Double Flee A: March 2006

Public service announcements from the cast of NBC.com > The Office

how could I not?

via the bender of spoons, Praying doesn't do dick for healing people:
CNN.com - Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients - Mar 30, 2006

look at this now

Because it's toast by tonight:
Make your own Chevy Tahoe commercial | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

Here are three commercials people have submitted, that aren't exactly what they had in mind.
1
2
3

The answer to the question: Why buy a Chanel?
This is a grande complication, meaning it has a perpetual calendar, a repeater, and a chronograph. They run well over a hundred grand. The plates (at least some of them) are ceramic.

Here at my school we have karaoke on Thursdays, which is a hoot. There's a lot of freestyle rapping (or so they would claim) that gives the vendor a chance to lean back and do even less than he already does, and a fair amount of these boots made for walking and friends in low places. One guy did the Macy Gray song that got so much airtime a few years back (I have never been able to understand why), and that was pretty funny. All but for that guy, it's been a nuisance in a fairly general way. That guy and one other lady, who did the most depressing thing I've seen in a loooong time.

This woman gives the impression that even if she weren't wheelchair-bound, she'd still be mousy and poorly cared for. Her clothes appear never to change, her hair appears never to have been washed, and her glasses fail to hide eyes that would obviously rather be looking at a much different life. They seem to always be ready to cry. They implore, but for what it can not be determined.

She's clearly full time here, an observation derived from that she is on the elevator almost constantly, so when she got up to do karaoke, many were the glances that made it to the stage and stayed there, in that post-modern limbo of glances, where you just have to see what happens, even though you couldn't care less.

It can't be as bad as the guy who was just up there, people began to stop thinking, their many imaginations simultaneously darkening over the wet plastic trays. And then it started, without fanfare, just a woman on a stage, with far too much amplification.

For those of you who weren't in red america during the time it was popular, here are the lyrics to "poor, poor pitiful me" by country musician Terri Clark.

The song is about the woman's popularity with the menfolk, who "won't let [her] be", and this woman sang it so sadly, so low, so totally devoid of the lyricist and composer's intentions, that it actually stopped time. I say this because remembering it in all its wretchedness makes it seem as if it's still happening, so in a way, it is.

Well, I lay my head on the railroad track
Waitin’ on the double e
But the train don’t run through here no more
Poor, poor pitiful me!

Chorus

Poor, poor pitiful me!
Poor, poor pitiful me!
Oh, these boys won’t let me be
Lord have mercy on me!
Woe, woe is me!

Well, I met a man out in hollywood
And I ain’t namin’ names
But he really worked me over good
Just like jesse james

Yes, he really worked me over good
He was a credit to his gender
He put me through some changes
Lord, sorta like a waring blender

(repeat chorus)

Well, I met a boy in the vieux-carres
Down in yokahoma
He picked me up and he threw me down
Sayin’, please don’t hurt me, mama

(repeat chorus)

Poor, poor pitiful me!
Poor, poor pitiful me...

The student senate, the ones whose idea karaoke is, can't be aware that they are motivating me to get away from this place more urgently than they can possibly imagine.

I'm not that creative in the kitchen, so when I saw this, I rejoiced. "Hosanna!" I cried, even thought I don't know what hosanna means. You put in what you've got, and the thing finds recipes based on that. Fiddledeedee!
Allrecipes | Recipe Ingredient Search

And when you thought you couldn't stand any more helpful webby goodness, here's a howto: How to make your own frappucinos, that is!
"Oh boy!" I can hear your thought bubble exclaiming, "I can't wait to give this a try!" And you know what, my friend, neither can I. Be warned, there is a picture of a baby on this page, so if you don't like being reminded of the consequences of the physical act of love, you might find it objectionable.
kuthasy of thekurths.com

If you're going to Iraq to lift the veil of the liberal media's stupid stinky whiny-baby boo-hoo shrill pussy faggot doo-doo brain blahnababbadabbahiungghWAH WAH WAH!! negativity, you might want to stay away from the spots indicated by the red dots on this map, which shows you in condensed time, all the locations of coalition deaths. So far. So check back for more, later. Without death it's not war, you dang ninnies! Liberals should just get on the train to shut up town!

And just to round out the death and drugs, here's some sex. Well, not sex. But close. Girls Kissing

I have decided that this is the best blog of all time. Cheers.

more

When I wake up in the morning, I never think I'm going to see a story about a two month old infant with two fetuses growing inside her, and every morning except this one, I've been right.
Surgeons Remove Two Fetuses From Infant - Yahoo! News

Crafty germans: the Enigma simulator. You should see this thing.

Oh, and here's an hour of Bill Hicks in Chicago on Google Video

oh brother

Remember tedious Todd's tiresome tripe? I took a look in the old inbox yesterday, and he's rarin' to go. This time he wants to take on a science class and show the students the foolishness of their witch magic. You've got to hand it to him for enthusiasm.

everybody's favorite punching bag

Star trek people are so soberingly odd, it's not surprising that no one ever seems to mention that star trek just sucks to begin with.

