Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!


Another month with daily posts, AND not so many far-forward posts like before. (Of course, that leads to yesterday's random crap)

And because it's the end of the month, it's time for my cop-out. ^_^ Tomorrow I'll have something real to post (maybe).

....alright, alright here's something for today: Sexy Halloween Costumes: When Does A Costume Go Too Far?

Friday, October 30, 2009

Mental Floss

Recently ran across the Mental Floss shirts. Most shirt stores have a couple good ones (and because I couldn't think of anything else to post today*); here are some of my faves.
(in random order)

*and tomorrow is not looking too good either.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Things They Don't Tell You

(CLICK THE IMAGES TO PROCEED THROUGH THIS COMIC)



Ze Frank recently buzzed about this, and I thought it was interesting enough to pass along. For me, there were two pages in particular that I thought deserved a comment.

#1:

Aha! I'm normal, bitches!

#2:

Argh! No, no, no. Money is not evil.

It's the *LOVE* of money that is the root of all evil! This is an important distinction! Timothy 6:10, look it up!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Important Things

I recently finally got around to watching Important Things with Demetri Martin. So far I've seen 1.5 episodes, and I have this to say: Demetri Martin is a Genius.

This show is great. Part stand-up, part sketch, part philosophy, each episode tackles one important thing.

And to show you how great it is, here are some clips.

The first episode was about Timing.

Timing - Anger Scene Management Show/Hide

Unfortunately, you get just a tiny taste in this mini-clip. You can see where it's going though. Actually, it goes even further than you'd think. :-/ Guess you'll have to catch it on re-run!

...or you could watch this low-quality YouTube video.


Timing - Time Gigolo Show/Hide

Argh! AGAIN you only get a small snippet of the full scene. Notice how the time changes after you start playing the video? What's that about?

(sorry, couldn't find a YouTube version of this one)


The second episode was about Power.

Power - Parking Fight Show/Hide

Finally a full scene!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Removed

Here's another reason (of many) that I like Google:

If they block some results, for any reason, they will TELL YOU.



Right there at the bottom of the page. Not in tiny text either. They practically bold it and surround it by flashing lights.

Yahoo didn't. Bing didn't. And I couldn't find any results that they were showing that Google wasn't (because maybe they weren't asked under the DMCA to remove any results), but Google also shows more results on the first page (15 vs 10@Yahoo vs 14@Bing).

Monday, October 26, 2009

Character Tweets

@wilw brought to everyone's attention that the Big Bang Theory characters have Twitter accounts.

Penny
Leonard
Sheldon
Wolowitz
Raj
Leslie

I don't know who's running the accounts (I do know that they aren't officially affiliated with the show) but whoever is doing it manages to do a FINE job of staying in-character. Tell me you can read Sheldon's tweets and not hear his voice?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Rainbows

Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole 'IZ' 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' Show/Hide


Driving home from work today, I saw a rainbow.



Actually, that's not true. I saw the place where a rainbow was. I couldn't see the rainbow itself.

I'm colorblind. Whereas a person with normal vision sees a spectrum like this:

I can basically see two colors: Blue and Not Blue

Or maybe I should say: Blue and I-Don't-Know.

(I'm guessing on that 2nd spectrum. I ran it through a filter, but since I can't really see the colors...)

When people find out that I'm colorblind, it inevitably leads to the game: What Color Does This Look Like To You? To save time, let me just say: Unless it's BLUE, I DON'T KNOW.

Another game is What Color Is _______? Look, I know Grass is Green. I'm colorblind, not ignorant.

I don't really get upset by these things anymore. It's human nature to be curious. People who can see colors want to know what it's like to be colorblind, just as I'm curious what it's like to see colors.

In my mind, I picture it to be like music. The different colors join together like notes in a song. Two notes come together and make a new sound; likewise two colors come together and make something new. Three notes can get you a chord, three colors combine to make up what a normal person can perceive*. Each spot you see, each patch of color is its own instrument in the orchestra of life. The world is a visual symphony.

*Some women have two distinct red/green receptors in their eyes, giving them FOUR-color perception. I literally CANNOT imagine what this is like.

