Wednesday

It's the town's big anniversary! How do we celebrate? Let's make it illegal to shave! Welcome to the new America. Civic pride is legislated.

Clean the hard drive before dumping your PC

Lady has heart attack on plane. Not to worry, fifteen cardiologists are there.

What does 'Auld Lang Syne' mean?

Things I want to remember to talk about later.

1) how boring and grey work is, even when there's such a public effort to emphasize muliculturalism.

2) the desire to drink in the middle of the day. and what. for me, now, it's gin. gin and tonic.

3) how it affects people to be stuck doing stuff they don't want to do all day, week in and week out. does that crush a person's soul? what does crushing mean, exactly?

Tuesday

M&M's to lose color during contest.

Texan pleads guilty to possessing a weapon of mass destruction

N.C. man proposes after being impaled on handlebars

Century-old math problem may have been solved

Wired 12.01: The 100-Megabit Guitar

David Cay Johnston's "Perfectly Legal"

A year of media missteps in rewind

BFA's Ethnic Cleansing Awards 2003

ABCNEWS.com : Arts Funding States List

(DV) Solomon: P.U.-Litzer Prizes for 2003: Including, obviously, "THE MORE YOU WATCH, THE LESS YOU KNOW PRIZE -- Fox News Channel "

A dissenting student hounded for his views - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics "his group, which seeks to promote "the pillars of the Bible, patriotism and conservative beliefs as balance to the mostly liberal viewpoints of teachers" Let him go to school. He made his bed, let him sleep in it.

Woman who left jail sues Arpaio for negligence Remember Arpaio? Jailcam Arpaio? makes male prisoners wear pink underwear Joe Arpaio? If so this won't surprise you at all.

a reminder to take it easy on new year's eve

Newsday.com - Cow Parts Used in Candles, Soaps Recalled
Is it my imagination or are we learning a lot more about cows now?

A VICTORIAN family is one in 48 million after baby Matilda was born on Christmas Day - the same day as her mother Angela Close and grandmother Jean Carr.

HOLDENVILLE, Okla. — A woman who had convinced her husband she was pregnant -- and was even thrown a baby shower -- killed a pregnant acquaintance and cut the fetus from her womb, authorities said Monday.

story

EURWEB: Headlines: MICHAEL JACKSON'S '60 MINUTES' Pop superstar tells his side of the story; claims he was 'manhandled.': "'There was doo doo, feces thrown all over the walls, the floor, the ceiling. And it stunk so bad,' he said. "

pollen

Went to see "Paycheck" tonight. My brother Joe wants to see it but it isn't playing in his burg at the moment, so I enjoyed it for the both of us. In the end, Chewbacca dies. Sorry, but I really wanted to say that. But seriously, the movie was Excellent. Get thee to a cineplex, and quickly!

Speaking of entertainment, my girlfriend is going to make me see carrot top in Vegas. Ugh, but I will offer that I am a sporting gentleman. I can take a lot of crap from a lot of people and not be unwilling to forgive. On the one hand, Subway ad Jared is a bad, bad person whom I will give a ninety-nine per cent chance of never earning my approval, but carrot top, even after his spate of At&t ads, if he is to apologize for them in his show (may he please do so), may take communion with the other prodigal celebrities in the hall of Dale's oceanic forgiveness. These people include the Dell computer guy, who got busted for weed, Robert Downey Jr., same, and Charlie Sheen, who fell in a trap as old as mankind itself. Good on you, Chuck. You're all right with me.

Fear and Loathing in the IV room

Well, it's not all that dramatic. But the new job requires a lot of attention and if you goof around, extremely sick people (and baby people) get the wrong drugs. Then if they die, it's your fault, which is to much for my battered conscience to sustain. In IV you can easily poke yourself with a needle delivering amazing amounts of extremely toxic chemotherapy "drugs", which instead of curing cancer, can actually cause it. Terrible things are almost happening all around you. The room threatens to take on an ugly vibe. We had a hundred vials of morphine, fifty vials of fentanyl citrate, a galaxy of multi-colored uppers and downers, and enough cocaine to wipe out all the hookers in Los Angeles. Really, we did, and we do. But enough of the Hunter Thompson garbage. And enough of this. The new job is a good job, so don't ask me to steal you anything.

Sunday

Dale's writing contest

Long ago, I started a writing contest. It was to take place in three phases.

Phase one: All participants write a letter to an unnamed ex. The letter will plead with the ex to give their relationship another chance. We're talking begging, pathetically. All letters will be submitted to me, and copies of each will be sent to each participant. The letters must be vague enough to apply to anyone. (My letter was dressed up in flowery near-plagiarism, due to my having just finished Don Quixote.)

Phase two: a winner is selected democratically.

Phase three: a participant is selected at random, who then sends the winning letter to an ex. Any ex will do. And they're not allowed to say they're kidding when they do it.

Of course, that's when the real fun starts.

But out of the five folks who said they'd do it, NOT ONE of them sent in a letter, even after the deadline. Ever.

Wimpos.

If you want to play with me, drop me a line. the "email dale" button's up by the title bar. Let's create a priceless memory together.

Teach your baby sign language!

Man says it sure is cold, others concur

[Minneapolis]

Jim Gladstone of Minneapolis, on visiting his local coffee shop this morning, made a special effort to inform the barrista that it was cold outside today.

The girl behind the counter appeared hesitant to comment, but the next woman in line chimed right in, "Boy, you're not kidding! When I went outside it was like "Whoo-ee! Man is it ever cold out here! I should have brought a scarf!"

After much agreement among the clientele, Jim headed back outside, saying "Well, that snow isn't going to shovel itself, looks like I'll have to go out there again." Everyone present started to say something, but one voice was heard above the others, saying, "Try and stay warm out there!"

Jim said he would try, smiled, and left.

Dear Dale

My phone service went out. I haven't been able to eat nor sleep, and it's interfered with my ability to work, and consequently, to pay the bills. The reason for this is that my girlfriend broke up with me and my feelings are out of control. I know she reads your blog and so I want to ask her to take me back, since she erases my emails instead of reading them. At least I think she does. It's the only explanation I can come up with for why she won't reply. I just want her back, Dale. I mean, haven't you ever been in love? You know it's the most powerful force in the world, right? I'm like a deer in the headlights of unrequited love. Cruel fate!

