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August 21, 2006

Bullshit, Dugg

Well, it only took 7 months, but my Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator™ toy from January got dugg, and seemed to inspire much jocularity.

It's been interesting, because the page has been one of the most-linked bits of the site for the last 6 months, almost exclusively amongst weblogs in Europe and Asia, for some reason. Then, a few days ago, (near as I can trace it), after I dropped it into a comments thread at Metafilter, it was picked up by milov.nl, then automatically showed up on Hot Links, then Daring Fireball (kablooie went the visits), then Reddit and Digg almost simultaneously.


Happily, the server shows absolutely no signs of melting down (er, so far). Like I said recently, Dreamhost has treated me well.

Share and enjoy.

Update: Whoops, now Techcrunch and de.licio.us and Blue's News and Dvorak and O'Reilly Radar, too. Memetastic! Now it just needs posting on the front page of Metafilter, and the circle of life will be complete.

[Note: should not be posted to the front page of Metafilter]

August 14, 2006

Wonderchicken Industries Presents

OK, it took about a month longer than I thought it would, what with my back going kablooie and the summer doldrums setting in and me just generally not working all that hard on it, but OutsideInKorea is finally open for business.

The dust is still settling, and I've dropped my tools and cracked a beer to celebrate, but most of the stuff I wanted to do is in place. There are lots of features and content yet to come, but I think it's ready to pull back the curtain and hope that people like what I've done. Some things are probably broken, or look weird, but I've tested in Firefox and IE and Opera on Windows, and it looks pretty good to me. If you have problems, it'll help me if you drop a comment here or there and tell me what's busted.

The only content other than the welcome message is repurposed essays about Korea from this very site, but I promise that I will be writing regularly and frequently. I've done a lot of work on the design (and I'm no designer, and it probably shows), and now it's time to start filling the bucket with words, Roxanne, words. If you're interested in Korea, I hope you'll bookmark the site, and pass the URL on to friends and neighbours, ex-lovers and therapists, your mom and the guy who sells you your drugs.

I've decided to put ads on the site -- though there will never be ads here on the 'bottle -- and in my Welcome! post over there, I talk about why. It may seem hypocritical of me given my stance about advertising in the past, and I'm willing to accept that criticism. If I can make some money from the site, though, I'll be well-pleased. It's not my only reason for building it, but it'll certainly help me to keep up my enthusiasm, if it happens.

So. Go, and I hope you like. Help me out, my scattered blog tribe, and spread the word.

This site won't die, I promise, but I'll be writing about Korea over there from now on.

January 11, 2006

Web Two, Wonderchicken Zero

The Web 2.0 horse is pretty much dead already from all the flogging it's been taking, I know, and it's probably just cruel to take another swing at the poor bugger.

Nonetheless, I had an irresistable brainfart and an urge to play, so I put together the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator, a ripoff of homage to the legendary dack.com Web Economy Bullshit Generator.

Share and enjoy, tag and remix, monetarize and sell out to Yahoo†!


† selling out to Yahoo! is not compulsory.

May 30, 2005

Consumer Mindset

This is a nice idea, actually. Whack a slider up there at the top of the search results, help you to filter out the omnipresent webshill crud. Shopping versus research, the infotainment revenue-generation cage-match of our times.

One of the things that annoys me greatly, every time I search for some information on an author or a book, is the way that Amazon (and the dense cloud of parasite associate gnats it trails behind it, all buzzing and jostling for a sip of the great beast's blood) pops to the top, without fail.

Sometimes I even sigh quietly to myself, give in, and click through, hating myself for letting the shopping mall win.

So this Yahoo thing seemed like it might be right up my alley. Until, of course, I noticed that even with the bar slid hard a-starboard, pedal to the research-metal, the first (paid, placed-ad) result, helpfully highlighted, was for E-bay.

Ahhh, go screw yourself, Yahoo.

The irony of using a Yahoo-owned service to host the image I'm showing you is delicious, though. So there's that.

June 18, 2004

The Friday Five -- Lazy Bastard Edition

Because I am a bad person, I have not been scouring the permalinkosphere for nuggets of excellence with my usual steely-eyed vigor this week.

Despair not, though, gentle readers, for I have nonetheless come up with a Single Link of such Power and Glory that it will make up for the notable lack of the Other Four, and quite possibly melt your Snatch Hairs.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

And so [drum roll please] I give you... the Friday One! Do not operate heavy machinery while using this blog.

  • The Fafblog
  • ME: So I understand you made a lot of your fortune through the US fishing industry Rev Moon.
    REV. MOON: HA HA HA! It is no longer merely a fishing INDUSTRY! I have now dubbed it the Worldwide Unity Church of Fish, and through it I have married each and every fish in America!
    ME: Wow that is impressive!
    REV. MOON: Fish will no longer debase themselves in gross extramarital usage of the fish love organ! So declares Moon, Guardian Messiah-King of the Fish!
    ME: Guardian-King of the Fish?
    REV. MOON: Yes indeed! I was annointed such when I ascended bodily into Icthyon, the 19th realm of Heaven, and knighted by JaBudah, the Jesus-Buddah hybrid and holy avatar of the Fish Genome!
    ME: Oh wow! Not THE JaBudah?

    [more...]

    June 4, 2004

    The Other Friday Five - Guilt-Plagued Edition

    Yes, it's Friday again in Korea -- the first time it's been Friday in, like, a couple of months, thanks to new legislation outlawing Friday in Korea in favour of having Thursday twice to reduce alcohol consumption (you read it here first!) -- and so time for the Other! Friday! Five! in which I provide precisely 5 hard-won links to some things that I quite enjoy, and you click on them, and everybody's happy.

    Some of our lovely contestants you may know, some you may not. It's all good.

    So without further ado, join me down in the government yard in Trenchtown, friends, and revel in the linky goodness.

    [Post postscript : I've been daydreaming about The Before Times (™DV Polymedia) lately, and if the delicious frosty beverages I plan to consume this evening treat me right, I may have a tale or two to tell of those times when I should have (in the immortal words of Moe Berg) ended up dead in a ditch somewhere with a mind full of chemicals like some cheese-eating highschool boy. But didn't.

    What's the point of doing stupid things unless you get at least a few amusing anecdotes out of it, right? Stay tuned to this channel!]

    March 26, 2004

    The Other Friday 5 Part 3 : The Bottle Strikes Back

    Yes, friends, I've actually done something I said I was going to do, and on time as well. It's the dawning of a new era, I tell you, and nothing on God's green earth can stop me now! I'm bristling with barely contained power, the sparks are fair flying off me -- his floating eyes, his flashing hair! -- and the very earth beneath my feet trembles and groans and heaves in fast thick pants. Dearly beloved, it's time once again to unleash the chthonic power of this internet, and reveal unto you : The Other Friday Five. These are things I like, and I am showing them to you.

    Share and Enjoy.

    March 5, 2004

    The Other Friday Five #2 : Electric Boogaloo

    Yes, I actually remembered something from one week to the next, it's Friday in Korea, and so it's time for another pulse-pounding, axle-snapping, gear-grinding installment of the Other Friday Five. So here are some personal websites of which you may or many not be aware, but you should be, by golly, if you're not. A mixed bag this time, with a little something for everyone. Line on the left, one cross each.

    Share and Enjoy.

    Bonus link : All this blog-reading I've been able to do lately has been entirely thanks to the most excellent Bloglines. I never thought I'd be an aggregator user (and I wish there were some way to tell how many people are reading my feeds), but I am now a convert. Hoopla!

    [Postscript : it would make my world that much closer to perfect if everyone would be more free with their content, and include full text of their posts in their feeds, rather than a parsimonious little excerpt. There's probably some good reason not to, but I don't know what it is. Pretty please?]

    February 27, 2004

    The Other Friday Five

    In the first of what may become a hallowed 'bottle tradition, universally praised and flatteringly imitated all around this mighty net of inters on which we play†, I offer you five links to five Most Excellent Personal Websites, Containing High Quality Words, Sentences, And Paragraphs, With the Added Attraction of Amusing Anecdotes‡, websites of whose existence you may or may not be aware, but nonetheless websites you should bookmark and enjoy on a daily basis if you have a shred of human decency left in your souls, you bastards*.