The poor bastards have a dating site:

Trek Passions - 100% Free Sci Fi Dating, Sci-Fi Personals & Chat

When my eyes wandered to the left column and I saw "MY ACCOUNT" highlighted, for just a moment I glimpsed my darkest fear. I've awoken into a life in which I have an account at trek passions. This caused parts of my body to pucker I didn't even know I had.

chess

It's good to learn a few openings; not to take advantage of many decades of knowledge and obsessive documentation is a squandering of opportunity. I'm thinking king's indian, sicilian dragon, and najdorf. That, and being aware of skewering, forking, and pinning, and knowing when the endgame has arrived and how to get there, will ehance any beginner's game. The tips in this link are good, too, but they're a little on the beginner-y side:

Chess: basic principles

This is so cool. There's a lady who can remember everything.
ABC News: Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists

this sucks

Botswana Government Forces Bushmen From Their Homes

According to researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, an average of more than 7 calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food.
The oil in your oatmeal / A lot of fossil fuel goes into producing, packaging and shipping our breakfast

The national debt clock is unpatriotic, an outrage, and other meaningless words meant to frame people as the enemy of the party!

debt clock: 8,000,000,000,000 and change

Eight trillion. Conservative. Eight trillion. Conservative. Repeat that till it makes sense and you'll be as crazy as the neocons.

yee fuckin haw

Bush told Blair determined to invade Iraq without UN resolution or WMD - Yahoo! News

old boots: "vote sentimental values"

I hope that when you walk into the voting booth this fall you'll think of all the good times we had together.

Remember those frozen puddles you used to stomp on that I protected your feet from? Go ahead, smash away, I silently assured you. Old trusties, I remember you calling me. And in winter you weren't even wearing wool socks most of the time, because of me, my friend. But were you worried? Of course not. Didn't mean to ask you a rhetorical question, but you see, I'm running for office and am counting on your support. You should not only never throw me away, even though your carelessness over time is twisting my dry leather into blister-inducing sharp curls, you should elect me county commissioner. Because together we can make this town into the place you fondly remember, from a better time, when you were a little younger and life just felt better. God bless the United States of America.

feed me

But is it still delicious?
AP Wire | 03/26/2006 | Pursuing healthier bacon through biotech

photos of the 15 Best Skylines in the World

Somethingawful finally discovered the hilariousness that is Sean Hannity's dating personals board, which calls for a repost.
Hannidate

If our country was actually a democratic republic

there would be better questions at the presidential debates.

Who do really you think shot JFK?
What is the current strategy for when we run out of oil, and how should it be changed?
Please describe the funniest thing you've ever seen.
What, in your opinion, was the result of our country's worst foreign policy decision you can personally remember reading about as it took place?
Where does the government's surveillance of its citizens cross the threshold seperating it from one of those bad governments people declare indepence from?
Please give us your thoughts about foreign policy and health care. Take your time.

/In another world, one that didn't need to be fought against so hard, I wouldn't ever have thought to put this list together, but this is the one we have to deal with. I wish I could stick to retelling jokes:
So Charles Dickens walks into a bar, orders a martini.
Bartender says, "Olive, or twist?"

feedreader

“The days of inexpensive, convenient, abundant energy sources are quickly drawing to a close,” according to a recently released US Army strategic report.:
US Army: Peak Oil and the Army's future | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Want to look at some pictures of Eastern European drug abusers? They're a bummer!

I think guys who club baby seals just for the sake of asserting their own manhood should just buy porsches instead. It's not like they're wrasslin' a grizzly bear or something. I'd like to get video of them doing it and show it to their children, so they could see how brave they are. Controversial Canadian Seal Pup Hunt Begins... | The Huffington Post

Hope:
More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights - Los Angeles Times
Photos and blogging of

A closing thought:
The word "hole" isn't a bad word. Sure, it can easily be modified to be a bad word, as in "ASShole", or a questionably bad word, "BUTThole". Nope, there's nothing wrong with "hole".
But what about "'hole"? If I say 'hole it sounds just like your basic hole, so it's not a bad word, but if I write it the apostrophe gives it away, so there was clearly an implication that a prefix was implied, and leading a person to think about that might constitute the majority of bad-ness. If only there were a shame expert who can advise me on this one. They understand bad better than anyone else. I like how on tv there are little captions that run at the bottom, like "political spokesman". Those could be modified to reflect reality, like "pharmaceutical industry shill". I'm probably describing a contest that's been held at fark at some point. Nevertheless, I may do that in the future. I wonder what they were calling Jeff Gannon when he was the sweetheart of Sean Hannity, because it wasn't male prostitute.

I got to thinking about getting stuck in the stupid chemo room next weekend, and I wasn't thinking "hey, that sounds like a great idea!" So I sent out an email.

How to make a custom TV-torrent feed

Great news. School is out next Friday, so I only have work that day, not work and school! I'll try to think of something fun to do while I'm at work today, but to imagine doing something fun requires you to comprehend the difference between the feeling of that moment and the feeling of this one, and it's pretty hard to do that to yourself when your next day off is in two months. So for now I'll just keep watching "falling down" over and over and writing numbers on the bottoms of cans of soup.

I've got regular work this weekend, and next weekend I'm training on chemotherapy. I'll be stuck in a little room making poison for children all weekend with an unpleasant-smelling person who lovingly refers to the barenaked ladies as BNL. If I can sedate myself for that, I will.

Working in the basement isn't so bad, usually, it's the monotony that finally jumps up and gets you, and that always comes as a surprise. I guess it's the breaking point for that denial I made an oblique reference to earlier, like when all of a sudden people find themselves middle aged and buy motorcycles. Sort of a what the hell happened there, feeling. That's the feeling that drove me into watch school like a drooling zombie scratching at a door, on the other side of which are delicious human brains. The fifty-nine community colleges that run their awful ads during "Maury" all day could save themselves a lot of trouble if they could just get people to locate the horrible lonely emptiness of their own sinking realization that their professional lives are somebody's train tracks to someplace else.