Please publish this so that my fantasy can come true. Her name's Sally. I love you, Sally. I need you. You're the only light in my dark and meaningless life. I'd rather just die than give up on us. Marry me. I promise to like everything you like. Even your cat, Brad, who constantly shits on my bed.

Thanks, Hans Gruber.


Hans,

Tsk, tsk. Sally is mine now. I have forbidden her to check her email, and the cat went to live with Elvis. Nice guys finish last.

Shut up and go away,
Alpha Dale

Afghani man expelled from terrorist training camp for merely horrifying

[Kabul]

Yesterday Abdul Abdullah Allah was rejected from a secret al-qaida training facility outside the city when his trainers ascertained that he was failing to strike fear into the hearts of infidels.

"It's like he just doesn't get it", said cell sergeant Murphy. "We can only train a person to do so much. You're either terrifying or you're not, and Abdul's just too nice a guy or something. Killing and whatnot didn't seem that bad when he did it. It looked, well, contrived, frankly."

Classmates reported similar behavior. Said one, "When we were all shouting and burning the American flag, he let me step in front of him to where the shouting was loudest and best. The flames of hatred do not seem to burn in his bosom." Said another, "I'm not accusing him of sympathizing with the Zionists, but he just doesn't look like he cares all that much abouty destroying western civilization. Maybe he's gay or something."

Abdul, when reached for comment, was fishing. "I'd like to apologize for the miscommunication", he said. "They just didn't understand that my hatred of the Jews is a private matter. I don't go around hating Jews so my instructors can see me doing it, you know." He then caught a walleye and eyed it suspiciously. "I think this walleye is a Jew." he said. With a flick of his wrist, a knife apeared out of nowhere and before I knew what was happening the fish was sliced in two. Turning to me, he then smiled and said, "Just kidding."

I just saw a list of seventeen things not to do at the new Lord of the Rings movie, but my brother Joe suggested something much funnier.
Do not say aloud: "Isn't this the one where Chewbacca dies?"

Schwarzenegger Eyes Sentencing, Parole Changes for Nation's Largest Prison System - from Tampa Bay Online

Music industry piracy subpoenas illegal - (United Press International)

Suppose, for instance, that most of the methodological work in modern linguistics is necessary to impose an interpretation on the ultimate standard that determines the accuracy of any proposed grammar. We have already seen that the systematic use of complex symbols does not affect the structure of an abstract underlying order. It must be emphasized, once again, that a subset of English sentences interesting on quite independent grounds is not subject to the strong generative capacity of the theory. For any transformation which is sufficiently diversified in application to be of any interest, a case of semigrammaticalness of a different sort suffices to account for problems of phonemic and morphological analysis. From C1, it follows that this analysis of a formative as a pair of sets of features is, apparently, determined by an important distinction in language use.

Give it up for chomskybot

Allegory to Bdelygmia... I want to learn all this terminology. It will take the mystery out of speech.

Saturday

Minnesota Poll: Most say religion has role in world's conflicts... I recently came under fire from a close friend who pointed out that I was taking the atheism bent to extremes, but it interests me a great deal and I'm going at it in the only way I know how. Belaboring the point is what I know how to do, and it's a lot less antagonistic than the rhetorical invective I put up with as a matter of course. Do I want to pat myself on the back for being rational instead of sentimental? Yes, but I'm trying to avoid it because it isn't nice to be smarter than other people.

I had a conversation at about one o'clock in the morning on Jesus's birthday about religious conflicts. I made the point which according to the above article 77 per cent of (polled) Minnesotans agree with. My talking partner, an outspoken proponent of selective things biblical, said that in the bible it clearly states that the different tribes will never get along. What annoyed me was his resignation. What I was dealing with here was someone who didn't mind if the whole world exploded, because he was one of the chosen Jesus buddyroos. He was obsessed with the idea of the apocalypse. It's not like I don't want people to be fulfilled or anything, but for Pete's, can't we try to be a little more objective? No. He's made up his mind. Jesus is all that matters.
I can't just throw up my hands about it all. There is far more to life than your feelings and love. There is in this world a responsibility to others that is more important than words and worship.
Could it be any more obvious that religion does more harm than good? If asking that's putting too fine a point on it, sorry, but tippytoeing gets nowhere, and even if I make someone angry, at least I can assume I've made them think about something.
So my bad if I'm being crazy about this. Really. But every day, I read about some more people who are dead because of religion, and those people could have been me or you. It's because of the prevailing attitude toward religious matters (the one I'm ignoring, that beliefs are sacred even if they hurt other people) that this can continue. Any system that devalues life for the sake of anything else is totally insane.
What kills me is that dumb old Dale can figure this out and the middle east can't. Even our own president and vice-president are obsessed with god and that's not how it's supposed to be.
Dwight Eisenhower approved adding the words "under god" to the pledge of allegiance in 1954. As he did this he said:"In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."
Spiritual weapons in times of peace. Make sense to you? And to think that up till that point, and without the words under god, the United States had already managed to rescue the world twice. The United States is a country wherein the people are sovereign, not god. The more our government spies on us for our own good, the more we become convinced that it that knows better than its populace and is led by a righteous and all-powerful deity, the closer we get to a totalitarian state bereft of liberty, and the sooner we will all one day wonder where it all went wrong, when it was that god did us in.
And now a funny picture!! Hee!!

The parking guy wasn't there. I checked. And as ashamed as I am,

I will pay him. And apologize.

Because I am pushy and selfish.

women of Wal-Mart, pictures of naked women ensue.

Now, what can we say about this that ever-wacky Rick Dees wouldn't say...

What follows should not be read by anyone. You've been warned. I wrote this about a year and a half ago when I was really bored.

