Happy effing new year

I'm just glad this one's over, frankly. I suppose it's possible that next year could be worse, but that would be some especially fucked up shit^[1].

I have some resolutions that I guess I'm going to share with whichever poor sod amongst you accidentally visits my blog. Of course, I'm no different from you bastards, so I'll stop implementing them in about a week and a half, stop feeling guilty about not implementing them towards the end of January, and forget all about them by the second week of February.

1: I'm going to use my powers for good.
2: I'm going to take pictures of more people and things. Some of them may not suck.
3: I'm going to travel more. Just because business is slow doesn't mean I can't spend money like a drunk sailor^[2].
4: I'm going to stop suffering fools. You know who you are.
5: I'm going to watch more awesome 80s video clips.
6: I'm going to master playing the infected.
7: I'm going to make visiting the library a habit.
8: I'm going to hone my mockery skills.
9: I'm going to write a Fallout 3 mod.
10: I'm going to embrace my inner dadaist.
11: Purple infinity houseboat haphazard.

There you have it. My resultions for 2k9. How about you?

-D

^[1]: Yo.
^[2]: Actually, it does.

Coal can do that?

I somehow ended up on a clean coal propagandist site where I found a somewhat misleading datasheet. So I figured I'd fix it. The original can be found here. Click to embiggen.

More amazing covers

Tori does the Police



Tori does Nirvana



Nirvana does Bowie



Bowie does the Pixies

As a kite

The oft parodied Shat in his most oft (oftest?) parodied performance. It's worse than anything you could imagine.



Can you imagine spending three decades trying to outlive that? For the record, if you're going to cover Rocket Man, this is how to do it:



Ukuleles for the win!

Looks like they got Pete

Tragic. But he should have been more careful. I tried to warn him.

Pretty quick reflexes, though

I post this without further comment

On the internet, nobody can tell you you're an idiot

The internets are a beautiful things. They allows people to discuss the most obscure interests with people anywhere in the world without embarrassment or discomfort. The downside of this is that the internets allow people to discuss their delusions with like minded individuals anywhere in the world, and that it's insanely easy to filter out any voices of sanity that could possibly break people's bubble. Or dent it. Or point at it and laugh.

Gang Stalking World, for example, is dedicated to supporting people who are constantly followed around in public by random people, for no apparent reason.

Gang Stalking is experienced by Targeted Individuals as psychological attack, that is capable of immobilizing and destroying a target over time. The covert methods used often leave no evidence to incriminate the Civilian Spies.^[1]

Go on. Google it. You know you want to. It should also be pointed out that, in my imagination at least, multistalkervictims.org has an ongoing rivalry with gangstalkersworld. You see, multistalkingsvictims.org was founded by the ex-lover of the founder of gangstalkingworld.com because she caught him cheating with the founder of planetgangstalking.com^[2]. He accuses her of stealing trade secrets and they're embroiled in ongoing litigation. It's all very sordid. In my imagination. In my defense, at least I know that I'm making shit up. These poor sods don't.


^[1]: Note to the world: You can't capitalize words just because you like them. Stop it.<sup>[3]

[2]</sup>: planetgangstalking.com doesn't exist. I know that this is a crushing blow to you, but you'll just have to deal with it.

^[3]: Unless you're A.A. Milne, in which case I think it's a Very Good Idea.

Bet you didn't know

Bet you didn't know that your (somewhat cool but utterly useless) Xbox 360 avatar has a url. That's mine over there. He looks just like me, right down to the bags under the eyes. He used to look cooler, but that just made me feel bad. Full URL down beneath the pic.

https://msxb.hs.llnwd.net/avatar/avatar/[your gamertag]/avatar-body.png

Evolving Mona Lisa

Roger Alsing's project, this. I just animated it. This is the result of a genetic program that evolves 50 semi transparent polygons into the Mona Lisa. Mind you, this is a tiny sample of nearly a million mutations, not all of which are beneficial.



I ended up having to put this in a frame on another server because blogger apparently doesn't like Javascript. What's that all about?

Jonathan is my hero

The world's oldest turtle is 176, but

Despite his old age, locals say he still has the energy to regularly mate with the three younger females.

You da man, Jonathan!

It's funny because it sounds like boobs

Introducing the Tiddy Bear:



It's real. I called the number and a Jamaican woman tried to take my order. We're all doomed.

