Sunday, August 31, 2008
In Character
I was a little startled when my wife pointed out to me that in the following pictures, which were taken a little more than two years apart, I'm wearing the same fucking clothes!
From two days ago (Aug/08). 
From July/06. 
Personally, I think she's just jealous. I bet you are, too...
Personally, I think she's just jealous. I bet you are, too...
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Brutality, Animality, Fatality... Mortal Kombat in HELL(o) Kitty Land
One of my duties as the father of a 5-year-old daughter requires that I take a yearly trip into the bowels of Hell to do combat with Hello Kitty. I'm leaving now.
I'll be gone for a couple of days, so nothing but a few automated pic posts until I get back. If I make it back alive...
I'll be gone for a couple of days, so nothing but a few automated pic posts until I get back. If I make it back alive...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Express Yourself
Sometimes I feel like I'm getting old (well, for reasons totally unrelated to the fact that I actually am getting old...). Reading that there is a person in Australia with the job title of "Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Accreditation program manager" tends to reinforce that feeling...
Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against mothers breastfeeding their babies anywhere/anytime they like. But come on, Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Accreditation program manager?
I also noticed in the linked article (and for the second time this week) the, er, expression "to express milk."
No kidding. I always thought mammals secreted milk. On the other hand, though, it gives fresh meaning to phrases like "wipe that expression off your face"...
Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against mothers breastfeeding their babies anywhere/anytime they like. But come on, Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace Accreditation program manager?
I also noticed in the linked article (and for the second time this week) the, er, expression "to express milk."
Breastfeeding Association spokeswoman Tracey Kelly said many people were ignorant about expressing milk.
No kidding. I always thought mammals secreted milk. On the other hand, though, it gives fresh meaning to phrases like "wipe that expression off your face"...
Stupid or Ironic? Who Can Tell These Days?
Just consider this the Ministry of Truth...
--Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, discussing a Republican "war room" set up at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
[Via Fark.]
Frank Zappa on Crossfire
I was looking for some Zappa tunes on YouTube and came across the video below of Frank Zappa in a 1986 installment of CNN's Crossfire. The topic is censorship (specifically the censorship of the evil that is rock n' roll). Frank doesn't seem especially comfortable in this setting, but he does an admirable job of defending free speech and is quite cool-headed in dealing with the wingnut they threw him into the ring with. If you've got 20 minutes, it's worth watching.
Did you watch it all? Not bad, eh? Here's your reward:
Was that too mellow? Try this one:
Did you watch it all? Not bad, eh? Here's your reward:
Was that too mellow? Try this one:
From the Department of Stupid Questions
Prolegomenon to a wingnut theory of higher education:
[Via Sadly, No!]
Why bother attending college if you can't play the sport you love?
--Phylis Schafly, wingnut
[Via Sadly, No!]
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
From the Ministry of Silly Walks
Where to begin with this piece of dreck from The Guardian's website that attempts to smear atheists while promoting... something. This is probably all you need to read:
Whatever.
[...] I don't have a spiritual bone in my body; but what I am, is religious. I believe, literally, in the God of the Old Testament, whom I understand as the Lord of the Jews and the Protestants. I'm a Christian Zionist, as well as a Christian feminist and a Christian socialist. But over the past two decades, almost without me knowing it, the Christian part has become the most important.
Whatever.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Dinosaurs Revisited
I've briefly discussed this sort of thing in an older post. According to Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a "Creationist institution" in Malta, dinosaurs helped build the pyramids.
Clearly there's no point debating with these people, but I can't wait for Spielberg or someone to do a remake of The Ten Commandments, complete with dinosaurs chasing the Hebrews into the Red Sea as it parts. What a fucking scene that would be!
Clearly there's no point debating with these people, but I can't wait for Spielberg or someone to do a remake of The Ten Commandments, complete with dinosaurs chasing the Hebrews into the Red Sea as it parts. What a fucking scene that would be!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
No Me Llores Mas
Wow. Give this a listen. Give it a serious chance and the guitar will blow your mind. Latin-influenced jazzy kinda stuff. Fucking hot.
Marc Ribot-No Me Llores Mas
From The Prosthetic Cubans by Marc Ribot.
From The Prosthetic Cubans by Marc Ribot.
I Think My Head Is Going to Explode
Chris Kelly at The Huffington Post entertains with an interesting post about a book found by the FBI among the possessions of Bruce Ivins (the anthrax suspect).