Now, of course I know it isn't really like that. I'm overselling it because it is unknown to me. But I have to wonder if you appreciate it. Or do you take it for granted?

You live in a world that, to me, would be like a dream, but you don't even know it.



Driving home from work today, I didn't see a rainbow.

But I really wished I did.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Jack Ryan

So I'm only hearing about this now, and it's old news, but whatever. Barack Obama beat out Jack Ryan for his senate seat?

Now, I know that this is politician Jack Ryan (then-husband to 7 of 9), but the image that came to mind was:

Friday, October 23, 2009

Pi


(via)

Statements like this bother me, because intuitively they seem correct, but are actually wrong. Just because something is infinite and non-repeating DOES NOT mean that all possibilities are expressed.

For example, consider the infinite sequence: 17, 34, 51, 68, 85, 102, 119, 136...

It increases by 17 each time. It's infinite, and it never repeats, but the number 2 is never going to exist in this set. Or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6, etc... 16/17 of all numbers will never be part of it. Infinity doesn't mean the same as everything.

UPDATE:
Well, now I had to make this:

(store)

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Unseen Academicals


Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go going when you drop them. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else.

The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too. As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed for ever. Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!

Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel Unseen Academicalsis out now, and I've just finished reading it.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet, as until three quarters of the way through it was my favorite Pratchett book to date, but it fell apart at the weak ending.

Still, before the ending there were a number of great and moving bits, some snippets of which I will share with you below.

Here the Patrician and the Archchancellor are talking about soccer:

'In my day we were all so... so relentlessly physical. But if I was to suggest so much as an egg and spoon race these days they'd use the spoon to eat the egg.'

'Alas, I did not know your day was over, Mustrum,' said Lord Vetinari, with a smile.

Here the mysterious Mr. Nutt talks to Trev (a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can) and Glenda (a maker of jolly good pies) about Trev's father, a soccer legend killed by the game:

'Your father loved you, did he not?'

'Wot?' Trev's face reddened.

'He loved you, took you to the football, shared a pie with you, taught you to cheer for the Dimmers? Did he hold you on his shoulders so that you could see more of the game?'

'Stop talkin' about my dad like that!'

Glenda took Trev's arm. 'It's okay, Trev, it's all right, it's not a nasty question, really it isn't!'

'But you hate him, because he became a mortal man, dying on the cobbles,' said Nutt, picking up another undribbled candle.

'That is nasty,' said Glenda. Nutt ignored her.

'He let you down, Mister Trev. He wasn't the small boy's god. It turned out that he was only a man. But he was not only a man. Everyone who has ever watched a game in this city has heard of Dave Likely. If he was a fool, then any man who has ever climbed a mountain or swum a torrent is a fool. If he was a fool then so was the man who first tried to tame fire. If he was a fool then so was the man who tried the first oyster, he was a fool, too–although I'm bound to remark that, given the division of labour in early hunter-gatherer cultures, he was probably a woman as well. Perhaps only a fool gets out of bed. But, after death, some fools shine like stars, and your father is such a one. After death, people forget the foolishness, but they do remember the shine. You could not have done anything. You could not have stopped him. If you could have stopped him he would not have been Dave Likely, a name that means football to thousands of people.'

Nutt negotiates with a dwarf:

'Her? The Dark Lady? She can kill people with a thought!'

'She is my friend,' said Nutt calmly, 'and I will help you.'

Nutt has a mantra about Being Worthy, leading to this discussion with Trev:

'It is a skill. It can be learned.'

'An' that makes you worthy?'

'Yes.'

'An' who judges?'

'I do.'

    (Not entirely unrelatedly, I read this passage in The Little Prince today:
    "Then you shall judge yourself," the king answered. "that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."
    )
Some characters have undergone little changes (not sure how I feel about those yet), such as the teetotaler Patrician drinking a beer while telling this story:

The Patrician took a sip of his beer. 'I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.'

Nutt tells Glenda an interesting thing about ships:

'The interesting thing about ships is that the captains of ships have to be very careful when two ships are close together at sea, particularly in calm conditions. They tend to collide.'

'Because of the wind blowing, and that?' said Glenda, thinking: In theory this is a romantic-novel situation and I am about to learn about ships. Iradne Comb-Buttworthy never puts a ship in her books. They probably don't have enough reticules.