More dissected lenses

I guess it's kind of a thing, but I never cease to be amazed by the complexity and mechanical grace of lenses. This is a disassembled 17-85mm lens for a DSLR. This is rather more what the average consumer would expect the item to look like.

Many more pretty pictures here.

It would appear that the future has finally arrived

While I was waiting for tacos last week, I caught a glimpse of the future, directly overhead. It's a zeppelin that recently went into service from Moffet Field - which is oddly appropriate. Hangar One was originally made for a zeppelin.

Oh, did I mention that thirty minute trips go for five hundred a pop? Bit rich for my blood.

It's about time

In celebration of the 21st anniversary of cult sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf, creator Doug Naylor has announced that TV’s favourite spaced out smeg heads will be returning to the small screen for four special breakout episodes.

Huh, what? How did I miss this?

The shows will broadcast in 2009, and if successful, could open the door for more Red Dwarf TV projects.

Linky

North Korean video arcade

Yeah. It's as bad as you think it is. You should probably ignore the pithy commentary and just let the pictures sink in.

This kid is going to be so traumatized

Somewhere out there, some poor kid is going to go trick or treating in a wall-e costume. Pictures will be taken, videos will be posted to youtube. A new meme will be born, and the kid will be scarred for life. You just mark my words.

A treatsie on the alphabetic principle

I take it you already know,
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead - it’s said like bed, not bead,
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.

(Anonymous, via Wikipedia)

Followups

Vivian, after a period of relative sanity during which she reminisced about her first cat and researched solar power companies, is off her meds again. See, Viv (I can call you Viv, right?) is of the opinion that she is still the rightful owner of the house from which she was evicted in April. She bases this belief on her conviction that the eviction proceedings were illegal and having sent the real estate agent (Earl) a check for 41 cents when the house was placed on the market after she was removed. So now she's upset again

Every time I drive past the Coventry home to which I hold title, I observe a car parked in the driveway. Its driver trespassed upon the property. So there is no point in asking who the owner is, because s/he knows I will prosecute.

I find its position in front of the garage door very annoying and don’t want to see it anymore. So if there is anyone who would like a free car, please help yourself.

She then goes on to theorize about which police officer - she knows them all - should arrest the trespasser currently living in her house

But the arresting officer should not be someone who tried to penetrate Linda St. Pierre after my garage door irritated her vagina. This would be a conflict of interest.

To my knowledge, three members of the Coventry Police Department are possible candidates for this assignment: Sargeant Ochtera, Lieutenant Solenski, and Officer Judy. I recommend the last.

Don't ask. Just don't ask. I've gone through her entire confusing, bizarre, and outright disturbing site and can't for the life of me work out what the garage door thing is about.

Meanwhile, in a different corner of whathefrakville, our good friend and mormon rapist Joyce Mckinney is in the news again. It would appear that her decision to go public with her cloned dogs wasn't of necessity the wisest. Especially since she's currently wanted for skipping bail - this is not a repeat - on suspicion of "criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary and contributing to the delinquency of a minor". More precisely, she was arrested in Tennessee in 2004 for instructing a fifteen year old boy to burglarize a house so that she could use the proceeds to finance the purchase of a prosthetic leg for her three legged horse.

Go back and read that last bit again. You know you want to. I'll leave you with this priceless quote from her lawyer:

There was a strong aroma about her, and I told her this needed to be taken care of before I went to court with her.

Quite so

My head is spinning. . .but Earth isn't.

Well, in their favor, they're not quite as insane as the flat-earthers, but as deadenders go, they're right up there with the young earth creationists and the confederation revivalists. Allow me to introduce you to what wikipedia diplomatically calls modern geocentrists.

These fine people are of the opinion that the earth is suspended by magnets like a cheap office tchotchke.

"An electromagnet and computerized sensor hidden in its
display stand cause the Earth to levitate motionlessly in the air."
Could God have engineered something like that for the real Earth?
The Bible and all real evidence confirms that this is precisely what He did, and indeed:
The Earth is not rotating...nor is it going around the sun.
The universe is not one ten trillionth the size we are told.
Today’s cosmology fulfills an anti-Bible religious plan disguised as "science".
The whole scheme from Copernicanism to Big Bangism is a factless lie.
Those lies have planted the Truth-killing virus of evolutionism
in every aspect of man’s "knowledge" about the Universe, the
Earth, and Himself.
Take your time.
Check it all out.
Decide for yourself.*