I'll get some sunshine in the three weeks following the semester's end in May and early June. Elko speedway opens then, I think.

ker-pow

strange photography:
Stephen Berkman

I do pretty much the same thing every day. It's had me thinking I could make a watch tell me what I should be doing at any given time. It's not hard. You just paint a 24-hour wheel with stuff. Every morning at six, a wheel will roll around to "wake up", and so on.

I decided nine days ago and hundreds of cans of progresso lentil soup too late (I have in all seriousness probably had more cans of progresso lentil soup than anyone, anywhere. I have to be in the top three.), to keep track of how many days in a row I have it for lunch. Today, you may have guessed, is day nine. I know this because I write the number on the bottom in black magic marker.

hilarious

And as usual, real.
"All TVs tuned to FOX News" Dick Cheney's Suite Demands - March 23, 2006

weird

vulva photography
Do I have to say it?

This is pretty interesting.
Peak Oil, conscience, and catastrophe, explored by Richard Rainwater, via James Wolcott

print:
Well, not all of them. Nobel winners, etc. @
Prize-Winning Books Online

More pre-emption: Texas arresting drunks in bars - Peculiar Postings - MSNBC.com

Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study : News Releases: UMNnews: U of M.
along with that, consider Positive Atheism's Big List of (scary) Quotations

Code Snippets: Store, sort and share source code, with tag goodness

just by discussing this we provide aid and comfort to the enemy; the Medium Lobster has committed six counts of treason in this article alone. But at least one senator is finally putting a stop to this horrifying display of free expression. Mike DeWine of Ohio has crafted a bill that will not only make the president's warrantless wiretapping program legal, but will also prosecute anyone who publishes a story about it. Tragically, Senator DeWine's bill simply doesn't go far enough. It's one thing to ban journalists from talking about the NSA program, but what's truly needed is a law to prevent the public from thinking about it. Classified information has been leaked to a public that was never meant to know it, and as long as Americans are free to think classified thoughts, they can silently undermine the president in a time of war from deep within seditious skulls.

The nation that knew too much: Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.

The operative condition for the 21st Century American "conservative" is false indignation. They're always pretending to be outraged about something. This high-pitched whining has the convenient effect of limiting public discourse, making it harder to discuss critical issues openly and rationally. It's worked, too, even when it should be embarrassingly obvious what they're doing and why.

New Contest!: Pick Your Favorite Phony Conservative Outrage | The Huffington Post

so much to read

You know what's ironic? When we take over dude's country because "he has WMDs", then because he is put on "trial", the evidence comes out that he couldn't get WMDs even if he wanted them. Funny shit: Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations - Yahoo! News

"I'm ashamed of a President who has the temerity to laugh when asked a question about war": Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Time waster:
superbad.com trunk

Wow, cool, et cetera, Google Finance

Update!

That guy who got shot in the head at 31st and Girard died. The lord works in mysterious ways. Ain't it great?
Also, that's only HALF a block from where J and I were formerly in the habit of parking, not a whole block.

So this guy was out to dinner with his mom and they were walking to their car afterward when a couple of black guys demand the mom's purse and for no reason bust a cap in dude's head. This was in my neighborhood, a block from where my wife and I (used to) park our car when we go to the very same place for dinner. Maybe in the future we'll eat at Black Gangster McThug's Bullets, Murder, and Milkshakes instead. You wawn FRIES wit dat, MUTHAFUCKA! BLAM!

These two guys will not likely be caught.

Check this out: "The suspects escaped, possibly in a white car. Police do not have a detailed description of the suspects. They could be in their late teens or early 20s." Great.

If it weren't such a lamer I'd try for a Dick Cheney gag, but seriously, the only thing the cops in that part of town care about is making sure nobody spray paints anything. Because, you know, that would be property damage. The guy who got shot, who we only get to talk about in the present tense because he's in critical condition, is a graduate student in bio-engineering at Clemson University in South Carolina. Kind of funny how senseless violence always manages to subtract the greatest vaue from society possible.

Thanks, news. Purse snatchers are sending backups to the Uptown area.

The story as it broke.

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 03/21/2006 | Uptown shooting victim is S.C. student

Some more of my favorite quotes:
"Christine Devens of the Calhoun Area Residents Action Group said, "It's frightening, (but) I think overall we think of this area as a very safe area.""

"Newly-elected city council member Ralph Remington hopes the shooting is an anomaly that won't be repeated. "It will be stopped," he says. "But people should feel free to still go along with their lives, come to the area. We're gonna be on top of it. We'll make sure people are safe.""

"...burglary is up 14 percent and robbery is up 43 percent compared to one year ago."

"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
- Robert E. Lee

fox news.com screen grab, courtesy of crooks & liars

They also provide this video of you-know-who saying "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda." Oh yeah, but yesterday in Cleveland, he's like: "First-just if I might correct a misperception, I don't think we ever said, at least I know I didn't say that there was a direct connection between September 11th and Saddam Hussein."

print: The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll - A New Generation of Conspiracy Theorists are at Work on the Secret History of 9/11 -- New York Magazine

The top 1000 books owned by libraries.
Want to see something funny? Compare the number of those you've read to the ones on this list:
titles that both made it to the OCLC Top 1000 list and have been banned according to the 4 volumes in the Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature series

The utter refusal to allow anything as piddling as evidence to get in the way of an unshakable belief:President Remarks on Third Anniversary of Beginning of Iraq Liberation

Hmm. Whiny children, claims a new study, tend to grow up rigid and traditional. Future liberals, on the other hand ...
TheStar.com - How to spot a baby conservative

A bumper sticker in my school's parking lot:

LIFE IS GOOD. ETERNAL LIFE IS BETTER.