'No,' said Nutt. 'In fact, to put it simply, each ship shields the other ship from lateral waves on one side, so by small increments outside forces bring them together without their realizing it.'

(this is a metaphor about relationships; it even puns 'ships)

Glenda cleared her throat again. 'This thing with the ships…Does it happen quite quickly?'

'It starts quite slowly, but it's quite quick towards the end,' said Nutt.

If I could put smart in water...

'Can't you wizards do something?'

'Yes,' said Ponder. 'We can do practically anything, but we can't change people's minds. We can't magic them sensible. Believe me, if it were possible to do that, we would have done it a long time ago. We can stop people fighting by magic and then what do we do? We have to go on using magic to stop them fighting. We have to go on using magic to stop them being stupid. And where does all that end? So we make certain that it doesn't begin. That's why the university is here. That's what we do.'

Ah, punnery:

'We shall have to change our tactics to suit, then,' said Nutt.

'Are you nu—insane?'



Another thing I found interesting was that Amazon paired it up with And Another Thing...(the 6th Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book) penned this time by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer. Of course, no one could ever replace DNA.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Threeway

Love that search engine.

So, someone recommended Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture to me recently. It sounded interesting, so I decided to check the Spokane County Library page to see if they had it.

I threw the title into the search engine, but forgot to set it as Title and it searched as Words or Phrase.

The first result was Threeway sex, whose only result was Triangles (Interpersonal relations), whose only result was a Vampire Diaries book.

Not... exactly what I was looking for.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The Worst Part of Censorship

Was browsing around and saw this:

(via)

Hey! I know that saying! In fact, I put it on a t-shirt over a year ago!


It looks almost identical to what I made! AND the earliest version of that image I could find was from May of this year, over a YEAR after I made my t-shirt! They're ripping me off!

And then I found this:

(via)

Not quite an entire year before my shirt. Almost identical wording as mine. :-(

I'm beginning to wonder if I have any original ideas at all. It's super-frustrating to think you're clever only to find out someone else thought of it before you.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Rainy Season

It hurts.

Many years ago, when I was younger and more foolish, a moment's horseplay crushed my right hand in a door. In an instant my life's path was altered. For about six months, my fingers wouldn't open up. I had a permanent fist. Couldn't type on a computer, couldn't brush my teeth or tie my shoelaces, and have you ever noticed how jeans are really biased against southpaws?

I played piano in high school. Did you know that? I imagine that many people that know me might not know that, as I don't play anymore. Sometimes I fantasize about taking the time to relearn how to play, now that I can move my fingers again, but I don't think I ever will. I doubt I could endure it.

Because it hurts. All the time. Sometimes, it's just a dull ache in the background of my mind, like a neighbor's too-loud TV: annoying and ignorable, but relentless. My hand makes popping sounds as I move it, and I can feel the strange sensation of tendons sliding over bumps that shouldn't be there. I don't take anything for this pain. What would be the point? There's nothing I could take every day for the rest of my life (healthily, anyway), and the pain itself is never going to stop. Ever.

Even when I sleep, it's still there. I often dream that my right hand has turned into a stone fist, because that sometimes helps mask the pain. Sorry pain, I can't feel you, I'm made of stone. Odd dreams.

But it's worse at this time of the year, when the rains come. I can feel the approaching storms, like a character in a novel I read in middle-school. I can also feel them leaving, which no childhood story I read ever warned me about. These days, a storm is always approaching or leaving, so the pain intensifies and never lets up, never lets go even for a moment.

I've felt terrible pain before, other than this. When I was in high school, I slipped on the ice and tore the ligaments in my ankle. Worse than breaking a bone, they said. When I was in my mid-20s, I passed a kidney stone. Not a smooth one, a jagged one that tore up my insides on its way out. Worse than giving birth, they said. So much blood was expelled that even my colorblind eyes could see it. That was bad.

Some days, though, some days this is worse. Believe it.

Often the entire tendon sheath becomes inflamed, carrying the pain from the injury all the way up to my shoulder, and the hand itself becomes a clumsy tingling ball of ache, and the right half of my body vibrates to some resonant frequency of torment. At these times, moving my arm at all is excruciating. Every breath I take seems to pull out more pain, and if I bother to hold my breath and still my body, the beat beat beat of my heart fans at the embers.

