Well, I guess somebody was listening…

May 29, 2002 / / 2 Comments

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.

Recycling

May 29, 2002 / / 6 Comments

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.

[Another useful service from Wonderchicken Industries]

May 27, 2002 / / No Comments

Some of the funniest things you will never hear in Korea (latest in a long series) :

  • “Well, at least it’s environmentally-friendly…”
  • “We need to focus on quality with this, rather than just expedience.”
  • “I think he had the right-of-way.”
  • “Maybe they’ll turn it into a park…”
    If you should be coming to Korea for the World Cup, be assured these are among the phrases that you will not need to use.
    Stay tuned for our next exciting installment!

    • Naked Apes

    May 27, 2002 / / 3 Comments

    I’m struck once again at how even the most literate, erudite and presumably intelligent of thinkers, no matter where they lie on the political map, can be depended upon, when cornered, to bare their yellowed tusks and, with frenzied screeching and flinging of their own excrement, reveal their true simian nature.
    Not crack!
    This little internecine sh-tfight is instructive to read, while also being sad, pathetic and so completely unnecessary as to bring tears of somedamnthing to my eye. It’s no wonder that America (and it can be said of other nations, a multitude of them, I know) has been ruled by this endless procession of greedy, evil bastards for so long. How sad and ineffectual are those who agree on a common enemy, and then proceed to destroy one another in an argument about how to defend themselves against that enemy.
    And this fandangled new personal publishing revolution (read that in a 1950’s TV-huckster, over-amped voice) in which we’re all so proud of participating has at times given me some hope that this time ‘it might be different, really it might,’ but the recent pointed and pointless screeching and feces-hurling in blogland, sparked by differences of opinion about the bloodthirsty tribal warfare of yet another gang of naked apes busily shedding one another’s blood over in the eastern mediterranean… this has left me less optimistic than I once was. How sad and pathetic it is to agree that killing is wrong, then become so involved in arguing about who deserves to die less that we do nothing to stop that killing.
    Do I feel smug and superior in pointing this out? No, I do not. Mostly, I feel tired.

    The revolution will not be blogged.

    I'm trying…

    May 27, 2002 / / 1 Comment
    “Lucid dreaming means dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. The term was coined by Frederik van Eeden who used the word “lucid” in the sense of mental clarity. Lucidity usually begins in the midst of a dream when the dreamer realizes that the experience is not occurring in physical reality, but is a dream. Often this realization is triggered by the dreamer noticing some impossible or unlikely occurrence in the dream, such as flying or meeting the deceased. Sometimes people become lucid without noticing any particular clue in the dream; they just suddenly realize they are in a dream. A minority of lucid dreams (according to the research of LaBerge and colleagues, about 10 percent) are the result of returning to REM (dreaming) sleep directly from an awakening with unbroken reflective consciousness.”

    [A Lucid Dreaming FAQ] [Another][Dreaming and Reality][kuro5hin – Hacking Your Wetware][Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep][Dream Yoga][A Buddhist Perspective on Lucid Dreaming][More]

    Some Nice New Shiny Things

    May 25, 2002 / / 1 Comment
  • 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.

    • Grain of Salt

    May 25, 2002 / / 3 Comments

    Now, before I even begin, I must preface this little mousy-squeaky post, this whisper of uncertainty and doubt and anti-communitarianism that will hopefully go unnoticed and unremarked, this little strung-together line of characters drunkenly hunt-and-pecked out late in the evening on a day in which I found that for some reason my IQ unexpectedly and inexplicably dropped about 40 points or so, I must introduce this with the admission that I’ve had a drink or two. This should not be a surprise to you, dear reader.
    But : lately, repeatedly, and consistently, I’ve found my InTarWeb HerOes, the men (and yes, most, well, OK, pretty much all of my real leftover-from-Spiderman-pajamas heroes, at least on this IntArWeB thing, are men) for whom in the last while, since I’ve become interested in what’s happening out amongst the Magesticallanic Clouds Of Bits, I have come to have respect and to like and perhaps wish to emulate, imitate, celebrate or alternately crush like bugs (being as it is the eternal and everlasting man-desire, no sh-t Dick Tracy, to destroy and supplant the alpha-male bing bang boom) –
    …take a breath, wonderchicken…
    those fine gentlemen have disappointed me, badly. You slack bastards. Icons, idols, they’re leaving me colder than an arctic char’s ass (and I don’t even know if fish have asses, but carry on my wayward son carry on) of late. Need I explain why? No! f–k that. I’m just venting here, and the fridge is calling.
    I’m going to drink a few more beers, and watch Waking Life again. This post may well disappear when I wake up tomorrow.
    Well, whatever. Nevermind.

    It's a damn good question

    May 24, 2002 / / 1 Comment

    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]

    I had no idea…

    May 22, 2002 / / 10 Comments

    When the movie Wayne’s World was released in Latin America, a lot of the film’s American idiom and idiosyncratic language didn’t translate well, if at all. As a result, many of the phrases and expressions were translated into something very different in the subtitles or dubbing.
    For example, when Wayne exclaimed (much to my amusement, which is a shame with which I must forever deal) “Shyaaa! And monkeys might fly out of my butt!” it got changed to, “Yes, when Judgment Day comes,” or “Si, cuándo llegue el día del juicio.”
    What I don’t get is why it was felt that Spanish speakers would find the image of monkeys flying from someone’s butt any less comprehensible or immediately interpretable as indicating a highly unlikely event than Anglophones would. I’m enormously curious now about how that phrase got translated in other languages when the movie was released elsewhere.
    Most amusing, as really dumb things frequently are.

