluid. Absolutely the most boring whisky (with no "E") in the universe. Tastes like brown water. Alcoholics love Canadian whisky, because there's not much to it, and you can drink it day after day without much effort. I can't believe Canadians waste their time driving to the distillery to make this garbage. Laughable.
I guess now I'll get flames from the unfortunate people who enjoy Jack Daniel's, and from pedantic losers who drink obscure distilled beverages made in Wales.
Canadian Club and Crown Royal drinkers won't flame me until at least noon, because they are all alcoholics and won't be done with their morning retching until then.
I still need to find some really bad Scotch on a par with Jack Daniel's. Something packed in plastic bottles or even cans. You need a good cheap harsh whisky to marinate BBQ. The good stuff, I reserve for marinating myself.
Steve H., "Booze and Birds: My Stressful Life", Hog On Ice, 2005-03-20
April 04, 2005
Word Substitution Game
I was reading Victor Davis Hanson's most recent article, when the following paragraph struck me as being particularly appropriate to the Canadian situation:
The villain is no longer the old idea of Aramco or 'big oil,' but the absence of transparency that allows an Arab elite to rake in billions without popular scrutiny. For all the hatred of Israel, millions in the Middle East are beginning to see that Arafat was more a kleptocrat than a leader [ . . . ].
See how accurate the statement is when we "localize" it:
The villain is no longer the old idea of America or 'big business,' but the absence of transparency that allows a Liberal elite to rake in billions without popular scrutiny. For all the hatred of America, millions in the rest of Canada are beginning to see that Chretien was more a kleptocrat than a leader [ . . . ].
QotD: Politicians
Q: How can you tell when a politician is telling the truth?
A: When he's curled up in a ball on the ground, crying.
Victor Russon, private conversation, 2005-04-03
April 03, 2005
Report Card Analysis by Occam's Carbuncle
Alan re-interprets the arcane and mystical "Conservative party report card" from Andrew Coyne:
In short, the Conservatives deserve our condemnation because they have no cogent plan to tear down in a single term of office the socialist dystopia built up over the last 50 years.
I eagerly await, for the purposes of comparison, Mr. Coyne's corresponding analysis of Liberal policy.
And on top of everything else they did wrong, they didn't promise to give everyone a magic pony!
April 02, 2005
QotD: Relationships
Do you know what the funny thing is about mixed signals, OCC? In most instances mixed signals are actually one loud, clear, unmistakable signal: "I'm a fucking mess! Run! Run! Run!" The reason you can't decipher the singular signal Alaska Boy is sending you, OCC, is because you're suffering from a bad case of Wishful Thinking Syndrome (WTS). This man is damaged goods, OCC, but you're so in love with him that you can't see him for what he is.
So how do we know he's damaged goods? Let's count the ways: For starters he's a single man who chooses to live in Alaska, which should be renamed the Alaskan National Damaged Goods Refuge.
Dan Savage, Savage Love, 2005-03-23
April 01, 2005
Parenting, in the good old days
Gerard Vanderleun recounts a tale from a by-gone era, when children did not have all the resources of the state to defend them from the consequences of their own actions:
It was a terrible moment, a humiliating moment [. . .] But humiliation was to turn to terror.
It got worse because, after my mother had stood there to witness my degradation, she looked into my eyes and spoke the words any child hates most to hear in this world: "Well, we will have to have a very serious talk about this. We'll start right after your father gets home."
". . . Right after your father gets home." In that era any sane kid's first thought after hearing those words was to wonder if he still has time to kill himself before that moment rolled around. You see, in those distant days, the fathers were at work and the mothers were at home, and when the fathers came home from work they were likely to be just a wee bit cranky from "the job." Hence, their mood was always going to hover somewhere between mildly irritated and homicidal, depending on what had happened at the office and in the bar car after work.
The Tech Writing World is Aghast!
Adobe has announced that they'll be outsourcing development of their FrameMaker product line to Microsoft:
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today reported strong interest by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in Adobe FrameMaker technology co-development.
Microsoft has said that the boom in XML development and publishing has left them in need of strong partnerships with companies that are leading the XML publishing market. To that end, discussions between both companies have led to a working agreement to co-develop a future release of Adobe FrameMaker.
"We had been seriously considering the discontinuation of the entire FrameMaker product," said Bruce R. Chizen, chief executive officer. "However, with the interest of a partner such as Microsoft to assist in the development costs and to help in the marketing and distribution through a variety of resellers, we re-evaluated our position. I'm very happy indeed to be able to state that we are going to continue the development after all."
Further in the press release, they point out the key part of the deal:
While Microsoft continues to be the most powerful company in the software market, most people agree that Adobe has shinier, and prettier marketing pamphlets.
Adobe therefore will develop and distribute the bulk of the marketing materials for FrameMaker. By continuing to use the same fonts, graphics and page size Adobe is showing a committment to the products longevity. Says Chizen, "make no mistake about this. We know that our glossy paper and great font faces, such as Minion and Myriad, continue to impress people who look for software. We plan to distribute marketing materials across the country and around the globe."
March 31, 2005
The Last Amazon's Easter Story
Kate tells the tale of how Easter is an extra-special holiday at her house.
March 29, 2005
QotD: Scotland
The Scots have a fondness for deep-fried foods. Everything from fish n' chips to Mars bars. A survey of shops said customers also request deep fried sweets, pineapple rings, and even ice cream. The health authorities are naturally somewhat concerned about this diet, but Dr. David Morrison of the Greater Glasgow Health Service Board is encouraged by "evidence of the penetrance of the Mediterranean diet into Scotland, albeit in the form of deep-fried pizza."
Billy Munnelly, "Journal", Billy's Best Bottles Volume 21, No. 4, Spring 2005
March 27, 2005
QotD: Wall Street
Wall Street is a street with a river at one end and a graveyard at the other. This is striking, but incomplete. It omits the kingergarten in the middle.
Fred Sched, Where Are the Customers' Yachts?, 1940
March 26, 2005
QotD: Modern Flying
On my first flight to Europe, everyone dressed for success. Now everyone dresses for Gold's Gym. And I'm sure the next step in TOTAL SECURITY will be to require everyone who is not of Arab descent to arrive with a note from their doctor attesting that they had a high colonic an hour before the airport to make the body cavity searches a bit more pleasant for the staff. Then there's the added coach thrill of a blood clot developing in the legs that stops your heart at 50,000 feet. Plus . . . no peanuts! After all, think of the allergic children! Add to that the new innovation, no pillows! I don't see why the airlines don't simply install hooks and, working in concert with government's laughable security cops, require everyone to hang from said hooks naked. It will come to that. You know it will.
Gerard Vanderleun, "The Brand-Extension Blight", American Digest, 2005-03-10
March 23, 2005
Since I've already blogged the cat . . .
. . . I'm already over. So I lose nothing by posting the cat silly sleeping pose page.
March 22, 2005
QotD: Microsoft PowerPoint
There were plenty of irritations with life with Microsoft. I am still astonished how bad PowerPoint is from a design point of view. With these multiples, Microsoft could have hired Louise Fili or Milton Glazer, and the virtual world of the corporation would now be vastly more visual. Actually, because form is content, America would now actually be vastly more conceptual. But, no. The PowerPoint templates were clearly designed by that special someone who did Travelodge napkins and match books in the 1960s. Talk about a difference that makes a difference! Talk about critical path dependency! PowerPoint reproduced Microsoft's limitations, and helped to install them in the American mind.
Still, PowerPoint was an improvement on the Lotus equivalent. I forget what this was called but it was so utterly unpredictable that I discovered belatedly that presentations would not be forthcoming unless you got a group of people to lay their hands on the printer and chant in Latin. (This was not in the manual, unless it was cunningly secreted there in invisible ink, perhaps on the page that read "this page left deliberately blank.")
Grant McCracken, "Brands that bind . . . and when they slide", This Blog Sits at the, 2005-03-10
March 21, 2005
Mean Movie Review of the Week:
From the New York Post's review of Ice Princess:
This movie wasn't just made for 11-year-old girls; it seems to have been made by 11-year-old girls.
QotD: Gun Safety
The really hard part about firearm safety is that they're Schrodinger devices. Every firearm is both loaded and unloaded at the same time.
When you need them to be unloaded, they have a bullet in the chamber, ready to fire.
When you *really* need one to be loaded, they make that really sad "click" which tells you you need more ammo.
Chad Irby, posted to the comments at Wizbang, 2005-03-10
March 20, 2005
QotD: Reading Lights
The room, in addition to its other drawbacks, was always underlit. But it's proving a major challenge to find nifty lamps that also give enough light to read by. All the cool Art Nouveau sort of stuff only go up to 60 watts max, which, for a reader, is like switching on the darks. And the lamps in stores are not logically arranged by wattage; one has to wander about turning them upside down and peering at the little sticky labels on the sockets for a clue, for yea verily, the sales staff has none. They are not readers either, sigh.
Lois McMaster Bujold, letter to Baen's Bar, 2004-10
March 17, 2005
QotD: The Great Satan
As soon as you see the recommendation from Noam Chomsky on the cover of the book, you can pretty much guess where McQuaig is coming from. I refer to the Chomskyan school of thought as American Monist: in short, the only actor on the world stage is America. It is the sole source of evil and depradation. Everyone else is motivated solely by love and concern for humanity, whilst America is, singularly, motivated only by greed, lust for power and a general animus for all things good, sunny and nice. Only America acts; everyone else is acted upon by the Hegemon, and can't be blamed for the consequences of their actions. America is the Primus Mobilis. And America is bad. So, for example, the notion that an economy-based increased lust for oil is driving foreign policy is solely a characteristic of America; no other nation on earth appears to give a shit about oil. Certainly not France, Russia or China; McQuaig hardly mentions them. While McQuaig is forced to acknowledge that French, Russian and Chinese support for Saddam (and attendant undermining of UN sanctions) was related in some fashion to the oil deals they had each struck with Iraq, she airily dismisses the role that oil plays in their respective foreign policies. So the "oil as the root of all evil" trope is batted away in the space of two sentences when talking about other countries, but more than 300 pages are required to explain how oil and America are mutually catalyzing demon twins. When the rapaciousness of oil companies is discussed, it is almost exclusively American oil companies which are named; hardly ever any of the European, Russian or other oil companies. Because those other oil companies don't possess the true indicia of evil, you see: they don't stamp their barrels "Made in the USA".
Bob Tarantino, "LIB Review: It's the Crude, Dude", Let It Bleed, 2005-03-05
March 16, 2005
QotD: Blogging vs. the MSM
A wire story consists of one voice pitched low and calm and full of institutional gravitas, blissfully unaware of its own biases or the gaping lacunae in its knowledge. Whereas blogs have a different format: Clever teaser headline that has little to do with the actual story, but sets the tone for this blog post. Breezy ad hominem slur containing the link to the entire story. Excerpt of said story, demonstrating its idiocy (or brilliance) Blogauthor's remarks, varying from dismissive sniffs to a Tolstoi-length rebuttal. Seven comments from people piling on, disagreeing, adding a link, acting stupid, preaching to the choir, accusing choir of being Nazis, etc.
I'd say it's a throwback to the old newspapers, the days when partisan slants covered everything from the play story to the radio listings, but this is different. The link changes everything. When someone derides or exalts a piece, the link lets you examine the thing itself without interference. TV can't do that. Radio can't do that. Newspapers and magazines don't have the space. My time on the internet resembles eight hours at a coffeeshop stocked with every periodical in the world — if someone says "I read something stupid" or "there was this wonderful piece in the Atlantic" then conversation stops while you read the piece and make up your own mind.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2002-10-10 (originally quoted by Glenn Reynolds)
March 11, 2005
Blogulaciousness Blogs The Cat
In the same sense that TV shows are said to "jump the shark", blogs are said to "blog the cat". Jon blogs the cat three times in a row: Guns don't kill people; kittens kill people, Good thing THIS cat wasn't packing!, and Next time, let the kitten hold the gun.
Of course, technically speaking, Jon's only linking to 'em, so he can claim a degree of separation.
March 08, 2005
Jon suffers for his coffee
Jon explains the world of fast food coffee shops:
The seam in the cup is about 1/360th the diameter of the cup, and yet they nail it with the suck-hole in the lid more often than chance would dictate. Country Style is even worse — I asked about this once and was told that they did it deliberately, "to keep the cups from leaking <snicker-snicker-snicker>" Worse than the dribble cup effect is what happens to the seam as you drink — it begins to dissolve, and you start to get cardboard pulp in your coffee. When the pulp gets good and soft, a big chunk breaks off and gets stuck in your teeth. And then you have to pick it out, so you're driving along in the morning rush hour with your hand in your mouth trying to get the cup pulp out from the crack in a back molar, and you're distracted, and you don't see that traffic has stopped, and you run into the guy in front of you and your hand is propelled right through the base of your skull.
