Monday

god hates the south

That's what stupid, pasty asshole

Tom Delay
must think when looking at this map of billion-dollar natural disasters made by NOAA. Because, you know, god makes the weather.
NOAA News Online

Your oil dollars hard at work:
Arabs drifting

people who want drugs not to kill them hate america

FT.com / Industries / Drugs & healthcare - Health lobby renews plea on Pfizer drug

All this health shit is going to cut into profits. I hope the so-called "people" are happy. Are these pinkos trying to destroy capitalism or something? Next thing you know they're going to expect pharmaceutical companies to actually make people healthier instead of make money. Pheesh.

Technology News: News: Researchers Chip Away at RFID Security

abstinence "education" ...

ABC13.com: Study finds abstinence programs haven't influenced TX teens

FREE BOXES!

The Postal Store

Awesome invention:
M & M sorter

Today's reason to fear the future :

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

enough.

I've had enough of this "biggest number" crap-ola. Googol, a one followed by a hundred zeroes, now has begat
Googolplexian,
a one followed by a googolplex of zeroes. A hush falls over the globe, followed by a collective gasp:

"OOOOOOHHHHHH!"

We mere gorillas cower in our caves, unable to comprehend the amazing concept of a hundred zeroes! "Hundred zeroes?? Thag no understand!! Big number make Thag angry!!"

Well, here's an idea for ya, ya fuckin' ambulance chasin' mathematicians, it's a one followed by a hundred and TEN zeroes. Am I now an amazingly brilliant math whiz that gets his cutesy story in the paper when his kid farts and the new biggest number is named after it? We'll call that number googoldy-oogldy and then we'll make a website where we put a googoldy-oogoldy-plex of zeroes after a one and throw a -ian on the end and have a scotch.

Dicks. How about you actually produce something for a change? Did you know they give you money for jerking off in a cup these days? Go do that instead.

Really. Just shut up.

church fantasy

I think this is someone's idea of a great church. See the photos.
Abston Church of Christ

star wars parody

This is hilarious. Not soda-spitting hilarious, but close. Spoiler: jar-jar doesn't make it.
SEQUENTIAL Pictures \\\ Star Wars Episode III: A Lost Hope

Stay in school German girls!
Telegraph | News | 'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'

Sunday

"Here is something you can't explain, TVs from outer space."
video from
Planet Krulik 2000

happily ever after, here I come!

It's unanimous: marriage rules. Everyone who has ever gotten married has said it's the greatest thing ever, so I figure it must be true.

Thanks to everyone who called and wrote in for your support of my decision to marry what's-her-name. Getting through this weekend without anyone smacking me upside the head has reinforced my confidence that this was the right decision to make.

I was serious in a comment bar around here somewhere, I'd like to "make a thing of it" and get one of those Columbus pales over at Town hall brewery some night at about five or six p.m. So let's get crack-a-lackin' on that!

Saturday

This is the most interesting bunch of data in an easy to understand, simple format that I can remember seeing, maybe ever.
Researchers Map The Sexual Network Of An Entire High School -- Image

a guy who can fire a pistol rapidly
video

What can I say?

Her loveliness and I were at dinner at chili's last night (with the fastest-talking waiter of all time), and somehow the subject of marriage came up.

Now, not long ago, she was talking about it quite a lot. I finally told her that if she wanted to get proposed to by an aggravated Dale, this was the way to do it. Not that I was feeling particularly marriage-inclined after the barrage of what I remember calling "agonizing" marriage talk. There is a time for throwing engagement rings and a time for not throwing engagement rings, and she agreed that it would be best if, in this case, civility reigned, and so the subject went away. Obvious alternative modus operandi: A girlfriend of hers mentioned this strategery to her: "once you stop talking about it, it happens!", and it worked.

I said we could just go get the ring right now, the mall being right across the street. We went from the restaurant over to Helzberg diamonds in Rosedale mall (I always get my diamond solitaires from them) with half an hour till nine, when everything shuts down. On the way there she said something about thinking she might be sick to her stomach. I think she meant in a good way though. We got to the store without much time to spare and bellied up to the case-o-rings, a shiny cemetery wherein lie the remains of independence and freedom. Just kidding. It's a hard habit to break.

Her loveliness was, by this time, as graceful a mess of stuttering, emotional confusion as it's ever been my pleasure to behold. She was telling the sales girl about how unexpected this was while I talked watches with one of their salesmen.

It's worth proposing to a girl for what happens to them when you do. Their molecules speed up and they start to fly apart. It's cool to watch.

The helpful sales staff got us all set up and we were on our way, but to where?

Bowling! The first time I tried to ask, my mouth opened but the words were hiding behind my teeth and would not budge. I've long thought and maintained with what I feel was solid reasoning that getting married was a bad idea, so the mental habits that this has created can't be expected to vanish overnight. I closed the good old oral aperture and tried again. This time words came out and she said yes, and we both sat there for a minute at Elsie's trying to figure out what happens next. Then the beer showed up and we knew what to do again. A good time was had by all, meaning the two of us, even though we only had one round and didn't bowl.

If we had bowled I might have wrecked the whole night by beating her (in some of my finer bowling moments I'm touched by the spirit of Roy Munson), or her ring might have come off in a ball and I'd have had to watch her run down the oiled lane and dive in with the pins to get it back. Yes, not bowling was the right thing to do. The establishment gave us the beer free, though I would have paid. It was a beer of love, a beer of continuity, a beer of celebration. It was a summit pale ale.

That's the story of the proposal, anyway. Thanks for checking in and have a good rest of the weekend.

funny picture
unless you're a cat lover

New local radio station that doesn't suck!
MPR: Radio Listening: 89.3 The Current

Friday

I got engaged tonight to the lovely J. Not to be curt, or coy, or whatever, but I just thought I'd get that out of the way without all the unnecessary you-know-what.

There's no need for any further blogging today.

Print at work:
Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by President Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular
Little-Known U.S. Document - The Early America Review, Summer 1997

Just to get started early,
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'No proof' of Iranian nuclear weapons programme

Not what you think.
Social Security: it is in a crisis! But how bad is the crisis, and how can it be solved?

Thursday

Funny videos by some guys who were in "the state" and "wet hot american summer"
in glorious quicktime
stella

Harvard Gazette: Snaring secrets of the Venus flytrap

Remember that hot 97 tsunami song? The entire staff has been suspended indefinitely.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US radio staff suspended over tsunami song

This is called the faces of meth, which is a bunch of pictures of people arrested for charges related to meth.
Not looking too good, these guys.
OregonLive.com: Photo Galleries

a cool little flash site,
the2headeddog.com

Emma Bunton: Emma Bunton still uses Spice Girl vibrator

I won't lie. Emma was always my favorite spice girl.

"North Korea appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington."
International News Article | Reuters.com

sometimes i see things that i fear will give me a nightmare.
this is one.
it's a picture.
safe for work.
here

Wikipedia:Unusual articles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"This page is for Wikipedians to list articles that seem a bit unusual."

From McSweeney's Internet Tendency:
THINGS I'D PROBABLY SAY IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST A WEEKLY TV SHOW AND I WERE A REGULAR VIEWER.

"Now, see, you can't just go and do something like that. That would be illegal."

"Boy, someone's gonna get fired for that."

"Wasn't that the one who made all the mistakes? Why is she getting promoted?"

"Come on, in real life you'd never get away with something like that."

"They really expect us to believe that?"

"Am I the only one confused here?"

"Does this make any sense to you?"

"Why is this still on?"

Countdown to global catastrophe
Climate change: report warns point of no return may be reached in 10 years, eading to droughts, agricultural failure and water shortages

print at work:
TP: An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control

The 1 Second Film

Master-Keyed Lock Vulnerability

CNN.com - Study suggests whales are related to hippos - Jan 24, 2005

I like whales. They evolved up out of the water and then they looked around and went back in.