Call me crazy, but when I felt the slime dripping from my chin as I chewed a hard-boiled egg from inside a hooker's diseased vagina, I couldn't focus.
It isn't that I don't enjoy eggs, or vaginas, or hookers, I don't even mind the diseases, being blessed with a powerful immune system like I am. I took another bite. Over my shoulder, Conan O'brien was apparently doing something hilarious. She laughed, and when she did, the rest of the egg fell out onto the filthy couch-cover. I looked up. She looked at me, and rather than feel bad, she looked up at the TV again. A pube was tickling my throat; the pain was unbearable. For a spell I coughed, and when I opened my eyes I saw that bits of egg covered her vagina, which was otherwise a perfectly normal matted wad of hair and green mucus. I reached over and grabbed my punisher series four t-shirt from the floor, and wiped her off, then, noticing her watching tv, suggested we sixty-nine. I don't pay people to watch television. I couldn't 'get it up', which may not surprise you, but I did my best to fuck her mouth anyway. It wasn't working. I farted and gave up.
Standing, I talked about what was bothering me; my job. She rolled her eyes. She had been warned about me by her friends, I think. Strange to me that she went along with everything until now without all this goddamned drama. As I went on, naked, chubby, and sweating, in my mighty and persuasive tirade against the evils of the comic-book store, she continued to lay there like an idiot, touching her face. I asked her why she was doing that, and as if we shared a thought, I reached up and felt the slime on my face. Snotty substances tend to go unnoticed at times. When I wiped it off, I noticed there was blood in it, and I let her know this. Looks like she was getting her period. 'Who's embarrased now?' I thought, laughing, as she thumped down the hall to the bathroom. For a few seconds I watched a gillette commercial, wondering what women do when this happens. No, I couldn't go and find out. It wasn't right. I really couldn’t.
I deliberated a few seconds more before deciding to go check it out. This is company time, after all. I either watch or get a discount. Ha.
She had one leg up on the sink, the water was on. My miserable water pressure accentuated her difficulty in cleaning herself. The blood was intermingling with the abscess, and I might have thought the discharge was brownish overall if I hadn't been so close. From there it seemed almost christmaslike in its festival of colors. Yay. I decided to comment on this, and when I did she blushed, her hands paused on my dirty bar of soap for a moment, and she stared somewhere into the middle distance. It was poignant.
I went on whining about my job as she scrubbed and squatted over my toilet. Tiny noises went plip, plip, ploop, and I thought my rant went rather well with 'clotted blood dripping' as a soundtrack. I'd have to write that down. I am, after all, writing a screenplay, and I won't be in the employ of the comic book store once someone picks it up, either. I'll buy that place and burn it o the ground, and then we'll see who's laughing. Me, that's who. Kevin Walters, man of the universe.

click it. you know you want to.

LucJam - American Brandstand 2003

The whispering wheel

Enter a short URL to make a huge one.

Guess what I found in my floorboard this morning?

If you said five bucks, you're right.

When I left work the other night, I gave the parking attendant a twenty, he gave me change, I drove away. Not until my girlfriend and I were at the restaurant later did I discover that I had only nine dollars instead of fourteen. One hundred per cent sure that the parking guy had taken my five dollars and then thrown a great party with it, I went back over to tha parking ramp and got five bucks out of him. Justice was served. Now I have to go find him and give him a fiver. And apologize. Crap.

Friday

calvin & hobbes, organized by subject

This is said to be a great game, but I don't have time to verify that

I'd have run away, too.

Attack of the Wal-Mart shoppers.

Christmas was good. I spent the afternoon playing football with a bunch of giant Norwegians. Today I am sore.
My friend Chet gave me a radio-controlled aiplane, which I didn't expect, so I gave him twenty bucks, which means that then he only owed me twenty, which he paid. When Christmas is over, I experience exactly the same kind of relief one feels when driving out of Disneyworld; it was great, and the fact that it's over is more sad than good, but it's good to get it behind me.
A woman I work with but have never spoken to was talking to someone about how she couldn't wait to get really drunk on New Year's. She said it's good to forget about the year that's over. Overhearing things like that makes me glad I'm not the one directly involved in the conversation.

Thursday

when I am king, an online comic

Castle Drusus, all about GOR.
The page has two popup idiot boxes, but they're ok.

MSN Slate Magazine, Read Dick Cheney's christmas card. Empire. Great.

bobanddavid.com

Wednesday

how to tell a man you love him, not safe for work or family.

Birthday Calculator... it's all about YOU, isn't it

allrecordlabels.com, 9,000 record labels.

Chewing Gum Wrapper

I saw the chewing gum wrapper,
saw it after lunch;
Faded little cruddy thing,
I picked from among the bunch.
Cruddy little chewing gum wrapper,
My eyes would not let go;
Saw the little thing that I liked so.
Loved the faded colors like would end up at the dump,
My heart goes bumpety, bumpety, bumpety bump.

Jason Salavon - 76 Blowjobs. a mean average of 76 images of fellatio. safe for viewing anywhere, and more proof there's no such thing as pornography

United Press International: USDA refused to release mad cow records

Mr T goes for a drive

TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS.. better and better

Project for the OLD American Century-liberal news from unbiased sources

Yahoo! Picks - Top Picks of 2003... /websites

Jeffrey St. Clair: Faith-Based Parks. Jesus dug the grand canyon. The country is totally and completely fucked.

CNN.com - Beef import bans could cost U.S. billions - Dec. 24, 2003

In a world without god

First off, if there were no such thing as churches teaching about god, we would all be atheists, and we wouldn't call each other atheists, scoffing and spitting as we did so. That is world "A".

In world "B", the presence of an invisible god is a foregone conclusion. The evidence is everywhere, from the earthquakes that occur where morality is insufficient, to the "miracle" of reproduction. In world B, it's a point of contention no matter what a person believes about his "spirit", because somebody else thinks he's wrong, and not only wrong, but trying to poison the minds of others, because his beliefs are wrong and therefore evil lies.

Related: if an animal gives birth in the woods and no monotheist is there to see it, does it make a miracle?

In world A, there isn't any magical powerful extra-worldly force that can be invoked by chanting or the supplicative mode of psychotic groveling called prayer. In world A, what you see is what you get.

So let's imagine a magic traveling machine is given to each of these different worlds, so that one person from each of them can go and visit the other one and then come back to report on what they learned.

In world A, an articulate, open-minded person steps into the machine.

