newer log
I finally finished watching Lynch's "Blue Velvet". Wildly imaginative, artistic, beautifully lunatic, technically dextrous. And then also filled with blood and death and torture. Why does Lynch do that? (I really need to read "Lynch on Lynch" what I got for like last Christmas; maybe I'd find out.)
Has Lynch done anything (what?) redemptive? Lunacy that rubs one's face in the bloody horror of the world has its place (although I'm not a big fan of it myself); I'd like to see some lunacy that ends in hope.
The sunburn on my ears is peeling.
Sue all the World
Sue all the Children
Here's an odd little (huge?) site that I stumbled across somewhere today. Nice cynical analysis of what Bush is doing in Africa, Funny rants twitting Christianity, and who knows what-all.
Bad goons.
invading countries to bring about regime change. Oh hang on, we do.
42 U.S.C. 264
Mondays
www.irider.com
invading sovereign states on the premise of liberation
This is a must-see for fans of cannibals.
blank spaces.
football
prudery
legislation
mummery
barratry
Scalia
enormous chickens
lustbusters
existing. That way, we can easily lock up whoever we want to.
soccer moms driving SUVs
david chess
blogging
The "must-see for fans of cannibals" seems to be a googlink to this. I didn't realize there was a whole subculture of cannibalism fans; this has really opened my eyes! Can I please close them again now?
The reference to 42 U.S.C. 264 is interesting. That seems to be the law that gives the Surgeon General a number of broad but restricted powers to do Various Things in the event of a Major Epidemic. Seed for lots of conspiracy theories and dime novels in there!
people creating laws against whatever they don't like to be doing themselves but wouldn't really be bothered by if they just stopped thinking about itabusing the legal system with idiotic laws written by idiotish legislators elected by unthinking, uncaring, unintelligent voters.
Well, yeah.
Another reader responds to something I said when talking about Lawrence v. Texas, by reminding me what century it is:
"kinky sex"? What's kinky about two men having sex?
And along the same lines (seen on Alas):
When shopkeepers, cab drivers, hotel clerks and waiters asked why we were visiting Canada, we explained we had come to marry -- and everyone cheered.
Welcome to the new Millennium. Let's try not to screw this one up quite so badly, eh?
Lesee. The Airborne site (sight, cite) claims that my iPod has been delivered to APPLE COMPUTER CONS DIST in Chicago. Is it now just sitting there in its box twiddling its thumbs, waiting for a different truck? Or what? Will they send me Yet Another Tracking Number once it starts to move from Chicago to me? Or will it just show up unexpectedly at my door some day, in a little basket with a note "plees tak gud cair ov dis ipod?".
Various readers noticed an oddity in the log yesterday:
What's with the stupid top level guy popping up ? Are you /trying/ to annoy people ?OK, so what in the world was that white-bearded wizard doing on your weblog tonight?!
Nice wizard. If you like that sort of thing.
Now I hadn't seen any such thing in Opera, so I went and loaded up the page in IE, and sure enough there was this little wizard guy doing a little dance and vanishing. Seems to be some browser incompatibility between my html and IE. So I changed the page subtly to avoid it (IE users wishing to experience it can probably click here).
IE certainly has some odd features.
A trio from back issues of gorjuss that I'm just now getting to: a journalist writes about real-life life in the United Arab Emirates; the blog of a homeschooling father, and some tech history:
Desktop publishing was born and within a year, the combination of the LaserWriter, PostScript and PageMaker saved Apple and turned Aldus and Adobe into rich companies.
(Something keeps slowing down the keyboard repeat rate of the ThinkPad here; how annoying!)
A kindly spammer wishing to keep me from wasting my money writes:
THIS IS THE WORST ESCORT AGENCY IN SYDNEY AUSTRALIA
THEY CHARGE THE HIGHEST PRICES
DO NOT USE THEM
There was also a phone number, which I have redacted because I don't know of my own experience that it belongs to what is in fact the worst escort agency in Sydney.
(I owned a Ford Escort once. But it wasn't named Sydney.)
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is an utter drooling moron:
"I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually -- or I'm concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned," Frist told ABC's This Week."And I'm thinking of -- whether it's prostitution or illegal commercial drug activity in the home ... to have the courts come in, in this zone of privacy, and begin to define it gives me some concern."
Asked whether he supported an amendment that would ban any marriage in the United States except a union of a man and a woman, Frist said: "I absolutely do, of course I do."
Words, as they so often do these days, fail. The court preventing the punishment of adults for having consensual relations of various kinds in private, counts as a violation of Bill Frist's zone of privacy in his own home. In order to protect his zone of privacy he needs the ability to have the government regulate what other people can do in their own bedrooms. Yipes!
This is a common enough tactic these days, of course; be brazen, accuse your opponent of doing exactly what you're doing yourself (ref. "revisionist historians is what I like to call them"), and people will play along. We're doomed, ladies and gentlemen, all doomed.
(Or maybe he just misread the court's decision, and thinks that it means he has to allow people to engage in homosexual relations in his living room. Yeah, that must be it.)
Educational Google search of the day: "extraocular light".
Things you probably already know about I: Government Information Awareness, turning the TIA tables, as mentioned in every blog in the blogoverse, and also various mainstream news outlets. (See also the administration response.)
Things you probably already know about II: AOL's plans to offer blogging ("Journals") to the masses.
Google search o' the day: "rouge black hole".