    Share and enjoy.

    † ...or may, on the other hand, be a caffeine-fueled one-off. You never know.

    ‡ Apologies for the Comedy Capitalization. Cheap, I know, but I'm Feeling Whimsical.

    * Just choking around, as we used to say in my crypto-racist hometown. Most of you aren't bastards at all!

    July 14, 2003

    Home on Deranged

    Item the First : Anne Craig is going through some surgery for cancer. I join Rageboy in encouraging you to send her a note of support. He says : 'I have personally seen pure concentrated freak power save a life,' and I say if you're reading this weblog, you are a freak of some kind, clearly, and you've got to come to terms with that, damn it! Now let your freak flag fly and go do something constructive with the unholy power with which you've been blessed†.

    Item the Second : In lieu of reading any new rantings and ravings (rockings or rollings, babblings or banterings (somewhere between Bantu warrior and post-Bruce Banner hulk-smashology)) from yours truly, I offer you this tale of bitterness and disappointment and the inexorable deterioration of mental health from a new arrival to the ESL Mines Of Korea. It's long, but well worth the read.

    Sad and a little horrible to watch it unfold - an old battle-scarred vet like me can predict most of the hammerfalls this poor guy endures - but hilarious nonetheless.

    Reminds me in many ways of my first six months here. It is in no way an exaggeration, I should note - if you're thinking of coming to Korea to teach, and this gives you pause, well, good.

    Enjoy.


    †Well, OK, you don't have to, but it would be a nice thing to do.

    Edit : Something's gone goofy with comments on this post. I'm trying to track it down. Please do not adjust your set.

    Update : Fixed. Comment away!

    June 28, 2003

    Stupidity



    "Most of the people out there are f--king idiots..."

    Stupidity : The Documentary.

    Any clip that can juxtapose interview footage from Drew Curtis (el Farko Supremo) and Noam Chomsky, and manage to poke Dubya with a stick while including both nudity and senseless violence....

    ...well, that's a keeper.

    See also : 'you begin to realize that there is no hope.' But who gives a sh-t? It's a riot!

    May 31, 2003

    20 Days In Spring

    [this is good], inaccuracies and all.

    The price of, uh, somef--kingthing... is eternal something else, man. But you know, whatever. Hey, you see that episode of Lions and Christians last night? f--kin' A! That totally kicks ass when they, like, die and stuff!

    [via MeFi]

    May 18, 2003

    Public Service Announcement

    Though most people know of them already, I'm sure : like The Memory Hole, the deliberately unbloglike UnderReported is a good way to try and keep track of the sh-tstorm of lies and propaganda howling around our heads, as of course is the excellent and more weblogesque cursor.org. These sites invite you to draw your own conclusions, an invitation we too rarely receive these days.

    Though undeniably entertaining, reading the ranting of bloggers is less rewarding, perhaps. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. Which is not to say that I'm going to stop ranting any time soon, but rather to note that you, dear reader, should most assuredly take it for what it is worth, which is bugger-all other than a bit of (hopefully) amusing wordplay.


    It must be said, too, that there are times when one has to stand back and point, with some small measure of humility, at some of the diamond-bullet stuff bloggers are pulling out of their hats, ranty or otherwise, like this little juxtapotato from a certain maniacal South African down the block :

    "These despicable acts were committed by killers whose only faith is hate and the United States will find the killers and they will learn the meaning of American justice. Anytime anybody attacks our homeland, or our fellow citizens, we will be on the hunt. We will bring them to justice. Just ask the Taliban."

    - George W. Bush, President of the United States, Indiana, May 13th, 2003

    "We had a great day... We killed a lot of people."

    - Sgt. Eric Schrumpf, Fifth Marine Regiment, March 29th, 2003

    May 15, 2003

    Some Neat Things

    Here are some neat things you may not have seen before :

    The Kostnice Ossuary. BIT-101. Tom Vu says if you have no money or no credit to buy property, don't worry about it! It's Time To Bone! (Edit : contains nasty Lego Porn and is not at all safe for Eeksy-Peeky to watch at work or anywhere else that freaky animated porn disguised as 'art' might be unwelcome.)

    Share and enjoy.

    May 9, 2003

    Rocks

    You know, I keep wandering back to iconomy's site every once in a while, going 'Holy bugeyed monstertruck whiplash-inducing lemur crap, batman, this r0x0rs my b0x0rs!' every darn time and then forgetting to link thataway, and share the goodness.

    Today, I have broken the cycle. I am proud, no, humbled to offer you this link to some Really Cool sh-t. Enjoy.

    April 20, 2003

    I AM THE GREATEST!

    Last week every second thread at the 'filter seemed to have at least one mention of Neal Pollack, and how he's tastier than pre-sliced cheese and better looking than that guy on the infomercial, you know, the one with the hair, and may or may not be America's Greatest Living Writer. Me, I had no idea who this guy was.

    So using the all the tools at my command, at great personal risk and expense, and by the grace of GOD, I tracked down his own Personal Website.

    And he's a pretty funny f--ker, you know?

    April 17, 2003

    Screw Petroleum!

    ...and not coincidentally fuque the Oil Industry barons who run America (and its foreign policy (yeah yeah, I know, No Blood For Oil is dipsh-t-lefty oversimplification)).

    How? Here.

    April 14, 2003

    Stop The Madness, Darn It

    Now I know the Patriot Act (quite possibly to be extended indefinitely, is the word on the streets) is Bad, and the Bend Over And Feel Our Power Act (also known as Patriot II - The Second Coming) is Worse, but this, friends and neighbours, this is Insupportable.

    In Fairfax, VA to be precise. The police there have decided that getting drunk in a bar is an arrestable offense worth enforcing. You don’t have to be starting trouble, getting in a fight, or climbing behind a wheel — the simple act of drinking in a bar gives them enough probable cause to harass and subject you to tests. And if you actually have the gall to have more than a couple beers while in that bar, you’re going to jail and getting fixed up with a nice criminal record.

    [more...]

    Courtesy of the excellent Modern Drunkard Magazine.

    April 13, 2003

    Our Very Own War

    The excellent Y0ung-Hae Chang Heavy Industries has come up with a new and very disturbing piece

    0PERATI0N NUK0REA

    which describes in horrible detail the death of Seoul under a storm of North Korean missiles. If it comes to that, I wonder if my wife and I will live through it, and if we will want to. Terrifying and unflinching.

    Still, not to be missed.

    April 12, 2003

    (m)emetic

    Sure, it's memetic, and as I've mentioned before, deliberate meme-propagation makes my sphincter itch, but it's a (marginally) interesting idea, this bloggo-pollo-zeitgeistical stuff. A little penicillin'll clear that up, yeah?

    Blogpoll : Have your say -- The War on Iraq

    Also : Current results - strongly against, at the moment.

    April 8, 2003

    Lost

    Lostintransit.org is a new site written by expatriates of which I've been asked to be a part, and for which I look forward with great anticipation to writing faux-intolerant screeds about Korea (and other Lovely and Welcoming Exotic Locales).

    Once I get this pickaxe out of my forehead, that is.

    An interesting and diverse group of people there, nicely rounded out by the presence of some Miraculous Poultry, if I do say so myself...

    April 2, 2003

    Worth The Time

    I've been casting my nets a little wider today, looking for some meaty and delicious commentary on The War on Terra Iraq Everyone, and found this weblog. Thought I'd share, as I'd never run across it before.

    Well worth reading, whatever your take on the dark days in which we find ourselves.

    April 1, 2003

    The filters! The fillllters!

    Kittenfilter. SportsFilter. FreeFilter. Musicfilter.
    BookFilter. MetaPhilter. GamesFilter. MojoFilter. phpilfer. Warfilter. Geekfilter. Humorfilter.

    MetafilterFilter

    March 28, 2003

    Do This Now

    Feeling a need to feel like a kid again, if only for a few minutes? Do this now!

    [...]