Bonus points for big bangism. I'll give them that. Of course, those silly little magnetic suspended earths don't actually hang motionless. Also, taking a telescope to one of the poles should disprove the earth-as-a-giant-office-toy theory fairly conclusively. The site does, however, feature many exclamation marks. And we all know that exclamation marks == truth;

Although the geocentrists themselves aren't really up to the challenge of explaining their pet theories, wikipedia takes a stab at it:

Some geocentrists believe that the difficulties in the types of theories discussed above can be overcome by rejecting some of the assumptions that were implicitly made in that discussion. In particular, some geocentrists believe that the universe is very much smaller than the billions of light years calculated by modern scientists. A detailed theory of this sort is not available, so its plausibility and freedom from internal contradictions cannot be evaluated here.

Okay, so I'll make an admission here. The geocentrists are, in a sense, right. The universe has no absolute frame of reference, but you're free to choose one yourself, I suppose. From the perspective of the moon, earth is indeed the center of the universe. Even Star Trek agrees, to a point.

That doesn't mean these people aren't fruitier than a gay pineapple. It just means that they are, almost entirely by accident, not completely and utterly wrong. And beside, how can you not mock these people? Niall Kilkenny, proprietor of the highly regarded reformation.org, referenced above, "just planned on doing a few brief articles on the Wonders of Bible Chronology. However the site just grew and grew until now it contains over 500MB's of Christ exalting, Rome busting information." Gee. Thanks Niall, or should I call you Champion of the Congregation of St. Candice? After all, he's related to "saint" Anne Boleyn. Or something. I guess that if god lets you declare the Earth stationary and immovable, you also get to canonize saints. It's like a divine twofer.

Where was I? Oh, right. The "logic" required to come to the conclusion that Earth is the stationary center of the universe. Here's a beautiful example; geostationary satellites.

"The elevated temperature of the sun causes it to transmit a high-level electrical noise signal to receiving systems whenever it passes behind the satellite and comes within the beams of the receiver antennas. [. . .] This is obviously very embarrassing to the heliocentric people because the sun is not supposed to move. The sun does move however, and twice a year it is over the equator.

Okay, Geocentrism one, Heliocentrism zero. Or something. Worst false dichotomy ever. "If you're against my idiotic concept, you must believe that the sun is at the center of the universe." Of course, what the dullard forgets to mention is that if the earth was stationary, geostationary satellites would plummet straight down to the ground.

I could go on about these nutjobs for hours, but I won't. Instead I'll leave you with this mind boggling ad-hominem directed at none other then Napoleon himself.

There is a definite conflict of interest in this Napoleon sponsored experiment to prove that the earth is turning....It might be a "coincidence" but the future emperor Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica in 1769. That was just 2 years after the Jesuits were dumped on that island when Pope Clement banned them with a perpetual decree never to be rescinded.

*: It should be noted that loonies commonly write paragraphs like this centered, with a different font, color, and size for each line, presumably as a way to project authority. Or mad HTML skillz. Either way, I've chosen not to reproduce the phenomenon

Torchwood to save earth from CERN

The BBC will broadcast, on the occasion of the activation of CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a special radio episode of Torchwood on September tenth. They're calling it "Big Bang Day".

Torchwood set for 'Big Bang' day

Cloned dogs and mormon rape - this story's got it all.

Mary pretty much nailed it when she mailed me this

this sooooooooooooo has to go on your page as ridiculously beyond high on the WTF meter! Really WTF?

So, a woman has her dead bulldog, incidentally named "Booger" cloned. This makes the news, and a picture of her, looking fairly insane, is published. This picture looks remarkably like Joyce McKinney, who, due to stand trial for kidnapping and then raping her erstwhile mormon lover in 1977, jumped bail by "donning a red wig and disguising herself as a member of a mime troupe". After fleeing Britain in 1978, Miss McKinney spent five weeks in hiding then resurfaced at the Hilton Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, dressed as a nun. In the 1980s, she was arrested near Salt Lake City airport, where Mr Anderson worked, for allegedly harassing him. A rope and handcuffs were in her car.

Oh, and as if this weren't odd enough a story on its own, she was once Miss Wyoming. At least all the news outlets are parroting that facoid. According to Wikipedia, however, she wasn't.

My new favorite site

Retro Thing is my new favorite site. Vintage gadgetry and the anoraks who hack it. What more could you ask for? Oh - right - Tardisses!