Why do all the good guys call him "Lord Voldemort"? I mean, even if he did have legal claim to the title at some point, it's presumably been rescinded by this time? The "Lord" thing seems unnecessary. If it were me, I'd refer to him as "Bozo Voldemort" or maybe "Loser Voldemort", or "Socks Voldemort" or something like that.
Finished "The Lobster Chronicles" (recommended and lent by dwl; now I have to find another book to keep in the office and read a few pages at a time). Good solid writing, interesting people in an interesting place, someone whose life is different enough from, but whose mind is similar enough to, mine to make it both absorbing and comfortable. A good read.
Couple of good links to novel web comics from Reverse Cowgirl (on the sexblog a-list).
So at about 2:30 am Friday morning, down at the south end of New Jersey, moving around by flashlight and by feel in my nightshirt and my raincoat, putting the rain flies on the tents, I thought how odd and meta it was that not only was I doing a pretty good job getting the flies on without getting annoyed or muddy or soaked, and also thinking about how I was doing a pretty good job, but I was at the same time mentally drafting the weblog entry about it. Including (inevitably) this very observation that I'm at the moment writing down.
The only rain that got into either tent was a few drops that
came in with me when I crawled back into bed bag in the big tent
(the little boy wanted to sleep on his own in the pup tent;
neither the rain that night, nor the very loud rainless thunderstorm
on Saturday night, bothered him at all).
This was, natch, the Fifth Annual July Fourth Outing, and again this year it was just him and me (the little daughter being of course away at camp, and M not being Into Camping), and again a different place, and again it was a great success despite some rain and noisy campers with loud radios and the Merciless Unrelenting Sun Oh My God Get It Away It Burns It Burns.
Speaking of which, now that pretty much everyone 'round here has seen it in person I can mention that I got a haircut. Not just a haircut, that is, but a Haircut. My hair is shorter than it's been since I was like ten (meaning that it's what the lady at John's Barbershop considers "a normal haircut"), and it doesn't cover my ears anymore (and, by a great coincidence, my ears are rather sunburned).
I kinda like how it looks in the mirror, and it is much cooler, but I do rather feel like I'm Letting Down the Side (and there's this odd whoooshing sound when I walk). I plan to have it grown back to its normal length by Autumn.
But enough chitchat: the Important News is that my iPod has shipped. Or Apple claims it has, anyway; the Airborne tracking number they supplied doesn't actually work yet, so I can't extend my electronic senses across the globe and watch it being loaded onto a barge in Taiwan. I ripped a few more CDs today, and there are now around two and a half days of music waiting to be transferred onto it once it arrives.
Oh boy, a new toy!
Daze Reader points to some ideas about "privatizing marriage"; something we've talked about here before.
Daze also points to the very wonderful Indie Nudes, which in turn points to all sorts of interesting naked people and other juicy stuff, some pleasingly erotic, and hardly any in the general category of "sleazy porn sites that you have to wash your entire computer off with soap afterwards".
Phrase o' the Day: "whole body mating plugs".
Salon's Documents of Freedom thingie.
Today's poem is "A Cry for Rescue", by "M.Sese Seko". We present an excerpt here:
DEAR FRIEND,
THROUGH THE COURTESY OF BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, I TAKE LIBERTY
ANCHORED ON A STRONG DESIRE TO SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE ON THIS
MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL AND RISKFREE TRANSACTION WHICH I HOPE YOU
WILL GIVE YOUR URGENT ATTENTION.
WILL GIVE YOUR URGENT ATTENTION.
I AM MR.KENNETH MOBUTU SESE-SEKO,SON OF LATE PRESIDENT MOBUTU
SESE-SEKO OF ZAIRE NOW KNOWN AS DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF
CONGO(DRC). I AM MOVED TO WRITE YOU THIS LETTER ,THIS WAS IN
CONFIDENCE CONSIDERING OUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCE AND SITUATION.
CONFIDENCE CONSIDERING OUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCE AND SITUATION.
...
I WANT YOU TO ASSIST US IN INVESTING THIS MONEY,BUT I WILL NOT
WANT OUR IDENTITY REVEALED.I WILL ALSO WANT TO BUY PROPERTIES
AND STOCKS IN MULTI-NATIONAL COMPANIES AND TO ENGAGE IN OTHER
SAFE AND NON SPECULATIVE INVESTMENTS.
SAFE AND NON SPECULATIVE INVESTMENTS.
WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH A LOT OF HEALTH AND SPIRITUAL
TURMOIL,HENCE WILL NEED YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND ASSISTANCE.MAY
I AT THIS POINT EMPHASIZE THE HIGH LEVEL OF CONFIDENTIALLITY
WHICH THIS BUSINESS DEMANDS AND HOPE YOU WILL NOT BETRAY THE
TRUST AND CONFIDENCE WHICH WE REPOSE IN YOU.I SHALL PUT YOU IN
THE PICTURE OF THIS BUSINESS,I.E TELL YOU WHERE THE FUNDS ARE
CURRENTLY BEING MAINTAINED AND ALSO DISCUSS OTHER MODALITIES
INCLUDING REMUNERATION FOR YOUR SERVICES.
INCLUDING REMUNERATION FOR YOUR SERVICES.
The haunting repetition of certain phrases transforms the otherwise ordinary Nigerian scam into ordinary Nigerian scam with certain phrases hauntingly repeated.
A reader writes:
The beautiful, yet clumsy, Mitsumi has proven to complicate things on numerous occasions for the Love Hina gang.
We nobly resist the temptation to put certain cute, but karmically questionable, images into the margin of our weblog. Or maybe we're just lazy.
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