    Do the Celestial Crawl

    On a cloudless warm night, walk around until you can put a nearby building or tree very close to a bright star in the eastern sky. Now lay on the ground and move yourself until the corner of the building or the top of the tree just BARELY covers that star. Wait a moment. The star will reappear. Wiggle along to cover up the star again. It reappears. Keep wiggling along. (Um... notice that the entire Earth is rotating beneath you?)

    Gleeking

    Yawn. (no, REALLY yawn), then immediately curl your tongue backwards and force it against the roof of your mouth. The saliva glands under your tongue will squirt like a squirtgun! You can only squirt once or twice before another yawn is required. Also works while eating (or sucking on hard candy.) Practice this in front of a mirror until you can slightly part your lips and silently hit a target with deadly accuracy. Hey! Is it raining in here?

    Burst of flavor

    While reading, eat something. Notice that the flavor vanishes as soon as you get involved with the story you're reading? Now concentrate on your mouth, and the flavor explodes into reality. By concentrating on the text or on your mouth, you can make the flavor flash on and off. WEIRD!

    Finger of PAIN

    After getting out of the car, quickly touch one of your passengers. Snap! Why waste a good "zap" on the car door? (If you don't enjoy sparks, then use the car keys to touch your passenger. The shock still occurs, but YOU won't feel it!)

    Visible Touch

    Look to the left, close your eyes, then touch the rightmost edge of your right eyeball with a fingertip. (Push gently on your eyelid, don't touch the eye itself!) Wiggle your finger up and down. See anything off to the left? That's the "image" of your fingertip, but the retina of your eye is feeling it, not seeing it. Move your finger UP, and the black/silver splotch moves DOWN. Use two fingertips, and you see two splotches. This is the realm where touching meets seeing.

    Restaurant Super-candle

    ...with a foot-high flame. While in a restaurant, tear off a bit of a napkin or other paper, and twiddle it into a little rod the thickness of a pencil lead. Dip both ends into the liquid candle wax so the whole thing is wetted, then wait for it to harden (or chill it in your drink.) Carefully jab this hard wax rod into the top of the candle so it becomes a second wick. Tilt the candle to expose this extra wick to flame. Now REPEAT THE PROCESS! Five wicks create a tall flame like a blow torch which makes a soft roaring noise.

    Tube of Boob

    Tune your TV to a blank station and adjust it for good "snow". Stare into the snow. Imagine the number "3", and it will appear as a 3-shaped flickering. But then it will start to slowly rotate. Mentally erase the 3, then imagine a horizontal line. It appears, but it won't stay still, it wants to drift and rotate. Make it shrink and vanish. Keep staring, and soon the snow will smoothly ripple, as if you were looking through the distorting water of complicated waves in a swimming pool. Think of more stuff to create. Who says that watching TV for hours isn't worthwhile?!

    [more...]

    March 21, 2003

    Killing For Fun And Profit

    Let us hope that Saddam is gone by the end of next month — and George W. Bush by the end of next year.

    Don't idealise the soldiers fighting this unjust war.

    Giant dildos.

    March 2, 2003

    Orwelliana

    via boingboing, a library of George Orwell's work, online.

    Things like this make me happy.

    February 14, 2003

    Joe Frank

    I'd never heard of this guy before today, but trust me, [this is good].

    "The world of Joe Frank is a wildly entertaining surrealistic universe...hilarious, unsettling, zany, powerful, moving and perhaps the most unique, inventive and effective use of radio since Orson Welles convinced much of America that there was a "War of the Worlds."

    [via Boing Boing]

    February 10, 2003

    Pointing

    It's strange, but at precisely the same moment as I'm pointing to this


    I have this eerie and slightly unpleasant feeling that some ex-girlfriend of mine somewhere is pointing to this

    It's a world wide web! Neat!

    February 8, 2003

    I keep doing this...

    I keep linking to Fishrush, because I love it. You know, in a manly way.

    It's a floor wax and a dessert topping, and can be enjoyed equally with either spoon or fork. And it makes me laugh, which in these dark times is a be-yoo-tiful thing.

    Wanderings

    This guy's on a trip around the planet, and his travel diaries (full of the tales like this latest of difficult defecations, hiking hardships, and all manner of mad and unpleasant things one puts oneself through on a daily basis when backpacking around the world) make me feel like hitting the road again.

    Also : "lots of nice pictures too, including penis gourds and big stone penises at a fertility temple, the big jars of Laos, the big heads of Easter Island, dog eating and dried llama foetuses."

    Domesticity is wearisome, some days. Particularly on those days you find yourself bickering with your spouse about everything and nothing. Oh, to be sh-tting in a trench latrine with snowflakes swirling around your tender bits on the side of a mountain somewhere...

    February 5, 2003

    Hey

    Hey, while I'm at it, Exploding Dog is really good and stuff, too. But you probably already knew that.

    I could learn to like this linking without the commentary schtick... Emptybottle Lite! Now with even more sh-t that you don't care about!

    February 4, 2003

    American Pictures

    Occasionally I find stuff that I want to share, and this almost resembles a weblog for a minute or two.

    Go look at some American pictures, if you're so inclined. I don't know a damn thing about photography, but I know what I like.

    February 2, 2003

    Dynamics

    Like quonsar said, not necessarily Metafilter at it's best, but certainly at it's most interesting, in some ways. When the WTC was hit, when the bomb went off in Bali, and today, to offer some examples : all have been moments when it was fascinating to read the raw responses of people to tragedy, to watch how the community dealt with it, to see the both the maudlin sentimentality and the black humour, the heartfelt grief and the political opportunism, the whole sweep of emotion that folks feel when they are hammered by unexpected loss, all packaged up in one neat blue thread.

    January 25, 2003

    Happy Happy


    Go pass on some felicitations
    to one of the good ones, won't you? Happy Birthday, Jonathon, ya bastard†!






    † Aussie-style camaraderie. Use only as directed. Void where prohibited by law.

    January 20, 2003

    Scraping the Resin

    Dong! Resin! Speaks!

    [May not be suitable for children. Void where prohibited by law. Do not operate heavy machinery while taking dong_resin.]

    Also : ARE WAR PROTESTS UNPATRIOTIC?

    I voted yes, yes it is unpatriotic to protest against killing, just 'cause I like to play the irredeemable asshole. Apparently about a thousand other wacky funsters had voted the same way. Oh those effervescent yanks, full of happy hijinks. God bless 'em, eh?

    When I actually tried to leave a comment about how patently undemocratic (if predictable) the very implications of posing a question like that were, I got this :

    CDO.Message.1 error '80070005' Access is denied. /m/inc/std.inc, line 433

    That's about right.

    Hurt

    'Hurt' : Johnny Cash covering NIN. Gorgeous. Quicktime, 42 Mb.

    [via MeFi]

    January 15, 2003

    Ginsbergery

    In the comments attached to this post (made while feeling no pain whatsoever last night, but I'm a great believer in blogging verité, so it stands), fellow 9622.net monkeyshiner readymade links to a Real Life Tale of beat poet encounters, drugs, and nudity. Some of my favorite things, those. Hooray! Go, read!

    August 22, 2002

    Essential

    If for some reason you're not reading cursor.org each and every ever-lovin' day, well, I respectfully recommend that you start. Knowledge is power. Stoke the fires of your righteous resentment, then get the heck out there and try and make a difference, you big silly, you!

    Or not. It's your call. I'm just sayin'.

    Also, this, I like.

    Since the FBI warning is unnecessary to honest citizens and is ineffective in thwarting thieves, that means that last year the FBI stole 4,266,444 hours from American citizens. Assuming an average (don't ask which type of average) salary of $50,000 in the US, that means the FBI stole $106,661,111.11 in lost productivity just from videotape viewers. [more...]

    And : I want one of these. I'd love to see peoples' faces as I arachno-commute to the university every morning driving that sucker... Almost enough to make me want to move back to my sh-tty little logging-industry hometown. Almost.

    August 19, 2002

    Today's MeFi Gold

    Today's Metafilter must-read : cultural relativism and Lisbon architecture, amongst other things.

    Edit : Also, I finally managed to articulate what annoys me about conversations about 'blogging and journalism'. My usual Philosophy 101 maunderings, and I may well be talking crap, as usual, but I think it makes some sense.