Wednesday

50 Top Movie Death Scenes

Why?
Alanis Morrisette In Hooters Outfit

Shit.

I fucked up on the steel cube and now I have till the end of tomorrow to do a new one. That's bad. I must have had some subconscious desire to do homework, because now, that's what I get to do. I will take the shitty blue vise home, clamp it to some totally inadequate, unstationary thing, and file away, hoping against hope that it doesn't come flying out of there. Which I can barely imagine it not doing under those circumstances. Even if it does stay put, the lines I'm going to put on that thing in whatever horrible position I wind up having to sit in because I don't have a workbench are going to look like Mobius drew them. This sucks. Somebody tell the lovely J that dinner will be short tonight; I have a lot of previously unexpected work to do.

Kentucky women discuss home remedies, some of which are scary. How the "old wives" managed not to kill everybody is a testament to the endurance of the species.
The Winchester Sun: Serving Winchester, KY

Rinsing off in the shower this morning I decided again that life is a philosophical disappointment. I say again because every so often I have to remind myself of that. It's the tendency of a human brain, the most sophisticated modeling device known to science, to find patterns, sometimes even where there are none. Anyone who has ever gotten lost in the woods knows this is true, who has found and followed a "deer trail" which runs right into thick brush. That trail, in retrospect, looks like it was never there in the first place. If hindsight is twenty-twenty, foresight's missing at least one eyeball, possibly both.

No way of thinking about life, no matter how agonizingly in detail or broad in scope, how deeply or piously, how naively or formulaically, makes the slightest dent in the simple fact that we are here because DNA is using us to perpetuate itself. Once my cosmic egg timer goes ding, my time as a collection of associated cells will end and entropy will take over till I'm absorbed back down into the thrumming matrix of single celled organisms who are also living out nature's mandate. And it won't mean anything at all. In the intervening time, though, there are lots of great showers to take, lots of great beverages to drink, lots of things to be interested in. I mean to become a watchmaker, not miss too many deadlines, and squeeze as much pleasure out of life as is possible without grossing too many people out or stealing, or killing.

This morning in the shower I remembered that I don't matter, and it doesn't matter how I feel about that, so I might as well have a good time.

Democracy Now! | Gore Vidal on Bush's Inaugural Address: "The Most Un-American Speech I've Ever Heard"
thanks bummy

Tuesday


WFTV.com - News - Man Sells Forehead Ad Space To Company For $37,375

What a tool.

panopticist:
"Two Johnny Carson Clips You Won't See on CNN This Week"

I've been on a video kick lately. I put some new permanent links down on the bottom of he link area there ---> which are definitrely worth checking out. While I'm thinking of it, try "yesterday's news" at 0tv. Very funny stuff. If you're not careful you'll catch yourself talking like Matt Cook involuntarily, which isn't a bad thing.


Here's a not safe for work video of a funny version of supergirl.
Supergirl Movie

video of a guy breaking into cars looking for money.
Really.
Imagine catching this guy and catching the guy taping him doing it.

I'm looking forward to the release of Inside Deep Throat
there's a good trailer about the movie, which is about the movie deep throat and the anti-porn hysteria of its time.

Must-see video
COMEDY CENTRAL TV Shows: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Not only Tom Delay is a fruitcake who thinks god sent the tsunami to kill tens of thousands of people, there are muslims in indonesia who saw a photograph and now think that
'god signed the tsunami'

hack a day - www.hackaday.com

3 funny videos Anticlown

MICHAEL WOLF | PHOTOGRAPHY | HONGKONG

the u.s. army presents 2004 Year in Photos

cool flash movie, i recommend you watch it at 16x

Funny.
Is anal sex fair to women?

Google Video Search

American Movie : Call Mike Schank

Monday


make your own at Error Message Generator

print at work: What You'll Wish You'd Known

the male optical illusion

crispin glover's weird new movie trailer. quicktime

Focus Resource Center - Post-Abortion Grandparents' Kit
"Your heart still aches for the grandchild you'll only hold in heaven..."

how to prepare kiwi

hiphopmusic.com: Racist Hot 97 Skit Mocking Tsunami Victims
This is the most tasteless thing I have seen in a loooong time.
audio of the song
The radio station's website says they're sorry.
Sorry isn't good enough.
I'm webcasting this all night continuously.

a promo for a movie. but it's a cool promo.

Fresh air does an interview with Steven Colbert, realmedia.
NPR : A Fake Newsman's Fake Newsman: Stephen Colbert

Our class is divided into two rows. The row in front is the gold team and the one in back is the blue one. I am in the back all the way to the left near the door, which obviously makes me on the blue team. Our professor today decided to make me the team leader for the blue team (he's an ex-navy guy, in case you were wondering about the color selection. I would have preferred orange.), which I accepted and which means I am now the lord and master of all that happens in the six workbenches in the back of the room. My quest for world domination has begun! All kneel before Dale, king of watchmaking! Not. I basically have a big mouth and that's why I was picked, and I'm going to have to try to make sure that in the inter-team contests that develop that we win some of the time by making sure that people are discussing what works and what doesn't, and nobody gets stuck doing things that don't work over and over.

I'm SO glad to be back at school and away from the pharmacy. That place is a huge drag. So glad that what, you ask? Well, smartass, when I say so glad, it's only an expression so the fault isn't mine for bad grammar. You are the one who is at fault! Do not mess around with team leader Dale! I can call down the thunder on your ass, for as leader, my rule is law! With an iron fist I reign supreme over the back row, and over you as well! I don't care if you like me, but you will respect me, there is nothing negotiable about that! Now drop and give me thirty before I REALLY get mad! I'm totally kidding. The only reason I think it's so funny is that me in a position of leadership is something I'd never really considered. The only thing I'm looking forward to as team leader is the ability to call meetings at which coffee is consumed.

--update that nobody gives a crap about--
My team, through a mistake on Joe's (professor) part, is now the gold team.

Something fair and balanced actually takes place on the fox news channel!
Inauguration Pundit

Johnny Carson is dead. They say he suffered from emphysema.
Donald Trump got married to a supermodel.

The effect these two events will have on me, combined, is nothing.

Sunday

The Kids of Widney High
the music page. listen to it. it's like pouring grease into your brain.

favorites?

don't miss the video for pretty girls here:
PrettyPictures.com


Boing Boing: Planting flags in dog poop

hummer-driving halfwit throws coffee on meter maid

metafilter tags

Some cancers are caused by heterocyclic amines, DNA-damaging chemicals found in cooked meat and fish. When Sakae Arimoto-Kobayashi's team at Okayama University in Japan fed these chemicals to mice, the DNA damage to their liver, lungs and kidneys was reduced by up to 85% if the mice drank non-alcoholic beer instead of water.

Duh. No room for progressives on cable news inauguration coverage

from metafilter, which i love:

pricelessware, must-have freeware for windows users

Vaporisms called carnivals, in which bloggers send in things they are especially proud of, are emerging.
There is
the carnival of the godless, an atheism carnival
and then
carnival of the vanities, a more general purpose one. These are apparently updated weekly, so if you like zine writing, there's probably going to be a lot of it at these.

squashed philosophers, condensed philosophy and more. for those with lots to learn and little time to do it in.

Is this not happiness?

I just printed at work and read this about North Korea, a place which interests me a great deal, for it is an example of ideological influence gone wrong. An excerpt:

Still, North Korea has repeatedly acted against its own interests. Its acts of terrorism overseas, such as blowing up a South Korean airliner and attacking a South Korean delegation to Burma, both in the 1980s, served no strategic purpose and did much harm. And it has shown a bizarre self-confidence. When some South Korean farmers spotted a North Korean mission that had sneaked into South Korea with plans to assassinate the president, the North Korean commandos detained the South Koreans, lectured them on North Korean ideology, and, astonishingly, let them go, assuming that they would now support the North Korean assault. Instead the South Korean farmers promptly alerted the authorities, and the North Koreans were arrested as they approached the presidential residence.