My right eye sometimes goes blind from the agony, white hot like staring at the sun. I just want to give up, curl up in my bed and dream of a different life that doesn't hurt so much.

Even just remembering this now makes it hard to type, hard to concentrate.

If ever you see me sitting unfocused on a cloudy day, please, just let me rest for a moment. Just a moment, let me regain my strength.

Right now, as I type this, a storm is approaching. I can feel it. The rainy season is here.

Bian shi tou. Please God, make me a stone.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Marriage (revisited)

A follow-up to my previous post on marriage. I saw both of these today:


(via The 8 Phases of Dating)


(via The 5 Stages of Most Relationships)

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Google Voice

Google Voice lets me invite other people now? A couple invitations showed up in my inbox today.

Speaking of Google Voice, here's something I've been meaning to post for months now but kept forgetting. It's about sending texts from Google Voice:







Friday, October 16, 2009

Television Piracy

Here's why I don't think that downloading TV shows off the Interwebs is a real threat to broadcasters:

I can get better quality picture and sound for FREE over the air with a simple antenna. Plus, I can get THAT faster than I can download it (often before it is even available for download).

Downloading has some advantages, I guess, but I have a DVR to capture off the air, which gives me most of them anyway.

And yes, for quality one can download the hi-res versions of a show, but a single episode of House is about as big as every episode of Important Things with Demetri Martin combined.

Just an observation.

(Also, if you ARE a downloader, and you have a fast enough connection, check out Hulu. Some of their streams are faster and higher-quality than your average cap, and the commercials are shorter than over-the-air)

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Piano Bar

So, Spokane has a piano bar

I don't know how it came up, but my sister and I decided to go there for our birthday this year. I'll give you a quick rundown of the evening, Twitter-style (but since I hadn't bothered to setup my phone for Twitter, these aren't actual tweets. God, I just used 'tweet' for the first time).

Anyway.

9:30 Dueling pianos played Billy Jean (briefly).
9:45 Night is young, girls already kissing. I think. Wish I had worn glasses.
9:55 Apparently, anyone can sing with the piano. Like karaoke.
10:03 Our party has taken over the bar.
10:08 Lenny sings dirty Happy Birthday to my sister. :-/
10:18 Wisdom from my other sister: Alcohol is Tylenol PM that costs $50.
10:41 Piano-man is singing Don't Cha. It's awesome.
10:55 I would imagine that the girls being loud in the bathroom don't realize we can hear them.
11:14 Sex on the Piano - My other sister's new favorite drink.
11:26 Piano-man is closing with I Kissed a Girl.
11:30 Piano-man is still playing. He keeps saying this is the last song (he was scheduled to stop at 11:00) but people keep requesting...
11:44 My birthday sister tries to surprise me with a dance. Now we're both embarrassed.**
11:48 Piano-man (whose name is Christan*) ends his set for real, with Hey Jude.
11:55 Apparently now it's time for another bar. Should have taken that ride home when I had the chance.

** even though we TALKED in the car-ride over about how my knees don't work (especially right now; the right-kneecap is bruised through to the other side, it feels like. It hurts as bad as my broken right hand***)

*** that is a lie.

I didn't have any notes after that (although my right nipple is fairly bruised for some reason). :-/

Anyway, Gibliano Brothers was a lot of fun. I'll have to convince my other friends to check it out some time (HINT, you guys!). It was a light crowd (well, it _was_ a Wednesday) and we almost had the run of the place. The piano-man did play Billy Jean again on his own, but didn't know enough Michael to sate the hungry crowd. It was a treat to hear Nine Inch Nails and .... man I can't even remember all the songs he played. During the really good songs, I was too busy listening to take notes. :-/ He never did play Baby Got Back (which was requested many times) although he did close out (for really real) with Fat Bottomed Girls.

*Spelled 'Christien' on their website. I must have misheard him. :-/

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Future

I turned on my Nintendo DS, and instead of the usual musical notes it played some high-pitched chimes.

What? Are the speakers broken? No, the sounds in the games work fine...