March 07, 2005
QotD: Mistakes
Show us a man who never makes a mistake and we will show a man who never makes anything. The capacity for occasional blundering is inseparable from the capacity to bring things to pass.
Herman Lincoln Wayland
March 05, 2005
QotD: Parenthood
What know I about 3 am feedings, Spongebob Squarepants, day care pickups or those special moments when one finds oneself on one's knees, covered in vomit, as one's darling child wails uncontrollably? I mean, it all sounds horrible, but I expect that it would be even worse to live it, fighting tears of exhaustion and a post-partum pouch.
[Incidentally, current parents should note that y'all are not doing a good job of selling this child-bearing thing to those of us who are as yet non-reproductive. You know, if you actually succeed in communicating all of the dreadfulness of your parental lives to us, as so many articles currently seem intent upon doing, your social security benefits are going to look pretty darn sad in thirty years or so. But I digress.]
Jane Galt, "Focus on the family", Asymmetrical Information, 2005-02-18
March 04, 2005
QotD: Breastfeeding
I threw out the baby books that I had been given after the first week of breastfeeding. All those promises/warnings of "don't be surprised if you experience multiple orgasms while nursing". Hey, I was always up for multiple orgasms which was no doubt why I had three children in four years but the reality is only a dominatrix could think that the initial stages of breastfeeding's could produce an orgasm. Even after the extreme pain vanished there was never the slightest chance of orgasm which leads me to speculate that other people have a much more bizarre sexual life than I could possibly imagine. And if the books were will filled with such utter rot about breastfeeding; I wasn't willing to chance the rest.
Kate "The Last Amazon", "When Biology is Destiny", The Last Amazon, 2005-03-02
March 03, 2005
QotD: Drugs
Any parent who has ever smoked a joint has a moral duty to give up all hope of achieving good things in life, give him- or herself permanent brain damage, and get a career working on an assembly line, wearing a hairnet and stamping packages of irradiated food. Only in this way will kids realize drugs always lead to a bad end.
Tim Cavanaugh, "Don't try this at home, kids; you might end up becoming President", Reason Hit and Run, 2005-02-20
March 01, 2005
The Curse of Docco
"I had just started to open FrameMaker when the drugs began to take hold. . ."
So starts the unpublished tale of Gonzo technical writing by the late Hunter S. Thompson, who apparently tried turning his attention to software documentation during the early 1990's. The hand-written story was found in the bottom of a case of shotgun shells that appeared on the desk of the CIO of [name removed for legal reasons], a medium-sized software company in Silicon Valley. Only a few barely legible pages survive — or perhaps are the only parts Thompson ever set down during his life.
I love stress myself, and I have learned to survive under savage and unnatural pressures. I am a stress freak. On some days it seems like I have lived in my cubicle for half my life. There is blood in this keyboard, and some of it is mine.
You don't need to be paranoid in the savage, world of software: it makes you paranoid. The wolves are always there, waiting for that split-second of inattention to hurl themselves upon you and rip off steaming chunks of your flesh. I survived this hell, but only through judicious applications of drugs, alcohol, and carefully placed .45 caliber bullets.
[. . .]
The department manager was Bruce Hawkins, an Australian, and a true drunken bastard in the classic mold. He always referred to the department as "Docco". I hated that, but the man had a survival instinct. No matter how often we tried to get rid of him, he'd be back the next day, blood in his eye and beer on his breath. I still don't know how he survived the time I cut his brakeline (the office was at the highest point of the hill, with a long twisting road down to town).
The skin-flayer of the week was the status meeting, where the tortured souls of the department were taken out for beatings and repeated humiliations. With the right mix of ether and peyote, I could survive the worst the manager had to offer. The screams I could suppress, until the hyenas started to howl, just as the [illegible] tore open and the bile spewed out.
Your everyday Nervous Breakdown is nothing compared to the hopeless Craziness of a woman who woke up a team lead on the flagship product and went to bed as the new trainer for interns. This is a guaranteed overwhelming shock to the system; if you don't go insane from suddenly having to see the world from the POV of the brain-dead new intern, your mind will be churned into butter by having to crawl, head-first, with your eyes open, down a septic tank hatch, just to have a place to sleep.
[ . . . ]
Programmers are swine. They know it. They go out of their way to prove it. But I know how to treat 'em. You need to cut out the head swine from the herd and break him; that forces all the others to give you respect, and tell you when they fuck with your software. I favour cutting off the little toe on each foot: no head swine can keep the respect of his homies when he's unable to walk in a straight line, bouncing off partition walls and filing cabinets, wailing his distress.
[ . . . ]
I have always hated editors, and I like to have sport with them. They are harmless quacks in the main, but some of them get ambitious and turn predatory, especially in Silicon Valley. In Santa Cruz, I ran into a man who claimed to be Microsoft's chief editor. "I consult with Bill Gates constantly," he told me. He produced a business card and gave it to me. "I can do things for you," he said. "I am a player."
I took his card and examined it carefully for a moment, as if I couldn't quite read the small print. But I knew he was lying, so I leaned toward him and slapped him sharply in the nuts. Not hard, but very quickly, using the back of my hand and my fingers like a bullwhip, yet very discreetly.
He let out a hiss and went limp, unable to speak or breathe. I smiled casually and kept on talking to him as if nothing had happened. "You filthy little creep," I said to him. "I am Bill Gates!"
That was the tone of my workdays in Silicon Valley: violence, joy, and constant Mexican music.
[ . . . ]
The one I knew I had to keep my eye on was the office intern, a pimple-faced whelp whose reptilian gaze and inability to sweat marked him as potentially deadly. I pistol-whipped him on his second day, just to keep him off-guard. His life revolved around TV and relentless masturbation. Deprive him of one and he collapsed. That was the key; showing him that you had to power to destroy him. Vaya con dios, amigo. I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.
[. . .]
Why bother with technical writing, if this is all they offer? Hawkins was right. The writers are a gang of cruel faggots. Technical writing is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits — a false doorway to the basement of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and wank off like a monkey in a zoo cage.
The preceding post is complete fiction, derived in very large part from the works of the late Hunter S. Thompson. Don't sue me!
February 26, 2005
Offshore Manufacturing
This is an excerpt from a discussion I had a few months ago with a fellow woodworker-wannabe. The topic of overseas manufacturing of machine tools came up, and eventually he summarized the price and quality differences in this way:
Not that it matters, really. All these tools are made off-shore by people who will be dessicated, ground up, and rolled into honey-dipped sesame seed-coated balls that will be sold as impotence remedies.
Maybe that explains the quality of the tools. The Porter-Cable and DeWalt labourers are months away from dessication, so they are still pretty upbeat and do a good job.
The Black & Decker workers are just a few weeks away, so they don't do a very good job assembling the tools.
The Craftex guys go into the drying racks at the end of their shift.
February 25, 2005
QotD: Coffee
It occurred to me this morning that coffee is like Viagra for the brain. After you drink coffee, your brain may still be small and ineffective, but at least it will function.
Steve H., "Coffee: Viagra for the Flaccid Brain", Hog On Ice, 2005-01-12
February 24, 2005
QotD: Interpreting what men say
Here is what male speech means.
1. "Exactly what I said" — 75% of the time.
2. "Apparently I have not said the right thing yet, because your panties are still on" — 15%.
3. "My God, you're still talking. You make me wish I had a tranquilizer gun. Doesn't it ever stop? Jesus, I hope you didn't say anything important, because all I hear is a buzzing sound. Did I say 'okay' or 'mm-hmm' or just grunt last time? I better mix it up, or you'll realize I'm watching the game" — 10%
That covers it.
Steve H., "Traitor in Your Midst: She Must be Dealt With", Hog On Ice, 2005-02-17
February 22, 2005
Old news about cats
The mapping of a Cat's Brain. Hat tip to Fark.
February 20, 2005
QotD: Canada
Canada remains unmatched in its ability to turn somebody else's tragedy into a debate about our own neuroses.
Paul Wells, quoted by Mark Steyn, Western Standard 2005-01-31
February 16, 2005
Nick Coleman welcomes new Vikings owner to town
Nick Coleman (yes, that Nick Coleman) has a good column on the new owner of the Vikings:
But while the football czars wait to see if Fowler's $625 million check clears the bank, we might as well get started on educating Mr. Fowler about his new state, which he admits knowing very little about.
Acknowledging ignorance puts him miles ahead of the outgoing owner of the Vikings, Red McCombs, the San Antonio tire kicker who leaves us after seven years as miserably ignorant of our customs as when he arrived. He also leaves about half a billion richer than when he came here, which is a pretty good endorsement for the idea of studied stupidity: If staying dumb as a post is worth that much money, old Red deserves some respect.
Coleman also offers a list of survival tips, including:
1) Stay away from the State Capitol. That's the big building with the mules on top in St. Paul, which is a hockey town and which is where millionaire football and baseball owners end up mumbling to themselves and looking like they have escaped from a padded room. If, on some occasion, common courtesy requires you to be introduced to a legislator, stay alert: If he puts an arm around you, don't leave without checking for your wallet.
3) Find a nanny for Randy Moss. A big, mean nanny who can put him to bed without his supper when he acts up. A better option: Get rid of him.
14) Stay out of the locker room unless they ask for more towels or cold champagne is being sprayed.
15) Tell Daunte Culpepper not to lend his car to anyone.
21) Don't ever mention Red McCombs. Or Denny Green.
February 12, 2005
QotD: Lotteries
I am not a fan of the scratch-game lottery. It does not provide the same amount of amusement as burning a one-dollar bill. Time it, if you doubt me. You can scratch off a card in three seconds: scritch scritch scritch, ah crap. Please play again! But a dollar bill gives you at least 17 seconds of entertainment — more, if you set off the smoke alarm. Otherwise it's the same effect: One dollar has passed from your hand into the great chain of being, and whether it subsequently manifests itself as a Trix bar in the pocket of a state employee or acrid smoke in the kitchen, it's all just molecules in the end. And you're out a buck.
But! Now the lottery has decided to give you a second chance. You mail in your losing lottery tickets — at least five duds, please — and they hold another drawing to confirm that you're not only still a loser, but now you're out 37 cents for postage.
James Lileks, "Backfence: A second-chance column for you", Star Tribune, 2005-02-01
February 11, 2005
QotD: The Right to be Left Alone
Let me see if I understand you. You're getting in my face. I'm a quiet loner. With no social life. With a gun collection. Who worked, once, for the post office. Are you sure this is what you want to do?
Eric Oppen
February 10, 2005
How to quell an argument
I've quoted Marna Nightingale several times over the past few months: she writes in a way that regularly generates amusing and/or alarming ideas. This is her second attempt to shut down an online argument between two self-described feminists:
Have I ever mentioned how RARELY I am accused of being too subtle?
Let me rephrase myself.
Speaking as a Known Feminist myself, you are both being jerks, to the degree that it is no longer possible to ascertain who is being the bigger jerk to whom, with more reason or less.
If you can't agree to disagree can you loathe each other in surly festering silence for awhile, please?
QotD: Soccer
[A]ll the great football songs are by Americans — Rodgers and Hammerstein ("You'll Never Walk Alone") and Livingston and Evans, whose "Que Sera, Sera" has a British lyric of endearing directness:
Mi-illwall, Millwall
Millwa-all, Millwall, Millwall
Millwa-all, Millwall, Millwall
Mi-illwall, Millwall.
(Repeat until knife fight)
Mark Steyn, "Hyperpower", Daily Telegraph, 2002-06-22
February 09, 2005
QotD: Bio-Engineering
In any case I don't think we're really going to have strange new hybrid species; it's more likely people will seek some sort of body modification that will make today's tongue studs look as tame as Hello Kitty temporary tattoos. I'm guessing that young guys will go for the elk horns, which at least would make bar fights more interesting. Young women would opt for a Bambi tail. Gastronomes would shyly ask their doctor if they could get some cow genes — multiple stomach chambers, one for each course! — and geeks would request those agile monkey toes that come in handy when you're up all night writing viruses. We'll be shocked at first; they'll be ostracized. In 2064 a presidential candidate will be forced to withdraw when someone digs up college pictures that show him sporting a scaly tail. Hey, all the kids had them. It fell off. I have no idea where it is now. But by 2096 we'll not only be used to it, we'll have a governor with a unicorn horn.