    August 11, 2002

    Perspective

    Some of this, in a glass, with some soda.

    Watch them be born, watch them die.

    Repeat as necessary.

    August 1, 2002

    This could be fun...

    It reminds me, at this early stage, of a hardboiled Chandleresque quantum-physics detective novel (yeah, before Dirk Gently) that me and a couple of guys I lived with in university were writing (and erasing) in installments on the messageboard of my dorm room. That was fun, and so is this.

    But I had no idea what to do with Bea Arthur suddenly appearing...

    July 31, 2002

    The Nightmare is Over

    Via robot wisdom, this prophetic bit of japery from January 2001. One of those 'tears of laughter or just tears?' kinda things.

    Ghost in the Machine

    Is BurningBird back? Sorta, kinda, and this makes me happy all out of proportion to what I might have expected. There's been a disconcerting Shelley-shaped hole in the neighbourhood of late. She asks "Just how real is all of this?" and I haven't really got an answer for that. The first thing that pops into my mind (the first thing being what I usually go with, as you're probably aware if you've been reading my crap for any length of time) : "f--k art, let's dance!"

    (I don't know if Shelley is still working on ThreadNeedle, but if she is, here are some very cool blogthread visualization ideas that someone geekier and smarter than myself might like to investigate.

    I've been thinking about and researching this a bit today after following David's pointer to Jon.

    Have a look at PeopleGarden and WebFan. I find WebFan in particular very intuitive.

    The projects at the MIT Social Media Group site are also interesting.

    And Warren Sack's Conversation Map Interface for Very Large Scale Conversations is working again on the sample Usenet data, since the last time I checked. Amazing work. )

    July 26, 2002

    The First AI Blog

    This blog is written by a bot named HAL, a bot that has been infused exclusively with the collected lexical wisdom of the SA Goons. I like it, and I think it may well be the first-ever weblog written by a non-human.

    But I think Shelley might have something when she talks about this weblogging thing getting a little over-ripe.

    July 25, 2002

    Suit Up!

    This strikes me as what text-entry will be like when we get those headgear-and-gauntlet cyberspace rigs that movies keep telling us we're gonna have any time now.

    Very freaking cool. And you can download it!

    [via sylloge]

    Edit : It took my like a minute to 'type' 'Holy Bugsh-t', but man I had fun doing it, and I can see how practice would bring your speed way up. Once again - freaking cool.

    July 20, 2002

    Link Dump

    Item The First : the tribulations of being a porn-vid store clerk. "Apparently in the old days it was different - no security cameras and longer dead spells. My manager used to clerk then, and she said that having to clean come out of the corners and off the walls was pretty routine."
    [Edit : MeFi discussion here.]

    Item The Next : Would it be a bad thing for me to secretly hope that this guy actually is Christ Returned?

    Some Other Items : It’s like they aren’t even trying to pretend anymore.

    "Bush's job approval rating stands at 72 percent, virtually unchanged from a month ago. An equally large proportion of people still view the president as honest and trustworthy..."

    "And this, basically, is the story of the spectacular unfairness with which moneymaking opportunities are lavished on the politically connected. It is the story of a man who has been rewarded for repeated failures by having money shot at him through a fire hose. It is the story of a man who talks with a straight face about having "earned" a fortune of tens of millions of dollars, without having ever done an honest day’s work in his life. "

    And now for something completely different : Listen to the 'bottle (or any other web page). No, seriously. I was hoping I'd sound a bit more like, you know, Motorhead or something, but this is pretty cool anyway.

    July 16, 2002

    Weblog lovin'

    I don't normally do stuff like this, but I reckon it would be a Good Thing™ to stop by BurningBird's place and give her a little of that downhome weblog-lovin'. If we really are a community (and the recent outpouring of goodwill for Marek and Rageboy in their various hours of need would indicate to me that we are), then when someone is feeling like sh-t, I think it's the right thing to do to go tell 'em some dirty jokes or something.

    Scoot!

    July 15, 2002

    Oxford Internet Institute

    Oxford Internet Institute :

    The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is the world’s first truly multidisciplinary Internet institute based in a major university. Exclusively devoted to the study of the impact of the Internet on society, the OII aims to put Oxford, the UK and Europe at the centre of debates about how the Internet could and should develop.

    A big buncha UBlog wannabes, these folks. Who the hell's ever heard of Oxford?

    July 14, 2002

    Marek

    Marek is unwell - leave your best wishes for his speedy recovery here. Get well soon, you crazy bastard!

    July 10, 2002

    Worth Reading

    I'm not sure if it's fiction or memoir, but this piece from Catfish on the Table, a blog I recently found though my recent referrers gizmos down in the righthand sidebar, is well worth your time. Puts me in mind of the memoirs of Frank McCourt, and as well written, 'tis.

    Also : "Have you ever tried to get into a girl's pants when her main intellectual influence is Steinbeck?" Mad, hilarious, brilliant sh-t from Alex.

    July 9, 2002

    Garbage

    Joey (aka the Mighty Accordian Guy) has some pics of the fallout (literally) from the garbage strike in Toronto.

    T.O. trash pile courtesy of Accordionguy

    I empathize, cap'n. This is the way my neighbourhood looks all the time. Lovely Bugok, vacationland of the rich and famous. Damn right I'm angry.

    Some amusing crap

    Here's some amusing crap old and new to divert your attention from the fact that WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!

    No, really.

    Scrollbar racing.

    A brief history of the codpiece. (I tried to start a fashion trend (being the trendmonger I am and always have been *snort*) when I was in university to Bring Back the Codpiece. It failed.)

    WebCollage: Exterminate All Rational Thought

    The power and the beauty of Crazy Drunk Guy. Have you accepted Crazy Drunk Guy as your Personal Saviour?

    Hope you enjoyed that. I sure as heck did.

    July 3, 2002

    Grooviness Potential

    The sheer grooviness potential of this plus this makes my bits tingle.

    Trippy

    Via Mefi, [this is good] for blowing the carbon out of the old mental valves.

    June 30, 2002

    Trackbackingizer

    Go say hi to Shelley. Why? 'cause.

    June 26, 2002

    I've said it before...

    ..and I'll say it again : fishrush is a place or an idea or a condition or possibly an affliction where fast fish slow down, or slow fish speed up, or some goddamn thing or other, and I don't claim to understand what the hell is going on, but I tells ya, I sez to ya : I like it.

    Just a reminder

    The discussion about 'Thread The Needle', a tool to enable tracking of interblog conversations being built by Shelley Powers (aka Burningbird) continues here, and the discussion is an interesting one indeed.

    Your two bits are requested.

    [Further to this.]

    June 22, 2002

    You reckon?

    "How weblogs straddle personal and social spaces and the potential implications for developing new communities."

    Tom from Plasticbag.org says some pretty cool stuff about some things. Powerpoint, 2.8 Mb. (That's funny, isn't it? I wonder who the presentees were...)

    Anyway, a quote :

    The best, the strongest, the most creative communities can emerge out of the interconnected nature of individual spaces.

    Making great communities is about celebrating the individuals within them - giving them spaces that they can use to show off their creativity and passions…

    And in return these individuals will themselves build a vibrant, creative and passionate community…

    No argument here.

    June 18, 2002

    Not strictly legal...

    ...so don't tell anyone, OK? But this is incredibly cool, particularly for someone, like myself, who has to ride the subway for 90 minutes to get to the nearest English bookstore...

    [via wood s lot]

    Dahmer Comix

    Via this MeFi thread, this is gripping. I just don't know if it's fiction or not. A lot of groovy stuff here and here.

    June 15, 2002

    Is it safe? Is it safe?

    I am way keen to see Shelley's new project in action - I've maundered and pondered and arm-waved about something like this for ages (which in blogspace years is about 15 minutes, but still).

    I hope she won't mind me referring to it as The Hot Needle of Inquiry, though.

    June 10, 2002

    Blogroots is live

    I hope this turns out to be as interesting as I hope it will be. I'm not sure how it is meant to tie into the book, and I would be very disappointed if it has been created as a promotional tool.