Yeah, this is a feature of the DS. It knows that today is my birthday, so it played a slightly different opening.

That's right, I was just wished happy birthday by a machine! In case you didn't realize that we're living in the future!

Great Balls of Fire

And I'm not talking about STIs (this time).
It was dusk when the first fireball burst from the Mekong. A glowing pink orb hovered over the chocolaty waters for a split second then accelerated noiselessly skyward, winking out some 100 meters above.
So begins the Time article Behind the Secret of the Naga's Fire.

I am of course talking about Naga Fireballs, a not-fully-explained phenomena that happens every year around October. In fact, here's a video from ONE YEAR AGO TODAY! Show/Hide


So what causes the mysterious lights? ^_^ I wouldn't dream of spoiling it for you.

Birthday Meme

Today is my BIRTHDAY. ^_^ Time for the MEME!

The instructions:
  1. Go to Wikipedia
  2. In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year.
  3. List three events that happened on your birthday
  4. List two important birthdays
  5. List one death
  6. One holiday or observance (if any)

Three Events
1322 - Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence. (I'm partly Scot)

1789 - George Washington proclaims the first Thanksgiving Day.

1867 - The 15th and last Shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate resigns in Japan.


Two Birthdays
1894 - E. E. Cummings, American poet (d. 1962)

1927 - Roger Moore, English actor (That's right, JAMES BOND bitches!)


One Death
1977 - Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (b. 1903) (Yay, Spokane!)


One Holiday/Observance
World Standards Day (A holiday for NERDS!)

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The End of Forward Posting

Soon (very soon) all the forward posts I've written will run out.

How did I go from several months of queued posts to nothing? Well, I have other outlets now.

Pictures get posted to tumblr. (I have ~100 pictures in that queue, even though it posts every four hours!)
Articles, Comics, and Blog Posts end up on Google Reader. Do you use Google Reader? It's awesome.
Short notes get posted to twitter. (Blog posts and pictures also double post to Twitter. Twitter is almost all you need.)

Long stories will still end up here (when I have time to write them).

Monday, October 12, 2009

Inhibition

Odd things about Phoenix:

This is the opposite of most people, but I find that the more I drink, the greater my inhibitions. What's up with that? Am I just naturally so uninhibited that a little alcohol pushes me out the other side?

Weird.

UPDATE:
Further experimentation has led me to the conclusion that a small amount of alcohol takes the edge off, but any more and I lock down.

Still weird.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Air

Sometimes it feels like I'm not getting enough oxygen. I find myself suddenly taking great gasping breaths. What the heck is going on there?

I'm wondering if it could be related to my abnormally low blood-pressure? Like, my lungs are bringing in plenty of O2, but the blood moves so slowly I run out?

I've no idea. One of these days, I'll have to bring it up with a doctor.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

October 10th

Today is October 10th, and ... there's really no holiday.

In Japan, this used to be Health and Sports day, but that was moved to the 2nd Monday of October (this year, it is the 12th). So... what do we do now? Make up our own holiday?

I could move my birthday forward four days, no problem. I could celebrate it as Phoenix Day! Yeah! It'll be like "The Christmas In September", only, like, in October. The Christmas In September In October? Kind of wordy. Phoenix Day* is much better.

What's really perfect about this plan is that it's also World Mental Health Day today! Mwahahahaha!

*Now, in a few years this search might actually return something! Hopefully not because Felicia Day had a kid named Phoenix. A daughter.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Motion Portrait



Big deal, right? Just another picture of Phoenix in a wig. Or... is it?

Actually, it's a Motion Portrait.

I uploaded a picture of myself, and it did the rest. Really, a static image just doesn't convey the effect, because on the site I'm looking around, smiling, blinking, etc. It's like the pictures in Harry Potter.



You can change the wig or facial hair and save a snapshot, although the snapshots they generate always put your face back to neutral (meaning, the same as the uploaded photo) instead of whichever way you're looking at the time. Oh well.