I take this to mean the smart people are fucked.

Print: "The Framers and the Faithful" by Steven Waldman: How modern evangelicals are ignoring their own history

A bold Iraq war protest! Oh, it's in Puerto Rico.

Watch the controversial YouTube - South Park - Scientology Episode

FUH2 | Fuck You And Your H2 is making it happen:

For Janna Jensen, it was the dirty looks and nasty gestures from other drivers that finally persuaded her to give up the family's $55,000 Hummer H2.

On a shitty public computer that won't let you open a pdf? Use gmail as a file viewer. Tip via lifehacker.

NPR : Jimmie Riddle and the Lost Art of Eephing

we surfs

Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches - Yahoo! News Some would say that America isn't good, but George W. Bush disagrees.

Not that it even matters, but you know how bible people are. So here's Biblical Inconsistencies, by Donald Morgan and Biblical Errancy

print at work

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

When push comes to shove, we make him feel right at home. That's just the kind of people we are, here in shove.

remember to look into later

I was just thinking about the obvious racial references in Lord of the rings.

The dwarf guys who are short and ugly and live in the cave but they got too greedy for the jewels so they woke up Balrog? It doesn't take a genius to figure out who that's supposed to be. The blond haired graceful elf dudes, Scandinavian? The humans, obvious rock and roll Jesus crusader types. The hobbits, I don't know what they are. The morlocks or whatever the bad guys are?

I sense there have been a few papers written on the subject, and I want to read one.

This guy dug some old photos out of a dumpster. Score. It's a bunch of seventies publicity photos for people and bands you've never heard of. I like trying to imagine what their music sounded like. Like this band. Moonfast. I don't want to put the wrong thoughts in your head, but they look to me like they could do a memorably poor cover of dreamweaver. If you look closely you can see the head lice in midair, jumping from one band member to the next! Click to enlarge.

The Bush administration is like Crazy Eddie's discount warehouse. But instead of prices so low they're insane, they're SLASHING the constitution!
The right to assembly? NO!
The right not to be imprisoned without being charged? FUCKIN' HISTORY!
And that's only the beginning. My time is limited.
Unlike crazy eddie, they really are insane. Now the war on freedom has become even sicker; it's warrantless physical searches. Your rights against unreasonable search and siezure? FORGET IT!
Olbermann reading a U.S. News & World Report press release: "Soon after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, lawyers in the White House and the Justice Department argued that the same legal authority that the same legal authority that allowed warrentless electronic surveillance inside the US, could also be used to justify physical searches of terror suspects homes & businesses without court approval."
video of at Crooks and Liars

Oh, but Bush is still great, right, dad? Who knows, maybe I'll help him see the light.

Ideas for downloading: The Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s at O.F.C.S.: The Online Film Critics Society

And what red-blooded male doesn't like beholding the nude female form as vintage cheesecake? Not this one. NSFW, Nekkid Ladies

How could I not download Anus Magillicutty, a 2003 picture?

It's rated IMDB's worst movie. That's even worse than Going Overboard or Santa with Muscles. Some of the characters are The White Trash Piece of Shit, Chee-Chee's Right Hand Girl, Chee-Chee's Left Hand Girl, Fun Hole Chick, and Anus's Woman.

1) I have to find out how a movie worse than Going Overboard can be made.

2) There was allegedly no real screenplay.

3) The film focusses on the character Anus, who is obsessed with alcohol and sex.

4) There's a character called Anus's woman.

America celebrates

Happy St. Patrick's day!

/mamet

not the compromised second draft

The Port Huron Statement - Students For A Democratic Society (SDS)

print

I was born in a so-called civilised society that kills everything that is human and tries to make everything saleable, beastly, naked, dark, vulgar and worthless.

the 'Dehumanisation of Humanity', etc.

I myself can not: Could You Pass the 8th Grade Exam of 1895?

At the pharmacy I work at, we recently had a drawing. Everybody wrote their favorite song on a piece of paper and submitted it, and in the end somebody won something like five dollars at Starbucks. The real prize was for everyone later, when the list got published of what everybody's favorite song was.

You can tell a lot about people by what their favorite songs are. One lady, we'll call her Rita, picked "wind beneath my wings" by Bette Midler. Rita must have a sad, sad life.

Several people went with CCR, and Buddy Holly showed up a couple of times.

I picked "let down" by radiohead, which probably says something about me I don't know.

A lady we'll call Tressa's favorite song was my all time least favorite song, "walking in memphis" by Marc Cohn. It wasn't a joke on me, either, which I could understand someone doing, at least. I don't tell people I work or go to school with about my dislike for that particular song because it's too serious and personal. I fail to see anything redeeming about this aural excrescence, any reason to postpone the banishment of the foulness that is walking in memphis to Elba. If they knew, they could spring it on me as a joke to amuse themselves sometime, or tell me they thought of me the other day when it was on, and that's exactly the kind of thing I want to avoid, the way Arnold Schwarzenegger probably wants to avoid being talked to about this video.

