Friday 5


Merideth chose this week's topic, which is:
5 Things You Never Pass Up


(1) Kook Books - Man, I love a good 3-400 page rant about the Reptoid plot to raise Atlantis from its resting place in the Hollow Earth and ressurrect the Antarctic Space Nazis so they can defeat the Masonic/Templar Conspiracy to bring about the New World Order. The more breathless and hysterical, the better. Please note that kook books do not include racist screeds or other things of that ilk.

(2) Alternate History Books - Take a historical event, change it, and write a plausible history based upon that change. Groovy, man. Groovy. Zeppelins are just icing on the cake.

(3) Chuck Jones Cartoons - Duck Dodgers, Michigan J. Frog, Wile E. Coyote - Chuck Jones made the best Warner Brothers cartoons until Freakazoid came along.

(4) Cheap Action Figures - I've got Speed Racer, Tars Tarkas Jeddak of Thark, Arthur from The Tick, The Shadow, The Creeper, The Gyrocaptain from The Road Warrior, Iron Man, Green Arrow.... I'm hoping the Nightcrawler figures from X2 go on sale soon.

(5) Roasted Garlic Boca Burgers - Just discovered these pieces of magic the other night. They's good eatin', especially when you spread some peppered goat cheese on top of 'em. Wonder how they'd taste with a Vidalia onion on 'em?



Also participating: Melissa, Will, Gina and Chris.


Yes, I know I posted this on Thursday, but I posted it late on Thursday, so I'm counting it as Friday.

Scamorama update


Here. Dig it - I'm rather proud of myself. Next letter from Nigeria I get, I'm going to try to get $5 from the scammer.

The weirdest goddamn thing I've seen in a while


This.


Words can't really describe it, just turn up your sound. Safe for work.

Fun with con artists


I mentioned earlier that I was having a bit of fun leading on one of those "419" scam artists. The whole story is posted here at Scamorama.com.


Everyone needs a hobby, right?

The diet's working!


For the last 10 years or so, I've experienced a slow but steady weight gain. While I was able to dismiss it at first as being "festively plump" and then "portly", I admitted to myself recently that I really don't want to be overweight anymore. I therefore have developed a diet plan all on my own, called the "Don't Be A Twelve-Sandwich Eating Motherfucker" diet. By combining that with regular workouts at the YMCA, I've managed to drop 11 pounds in the last month. I will not be celebrating with a double-bacon cheeseburger at Whataburger.




You may tell me how amazingly handsome I am now.


NOW.

Well, this comes as no surprise


BBC crew does sonar survey of Loch Ness


Providing surprise and disappointment only to the self-deluded, they discovered no indication of large, underwater animals. Over 600 sonar beams and GPS systems were used to cover the loch from one end to the other. Time was, I'd have been disappointed about this shining of the harsh light of reason into yet another of the dark corners we still want to place in the world. Now, I'm sure that the rationalizations and denials will start rolling out within the next week or so. Not that I'm cynical.

New Monkey Threats to Humanity


I have come across new indications of a monkey conspiracy - while I have no problem with monkeys individually, when they get together in groups, they become a threat. Check this out.


The Formosan macaque, a monkey protected under Taiwan law, has become a pest to farmers living near the mountains.


In Taitung County, located at the eastern end of Taiwan's Central Mountains, an owner of a chicken farm complained that the monkeys often harass his chickens. And he said they aren't doing it for food, but instead are just playing monkey games such as plucking the feathers of roosters and placing hens on branches high up in the trees.


And here's where it gets really weird:

A goat ranch owner in Fuyuan, Taitung County, said that a Formosan macaque arrived at his ranch this year and soon started harassing his goats, even sexually attacking the female ones.


You folks may prefer to sit back and laugh about this, but you'll be singing a different tune when you're ground under the opposable-thumbed feet of our new ape overlords. Charlton Heston won't be there to free us, either. Watch the trees...

Bad news for the adventuring crowd...

Healing potions cause liver damage.