Some tips on the photo you upload:
  • Straight-on head shot. Don't turn your head even a little. This affects EVERYTHING.
  • Close-cropped or tied-down hair, otherwise it will poke out through the wigs/hats.
  • No facial hair. It has trouble finding your chin through that forrest.
  • No background. It needs to know where your head ends.
You can get a pretty interesting (if a bit creepy) effect. It's not quite as good as real-life (especially when it blinks), but it's getting closer.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

18 Seconds

(Slightly NSFW [but hot] content that makes up a tiny portion of the video warning) Show/Hide
18 Seconds
There are a lot of things I like about this video. I like the mood, the small details, the snsfw bit... But the ending is extremely predictable.

Still, overall worth a watch.

Edit: Greetings from 2016. Old link is dead. Was this the video?

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Nudism Revisited

As I previously mentioned, I walk around in my boxer-briefs a lot.

It occurred to me a moment ago, as I was in my kitchen making another cup of coffee, that my neighbors across the way can see me through the gap between my blinds and the side of the window.

Cheers.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

The Ascent of Man

The inspiration for Carl Sagans 1980 series, Cosmos, Jacob Bronowskis 1973 series, The Ascent of Man, alludes to and seeks to somewhat challenge the notion of some of Charles Darwins conclusions in The Decent of Man. Over the course of thirteen episodes, Bronowski travelled around the world in order to trace the development of human society through its understanding of science.

Jacob Bronowski was one of a small group of men and women in any age who find all of human knowledge-the arts and sciences, philosophy and psychology-interesting and accessible. He was not confined to a single discipline, but ranged over the entire panorama of human learning. His book and television series, The Ascent of Man, are a superb teaching tool and a remarkable memorial; they are, in a way, an account of how human beings and human brains grew up together. Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden
If you haven't seen this incredible series yet, I highly recommend it. It has been mentioned on Screenwipe several times, and then on Ze Frank's Blog.

Here's a preview: Show/Hide


There's a full playlist at YouTube. Good stuff!

Monday, October 05, 2009

The Sneeze

I don't Twitter, but I do sometimes run across people that twitter (in my car, HO!).

Steve "The Sneeze" twitters. Here are some of the gems that you've been missing:
# I think I'm turning into my mother. I was just nagging the kids to make their beds. And then I had sex with my dad.
10:01 AM Aug 13th from Tweetie

# Told my son on 1st day of kindergarten they make you fight a gorilla. He didn't believe me. I should show up in a gorilla suit
8:22 AM Aug 17th from web

# So typical. I had no interest in buying Marvel until Disney did and now I'm pissed at myself.
10:43 AM Aug 31st from web

# My favorite part of going to the dyslexic bakery is when you order a dozen and they give you 31.
11:02 AM Aug 31st from web

# My wife always laughs when I say I have PMS, so this weekend I bled through my vagina. Who's laughing NOW?
2:17 PM Aug 31st from Twittelator
If you tweet (and there's really no reason why you should), and you can't seem to stop yourself, check him out.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

My P***y Belongs To Daddy

Wanna see some random? So, there's this record...

(NSFW image warning, don't click this) Show/Hide

(via)

Here's some more info about the record. It could have been yours for only $22 (yeah, the eBay link will probably expire before you read this, so here's an image; Boogboo was the seller).

Want to hear it?

(imeem has one of the worst embeds I've seen)

Wow that's a lot of red links. Some day, I want to live in a country where boobs are OK at work.

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Basic Instructions

Recently (in my timeline anyway) there was this Basic Instructions comic:



Have you read it? OK, let's talk about it then.

Some people in the comments noted that panel three could be read in several different ways. It could be the boss and his lady (obviously), or it could be the boss and Scott, or it could be the boss and his lady with the characters swapped around and it would still make sense (and be funny). Also, it could be rape.

When you got to panel three, did you think "Oh my god, he's raping that woman?" Because, if you did there's something wrong with you.

When I originally read it, I didn't think that at all, so it came as quite a surprise when Scott Meyer's newspost about the controversy came up. I was quite taken aback. This was my response:
This situation depicted is absolutely NOT RAPE, and it offends me that people are saying that it is.

Has the woman clearly communicated that she wishes him to stop? Obviously not, otherwise he would. He is not continuing KNOWING that she wants him to stop; if he did know she wanted him to stop, he would. That's not rape.