    But, given the healthy lack of obsession with commercialism and the teen spirit evinced by the folks in charge, as far as I've seen, anyway, I suspect this will not be the case. I've been checking damn near daily to see what blogroots was going to be since I first heard about it, and I just found out it was up and running from a Metatalk post.

    *sigh*

    Ah well, I'm happy to have a new place to drone on endlessly about my ever-so-important ideas! Whee! Go go gadget codebase!

    Repoland

    "RepoLand.

    This is my work, my words, the years slamming the lines down hard as concrete hitting the pillow. After all the books, the chapbooks, the magazines…this is where I want the words to be.

    Free. Accessible. In front of your face.

    Rather than the lag time of a book – which is always a couple years – my stuff will be here within hours of being written. It’s "Smash Or Trash."

    This is the new small magazine, the new small press – your eyes will make it happen or disappear.

    Oh yeah. I like that.

    There is more on this site than any two of my books. I like the immediacy – you want it, you got it. Or. One click & you’re out of my world.

    But I’d rather you hang on.

    Fill up an ashtray."

    I like this.

    Go, little fishy!

    Fishrush is always doing interesting and amusing things. This is pretty super-cool, I reckon. Expect imitations, but accept no substitute!

    June 9, 2002

    As they say in the movies : Holy sh1t!

    This app is, hands-down, about the most amazing thing I've seen this week. Broadband seems to be a prerequisite, but if you've got a fat pipe, download the demo and have a look.

    Holy sh-t.

    June 7, 2002

    Some Goodies

    With thanks to Lia, the Queen of Manila, these two cool things :

    Friend snarkout goes off all erudite and produces a fine and fascinating essay about Korea and brainwashing America's understanding of the war that puts me to shame.

    "The Ultimate and Authoritative Guide to Life in Korea, as Gleaned from About a Dozen Recent Popular Movies."

    June 6, 2002

    Modern Living and More

    Very clever, very interesting, very short animations at hoogerbrugge.com : two of my favorites are Modern Living #74 and #79, but there are too many slightly bent little pieces of dream-logic art here to point to just a few. Go browse around.

    Go on, now.

    Shoo!

    June 3, 2002

    Shaving it down to the essentials

    Mark Fiore. Good.

    June 2, 2002

    Trail Mix

    A little summary of some of my thematically linked wanderings this evening...

    Student to be put on trial for heckling Bush I...

    .."At some point I think Bush made a reference to Nicaragua," said Kenneth Houp, one of Markovich's attorneys. "That's when Markovich stood up and yelled (an expletive) and was hauled off by the gendarmes."

    What was that pesky f--king thing called again? The constitution?

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

    Bill Bennett to Noam : Jane, you ignorant slut.

    "Noam Chomsky : ...Well, for example, the United States happens to be the only state in the world that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism, would have been condemned by the Security Council, except that it vetoed the resolution. This referred to the U.S. terrorist war against Nicaragua, the court ordered the United States to desist and pay reparations. The U.S. responded by immediately escalating the crimes, including first official orders to attack what are called soft targets -- undefended civilian targets. This is massive terrorism."

    Bennett : Yeah, well you're a big poopyhead! Nyah!†

    Bush II, meanwhile, is back to his usual jukes-and-kallikaks action :

    "During a conversation between the two presidents, George W. Bush, 55, (USA) and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 71, (Brazil), Bush bewildered his colleague with the question "Do you have blacks, too?"

    As the search for a scapegoat other than the blindingly obvious unelected pResidential one really gets underway :

    Dear Director Mueller:

    I feel at this point that I have to put my concerns in writing concerning the important topic of the FBI's response to evidence of terrorist activity in the United States prior to September 11th. The issues are fundamentally ones of INTEGRITY and go to the heart of the FBI's law enforcement mission and mandate.

    [...]

    To get to the point, I have deep concerns that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring.

    [...]

    I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mis-characterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons...

    What is happening to your country, my American friends? How sad it is to watch it all fall slowly apart.


    †OK, I made that part up. See, I told you I wasn't a journalist!

    The Birds!

    How the heck did I get a referral from here? No WonderChicken listed, I looked. Funny ha-ha and the other one too.

    June 1, 2002

    A request for assistance

    Shelley has asked : "If you work with Linux (all flavors), Darwin, Solaris, HP UX, FreeBSD, etc. - any version of UNIX - and you have a tip or trick based on the following subjects, could you please send me an email with your suggestion [...] If you're the first with a tip, I'll make sure you're accredited for it in the book. I need to get these chapters finished next week, so I'm hoping to get tips and tricks this weekend."

    If you're one of them Unixfolk, please go help the 'Bird - you'll get a BurningBird™ Brand Flame Retardant Beanie*!

    *not really, but you will get credited in her book.

    May 29, 2002

    Well, I guess somebody was listening...

    or

    Great minds think alike.

    I had this idea recently about using Daypop or Blogdex to track ideas and conversations, and lo and behold, someone's written something that is a first step in that direction. I have implemented it here, to give it a whirl. The magic may take a while to appear, as the script runs after the page is fully loaded, and my instant referrer doodad is acting up a bit. When it does load, click on the little [b]'s beside any link to see who else is talking about that link...

    The toy erroneously puts a Blogdex [b] beside my category links, too, which I'll try to fix tomorrow, but otherwise it seems pretty cool. Let me know if it floats your boat or chafes your scrote (or appropriate other body part, as required).

    Bow to the riff lord.

    Edit : I've disabled it. Too obtrusive.

    This is pretty cool...

    ..although there are possibly many like it that I've not seen. This answers, perhaps, some of the questions about syndication that Eeksy-Peeksy was asking here last week, which Shelley attempted to answer.

    Confused? Don't be. Just have a look. Kinda neato.

    Recycling

    I swear by all that's holy, by the sweet unsucked nipples of the mother of jesus, by the small but nonetheless annoyingly itchy watery little bumpy things on the sides of my fingers, by the lords of the underworld and Timmy too, by gum, by gemorrah, by sodom and moloch, by the dirty diapers of the baby jesus, by Aunt Jemima and her god-blessed pancakes, by all the prime numbers up to and including 29, by land (one) by sea (two), by the funniest number that exists (fourteen), in the name of the whiskey and the beers and the holy smokes, by the SUVs and the Naderites, by chimptacular presidents and semi-masticated pretzels, by the barney and the rubble and the smoking crater, by the inescapable haiku and the inevitable goatsex, by the fat guy and the troll, by the pedant and the pederast, by the vegetarians, the vegans the omnicores the omnivores the omniwhores the carnivores and the single cry in the dark of a lone drunken chicken begging to be eaten, just a f--king nibble you bastards, by the Portuguese scribblers, the Australian nutjobs, the Yankee heroes and the dismemberment of thousand-headed Purusha, by the subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space, by the mythical tortoise which upholds the earth, by the shrimplike scent of my swinging dad-balls, by the sacred and inextinguishable fires of the Magi which alone remain to illumine the horizon, by the dirty little chuckle, the self-referential injoke, by the ineluctable modality of the f--king boneheaded, by the end of this post it'll be time for another beer, by the oft-licked nuts of Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog at the gates of Hell, by good intentions, bad intentions, simple misdirection, sleight-of-hand and honest-to-goodness magic, by the great big ball of thread beside the chest of drawers, by the time I figure it out I'll be dead, by the sweet sweet liquor, by the weed and the hash, by the speed and the coke, by the dimethyl goddamn tryptamine, by the wind and the waves, by the quiet talks on the beach and the naked dancing on the rooftop, by the unreachable goal and the short-term workaround, by the self-obsession and the reaching out to a friend, by the pastoral idyll and the urban hubbub, by the purple steaming mess that spills out onto the pavement as I die, by the husker and the du, by the #006699 and the #CCCC00, by the Math and the Owie, by the wife, the horse and the moustache, by all that's holy :

    I've been here before. Archiving. Yeah. That's it.

    Misdirection is the soul of magic

    They lied about one vital thing : replace the word 'pigeon' with 'wonderchicken' and all will become clear...