This one probably needs help

My ongoing fascination with the nutjobs that roam free across the intarnets led me to Vivian here. I mean, she's nuttier than a packet of mixed nuts, and that's sad. But also hilarious. I only wish she had a real blog rather than a copy of frontpage.

It's hard to know where to start - on her index page she spins a fascinating tale of immigration agents at Heathrow trying to poison her asthma inhaler, weaving colleagues and acquaintances, politicians, and movie stars into a fascinating tale with her at the center.

The issues involving Prince William's demand of me to return to London are much more emotionally complicated. An admission that an investigation was necessary, could have led to the necessity that he must pay for my flight--his worst nightmare. He sends grapevine subliminal messages through friends and co-workers attempting to lure me with jewelry and other luxuries, while reminding me repeatedly that in five years I will be forty-years-old--over the reproductive hill. His pre-impregnation demand is that I tolerate his inability to handle my obtaining one of the jobs I have been offered in my field of anthropology. For me to obtain such status would threaten his masculinity. Because I do not accept his impregnation-prerequisites, I have been called a child-hater. He is unable to relate to me and to converse with me in any way. He insists I must chase after him. I prefer to go to work. He therefore classifies me as someone who places career before family. He believes he is doing me a favor by giving me this wonderful opportunity.

Attempted poisoning is an ongoing theme with Vivian. Recently an FBI agent broke into her house (it's okay, he does that all the time. Sometimes he moves small items, sometimes he rearranges her bathroom, and sometimes he has sex with her), and poisoned her Pepsi.

10:20 pm EST
Dear Ms. You-Know-Who-You-Are;
You have until midnight Eastern-Standard-Time to turn yourself into the FBI and explain:
WHO sent you to poison my Pepsi last night,
WHAT the poison was,
WHERE you are from,
WHEN you received the assignment &
HOW MUCH you were paid.
And the next time you trespass into my bedroom, I will spit my disease into your eyes.
[. . .]
The poison induced a heart attack. I remedied it with Solaray's Tart Cherry, Econugenics' Padma, and two birth control (i.e., estrogen) pills.

So that's how you cure a heart attack, huh? Good to know.

Subliminal messages are a recurring theme as well, with frequent messages from Donald Trump (who ruined her book deal with a vanity publisher), David Duchovny, (who has AIDS and cannot attain an erection without Vivian's subliminal help), and her dead mother:

Dear Mother;

I received your message--a file named GrandpaBo on my computer, with two images of a rectangle. These, of course, resemble the shape of the frame I selected for representation of the book written about Grandpa's lifetime of research as a urological surgeon.

[. . .]

I will try to finish it in time for Mother's Day.

Just when you think it's all yuks, you get to the good stuff - she spent most of 2007 fighting agains eviction, choosing, of course, to represent hereself, and basing her entire legal defense on the premise that the lawyers representing the plaintiff were doing so without the plaintiff's knowledge. We can all guess how that ended.

Monday April 07, 2008
I lost and have been given 41 hours to leave.
My father has suddenly turned into my hero. Helping me long distance.
My computer is going into storage. I don't know when I am going to begin transmitting again.

As I read this I start to feel sorry for the poor woman. Almost.

Guaranteed Presidential Pardon
for anyone who decides to follow
Biblical directive on
any non-human who practices Wicca.
In the pre-pardon proceedings of Court,
prosecutors can only invoke
the laws which prohibit
cruelty to animals.

Did I mention she's running for president? This is her campaign platform.

We've all seen this, right?

I mean, I assumed that the whole world has now seen this clip, but it's come to my attention that this may not be the case. So here you go: Discovery's "I Love the Whole World" promo, featuring Stephen Hawking:

Just Words. My words though.

So I'm reading a review of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, because my other option would be to actually do some work, and we mustn't let that happen, and I run across a line that seems vaguely familiar.

[. . .] it’s a tragicomic musical in three acts produced and directed by Joss Whedon

Why familiar? I wrote it, as an introduction for the Wikipedia entry, replacing the original, far less legible version. The writer grabbed some more background stuff from Wikipedia, which is fine, mind you; that's what Wikipedia is for - it's just a bit strange to see your own words bounced back at you at such an unexpected angle.

They probably believe that the turtle moves, as well.