For years, adventurers and other people working in hazardous occupations have relied on so-called healing potions to perform their jobs. Those days could very well be over, as experts are becoming wary of negative long-term effects of the popular potions.

Dang.

I want to die


Well, maybe that's a little extreme - I want to not have sinuses clogged with mucous, I want to not be coughing, and I want to be sure I'm over this before the baby gets here. I do not want to risk giving the baby a cold, and I don't want to lose time with him at the hospital.


There are few things that make you feel more miserable than a summer cold. Dunno how I got this one (besides the obvious - I was exposed to bacteria/virii that gave me these symptoms), but I goddamn hate it. And I can't take antihistamines because I'm on Welbutrin. Well, I could, but I'd be seriously fucked up.

A while ago, I had an idea for a blog entry like this one. It's taken me a while to actually put it together, as there's a lot of research that had to go into it. Hyperlinks are, in today's world, an invaluable resource when doing research, and I felt that it was important to demonstrate how they can make a blog entry more than just words on the screen, making reading this blog a wholly random, postmodern experience.

Friday 5

My turn to pick the topic, which is:
The Top 5 Things That Make Me Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night In A Cold Sweat

(1) The Kids: I have an occasionally recurring nightmare in which both of our children just stop breathing in the middle of the night, and I sleep through it. I'm sure it has something to do with me tending towards over-protection or something, or to a Freudian, it's probably sublimated castration anxiety or some shit. All I know is, when I wake up from this, I have to get up and walk down the hall and check.

(2) Time: I'm 35, soon to be 36. I am generally OK with that - I'm not desperate to be the stupid kid I was 15 years ago, or the clinically depressed guy I was 10 years ago. I'm a forward-looker, so I always anticipate what's coming, or at least try to. Still, there's occasionally one of those moments where I wake up and it's pitch black, and I start thinking, "I've wasted my life! I'm 35, I haven't made a mark in the world - when John Wilkes Booth was 27, he'd assassinated Lincoln, and I'm just a middle class guy faking his way through life." I usually just promise myself that I'll go skydiving naked onto the White House lawn next month, and that tricks my subconscious into going back to sleep.

(3) The universe: Same as above, except the epiphany is that the Universe is a vast, cold, dark emptiness, and that I'm just a small cog in some mind-bogglingly vast Cosmic Pain Machine, and any guiding force (if there is one) is malicious, capricious and utterly inhuman. I can get myself out of this one relatively easily by telling myself that it's equally likely that the Universe was made for the express purpose of making me suffer, which means that it is, in fact, All About Me. I sleep like a baby after that.

(4) Jalapeno Poppers from the Alamo Drafthouse: Man, I love those things. Jalapeno Peppers stuffed with cheese, dipped in batter and deep fried. I almost swoon when I get that plate in front of me. Unfortunately, I end up paying for that love around 3:15 in the morning. They're worth it, though.

(5) Money: What if I lose my job? What if the economy crashes, and we're reduced to a migrant existence, forced to become latter-day Okies, as it were? Oh Dear God, what if I have to get a new job that involves me actually working? Can Melissa find a job that pays well enough to cover child care? Did I pay the gas bill, or is the envelope with the check still sitting on my desk at work, unmailed, meaning we're going to wake up tomorrow with our gas cut off, and no way to cook? Repeating the mantra, "Money is a consensual illusion, it has no intrinsic value. Any value applied to it derives from the collective pretense of all participants in our economy. It's not real!" seems to help with this one.

Also participating:
Melissa, Chris, Gina

Feel free to comment with your own T5TTMYWUITMOTNIACS...

Steampunky goodness and alternate history, to boot!

I'm currently reading S. M. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers. It's set in an alternate history in which a comet hit Earth in 1878, plunging the Northern Hemisphere into a brutal, never-ending winter. Fast forward to 2025 - The British Empire rules India, Australia, the Cape of Africa, and has colonies around the world, contesting domination with a Chinese/Japanese Empire, the Caliphate of Baghdad and a Russian Empire that has descended to ritual cannibalism in the service of Malik Bous, a god of darkness. Technology is firmly steampunkish - huge Babbage-style Difference Engines and dirigibles* are the technological hallmarks of this age. It's written with a wink and nod to Kipling, while painting a picture of a British Empire that has become very Indianized. It pretends to be nothing more or less than a good rip-snorting adventure yarn, with a handsome, capable, resourceful hero, his faithful sikh retainer and vile, scheming villains that are dedicated to the destruction of human life on Earth.