Unless we stop now. And I know what you're saying: Oh, it's easy for you to say, Mr. Stop-the-progress-of-science-for-some-ridiculous-ethical-reason. Actually, no, it's not easy for me to say. This forked tongue I got from the snake gene implant is not exactly working out. On the other hand, I don't have to change clothes; I just molt twice a year. On the other, my wife hates finding that thing in the hamper.
James Lileks "In the genes department", Star Tribune, 2005-02-06
February 08, 2005
Ouch!
An Englishman's Castle has an innovative — and possibly even legal — way to defend his home against break-in artists: A hog slapper.
I suspect this company has a lucrative sideline dealing with the S&M community. . .
Hat tip to Kim du Toit.
February 07, 2005
A "Novell" approach to software
Novell offers a public service announcement (broadband connection recommended).
Hat tip to Wendy McElroy.
February 05, 2005
Raskolnikov Examines "V-Day"
Go to All and Sundry to see the latest gear to celebrate "V-Day". Unless you're easily offended, of course.
Watch Your Language
Geoff Hart posted this to the Tech Writing mailing list earlier this week (and reproduced here with his kind permission):
From the March 2005 Consumer Reports, which displayed a photo of the French text on the "care" label attached to a handbag produced by the Tom Bihn company in the U.S.:
[English label not shown but described by CR]: Hand-wash in warm water with gentle soap, and hang to dry. Do not use bleach. Do not machine-dry.
French: Laver à la main à l'eau tiède, savon doux, étendre pour secher. Ne pas javelliser. Ne pas secher à la machine. Nous sommes désolés que notre président soit un idiot. Nous n'avons pas voté pour lui.
For those whose French is of the "plume de ma tante" variety, the extra French text says: "We're sorry that our president is an idiot. We didn't vote for him."
Please let's not turn this into a political discussion. The lesson for those of us who do or review translation is that someone needs to check the translations carefully. In this case, the extra French seems to have been an intentional political comment by the manufacturer, but I've seen similarly egregious errors that crept in when nobody did the QA.
Geoff also pointed out that the company itself recognized the, um, interest this little item would provoke.
QotD: Jack Layton
I don't know too much about Canadian poltics, but I'll never forget watching the [. . .] election debate and hearing Jack Layton complain about people having non-public access to MRI machines. Christ, he sounded like a villain from an Ayn Rand novel! How the hell do people go through life thinking like that?
"Protagonist", of Wyatt's Torch, posting in the comments at Daimnation, 2005-02-03
February 04, 2005
Darcy Posts a "Letter to Dad"
Put down your drink and finish swallowing that last mouthful. Now, go to Dust My Broom.
February 02, 2005
QotD: Iraqi Voting
Voter Turnout falls 28% in Iraq; country more divided than ever
News out of Iraq should send chills of distress around the world. As voting ended, turnout was estimated at 72%. Although Andrew Sullivan may or may not consider that a success, it reflects a 28% decline from voting in Iraq's last election. Furthermore, the unity that marked Iraq's 2002 election has been dissolved by the Bush Administration's divisive policies. The consensus which marked the last election has fallen apart to the point that one party may not even gain a majority.
Boi from Troy, "Voter Turnout falls 28% in Iraq; country more divided than ever", Boi From Troy, 2005-01-30
January 30, 2005
The Bunny Suicides
Today's weird link of the day, contributed to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list by M. Traber: Bunny Suicides.
Update: A subsequent post to the mailing list pointed out that this is an unauthorized post of material that originally was published in a book.
January 28, 2005
An Australian Discovers Canadian Winter
Kirrily "Skud" Robert is enjoying her winters in Canada:
Things you didn't know about snow
Just some random trivia for Australians and others who don't live where it stays below freezing for months on end. Ten facts about snow and related subjects.
1. When it's cold enough, your nostril hairs freeze together. This is actually fun, in an odd way.
. . .
10. The Inuit do not in fact have sixty words for snow, but Anglo-Canadians come close. The following are all words for frozen precipitation either as it comes down or afterwards, and each has a specific meaning: snow, sleet, slush, hail, ice pellets, freezing rain, blizzard, winter storm, frost, powder, sheet ice, accumulation, dump, black ice, drifts, flurries, snowbanks, snowstorm, whiteout, icicles, ice dams, and [. . .], snood (rhymes with hood, not food). Then there are things made from snow (snowman, snow angel, igloo, snow fort, ice palace, ice sculpture) and semi-permanent icy or snowy landscape features (icebergs, glaciers, snowfields). [. . .] However, I am reliably informed that when it comes to snow, there is only one proper adjective.
She then followed this up with a further posting for the uninitiated:
Ten more things you might not know about cold climates if you are Australian or whatever:
1. Dehydration. Gah. The climate here sucks moisture out of you worse than anything I've ever experience in Australia. Sure, both places you have to drink litres of water every day, but when it's not hot and you're not *noticeably* sweating, it's harder to remember.
. . .
8. Small children are approximately spherical. It's really quite cute watching them try to move their limbs when padded with parkas and snowsuits which take up greater volume than their bodies. Think Kenny from South Park.
QotD: Canada
Canada may be the nicest country on earth. Bad things don't happen in Canada, or at least not very often, because Canadians are far too nice to let them.
Unfortunately, here in America, bad things are what we call "news". Canada's undoubtedly a land of rich blessings for its residents (weather aside), but it makes it a little hard to write about.
Jane Galt, "Blame Canada . . .", Asymmetrical Information, 2005-01-18
January 27, 2005
User Friendly Goes Dot Mil
I meant to post this just after the story arc started, but just plain forgot: User Friendly, 17 January. This will particularly appeal to you former military types now sitting on your butts in IT jobs. . .
Just keep clicking Next Cartoon until you're up to date.
QotD: Bloggers
This was a birthday party, not a blogger meeting. You could tell it wasn't a blogger meeting because NO ONE WAS SPEAKING ELVISH OR KLINGON, and several of the people there weren't virgins.
Steve H., "Cracking on Crackers", Hog On Ice, 2005-01-21
January 26, 2005
QotD: Drinking in Upper Canada
As in England, Canadian inns sprang up along coaching routes. Horses and passengers needed rest and refreshment, and before long there was no shortage of places offering such services. By the time the traveller up Yonge Street got to Holland Landing, he could be in quite a state. Given that tavern-keepers usually treated coach drivers to free drinks in return for bringing passengers their way, the driver might be in even worse shape.
Nor was the early Canadian drinker certain of what was in his drink. McBurney and Byers offer a few recipies of the day. Wisely they note: "These old recipies are presented for interest only; they should not be used." I'll say. Their recipie for port calls for 28 gallons of cider, 9 gallons of whiskey, 15 pounds of white sugar, as well as cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, ground cochineal, carbonate of potash, and — if necessary — two ounces of ground alum. I don't think that's the way they make it in Portugal. There are no grapes, for starters. I'm trying to imagine how I'd feel the next day. Now I'm trying to stop imagining how I'd feel the next day.
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It's Necessary.
January 25, 2005
QotD: St. Paul
The anti-booze activists of the church tend to waffle a bit when you bring up the wedding at Cana. It's a metaphor for something else, they might say, or they come up with biblical quotes to justify their stance, most of which come from that Saint Paul chap, as far as I can figure out. Look, I'm sure Saint Paul was a decent fellow and good to his mother, but he was not a barrel of fun. Old Miseryguts — as I'm sure his former friends called him after his conversion — was against practically everything that makes this vale of tears at all palatable. You will look in vain for a joke of any sort in either of the Epistles to the Corinthians, and the Thessalonians don't get off much lighter.
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It's Necessary.
January 24, 2005
Modern Fashions
The invaluable Flea linked to this posting by SondraK.
This is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if progress is really all it's cracked up to be. Oh, and be sure to read the comments: they're worth the price of admission all over again.
January 23, 2005
Linehan leaves Vikings Staff to join Dolphins
Scott Linehan, Minnesota's offensive co-ordinator for the past three seasons has accepted an offer to join the Miami Dolphins staff at the same position. Here's how Jim Souhan envisages the change:
Linehan [. . .] might continue to develop and flourish in the NFL. But he has just left [Vikings QB Daunte] Culpepper for A.J. Feeley, has just left an open-minded boss for new Dolphins coach Nick Saban, who makes Apocalypse Now's Colonel Kurtz look like SpongeBob SquarePants.
Picture the Dolphins' first offensive meeting:
Linehan: So, who's our quarterback?
Saban: I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare.
Linehan: A.J. it is.
January 22, 2005
New Blog-meme: "Posting the Cat"
In the same sense that a TV show is said to "jump the shark" when it reaches the creative point of no return, the blogospheric equivalent is said to be "posting the cat".
I guess I'm already over: I posted the cat twice in my first year of blogging.
January 20, 2005
Another Journey in Deepest, Reddest America
Iowahawk displays his stylistic brilliance in the retelling of the horrific tale of a journey into the heart of darkness:
We all have a mission, I thought. For those faceless students: diversity seminars, Nam Jun Paik film retrospectives at the Union, maybe Dollar Pitcher Nite at the Airliner. For me: Von Drehle.
It — or rather, he — is the mission that has brought me to this dismal and lonely outpost on the edge of reason. Tomorrow I will make the dangerous trek north on Dubuque Street to Exit 242, merge into the river of semi-trailers on Interstate 80, and head west into the great red unknown between here and Boulder.
It is the same route Von Drehle followed before he went missing: I-80 to Nebraska, then south on highway 77 through Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Ironically the Post had sent Von Drehle on his own mysterious mission — to learn why the natives were suddenly agitating against Post subscription offers. He went missing on January 11, emailing his final story draft with a cryptic personal note: "the horror . . . the horror."
My entree fork toyed with the competently-prepared lamb shank in merlot reduction, as I pondered the even more ironic irony that this ironic mission would take me to regions that were reportedly unfamiliar with irony.
January 19, 2005
Words as weapons
James Lileks doesn't like what he heard yesterday:
I listened to some of the Dr. Rice hearings today. Listening to Sen. Boxer is like having someone pump six gallons of lukewarm tea up a catheter tube. Slowly. It's like being beaten to death by a moth. The rest of the questions were a bit more adept, inasmuch as they postured and preened with greater skill — but I kept wondering, who's their audience? Who are they talking to? Who is this supposed to impress?
QotD: Humanity
For many years I regarded the camel as evidence that the Creator has a sense of humour — but these days I move more and more to the opinion that people provide the strongest case.
James M Bryant, posted to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list, January 2005
January 18, 2005
Spain Joins Madcap Lawsuit League
According to an AP news report, a British bank has been ordered to pay damages of 1.1 quadrillion euros by a court in Madrid:
A Spanish judicial body said Tuesday it will investigate how Barclays bank received a court order to pay 1.1 quadrillion euros ($1.4 quadrillion US) in compensation to the former owner of a Spanish bank it acquired a quarter of a century ago.
The amount — a quadrillion is a 1 followed by 15 zeros — is the equivalent of 1,400 times Spain's gross domestic product, or the wealth that Spaniards could generate in 1,000 years, news dailies said, triggering speculation that the figure may have been the result of a typographical error by the Madrid court.
A new record, we may be sure. How long the record will stand? When does the next media circus court case come to order?
An impassioned review of Altoids
Dong Resin tried some new Altoids cinnamon chewing gum. I think he enjoyed it:
Okay. Little tablets. I'd better grab six or seven, I want to see what the fuss is about. I know it's supposed to be strong, but so's the coffee in Starbucks and that pussy-ass hot sauce with the dead guy wincing on the label, so there's probably a little wiggle room with regards to what's "strong", here. F*cking American public is all soft and fat these days, so even the gum wearing the metal plating should be no big deal to an espresso drinker like myself.
Oh god...
Gaaaaah! Gatha gatha tha! Gaaaaaaaaaaa!
Shit, did I say that out loud? Great, now people are looking at me. I can't feel anything below my nose. I think I'm drooling. Yep, all down the shirt. Shit. f*cking gum. Jesus, is this strong. Tastes like straight-up whiskey. God, it's getting stronger as it breaks up. Gauh! Why? Why would they even make gum like this? Who the f*ck is this for, cannibals? "That missionary was tasty and all, but now me have stubborn ass-breath." "Me have just the thing for that."
* Excerpt slightly bowdlerized to keep my PG rating.