In my ongoing series extolling the biggest idiots on the intarwebs - or rather the most amusing ones, I give you the the International Flat Earth Research Society. These ones are right nutters. Unfortunately their founder, Charles Johnson, passed away about a decade ago, and the society hasn't been quite the same since. TalkOrigins has an interesting article which features the almost obligatory denouncement of science in general, and in the most up-is-down and black-is-white fashion possible:

We maintain that what is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory-theology...unrelated to the real world of facts, technology and inventions, tall buildings and fast cars, airplanes and other Real and Good things in life; technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science.

They've got some good theories, too. Of course, gravity doesn't exist, cuz a flat earth has no mass (or something). But why don't we fall off the planet? Thank you for asking. The answer is obvious, of course - we're accelerating upwards at 9.8 m/s^2, and have been forever*. They're not quite clear on why, of course. God, probably. Of course, they base their - interesting - ideas on what they consider to be a literal interpretation of the bible.

I sometimes call myself the Last Iconclast. Science is a false religion, the opium of the masses. I myself count it as a begining of Sanity to confess 'the creation proves there was a Creator' so a God or Creator...Exists. From a life-time of study, of seeking out a proving things, from the study of 6,000 years of recorded history, from observation, from experience, from Common Sense Observation, have concluded the 10 Commandments are in fact good Laws of Living and Behavior for oneself and all in contact with you.

Of course, it's commonly known that, until the end of the middle ages, the earth was widely considered to be flat. That's a lie. The earth has been known to be a sphere since the sixth century BC and even throughout the middle ages, when so much knowledge was lost, the earth was known to be round.

* 6000 years**

** At which rate we're now going six thousand, one hundred and eighty-five times the speed of light. Up yours, Einstein.

Doctor Horrible is full of win

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is exceedingly awesome. If the name itself isn't enough to convince you, please consider the following: It's a musical in three acts about a blogging supervillian wannabe, distributed exclusively over the internets.

The great equalizer

One of my favorite side effects of the internet is that it gives the loonies and the nutjobs and the schizophrenics and the outright wrong the same platform it gives the sane. Allow me to introduce you to Gene Ray and his amazing Time Cube. I'd explain it to you, but that would involve it being explainable. Allow me to quote, instead:

-1 * -1= +1 is WRONG, it is academic stupidity and is evil. The educated stupid should acknowledge the natural antipodes of +1 * +1 = +1 and -1 * -1 = -1 exist as plus and minus values of opposite creation - depicted by opposite sexes and opposite hemispheres.

When the theory you're about to read requires that you accept an entirely new concept of math, you know you're in for a ride. It gets better though.

When the Sun shines upon Earth, 2 - major Time points are created on opposite sides of Earth - known as Midday and Midnight. Where the 2 major Time forces join, synergy creates 2 new minor Time points we recognize as Sunup and Sundown. The 4-equidistant Time points can be considered as Time Square imprinted upon the circle of Earth. In a single rotation of the Earth sphere, each Time corner point rotates through the other 3-corner Time points, thus creating 16 corners, 96 hours and 4-simultaneous 24 hour Days within a single rotation of Earth - equated to a Higher Order of Life Time Cube.

Go on - check it out. You know you want to.

Santa on Santa Violence on the Rise

When Santas fight, we all win! The Amalgamated order of Real Bearded Santas is on the defense as the Red Suit Society and the Fraternal Order of Santas try to muscle in on its turf. The chairman fears for his life and has instructed his family, "that, if anyone looks like Santa, run."

My fork is, apparently, nutritious and delicious

The cafetaria at my office recently introduced new cutlery. In and of itself, this is exactly the kind of useless, tripe, and pedantic news you'd expect some nobody to post on his blog just to fill up space.

Fuck

No. Wait. There's more. See, this cutlery is different. It's hard to tell why. It's a bit thicker than normal disposable cutlery, and matte - feels a bit rough. So I'm idly examining it while I wait for the clock to hit five when I discover that the words "made from plants" are embossed on the thing. Turns out they are - potato starch, to be exact, mixed with soy oil. Not only are they biodegradable, they're apparently actually compostable and, in theory, at least, even edible. I may have to give actually eating one a miss until they come up with a salt and vinegar version.

There is no such thing as too much Futurama

Oh but this is a pretty pic

I know, on an abstract level, that camera lenses are intricate and delicate things, but to see them meticulously cut in half rather drives the point home, don't you think?

That's a relief

Our planet is not at risk from the world's most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded.

Thank goodness. The entirely plausible threat postulated by idiots who don't understand science and therefor fear it has been debunked.