I both love and hate about people that if their circle of influences is tight enough, insular enough, there is no end to what they can be convinced of. This goes on in every society on some level, but in north korea it's so extreme that it's like entertainment for the rest of the world. It's like a terrarium of human rights disasters. That reminds me of Michael Savage, whose real name is Michael Wiener's words: “When you hear ‘human rights,’ think gays. When you hear ‘human rights,’ think only one thing: someone who wants to rape your son. And you'll get it just right. OK, you got it, right? When you hear ‘human rights,’ think only someone who wants to molest your son, and send you to jail if you defend him.”

The New York Times > Week in Review > Can Anyone Unseat F.D.R.?: "'Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state,' said Stephen Moore, the former president of Club for Growth, an antitax group. 'If you can jab your spear through that you can undermine the whole welfare state."

flash weirdness,
Flying Puppet a Selection

Sutton Impact Studio

Saturday

Today as I was leaving work the parking lot had a traffic jam in it. The lever arm wasn't working the way it should have been and the cashier had to keep coming out and raising it by hand. A car would get out and then the next car would pull up and its driver would bitch about how long it took them and that they should get a discount for the extra time, because they shouldn't have to pay for the time they were stuck trying to get out, making the whole process take even longer for all the other people in line, who would all say the exact same shit when they got to the little brown man working his ass off in the freezing weather to make money for his boss. This process was ridiculous and there was no way it was going to change, sort of like tv in the airports, tuned in at fifty grillion megadecibels to:

THE MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS [BATTLE MUSIC]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If it weren't for the stupid fake security checks and the tv shit, traveling wouldn't be so bad. I wouldn't mind waiting for a plane. As it is, I'd prefer to drive cross country than fly.

Anyway, the situation was this: two lanes of traffic were merging in the parking ramp. They were merging at the rate of, well, when I pulled up my car was frozen solid, and by the time it moved at all, it was warm and toasty, so at least fifteen minutes at idle speed. Fifteen minutes I was sitting there stationary, the lady facing me inching foward, halfway through a turn. The lady behind her motioned to me to go in front of her, which was very sane and diplomatic; the right thing to do in that situation is to take turns. Now, the car in front of me had moved just enough for me to squeeze the corner of my car between it and the lady's car that had just motioned to me that it was ok if I went first. And at that moment, with me thinking "why would I go into that tiny spot?" and waving "thank you, I will in a minute", the lady behind me honked.

The lady behind me was driving a DESTROYER 9,000!! I am unimpressed by giant plastic mock-war toys.

I opened my door and looked at her. She turned to what I think was her daughter but may have been a pet monkey, and they laughed, the way people laugh when they are nervous that someone is about to feed them dirty snow until they cry. I continued to stare until the laughter died down and a profound uneasiness had set in. Then I gave her the finger, closed my door, and stayed where I was. The stupid bitch. Do not honk at people, especially if you are a moron, under circumstances which will draw attention to your complete freedom from intelligence.

People: can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em.

Boy scouts of all sexes and ages can appreciate this.
MSNBC - Feeling lost? Rocks can point the way

FireFox continues gains against IE | CNET News.com

Bunny suicides

I like watching baseball fights

Why would anyone want to go to a website with a bunch of naked women on it?
{ Coolios Babes | man's tribute to women }
NSFW

Is there any limit to japanese depravity?
NSFW

If only it were true, Condoleezza

It's Saturday, when school is out and work, by the measure of that expression, is in. I'd prefer school and learning how to properly file. We've moved on to steel now, which is much harder than brass, and therefore requires more time. The work that is getting done in the class is improving by leaps and bounds. One person's brass cube looked excellent, as may others that I haven't yet seen.

I wish I had time to do some kind of weekly wrap-up of the best things this page links to, but there really isn't time for that. I can tell you that yesterday or the day before, the 50 most loathsome people, which I printed at school, was far and away the best-written thing of the week that I saw. Again, time prevents me from citing it in detail, or for that matter, at all. We got dumped on late yesterday and it's going to take a while to get my car cleaned off.

If I miss anything, feel free to gmail me about it.

Friday

Lunch break.

art: photography by mona kuhn.

politics: photographs of inauguration protests.

more politics: somebody hacked some republican websites. i prefer to think of the websites as "liberated."

random: obsession with chess knights.

stupid cop on spraying toilet seats with WD-40 to inhibit their usage for snorting cocaine off of: "A chemical reaction takes place with the cocaine that causes it to congeal and become a mess so it's unusable," a police spokesman said. "It's one very small, very cheap way in which you can very seriously restrict the amount of drug use in your premises."
This is a chemical reaction he can describe in great detail but he doesn't feel like it right now. He's a busy man, lots of speeders to pull over and skateboarders to smack around and whatnot.

odd: the man who hasn't slept for 20 years

cool: bittorrent rules and the MPAA sucks.

KTRE-TV - Lufkin/Nacogdoches, TX - Bob Jones retiring as controversial university head
Sad!

The State | 01/21/2005 | Cheney says U.S. to confront Iran
"In bluntly threatening terms on inauguration day, Vice President Dick Cheney removed any doubt Thursday that in its second term the Bush administration intends to confront the theocracy in Iran directly."

Get ready to feed another generation of your children into the military industrial wood chipper.

Science News : Scientists Find Sex Differences in Brain

local6.com - Family - Dog Has Record Litter Of 24 Puppies

print at work:
The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004

The camera sees this:

Republicans see this:

I see this:

All hat, no cowboy.

Thursday

movies: The White Stuff at Kontraband

MoonEdit:
multi-platform collaborative text editor.

Bush speechwriter and policy advisor, Michael Gerson, talks about Bush's use of religious rhetoric -- Beliefnet.com
"Bush's reclusive, evangelical speechwriter says religion is part of our culture and we shouldn't be afraid to talk about it."

NEWS.com.au | Giant squid 'taking over world'

Rolls-Royce: Journey Through A Jet Engine

The Webshite :: Nickelback

Why they suck, in case you need more convincing.

On the internet it doesn't take long for this:

To become, and you should see this:
Jenna loves Satannnnn

That wacky god guy is up to his old tricks, testing our faith with some 4.5 million year old Fossils in Ethiopia.

From the Center for American Progress by way of muddy:
$40 million: Cost of Bush inaugural ball festivities, not counting security costs.



$2,000: Amount FDR spent on the inaugural in 1945…about $20,000 in today's dollars.



$20,000: Cost of yellow roses purchased for inaugural festivities by D.C.'s Ritz Carlton.



200: Number of Humvees outfitted with top-of-the-line armor for troops in Iraq that could have been purchased with the amount of money blown on the inauguration.



$10,000: Price of an inaugural package at the Fairmont Hotel, which includes a Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon reception, a chauffeured Rolls Royce and two actors posing as "faux" Secret Service agents, complete with black sunglasses and cufflink walkie-talkies.



400: Pounds of lobster provided for "inaugural feeding frenzy" at the exclusive Mandarin Oriental hotel.



3,000: Number of "Laura Bush Cowboy cookies" provided for "inaugural feeding frenzy" at the Mandarin hotel.



$1: Amount per guest President Carter spent on snacks for guests at his inaugural parties. To stick to a tight budget, he served pretzels, peanuts, crackers and cheese and had cash bars.



22 million: Number of children in regions devastated by the tsunami who could have received vaccinations and preventive health care with the amount of money spent on the inauguration.



1,160,000: Number of girls who could be sent to school for a year in Afghanistan with the amount of money lavished on the inauguration.



$15,000: The down payment to rent a fur coat paid by one gala attendee who didn't want the hassle of schlepping her own through the airport.



$200,500: Price of a room package at D.C.'s Mandarin Oriental, including presidential suite, chauffeured Mercedes limo and outfits from Neiman Marcus.