What if a woman says stop in a language she knows her partner doesn't understand? Is that rape? How could he know?

What if a woman just THINKS stop? Is that rape? Absurd. Men aren't mind readers.

Despite what a commenter stated, it is not enough for the woman to just want her partner to stop, she has to communicate that want.

Knowing people that HAVE been raped (in some cases, quite violently), it SICKENS me that you people would trivialize the word. You debase its value when you apply it to situations like this. Real rape is unbelievably horrific, and to take that concept and apply it to this harmless cartoon angers me to my core.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.
tl;dr
Not everything is rape (just like not everyone you disagree with is Hitler). Stop saying it is.

(A side note about Scott Meyer: I like and respect him, and not because he's funny. [Dilbert is funny, but Scott Adams is a retarded tool.] Scott Meyer is a prince among men, and I'm going to keep saying that until it catches on. In e-mail he has been unfailingly polite and responsive [when my comments for this comic didn't post, he unlocked it and responded to my e-mail in less than three minutes. That's service.] Say it! Say Scott Meyer is a prince among men. SAY IT!)

tl;dr
Scott Meyer is a prince among men.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Marriage

At least two people I know want to turn their troubled relationships into troubled marriages.
"While we expect marriage to be 'happily ever after,' the truth is that neither marriage nor divorce seem to have a decisive impact on happiness. Studies have found that after a couple years of marriage, people are just about as happy (or unhappy) as they were before settling down. And assuming that marriage will automatically provide contentment is itself a surefire recipe for misery. Marriage is not supposed to make you happy. It is supposed to make you married."
- (Shulman 2004)

Thursday, October 01, 2009

First Impressions

So I'm just getting back from a first-meeting with a girl I met on the interwebs. Now, before I tell this tale I should probably delve a tiny bit into my backstory here and explain that almost EVERY relationship decision I've ever made has been wrong.

Did you ever see that episode of Seinfeld wherein George realizes that, since very decision he has ever made has been wrong, then the opposite would have to be right? Yeah, I thought I'd try that.

So instead of putting in effort to make a good first impression, I did the opposite. Nice button up shirt? No, just a t-shirt (and I'm not sure it's even clean). Carefully style my hair? I didn't even brush it when I got out of the shower, nor did I bother to shave today. And it wasn't limited to just my appearance. When I met her for lunch, did I compliment her on ... anything? No (which was difficult, because she was much cuter in person than her pictures implied). And then the guy asked if it was going to be together or separate checks.

My first instinct was to say together (in my mind, the asker pays, and I was the one to suggest we meet in person), but... the more I think about it now the less likely I think I'll think that in the future. What decade is this? It's not a Man's world anymore. What bothers me in retrospect was that she made no indication that she wanted to pay for her stuff at all (she had to go back to her bag for her check-card). Like, of COURSE I would pay; I have the penis.

Anyway. Everything was opposite. When I found out she was taking the bus, did I offer her a ride so she could meet her friend? No. Did I tell my interesting stories about ... well, you've heard my stories right? No, I held them in and let her tell me her interesting stories.

The point was to set the bar low: instead of setting a high expectation for the future, I basically went in my lowest form. From this point on, I'll by like this or better. Right? It made sense earlier today when I was getting ready.

Looking back, I wonder if I should have put in more effort, because she was really interesting. Other than the who-pays annoyance at the very beginning, I enjoyed myself. Doctor Who, Eddie Izzard, Christopher Walken, The Neverending Story, movies being filmed in Spokane, and adventures in the Gobi desert all came up in the conversation.

So maybe my decision to do the opposite of my usually wrong decisions was itself the wrong decision?

Time will tell.

DJ Paige Railstone

Alright, I totally lied about there not being a post today. So sue me.

Before I get to today's actual topic, take a brief listen to this: Show/Hide



Not bad, right? That's DJ Railstone (Paige Railstone). Haven't heard of her? I'm not surprised, almost nobody has, but you can find out a little more on omnictionary.

So now that you're possibly a bit more caught up on Railstone lore, you can watch this and appreciate it: Show/Hide

BTW, the Vlogbrothers are quite interesting. It was a completely random find.

But, I miss Ze.

Alright, TOMORROW there will be no post.