There was a guy on that list, (real name) Tim F., whose favorite song, it said, was "Do not move" by the david crowder band. Tim's thinks it's 1950 and his wife should stay home mastering the art of the casserole, and that George Bush is awesome, that Rush is right, and that hell is real. Tim's also the guy who kept asking me if I'd seen pirates of the Carribean back in the day, if you've been reading this blog for a long time.

So never having heard of this song or this band and sensing a hoot was soon to be had, I looked it up on the internet. Here are the lyrics to Tim's favorite song:

I don't want to move and I don't think I could.
I don't want to move and I don't think I should.
I don't want to move.
No, I don't want to move.
I don't want to move and I don't think I could.

Breathe in deeper now.
Breathe in deeper now.
Breathe in deeper, breathe in now.

The costliest of costs.
The deadliest of loss.
The wonder of the cross.
The breath of life that stops,
The hope of Heaven bought.
The wonder of the cross.
The wonder of the cross.

Breathe in deeper now (The wonder of the cross).
Breathe in deeper now (The wonder of the cross).
Breathe in deeper now (The wonder of the cross).
Breathe in now.

I don't want to move.

Poor Tim. Poor Tim's wife. Poor me for having to know him and poor you for having to hear about him. Tim's darkening the lives of people he will never know in ways he will never understand.

did I say April 17?

I meant May. May 17 is my next day off. I put a little timer over there---->
to enhance your pity.

I had every intention of going to roller girls later in the month, and I still encourage all of you to go, but I can't make it, because I will be at a hundredth birthday celebration for my friend, the late Harold Kahm, whose life's work is being donated to the University of Minnesota's library. Harold and his literary contributions were notably gay, and when I met him, he was 90 or 91 years old. He died at 94 years of age a few years ago, of lung cancer in a hospice room overlooking a frozen lake. His morbidity was very compressed, meaning he wasn't sick for long before -whiff-.

Man, did I want to go to see the damn rollergirls. This caused me to debate this decision longer than I felt good about doing. The bottom line is, this is the last time I will be in the presence of so many people whose lives Harold touched, so I have to go. Harold was healthy up till close to the end. For his age, he was almost sprightly, meaning able to climb stairs and walk a pretty long way (even if he did complain about it). Once we went to a restaurant with a piano which no one was playing, so he sat down and played. I have spent less time around musicians than I would like in my life, and maybe it's good in this case, because I was astonished with his playing. Some, I later discovered, called it "German bar-room" style, but to describe it I would ask that you imagine someone beating the keys as hard as possible in a quick, sloppy manner that turns heads and makes the faces on them smile. The old man laid down an infectious groove. Not to turn this into a eulogy, but spending time with Harold was being around someone who predated all the bullshit in our culture. Harold was in his twenties in the twenties. Many were the nights I drank his whiskey and beat him at chess, and not only do I miss him, he's the kind of guy everybody misses once he's gone.

So that's where I'll be whatever night that is.

The internet's out at my house. Time warner's help line says they're working on it.

I idly glanced at my school schedule today and wished I hadn't. I wished I'd augmented my courage with some liquid fire (I accidentally left a flask of the stuff in my jacket pocket yesterday and brought it to school with me), then placed the schedule across the room and looked at it from there, because what I saw disturbed me severely.

My next day away from school is a month and two days from now. I work that day, so my first actual day off from school and work doesn't come until April the seventeenth. That's over two months without any days off to lay around studying the subtle nuances of laziness like G.K. Chesterton, or to do laundry, or to steam into Duluth half-loaded and hell bent for liquor, not caring what kind of hangover the morning will bring.

I'm thinking of getting a tattoo that says APRIL 17, to remind me that a day of rest is on its way. Maybe I'll get it in chinese, so I can make up a new meaning for it depending on who wants to know what it is.

the earth is not moving

The bachelor's nightmare has arrived:
Don't Date Him Girl Homepage

...the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office has seized four computer hard drives from a Lancaster newspaper...

something awful's mspaints of college life are pretty funny

this is pretty cool

Have you noticed that the legal battles between science and creationism are often centered on small towns and school districts? That's no accident. It's the circuit creationists prefer to work.

Like the rainmakers and healers that came before them, the creationists arrive in town wrapped in the Bible and put on a dazzling show...

[and so on] /kos

So that thing yesterday was a piece about how the country we are today is far different from the country we were in 1941, that the current military action against certain elements in Iraq, (whether you call it a war or not) is the spitting image of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of Russia, down to the shock and awe. The russians quickly realized that the invading forces were the only guys on the planet that were even meaner than their own government, so they barred the doors and ate their zoos and starved rather than give in. During this episode, the shut-in Shostakovich wrote Leningrad symphony, the second movement of which conveys better than any other piece of music the flavor of ostrich meat.

Why we're fighting this war is a crying shame, an excuseless pack of lies that is killing good people for no reason and ruining our country's economy, which is going to get people with a "W '04" bumper sticker punched in the face by me, once the asian banks supporting our sorry, war-mongering asses realize their mistake and in a puff of dust, the dollar is worthless and all those frenchies come over here and buy everything for pennies. Seriously, knuckle sandwiches, motherfuckers. Fair warning.

The country we were in 1941 was a tolerant place. People had different religions, "under god" wasn't in the pledge of allegiance yet, and we somehow saved the world from tyranny in a way unlikely to ever be repeated.

There were pro-war films made, called "why we fight", and it boiled down to that the nazis loved war, and if somebody's kicking your ass, you have to fight them to make them stop. Ask anyone who's been to prison.