2,500: Number of U.S. troops used to stand guard as President Bush takes his oath of office



26,000: Number of Kevlar vests for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that could be purchased for $40 million.



$290: Bonus that could go to each American solider serving in Iraq, if inauguration funds were used for that purpose.



$6.3 million: Amount contributed by the finance and investment industry, which works out to be 25 percent of all the money collected.



$17 million: Amount of money the White House is forcing the cash-strapped city of Washington, D.C., to pony up for inauguration security.



9: Percentage of D.C. residents who voted for Bush in 2004.



66: Percentage of Americans who think this over-the-top inauguration should have been scaled back.


Ok, I don't know how I missed this. GAW. Some very kind people have obviously been under the impression that my stomach troubles amounted to being a problem of not enough. The problem was in fact the opposite. Thanks for the advice on that one and I'll keep those things in mind. If I'd had stomach pain associated with constipation, especially over the period of time I've been bitching about it, I'd have been at the doctor by now, for sure.

After that last entry the pain grew to an unacceptable level and I had to excuse myself from class early. The emergency room was full of people who I think were probably worse off than I was, so there I sat. And sat.

Eventually I got in and it turns out that (we think) I've had the flu, which has contributed to my previous problems. Diagnosis: gastroenteritis brought on by flu. Remedy: zantac, fluids, and maalox till it goes away on its own. As for the perpetual feeling that I've just been the victim of Apollo Creed (damn, I love typing Apollo Creed!) , that should go away with the acid treatment, and as for the virus, the usual advice of tough it out.

This is pretty much what the lovely J was feeling in the same exact ER a couple of days ago. Thanks for the virus, J. At least we now know she didn't burn her stomach boozin', and that that bitchy doctor was a tool.

It's nothing but rice and pasta for Dale for a while, until this pain goes away. Which will, I hope, be before bedtime. In my experience suffering after bedtime is worse than before it.

Have you ever had the wind knocked out of you? That's what my stomach feels like, only instead of having the wind completely knocked out, I'm vacillating between forty and seventy per cent of the wind. This has been going on since I woke up at five a.m. Ow. Ow. Ow.

This information is bad for you who are reading, because it has nothing to do with you in any way, but it will be very useful for me if I need to tell a medical professional how long this ha been going on and what the symptoms have been. I'll give them the URL and go back to what I was doing, which at this rate will have been screaming in mortal agony. Seriously, if this continues to worsen I'll be at urgent care as soon as I can get someone to take me tomorrow morning. I don't know if I'm being optimistic about the situation ameliorating on its own, but that's just the kind of gamble which makes life the way it is. That and excruciating pain, which I have started thinking about in medical diagnostic terms: a one to ten scale. At this moment I'm at three. I can tolerate without audible groans up to about a seven, though at what I'd estimate at five I was involuntarily clutching my stomach and starting to curl up. It got as bad as six about an hour ago during a presentation by the principal of Lititz Watch Technicum, Hermann Mayer.

He said a lot of things but my favorite was this, when he described ideal working conditions as quiet and calm:
"It's just you and the workpiece, that's it. You and the workpiece and perfection."

It was an intimidating presentation, but also enlightening. We've been presented with what the future will hold, and it's tiny, made of metal, and does not tolerate failure.

The girl next to me here in the school library is studying intensely a list of idioms. That must be a very important part of learning american english. There are little flashing buttons indicating new additions to whatever online collection she's looking at. A couple are are "go the extra mile" and "the handwriting on the wall". I wouldn't want to just be learning english at this stage in history, when "clear skies initiative" means an insane deregulation of emissions standards for america's worst industrial polluters, and "healthy forests" means more clear-cutting. It would be pretty confusing to learn the meaning of terror as well, when the government is the biggest terrorizer of its people with trumped-up threats of a general nature, no evidence required. Ever. And the meaning of freedom? That's anybody's guess, thanks to the blossoming theocratic, father-knows-best form of government which has succeeded democracy. Hell, even democracy means funny things nowadays.

The message I'm hearing from the administration: "The truth is whaever we say it is." Maybe it's a good thing to just get the ball rolling now, though, for maybe it is inevitable: we Americans are reaching a split in the way we think. There are those who are willing to go on as if America hasn't changed in some seriously unhealthy way between 2000 and now, and those who aren't, and want to know exactly why, so that some day far from now we can go back and, piece by piece, reconstruct our lives to be the way they were before the Bush the younger administration got ahold of them. I think you know where I stand in the matter. There will be no complacent acceptance on my part of the party's version of reality.

Back to class and maybe this damned bellyache, which has temporarily gone dull. There are lots of things to make and do.

Dear Laura Bush,

I'd like to congratulate you for helping coach George to a second term, and would like to offer you a special gift as a token of my esteem.



This is a new type of bathtub warmer that uses technologies developed right here in the USA! Simply plug the end into any wall outlet and put the other into a bathtub with George already in it. I know it sounds crazy, but special sensors work to configure the water instantly to the bather's preferred temperature and hold it there indefinitely!

Good luck,
Dale Shipley

BostonHerald.com - the Edge: Women age better with a fine wine: Study: Alcohol helps memory: "A glass of wine, beer or a cocktail a day improves memory and might be good for the brain, says a group of researchers who tracked the cognitive effect booze had on thousands of older women over two decades"

North Jersey Media Group: "Cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans under 85, health officials said Wednesday."

There's something unsettleing about a running robot.
Honda ASIMO (Research Model)

I don't know what this is, but I don't think I approve.
Stunk Man gallery

Some people prefer brunettes and this woman is one of the reasons why,
Eszter
Hell no, it's not safe for work.

I woke in a cold sweat. There may be people who haven't seen the wondrous and magical bubb rubb video!
download it here, and then you too can say:
"That's only in the mawnin'!"

One Eyed Bob's Inappropriate Toys for Children; Chicago's East Side Mall toy store specializing in childrens toys

glorious beer, realmedia
this song was recorded circa 1899 by Dan W. Quinn

Wednesday

BleachSoft:
Bleach Eating Freaks' "office bricolage" contest, in which contestants were asked to construct the most lethal weapons that thye could from everyday materials that could be found in their offices.

Boing Boing: Child appears unhappy after parents slain in Iraq

I have trouble motivating myself to feel sympathy for a child who obviously hates freedom the way this one does.

Powerful Solar Storm to Hit Earth by Wednesday

I'd like to thank everyone who piped up about my pipes. I feel the love streamin' across the miles thanks to the magic of the internets. Dale's digestive disappointments aren't over yet but now there is hope that they will end in fiberriffic triumph. It may indeed be coffee withdrawal. I love coffee and decided to stop drinking it mainly for the hell of it, but also because it might give me the shakes and make me slip from and ruin my tiny metal workpieces. With good old american resolve and maybe even by calling in the brave men and women of our armed services, this evil abdominal terrorism will be brought to justice. And then it will be mission accomplished.

Damn Alison Krauss and her weepy bluegrass song restless! All day yesterday I wanted to listen to it so I could stop thinking about it and then when I did it still didn't go away. But seriously, Alison, great song. Will you come sing it to me? I have whiskey and broadband...

Tuesday

Somebody pinch me. I just called progressive car insurance company because they raised my insurance rates when they shouldn't have. Then, right there with me on the phone, thy fixed it and now I don't have to pay them more money. This is like a good dream, only I would never dream about something like not getting billed extra for car insurance.

Thanks, lady at progressive, whoever you are, for saving me a hundo.

VII Photo Agency

Holy cats. The best thing about this blog is that little link over there --> which I will now duplicate for the sake of convenience:
mimi smartypants

Center for Social Media
"Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers"

Larry Kudlow on Princeton Professor Burt Malkiel and Social Security Personal Accounts on NRO Financial
If you read this and don't see how this guy is not the rhetoritician he obviously considers himself to be, you need to read more.