QotD: Science Fiction Fandom
When I went to my first science fiction convention [. . .] I noticed a couple of things.
The first was that nobody at these gatherings, at least as far as I could tell, actually read science fiction, or much of anything else.
There were plenty of board gamers. (This was long before computer gaming or even Dungeons and Dragons; the hottest item on CRT was Pong, or early versions of Star Trek eating up mainframe time across the country.) There were plenty of self-proclaimed artists of one kind or another, and hordes of kids — of all ages — who loved to dress up in costumes.
Another thing I noticed was that these conventions, or "cons" as they were called, seemed to be the only social life most of their attendees had, a sort of portable soap opera migrating from city to city throughout the year. The atmosphere was heavy with prehistoric rivalries and hatreds, grudges and vendettas, sometimes going back decades.
Actually, the first thing I noticed — although I was too polite to put it first here — was that the vast bulk (and I use the term advisedly) of female attendees could have used a carload of deodorant and long-term memberships in Weight Watchers. Which, of course, was why events like these were the only social life they had. Nobody else wanted them hanging around.
L. Neil Smith, "The Security Syndrome", The Libertarian Enterprise, 2005-01-15
January 17, 2005
Lileks Fisks the Toy Industry
James Lileks has a daughter, too old for diapers but too young for reform school. At least, given the sort of toys he's trying to protect her from, the second option isn't really an option:
Perhaps the reason the usual suspects have clammed up about the Perfidious Influence of Barbie has to do with her rival doll, those how-to-be-a-hooker role models called Bratz. I cannot tell you how much I despise Bratz. Granted, I'm not the target market. They're aimed at tween girls who naturally gravitate toward grown-up things, like emulating the fashion sense of coke-addled trust-fund heiresses.
Bratz have exaggerated facial features, come-hither eyes, and lips that look as if they are attempting to throw up an exploded airbag. (If any real person had lips like those, people would assume she was swelling up from an allergic reaction to an insect sting and jab her repeatedly with those antidote pens.) They have "a passion for fashion," which in this sense is defined as bling-spattered hoochie-suits you'd never see anyone wear on the street unless they were walking back and forth on a corner, waving at cars.
And, as if that wasn't enough to turn you off the idea of having kids:
Here's the thing: All the parentz I talk to hate Bratz. Hate them. Did we ask for these little doxies? No. In fact, we want the opposite. If you're listening, O Shapers of Popular Culture: Can we have perhaps a few years of merry innocence before the toy and clothing industry makes little girls feel like they must walk around bowlegged in Hello Kitty thongs? Apparently not: The Bratz line has been extended now to include Li'l Bratz, who look like the junior high girls who cut class to smoke cigarettes and throw soda bottles at the goody-goody Polly Pockets heading off to choir practice. I expect by year's end we will see Fetal Bratz, which consist entirely of large disembodied lips with a gold, jewel-encrusted umbilical cord. It's a viable tissue mass with attitude! Buy the video! It's an ultrasound set to a slammin' beat!
More "Flea Territory" Poaching
The last time I wandered into Ghost of a Flea territory, he retaliated by sending lots of traffic my way. Being ornery, I'm not going to let him get away with that, so here's another link you might otherwise only find at the Flea:
The Guinea Pig Rumblestrutting Popcorning Dancing Page
And no, you can't have those ten seconds of your life back. Sorry.
January 15, 2005
It had to happen. . .
This is one of the oddest links I've posted in quite a while:
The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference:
"Write better emails. Make more moneys.".
Including highlights like:
- Keynote Address:
Dr. Hamza Kalu's adds some historical perspective in his keynote address: "From Postal Scams To Email Scams: We Have Come a Long Way Infant Child." - Debate:
Attend a lively debate between Lady Mariam Abacha and Mr. Godwin Oyathelem. Topic: "The effectiveness of using all UPPERCASE characters." - Practical Discussion:
Mallam Mahmud Abacah answers the question, "Are 10 million emails a day too many?" - Competition:
Other countries are now adapting our business. Is this a threat or an opportunity? - Tech Session:
Mrs. M Sese-Seko reveals valuable secrets in her session titled, "Those Pesky Email Headers"
January 14, 2005
Frank J asks "What is a Blog?"
Frank J. does the world a huge favour by dispelling some myths about bloggers and blogging:
MYTH: A blog is the mixture of hair and unidentifiable gunk that clogs up a drain.
FACT: "Blog" is short for "weblog," and, while sometimes more disgusting than what's found in a drain, blogs hardly ever interrupt the flow of water.MYTH: Bloggers are partisan hacks.
FACT: We lack the editing and proofreading to have the status of "hacks."MYTH: Bloggers are just a bunch of ill-informed polemicists writing in their pajamas.
FACT: Not all bloggers wear pajamas while blogging. I myself wear boxers, a gun belt, and a bandolier. One of the contributors to Power Line is famous for wearing a gorilla costume while writing.
Hat tip to the The Puppy Blender.
Lileks' MicroBleat
Jon often talks about doing a parody of James Lileks' blog-that's-not-a-blog, The Bleat. He can give up now. Lileks already did one:
Anyway: long day blah, blah errands blah Gnat said the cutest, blah, spent night on book again, many pages blah blah etc. whatever, midnight approaching, must now finish Backfence yadayada, had a spare half hour and decided against Indistinguishable Bleat #98324 in favor of Joe. See you Monday.
January 13, 2005
Poaching on "Ghost of a Flea" Turf
. . .except without the paeans to the glories of Kylie Minogue.
I got this weird little timewaster from a mailing list I can never manage to keep up to date with (between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, they racked up well over a thousand posts).
I tried playing three times, and only managed 37 metres before it all went pear-shaped for the hapless drunk on my third try. Thus proving that I'm not particularly good at this sort of thing, I guess. Quoting from the original mailing list posting:
The object of the game is to keep the drunk walking in a straight line by moving your mouse to the left or right (no clicking). You can't see the mouse so it makes it a little challenging. Apparently the record is 82 meters.
QotD: Respect
In order for society to work, people's first instinct has to be to respect authority. Sometimes authority is wrong, but usually, it isn't, and the proper thing is to presume authority is correct until you have reason to believe otherwise. Kids learn respect for authority by dealing with their fathers. Sure, Mom is an authority figure, too, but who is the nuke in a healthy home's authority arsenal? Dad. When you find yourself in your room dreading the sound of Dad's car in the driveway, you know you are in deep, deep trouble.
If you don't respect Dad, you probably won't respect the police, either. You probably won't respect anyone.
Steve H., "Daddy Just HAAAAAD to Marry a Feminist: Hollywood and Madison Avenue Tell us About Healthy Relationships", Hog on Ice, 2005-01-12
January 12, 2005
QotD: Canadian Youth
Based on my own experience, people my age have no business deciding the future of this country. Obviously there's the knee-jerk socialism inculcated by public schooling, and Canadian media. It seems to be a passing attachment, however, and is often shaken by getting a job, and realizing that earning money is hard work, and is remarkably unrelated to the unquestionably sordid practice of stealing from poor people.
More pernicious, and ultimately, in my view, far more dangerous — should my generation ever locate their polling stations — is a poisonous, systemic anti-Americanism. The young people I know hate the United States, and hate Americans. Many people have seen the infamous poll released last June which indicated that 40% of Canadian teens viewed America as "evil." Many people were surprised by the results. So was I.
I thought the number was low.
The average youth voter, in my personal experience, has, at most, three political principles:
1) Equality is good. (Usually interpreted as equality of results... equality of opportunity is probably 'racist' and 'greedy.')
2) Everything is relative. "Good" and "Evil" are anachronistic terms devoid of meaning . . . they're just, like, your opinion, man.
3) George Bush is the living embodiment of all that is Evil. He is, literally, the anti-Christ, and he feeds on the blood of puppies and minorities. Plus, he thought our Prime Minister's name was Poutine.
Joel Fleming, "The Youth Vote", Joel Fleming, 2005-01-06
January 11, 2005
This is where the real decisions are made
Linked from Virginia Postrel's site, a ZDnet article discussing how the next generation of DVDs will come to market:
The concept may seem odd, but history has proven the adult entertainment industry to be one of the key drivers of any new technology in home entertainment. Pornography customers have been some of the first to buy home video machines, DVD players and subscribe to high-speed Internet.
One of the next big issues in which pornographers could play a deciding role is the future of high-definition DVDs.
The multibillion-dollar industry releases about 11,000 titles on DVD each year, giving it tremendous power to sway the battle between two groups of studios and technology companies competing to set standards for the next generation.
This should be no surprise to anyone with a passing familiarity with the close linkages between new communication technologies and the sex industry. Church leaders were against the spread of printing because it allowed the most salacious works to be widely published (it also allowed bibles to be similarly distributed, but they didn't want to allow the bad with the good). Motion pictures were widely denounced as immoral and pandering to the basest instincts of "the mob". Radio was similarly pilloried, and most of you will remember who was most active in attacking the Internet and for what reason. . .
January 10, 2005
QotD: Minnesota Vikings
Little is surprising about a Vikings game filled with mistakes and missed opportunities. But when the Vikings aren't the team blowing tackles, committing ill-timed penalties and failing to take advantage of an opponent's errors, things certainly seem amiss.
Tom Pelissero, "Vikings rediscover winning ways", KFAN Sports, 2005-01-10
January 09, 2005
Church Signs
I was driving through the little village of Goodwood the other day when I saw this sign. I rarely pay attention to church signage, but this one was funny enough that I had to pull over and get a picture:
QotD: Wine Glasses
I used to think it was a silly affectation to drink different wines from different style glasses, but I have finally become a convert.
I now definitely prefer drinking hearty, macho reds from my Spiderman glass and lighter, fruity whites from Sponge Bob.
puester@worldnet.att.net, posted at Rec.humor.funny Jokes
January 06, 2005
Canadians and Authority Figures
I pulled this off a mailing list I belong to. The names have been omitted to protect the innocent:
Bob (last name withheld) wrote: A couple of years ago, My Son the Cop was motorcycling in northern Alberta (or maybe it was BC). He had a 12 gauge shotgun with him for protection from Mother Gaia's larger furry children.
As he was paying the fee for a tent site in a park, the uniformed representative of the provincial government said: "You have a firearm with you?"
MStC: Yes, 12 gauge double.
URPG: Very good. When you go to bed tonight, have the gun loaded and in the sleeping bag with you.
MStC: Well, ah, urm . . .
URPG: Are you listening? It's important. If a bear comes into your tent, fire right through the sleeping bag.
MStC: But it says here (gesturing with park brochure) NO FIREARMS IN THE PARK.
URPG: Listen! What I'm telling you is important. You can get a new tent and a new sleeping bag, but . . .
MStC: You guys out here don't pay much attention to what your government tells you, do you?
URPG: Would you if your government told you the silly things ours does?
QotD: Vancouver
As a resident of Toronto, I am a bit reluctant to write about Vancouver. Torontonians and Vancouverites don't get along very well, even though it is only the regular infusion of Torontonians that keeps Vancouver from losing its status as a city. Scratch a Vancouverite — not that it's a practice I advocate — and chances are you'll find an expatriate Hogtowner. Like religious converts, these newfound westerners are the most wild-eyed believers in the mythology, the most likely to promulgate the idea that Vancouverites routinely go skiing in the morning and sailing in the afternoon. There is no recorded instance of anyone actually skiing and sailing in the same day, but the belief that it can be done holds a lot of people in thrall. In fact Vancouver's traffic nowadays makes such a practice unlikely, and in any case Vancouverites don't have the time for it, having to work like Torontonians to make the payments on their leaky condos.
What the residents of these two cities have in common is an irrational smugness, an utterly unfounded belief that they are living in the best city in the world. We grasp desperately at warm comments from visitors, keen to be noticed by outsiders. The best of all is when we get acknowledged by international studies that rank the cities of the world. These surveys invariably come up with widely divergent results, and sometimes Toronto does well and other times it's Vancouver.
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It's Necessary
December 29, 2004
QotD: Technological Nightmares
Nothing is worse than [. . .] a fully loaded new computer, and I've been using them for nearly 20 years. Setting up a new computer is like getting ready to French Kiss an elephant; you know it will be a new experience, but you know it won't taste like veal cordon bleu. [. . .]