Now it's we who love war. The rest of the world, strangely, could be watching our why we fight videos and putting together a pretty good case for our destruction. Thing is, it looks like (economically) we're trying to beat them to it. Iraqis, a people reverting to their pre-WW1 factionry in what promises to be a doozie of a civil war, are waiting for us to run out of money blowing up random piles of sand. And we oblige.

Yes, yesterday's was better.

Of all the unhappy trends I have witnessed--conservative swings on television networks, dwindling newspaper circulation, the jailing of reporters and "spin"--nothing is more troubling to me than the obsequious press during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Lap Dogs of the Press

fyi

I just lost two hours worth of writing when my browser ate shit, and I am very unhappy about it. Go read something else.

pride

Tennessee cheerleaders perform at the 2006 Southeastern Conference basketball tournament, during a game against South Carolina, Friday, March 10, 2006.

the cartoons of mr. fish

No school tomorrow. Hence, after work...

/via mimi

Daily Kos: Know Your Creationists: Know Your Allies Stupid people, thankfully, are their own worst enemies.

Man Wins "Rock, Paper, Scissors Contest" And Vegas Trip With "Rock"... | The Huffington Post

It's almost enough to make me wish I had windows...
the sweetest wallpaper to date

It's a good read.
Print: One Good Thing
A letter from a woman to her sons in the future.

When you think about it, joy and pain really is like sunshine and rain.

notes from my social life

Tonight we lament the passing of the beloved (by Vallie) schnauzer Schnapps, a friend of the family. Though we never got along, it wasn't hard to imagine you weren't a complete twit, Schnapps. Take heart, dear reader, all is not sorrowful.

Colleen is recording her album at Pachyderm and trading massage for a part of the (astronomical) studio time costs. So that's free money.

Someone who will remain nameless still doesn't have a job, someone else who still doesn't have a job got attacked (in a good way) on the street by a total stranger (if a hot one) who turned out to be a lesbian who was using him to try to get pregnant, and someone else got a contract to build something for the MOMA in NY. Someone else is enjoying his amazingly drawn-out bachelorhood a great deal. I hardly need to go into the specifics of that. Someone else is dating yet another Sarah and hopefully it won't follow the trend, even if she does have the odd annoying habit. At least it's not one you can't abide. And the dude must abide.

It's been a very exciting time for everyone around here, so three cheers, everybody! Everybody but Schnapps, of course.

2 thing-makers

DevilDucky - The Simpsomaker

Make Yourself Into A South Park Character

“I Return Enclosed the Symbols of My Years of Service”:
Joseph DuRocher: Letter to President Bush [Candide's Notebooks]

fyi

The best bacon cheeseburger in minneapolis is at the convention grill in edina.

who's coming with me?

Minnesota RollerGirls :: All-female, skater-owned roller derby league in the Twin Cities:

PRETTY IN PUNK
Friday, March 24, 2006
6:30pm doors, 7:30pm bout

The art of Gil Elvgren

I see a pattern forming

Here are the names of the people who offered to take my dying houseplant on craigslist free stuff section for Minneapolis:

Andrew
Adeana
Leah
X
Beth
Suzanne
Tina
Donna
Constance
Cherity
Paige
Rebecca

a personal moment

I thought I'd share with you my list of things to do that I don't do because I am busy creating excellence for this blog. (You can get your own and plug it in to your google homepage like I did here.)

watch cool hand luke again
download people who died by the jim carroll band
import liferea OPML to google reader
photoshop a smiley onto a butthole for wal-mart
invent dinner plate with table manners printed on it
download those two edie brickell albums they used to play all the time at boarding school
download amarillo by morning by george strait
get neko case tickets
invent a voice modulator with controllable pitch

shirky

O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference - March 6-9, 2006 - San Diego, CA: "Shut Up! No, *You* Shut Up: A Pattern Language for Moderation Strategies"

Olbermann:

...the Bush administration on the hunt for anyone who might have leaked word of the NSA domestic spying program to the media. Amid further word tonight that there may even be more secret spying going on than thought previously. Absent any hint of irony, the administration launching several investigations to nab any federal official who may have blown the whistle on its warrant-free surveillance programs, as well as its secret CIA prisons.

President Bush, you will recall, calling the NSA leak a, quote, "shameful act" that was, quote, "helping the enemy." Nevermind the members of his own senior staff who saw fit to leak the name of a covert CIA operative, mainly because her husband had said something critical about he White House..The "Washington Post" reported that dozens of employees at the CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by the FBI already.

video of, at Crooks and Liars

what a prick

Think Progress » Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS): Chairman of the Senate Cover-up Committee

time to move

Gallup poll:

About half of Americans reject an evolutionary explanation for the origin of humans and believe that God created humans at one time "as is." Those with lower levels of education, those who attend church regularly, those who are 65 and older, and those who identify with the Republican Party are more likely to believe in the biblical view of the origin of humans than are those who do not share these characteristics.

Guess what kind of cheese I like
Gou-da
Gou-da
To the tune of camptown races. Get it?

print: Foreign Policy: The Dark Side of China’s Rise

Everyone who drinks this feels great at first, and claims, "It's not bad at all, I like it." But, you really do not want to mess around with this one, because they all sing a different tune a few minutes later. And by tune, I mean the psychotic ramblings of a raging naked bum.

reviews of cheap hooch:
Bum Wines - Cisco

If on your fiftieth wedding anniversary you reveal to your wife you have a twin brother and that for the last twenty-odd years you've both been sleeping with her and she doesn't totally freak, that's how you know she's pretty cool.

Yanni's domestic assault arrest.