Romans Used 20-Sided Dice Two Millennia Before D&D

Many of us geeks take great pride in the ability to recite the history of role-playing games based on the 20-sided die, but what about the history of the die itself? Apparently it predates the original Dungeons and Dragons by almost two millenia.

Danny Boy - Muppet Style

I was too young to appreciate them when they were first popular and too cynical to appreciate them during their revival; only now am I beginning to realize how much the Muppets rocked.

Lomedae, wed

Proof positive of the joyous occasion. They seemed a bit dazed at the time, mostly, I suspect, because everything happened fairly quickly. In spite of that, it was a lovely ceremony. No hurling of rice, unfortunately. I should have brought some.

That's not the way

Walking back from the novelty store we frequent (we're practically regulars!), Mary pointed out this somewhat comcial sign. I present to you "Commerical Way" in Redwood City. Apparently it's a fairly common misspelling, but you'd still expect the outstanding corps of civil servants employed by the county of San Mateo to check the spelling of common words. Having said that, at least they're consistent. The other side of the sign is spelt exactly the same way.

History is Fun!

I recently visited one of these places. It was scary and unnatural.

Things younger than John McCain

Pretty much everything, it turns out.

Define Irony in the context of carbonated beverages

Rising demand for ethanol, combined with insane subsidies means that a third of corn produced in the US is now being used to make fuel. This has caused the price of corn syrup, commonly used as a cheaper and much less healthy replacement for sugar, to skyrocket. Manufacturers of soft drinks and other sweetened products are now considering switching to cane sugar as an "alternative". And to pile irony upon irony, cane sugar is a much more suitable source of fuel than corn.

Thomas Doyle is a bit of a genius

The guy makes somewhat otherworldly maquettes with what appears to be HO modeling material. It's all quite stunning and a bit disturbing.

Make Stuff

Flickr's pics of this year's Maker Faire, always a hotbed of weirdness. I keep promising myself that next year I'll go as an exhibitor. Somehow that continues not to happen. Well, next year I'll definitely be there with my haptic, stirling engine powered, fire spewing, steampunk, ecologically friendly, autonomous, artificially intelligent, l.e.d. lit, rube goldberg knitting machine.

Penis spam haiku

I kid you not. I just received this as part of my daily barrage of penis enlargement spam.

Girls like when it big.
Feel shy of your penis size.
Girls are laugh at you.

I was going to post this yesterday, but it wasn't true back then

It was my stated intention to post this image as proof, PROOF, I tells ya, that Comcast is, on occasion, capable of making me happy. But it was all a lie. Channel 736 taunts me with its blackness. Its cold, dark blackness.

It's not too late though. BSG isn't on for another two hours, twenty-three minutes, and nineteen seconds. Anything could happen between now and then. Anything. An empire might fall. A little-known mathematician may postulate the unifying theory of everything. A theologian may prove definitively that god not only exists, but lives in an abandoned farmstead a mile northwest of Saltdean, where he tends geese and grows beets.

Or Comcast could get around to letting me watch BSG in HD so I don't have to pull it down off alt.binaries.hd.unlike.my.expensive.cable tomorrow. That would be cool too.

Kurt Vonnegut was an interesting man

"There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done."

More Vonnegut quotes

Oooh. Visitors!

Kenny Johnson is remaking "V", and it's going to be in theatres. I'm guessing the original hasn't held up to well - I saw a clip a while back, of one of the Visitors removing his mask. Beyond the fact that the lizard face underneath the human mask was noticeably larger, the whole thing just looked cheap and tawdry. Still, in my memory, it was teh awesomenest TV show EVAR.

Psst, buddy - want free hosting?

So I was looking for a new hosting provider yesterday and got to thinking - I have a bunch of domains and some clients and some friends and all of them need websites (as do trees, cats, and teenagers, apparently, but that's beside the point). Anyway, I decided that I'd get a low-end reseller account. They cost peanuts and allow you to set up fully functional, cpanel based hosting accounts that are independently managed.

So here's the deal: if you want free hosting for your personal thing. . .you know: blog, picture of a cute cat, whatever, with email and ftp and all the cool stuff the kids are using these days, and you're cool with not having 24/7 support, and you don't mind a 2gb transfer limit monthly, and -this is important- you actually know me, drop me a line and I'll get you set up.

Your word of the day

Your word of the day is "Clintanic". Now go forth and propagate it.

Stay Classy, San Francisco

The good people of San Francisco would like to honour the legacy of our president by naming an important piece of public infrastructure after him. Now that's class.