I know that all over the world this holiday season, millions upon millions of people will be receiving new computers, and that they will truly be the "gifts that keep on giving." Their gifts will be confusion, puzzlement, frustration, despair, disgust, and homicidal rage. As people across the globe attempt to install backup drives, get modems to dial, configure wireless networks, cheat at Solitaire, and sign-up over the telephone lines for America Online Sometimes, suicide hotlines will begin [to] jam as human beings come face to face, not for the first time, with the only machine in history that makes its customers into human lab animals. And makes them pay thousands of dollars for the pain.
How did we get here?
Gerard Van der Leun, "Fear of Fritterware: The Nightmare Before Christmas", American Digest, 2004-12-23
December 26, 2004
QotD: Philosophy
Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.
Terry Pratchett, excerpt from "The Life of Wen the Eternally Surprised", Thief of Time
December 25, 2004
QotD: Winter
There are 1000 nouns for winter precipitation . . . but only one adjective.
Marna Nightingale, posted to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list, 24 December, 2004
December 24, 2004
QotD: A Christmas Carol
It's Christmas time, and that means it's time to enjoy A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens' melancholy tale of a productive businessman who gets worked over by three meddling supernatural social workers one Christmas Eve, transforming him into a simpering socialist.
It's almost as sad as Star Wars, really.
Douglas Kern, "A TCS Christmas Carol"
December 23, 2004
QotD: Christmas Shopping
A day in the life of a male Christmas shopper is one of trepidation and resignation.
Let's be honest, the expectations on a guy at Christmas time to come up with the perfect gift are tremendous. Are we equal to the task? No.
Not to paint everyone with the same brush, and there are exceptions which prove the rule, but guys are out of their element when it comes to Christmas shopping . . . or shopping for that matter.
Christmas shopping for women is like deer hunting season for guys. They prepare for the season, they've spent hours scouting, they're dressed for it, they read all the magazines, purses and budgets are finalized, and when they hit the woods, er, I mean the stores . . . they are ready to make the kill.
Men on the other hand, are like the deer caught in the proverbial headlights.
Todd Hamilton, Interior News, December 2004
(Hat tip to Temujin, of West Coast Chaos)
December 21, 2004
QotD: Chocolate
Ankh-Morkpork people, said the Guild, were hearty no-nonsense people who did not want chocolate that was stuffed with cocoa liquor, and were certainly not like effete la-di-dah foreigners who wanted cream in everything. In fact they actually preferred chocolate made mostly from milk, sugar, suet, hooves, lips, miscellaneous squeezings, rat droppings, plaster, flies, tallow, bits of tree, hair, lint, spiders and powdered cocoa husks. This meant that according to the food standards of the great chocolate centres in Borogravia and Quirm, Ankh-Morpork chocolate was formally classed as "cheese" and only escaped, through being the wrong colour, being defined as "tile grout".
Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
December 20, 2004
QotD: Amtrak
Amtrak has improved its service since I last rode the rails, and you no longer fear that the lavatories will be occupied by giant hissing Madagascar cockroaches that climbed up the pipes the last time the train slowed down. The food's good, and the service is cheerful — unlike the servers of old, who might as well have begun the meal by announcing "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a virtual guarantee of lifetime employment, and as you might expect that's going to affect my interest in prompt and friendly service. Affect it severely. Now you're all going to have the lasagna. It was made during the Carter era. The only thing older than the lasagna is the beer. And it's also warmer."
No, Amtrak is in good shape. The cars have been rebuilt, the blankets no longer draw blood when they come in contact with human skin, the tracks are smoother, and the Pit of Hazy Death — the snack car — is now smoke-free.
That means it's not packed with throaty-voiced semi-toothed drifters who emit a Pompeii-sized cloud of ash every time they start in on one of those up-from-the-ankles 20-minute hacking fits. And somehow — don't ask me how — the general aromatic profile of the train is no longer "feet, with a top note of septic tank." The train actually smelled good. Bravo, Amtrak.
James Lileks, "A windy narrative of a trip to Chicago", Minneapolis Star-Tribune
December 17, 2004
Most Amusing Wine Term of the Week
I've been accused of using weird and inappropriate descriptive terms in some of my wine postings, but Natalie MacLean just topped anything I've written in the past month or so:
QUOTATION REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF NATALIE MACLEAN
I mean, really! If a professional wine writer (one of the best in Canada, mind you) can commit a flagrant description foul like that, then I have to get a pass for my occasional malaprop, yes?
In all seriousness, Ms. MacLean's wine newsletter is quite worth reading. You can visit her website, or subscribe to her newsletter by mailing her at natdecants@nataliemaclean.com.
How to decorate for the season, with cats
I don't normally put "Aw, isn't that cute" stuff up here at Quotulatiousness. Partly because I'm not overly inclined to view such material myself, and partly because very little of it is worth looking at even once. This is an exception to the rule.
December 16, 2004
"That's not a car ad. THIS is a car ad!"
Tim Blair unearths the funniest car sale I've ever seen:
Those amongst you suffering a lengthy history of non-violent mental illness are likely to find this vehicle appealing; or should I say appalling. It's a 1984 Nissan 720 and it's in a crap state. Nissan, in a stroke of genius, solved the problem of oversupply in the Mission Brown house paint market sector in 1984 by splashing it down the sides of these babies. I believe these vehicles were sent to Australia as payback for the mistreatment of Japanese prisoners in WWII.
Go read it all, especially the extended Q&A section. It's solid gold!
December 15, 2004
A New "Toy" From Japan
Japanese 'lap pillow' offers solace to lonely men.
"I think this may be good for single men, but it could cause trouble for someone who is married," said Shingo Shibata, a 27-year-old company employee browsing at a toy store which sells the pillow.
QotD: Microbrewed Beer
Hops, of course, add the bitterness we have come to expect in beer (except drinkers of Molson Golden, who have come to expect almost no taste at all), and they also act as a preservative.
Risk-taking microbreweries these days are known to replace or supplement hops with such oddities as heather, bog myrtle, ginseng, and hemp. As hops are related (by marriage) to cannabis — that other great medicinal herb — we shouldn't be surprised to encounter hemp beer, and indeed you can usually find it on tap in Toronto at C'est What down on Front Street. It's not bad either, once you get it lit, which is the hard part.
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It's Necessary
December 14, 2004
QotD: Ontario Pubs
Bread, of course, led to variations like cake — which was good — and the kaiser bun, that tasteless, doughy piece of stodge named as revenge upon the Germans for WWI and served in many pubs to this day to diminish the pleasure of an honest hamburger. (The kaiser bun is mandatory in Ontario bars as a pivotal part of the legislation aimed at curtailing pleasure among the citizenry. Citizens who became accustomed to pleasure might start to see it as their due, which would be inconvenient for the authorities.)
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It's Necessary
December 08, 2004
Myrick: World Travelling Wine Connoiseur
Myrick just got back from a trip during which he had the opportunity to sample some local wines:
Thrice! Three times on my recent vacation I had disposed of
perfectly goodhideous alcohol.That's a record. In my travels I have imbibed dreaded Mekong whiskey, Cambodian muscle wine, the most wretched of sojus, African moonshine and various Kuwaiti homemade-concoctions that involved no small number of health risks. But never have I found so many undrinkable brews as I did on my most recent trip.
But never fear! Myrick survived the scarifying experiences and discovered a true Oriental wonder:
Still, all in all, black rhizones red was monkey-spanking good.
You couldn't really ask for a better recommendation, could you?
Artistic Disillusionment
Poor Chris Taylor recounts the sad tale of his youthful loss of artistic faith:
Don't ask me how, but somehow I got it into my pea-brained mind that the Ontario Place Forum must be the natural venue for Swan Lake, because Ontario Place had a huge population of waterfowl — including actual swans. Since my only prior experience with ballet was the opulent and costume-heavy Nutcracker, I figured that Swan Lake would be a lot like it. Nutcracker featured tin soldiers come to life, battling household mice with their rifles and bayonets. I expected nothing less from Swan Lake — amazing feats of animal husbandry, wherein real live swans would somehow be coerced into ballet performances.
So I sat there for a half hour or so watching these women with feathers in their tutus dance around the stage. Then I poked mom in the ribs and said "Where are the swans?" She explained very patiently that the ladies in the feathered dresses were the swans. Well, my enjoyment of ballet went into the sewer at that point, and never recovered. Ladies pretending to be swans? Here we were, in a venue absolutely crawling with real live swans (who were busy nosing about for dropped french fries) and the best they could come up with was ladies in dresses with the odd feather attached? I considered this a monumental failure of the art form and never made an effort to see another ballet performance.
December 06, 2004
When Saying It In English Just Isn't Enough
Sometimes, even though English is a remarkably useful language, you need something more. This page gives you a few choice usages in Latin, to help you seal the deal, classically.
And if like many bloggers, you are accosted with Tum podem extulit horridulum, you'll at least know what you're being accused of. . . and that a brisk Vescere bracis meis! is appropriate.
Seasonal Melodies
James Lileks has a concern about Christmas music:
This isn't to say all the classics are great, no matter who sings them. I can do without "The Little Drummer Boy," for example.
It's the "Bolero" of Christmas songs. It just goes on, and on, and on. Bara-pa-pa-pum, already. Plus, I understand it's a sweet little story — all the kid had was a drum to play for the newborn infant — but for anyone who remembers what it was like when they had a baby, some kid showing up unannounced to stand around and beat on the skins would not exactly complete your mood. Happily, the song has not spawned a sequel like "The Somewhat Larger Cymbal Adolescent."
This reminds me about my aversion to this particular song. It was so bad that I could not hear even three notes before starting to wince and/or growl.
Back in the early 1980's, I was working in Toronto's largest toy and game store, Mr Gameway's Ark. It was a very odd store, and the owners were (to be polite) highly idiosyncratic types. They had a razor-thin profit margin, so any expenses that could be avoided, reduced, or eliminated were so treated. One thing that they didn't want to pay for was Muzak (or the local equivalent), so one of the owners brought in his home stereo and another one put together a tape of Christmas music.
Note that singular. "Tape".
Christmas season started somewhat later in those distant days, so that it was really only in December that we had to decorate the store and cope with the sudden influx of Christmas merchandise. Well, also, they couldn't pay for the Christmas merchandise until sales started to pick up, so that kinda accounted for the delay in stocking-up the shelves as well. . .
So, Christmas season was officially open, and we decorated the store with the left-over krep from the owners' various homes. It was, at best, kinda sad. But — we had Christmas music! And the tape was pretty eclectic: some typical 50's stuff (White Christmas and the like), some medieval stuff, some Victorian stuff and that damned Drummer Boy song.
We were working ten- to twelve-hour shifts over the holidays (extra staff? you want Extra Staff, Mr. Cratchitt???), and the music played on. And on. And freaking on. Eternally. There was no way to escape it.
To top it all off, we were the exclusive distributor for a brand new game that suddenly was in high demand: Trivial Pursuit. We could not even get the truck unloaded safely without a cordon of employees to keep the random passers-by from snatching boxes of the damned game. When we tried to unpack the boxes on the sales floor, we had customers snatching them out of our hands and running (running!) to the cashier. Stress? It was like combat, except we couldn't shoot back at the buggers.
Oh, and those were also the days that Ontario had a Sunday closing law, so we were violating all sorts of labour laws on top of the Sunday closing laws, so the Police were regular visitors. Given that some of our staff spent their spare time hiding from the Police, it just added immeasurably to the tension levels on the shop floor.
And all of this to the background soundtrack of Christmas music. One tape of Christmas music. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
It's been over 20 years, and I still feel the hackles rise on the back of my neck with this song . . . but I'm over the worst of it now: I can actually listen to it without feeling that all-consuming desire to rip out the sound system and dance on the speakers. After two decades.
December 05, 2004
Creating Medical Panics Since 1919
An Associated Press news item has been running as a headline on Yahoo for a few days now:
Expert warns next flu pandemic could destroy Earth's ecosystem
HONG KONG (AP) - A medical expert has warned the next flu pandemic could wreck the global ecosystem, in addition to killing millions of people worldwide, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The World Health Organization warned last week bird flu is the mostly likely candidate to combine with a human virus, creating a new strain that could trigger a worldwide pandemic and kill as many as seven million people.
Microbiologist Kennedy Shortridge told a convention in Hong Kong on Friday he fears such a pandemic could destroy the global ecosystem in addition to causing human deaths, the South China Morning Post reported.
Scary, no? Exactly the sort of headline that causes people sitting on the fence to panic and stampede off in the chosen direction (in this case, to clamour for the highly politicized "flu shot", in all likelihood). Note that this is the published opinion of one researcher, and that:
The Microbiology Department at the University of Hong Kong said Shortridge could only be reached through his e-mail but he did not immediately respond to one.