We have ways of dealing with wife beaters in blog-world, Yanni. I bet you're sorry now.

the cheesy bites pizza of babel

The universe (which others call the pizza) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite cheesy bites pizza from pizza hut. Which means it looks like this, but bigger.

In fact, it is only thought to be a cheesy bites pizza because it is pizza-like and has cheesy bites all along its border. It also has many delicious toppings and is always hot. Walking around it (being interchangable terminology, as it is no different from walking alongside it, with its straight edge), the walkers, as we call ourselves, sometimes meet each other and exchange greetings.

There are often heated debates among the walkers, some of whom say it is in fact a pizza-less expansiveness surrounded by cheesy bites pizza. These arguments can last a day or two and can involve livid accusations of surfeit and treachery, but eventually all parties must concede that there are no ways to make any one scenario more likely than another, and there is a tendency of the walkers to harbor desires in secret, most commonly that we are figments of the pizza's imagination, even while we publicly take simpler lines.

If it is round no one has ever been known to have circumnavigated it, and many men pass lifetimes in search of the mark they left so many years ago, a certain cheesy bite tilted in just such a way, or a series of them arranged so as to be recognizable. This drives some walkers to the brink of insanity, reduces once proud walkers into folded-down, gibbering shadows. Occasionally a walker will pass, or if he isn't paying attention, trip over one of these.

When in my youth, I realized I could turn around and go the other way, I did, then after every so often I would turn around again in confusion, but eventually it made sense to go the same way I was going at first. There are only two directions to go, pizza (on your) left and pizza (same) right. By this standard, and in the parlance of the walkers, I'm pizza right. Sometimes I pine longingly for pizza left.

There are really four directions including the seldom-discussed pizza in and pizza out, and at times one will hear stories of men who, mad with monotony, go in to the center of the pizza and can then never find their ways out again, and of those who, for the same reasons, travel pizza out too far and die and decay in the great gray plain beyond the visibility of the port-o-potties, which are spaced about a mile apart, about a hundred yards from the edge, and are normally well-stocked with high quality bathroom tissue. There are rumors of nighttime raids on the port-o-potties, but no walker I have asked has ever seen one so much as out of place by the width of a cheesy bite, nor, for that matter, have they (or I) ever determined what criteria can be used to distiguish day from night.

Walkers tend to see each other only once alongside the pizza, because one walker tends to pass another going in the same or in the opposite direction, and when they sleep, to do it pizza-away, just within visibility of one of the port-o-potties, where no one will accidentally bump into them. This is actually a very long distance, definable only as itself, usually in context (i.e. "I was potty away and resting when...")

Pizza aside, the directions up and down are so similar in the visual field, it can induce a nasty sense of vertigo in a walker, and it is thought that a person who is walking pizza out to his death will eventually fall asleep while walking, then look up, and confused by his apparent position in midair, will jump and tuck into a fetal position, then come down on his head and break his neck, rendering him permanently immobile.

No one has ever seen another walker's carcass, which raises some troubling questions. It is seldom-spoken of, nevertheless rumored that those who stock the bathroom tissue are custodians of the dead, and that they masquerade as walkers, when in fact they are anything but. No one likes to talk about this possibility very much, as they are afraid the person they are discussing the situation with will turn out to be a custodian, or that they will be another walker whose own suspicions will be unduly aroused by their own.

Most doubt that the nature of the universe will ever be understood, some more than others. Because of life's cycle, the jaded and the doubtful are replaced by fools, willful and energetic optimists who enthusiastically and unknowingly have conversations identical to those that walkers have had since the pizza was new.

1) I have a cold.
2) A source tells me I was the only guy in the city who didn't get a blowjob from Katherine Lanpher before she took off to do air america. Back when I was single, naturally.
3) Radiohead's only US tour date this year is the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee in July.

Put all this together and unless you're the kind of person who thinks Kate's mouth has nothing but words to offer (that fantasy was partially about how I could get her to shut up, now that I think about it)
and that burning plastic shithouses are great, the mood lulls.

It cheers me up to think that
1) I am just holding down this blog till r2d2 gets back.
2) School is out all week.
3) We're getting the Kirby Puckett media orgy out of the way now, and I don't have that to dread any more.

Both versions of The Office are fantastic. But was the British version more painful to watch than the American version? I think this serves as evidence it was:
YouTube - The Office

The speech Dwight gave, though, had no counterpart on the Brit version.

If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with five blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?

firedoglake: 03/05/2006 - 03/11/2006

Some would call it a male version of Valentine's day. But you and I know, it would kick Valentine's day's ass.

March 20th - Steak And Blowjob Day

Episode two is fair, thanks mainly to a redhead. Neko Case is fine.
radio psyence Podcasts

It's lectures!

The talk by James Randi comes highly recommended.
Princeton University: WebMedia - Lectures

Doonesbury does 'intelligent design'

In typical tragic fashion, "the white house" has decided the real danger to America is not the people who blow up buildings (the Bush family's business partners), but the people who make them look bad:
White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks

print at work:
Time-tested Strategy- The Economic Times

Brandt > Capote

NO!!

Yes.

She's laughing now...

links, good ones this time, promise

Kurt Steiner, Guinness World Record Stone Skipper

You like paintings of women? the official Alain Aslan's Web Site - sculptor, painter and drawer

I'm not even going to tell you what this is, just to click on it and be surprised like I was. Splash

If for no other reason than learning how to write a sweet-ass suck-up email: The $39 Experiment: Asking Random Companies for Free Stuff

Seeing this:

(WARNING: some of the linked content may be offensive to readers' ethnicities, cultures, religions, or tastes.)

at metafilter I wondered when all this apology started for offending everybody. [link, if you're curious]

Oh boy. Welcome to Google Idol... unearthing the world's talent...