"Lifted", an hilarious Pixar short

Wal-Mart doesn't own the smiley face

Duh? Yeah, duh. Thing is, they tried to trademark it, then sued when some young whippersnapper launched a line of t-shirts parodying the company and its mascot.
They lost, proving that our legal system hasn't gone completely bonkers yet.

Can't. . .stop. . .laughing

If you only see one Papal ascension parody this year, make it this one.

Stop dying!

First Gygax, now Clarke. In his defense, he was 90, and ninety-year-olds to have a tendency to die on occasion. Sad still.

Salt Lake City is odd

Title says it all, really.

I just got back from a weekend trip to la Cite du Grand Mer du Sel. It wasn't quite what I expected. The city itself, with the obvious exception of downtown, is identical to every other sprawling city in the west. Standing on the average street corner you simply can't tell the difference between them. There's a shell on one corner, a strip mall on the other with an Applebee's and a Starbucks and a Radio Shack and despair.

It turns out it's easy to spot Mormons. They're disturbingly polite, well shorn, and they all want to introduce themselves, shake your hand, and give you their business card. However, they seem to lack distinguishing characteristics. They're like polite, well-dressed Borg.

If you ever find yourself in town, you simply must check out Sam Weller's Bookstore. Their rare book collection is an amazing thing to behold. While you're there, cross the street and pay a visit to Utah Book and Magazine. It's the polar opposite of Weller's. Books and random junk piled a mile high, some of them priced, some of them not so much. Boxes full of old cards and magazines and posters, denoted by pissy signs admonishing visitors not to get the books out of order. Not that they were in order in the first place. Unless the proprietor uses some obscure masonic version of the Dewey system that mere mortals are not fit to understand.

Blake does Wired

Blake made the front page of wired with his entry into their Self-Portrait contest. Friggin' sweet pic, too. If you haven't done so yet, check out his website, or have a look at his flickr feed. I'm a big fan of his vintage coin-op pics from the Musee Mecanique

BattleBots are coming back to TV

This summer's BattleBots competition will be broadcast on ESPN 2, home of such fine sports as curling, alpaca wrangling, and extreme milkshake drinking. I drink it up. To the MAX! WOOO!!

Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. Still. Battle Bots. I wonder if they'll let Jamie come back.

pTerry on pTV!

The second Discworld movie adaptation, The Colour of Magic, will air on March 23-24. This news fills me with yay. It's only airing on Sky One for now, so that's a torrenting. And if you haven't seen it yet, check out Hogfather. It's da bomb.

ESA++;

The European Space Agency goes big. While we 'murcans worry about what we're going to do in the five year gap between the retirement of the shuttle, only two years away, and the first launch of our new old non-reusable rockets, the ESA is forging ahead with a new, fully automated delivery system that boasts a fairly decent capacity (nowhere near that of the shuttle though). It's good to know there will still be something besides a Soyouz that will be able to deliver valuable goods and services to ISS 24 months from now.

Gary cheats death

Today's XKCD tickled me. But which one's the DM?

We need a cleric!

Gary Gygax passed away today. Just a few weeks ago Lomedae and I were discussing his recent lack of public appearances. It turns out he's been in poor health for quite a while. I used to enjoy D&D immensely - it was a major factor in my formative years, and I still can't resist the lure of old, beat-up modules when I find them at thrift stores. So long Gary, and thanks for all good times.

Oranges will grow in Philadelphia

I'm a bit of a sucker for historical predictions of the future. This one, from the Ladies' Home Journal, anno 1900, attempts to predict life in the year two thousand. It contains gems such as "Automobiles will be cheaper than horses", and "Wireless telephone circuits will span the world.", but also serves up a few canards; "Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons [. . .] will be arrested."

Who wants to go to Pax with me?

Pax will be held from 8/29 through 8/31 this year, and after missing the last gazillion events, I'd really like to make it this time. Anybody up for a fun road trip? I'm looking at you, Pie.

Is there nothing alpacas can't do?

A woman, desperate to conceive, finally becomes pregnant after partaking of her alpacas' fertility supplement.

Imagine a world devoid of Starbucks

Starbucks is closing all of its stores for three hours today so they can "train" their "baristas" in the "art" of "espresso". Sounds great in theory, right? Whence all the quotation marks then? Well, a few years ago Starbucks installed automated espresso machine in all of their stores. Press a button, and out comes espresso. So if you're craving coffee this afternoon and you can't get your fix, it's all because of a cheap-ass Starbucks publicity stunt.