* - It is a commonly understood fact that the presence of passenger dirigibles in the sky is the best indicator that you are in an alternate timeline. This was first proposed by game designer Kenneth Hite (author of Suppressed Transmission, a compendium of his columns from the online magazine Pyramid), based upon the fact that passenger dirigibles have become a cliche in alternate history fiction. It's also suggested that the period between 1902 and 1937 was the intrusion of an alternate reality into our own, based primarily upon the presence of both passenger dirigibles and, towards the end of that period, Nazis. I'm not sure about the last, but I still check the sky every once in a while, just to make sure I'm still in the right universe.

OK, so I got one of those "419" emails in my spam-friendly email account. I decided to have a little fun, a la Scam 0 rama, so with the quick creation of an email account, the Right Rev. Stanley Ward was ready to sweep in to assist Mrs. Cecilia Aku, widow of the Nigerian Youth Minister or some such. Seems the Good Widow Aku needs someone gullible and greedy like Rev. Ward, KSC to help her do a bait and switch to get the money out of the control of her relatives. So far, the Lad from Lagos seems to have bought the story - Rev. Ward is, unfortunately, unable to contact either Mrs. Aku or her barrister by telephone, as he's in a cloistered retreat in San Francisco, and the Brothers of Joshua Norton don't allow telephones.

I'll start posting more details soon, assuming baby doesn't come too soon.

Snopes.com does it again


Will commented last week about a company in Las Vegas that charges several thousand dollars a person to let them chase naked women around in the desert with paintball guns. Will was outraged, as were local talk radio hosts and folks on several different discussion groups.


I had two reactions to this story:
(1) It's probably bogus.
(2) On the microscopic chance it isn't, and everyone involved is an adult giving informed consent, who the fuck cares?

Looking at #1, I just don't see any company that can mount something of the scale reported that would be so foolish as to open itself to massive liability lawsuits by allowing people to run around naked in the desert and get shot at by paintball guns, which can raise welts through several layers of clothing.

The story set my crap detectors off on a massive scale, and I can once again smugly point to Snopes.com and say, "See? I told you so."

Ha.

Got an email from my buddy Gord. He's working in Korea as an English teacher, having some interesting adventures. I had mentioned to him that our nickname for the new baby (Due August 11, might arrive earlier [not that I'm panicky, noooo]) is Baby Dumpling. This allows us to refer to the baby as a person without locking us into a name. Gord now calls the baby Jageun Mandu (little dumpling), Drew is Obbah Mandu (Elder Brother Dumpling), Franny is Eoni Mandu (Elder Sister Dumpling) and Melissa and I are Eomanim wa
Apeonim Mandu (Revered Mother and Revered Father Dumpling) respectively.


Heh. Gord's a funny guy. Read his blog.

Whacknoodles of the Week


Ever wonder why your congressman seems to be proposing laws that have no relation to reality? Convinced President Bush is the pawn of those pesky Reptoids?


Dr. Michael E. Salla has the answers for you in his research paper entitled POLITICAL MANAGEMENT OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL PRESENCE: THE CHALLENGE TO DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY IN AMERICA.


Wow.


Seems that President Roosevelt started it during WWII, out of fear that the Nazis and Japanese would try to form an alliance of some sort with the space aliens. Dr. Salla references the Philadelphia Experiment, known to be a hoax, as well as the Majestic-12 documents, known forgeries. Of course, no description of the UFO! CONSPIRACY! would be complete without mentioning the Roswell Coverup, because it's just not interesting to believe that it was just a balloon. Additionally, the suicide of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal due to depression is further proof of the UFO! CONSPIRACY!, because of course Forrestal's recently uncovered history of tax evasion and investments in Nazi-owned companies combined with clinical depression and his dismissal as Secretary of Defense by President Truman in no way predisposed him to suicide. Nope, that was because he KNEW! TOO! MUCH!, and we know what happens to those people...