Convenient, no?
QotD: Canadian Winter
I recall explaining [. . .] that the really crucial part of Canadian Weather Stories is usually the last line: "So, that was fun."
That may have been the same conversation in which I explained what I mean by 'brisk,' and that "D*mn Cold, Eh" is in fact a greeting, not a question.
Marna Nightingale, posted to the Lois McMaster Bujold mailing list
December 04, 2004
Creeping Credentialism
I'm not much in favour of the long-standing trend towards formal credentials for non-professional jobs: I'm definitely standing athwart History in this case. Here's a great example of what can be done today to create a fully credentialized portfolio for just about anyone:
After many months, I've finally been pushed to finish this article on questionable credentialing in hypnosis and "psychotherapy." A reporter from a major magazine wrote to "Dr. Zoe D. Katze" for input on an article she was writing on hypnosis for childbirthing. She had stumbled across Dr. Zoe's name on the American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists' website. I had to tell her the truth.
Dr. Zoe D. Katze, Ph.D., C.Ht., DAPA, is a cat. In fact, she is my cat. Those familiar with basic German have probably already enjoyed a laugh. "Zoe Die Katze" literally translates to "Zoe the cat."
Dr. Katze's credentials look impressive. She is certified by three major hypnotherapy associations, having met their "strict training requirements" and having had her background thoroughly reviewed. She holds a Diplomate in psychotherapy from an association that claims to promote the highest standards among psychotherapists.
I was motivated to credential my cat by two circumstances. First, I have become increasingly heedful of all the questionable credentials out there, and I've grown tired of sounding defensive to therapist-shopping clients who confront me with something along the order of: "I found somebody with all these certifications and diplomas and he/she charges half of what you psychologists charge."
The last straw (and my moment of inspiration) came during an internet search for a colleague. I accidentally came upon the website of another "psychotherapist" who listed a doctoral degree from an infamous diploma mill. Along with his degrees, he listed a veritable alphabet soup of impressive-looking letters after his name, corresponding to various "board certifications" and his status as a "Diplomat [sic] and Fellow" of the "largest professional hypnosis association in the world."
I decided to credential my cat.
I find this story just hilarious, as once again, members of my profession are attempting to create a formal credential to "ensure quality" and — not co-incidentally — keep out the riff-raff (like me).
The NFC North, Religiously Speaking
The Vikings and the Green Bay Packers have a scheduled game on December 24th this year. December 24th is also considered by some to have some religious significance. In Wisconsin, the weaker affiliation is bowing to the stronger one:
GREEN BAY, Wis. — St. Bernard Catholic Church, several miles from Lambeau Field, has adjusted its Christmas Eve Day Mass schedule as the Green Bay Packers are scheduled to play at 2 p.m. that afternoon.
It eliminated its two 4 p.m. Masses and added a second Mass at 6 p.m.
The parish staff went back and forth in discussing its options, said Ginny Gigot, it's business administrator.
"This was not a unanimous decision,'' the pastor, the Rev. David Pleier, said in church bulletin item on the move. "Comments ranged from, 'You mean to say you're putting football ahead of the birth of Christ?' to 'What if we have a Mass and nobody comes? Would that be an honor to the newborn Savior?'
I may not be a Packer fan (thank goodness), but you have to respect a devotion that even trumps mere religious observances!
QotD: Reading
I would like, for the sake of hipness, to be able to claim that I am reading some obscure French novelist of the inter-war period, in the original French. Unfortunately, the only thing I can read in the original french is no-smoking signs, and I hate most french novels written after 1890. Instead, I'm reaquainting myself with the poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay and Dorothy Parker, the patron saints of light verse. When I was in college, I thought I wanted to be Dorothy Parker, until I realised that no matter how hard I tried I was never going to be talented, Jewish, or short, and that dying alone only sounds romantic so long as you continue to believe yourself to be immortal.
"Jane Galt", Asymmetrical Information
December 03, 2004
Jon Disses the Recyclers
Jon, my virtual landlord, has an amusing post up about his recent dealings with the recycling commissars:
This whole Blue Box and recycling thing is a crock. I am convinced that it has nothing to do with recycling and is instead an experiment in behaviour modification. The various levels of government want to see just how compliant we can be made to become. My guess is that they are hoping that, when the time comes, we will willingly walk to the camps just on being told that it's good for the environment – that way they won't have to provide transportation.
Especially pay attention to how he's taken to packaging his recyclable cardboard boxes. I don't think I'd have the stones to do that!
And while you're at Blogulaciousness, don't miss this post about the economics of hydro in Ontario. Good reading.
While I'm busy pointing to good posts on Jon's blog, I should mention that I had this idea to riff on an older posting of his ("Every time you use Highway 407, a terrorist gets appeased"). What I was going to do was to use the Treo camera, take a photo of a new sign that appeared recently on the 407 and edit the wording to say something deeply profound, like "Durka durka Mohammed Jihad!" (obligatory Team America reference). Unfortunately, the plan derailed because I'm a moron. I took the photo yesterday, while driving past the sign, and then forgot to save the image, and turned off the camera. Doh!
November 30, 2004
Colby Cosh, Lone Assassin
Infamous cyber-assassin Colby Cosh takes out his victims with no fuss, no muss, no cordite smell:
With the "chaos level" of the motorcade increased in the game settings, shooting the driver can create what I am obliged to describe as frankly delightful pandemonium; sometimes his weight falls on the gas pedal and the limo shoots off crazily into the distance, hitting a tree or jumping General Lee-fashion over the entrance to the Triple Overpass. Often the passengers end up flying through the air like ragdolls and dying without having even been wounded. (The ballistics report that follows the gameplay is careful to fill you in on stuff like that.)
The fun wears off fast — this is a first-person shooter with exactly one level and one boss. And the "educational tool" defence of its premise won't really stand up to examination. Then again, it is only ten bucks. The world awaits the inevitable sequel, "Abe Lincoln Reloaded". Sic semper tyrannis!
Blame William The Conqueror
Samizdata reveals a previously unknown segment of the Bayeux Tapestry. . .
What if you threw a protest, but nobody came?
Damian Penny explains how this really worked.
I find the mental image of the protesters outnumbered by the media folks to be rather amusing, personally.
Quote of the Day: Fairy Tales
Supposing an emperor was persuaded to wear a new suit of clothes whose material was so fine that, to the common eye, the clothes weren't there. And suppose a little boy pointed out this fact in a loud, clear voice . . .
Then you have The Story of the Emperor Who Had No Clothes.
But if you knew a bit more, it would be The Story of the Boy Who Got a Well-Deserved Thrashing from His Dad for Being Rude to Royalty, and Was Locked Up.
Or The Story of the Whole Crowd Who Were Rounded Up by the Guards and Told "This Didn't Happen, OK? Does Anyone Want To Argue?"
Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
November 27, 2004
Quote of the day: Moderation
Three kraters [bowls used for wine] do I mix for the temperate: one to health, which they empty first, the second to love and pleasure, the third to sleep. When this bowl is drunk up, wise guests go home. The fourth bowl is ours no longer, but belongs to hubris, the fifth to uproar, the sixth to prancing about, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth brings the police, the ninth belongs to vomiting, and the tenth to insanity and the hurling of furniture.
Eubulus, attributing the words to the god Dionysus
November 25, 2004
The Real Rather Story
All the other stories are just that — stories. To get the real facts, you've got to read Iowahawk's "It's a Dan-derful Life"
November 24, 2004
Brigadier Flea Comes Out of the Closet!
Brigadier Packwood, aka "the Flea" has finally broken down and admitted it all:
I am certain Flea-readers everywhere will understand when I write that this blog is and always has been for gay men only. Not only a little bit take-one-for-the-team gay but fully 100% friends-of-Dorothy gay. Gay, gay, gay! All images of women shown here should be understood for their camp fabulousness and all objectification of these images by straight men or lesbian women is strictly forbidden. Not a little bit forbidden but Taliban-throw-you-down-the-well/CRTC-keep-it-off-the-tv/Andrea-Dworkin-pornography-is-rape forbidden. Your publisher, having practiced techniques of Tibetan mind control, is an exception and feels nothing but an aesthetic appreciation for any images shown here including those of Kylie Minogue's perfect bottom. My intransigent pursuit of Kylie-media is a vocation and not cheap thrill-seeking of any kind. So if you are not a 100% gay man, or somewhere else on the Kinsey-scale but studying Tibetan mind control, you should only squint sideways at any pictures you see here until you have determined they are not of Kylie Minogue. Sexual objectification of men on the other hand, and especially the Flea, is to be fully encouraged and is best expressed through large financial donations, lavish presents or whatever it takes to get me onto Glenn Reynold's blogroll (and I mean whatever it takes).
Thank you, sir. I'm sure it took a lot of courage to say that. I think I can speak for all both of Quotulatiousness' readers when I say "we understand".
Quote of the day: Football
[. . .] a Jets Super Bowl win (may Dad and I live that long) will not be followed by urban anarchy. In fact I suspect that the morning after a Jets championship, Gang Green fans will sit around and lament that A) how Paul Hackett's [or insert unpopular coach's name here] play calling nearly cost them the win; B) now the team is in terrible position for next year's draft; C) how hard it is to repeat as champions; and D) how every other team will try to sign away our players in free agency. The Russian-level-fatalism is hardwired into our DNA.
November 22, 2004
New Health Risk Uncovered
Samizdata alerts us to a newly uncovered health risk. EU officials are already hard at work drafting proposals to host conferences to consider striking committees to consider proposing regulatory guidelines:
According to Dutch health investigators, going to church can cause lung cancer and other respiratory problems, because of the carcinogenic effects of candles and incense. Dr Theo de Kok, says that it is "very worrying". With Christmas approaching, levels of pollutants would be expected to rise.
November 18, 2004
Quote of the Day: Offensensitivity
James Lileks, in his Star Tribune column:
I love leaf blowers. They drown out the airplanes. Aside from that, however, I'm not entirely crazy about them. It's the particular pitch at which they operate, that giant-insect-with-a-leg-stuck-in-the-wood-chipper scream. But here's the odd thing that probably makes me unfit for modern life: While I personally don't like the devices, this does not compel me to want them banned. Old-style thinking, apparently. Today, we have the right to insist that people not annoy us, and that opens up a vast and capacious can of worms.
Wine Tasting Notes: Automation
Natalie Maclean mentioned this utility in her regular wine newsletter. It produces wonderfully useful tasting notes like this:
Fun but limp Marsanne. Shows blueberry, acidic monster cigar box and forceful wild berry. Drink now through whenever the cows come home.
Elegant almost plump Gamay. Drops wart ointment, astounding milk chocolate and strong pixie stick. Drink now through April.
Medium-weight and intense Port. Shows baked alaska, limp gasoline and semi-weak ketchup. Drink now through graduation.
Powerful and big and plump Dessert wine. Kicks you with poi, oily cheap gin and total absence of bongwater. Drink now through 2009.
If you've ever wanted to sound as silly and pretentious as the rest of us when we're pretending to know something about wine, this is the site for you!
November 13, 2004
Andrew Plato's "Ten Rules of Technical Writing"
Andrew Plato is perhaps the funniest technical writer in captivity: that's partly because he's no longer doing a lot of technical writing (I've been told that the sense of humour grows back after a while). Here are a pair of Top Ten lists he wrote for the Tech Writer's mailing list. First, the "serious" one.
To be a good tech writer:
- You understand or are willing to learn the subject matter.
- You have no emotional attachments to your work. You see it as product that needs to be perfected, not an expression of yourself.
- You ask relevant, probing questions and listen to the answers.
- Prioritize your time. Focus on what is most important: content.
- Answer the 5 Golden Questions:
- What is it?
- What does it do?
- What is its purpose?
- How does it work (or how does it do what it is supposed to do)?
- Why is it relevant?
- Master your environment and information. If you act like a cog in a machine, you will be treated and respected accordingly. Take control of the process. Use it to your advantage.
- Demonstrate your expertise. Prove your knowledge.
- Good writing is 5-10% fonts, styles, and grammar and 90-95% brain-numbing, keyboard-pecking, intellectually draining drudgery. If this ratio tilts too high to the fonts and styles side, you're probably not focusing on the right things.
- Results are more important than plans.
- Criticize things you don't know about. Live in a swamp and be three dimensional. Get all excited and go to a yawning festival. Go into a closet and suck eggs.