In world B, if they can ever stop bickering over who god would have chosen to go and not have a war about whose god would have made the decision in the first place, an articulate believer steps into the machine. Assuming he doesn't break it because it's evil. (And in this case, I think it's more than likely it would be a he and not a she.)

Would you rather be in world A when the believer came around, or world B when the rational person came around? One event would look a bit more barbaric and one would be more pathetic.

Related: violence is ALWAYS patriotic. Discuss.

After they've visited and picked up the information they all agreed should be gathered beforehand, they come back to give their reports.

The worlds are silent as the reports are read.

You can imagine what takes place. World A has a good laugh and world B fights about the weaknesses of the observer.

Why do I have any energy on this if I identify as atheist in my beliefs? Because life ought to be a lot more investigational and less speculative, and religion has had a lock on rightness and wrongness of curiosity ever since it was invented. I think you'll agree with a guy named Doug when he says that the scientific method is the most powerful investigational tool ever devised. The method tests ideas. An idea manages to be correct enough to withstand everything people could think of to throw at it, it lives to fight another day. If not, it dies. But this amazing and marvelous tool does not apply to religious matters, and why not? Because the existence of god is sacred or holy. Outside this flagitious abuse of intellect, it's painfully obvious to me and to people I respect that there is no such thing as effective centrally controlled organization. Painful because when I go through my days, week in, week out, I neither hear nor see a single radio program, movie, or television program on which even one fucking person would begin to assert, or assume, even for shits and giggles, that there might not be a god up in the sky someplace. This is irksome.

What is annoying about it above all else is that there is a very simple way of looking at it all.
There is top-down control, and there is bottom-up organization. Let's look at the reality of these two models.

Religion came along and organized itself in the same way as that which it propounded. Top-down, which has never worked sustainably for exactly the same reason that socialism didn't work, namely, the leadership doesn't know how much soap I need this week. That is why Marxists, upon learning the basics of economics, become quite embarassed.

Religion sells an invisible product that has never been known to have been delivered. It's completely imaginary, which is what makes it so interesting. It's a mass delusion. Mass hysteria, if you've been to certain churches. And mass hysteria sets loose the tether of reason, freeing that which is ugliest in human nature. See "national socialist workers party", "wehrmacht", and "nazi" for details.
Non-religion, on the other hand, tells you exactly what it's up to; bottom-up organization, which means let the market decide. The alternative is bullshit, of course. "Let's have god himself make up the rules, k? Then he'll tell me, k? Then I'll tell you, and that settles it! Who's with me? Oh, there's heaven and salvation, too! And streets of gold! And if thou dost not as I say I shall have thee burned!" (See Spanish inquisition.)

The case for bottom up organization makes itself. Democracy was a joke when it was suggested. So was a free market economy, even though those in the know have always understood it was the nature of money to travel freely over the globe. The more people use money, the more powerful it is. See the invisible hand of Adam Smith. The more people use anything, the more powerful it is. The power of anything man-made is in the number of people using that thing, whether it's money, religion, or whatever. It's powerful because it's imaginary. Therefore it's powerful because it's powerful. That is a tautology that applies to all the world. It is because it is. And that tautology applies to life, as well. There cannot rationally be said to exist a reason for life, although its variety and proliferation is easy to explain. Life just is, and it bothers the shit out of me that ape-beast humans want to tell each other the way it is, why it's here, and then that the rest of us just let that behavior slide. The next, if there ever is one, stride forward in human development will be the rejection of top-down control, top-down ideas, and trusting that once we turn each other loose to do as we please, the whole world will not come flying apart. Conversely, just as it always has, only the parts we didn't need anyway will be the ones to vanish.

Just to avoid any confusion, by parts we don't need, I mean god, church, finger-wagging assholes, and the bulk of governmental bereaucracy. Clinging to power as if out of habit, they have to be destroyed for the sake of the future of mankind. Not a terrorist threat, just a statement of fact.

I was headed west on interstate 40 when I looked over and there she was right next to me.
Reba.

That's right, Reba McEntire.
"It's Reba!" I said to myself. "Reba McEntire!"
I was excited.
So I started beating off.
I was really hoping she would look over and see me, that way she would know I really like her music.
But she didn't!
My heart was pounding pretty hard from the excitement of being so close to Reba, and all the beating off. It was hard to keep the car from swerving all over!
So neck and neck with Reba riding shotgun just ten feet away, I made the decision to abandon hope and pull over.
On the shoulder of I-40, with cars and trucks honking like fuck-all, I finished the job and Reba rode on in blissful ignorance of my aching need.
Goodbye, Reba, you chipmunk-looking freak.

Die, you fucking useless bitch.

I love you.

Tuesday

santa claus is coming, /tasteless

Harrison Ford: A Web Guide to the Films

www.bushrecall.orgLord of the right wing...bush hating flash cartoon

Ananova - Teacher asked pupils to draw their own vaginas... that's the original headline. The story, while it isn't much longer, does clear up that the reason it's a story is because of the Humanistic Education Foundation's criticism of said teacher. The vagina monologues was a success because of the hiddenness of vaginas. Now, I don't have any desire to hold down women, but I don't want to hear about how some Stephen King-looking lesbian has got it made because she squawks about her pussy, either. So let the goddamn children draw pictures of themselves. Better that they should do it now than go off to college and have their time wasted by a women's studies professor (masturbating patchouli-scented sloth-beast) who tells them to put a mirror on the floor and look meaningfully into the abyss. Yes, it's ridiculous, but we have a choice. To get it out of the way once and for all, or never to hear the end of it.

soda works, home of the coolest time wasters

Cloudmark » Home the spam killer network

Stats about all US cities - maps, race, income, education, crime, weather, area codes, zip codes, similar cities

nipple, NSFW

Gold Yard - Play

We knew it was coming.... Mad cow disease is in the US. It's probably been here for a long, long time. Get ready for the pro-beef weirdness to begin. If this is anywhere near as serious as it should be, they're going to be screaming how people who don't eat beef are a bunch of weak pussy faggots. You heard it here first.