Salon.com : "The scandal sheetPrint it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency --"

"This is the Alabama sheriff who liked the old days better when men were men, women were women, and gays were an abomination. Journalist and Sirius radio jock Mike Signorile caught Holcomb on his cell phone!"
with audio, because you love to listen to stupid people

Here's the letter that started the shitfest.

Double Flee A loves Dolly Parton!
Her Story

Funny.
CNN.com - Attorney meets the 'jury pool from hell' - Jan 18, 2005

What can I say about my digestive system? It's not working as well as I'd like. I'm having what healthcare professionals call... never mind. It's the kind of thing that can't be euphemized. This morning I decided to come out swinging and ate a 23-ounce jar of applesauce in a sitting. If that doesn't work I'll have to try something else. I'd like to avoid what I call "poor people remedies", what I'm talking about are things like cough drops, which treat a symptom, and on the commercials for which (I don't watch television but I used to) there is always somebody coughing and bravely getting on a bus or some other form of public transportation, ostensibly because they can't afford not to go to work, even though they're sick. Which reminds me, when somebody sneezes in public and doesn't cover, I hate them. People say god bless you to them, and all I can think is god damn you, stupid bastard.

23 ounces of applesauce will fill you right up. I don't eat the applesauce with high fructose corn syrup in it, just the apples and a little ascorbic acid, please. That corn syrup seems to be in everything, along with partially hydrogenated oil. My mother quit eating the HF corn syrup and dropped twenty pounds instantly. Which reminds me, congratulations to a reader who just quit eating fast food. Next to quitting smoking it's the best thing you can do for you body.

School is flying by today. The rest of the class is still hard at work on their brass cubes, which I can't tell you how happy I am to have finished Friday. I was where they are and it's a bad place. I've graduated to dressing my gravers now. Here's what they look like,

but we're using ours without that wooden handle so they're just long thin square pieces of metal, in various thicknesses, made of high speed steel (HSS). They're very hard and we're grinding them against rocks to get them the right shape. That diamond-shaped end has to be perfectly flat and smooth (sharp is the natural by-product) and 30 degrees, not the 45 which the picture looks like. This is a challenge. The year is 2005 and here we are scraping metal against rocks.

I sent an email last night to a college that has a missing part of my hitchhiker's guide audiotape collection, and am waiting to hear back about the possibility of an interlibrary loan, either to my college or the lovely J's. They may not have heard of St. Paul Technical college in Texas, but they'll surely know of the U of Minnesota. I figure (for a change) she owes me, because I took her to the ER yesterday.

Now, it must be said, first off, that for the lovely a trip to the ER is like one of the rest of us going to the barber. It's no big deal to her. She practically shrieks with pleasur when they stab an IV in her arm. That's stretching it a bit, but she really doesn't mind. Going to the ER is something she's good at. The reason was that the night before we had gone out to celebrate MLK day (which my brother tells me in Tennessee that yesterday multiple times he heard it called "Nigger day"; jesus christ, people, stop living down to your reputations), which we both had off, and which wil lbe the last time we do until spring break, and the gins and tonics make her tummy hurt. It hurt and hurt and would not stop hurting so we did what anyone would who couldn't keep down even water and doesn't have stomach number around. We went to the people who fix it. The doctor was bitchy and treated her like a flake, which the lovely J is not. I see it as a testament to her moral fortitude that her stomach was unaccustomed to strong drink. I didn't feel like making the process any more painful than it already was, though, and sat there and shut up.

Later I would take revenge on a different woman. This one had a dog which was crapping in my yard and obviously had not intention of cleaning it up. I made her feel like an idiot and then I felt better. My little indignant acting job would have made Ed Harris (and my caretaker) proud.

J got treated and I got revenge and for the rest of the day, all was better. Today things are going well, my gut is not as bad as it was the last three days (what was I doing, sleepwalking and eating pound upon pound of cheese?), and there is hope that I might get the audiotapes I need. Life is good.

A guy who ooposed seat belt laws was thrown from a car wreck and died. THe other two, who were buckled in, were just fine.
Irony?
Lincoln Journal Star

In the mood for a graphic read?
Prison Rape Survivor Stories

mordor.gif

Boing Boing: Experiment with the post office

What's worse?
this
or
this?

One of these is not safe for work.

Hey christians, arguing religion with muslims online might get you killed.
So, fair warning.
story

print at work:
THE COMING WARS
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

:: ak13 :: Ten reasons . . . to go to McDonald's

Guardian Unlimited Books | The digested read
must-read(?) books in 400 words or less.

The Four Noble Truths: in case you would prefer to read it than listen, this is text of Joel's realplayer file from yesterday

Monday

There was a special ed group that started a band.
They are called the kids of widney high.
They did a song called "cowboy brown".
Here it is.


NEW YORK -- Brooklyn-based artist Cosimo Cavallaro regards his finished work of art, a bed with more than 300 pounds of sliced ham, at a gallery in New York. Cavallaro, 41, the son of immigrants from southern Italy, said the ham is "a pure form of America: all kinds of parts, boiled and pressed together." Despite his Italian heritage and training in an Italian art school, Cavallaro said he had rejected Prosciutto because "It would have been pompous." (06/03/04 AP photo)


Hitachi's new 8GB drive.

WFTV.com - News - 480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch

Crazy weatherman.
Really. He's crazy. Extreme drunkenness doesn't account for it.

New Jessica Simpson as Daisy Footage

a la Joel:

#1)
People have a funny problem with religion. It seems to bring on amnesia.
One particular incident that seems to have been forgotten/fudged is the munster rebellion.
I learned about it in high school. It was presented as an example of why it was people didn't like the anabaptists.
To get a good look at today's modern theological descendants of the anabaptists feel free to turn on religious programming like you find on TBN.

an article detailing the incident

the cathedral where John's body was left suspended in a cage to remind people how the Church feels about that kind of thing:

the cages are still there

#2)
This is a thing I heard. You might not like it, but I found it really
captivating.

realplayer file

It is a man detailing the origins of suffering. It starts like this:
"We live in an unstable world. By the time I reach the end of this sentence, the Milky Way will have travelled one hundred and twenty miles closer to the centre of its galaxy cluster, the Earth twenty miles in its orbit around the sun, while your brain will have generated millions of firing patterns..."

more politics:
AuthenticGOP.com

Casualties in Iraq

BushBlackOut - 24 Hours Of Silent Protest

The Go Cheney Yourself store! | CafePress

Ballad Of A Dog Named Stains

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
"With all the wingnut crowing about CBS and 60 Minutes, you'd think they blew the story that Bush had been AWOL. Fact is, CBS got one piece of evidence wrong, from a while truckload of evidence."

I may have been the last person in the world to see this, but it's funny.
The eleven worst songs of 2004.
From maddox, whose site you have to look at periodically. The Ben Stiller thing was great.

Sunday

I learn something every day. Today I learned that I only like to sing half of "one hundred bottles of beer on the wall". In the future I will be starting at fifty bottles, so that I can finish without getting tired of it. The girl working next to me would have preferred I not sing it at all, but I really hustled my way through twenty bottles or so to make it less painful to listen to, so she should have been thankful.

Yesterday I worked for an hour that I need not have, because my shift was from eight to four, and I was thinking it was five, because it's an eight to five job. SO I worked from eight until five. Boy did I feel dumb about that one. The good news is, I get paid overtime for it and having made the mistake and being aware of it, it won't have to happen again.

Remember that smilin' vienna sausage dressed up like a soldier from a couple of days ago? He got ten years.
To let the punishment fit the crime, I think they ought to let his ex-prisoners take care of him.

Going to try to get in the driver's side door this morning using the "heat the key" technique. If the wind is blowing it might be a challenge since I have to use matches. All the lighters disappeared in the purge of 2004 along with the ashtrays.

