| Paging my fake doctor friends |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|03:58 pm] |
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I just wanted to point my friends to Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, because it's got both mad science, funny songs, drama, and tonnes more NPH than I've seen in a long time, so I think some of you may enjoy it. |
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| From the Freakonomics Calander |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|01:23 pm] |
The sale of domain names remains a very big business: last year, Diamonds.com went for $7.5 million, Vodka.com for $3 million, and Cameras.com for $1.5 million. Selling for $242,400 was Mortage.com--not mortgage.com, mind you, but mortage. As the financial writer James Altucher notes, "people can't spell 'mortgage,' but they are still getting loans."
I find this one particularly amusing, because this calendar had to be compiled before the housing crisis hit. My interpretation is that people who couldn't spell mortgage, let alone afford to pay one were being teased into buying loans by low level financial predators, interested only in the commission they'd get for getting the bank another loan, without realizing they were about to destroy the American economy. Or maybe they did realize it, and just didn't care, because they knew the blame would just fall on the people who took the loans they couldn't pay off, since banks are never culpable for that sort of thing, especially when its, you know, blacks, who aren't paying off their loans, because you know what they're like, right? *conspiratorial privileged white guy wink* |
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| Non Sequitur |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|02:01 pm] |
I just posted this because I love it so well, and want you to, too. |
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| Not bad dogs |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|12:07 am] |
I recently wrote about having watched Felidae, and having wondered how it came to pass that that German film was ever given an American English dub track, because it so obviously could never sell in America.
Just now I watched Plague Dogs, based on the novel of the same name by Richard Adams who wrote Watership Down. Watership Down was a pretty brutal movie for a talking animals kind of movie about bunnies. It was, in fact, about a sixteenth as brutal as Plague Dogs and I may never forgive my brother for recomending that I watch it. This is seriously not a movie to watch without a shoulder convenient to cry on, and I'm alone in my room. Fuck all those Christians who got weepy over the passion of the Christ, that was just pointless Jew baiting by antisemites. I think I'd have to watch something like Hotel Rwanda to get more worked up than this, but that's live action and dramatic, it isn't hidden in talking animal cartoons.
So, if you like a good buddy movie, where a trio of guys stick together through good times and bad, only there are no good times, just progressively more and more bad until at last death is a bittersweet release, until you're happy to watch the protagonists die so they don't have to suffer anymore, then do go watch Plague Dogs. If that doesn't sound like your thing though, maybe you want to steer clear of it and avoid about 45 minutes worth of red faced snotty crying like I just had.
I wonder if I could write fan mail to Patric Stewart to get a formal apology for having been in that movie. |
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| My dad. |
[Jul. 13th, 2008|06:01 pm] |
I called him an asshole to his face, and then a jerk, and then reminded him--when he retreated to playing the victim of his fowl mouthed son--that I wasn't the one who started calling names. He's an alcoholic, but I don't know, maybe he's better when he's drunk. The drugs I'm on now make me feel confident enough to fight back when he starts his head games and he doesn't like that. I love my sister, and I wanted to help assemble the IKEA furniture in the apartment she's moving into, but probably I'll have to make sure that it's him or me, not both of us there, when she needs something done.
Door's locked now, probably not coming out until I'm sure he isn't going to try to break it down. |
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| Messages from inanimate objects. |
[Jul. 12th, 2008|08:13 pm] |
My calender is making fun of me. I've got a Freakonomics page a day calender, and I don't get to it every day. Back on the 10th it told me:
"What percentage of you who bought this calender are mentally ill? If you believe a recent study, a good guess is 25 percent. At least that is the estimate for American adults overall--while over a lifetime, an estimated 46 percent of Americans will suffer from mental illness."
I should write to them and tell them that I don't need this in my fragile condition. I wonder if they used some sort of economic statistical guideline to determine what sort of quotes to place around what time of year. Just got through a run of quotes about the economic quirks of honors system payment schemes.
Tip to Peggy: next major arcana cards should feature characters who appear to be aware of the viewer looking at them. |
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| Authorized by #29 |
[Jul. 12th, 2008|01:56 pm] |
"Can I get you gents anything else, Tea; Ketchup; Mind Control?"
"Что?"
"Cup of Joe?" |
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| I watched a movie. |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|06:54 pm] |
I just watched Felidae for the first time. I wonder if anyone out there has read the novel, because Francis comes off as kind of a dick at the end.
I was so totally sure that he'd end up with Felicity, because they were so sweet together in the one scene they had together, but apparently not. Instead he ended up with die Egyptian Überktaze. Who the feline eugenicist/antagonist no doubt set him up with after brutally murdering Felicity, I imagine out of fear that Francis would breed with Felicity, and because she thought that humans must be the greatest creatures in the world, because who else would take care of "a worthless thing" like her.