NEWS.com.au | 'Please don't sleep with Israelis' (December 24, 2003)

zipdecode - ben fry

Monday

GAME ON | TORK

DenverPost.com - LOCAL NEWS... Minneapolis buses its homeless out of the state. Wow, that's cold even for here.

Game On | Chasm, hmm.. hard

Sunday

TOUCHING PEOPLE - Our Top 10 Outsider Videos

[TV CARNAGE >> CONTENT]

5 Minutes to Live, world wide weirdness

Accident videos

adrian lafond: isometric constructor

More - By Mark Osborne, a longish quicktime video

Five terrible names for local retail stores

Pricey McMarkup's House of Suspicious Deals
Hot Fence Electronics Village
Kostly Kornerz
Chez Ripoffski: A Retailerié
Misleadington's Big Box

More at 5ives

Ultimate Flash Face

a really good fark photoshop thread, nonspecific

Deal for DirecTV Clears 2 Hurdles (TechNews.com)

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Beads of doubt, thermodynamics, shmermodynamics

Thursday

Democracy Now!: radio and TV news

how to make a "thought screen helmet"

MSNBC - A Net of Control

FUH2 | Fuck You And Your H2

IDIOT SON OF AN ASSHOLE-AND HE'S OUR PRESIDENT!!!

About Google Print (BETA)

Bush in 30 Seconds

baby jesus buttplug

Exactitudes

U.S. soldier court-martialed for cowardice

It's Happening Global Discussion Forum - VIDEO clips... this is some of the worst video ever taken. I recommend that you don't watch it. But here it is.

IOL : Latvian most drunk man in the world - ever

bubblewrap simulator.

//ruben.fm ~ Some really cool Music Videos\\

On forgiveness

If somebody screws you over, you are allowed, I think, to get back at them. If they used to be mean to you but started to be nice, you can actualy start to like them, spend time with them. Have a few laughs. But they're still gonna get it. Remember that one time? Oh yeah... screw 'em.

Well, I'm at work and somebody just erased a long thing I was almost finished with for you. So FUCK her.

Dear Dale,

Don't you just hate Rick Deez [sic]?

Penelope Cosgrove,
Junebug GA

Good question, Penelope.
This is Rick Dees.

Rick Dees is the host of a weekly top 40 countdown. The bio page on his website begins: " Talented comedic performer Rick Dees has enough enthusiasm and energy to wake a slumbering city...which is exactly what he does every weekday morning on his popular Los Angeles radio program. He has made an indelible mark in the world of radio with this captivating, wacky style of comedy which is as many-faceted as the assortment of characters he creates."
Does this leave me thirsting for more Dees goodness? Not so much. You already know what's coming on this one, but first...
A long time ago, I decided I had something against Sammy Hagar. I didn't know what it was, but it mattered and I could never forget it. Years passed. More. And More. And then, when it was buried far, far down, long since I'd heard his last wail fade, I found this. It's a video of the red rocker making a margarita. Just watch it. I dare you. Oh, did you know that Sammy Hagar is called the red rocker? The video confirms why I was right about Sammy, I don't want to ruin it for you, but I'll say it's the sentence about juicy limes. Anyway, I'm giving myself the same credit for intuition now with Dees as I did way back when, probably because I still can't find a way to adequately articulate what it is that makes me want to climb the wall.
I know, I'm just bitter, derisive? I haven't cashed in and so I want to drag the world down with me into a pit of despair and disappointment? No matter what the answers to these questions are, Rick Dees sells his energy and enthusiasm in L.A., pumps his vigor into the drive-time passenger cabins of brain-dead automatons, and makes a tidy sum doing it, so you can't fault him. I personally could never respect someone with so little respect for themselves that they would discuss at ANY length what's topping the charts week after tedious week. It's more likely that he is pretty high on himself, considers himself clever and opinionated. It just so happens that his tastes change every time the market moves. He gets invited to parties he doesn't know are dull. He has the biggest imagination of anyone he knows, and life for the Dees is a good life. Just look who he's had on his show lately! It's a list from celebrity hell: Clay Aiken(pictures of that interview are available at Rick Dees's website!!), Dick fucking Clark, John Mayer (whose fifteen minutes ended five or six hundred thousand minutes ago), Michael Jackson, Robert Englund, P. Diddy, and the second most recognizable chicken salesman in the world, Jason Alexander. Whee!
Depending on where you're from, a person that does this for a living is either a lucky man, or not a man at all. But here's why I'm leaning toward lucky for the Rickster, another quote from his "about Rick" page: "He wrote and recorded "Disco Duck," which became an unexpected runaway hit, hitting #1 and selling more than four million copies." Four million copies sold means the boy is doin' something right. It's the listeners that are fucked up! Penelope, if I believed in heaven, it would have to be a place where those fools wouldn't drive market forces, making Rick Dees "for the past eleven years... Billboard Magazine's "Number One Radio Personality in America"". Don't I hate Rick Dees? Yes. I loathe and despise him, but only for what he brought out in the unimaginative. I'd have been happier dreaming that people talked to each other in the morning, that they tried to figure out the day and decide what values they're going to represent, than knowing that data about the choices of the buying public are being processed, packaged, and regurgitated by Rick Dees for their undeveloped, lifeless brains to sop up like so much dumpster juice. And they LIKE it.
So I guess my final comment is it's not Rick's fault, but we should still kill him anyway.

Thanks,
Dale Shipley

Wednesday

Hey Dale,

I'm a big fan of your blog. Me an my buddys read it all the time here in Pelican Bay. But today is not one of the times when I can just goof off and joke around cause I have a problem. See, it's like this. When I get out I will be around women again. And I like them, sure, but only if it's for fucken and hitten. So I want to know how to be around women so they dont get pissed off all the time.

Thanks,
Prison Bob
(the coolest)
p.s. I made up that part about me bein the coolest. You're the coolest. Rock on.