If Old Navy is so great, maybe there should be songs about it. And songs about minivans. And songs about what's on the radio. What this culture needs is some real mockery. I wish musical "artists" would produce some damn art for a change. They make songs which are bought by companies and used to sell products, robbing our collective culture of all meaning. I wish they would make songs about companies and their ridiculous mission statements or what they will do in the name of making a profit. That's another untold dark side of commercialism, well, maybe not untold, but uncelebrated. Which art should do. Get to work, art!

Saturday

In class yesterday I made a brass cube a centimeter per side with a tolerance of a tenth of a millimeter. Using only free hand files and a crappy vise, that's pretty good. It's flat and beveled and its only flaw is not easy to see with the naked eye. I rule.

My brother sent me a really rare couple of audio tape sets. It's "the restaurant at the end of the universe" and "life, the universe, and everything" by douglas adams, all recorded by stephen moore, who originally did the voice of Marvin the robot on the BBC play. This was a great recording and I played it as I went to sleep for years, the boom box under my pillow. The first tape set is missing, "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". It consists of two tapes, and is read by Stephen Moore. If you find one, send it to me. I will digitize it and send it back. Or buy it from you. Either way, I need that.

That's the news from here.

Oh, and I got a gift card to a liquor store from my mom. She's the best. I loves me some drinkin'! Now I can afford the rum in a glass bottle instead of the plastic.


Yahoo! News - Bush Warns of Social Security Bankruptcy
Bullshit. He wants to privatize it to make his rich friends even richer while taking another big shit on working people.
What's that joke that ends with : "his lips are moving"?

Yahoo! News - Mom Charged With Killing Girl With Bleach
She killed her because the girl had had sex. Nice moral values!

Yahoo! News - 100-Pound Woman Downs Six-Pound Burger

Yahoo! News - Anti-Bush Bracelets Say, 'Count Me Blue'

print at work:
The New Republic Online: Hardball 101

print at work:
The War Against World War IV

Boing Boing: Amazon.com founder buys ranch for his aerospace company

This man is a billionaire, and he has a wish list for books he wants people to buy him. On his website. Amazon. What an asshole.

Boing Boing: Darth Tater: Mr Vader Potatohead

GorillaMask.net: The Greatest Essay Ever Written

I read about this a long time ago and couldn't remember what it was called.
I remember that the guards never complained about having to work overtime.

The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment

Not content with saturating the cradle of civilization with depleted uranium, the united states military paves over priceless treasures of antiquity in another act of Cultural vandalism

CNN.com - What the president reads - Jan 10, 2005

Yahoo! News - ET Visitors: Scientists See High Likelihood

slow load, and loud, a flash game called
TREASURE BOX

It's the mornin' and I'm up and at 'em! Got to go to work at the hospital all day so if you break into my house, I won't be here! I recommend the computer if you're looking for something to steal. It's a very entertaining item. Other things to look out for include my letter opener collection, dvd player, and playstation! Don't overlook the kitchen, where I have stored food I intend to eat at some point. If you're not going to take it, you might just want to open the fridge and freezer and unplug it out of spite so my food will spoil. And don't forget to open my three beers and pour them out on the floor, so I can't cool them back off and drink it to cope with your nefariousness. The high ticket items I won't list all of, for breaking in to someone's apartment and looting it should have an element of surprise. I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do. My gift is my song, and this one's for you, burglar.

It's unlikely anyone could extricate my computer from its labyrinth of wiring. After tugging at this one and that, before long they would be insensate with confusion and lucky to find the door.

It's 27 below today with the wind. Yesterday I climbed through the trunk again three times because I am too lazy to buy lock de-icer. J came by and we had dinner, which unfortunately made her stomach unhappy. We jsut discvered this new diet called Atkins, where you eat all the meat you want! It's soo kewl! Dr. Atkins says it's actually the carbohydrates that are what's bad! And he's a doctor!!!

From what appears to be a race-based issue of the onion, this story: Blacks, Whites Put Differences Aside, Work Together To Make Better Burger

When life provides me with a bad dream, it doesn't mess around with one that's a little bad. My bad dreams are really bad dreams. Last night I had a dream that involved animal abuse, bloody children, laughing hipsters, sexual torture, death of all kinds, and gallons of blood splattered everywhere, including, inexplicably, the childrens mouths. It makes me want to take my own advice and not be bothered by this, because all it is is a series of images, a montage clearly intended to produce the effect of my becoming upset, and there's no reason to be when it's only a dream. Next time I see a public execution I'll get a little worked up, but I'll let the dreams go.

Friday


Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | N Korea ready to talk, US told


That's Kim Jong Il shaking hands with Pootie-poot, a good personal friend of George Bush's. Yeah, he calls him pootie-poot. That's so amazingly pre-collegiate I'm struggling to comprehend it. I guess they go back together to Bush's childhood in Connecticut. Because that's where he was raised and educated. The man is not a cowboy. Would Gary Coleman have been an improvement?

Enforcing Single-Season Seeds, Monsanto Sues Farmers - from TBO.com

Does it make sense to produce a seed that breaks after you use it once? That's what Monsanto does, and it's cool if they want to make a buck, but you're messing with some fundamental natural laws here. A farmer's plants produce seeds that he owns, because they come from his land. Not to mention the wrongness of the creepy genetic meddling that goes on and makes plants grow for only one generation.

How to make a Minty MP3 player

Maybe one of the reasons we like babies so much, is that when they come to town, you know they aren't there because they got kicked out of a different one.

I can't hear the sound on this but it looks interesting.

quicktime video

A cool idea for a puzzle. See the rest of the stuff, as well.

Men's Health Eye Chart

In a weak, misguided attempt at meaning, Bob Marley's wife plans to exhume remains in Jamaica, rebury them in Ethiopia

ABC News: Accuser Thought Jackson was 'The Coolest': "Before his alleged sexual encounters began, the boy accusing Michael Jackson of child molestation said he thought the pop star was 'the coolest person in the world'".

Me too, little buddy. Me too.

Yahoo! Weather - Minneapolis

I'll save you a click. With the wind, it's thirty below.

Thursday

The bidding war is on! Too rich for my blood, I'm afraid. I'll have to be content with loving Druther's mugs more than these guys.
eBay item 3774501504 (Ends Jan-14-05 09:01:29 PST) - anchor hocking druthers cups 5

This guy is happy he didn't have to testify at his court martial for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib today. I don't really care is he's guilty or not, I just hate that stupid hat that they make soldiers wear.

By the unreasonably brilliant Ian at Wrapped Up Like A Douche, who does this kind of thing all the time:

Snippets of Conversation Between the Mars Spirit and Opportunity Rovers as They Gradually Succumb to Power Death

Spirit: Remember when we were doing all that science stuff? That was awesome.

Opportunity: Do you suppose they’re coming to get us? I’m sure they wouldn’t just leave us here.

Spirit: Did I tell you about when I changed tools to the Mössbauer spectrometer and placed it in the rock abrasion tool hole for a long integration? I did? Never mind.

Opportunity: I think Nietzsche was right; God is dead.

Spirit: Remember that show Perfect Strangers? I wonder whatever happened to that guy. No, not Balki, the other guy.

Opportunity: I never loved you.

Yahoo! News - Wal-Mart CEO on Offensive Against Critics
I guess he wants to conquer your opinion in addition to the world.

Adios, dumbass fundamentalist sticker!
Yahoo! News - Ga. Evolution Stickers Ordered Removed

The bravest man in the world.
Yahoo! News - 'Ali G' Comedian Risks Riot at U.S. Rodeo

Dumbass takes a shot of dish soap

Daily Interesting Links - Farting Preacher II

Farting Preacher 3 Video

Sure is cold up here in Minneapolis. Holy shit. According to weather.com, it's 3 below and feels like 23 below with the wind, which is really whippin' some ass. We like it this cold if for no other reason than in the pecking order of bad weather, ours isn't anybody's bitch.