Nelson Rockefeller is credited with connecting this with corporate America and the Council of Foreign Relations, because it's not enough to believe that hundreds if not thousands of scientists and low- to mid- level government employees could keep a secret like this, noooooo, we are also asked to believe that businessmen have kept this on the QT for almost 50 years, too. Also involved in the UFO! CONSPIRACY! are Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Edward Teller, Allen Welsh Dulles, John Foster Dulles, J. Edgar Hoover, George H. W. Bush and, of course, John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated because he dared threaten the MILITARY!-INDUSTRIAL! COMPLEX!!!. Fast forwarding to the Carter Administration, we find that it was all because of the UFO! CONSPIRACY! that there even was an Iranian Revolution. You know, I never did trust those Iranians - they must be pawns of the Reptoids Reagan developed the SDI to protect the Earth from fleets of RAVENING! UFO! MONSTERS!, probably intent upon stealing our women, but Clinton was the victim of efforts by MJ-12 to remove him from power. Damn, and I thought Richard Mellon Scaife was behind the Paula Jones stuff. Maybe Monica Lewinsky is really a Grey?


It is revealed by Dr. Salla that our recent invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with oil, as opponents of the war contend, nor with Weapons of Mass Destruction, as the administration insists, nor to secure human rights and remove a dictator, as I advocated. Nope, it's because Saddam Hussein was using UFO! TECHNOLOGY! in Iraq. Well, I can certainly see the evidence of that, especially in those Iraqi towns without electricity and running water. The UFO! TECHNOLOGY! also seemed to help Hussein's army, didn't it?


Which brings us to today, when MJ-12 (controlled by the MILITARY! INDUSTRIAL! COMPLEX!) competes with similar organizations in China, France, Germany and Russia to secure control of UFO! TECHNOLOGY!. Dr. Salla doesn't give us any information on why it's so important to these organizations that we never find out about the EXTRATERRESTRIAL! INVASION!, nor what the apparent goals of these groups are, but I'm hoping he'll be able to give us some answers Real Soon Now. I might recommend that he look into a prescription for trifluoperazine before he gets to work on that. I mean, I'm not saying anything about his mental state, but I think you know what I'm saying.

I'm getting too old for this, I think


Caught The Clumsy Lovers last night, it was a really good show. I also drank a wee bit too much last night. I'm paying the price this morning for too much beer.


To the asswipe in the red hat that flipped us off, I'd like to say the following:

What a putrid putrid waste of a penis you are, you ridiculous little Jerk-In-The-Box. I'm frankly amazed to hear that you're married; I pray you don't breed and contaminate the gene pool. You're vomit-inducing fugly. You have a face that would give Freddie Kruger nightmares. How much would you change to haunt a house? People like you are the reason cults exist. If brains were gasoline, you wouldn't have enough to run a piss ant's go-kart around the inside of a donut. Eeverything about you is average; except your stench - which is overwhelming. Try this maneuver: Take 50-60 paces backwards. Take several deep breaths. Sprint forward at full speed. Do a triple summersault through the air, and disappear up your own asshole. If I want to hear from a rat-faced tard-popsicle, I'll either spit raw flem at you or waltz over there and piss on you. Until then, stick your head into your infected mange and let the stench knock you out already.

Thanks, Swearasaurus!

I keep telling myself that I'll get my payback when my children are teenagers.

That's almost 10 years away, however, and I'm losing Saturday Morning Sleep right now. I don't need an alarm clock - no earlier than 0500 Central, no later than 0600 Central, I am awakened by one or both children climbing into bed, pulling the comforter off me and onto themselves, and one or two pairs of cold feet digging into my lower back. This is accompanied by my son wrapping a piece of my hair around his finger and twirling it until it's almost pulled from my scalp, and my daughter chattering at 120db about how she "WANTS. HER. BREAKFAST."