Short version: The FBI found a copy of The Plague by Albert Camus (who was born in Algeria...). But "the plague" of The Plague is actually just life. One of the characters of The Plague is "misreading" Kafka's The Trial (he thinks it's a murder mystery), which seems to be about a man who is put on trial for unclear reasons...
Short version: The FBI found a copy of The Plague by Albert Camus (who was born in Algeria...). But "the plague" of The Plague is actually just life. One of the characters of The Plague is "misreading" Kafka's The Trial (he thinks it's a murder mystery), which seems to be about a man who is put on trial for unclear reasons...
Priceless
From craigslist:
Have you ever thought about what will happen to your pets after Jesus comes back to claim the souls of the saved during the Rapture and deliver them to heaven to enjoy ever lasting life? The bible clearly teaches that only those that have accepted Jesus as their savior will enter heaven (John 14:6, Romans 3:23), and we all know that pets do not have the cognitive ability to do this, so what will happen to your beloved pets? Surely without you there, they would be stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed them, let them out to potty, or clean their litter box. This is probably not what you envision for your pets after you are gone. This is where I come in.
I am here to offer you pet care service for after the rapture. As an atheist, I will surely still be here on this earth post rapture and would love to look after your pets for a small fee and make sure they are still well taken care of after you and your family have been raptured. You will be able to look down on them from heaven and see them being well cared for by me and living happy, healthy lives. Do not let my atheism scare you! I am a moral and loving pet owner and would never do harm to any animal.
For a small deposit of only $50, you can be assured that your pets will be well cared for from the time that you are raptured until the end of their natural life. They will get adequate amounts of food, water, and shelter as well as plenty of exercise and socialization as I would imagine there will be a lot of pets that will be abandoned by Jesus the pet hater that will need to be cared for. [My emphases.]
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I Laughed Out Loud
The funniest thing I've read this week:"Maybe they're hoping to learn that Obama's real first name is Damien and that his mother was a jackal."
From The Right's Five Most Hilariously Boneheaded Anti-Obama Smears.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Fun Facts: Bananas
According to the most recent statistics I could find (from 2000), India is the world's leading producer of bananas (11 million metric tonnes in 2000).
While statistics relating to banana production in Canada are shrouded in mystery, in 1998 Canada was the 9th ranked banana importer in the world, buying 149 million dollars (US) of foreign-produced bananas. That works out to about 5 bucks (US) worth of bananas per capita.
Big deal, you might be thinking, but ponder this: I personally used to spend about $100 a year on bananas, which can only mean that there were about 19 people every year who ate no bananas. Nineteen Canadians denied the proof of God's existence, "the atheist's nightmare," the simple banana:
I had no idea I was so close to God... Or was I really...?
While statistics relating to banana production in Canada are shrouded in mystery, in 1998 Canada was the 9th ranked banana importer in the world, buying 149 million dollars (US) of foreign-produced bananas. That works out to about 5 bucks (US) worth of bananas per capita.
Big deal, you might be thinking, but ponder this: I personally used to spend about $100 a year on bananas, which can only mean that there were about 19 people every year who ate no bananas. Nineteen Canadians denied the proof of God's existence, "the atheist's nightmare," the simple banana:
I had no idea I was so close to God... Or was I really...?
Monday, August 18, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Bigelf-Madhatter
Have you ever wondered what Black Sabbath would sound like if they were produced by Jeff Lynne? Of course you haven't because you aren't half the dork I am. Nonetheless...
The Cheese. It Burns!
While I don't think I'm a particularly graceful guy in my daily physical movements, I do pride myself a bit on not being a klutz. I'm rarely the guy who knocks over drinks, steps on peoples' feet, that sort of thing. On the rare occasion, however, when events (or my own stupidity) conspire against me, the results can sometimes be spectacular or disastrous (or both).
A few days ago I woke up hungry. I don't usually eat breakfast (coffee and smokes for me, thanks!), but on this day I decided I needed something to eat. I should probably be honest and say that my hunger was probably connected to the massive hangover I was... experiencing. Like most guys (I believe), I have a few "instant sustenance" recipes that have always served me well in situations of I-must-eat-now.
On this day I decided to put a slice of cheese on a piece of bread and throw it into the toaster oven. While this was toasting away I made instant coffee. (Hey, do you want to wake the fuck up, or do you want to "savor the flavor"? Go savor the fucking flavor at Starbucks, elitist scum!) Very conveniently (ahem), my coffee and melted cheese toast were ready to go at the same time. I carried them into my work room to eat and drink while checking e-mail and stuff.