Anyway, this blond Überkatze professes her knowledge of her breed to Francis, and basically shows up outside his window begging to be fucked not a day after Felicity is murdered, which to me seems oh so much like she must have been in on the eugenics plot, and knew just what she was doing when she was seducing Francis... but he keeps her as his lady friend at the end of the movie. WTF! Totally not fair.
Also, why in the name of hell does an American English dubbed version of this movie exist? When the actors were reading their lines, when the producer saw the actors reading their lines, how did any of them ever think a single copy of this movie was ever going to sell in America? If it were ever released here in America I think middle America's heads might collectively explode.
Pretty good movie. |
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| QOTD |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|01:00 pm] |
"I've been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of" --T. Boone Pickins |
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|04:03 pm] |
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So FA is bragging about having 12 terabytes of storage capacity in their new sever. I would, for the record, like to state that I am no longer impressed by the terabyte measurement. Sorry folks, if you want to impress me with the vastness of your storage capacity you're going to have to bump it up to petabytes. Seriously, what is this, 1998, that we're supposed to be impressed by multiple terabytes? |
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| More political vitriol from the source you trust. |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|01:41 pm] |
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Shame on you British Coloniasts! Honestly, using mercenaries to carry out your radical agendas. At this day and age?! Take a page from the American NeoConservatives. First off, there is no such thing as a coup, we call it regime change, and it's for everyone's good! Second, the hired killers are not mercenaries, they are "Contractors." Seriously, these contractors are untouchable, they post video of themselves killing civilians on Youtube just because they can. We've conveniently forgotten to make sure that they're under any legal jurisdiction at all, so they answer to no one, and their rules of engagement are thought up by Mountain Dew commercial extras who can't hear you over the sound of how awesome they are. Really, a Thatcher aught to know better, but I suppose British right-wing radicals are still enamored of the idea that no one is above the law. Or at least, that no one's patsies are above the law. |
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| Hey guys, what's goin' on over here? |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|01:46 am] |
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Does anyone who doesn't have a pathological aversion to reading web forums have any idea if/when FA is going to be back up? I've heard snarky rumors that the staff that runs the site got a lot more donation money than they planned on, and they're just going to blow it on a trip south of the border to take advantage of Mexican pharmacies. Similarly, any word on if, in the event that the site comes back up, they will devote any time to a search function that works, rather than insulting flash cartoons mocking their users about the search function not existing? Also, if I have to hear the name "Dragoneer" one more time while trying to probe for this kind of information I swear I'm going to disembowel a Pikachu. Lord help you if you speak up to remind me that Pikachu is a pokemon and Dragoneer is a digimon. |
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| So, how serious is this? |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|11:58 am] |
When I boot my computer it hangs at the boot screen telling me that there's been a CMOS checksum error and that it's reverting to default. I have to either hit del, to enter setup, or hit F1 to continue. Obviously I've hit F1 to continue, because I'm writing this post.
My last full computer scan was only about a week ago with AVG, I'm doing one again as I write this, but I don't think it's a virus that'd corrupt my CMOS. I've got the fear that this means my computer is a sinking ship, impending hardware failure is inevitable. I've had it for about seven years now (I think). The battery on the Mother Board died years ago, and I've been synchronizing the system clock with an external time server every time I boot up as an alternative.
I've got an 80 gig external portable hard-drive, which I'm about to dig out and load all of my artwork and music, the stuff I really need to save in case of catastrophic failure, onto. So, what's your opinion IT inclined friends? Under different circumstances, I've got the cash on hand to buy a new computer of modern gamer quality with the snap of my fingers, but I've got a trip to Boston planned, and don't want to overextend my means right now. Is it time to go on the stereotypical commission begging spree on FA to raise a few hundred dollars or do you think it'd be safe to stick with my old clunker for a few months more, after August, barring objection from my psychiatrist, I plan to earnestly begin the hunt to join the ranks of the gainfully employed, rather than the idle employment that is my want. Then no begging or drumming up of commission monies would be needed. I could save up for a sweet rig pretty fast even on a shitty hourly scale minimum wage job as long as I could get the hours.
So what say you? Tough it out with a bad CMOS checksum, or put this old horse out to pasture ASAP? |
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| Speaking Ill of the Dead |
[Jul. 4th, 2008|12:40 pm] |
Oh hell, now we have to pretend to feel sorry about the demise of another member of the moral majority. Jesse Helms died today, hey, good day to die for a patriot, I guess, but he was still an utter cock who gave us such chestnuts as, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."; And who voted against the adoption of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Oh I can't wait for the wistful retrospectives. Maybe they'll name a wing after him at the University of Negroes and Communists.