    Kiss me Noam, you old fool

    May 22, 2002 / / 2 Comments

    People love to hate cranky old uncle Chomsky, and it’s no surprise really, with the stuff he goes around saying in these dissent-discouraging times. This recent CBC interview with him shows him in fine form, talking about the same things he usually does, jumping up and down on the head of the interviewer, uttering the word ‘No’ more times that I’ve ever seen anyone say it before in a single conversation. For what it’s worth, though, I agree with many of the things he has to say about governments, and about the press. I’m aware that’s an unpopular thing to say, and that many consider him a loon.
    Something like this, though, doesn’t seem to me to be the words of a lunatic. On the contrary, it seems quite lucid indeed :

    “What I’m saying is that as long as people, ordinary people, are able to free themselves from the doctrinal controls imposed on them by their self-appointed betters and mentors, as long as they’re able to do this, they’ll continue to be able to struggle for peace and justice and freedom and limitations on violence, and constraints on power, as they’ve been doing for hundreds of years. And I don’t see any end to that. Where it’ll end up in the long run, I’d tell you where I’d like it to, but I wouldn’t even dream about that.
    The immediate problem is to free ourselves from the shackles imposed, very consciously, by the kind of people you’re talking about. Who don’t want the facts to be known. And for very good reasons. Because if people know the facts they aren’t going to tolerate them. So therefore you have to prevent them from knowing. You have to indoctrinate them, you have to tell them stories about how we’re really good guys, and if we use violence, it must be for the general good because we represent the course of history.”

    [more]
    Speaking of hypocrisy, and the Chomster does, this piece covers well-trodden ground, but worth a read nonetheless, perhaps :

    “Hypocrisy, as La Rochefoucauld observed, is the homage that vice pays to virtue. In the case of Bush, campaign lies are the homage that Republican sloganeering paid to the popularity of Democratic ideology. […] As ideological fraud, then, George W. Bush remains in a class by himself. It’s understandable why he does it: Democrats’ domestic positions are basically popular. But why does he get away with it? He pulls it off, I think, for several reasons (of which September 11 is fairly far down the list). “

    [more]
    Are we in the weblogging community shouldering the burden of that responsibility to preserve the right of people to know the facts, as traditional media increasing fails in its role as watchdog?
    I cetainly don’t know. But that should be clear, sporting as I do a tagline like the truth can blow me.
    Edit : An interesting exchange between the Chomster and Christopher Hitchens.

    It Just Feels Right, Baby

    May 22, 2002 / / 11 Comments

    Cheesily riffing on the erudititudinosity and linkeriffomafication of Tom’s recent post, I give you this darn-near equally-recent popular image (which I did not make) found at the Site Which Must Not Be Named.
    Heh.
    Bush Help.jpg
    Edit : I have discovered that this image originally came from the SomethingAwful forums. SA rocks. Or is that San Dimas Football? sh-t, I dunno. But the bad, bad man who posted it to Filepile didn’t credit it. Apologies.

    ..And on another note entirely

    May 21, 2002 / / 3 Comments

    Mike has come through the fire mostly intact, it would seem, and singing that song of his that I’ve so grown to love. You’re an inspiration to me, you beautiful, long-winded bastard, you. If I have to hunt you down and kill you, like the buddha, it will be out of pure love. This one’s for you. Welcome back, my friend.

    Shriekback – Gunning for the Buddha
    Mark and Danny in the Greek Hotel
    Bold as badgers on a one-take Mission
    Got their equipment from a dwarf outside
    On the trail of any suspect wisdom
    Pond-Life beneath a Southern sky
    (They make their move then they head off to the border)
    They don’t care as long as you can pay –
    Whatever – whatever they say
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    We know his name and he mustn’t get away
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    It would take one shot – to blow him away…
    Now’s the time to have some big ideas
    Now’s the time to make some firm decisions
    We saw the Buddha in a bar down south
    Talking politics and nuclear fission
    We see him and he’s all washed up –
    Moving on into the body of a beetle
    Getting ready for a long long crawl
    He ain’t nothing – he ain’t nothing at all…
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    We know his name and he mustn’t get away
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    It would take one shot – to blow him away…
    Death and Money make their point once more
    In the shape of Philosophical assassins
    Mark and Danny take the bus uptown
    Deadly angels for reality and passion
    Have the courage of the here and now
    Don’t take nothing from these ½-baked buddhas
    When you think you got it paid in full
    You got nothing – you got nothing at all…
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    We know his name and he mustn’t get away
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    It would take one shot…
    Oh… we’re gunning for the Buddha
    We know his name and he mustn’t get away
    We’re on the road and we’re gunning for the Buddha
    Saying something, saying something unsafe
    We’re on the road
    Oh… we’re gunning for the Buddha
    (Yeah, Yeah)
    We’re on the road
    You know we’re gunning for the Buddha
    You see him blow right there
    We’re on the road
    We’re gunning, we’re gunning,
    We’re gunning on the road
    We’re gunning, we’re gunning
    We’re gunning for the Buddha

    Best.Blogroll.Evar.

    May 21, 2002 / / 2 Comments

    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.

    Just to be stubbornly repetitive, humourless and tiresome…

    May 20, 2002 / / 9 Comments

    …I’m going to keep hammering on this. The world at large is beginning to notice the blogosphere. The marketing shills smell money in the air. The bright-toothed, fast-talking, lucre-fixated hordes are girding their well-toned loins and casting a hungry eye our way. It’s coming damn it : the signs are all around, and you should take opportunity to be very afraid.
    Alternately, you could make like me : leer dementedly and cock a snook at the bastards.

    Metaphor saves me from the fact that metaphor cannot save me

    May 20, 2002 / / 2 Comments
    …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.