Prison Bob,

Women are good for many things, but there are many other facets to their existence that you must take into account. They are primarily engaged with the gestation and production of new man-beasts, so they aren't thinking about sex all the time the way we are. They're thinking about lots of other things like snagging alpha males like you and me, flowers, Pottery Barn, and special foods from far away. Women have lots of sensitive nineties guys to choose from, so caveman beatdowns ain't going to go over too smooth. Also, most women these days have telephones that they aren't afraid to use to call the police in the event they are being physically attacked, which is what they see as happening when you are hitten. So I recommend you hook up with nothing but couples when you get out of the joint, and hang out with them and watch the way they deal with each other. When they make each other mad, they don't hit each other. Learn from this. As far as not making women mad all the time, you're on your own. I don't think it can be helped. Good luck, dude!

Your bro,
Dale Shipley


Search inside where?

I heard the prez on the radio the other day. He used the word commensurate in a sentence perfectly, and it took me aback. He was referring to the payment of troops and the rest of military expenditures. I was impressed with the way it slipped effortlessly from his lips. Maybe this guy isn't a total fool, I thought, but no sooner had I thought this, than he screwed up. He actually screwed up by saying the word commensurate in a place where commensurate could never be an option in a million years, and then he says, "no, not commensurate, uh, ..." and went on to correct himself. Looks like he impressed himself a little there, too.

I work with someone who used to be a chick, but is now a dude. I saw a male doctor upstairs today wearing a long blond wig, male seventies hair style. I work amid the fat and the smug. (Land of the free and the home of the brave..?) They look down on me I think, because I am not as obviously disadvantaged as they are. It's strange.

Well, I had a cold the other day and it was my first day at a new job. It was a day rife with bewilderment with discomfort. There are lots of tiny tasks involved with pharmacy work, and you aren't allowed to ignore even one. Or, you know, people die and stuff. So I've got to get back to it.
Anyway, have a good day, and a special cheers to my girlfriend and her new wi-fi.

Dear Dale,

I was in a bar and they were playing "courtesy of the red white and blue" by Toby America Keith (best song ever), and then the song ended. I thought to myself, why would they ever stop playing that song? Why not play it over and over and over, if you really love America? Also, my friend is a month older than me, so he claims to be more American than I am, which makes me mad, because my family has lived in America longer than his family. That makes me more American, right? And finally, do you think it's enough to capitalize America? Shouldn't we write it in all capitals if we really love AMERICA? See what I mean?

Thanks,
Bob Americamerica Merica.

Bob,

You raise some important questions. First of all, if they follow "courtesy of the red, white and blue" with another patriotic song such as "born in the U.S.A.", it might cushion the blow, but eventually, they will have to switch songs. Call your local country station and suggest this strategy to them. Did you know that a lot of musicians are communists that don't shop at Wal-Mart? Make sure you know the politics of people before you enjoy their music. They might be trying to brainwash you. As per your second question, while your friend has had the honor and privilege of living in America longer than you, you are the more American. You can stick your American chest out filled with American pride. And finally for the capitalization. I'm all for it.

AMERICAlly yours,
Dale AMERICA Shipley.

Monday

Pantagraph.com - News - LaHood: Hussein's capture imminent 12/02/03 Yeah. 12/02/03.

"We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away." Artificial or not, intelligence means not dying. Apply to real life. Impeach. Rinse. Repeat.

terrorpilot|dot|com - the amazing horror masked karate killer girl from mars wishes you a merry xmas and happy new year.

The Warfalcons :: Pointless Homepage... videos of BAD things!! Heh.

I-Appliance BBS - Walgreens Camera. Cheap digicam, awesome.

I am so goddamn angry about this...
Here's the email that will explain everything.

Hello, many years ago when I lived in your state I was a bad driver. Not "bad" in the sense that I caused anyone to die or anything, in fact, truth be told, I was in reality no worse a driver than anyone at all. In light of the disciplinary actions taken against me, it may even be said that I was a better than average driver, because anyone with that kind of record who doesn't crash and burn is either A) lucky or B) ostensibly an unusually talented driver.

Now then. I'm trying to get a license here in my home state of Minnesota, and they gave me one, but they wouldn't do it permanently. See, they know I'm good enough at driving to do it legally, but the state of Tennessee (you guys) has apparently told them that we have got details that require ironing out before you will say I'm free to drive a car a thousand miles away.

The background:
I came to Tennessee in 2001 and subjected myself to the mercilessness of the Putnam county judicial system, which saw fit to throw me in jail for ten days and fine me an amount of money that exceeded all boundaries of propriety and reason (if notably not custom) for my failure to appear in court five years prior. In addition to this humiliating procedure, I also incurred a full year of probation, which I completed dutifully and without complaint, under the assumption that I was going through motions which would release me from any further responsibility, and would result in my being free and clear to pursue the vaunted and elusive driver's license where and when I chose.

The documentation:
I received Tennessee department of safety financial responsibility section document number 10951050160 in April 2001. It states (obviously in a typing error) that I will regain the privilege to drive after February 21, 2001, as long as I have no other suspension or revocation actions against me.

And now it looks like those other actions are indeed out there somewhere. Nobody really cares, of course, but it's the law, so I'm hereby requesting the information I will need to get cleared from what must be the dustiest shelf in your unsettled driving record database.

Nearly seven long years have passed since I was behind the wheel in Tennessee, and at least as many will pass by before I do it again. So in addition to the information I have requested, I have one question: is there a statute of limitations for petty driving offenses? If there isn't, I'd be glad to write you one.

Thanks very much.

Forthrightly,
Dale Shipley
formerly of the Tennessee driver's license number x8x6x5x4x
(pho) nen-umber
Minneapolis, MN

My temporary driver's license expired two days ago (forty-five days after testing positive for conduisatory competency) and of course I received NO promised notice from the top-heavy Minnesota bureaucracy whether I passed or failed my nationwide clearance for every last parking violation. Only after spending the majority of the morning on hold listening to AK47-and-clock-tower music and automated operators was I able to determine that Tennessee (in faithful keeping with its post-war sentiment) is still holding a grudge. We will have two weeks to see whether Tennessee is as delinquent in its duty to serve its downtrodden subjects as is Minnesota. My guess is that I own a car which I will have to burn in the fires of despair for a long, long time before I am able to legally drive. Fuck.