I don't suppose this news item is going to mean that the National Endowment for the Arts is actually going to start funding, you know, artists, again. He wasn't the only one who thought that taxpayer money shouldn't be going to fund art that might shock or upset middle America.
Edit: Also, read this, because I think the most patriotic thing that we Americans can do this year is vote for a man who wants to socialize health care and stop shit like this from happening. |
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| As queer as a. . . |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|04:34 pm] |
"In a story, documented on Snopes.com,[11] a Taco Bell patron attempted to pay for a burrito with a two-dollar bill. The cashier and the store manager both refused to accept it as valid U.S. currency, believing that there was no such thing as a two-dollar bill. When the patron then said that the only other bill he had was a fifty-dollar bill, the manager said that since it was less than an hour to closing, he didn't want to open the safe. When the patron insisted on paying with it, they called the security guard, who then explained that two-dollar bills are actually valid U.S. currency.
Others have written in to Snopes to report similar incidents at other restaurants."[12]
. . .
"In February of 2005, a patron of Best Buy attempted to pay for an electronics installation with 57 $2 bills.[13] The cashier refused to accept them and marked them as counterfeit. The cashier then called the police, and the patron was handcuffed until a U.S. Treasury Agent arrived to clear up the issue. The suspicion was supposedly caused by ink smearing on the bills, which is not uncommon, and by the fact that the serial numbers on the bills were in sequential order, which is a legitimate sign of possible counterfeiting."[11] --From Wikipedia article: United States two-dollar bill
In the cleaning of my closet I located my long lost two dollar bill and grinned. My wallet is usually full of naught but 20s fresh from an ATM or singles. A two dollar bill is a good find, feels like it aught to be an omen or something, but with my nervous nature I'm convinced if I ever tried to spend it I'd end up in handcuffs. I think I'll keep it around as a sort of talisman for now. |
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| Bohemian Rhapsody |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|11:33 pm] |
I just listened to Bohemian Rhapsody, which I knew for years of my life as just "That weird, but great song from the beginning of the Waynes World movie." While I was listening to it just now, for the first time in a long time, it sounds like the lyrics are such a perfect metaphor for being a homosexual infected with AIDS in the early 80s when having AIDS made people automatically assume you were gay, and the disease was poorly understood and highly stigmatized. ... Except it was written in 1975 so I must be completely wrong vis-a-vis this interpretation.
It's nice to have a completely gay and very popular and influential Rock Star to point to, like Freddie Mercury. God knows I like Bowie too, but his glam rock image might not be as easy for straits to identify with. . . Oh, wait, Bowie is an avowed heterosexual and married to a woman, says he was just bisexual because at the time it was cool, and he's bred. Well he can go fuck himself I guess. Before I die maybe I'll go to Montreux and leave some kind of offering to the bronze colossus of Freddie Mercury there on the Lake Geneva shoreline (smoke on the water etc) which also disparages Bowie. |
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| QOTD |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|09:24 pm] |
"Geeks in their larval stage are so damn cute, all wriggling around and squawking for food and arguing about Linux, all rutting up against each other like they have any stake in mating practices. Some day they'll grow up and apply that same sort of fervor to, you know, emotions and people and stuff.
As their brains develop, their egos will slowly differentiate from the XBox 360 they've nursed from and they will come to recognize simple shapes and patterns. They will discover the world around them: trees, rocks, clouds, spellcheckers. Maybe they will even raise opinions of their own someday and the cycle will begin anew. It warms my heart." --Intentionally Unattributed |
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| Hey people |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|02:51 pm] |
Really, do give this post a second look. I need help finding geologists nuclear scientists and civil engineers to talk to about this. I've e-mailed a number of universities Geology departments asking them if any professor would mind discussing with me the topic of drilling a hole to the mohorovičić discontinuity, but so far no replies. I've also e-mailed the New England Skeptical Society, because they manage to get interviews with a lot of high profile scientists, and I figured they could recommend either books I could read on my own to better understand my idea of extracting geothermal energy from that deep in the earth, or names/e-mail addresses of scientists who wouldn't mind talking with a lay person about such stuff, but no replies still.
This is an idea that's been bugging me ever since I had it, and I'm afraid it won't go away until I'm either talked down from it by someone who knows why it's infeasible, or until I've become convinced it is feasible and then I will be morally obligated to try to somehow facilitate a project to make such a power plant a reality. |
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