Apparently near the end of the list, he stopped prescribing what should be the tech writer Zen ideal and started talking about how real tech writers work. . .
The "real" list is more descriptive than prescriptive. This list was inspired by a long, long, long, tedious, long, long, boring, long, long discussion on the Tech Writers mailing list which devolved into a mud-slinging contest between the pro-STC and anti-STC factions:
10. Develop a style guide. First thing make sure you get every possible style perturbation figured out. This is very important.
9. Write a comprehensive documentation plan. Don't skimp here. You need to plan out every last detail of your documents. I usually allow 5 to 10 days to design and write the plan. Make sure you follow all your styles.
8. Single-source everything. There is simply no excuse for not using the latest single-sourcing systems. These can dramatically cut down on writing time and really make you more productive.
7. Hold weekly meetings, with everybody. Use this time to express your issues about management, projects, and levels of respect. Break out into cross-functional teams to form consensus on how to more effectively leverage your team synergies.
6. Get specs. Don't even think of starting work without detailed specifications on exactly what you should be doing.
5. Set expectations. Require detailed written expectations from management. Point out any deviation from these expectations.
4. Join the National Writers Union: This is the best place for fellow writers to get together and talk about employment issues. And when you get into trouble, the NWU can lend a hand and help you suck the life our of your employer.
3. Get the best tools: Make sure you spend ample time evaluating, cross-evaluation, and double-crossed evaluating tools and technologies. No plug-in or code snippet it too small. Document your evaluations and distribute these via executable files to everybody in your organization.
2. Remain Writer-focused: Don't let your company encourage you to learn about technologies. Remember, a good writer can document anything without knowing about it. Use your SMEs wisely and make sure you focus on what is important: fonts, styles, and communication.
1. Join STC: Devote yourself to this outstanding organization. The services it offers technical writers is truly remarkable. From seminars to lunch-and-learns, there is virtually no end to the valuable resources STC offers technical communicators. Make sure you also only work with those people that are also STC members!
November 09, 2004
Getting Even With Tailgating Drivers
On a mailing list I sometimes manage to read, this accessory was suggested as a solution for tailgaters.
While I love the mental image, I can also imagine the lawsuits that would follow the first successful use of the tool. . .
November 05, 2004
Lunch-time Conversation
I had lunch today with Jon. On the way back from lunch, we got into a discussion about past jobs, hiring, firing, and all the good and bad of employment. At some point, he asked me "Do you regret anything?"
I decided to be clever and drop in a quote: "Je ne regrette rien." Before I could sprain my arm patting myself on the back, he shot back with "Dude, I think you just surrendered to my grandmother."
Perhaps you just had to be there.
Coming soon: Greater Soviet Canuckistan?
As I mentioned the the other day, there is a lot of idle talk about desperate Blue staters heading up here to the paradise of socialized medicine, gay marriage, and sky-high taxes. The Toronto Sun wants to go a step further:
[. . .] if a signifcant number of Americans should choose to go a different route — a northern route — we'd be hard pressed to say no.
And if such great states as New York, California, Washington, Pennsylvania and Hawaii actually wanted to become Canadian provinces, well, who are we to argue?
Yesterday, Howard Gensler of the Philadelphia Daily News brilliantly argued exactly that, in an eloquent call for the so-called "blue states" — i.e., all those that backed Democrat John Kerry — to join Canada.
Yes, join Canada — not annex us. We'd annex them. The blue states are all contiguous to our border and/or to one another, so the new border could be smoothly drawn.
The blue-staters would gain acceptance for their more liberal views here in the land of free health care and soon-to-be-legal gay marriage and marijuana. And we'd get New York City, Los Angeles, California wine country, a host of world-class cultural institutions and a raft of great sports teams (the Grey Cup would never be the same).
Mock as you will, this could work out to be a good deal; even in the "Blue states", there are many more gun owners, libertarians, and capitalists than there are in the current Soviet Canucki population. The how-many-billions Gun Registry? Buh-bye. It'd take the entire GNP to fund registration efforts for all those puppies.
It would join three of the largest marijuana cultivation areas (BC, Oregon, and California), three of the most tolerant gay cities (Toronto, Vancouver, and San Francisco), three of the most important TV production areas (New York, Toronto, and Hollywood), and almost all of the most puffed-up, pompous, self-regarding elites.
Oh, wait. That last one is a deal-breaker, isn't it?
Update: Cripes. Even more piling on to this idea: here.
Update the second: Of course, this assumes that we can somehow keep Alberta under enough sedation to not up stakes and move their entire province physically out of the continent: they find smug Ontarians tough enough to cope with as it is.
November 04, 2004
Myrick Also Does Wine Postings
I've reduced the number of wine-related postings I do since I started this blog, partly because I've got items of wider interest to discuss, and partly because I didn't want to constantly run through the same general terms to describe the wines. I nearly did post about a recent wine tour of Prince Edward County, where I was served a really awful wine at one of the wineries. It was bad.
How bad was it? you ask. Well, it smelled rather like Rover had just squatted over the glass and pinched off a really smelly turd. Like that, only with slight hints of grapeyness. My wife, who is not usually as diplomatic as I am, was able to describe it as having a "stable straw" aroma. (As in used stable straw.)
Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand, Myrick, our man in Singapore, had the opportunity to try a unique wine with impressive powers — at least as claimed by the winemaker.
Showing the Political Colours
I don't know about any other Canadians who were watching the returns from the US elections, but I found myself often confused by the colour-coding they use. After all this time, I associate the colour blue with conservatives and the colour red with liberals, so every time an update appeared on one of the websites I was tracking, I had a double-take ("California is going 68% blue? California is going for Bush???" [pause] "Oh, right. Red is the American Blue").
Does anyone know if the historical associations date back to the American Revolution? Did the Federalists choose red and the Loyalists choose blue? Or am I reaching here?
November 03, 2004
Democratic Exodus to Canuckistan?
Jon explains why this isn't a good idea, comrades. American Digest provides photos of the military build-up on the border to prevent infiltration by rebel Blue-Staters.
Cuba may be welcoming Democratic refugees, however. . .
Update: Steve H. lays it all out for prospective invaders immigrants to Canada here.
Lileks Strikes Again
James Lileks has a new book out. The images will sear — sear themselves into your soul. If you have one. Which, if you're old enough to remember these decorational monstrosities, is not a certainty.
October 29, 2004
It's an unfair Copp(s)
I don't normally link to Toronto Star articles, but this one is a rare exception:
From Chapter Eight:
"This was around 1993, I think, and I was sitting in Cabinet, and we were talking about how to make Canadians aware of the various government agencies and programs that are available, and I said, I just came up with this, I said, what if you could go on to your computer, type in an address, and link through the phone line to anything in the world, and read it right in the privacy of your own home? And they all looked at me like I was crazy, except for Paul Martin, who said, 'Hasn't Al Gore come up with something like that?'"Uh, no," I said. "I don't think so."
"I get the Gore thing all the time, and it used to annoy me, but now, it's enough just to know it was my idea. I'm not interested in any credit."
October 27, 2004
Quote of the Day
You might think it's funny, but it's disrespectful to submit write-in candidates like "Don Knotts," "Mickey Mouse," or "Michael Badnarik."
October 26, 2004
Quote of the Day: Edmonton
Colby Cosh muses on the endless days of hockey-free Edmonton:
Winter [in Edmonton] appeals to the (decidedly narrow) ascetic side of my temperament, but right now this place is pretty Dantean — empty, forlorn, and still, all sound half-absorbed by the snow. On the days when there's no cloud, the sunlight hits the street with a blinding chemical whiteness that makes you wonder if God is screwing around with Photoshop filters. Most days, the sun is obscured by a gray-pink gauze that leaves you uncertain what planet you're on. Heroin has never been a popular drug here: we all already know what it's like to be dead.
Quote of the Day: Soldiering
From today's Scotsman:
Over recent decades, [European militaries] have given up trying to train for high-intensity warfare. It does not matter if Dutch soldiers insist on being allowed to take their hairdryers into action and the Belgians demand a box of chocolates with their evening meal. Before the Second World War, it was said that every Romanian private's knapsack contained a Romanian Field Marshal's lipstick. As the continent of Europe has largely given up serious soldiering, there would be no harm in that becoming a symbol for its future armed services.
Bruce Anderson
And, from the same article:
Once the high intensity warfare was over, our men were quick to get out of helmets into berets and to start playing football with the locals. That is why we are so good at modern warfare. When we have to fight, we know how to do so. But when it is time to stop fighting and start playing football, we know how to do that as well — and even with Scottish regiments, it is possible to tell the difference.
Update 27 October: As Fred reminded me in the comments, I forgot to provide the URL for this: here.
October 22, 2004
Mr. Fix-it I'm not
I posted a slightly more incriminating detailed description of this on a mailing list a while back. I just decided to inflict it on those of you who weren't victimized the first time around. When my son was about five, I undertook to build a small model train layout with him. This partially explains why the job never really got finished:
I have followed dozens of tips and tricks to make my soldering look even remotely like what they say it should look like. I just can't make it work. "Tin the work first", they say, so I tin it . . . except that when they show a photo of a tinned piece, it looks as if it's just got a microscopically thin coating of really, really shiny solder on it. When I "tin" something, it looks more like I took a tin can and wrapped it around the work piece. All gnarled and grey-black and totally not like the photo. Not to mention being twice the size of the "un-tinned" original piece.
So careful application of heat is the key, they say. I carefully apply heat to a freshly cleaned piece of rail. About a second after I get the iron in contact with the metal, the ties go all Salvador Dali and I'm breathing in really fascinating fumes.
Okay, maybe I'm using too large a soldering iron. I switch to a much smaller iron. Now, when I touch the rail, nothing happens for like 30 seconds or so. The solder at the tip of the iron briefly turns shiny, then jumps off the tip of the iron and lands on the plastic tie instead of the rail.
Flux, they say, flux is the key. Okay, I get myself some flux. Now, I don't get a huge blob of solder. Now I get a huge sheet of solder stretching far beyond the area I'm trying to work on. Flux works too well, if you ask me! Instead of making the solder joint easier to make, it converts the melted metal into a science fiction amoeba-like creature, trying to escape . . .
And don't even get me started about how many bloody hands are necessary to hold a soldering iron, solder, wire, flux applicator, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, emergency beer glass, other emergency beer glass, etc. I'm certain that the magazine authors actually have this all done by Industrial Light and Magic with a 50-person FX team filming against a blue screen, because I sure can't reproduce what they show as just a simple task!
Grumpy? I get grumpy just thinking about soldering! Five minutes after I start trying to do it, I'm all the way out to Apoplectic!
October 19, 2004
Vintages Release: Scrum Alert
Saturday is the day that Vintages (the exclusive arm of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario) releases new products. The competition can, apparently, get quite violent:
Shoving matches have been known to ensue over coveted vintages, and, from time to time, collectors have even been caught stealing prized merchandise from other people's shopping carts. One LCBO customer regularly purchases large quantities of expensive wines to display for guests on Saturday night, only to bring them back for a refund on Monday. "We actually had an employee injured recently when two people too impatient to wait reached over his shoulder and ripped open a wooden box," says Bailey. "They sliced the edge of his face."
On another recent occasion, a Toronto contractor devised an ingenious plan to thwart the LCBO's one-bottle-per-person policy on limited-supply vintages. At 5 a.m. that Saturday, he parked his construction trailer in the wine-store parking lot and paid his crew to line up in one-hour shifts. (They'd return to the trailer for coffee, doughnuts and bathroom breaks.) By the end of the morning, they'd bought up every bottle in the store.
October 15, 2004
The Instapundit Endorses Hillary Clinton for President!
Glenn Reynolds, the renowned Instapundit has declared for Hillary Clinton in the Presidential race.
October 14, 2004
James Lileks: Queer Eye For the Blog Guy
I like James Lileks' writing, I really do. Every weekday morning, it's my first stop on my web-rounds. He's funny. He's sincere. He's a great writer.
Except . . . On the odd day like today when he's suddenly running for "Mr. Domesticality" in the All-Minnesota Sensitive New Age Guy contest:
I offer my congratulations on a successful product line, and I look forward to a similarly integrated theme come the spring. However, you are surely aware that of the disparity in usage patterns that exists between towels and napkins, which makes it likely that a customer will run out of one before exhausting his stores of the other. This would not be a problem were it not for the seemingly random fashion in which these matching patterns have been distributed to the retail outlets. Yesterday, for example, I found three bales of leaf-bordered napkins at the store, and no such paper towels. This presents the consumer with a dilemma. Having become accustomed to the tight thematic consistency, one is forced to consider abandoning it entirely, and returning to the pell-mell ways of yore. Yes, the customer could keep using the towels without the napkins, but the presence of the former would mock the latter, make it seem somehow lesser. Which in fact it would be.