Sunday

PowerPoint Makes You Dumb

Vectorpark

man in red suit

Michael Jackson Art

Wired 8.03: It's Good to Be King

I am congratulating myself for making a one dish dinner that was awesome. I can't go on about it, though, because blogging what you ate today is unforgivable.

If you give someone a penny for their thoughts and they give you their two cents' worth, it makes listening a sound investment.

A Cotton Candy Autopsy, a gaphic novella from (of course) the edge.

Saturday

BBC - Music - Listen

State scores in tax royalty suits, this is a weird loophole. "In this case Toys R Us advertises using a giraffe mascot named Geoffrey. But TRU does not own the rights to that mascot, instead Geoffrey, Inc (a TRU subsidiary) owns them. So the toy store "licenses" the trademark from Geoffrey, Inc, at a hefty rate, then calls that a business expense and deducts from its pre-tax income. Since GI isn't a Louisiana company, TRU argued that it doesn't need to pay LA taxes on it's income. The judge disagreed."

Mysterious ice balls falling from heavens

Take No Prisoners, video of our troops. If you ignore everything else on this page, which I'd understand, watch this.

The Racial Slur Database

Oops! You're racist.

female mask gallery. yup. female masks.

The Captain Beefheart Radar Station

Savages On Blondes porn. do not look. NSFW.

CNN.com - Bush signs Syria sanctions bill - Dec. 13, 2003

SecurityFocus HOME Infocus: Fighting Spammers With Honeypots: Part 1

Blog Search Engine - Blog Directory, Blog Search, Blog Directories - Links Menu

Santa's Sexy Elf, SFW... that's a man, baby!!

Jobless artist sells $1 snowballs during blizzard

some guy may have a cure for e. bola

Friday

pretty women make men stupid

Virginia files felony spam charges, heh

Texas pulls the much-celebrated and vilified last meal requests site, which I have linked to. Not to worry, the implications will quickly be forgotten.

ScienCentral: Instant Armor, war is about to look really strange. And is there a way to electrify those supertroops and immobilize them?

Thursday

the essential dancing outlaw page

NEWS.com.au | Dad dives under train to save baby (December 10, 2003), then, sadly, the wife credits you-know-who. Give me a break. If the poor guy can't get his own wife's unfettered respect for this ultimate selfless act, he'd better not count on ever having it. Score: dad five, baby two, wife and god zero.

You know you want to read about it: the cannibalism story, in more detail. Wow.

Hindsight is twenty twenty (couldn't resist)local6.com - News - Police: Cell Camera Took Upskirt Photos

Woman of Walmart by Playboy, NSFW

Quiz - Are You Grammatically Incorrect?

Yahoo! News - Scientists Create Sperm From Stem Cells

TAP: Vol 14, Iss. 11. The -Ism That Failed. John Patrick Diggins.

Wednesday

Internet worms and critical infrastructure | CNET News.com Did msblaster cause that big ol' blackout?

Apple Store Japan. When an apple store opens, thousands of people wait in line to get in. Thousands. And you can see them all lined up for many blocks. It's a crazy video.

Why the Sky Was Red in Munch's 'The Scream'

The Onion | Report: Poor People Pretty Much Fucked

BIG BROTHER'S LITTLE HELPER

this takes a while, but it's a funny video, a guy plays music with bicycle horns all over his body

ding fries are done guy meets the trans siberian orchestra

Double Flee A, my robo-blog, written by doppeldale.

linkfilter.net - fresh links daily

WallPaper (alias crawlpaper) - the hardcore of Windows desktop

Tuesday

365 Days Project, lots of obscure audio... get it before it disappears Jan 1.

Monday

:: LANA LANDIS - AMERICAs No.1 PIN-UP, a flash site with mom-safe pinups

Non-escalating Verbal Self-Defense

In an effort to make me feel like I have some control in this period of unemployment, I've repaired and reorganized all my tech toys. I could easily post a picture of this to a free picserver, but if you know me, you should come over and see it instead. It's my disembodied electric womb. And it makes me feel so cozy.

Jury see cannibal 'murder'. Morbid curiosity on my part makes me wish that all information was free. Well, all information should be free, but morbid curiosity makes me want to see this video. Here he is killing a guy who begged to be dismembered and eaten. What would hippocrates have done? This man actually got a kick out of being killed. I hope this is really looked into, and then reported in a way that will satisfy my dilettante curiosity. Some gay guys want aids, and some people want to be cannibalised. What is that?

Tasteless gags: Maher at Hillary tribute, pointless vulgarity. I could have told them not to bring Bill Maher, who is about as funny as a public execution.

In world of racial diversity, what is 'white'? / Caucasian students seek to define their culture, heritage

AP Wire | 12/07/2003 | Churches raise money through credit-card sales, mark of the beast quietly ignored in this sunday's service

NEWS.com.au | Foraging pigs spark fire (December 8, 2003), four legs good, two legs bad

And I think we all know what saddle means.

Sunday

steve ballmer's ipod. with corporate brainwash!

Holographic Universe

breakout

Stephen is Cool

me and friends!

Talking Presidents

The Webshite :: Merry F***ing Christmas

filmfights.com

Saturday

Philosophy Games

It's time to buy presents for everybody!!
Ack!

Cathy is funny. Not.
What do you all want from me?
I've decided to just buy you all stuff that I want back when you're done with it.
So do the same thing for me if it's not too late.
Or just don't get me anything.
Your defiance of the materialistic convention wrapped in the illusion of permanence called x-mas will be gift enough, o fair traveler.

Friday

photoplay.. spot the differences!

video of a girl breaking the world record for cup stacking. man.

BLUMPY dot ORG, watch the jacob's breakup video. I love this guy. He's like an unashamed pubescent beck.

More proof there's no such thing as pornography... paradoxically, NSFW (I'm getting very sleeeepy...)

German cannibal sicko

slingshot santa /flash game

No parking? Fuck that! Tree eats sign!

Another tree eats sign!

Tree Eats Bike !