    (I guess I missed this the first time 'round.)

    May 28, 2002

    Reamweaver

    Whenever I want you, all I have to do is rea-ea-ea-ea-eam (also know as the 'ream sequence').

    As a certain friend and coworker would say : thas innerestin'.

    May 25, 2002

    Some Nice New Shiny Things

  • Via BottomDwelling, another MeFite's new blog delivers the good stuff. This in particular is a fascinating idea.

  • And this floored and humbled me. I'm going to go back there now, and start rooting around. Exquisite.

  • I dunno nothin' 'bout comic book art, or birthin' no babies, but this is some very cool stuff right here.

  • Manual. From a 'group of web writers', all of whom rock my chocolate-covered world when I'm not too busy being a big goofball.

  • May 24, 2002

    It's a damn good question

    The question on the table is : 'who do you believe'?

    My answer is : not even my own mother.

    Edit : Stuff like this - "As U.S. officials continued to issue warnings yesterday about the possibility of attacks by suicide bombers and terrorists, the White House quietly acknowledged that the threats are not urgent and that they are partly motivated by political objectives" - makes me considerably less inclined to believe The Little President That Could and his pack of weasels, though. How about you? Is it excessively hyperbolic to call them worthless scum?

    No, no, I didn't think so.

    [via the usual suspects]

    May 21, 2002

    Best.Blogroll.Evar.

    I've got to agree with Jon here : even if I'm not on it, this b(l)ogroll from yet another Metafiltron, malevole, made me smile quietly to myself. Which, considering how grumpy I was earlier today, is the humour equivalent of setting off a neutron bomb in my underpants.

    Also, do not miss the homepage, which is a marvel. Super extra double cool, with a light dusting of methamphetamines on top. 'Cause they're crunchy.

    May 20, 2002

    Metaphor saves me from the fact that metaphor cannot save me

    ...Instead I sit here alone at 4 AM arranging words to describe what is indescribable or what is not worth describing. And his arms tangle with the arms of someone else, for no better reason than that they just do. The heart of this pain: there is no why. There is no reason. Things just happen this way, and we have to stand by, silently, and watch.

    Some lovely writing from a fellow Mefiosi, Evanizer. Via yet another member of this growing Metafilter-centred new kids on the block gang of bloggers, this nascent B-List, this renaissance of sorts, Iconomy.

    May 17, 2002

    Taking My Own Advice

    So this evening I took my own advice : I started at a weblog I like, and proceeded to check out the sites in his blogroll that I'd never seen before, looking for groovy new folks who might prod my brain a bit.

    Slightly unfair, perhaps, but I tried to limit myself to reading the two most recent entries from each weblog I visited, and if something went *ping* in my wee chicken brain based on that small sample, I decided right then bingbangboom that it was a keeper. (I should mention that I am not much interested in weblogs which are primarily links to other things, unless those links are truly mind-blowingly cool. Nor am I terribly keen on reading about your adventures in buying coffee at the local Starbucks, unless in the telling of said adventures your words are so cunningly crafted as to make me grin like a monkey (and even better, leap up and down and fling my excrement), or otherwise evoke some feeling other than 'well, that's five minutes of my life I'll never get back.' Do as I say, not as I do!)

    A fruitful random walk, some results of which I present to you now. If you like the stuff I say here, or the way I say it, or just the way my bum wiggles when I walk, you might just like these folks too :

    "Why kill the Buddha? Because the Buddha you meet is not the true Buddha, but an expression of your longing. If this Buddha is not killed he will only stand in your way. " - Killing The Buddha

    "zy'-mo-glyph'-ic, adj. [Gr. zyme leaven + Gr. glyphe carving] Of, or pertaining to, images of fermentation, specifically the solid residue of creative fermentation on natural objects" - Riley Dog

    "But before your heart jumps with the possibility that I might just stop following you through malls and staring at your darkened bedroom window all night from that car across the street (yeah, that's me out there, sorry if it's creeping you out, but well, you know), my memory is still strong from eating iron-rich foods and popping 10 to 20 times the RDA of chewable Vitamin C before breakfast every day." - The Evil Twin Theory

    "This is a love story about a man and a white snake." - Plep

    "And yet, he was trying, as we all tried when we were fourteen or fifteen, and still are trying, though we disguise it better, to achieve this thing he had in his head of this person he wished he were and wasn't and could never be. " - caterina.net

    "The map isn't the territory, as the model isn't reality. The map is a referential structure; inside a coordinate system all can be referenced laying the gridwork for reality." - context weblog

    "The larger dream scenario has drifted away, but I was momentarily in a skit, acting the part of two ladies in a line dance. As I moved into the position of the saucy woman and donned her shoes, I found I was missing one of the pair. I saw it floating down a river. " - Daily Vexation

    Apologies for coming off all wide-eyed and Macauley Culkinesque, but there are just so many people out there, aren't there? I think I might have to make my little stroll through the neighbourhoods a weekly ritual...

    May 12, 2002

    Only One Question

    Who teaches logical positivism, and is he (or she) also in charge of the sheepdip? If not, I hereby volunteer for 'Professor Emeritus of Being In Charge of The Sheepdip'.

    Update : As the Good Reverend has seen fit to put me in charge of Analytic Philosophy and cruelly denied me my request to be in charge of the Ovine Excreta, I figured I'd read up on it. Most interesting.

    DryLongSo

    It's been a while since I've done a shameless plug, so : if you're fond of 'vintage blues and various cognates, kith and kin thereof - from a capella to zydeco, including but not limited to deep delta blues, jump blues, Hawaiian slack key, hillbilly, Western swing' and so on, I most highly recommend Karl Kotas's (y2karl of Metafilter fame) streaming show here.

    CrankBunny touched me in my bad place

    I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but I think I like it.

    I always find the visceral hatred some web-purist types seem to harbour for Flash puzzling, particularly when wacky folk can use it to make trippy stuff like Crankbunny. Each thing in its proper place. Kumbaya, my lord. Something like that.

    May 8, 2002

    Wonderchicken : Corporate Pimp

    I really should be ashamed of myself for linking corporate crapola (bad chicken - *whack* - bad!) and the results might well be ugly, but there are some truly astonishing images here and in the archives.

    I want to live forever. I want to see everything. Is that too much to ask?

    May 7, 2002

    This song is dedicated to Harold Kindall.

    Happy 70th birthday to Harold Kindall, Jerry Kindall's dad. Just 'cause I'm a sentimental old chook, sometimes.

    May 5, 2002

    A Random Walk

    From Iconomy to Styleboost to ThisIsAMagazine. A fruitful hour or so of looking at Nicely Designed Things. Sometimes I just get in the mood to enjoy pretty things. Other times I want to jump up and down on them until they are in shreds and tatters, cursing the preciosity of it all.

    I am a man of strong feeling, and in that I am quite consistent. Which direction those strong feelings will go on a given day, however, that tends to be a little harder to predict.

    May 4, 2002

    Sucks, it does!

    All evidence points to the fact that Verisign sucks.

    May 1, 2002

    Google Smackdown

    An amusing Google API toy : The Google Smackdown. Brought to you by the same fine individual who made SnapGallery, the XHTML version of which I used to make (with some hand-tweaking) my (experimental - don't expect much) galleries here.

    Edit : I am the KING!

    stavrosthewonderchicken (1,170) lemur testicles (1)

    Not unlike What's Better, which is also kind of fun.

    April 25, 2002

    Yeah, We're Post- Enron Modern

    OK, one more before the Holy Veil Of Beer takes me off to giggle at the SA Forums - go, look, see, and come back here later. Fishrush is good! Hooopla!

    Wired, wired.

    I notice [via the impeccable Acts of Volition] that Wired has started putting the entire content of the print edition up on the web. This is happy news for me, as I can't buy the print edition here in Korea, and even though it cost me more than a 12-pack of Hahn Premium to buy when I lived in Australia, I nonetheless did so regularly, and have been missing it. Not sure if the content divorced from the slippery-paged, sensuous tangibleness of it will make me as happy, as I won't be able to read it in bed when I have a hangover, but it's nice to know that it's at least there. A dry hump is better than no hump at all, nicht wahr?