This morning when I went to unlock my car I discovered the locks were frozen. The only way I could gain entrance was to open the trunk and climb in and unlock the doors from the inside. Some hot chicks who were standing around in bikinis thought that was pretty awesome so we had hot monkey sex in my back seat while the car warmed up. Then I drove them downtown where we got wasted on malt liquor. I had to dry out at Betty Ford and then I was off to school.

School was fine. I am getting the hang of filing. At present, we're making cubes out of brass one centimeter on a side with a tolerance of a tenth of a millimeter. The difficulty of this exercise is compounded by the fact that we have crappy vises. I have a cube that's closing in, and if I'm careful I may yet make it without screwing up. Doing that over would be (and may be) a pain. Making a cube free-hand filing isn't easy. You have to estimate the squareness to a degree that will result in being within the appropriate tolerance by just eyeballing it. Back and forth you file, all the while the cube-ish hunk shrinking to dangerous levels. Metal can be filed away, but it cannot be filed back on. One oopsy-daisy misstroke with the file that requires fixing, it suddenly becomes fucking worthless, no matter how pretty it is, how flat and how square and unfaceted and polished. Any watchmaking student will tell you that that makes a sound which is so quiet it can only be heard by one person. Similar to a whimper and a large-ish swallow, it's the sound of defeat. Worst of all, there's no one else to blame. At this point, and there are many, a person can only close their eyes and groan. Everyone immediately knows what happened and no one who likes being alive will give you a hard time about it.

In the time I've been writing this, the weather channel has changed to saying it's 6 below and feels like 29 below. Hoo-wee. This is the Minnesota winters we're always talking about. People tend to remain where they are in this weather. Plans are broken. Dates are postponed. Tea is made. Phone calls ensue.

Tomorrow I have school and then work after. Saturday and Sunday are work, and then back to school Monday but wait! What's this?! Martin Luther King day? AAA HAHAHAHAHAAA! And so I will have Monday off. Beyond the grave. the civil rights leader is helping assure that I will have a chance to do my laundry. Thanks, man. Gimme five! Up high! On the side! Down low! Too slow, because you're dead!

My school will never close on account of snow or cold, because they lose money if they close for a day. And that is not going to happen, according to the president.

This was day two with no coffee; the headaches already have slackened. Over the weekend I'll probably have a cup or two, but I want to break the habit during the week because it might make me shake and ruin a watch component I'm working on.

I ran out of stuff to talk about a while ago. Sorry. Looks like I'm getting more visitors than ever before, not sure why. But welcome, I guess.

How sad. The flip-flopper.
WorldNetDaily: No Kid Rock at Bush concert

Lexington Herald-Leader | 01/12/2005 | Marine vs. Marine in Interstate 64 shooting

President outlines role of his faith - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - January 12, 2005

I can't believe Rania never told me about Heino before.

The Heino Worship Page
Unfortunately the audio links don't work.

There's a song here, though. The one called Heino. Oh, that's 17 seconds long. That sucks.

Here's one that's longer. Altavista audio search should sate your curiosity for more Heino, without which, of course, you can't have heinous. I guess you have to speak German to be able to catch it full blast.

rentamidget

Wednesday

Lots of pretty images that aren't copyrighted.
United States Geological Survey Digital Data Series DDS-21

Boing Boing: Torture Jet: is this the CIA's "ghost" plane?

Wisdom from The Spoonbender

Han shot first?
Sam Davatchi's Page

strange photography
Axel Raben Gallery: Ashkan Sahihi

ganns.com - Winners of the "I Look Like My Dog" Contest

cool google toy
Montage-a-google

eBay item 5548558254 (Ends Jan-12-05 13:37:53 PST) - FRANK MUST DIE

Journal Gazette | 01/02/2005 | Nothing golden about silencing of some sounds

School yeserday was less painful thanks to me figuring out how to wield the file better. My whole hand is more sore but the finger hurts less. So that's good.

We're making things flat right now. I got my first assignment graded and am happy with the results. I'm not going to put that grade up here in case someone from class finds this page, though. And I'm not going to tell how there's this one guy that's just a DICK that I HATE! Just kidding, guys. You're all cool.

They put my workbench nearest the door. Our class is a bit of a curiosity for the rest of the school, so our window is constantly besmirched by the nose-prints of puzzled passersby, who invariably rattle the door or even the handle out of clumsiness.

This is going to be discombobulated but bear with me. I live in an apartment in a house. Part of my apartment shares an electrical circuit with another apartment. I occupy the third floor, which is next to the roof. If both apartments are using the toaster, we will usually blow the circuit. Same goes if I'm using the computer, the electric heater, and the girl downstairs makes toast. Both our refrigrators are on that circuit as well. I don't think this is up to fire code. Anyway, I don't like losing all my data so when I run the computer I don't run the heater and there aren't any problems.

I like to webcast overnight. Good (and bad) music comes my way and I like to toss it out there for people to pick up. But I can't run the webcast and have the heater on, so it's cold, so I don't do it. Except for when it snows. The snow, because I am on the third floor, insulates the roof to an extent that makes it unnecessary to use the heater. Hence, if I webcast in the middle of winter, you can deduce that it has just snowed. Ah, nonlinear causality!

Tuesday

Boing Boing: Desperate Ken Lay paying search-engines to return links to his "version" of Enron

It's coming down pretty hard in LA right now.

Xeni Jardin picks a winner:
Boing Boing: Quote of the day: pyramid scheme

Funny T-Shirts

I don't get into sports, but this guy can run a football like crazy.
Negative-Shock [dot] Net
winmedia

I don't know what to say about 14_5.jpg>this, except that it's probably not safe for work and it probably wasn't the model's idea.

Monday

Brand Autopsy: The Dark Room Magic of NPR

starting tonight and going till tomorrow some time, something is actually on at double flee a - the webcast

KENNY MUHAMMAD AND THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC

This guy can beatbox like nobody's business.
/quicktime

The New Yorker shows mashup love

Liquid Sculpture

Chunklet Magazine: "The Torture Tape Experiment"

"The Mission:
Create for combat purposes a tape so wretched and foul that anyone who listens to it for 24 hours will never be able to think straight again. Some minor guidelines being that the material must be predominantly from your own record collection and should fit a standard 90-minute cassette tape. Some of you would consider that old school, but to us it just makes it more annoying."

Face transformer

The buildup was enough that I owe you an explanation of how it went on my first day back at school, after ten years off for bad behavior. The class convened at eight o'clock, and I was practically jumping out of my skin to get there and whatnot, so I found myself in the parking lot at six-fifty-three this morning.

First we unpacked tools for a couple of hours. There are so many tools in watchmaking it's almost silly, but I guess that's the way it has to be. I spent three and a half thousand dollars on them, so I'm glad there are a lot.

For the second half of the day we "dressed" the safe (flat) edges of files, which consists of grinding them against coarse "India" stones and then against smooth "Arkansas" stones. The latter is pretty much a polisher. My hand is a little sore but as far as that goes, the instructor said that it's like the navy seals, where they say the only easy day was yesterday. My hands are going to hurt before this is over. My right index finger hurts right now, and it will probably continue to for some time, especially since we're going to be grinding away like this for months.

It's an eight to five thing, and that's great. All I need to do is find something to listen to in the car and I'll be content. Drive time radio is as bad as can be. Every advertiser wants to "break through the noise" and be heard, and in the process, of course, becomes yet more noise. Every radio channel save public is unbearable with advertising, and sometimes you don't want to listen to public. I need either tapes or a cd player. I can make my own cds but I can't make my own cd player. And tapes are scarce. A creedence tape would tide me over but I don't even have a damn creedence tape. What is the world coming to when you can't easily locate a creedence tape? I should trip over them when I walk out the front door. All western civilization's greatest triumphs are a direct result of creedence. And me without a tape. Sheesh.

The lovely J just dubbed a videotape for me (though it was as much for her), which is famous as the best videotape ever. It has: Dancing outlaw, a show about how we never landed on the moon, Plan 9 from outer space, and Ed Wood. And that, my friends, is just about the last word in entertainment.