Watch Rush Limbaugh get pushed around.

Damn. He's right. I'll make you link through The Spoonbender to get there.

I disagree, but here it is, Why Jon Stewart isn't funny - The Boston Globe

These bites were made for poppin, and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these bites are gonna pop right into you.
I have absolutely nothing to say.

things that are not as gay as the movie dead poets society

professional wrestling
rainbow bumper stickers
two men having sex with each other
a miniature poodle
when Bush holds hands with those sheik guys
a waiter that loves showtunes
a whole hot tub full of men having sex with each other
the mens' room at west town mall in Knoxville
hotel amsterdam in downtown minneapolis

This week in watch school was a busy one.

Monday we got our watches cleaned up and ready for destruction.
Tuesday we took our final wostep intermediate test, and
Wednesday we found out we’d passed. The rest of that day was occupied with basic tinkering and evaluating our evaluations.
Thursday we prepared our 6497s for dynamic poising. I had to get a new hairspring because I turned my former one into a pretzel. My watch is statically poised, oiled, and ready to go.
It’s Friday now and we’re plating today. That requires an extremely deadly cyanide solution, so if we get it on ourselves, or if it gets too warm (we’re heating it), we die. Compared to not plating my watch at all, this seems like a worse option, but life is not as we wish it to be, and deadly poisons lurk around every watchmaking corner.

we wakes up and we reads a lot

FYI: FOIA Request Form

print: The Return of Patriarchy

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

the department of homeland security now monitors your credit cards... are we there yet?

listen to later:
American Mavericks: Program 1: The Meaning of Maverick

For those of you who have your moral compasses calibrated by the republican party's special brand of christianity, here's an article you might enjoy. For those of you who prefer not to obsess over the bible, or worse, other peoples' interpretations of it that obviously benefit them financially, or who don't like the idea of "patriot pastors", I'd skip it.
Minutemen United - Patriot Pastors in Ohio

Would you suck my @#$%...
If I saw you in heaven?
Can you have a sex life in the afterlife?

Si vous parlez la lange universalle de femmes sans culottes, Petit site de charme de Tseetah et Dino, non sûr pour le travail

print

The Value of Literacy:
Science Fiction-Media in Transition

Number of U.S. prisoners serving life sentences with no parole for crimes they committed while juveniles: 2,225

Number of prisoners serving such sentences in all other countries worldwide: 12

Harper's Index for January 2006 (Harpers.org)

Sacco and Vanzetti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pictures you wouldn't otherwise see:
Crisis Pictures

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" --
George W Bush, speaking after the disaster

Except, wait, what's this... oh yes. An actual video of George W. Bush being warned the day before the levees are breached that the levees might be breached. Further blurring the line between comedy and tragedy into a low-density three dimensional object.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Video shows Bush Katrina warning

cool

Some people decided to get together and do the speed limit, to demonstrate how stupid the speed limit is. I don't want to ruin it for you, but nobody dies.
A Meditation On the Speed Limit - Google Video

misc.

See what a neocon sees, with red state spex:

FYI: The two dandy warhol albums that are good are thirteen tales from urban bohemia, and odditorium. Welcome to the monkey house was a sad mistake, and I do not recommend you waste your time listening to it. Remember how shitty the end of 2010 a space sequel was? It's like that.

"I hate to be the pedantic twat - something I find myself saying far too often - but your account of events at Maldon was a bit off." - the most annoying sentence I have read in months. Available, with other solid gold, at Exile's correspondence page

Print: eXile - Issue #232 - War Nerd - Trading Places: Liberia’s Pompous Slaves - By Gary Brecher

repost? I never get tired of watching Women Police in Iran - Google Video

Watch! Or not. But they look like they're having a good time. Maybe they're grounded or something. Pomme & Kelly

Boing boing shows us a cool garment idea: "Suspect" jackets, in style of FBI/police raid jackets and HOWTO build a humane mousetrap out of a toilet paper tube

I think I did well on the test yesterday. We'll see once I get to school.

Double Flee A

Friday

how could I not?

print

print

so bad

look at this now

Thursday

Wednesday

more

Tuesday

oh brother

everybody's favorite punching bag

chess

this sucks

Monday

yee fuckin haw

old boots: "vote sentimental values"

feed me

Sunday

If our country was actually a democratic republic

feedreader

Saturday

Friday

hilarious

Thursday

weird

Wednesday

Tuesday

so much to read

Monday

Saturday

we surfs

print at work

remember to look into later

Friday

America celebrates

not the compromised second draft

Thursday

print

Wednesday

did I say April 17?

Tuesday

Monday

fyi

Sunday

pride

Saturday

Friday

notes from my social life

2 thing-makers

fyi

who's coming with me?

Thursday

I see a pattern forming

Wednesday

a personal moment

shirky

what a prick

time to move

Tuesday

the cheesy bites pizza of babel

Monday

Sunday

It's lectures!

Brandt > Capote

Saturday

links, good ones this time, promise

time to play... guess that channel!

Friday

things that are not as gay as the movie dead poets society

we wakes up and we reads a lot

Thursday

print

Wednesday

cool

misc.

retina barbecue

eustachian justice league

many moons