    [This is bad][This might be offensive]

    The 'Jackhammer Jesus' dildo. Part of the line of quality products that also includes the 'Buddha's Delight', just to be equal-opportunity offensive, I guess.

    I would be interested to talk to someone who would actually want to use one of these puppies. I'm a curious fella, though. Some might say too curious. Some others might say some other things, unpleasant things, things that are just plain mean, but when I stick my fingers in my ears and repeat "I can't hear you!", I find I am able to thwart their vicious attacks.

    This is a Valuable Strategy, and I encourage you to use it in your very own Personal Life. Checks or money orders to the usual place.

    April 23, 2002

    Succinct

    Once a math geek, always a math geek. I love this.

    April 22, 2002

    Real or Parody?

    You decide.

    The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called... Darwin! That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism. They try to hide all of this under a facade of shiny, "lickable" buttons, but the truth has finally come out: Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism.

    The look on the face of the 'baby Jesus' here is truly classic.

    Also : 'Man and dinosaur lived together peacefully around 2000 BC.'

    Update : Ah crap. This link is #1 in the Daypoop Top Forty today. I am now officially Not Worth Reading.

    Balloon Hats For Joy

    "In 1996, Addi Somekh and Charlie Eckert began traveling to different places in the world to make balloon hats for people and take photos of them. The goal was to show people all over the world laughing and having fun, and to emphasize the fact that all human beings are born with the ability to experience joy. In total, they visited 34 countries and have over 10,000 pictures."

    Yes! Dammit, yes! I love these guys.

    [via Everlasting Blort]

    April 21, 2002

    Keystroke Art

    This is pretty gigantically cool. Takes your keystrokes, turns 'em into abstract art. Not quite sure how, but I'm sure if you root around, you can probably find out.
    [via jed]

    Hold me.

    I'm not sure if friend Kafkaesque is trying to tell me something by linking to this, but I'm feeling a little nervous, I must say.

    Says he :

    Chickens! Look upon these machines, chickens, and fear!

    If I should go missing, you know what to do...

    Edit : I see your chickenmachines, Kaf, and raise you what would appear to be a device for cutting out the assholes of dead pigs. Pleasant, huh?

    April 19, 2002

    Enron explained : Now this, I like.

    Cunningly crafted to appeal to the refined, erudite Wonderchicken sensibilities : monkeys, poop, humping, and random violence, all at the service of sticking it to the corporates. Heavy with goodness.

    ...What, in layman's terms, actually happened at Enron? Perhaps the best way to explain to the average reader (one without an economics degree) is to use a metaphor. Say there is a troop of monkeys and their day consists of seeking out bananas. The head monkey orders all the other monkeys to collect their bananas in a pile, which will be eaten at the end of the day and not a moment before.

    Only not many bananas are found.

    One of the monkeys starts screeching, voids his bowels and flings his excrement at another monkey. Soon all the monkeys are flinging monkeysh-t at each other and smearing it all over themselves. This arouses one monkey, who begins masturbating frantically. Other monkeys start mounting each other and a sh-t-stained orgy ensues. Monkeys hump violently, crushing those on the bottom of the pile. The head monkey grabs a stick and flails around at random, whacking his compatriots. He bares his teeth and screams a defiant message.

    "REEEEEEEP! RREEEP! REEEP! REEEEP! Ooh ooh ooh. REEEEEAAAAAAAP!!!! REEEEEEEEEAAARRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEP!!!!"

    While this analogy is perhaps simplistic, it contains the essence of the problem posed by Enron.

    Rumproast.

    April 18, 2002

    Thunderdome in God's Country

    What b!x said. Or Dan.

    April 17, 2002

    And I won't grind my teeth or anything?

    Not that this won't be everywhere soon, or isn't already for all I f--king know, as I really don't do terribly well at the mental-smooth-muscle-flexing, but I WANT SOME†.

    † This should not be taken to indicate that I have any tendency or desire to, or history of or plans to, experiment with medications, legal or otherwise. I deny something similar to that, categorically. [Mr. Kissinger? Steve Felton, Sesame Street Gazette. If you could be any animal...] I deny engineering the bombings of small east Asian countries. I deny that, categorically.

    What the hell was I talking about?

    April 14, 2002

    The Big Lebowski Random Quote Generator

    lebowski.jpgNihilist 1: Vee vant zat money, Lebowski.
    Nihilist 2: You think veer kidding und making mit de funny stuff?

    I was somewhere wandering around penniless when The Big Lebowski came out, so I didn't have a chance to see it. Over the next six months or so, about half a dozen old friends felt compelled, independently, to say : "Hey, Bosco! The Coen Brothers made a movie about you! You see it yet?"

    Which I can see, now, to a degree, as I have been known at times to exude a long-haired, unkempt, pleasantly befuddled, dissipated-Jeff-Bridges aura. I do enjoy a cocktail or two from time to time. And Wacky Adventures™ are, after all, my stock in trade.

    But have to come clean - I don't smoke dope, I loathe bowling, and I've never had a 'caucasian'.

    [Muchas, like, gracias, Speedysnail]

    April 13, 2002

    You Know Who You Are

    An aside to that annoying bastard (you know who you are) who made me nearly blow a gasket recently when he described Daddy Bush's incursion in the Gulf a dozen years ago as a justified battle of Good Versus Evil, a righteous mobilization to displace "Saddam Hussein, who was, uhhh, like, a new Hitler" : read this, you clueless propaganda-lapping dipsh-t. And this too, if your attention span can manage it.

    Thanks to OnePotMeal for the timely facts, some of which I'd forgotten. Non-dipsh-ts may wish to read his next post, which is marvellous in a completely different way.

    Surrounded By Beauty

    There are some great writers around the virtual neighbourhood, and this man is one of them. I recommend you visit him daily...His latest gave me an erection. What higher praise can a wonderchicken give for a writer's work?

    None, I tell you! None! Well, other than offering to buy the author a beer. That too, is wonderchicken kudo-giving most emphatic. Eeksy-peeksy, I owe you one.

    April 10, 2002

    Better to have loved and lost...

    This thread at Mefi is worth following. Unfortunately, I am way too drunk at the moment to add anything worth saying to it, or process adequately what's being said, but I'm also sober enough to want to bookmark it to read tomorrow when I'm more coherent. Please enjoy the words. Linky-dinky.

    April 9, 2002

    What is Fnord?

    People (most of whom I dislike, on principle. No, really.) do tend to pooh-pooh Discordianism, and The Church of the Subgenius, and all that fincantabulous hooey. I say let 'em!

    That reminds me of a song....

    this is your life this is your life this is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. we are all a part of the same compost heap, we are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. you are not your bank account, you are not the clothes you wear. you are not the contents of your wallet. you are not your bowel cancer. you are not your grande latte. you are not the car you drive. you are not your f--king khakis. you have to give up, you have to give up. you have to realize that someday you will die, until you know that you are useless. I say let me never be complete. I say may I never be content. I say deliver me from swedish furniture! I say deliver me from clever art. I say deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth. I say you have to give up. I say evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.

    Of course, I didn't actually say any of that funky sh-t, Chuck Palahniuk did. Or rather, Brad Pitt did, which proves to me at least that he may be a Hollywood pretty boy, go-ash darn it, but he's no dumm-eh!

    That's an entirely different set of flatware, Sherlock! What I originally mean to say before this all went sideways on me (how the hell did that happen?) was that memepool had a Hail Eris comma Subgenius slash Bob Dobbs post recently (†), and fnord is still amusing to me, even though I am not sixteen any longer (despite the undeniable fact that I've still got an unreasonably large number of zits and a tendency to shout things like "Rock and Roll!" in an embarrassingly Wayne's World sort of way when I hear powerchords or cowbells).

    You got a problem with that?

    April 6, 2002

    Modest needs. It's for real.

    Modest needs. It's for real. This is the sort of thing I could get behind. Spread the word.

    Hi ho!