CBS 11: CBS 11 Investigates Poison Gas Plot

truth in advertising fark photoshop time!

de beers

QVC

mission accomplished



colt 45

hummer h2

white castle

Man renews tabs during traffic stop for old tabs

anti-rape device

go to google right now and type miserable failure, then hit "i'm feeling lucky"

Combine a vacant gape and bouncing boobies and you get Tuttar NSFW

Turtle TV - Free Video Downloads with an Amphibious Twist

ROLLERCOASTER

Human Anatomy: Dartmouth Medical School. I wish I wasn't made of all this flesh sometimes. It's almost tacky.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies - by Edward Gorey

My Porn Name

Ninjai: The Little Ninja

Thursday

I finally transferred the title on my car today.

This game was giving me fits until I read the way to win.

Employment news: hire me. Somebody. Damn.

And tonight I made chicken with a cabbage, a red jalapeno, an onion, this ginger/garlic sauce, and sea salt. Whenever I make dinner for my girlfriend it turns out bad, but when I just throw some stuff in a pan and don't care, it's great. So tonight it was great. Sorry, babe.

Happy remodeling to you, Scott. Auriga will look even better when you're done.

Why doesn't Scott ever call me? Hmm. Anyway, shopping for Christmas presents is a pain. You think you know somebody until it comes time to buy them a Christmas present, (out of nowhere, the punch line to a joke I don't know: I said a taffy pull at Saint Peter's, not a peter pull at Saint Taffy's! Wocka wocka.) and then they are as good as a stranger. "Mom, ok, starts with M... like mayonnaise! Think she might like that? Oh, but it is Christmas... so maybe a LOT of mayonnaise!"

I've heard that raw hamburger tastes pretty good. If I could be more assured I wouldn't get really sick I'd try lots of things raw. Chicken would be good raw, I think. Maybe an acquired taste, but think about bacon. YUM. That's something even a new raw meat eater would love. My friend Colleen is a vegetarian, so I should say something funny to her like "keep your vegetarianism off my ovaries!!" Turning an activist bumper sticker around on her like that would make us laugh and laugh. I should rename this the blog of FUNNYNESS!!

All right, I've got to get going. There are lots of people out there just dying to be entertained!!

Wednesday

Jangle bells makes them crazy - www.smh.com.au

top 100 lesbian sex scenes.. Real lesbians don't look like they do in the movies.

Nim... derivation?

Tuesday

sniper game

this is what the biggest known prime number looks like

How to parallel park, a video

miko miko

And now,
"Me and my buddy Marv"

Hello Dr. Minsky, I have an idea and my brother told me you would be the man to talk to.

I think that consciousness is nothing more than an emergent behavior of the brain.

Is there anything published on the subject?

Thank you for taking the time to read the above three sentences and in advance for getting back to me,
Dale Shipley
Minneapolis, MN


Dear Dale,
You're awesome. Can I buy you a house and move in and shine your shoes? I promise that I won't listen while you have sex! What happened last time was just a fluke!

Ok, that's fake, but the rest isn't.

"At the end of my book, "The Society of Mind," I suggest that the word "emergent" generally is used to mean little more than "I can't figure out why this system did that." Specifically, there's a Glossary entry that discusses the older word "Gestalt."

The unexpected emergence, from a complex system, of a phenomenon that had not seemed inherent in that system's separate parts. Such emergent" or "collective" phenomena are alleged to show that "a whole is more than the sum of its parts." However, further research usually shows that such phenomena can be explained completely, once we also take into account the interactions among those parts‹as well as the peculiarities and deficiencies in the observer's own perceptions and expectations. There do not seem to be any important principles common to the phenomena that have been considered, from time to time, to be emergent beyond the contemporary inability to understand them. Thus, holistic views tend to become scientific handicaps when they undermine our determination to extend the boundaries of our comprehension."

A common example of using 'emergent' is to "explain" why a random array of spins in a lattice -- as in a piece of iron -- will self-organize into a collection of larger "grains" of magnetically oriented regions. This can be regarded as "spontaneous symmetry breaking" but, with more careful analysis, one can derive the statistics of such final distributions from the statistics of the initial orientations; then there remains no mystery -- and to a sufficiently good mathematical observer nothing mysterious will have happened. So in this case, "emergent" means only that "I wasn't a good enough mathematician to foresee what sort of situation would result".

So far as I can see, this is usually what happens in "chaotic" situations. Granted, some such situations will be so complex that no _human_ mathematician can figure out what will happen."

Call me when you're in town. We'll do lunch and abuse the waitress.
Your main buddyroo, Marvin.

Well, as you can see, Dr. Minsky's faithful have let me know that he's moved on from the copout called emergence, or at least redefined it, which is fine. What we agree on is that it's going to take a long time to get the computational power organized to perform humanlike cognitive functionality. What I don't fucking like is that his enthusiasm is somewhat curbed: "Granted, some such situations will be so complex that no _human_ mathematician can figure out what will happen."

????

"_human_"? What kind of shit-teaser is that? "Next week, the computational power of GOD ALMIGHTY! UNLEASHED IN ALL ITS GLORY at the METrodome! All seats just twelve bucks SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY!"

This is how Dale responds when he doesn't get his way. In a related story, my girlfriend is an angel for putting up with me.

Ye of misguided faith, I believe that spirituality in general is a load of dingo's kidneys, and have invented this emergent consciousness idea so that I can have hope for the future. We could do what we've been doing forever, draw lines in the sand and give each other hell and kill each other because one god's not as good as the other (largely a children's exercise of pronunciation), or we can turn the focus where it belongs. Us. Females eat food and turn it into a baby, just like every other living thing. A chemical process forms life. That much we know. Why not be pragmatic about it and take 'er from there? The law of increasing returns, that's why. Them that has a church, gets. It's not a new idea that we all ought to drop all the torches and kiss and make up, but now there's a direction to move in. We gots to build us a self-aware machine. That will happen if the shitbag fanatics don't kill us all first. I have faith.

I beat the fish game. At the end you get so big you destroy the ecosystem and it asks if you'd like to start over.

Monday

MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY - Making Ballistic Missile Defense A Reality...

Man changes name to Bubba Bubba Bubba

Ever wonder what's wrong with people that carve on themselves?

Oh NO! Another addictive fish game! I got to 7704. Never again must I be allowed to play this.

For Ron at slagbrain, as per our conversation today. Only the second half applies.