Now, I'm not really sure how this happened, but as I was sitting down to the computer the toast with the melted cheese somehow started slipping off the plate it was on. I'm hungover, I'm in the process of a) sitting down, b) setting a cup of coffee on my desk, and c) trying to get this damned bread that's about to fall on the floor under control. If I'd simply let the toast fall to the floor, things would have been OK. But I was fucking hungry...
I made a kind of flipping motion with the plate (my undoing), hoping to catch the bread in mid-flight. All this accomplished was me flipping the toast so that now it was cheese-side down. My ass landed in my chair at the same instant as the now-upside-down melted cheese toast landed on my knee. My summertime-short-pants-wearing knee. The next one or two seconds were very educational...
The bread almost instantly fell to the floor. I observed, however, first with interest, and then with horror, that the cheese was stuck to my knee. It was fucking hot! And it was burning my knee! My knee was on fucking fire! I started to scrape the cheese off my knee. Small parts of my knee were coming off with it. "What the fuck," I thought, "this can't be happening!" It was happening. It did happen. And it fucking hurt.
I'd post pictures, but I don't want to gross anyone out. I haven't gone to a hospital because of the relatively small area of the burn (and I checked on the web: looks like a second-degree burn). The knee is a shitty place for a burn. It's reminded me of how often I actually bend my knee. Let this be a lesson: avoid melted cheese when you have a hangover.
A few days ago I woke up hungry. I don't usually eat breakfast (coffee and smokes for me, thanks!), but on this day I decided I needed something to eat. I should probably be honest and say that my hunger was probably connected to the massive hangover I was... experiencing. Like most guys (I believe), I have a few "instant sustenance" recipes that have always served me well in situations of I-must-eat-now.
On this day I decided to put a slice of cheese on a piece of bread and throw it into the toaster oven. While this was toasting away I made instant coffee. (Hey, do you want to wake the fuck up, or do you want to "savor the flavor"? Go savor the fucking flavor at Starbucks, elitist scum!) Very conveniently (ahem), my coffee and melted cheese toast were ready to go at the same time. I carried them into my work room to eat and drink while checking e-mail and stuff.
Now, I'm not really sure how this happened, but as I was sitting down to the computer the toast with the melted cheese somehow started slipping off the plate it was on. I'm hungover, I'm in the process of a) sitting down, b) setting a cup of coffee on my desk, and c) trying to get this damned bread that's about to fall on the floor under control. If I'd simply let the toast fall to the floor, things would have been OK. But I was fucking hungry...
I made a kind of flipping motion with the plate (my undoing), hoping to catch the bread in mid-flight. All this accomplished was me flipping the toast so that now it was cheese-side down. My ass landed in my chair at the same instant as the now-upside-down melted cheese toast landed on my knee. My summertime-short-pants-wearing knee. The next one or two seconds were very educational...
The bread almost instantly fell to the floor. I observed, however, first with interest, and then with horror, that the cheese was stuck to my knee. It was fucking hot! And it was burning my knee! My knee was on fucking fire! I started to scrape the cheese off my knee. Small parts of my knee were coming off with it. "What the fuck," I thought, "this can't be happening!" It was happening. It did happen. And it fucking hurt.
I'd post pictures, but I don't want to gross anyone out. I haven't gone to a hospital because of the relatively small area of the burn (and I checked on the web: looks like a second-degree burn). The knee is a shitty place for a burn. It's reminded me of how often I actually bend my knee. Let this be a lesson: avoid melted cheese when you have a hangover.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
More Dead Flowers!
From a completely different video source (who nonetheless must have been sitting directly behind my wife), another song from our triumphant (heh!) Erekocha Festival gig. Here we are doing Neil Young's "Helpless":
This one quite definitely has a better drum sound...
This one quite definitely has a better drum sound...
Sunset This Evening
We've been having some unusual weather here recently--cloudy, rainy, sunny, thunder and lightning, sometimes seemingly all at the same time. Looking from my back balcony this evening there was an interesting sunset. It looked like this:
Welcome too, the Machine
Is there anything more rewarding than knowing that one's cherished obsessions have been passed on to respectful disciples?
Not an Obvious Choice
While checking out this backgrounder on the Russia/Georgia situation at the CBC's website I came across the following sentence:
"Fissiparousness," I thought to my self, "that's an odd word to find in a CBC article..."
Russia itself is an ethnic patchwork with various regions, peoples and languages who might be tempted to fissiparousness of their own by Caucasian splintering.
"Fissiparousness," I thought to my self, "that's an odd word to find in a CBC article..."
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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