I mail the original back to him soon at school in Knoxville, where he's busy with premed. Watching this tape is sure to liberate a few brain cells. I know it does for me. It's the closest thing to nothing that you can watch. The feeling you get from watching it is a lot like having slept. I love it, and am sad to see it go. This is one hundred per cent true.

ABC News: Asia Quake Impacts Va. Well-Water Levels: "The South Asian earthquake that spawned deadly tsunami waves also shifted water levels by at least 3 feet in a geologically sensitive Virginia well some 9,600 miles away from the epicenter..."

Sunday

Yahoo! News - Earth "still ringing" after Indian Ocean earthquake: scientists

Is you a patriot?
by Ward Sutton

political cartoon:
Are you there god? It's me, George.
Schlock 'N' Roll by Ward Sutton

Isn't it weird how being pro-illegal military action in Iraq is considered more patriotic than being against it? Hmm.

I was in the car, channel-surfung the radio (no station is as good as all the rest of the stations combined) when I heard the Crook and Chase country coundown kick off. The top 40 country sings in the land were about to come a-barrelin' across the airwaves. I was excited. I hadn't got to hear one of these since before any of them were about loving the USA. Can you even imagine that?

Anyway, the first song, that is, the fortieth most popular one, was "the bumper of my SUV" by one Chely Wright. Here's the webpage for that, where you can even listen to a partial mp3 of this masterpiece of modern musicianship. And there's something about a logo with an american flag on it that just makes you feel so unpatriotic for not buying it. Somewhere every day, five or six guys wake up and realize they kind of overdid it with the patriotic decoration theme, and sheepishly put some flags in the closet.

The album cover:


Here are the words, which I think are hilarious:

I've got a bright red sticker on the back of my car
Says United States Marines
And yesterday a lady in a minivan held up a middle finger at me
Does she think she knows what I stand for
Or the things that I believe
Just by looking at a sticker for the US Marines
On The Bumper Of My SUV

See, my brother Chris, he's been in for more than 14 years now
Our dad was in the Navy during Vietnam
Did his duty then he got out
And my grandpa earned his purple heart
On the beach of Normandy
That's why I've got a sticker for the US Marines
On The Bumper Of SUV

But that doesn't mean that I want war
I'm not Republican or Democrat
But I've gone all around this crazy world
Just to try and better understand

Yes I do have questions
I get to ask them because I'm free
That's why I've got a sticker for the US Marines
On the Bumper Of My SUV

Cause I've been to Hiroshima
And I've been to the DMZ
I've walked on the sand in Baghdad
Still don't have all of the answers I need
But I guess I wanna know where she's been
Before she judges and gestures to me
Cause she don't like my sticker
For the US Marines
On the bumper of my SUV

So I hope that lady in her mini-van
Turns on her radio and hears this from me
As she picks up her kids from their private school
And drives home safely on our city streets
Or to the building where her church group meets

Yeah, that's why I've got a sticker for the US Marines
On the bumper of my SUV


'Cause, you know, it's the anti-war crowd that doesn't understand nuance. It's the anti-war crowd that just says screw off, my way is right, and if you don't think so, you're a traitor.

Oh, and liberals are not only telling everyone to be blindly obedient to the anti-war message, they send their kids to private schools because they're rich. I get the feeling her obnoxious implied message comes across loud and clear when she suggests that minivans suck, but it's nowhere near the overt message, which is simply, I love america more than liberals.

Chely played at the USO for some troops, which was nice to do. But do you think troops ever get tired of the same stuff over and over? Like they might want to hear some good, or at least different, music instead of the patriotic flavor of-the-minute that's burning up the country music charts? Like they might just want to forget that they're at war for a little while? This war has sucked the fun out of country music.

the best advice ever

The not safe for work links du jour:

phone cam photos

re-repost: Keyra/Agustina/Julieta/Solecita/Mystery Booty, the definitive collection

Amazing four year old drummer video

How to use a hand puppet to meet, attract, and date tons of single women...

Deer God. (deer gore) pics.

DesMoinesRegister.com: "A 65-year-old Wal-Mart greeter has been fired for greeting customers with a computer-generated photograph of himself wearing nothing but a Wal-Mart sack."
This is the famous picture that he photoshopped his face onto:


As my brother pointed out, there ain't a lot of ways to go but up for an ex-walmart greeter.

Some people are just far more awesome than others. This is the story of one of the former.
BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Krakatoa: The first modern tsunami

johnaugust.com
The blog of the screenwriter of go and big fish. Email him a question if you have one.

I suck at photoshop, but at least I'm gross.


Dale is going to be getting up at six a.m. every day for the next few months. Staying up late has ended. At night I will be asleep and during the day I will be awake, and when my telephone rings after a certain time of the evening it will be answered by a machine. Answering calls you don't want to take is one of the nicest things a machine can do for a person. It asks only for electricity in return. I love you, asnswering machine.

The downside of the early morning, for now, is that it was nice to be woken by light coming in the window, and light doesn't do that at six in Minneapolis unless there is something terribly wrong, like unless there is water coming in it at high volumes as well, say, to extinguish a fire. Which I guess reminds me that waking people up when there's a fire is another nice thing that machines do. Thanks, smoke detector. Now that the theme is inescapable, I'm going to do the Sunday thing and pay homage to my coffeemaker for its tireless devotion to service, and then read the Atlantic monthly, whose annual double issue arriived yesterday.

The vikings/packers (read: packers) game is at 3:30 central, so if you want to come, you may enjoy my scintillating company at the Leaning Tower of Pizza. I'll be hanging with a major celebrity. If by some chance you still don't know who he is, you'll know me because I'll be wearing my favorite pants. They're brown and slightly checkered and I'll be the most awesome guy in the bar.

Saturday

Actually, let's just get rid of crossfire completely.
Television Article | Reuters.com

ABC News: Town Divided Over Civil Rights Slayings
By an astounding coincidence, half the town is white and half is black.

NEWS.com.au | How you can break Murphy's Law (October 8, 2004)

Wired News: Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?: "Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a senate committee thursday."

Between this and the Noah's flood grand canyon, I am torn as to which is stupider.

The Case Against Michael Jackson - January 6, 2005

Shocker!
Yahoo! News - White House paid commentator to promote law

Democracy for Virginia: Legislative Sentry: HB1677 - Have Miscarriage, Go to Jail?: HB1677, “Report of Fetal Death by mother, penalty” is a bill introduced by John A. Cosgrove (R) of Chesapeake. Cosgrove’s bill requires any woman who experiences “fetal death” without a doctor’s assistance to report this to the local law-enforcement agency within twelve hours of the miscarriage.

Thousands of flags needed under new state law: "More than 15,000 American flags need to be replaced in public-school classrooms in central Florida by the end of the school year because they are smaller than required under a new state law."

Masturbating boys cause a stir: "Sexily-dressed women in a small Limpopo town have fallen prey to a group of teenage street kids that masturbate in public whenever they see them."

Hat for Bush's inauguration to feature solid gold 'W' buckle
Gary Trudeau had it right:

Yesterday was my last day full time at the pharmacy.


School starts monday so I thought I'd take two days off before I got that started, to play edward forty hands or something like that. Turns out I don't feel like drinking, though, on account of I won't enjoy myself enough to make it worth the hangover. Is this a sign I'm getting old? If so, I don't care.

The lovely J took me out for dinner last night. We drove up to Trigg's, a restaurant that my friend Justin works at, and that I can't find any mention of using a popular search engine. That place looked too expensive, so we went next door for chinese and then to my apartment for a couple of rounds of electric golf on the ps2. J kicked my ass, which is fine. She's been holding my hand through the financial aid process so she has it coming. Last year at a this time we were in Las Vegas. That was a fun trip and one that I cannot afford to repeat at this time, which is a bummer.

Maybe not that big a bummer, but still. I love that place.