Frak you, Starbucks.

I need to pay more attention

Sam & Max are still around. And they're episodic! Why wasn't I informed?

Paging CMOT Dibbler

In the cleansing of all that is icky in the runup to the Olympics, a Chinese sausagier is looking for a new name for his famed "dog would ignore it" sausage filled buns, presumably onna stick.

He may be your new bicycle, but he ain't much of a wing man

A young reporter is shot down by his belle at a press conference because of an unfortunate remark by Barama. Later, he calls to apologize.

Yeah, about the Witcher

I just caught the Zero Punctuation review of the Witcher. Guess what. Yahtzee didn't like it. Yeah. I'm as surprised as you are. However. That's not why I'm here. I'm here because of the hilarious voiceover he did on the intro sequence after the review proper. It had my crying. In a good way.



Jump to 4:05 if you're in a hurry.

That the true depths of my geekish depravity may be known to all

I Miss Buffy The Vampire Slayer

If only I had known

What to do on a date - a public service announcement.



Spoiler: You should take your belle to a community center. That's where all the action is.

Pirds of prey crave delicious toys

Toy RC planes are increasingly being caught, and presumably eaten, by birds of prey. Delicious.

Nature versus Robot

Alpacas > Horses

The Royal Canberra horse show has replaced its horses with alpacas. The audience, being Australian, is expected to be too drunk to notice the difference.

Horse absence leads to 'different' Canberra show

On my Filthy Hap Pits

Just in case I haven't already shared this with every single person on the planet, I give you the surrealist stylings of my apartment manager.

Who wants to write a game with me?

I promise it won't be about dwarfs.

Xbox to deliver community games

Dear America: stop being so stupid

Apparently seven out of ten Americans think that nanotechnology is not morally acceptable. I guess I missed the part in the bible that explains how really small things are the work of satan.

Religion Colors Americans' Views Of Nanotechnology

I'm running away to join the Mormons!

Well, not really. But Lomedae is going to be at a conference in Salt Lake City and I'm going to fly out to see him. In Utah. Where nothing interesting has happened in the last hundred and fifty years. Yay. I think.

I love it when I'm wrong

Even if my wrongness is somewhat ironic. For what, dear reader, arrived on my doorstep this very day? The selfsame day on which HD-DVD finally agreed to go on the cart? The day on which I expressed sincere doubts at the prospect of ever receiving my five free HD-DVDs, going so far as to express my dissatisfaction with a heartfelt "grmbl"? Yup.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

I was wrong. The alpaca industry is thriving. I saw it on youtube, so it must be true.



Also, if you order today, they'll double your order and throw in a free set of steak knives! Just pay separate shipping and handling.

Batteries sold separately. Alpacas not shown to scale. You mileage may vary. Offer not available to sane people.

Sell your alpaca before it's too late

Apparently there's an Alpaca bubble. And it's about to burst:

Our conclusion that current prices for alpaca stock are not supportable by market
fundamentals and that the industry represents the latest in the rich history of speculative bubbles
in agriculture may provide a useful caution for those considering investing in the industry.

Seriously.
Stop Laughing.
It's not funny.

Doubt Creeps In

Obersalzberg, 1933. Those pesky time travelers instill doubt about the future of the glorious third Reich. Well, I'm easily amused, granted, but it made me laugh.

HD-DVD is dead

Guess what I bought two months ago. Yeah. Haven't even received my five free DVDs, and probably never will. Grmbl.

All of my friends are more talented than I

Lomedae isn't a half bad musician. Not much of a camera man though ;)

They finally worked out what it is

A century after it was first found by a sponge diver off the coast of Greece, scientists have finally worked out what the Antikythera mechanism was for

Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved

Ned made a slideshow

I'm in a sharing mood.

Ned Ludd? Seriously?

Pete made a motorized hat

He's special, you see.

Digital crack

Magic: The Gathering Coming To XBLA

I used to play MTG way back when. Serra Angels ftw.

The Witcher Gets Enhanced - Should I get the Witcher?

Game Update: The Witcher Gets Enhanced

I missed this entirely the first time around. Prolly because I had my head stuck up Oblivion's ass. . .still do. Seems like an interesting game though.

Did I create a blog again?

Guess so. It's not like I ever follow through. I just post four articles, then get bored and move on to something else. Generally to do with obscure toys. Maybe this time will be different.

But probably not.