James! Snap out of it man! There are screeds to be written, spleen to be vented, idiots to be mocked!
Of course, the column improves dramatically once he gets the excess domesticity wrung out of his system. . .
Quote of the Day: Voting
Voting for President is a lot like sex — and not just because it takes place once every four years in the solitude of a semi-private booth. Both are intensely personal activities that nonetheless can have profound public consequences. We might add that both often involve drug-and-alcohol-fueled delusions and morning-after feelings of guilt, shame, and recrimination.
The Editors, Reason November, 2004.
October 13, 2004
Sometimes, the story just writes itself
A couple of days ago, I posted a link to the story about the artist who couldn't spell. It now gets even better:
"The art chose the words," said the artist, who is now refusing to fix the problem.
Hat tip to Fark.
October 12, 2004
One Chicken to Rule Them All
Peg Kerr does the Tolkien take on the traditional chicken joke.
October 08, 2004
Home Auto Maintenance Explained
If I haven't already mentioned it, I'm one of those chaps for whom the mere mention of "auto mechanics" results in a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach: Mr. Mechanic, I'm not. But once upon a time, I thought it couldn't be that hard, right? So I bought one of those do-it-yourself mechanic guides for the car I was driving at that time (1973 VW Beetle, actually). This guide explains all the things that the printed manual really means.
A True Artist Cares Not About Trivia Like, uh, Speling Wurds Rite
Artist claims that critics are "denigrating my work and the purpose of this work" by criticizing the poor spelling in her $40,000 ceramic mural. "The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people" said artist Maria Alquilar. The hapless city council has voted to pay more than $6,000 to fly Alquilar back to town to fix the problems.
The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.
"The people that are into humanities and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words."
Someone's tax dollars at work.
October 04, 2004
Quote of the Day: Web Traffic
The Boss: "But the web's a valuable customer interface!"
The Operator: "If you're Amazon or Sendit, but not if you're us. We're a web nothing! Baby seals get more hits!"
Simon Travaglia, the Bastard Operator from Hell
September 29, 2004
This is how bloggers get started. . .
Don't let this happen to you! Avoid the known dangers of blogging!
September 24, 2004
Another Use For Cellphone Ringtones
[. . .] a Japanese man has developed a breast-augmenting ringtone which has had oriental A-cups downloading like crazed breastless women in the hope of of aurally-driven überjubblies.
Hideto Tomabechi — who apparently cut his scientific spurs deprogramming members of the AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult — claims that his deliciously-titled "Rockmelon" ditty uses "sounds that make the brain and body move unconsciously". Tomabechio calls the subliminal mambooster a kind of "positive brainwashing" and further reckons that it's "a part of cognitive science".
Proving, I guess, that hope springs eternal. Or something like that anyway.
September 14, 2004
The Sword, the Guard Dog, and the Towel
You have to love a story which involves swords, guard dogs, and public almost-nudity, and yet is still only PG rated.
September 09, 2004
Military Trivia
I often note with amusement the significant differences in naming conventions for military operations between the US and the rest of the "Anglosphere". A typical US Army operation might be "Operation Devastating Earthshatterer", while a British or Canadian equivalent might be "Operation Broken Teaspoon" or "Operation Goalie Glove". (I'll pass up on the urge to attribute something mockery-tinged to French codenames . . . but only because Babelfish didn't give me a useful translation for "Operation Wet Knickers" or "Operation Big Girl's Blouse").
Not that there's anything wrong with a dose of belligerant overkill in your naming conventions. . .
Lileks Explains It All To You
James Lileks covers a lot of territory in today's Bleat:
I wonder sometimes, I really do. I imagine some people find the Bleat because someone linked to a gust of blather, and after six or seven visits they wonder hey, why aren't you Defrosted Angry Neocon all the time? Maybe because I'm not Defrosted Angry Neocon. I have my moments, of course. But mostly this page is what it is. Some movie reviews, some kid stories, nostalgic tripe, dispatches from middle age, sugared chaff, small beer, red meat. I am resigned to the fact that I will disappoint everyone, eventually. But just so you know: I discuss politics, but I am not a politician. I discuss music, but I'm hardly a musician. I write about movies, but I've only been on one side the camera, not the other. I write about art, but I can't draw. I write about parenthood, but like most I'm making it up as I go along. Appearances to the contrary, I do not mistake my ability to write about something as proof that I'm right. It could just mean I have a gift for ordering my ignorance into pleasing shapes.
Lileks has a free pass to wander the highways and byways of the web, bringing back fascinating ephemera (or dreary old crap, depending on the day, and your particular attitude). He's one of the more consistent voices on the web, and his daily Bleats are always worth a visit.
His (to use an overworked phrase) folksy style fits the niche perfectly: he doesn't demand to be taken seriously as an analyst. He doesn't whine that you're ignoring his Cassandra-like warnings. He doesn't pretend to a Delphic Oracle-like self-importance or network news anchor self-importance (a much deeper and more self-regarding version of the former). He just writes about what interests him.
If that interests you, great. If not, come back again tomorrow: there's bound to be something different there.
I wish I could write as well as Lileks does. I'm actually a professional writer by trade, but I'm in the shallow-end of the writing gene pool: I'm a [shudder] technical writer. Oh, the shame of it all!
Technical writing is perhaps the worst training ground for creative writers. Instead of polishing the descriptive abilities, technical writing is the process of whittling down the prose and sanding off the decoration. A good technical writer writes instructions or descriptions that (ideally) barely even register as you read the words — because the words are merely the carriers of the information you need. If you notice the words as words, you're being distracted from the primary goal of the reader: getting the information as quickly and as clearly as possible.
I'm not sure that I'd want to swap places with Lileks: I'm pretty certain that I'd have ruined things for him by the time we swapped back, and then he'd have to send his trained legions of web-fans to beat me into meat paste. That wouldn't be much fun. Still, I've been starting my day by visiting the Bleat for a couple of years now. It's a habit I recommend to you, too.
September 08, 2004
How not to play with children
This is not the way to develop healthy parent-child relationships:
As Olivia is getting bigger, more self-aware, and mobile, we're actually starting to discover many "games" together. The most entertaining by far is the recently worked out "boo daddy!", also known as "got the baby!" However, as with all games there are definite rules, and breaking them can lead to ruin.
Parents of toddlers, infants, and yet-to-be-borns should read the whole thing very carefully and with great attention.
Canada's Evil Design To Enslave China Revealed!
Conrad, at The Gweilo Diaries has a scoop:
It was bound to happen eventually — the folks at China Daily have finally gone well and truly bat-shit:
This China, would have been split and subverted into many different lands and many different slave nations for the west, if not for a group of men led by one man, and that man was the mighty Chairman Mao.
Who instead enslaved China himself.
Slave nations, under Russia and the USSR, under Japan, under, the USA, under Canada, under the UK, under France, under Germany, under even Australia and New Zealand, under Thailand and Vietnam, under India and even Pakistan.
Accepting that Japan, Britain, France, Germany and the US have some dodgy Sino-history to answer for, under Canada? Who the hell have the inoffensive Canooks ever enslaved? New Zealand? With what, an expeditionary force comprised of sheep? Pakistan? The Pakis can't even control the northern half of their own country, much less China. And finally, it takes a particularly through-the-looking-glass view of Asian history to think that Vietnam has ever posed a threat to Chinese sovereignty.
Curses! Our intended victims have divined our evil plan! I was getting used to the idea of owning Manchuria, too! Just think: we'd have nearly doubled the size of Canada, and increased our population by, er, a very big number.
Oh, well, call off the invasion: we'll resume the original plan of subverting Hollywood.
August 23, 2004
It's GLOBAL WARMING, I Tell Ya!
So, with all the scientific proof about Global Warming being a real phenomenon, you'd think we'd at least get some minor benefit from it. Like, ya know, maybe some Summer weather between, oh, May and August, right?
It's the 23rd of August, and the damned leaves on the maple trees are already turning colour! The Canada Geese are flying in big V formations overhead already. Where is our flipping SUMMER????
Global Warming, my ass!
August 21, 2004
Too funny not to link to
Over at Castle Argghh!, this is the time when they laugh themselves silly.
July 21, 2004
Funny site of the day
Jane Galt pointed me in the direction of Rock, Paper, Saddam. Now you've got to visit there too. . .
July 15, 2004
This is a different kind of political attack
"President Bush gets whipped by dominatrix Dita Von Teese". This is not your father's political campaign!
June 18, 2004
Lileks makes me laugh
I don't point to James Lileks' weblog/webdiary very often (although it's in the links), but this paragraph just broke me up:
The long, long day, the slow steady march into the maw of hell. By which I mean Chuck E. Cheese's. Interesting crowd, as usual. The kids aren't interesting, but the parents always are. A knot of Somali women in full burqas. Big American dads with Big American Bellies. Thin well-groomed suburban women. One couple mystified me — early 20s, slackerish guy with one of those women who makes you bite right through the knuckle on your index finger. Spray-on clothes, metronome saunter. The effect on men was like watching a bottle of Absolut tied to a string and dragged through an AA meeting. No way it was his kid. No way it was hers. You could tell just by the way they acted; the kid had been fobbed off on them for a while. He didn't mind because it meant he could spend time with her. She didn't mind because it put a measure of distance between her and the guy, who appeared to be a place-keeper, a guy to occupy the Guy Spot until something better came along.
June 11, 2004
"Duuuude, like, your head is so, like, hairless. That's soooo coool!"
This item from the Sun just, like, mellowed my harshness. I'm, like, at one with the universe, y'know?
ENGLAND fans will be allowed to smoke dope before Sunday's crunch clash with France — to keep them calm.Why indeed? This is lateral thinking of a noteworthy level.
Cops in Lisbon plan to crack down on drunk supporters while turning a blind eye to those spotted puffing on a spliff.
Pot-smoking fans have been assured they will not be arrested, cautioned — or even have their drugs confiscated. [. . .]
Dutch police used a similar policy in Euro 2000 and England's hooligan element were too stoned to fight.
A Lisbon police spokeswoman said: "If people cause a problem through drugs and become a menace then police will take action. But when this doesn?t happen why should the police be the ones making the fuss?"
Link courtesy of Reason's Hit and Run.
June 03, 2004
Cartoon of the day
Tom Toles provides his viewpoint on colour-coded alerts.
May 27, 2004
From the "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" Grammar Department
Tim Blair posts a classic howler from Reuters. Do read the comments. . .they're worth the price of admission.
May 25, 2004
Anna on Marketing Diet Fads
Anna, of Primal Purge writes about a new dieting wonder: a retainer that forces you to take smaller bites of your food. It would apparently cost about $400 and require a fitting from your dentist. But that's just setup. Go read her blog entry.
Warning: The entry is PG-13 or PG-17 rated. Don't go there if this will bother you. . .
Bergamot Snake Oil
James Lileks, on the glories of folk remedies and ancient recipies:
The soap bottle had another claim. "Blue Lavender Essence Lore: Brides in Italy perfumed their wedding clothes with lavender in order to calm their prenuptial jitters."
Left unspoken: Didn't do jack. You'd think the Brides in Italy would have figured this out in short order, eh? "Here, my child. Soak your dress in lavender. It will calm your nerves." Did it work for you, mama? "No, I spent the morning sobbing and throwing up in rank terror, since I had only met your father the previous night, and he had the breath of cheese far gone with mold. But this is what we do, for we are superstitious peasants whose worldview is derived not from empirical observation of the world, but sage wisdom Grandmama got from her great-grandmama. Now put these grape stems up your nose so your first-born will be a boy."
May 19, 2004
Not an Onion report, really!
Ananova reports that a couple in Germany wanted to try using artificial means to have a child after eight years of childless marriage. Upon questioning by the clinic staff, it turned out that they had never had sex. . .
Update: Snopes suspects a hoax.
May 11, 2004
Firefly geeks under fire
This is very amusing. If you don't know Firefly, it won't make much sense. You've been warned.
Dagger Six: *heavy gunfire sounds in the background* Angels, we got some local color happening, a grand entrance would not go amiss!
Static: Dagger six, Angels three-six, roger.
Dragon Lady: How is he able to quote a tv show while being shot at?
Jackal: Shit just gets in your head and stays there.