    Hi ho! If you can watch all of these without clutching your skull and bellowing like a confused waterbuffalo, you're a better man/woman/other than I. Go ahead, give it a try, I double-dog dare ya! [evil laugh]

    Wintertime Hi Ho!
    Food poisoning Hi Ho!
    Forest fun Hi Ho !
    Too inexplicable to summarize Hi Ho jolly fun!
    Hi Ho meets Jaws!
    Hi Ho romance!
    Hi Ho fishing misadventures!
    Hi Ho saves the princess!
    It's a Hi Ho Christmas!

    [Japanese ad wackiness via Tom Tomorrow (who rocks) and the 'pile (which also rocks, in a different, yet equally righteous way (uhh..dude))]

    April 5, 2002

    I'm a little surprised

    I'm a little surprised that few seem to be interested in kicking Dvorak's ass about his latest swipe at blogdom, or even paying much attention, really. I wonder if that's a) because we secretly agree or b) because no one much gives a damn anymore about his odd anti-blog hobbyhorse.

    I suspect the answer is b).
    People have decided not to feed the troll.

    I did find this amusing, though :

    "Show that you're an independent free spirit by adding a lot of profanity to your text. "

    f--kin' a, Johnny-boy! You got my number.


    Coffee? Tea? Deconstruction? comments.

    March 22, 2002

    Na-na-na-na na-na-na-na Blogtank!

    "Where else could a global reach consulting team, with offices in more than 10 countries, staffed by 20+ experts in a variety of fields and professions, with round the clock continuous operation come into being in under a day with next to zero infrastructure costs?" : I am proud in a preliminary sort of way to be a part of the soon-to-be-more-famous-than-Jesus

    Blogtank Global Consulting Group

    Something Meta This Way Comes ‡



    not an officially sanctioned tagline. Void where prohibited. Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. Some settling may occur during shipment. Seek medical assistance if condition persists. Lather, rinse, repeat.

    March 20, 2002

    Good sh1t

    Via Jonathon and Steve, this. And via Rageboy, something completely different.

    March 17, 2002

    Dopey bastards

    "There were people out the back in the parking lot smoking pot all the time," said the editor, who also asked to remain anonymous. "The IBM PC was created by people who drank alcohol. The Mac was created by people who smoked pot."

    Guess that would explain the whole one-mouse-button thing, eh?

    March 16, 2002

    Photo essay

    Thanks to Mike for pointing to Douglas Ord's work. Light shattering as it shines through a window, but somehow undamaged by the passage. The Korea Postscript (far down the index page) in particular says Important Things, I think, in a way that opens a door for me. Highly recommended, but you may need some patience if you are not sucking down the bits with a wide pipe.

    March 13, 2002

    PoemTag

    tag : Prionix

    March 10, 2002

    Mike Golby shares his innermost

    Mike Golby shares his innermost. Harrowing to read, and hopefully cathartic for him to write. I am constantly amazed and humbled by pellucid writing like this all around me, by these sudden radiant windows into the lives and minds of other people, multitudes of them...we are truly blessed to have these voices helping us stay the course in our own lives.

    I hope you'll join me in wishing Mike and his family well, and I hope Mike will understand if I continue to celebrate the bottle in my own life, while he continues his struggles against the evils it can bring, and has brought to his family.


    Comments? comments.

    March 9, 2002

    Funny.

    Funny.

    March 6, 2002

    BurningBird, Mike Sanders, Steve Himmer...

    BurningBird, Mike Sanders, Steve Himmer, Elaine, AKMA, Mike Golby and others have been spinning up a conversation about belief, something about which I've spent a lot of time thinking over the years. It's a fascinating, enlightening rolling colloquy that continues to renew my enthusiasm for this blogspace we're exploring (to explore strange new blogs, to seek out new ideas and new css designs, to boldly go...well, you get it). That said, I'm not sure if I'm going to take part in the conversation this time. I will, however, point you to my favourite contribution so far (which perhaps in part explains why I don't care to participate at the moment) this play from the Accordion Guy :

    Moses (blubbering): I’m...I’m r-really sorry, S-sirs...I know I could never be as smart as y-you guys...I’m just an ignorant pigf--ker... God: Dude, don’t say “pigf--ker” in front of Jesus.

    God and Jesus look at each other and begin laughing riotously.

    March 3, 2002

    Them's talkin'

    Jonathon and Burningbird and the usual suspects are talking about something that has been heavy on my mind in recent times, but I'm feeling too whimsical today to do more than note the conversation, and point you their way. Me, I have to think about it some more. Later.

    *dances off into the middle distance, scattering flower petals, whimsically.*

    March 2, 2002

    Inline

    Quick note : Frykitty is spreading the inline tag concept from it's mysterious beginnings ~deep in the Alabama woods, where a group of secretive hill people, long isolated from society, have been developing strange and otherworldly shortcuts in their communication.~ The efficiency of their verbal and written interactions render their speech almost incomprehensible to us outsiders, but perhaps, adopting some of their more clever innovations, we can help the textual world become a more intelligible place.

    This, I pray. Or I would, %if I were the prayin' type%.

    Seriously, I'd love to see these reach critical mass. Very useful, and a hell of a lot more nuanced than emoticons.


    Comments? comments.

    February 28, 2002

    Ftrain

    Oh yeah, and dear Sweet God I love Ftrain. How did it take me so long to find him? Leave this place, hie thee hence, I implore you.

    'Course when you eventually come back here, you're probably going to be deeply disappointed.

    Ah well.

    February 26, 2002

    Kamen

    If you have broadband, and Realplayer, and an hour to spare, watch this speech delivered by Dean Kamen, of Segway and iBot fame. It'll inspire you. It did me.

    (A quick note about my lack of Korea-centric updates of late : I'm back to work next week, back into the fray, after a couple of months of gazing inward. Getting out into the thick of things again will certainly spark some new Hanguk-y observations and rants. And once the new domain is set up (soon, soon) and I transfer over, it'll be a whole new WonderChicken. I'll rock yer socks off. Or die trying. This I swear.)


    Never fear, the WonderChicken's here. comments.

    February 19, 2002

    Arooooo!

    February 10, 2002

    The shock of recognition

    Sometimes in my wanderings, in life and on this here inTaRweB, I get that shock of recognition, that feeling when, no matter how many times we've realized it before and promptly forgotten about it, we suddenly understand that there are other people out there who have lived through the same things as we have. They tell us stories that are intended to be about themselves, but after we hear them, they are tales about our selves too. Thanks, Jonathon.


    Re-cognition... comments.

    January 30, 2002

    Rolf Potts

    I think I might like Rolf Potts, if we met. 'Vagabonding' is something I've done my entire adult life. It is actually possible that we could have met, as I lived in Pusan at the same time as he apparently did, a few years ago. His face looks oddly familiar. Unfortunately, my near-perpetual state of blissful inebriation at the time renders the recollections a mite blurry. Anyway - go read his stuff, about Korea and elsewhere. Some nice writing there, and some of the best I've seen about modern Korea.

    He says in an interview "this would have been impossible without the Internet," which is interesting. It sounds as if he began his wanderings about 10 years after I did, and as such, was able to get his best, freshest travel writing out to the world via this miraculous inTaRweb, while mine lies mouldering in the bottom of a box somewhere in Canada, as far as I know.

    I'm not bitter. Honest. If I'd actually wanted to say anything to anyone other than my friends (sporadically) and my future self (onanistically) over the past 15 years, I would have done it. Submitted, published, lived outside the moment in order to write about it. I suppose I'm finally getting started at that now. I just wish my powers of recall were a little...sharper.

    Feelin' a bit old, this evening.

    December 28, 2001

    Lia says this

    Lia says this about the Philippines, her home : "I wish we would learn from our mistakes already and start moving forward." I hope and pray that there are young Koreans saying things as clear and rational about their own country. In Korean, in English, I don't care. If there are, tell me.

    Comments?

    December 14, 2001

    AllLookSame

    AllLookSame - An interesting effort to explode some preconceptions about similarities and differences in appearance between Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. I like to think that I'm fairly ept at being able to tell the ethnicity of a random North Asian person by looking at them, but I only scored 11/18 on the AllLookSame test. A good tool to make you think a bit about unconscious stereotyping.

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