Gaaaaaaah. It's almost enough to make me stop staying up past midnight playing Medal of Honor deathmatches. Almost.

Another interesting blog

Green Boogers. Is it a cliche yet to refer to a blog as quirky and interesting? Anyhoo, Green Boogers is both. It's also where I found this:



Threat rating: High. The Bush administration is
concerned that it may not get a second term.
Therefore, we are going to change the rules so
that each Democrat vote only counts as 0.2
votes because Democrat is a shorter word than
Republican


What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

More Friday 5

Late addition, Melissa's original topic was Historical or fictional characters, so I'll do another list:

Fictional characters:
(1) Spider Jerusalem - From Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan, it would definitely be a dinner to remember. I would ask that he leave the bowel disruptor at home, though.
(2) John Clayton, Lord Greystoke - I'd have to insist upon a formal dining experience, rather than the dinners he ate while growing up among the mangani.
(3) D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis - I'm counting the four of them as one, just because I can. The Musketeers knew how to throw down a good feast, and I could always hope to pick up some tips for my fencing.
(4) Chu from Eat Drink Man Woman - That was the father, and I'd want him to cook the meal. Mmmm, good eatin'.
(5) John Carter - You know the Warlord of Mars would have some interesting stories to tell.

Let's just take this to the lowest common denominator, OK?


The Swearasaurus - how to be insulting in 109 languages!


F'rinstance:
Laat u door nen olifant pakken eikel is Flemish for "Get fucked by an elephant, you prick"
Cachu bant ti cachu mes is Welsh for "Fuck off you sheep-shagger"
Ikhlassy akhrasi ya sharmoot wa iftahy khashmik is Arabic for "Shut up man-bitch and open your mouth"

This is excellent - with web access, I can get my ass kicked in EVERY NATION OF THE WORLD! I could walk into the UN General Assembly and piss off EVERY DIPLOMAT IN THE WORLD!

Friday 5


Melissa came up with this week's topic:
The 5 historical figures you'd most like to have dinner with

OK, for me (as usual, in no particular order, subject to change based upon availability, contents may have settled during shipping):

(1) Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton - I'd call him the last of the really great adventurers, he made a pilgramage to Mecca when it was still death for infidels to do so, spoke upwards of 60 languages, found the source of the Nile, translated the Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra and lots of other things. A fascinating & complex character, I bet he'd have some damn good stories to tell.
(2) Captain William Kidd - I just want to see if he'll tell me where he hid his treasure.
(3) Temujin Genghis Khan - Assuming a magic translating widget, I imagine he'd have some good stories to tell, also. Plus I like Mongolian food.
(4) Sir Benjamin Bathurst - In 1809, this diplomat, en route to Vienna to seal the alliance between the Austo-Hungarian Empire and Britain against Napoleon, stepped out of his carriage in Perleberg, Germany. He walked around the coach to inspect the horses and ... disappeard - he never left the courtyard of the inn, never walked back around the horses, he just disappeared. I want to know where he went. My personal theory is that it had something to do with the universe's perverse desire for insoluble mysteries, or perhaps some kind of reality quake, but I want to know for sure.
(5) Francois Béranger Saunière - In 1885, this young priest was ordained and assigned to a parish in the village of Rennes-le-Château in France. He is the center of a mystery that has driven conspiracy nuts apeshit ever since, and his mysterious discoveries there have been rumored to be everything from Templar gold to information about the survival of Jesus after the crucifixion. I want answers, dammit, and I want them NOW!

Well, that's a load off my mind


Scientists downgrade chances of asteroid impact.


A computer simulation developed by scientists in Britain and Russia shows that asteroids with a diameter of 200 yards will hit the Earth's surface about once every 160,000 years, instead of every 2,500 years.


Guess I can stop digging my asteroid shelter now.

masked and anonymous


While wandering over my lunch break today, I came across some info about the upcoming Bob Dylan film masked and anonymous. I'd heard rumors about it, but nothing concrete. Checking out the link above, I saw that it has a real powerhouse of an ensemble - besides Dylan himself, it's got Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin and more. The plot looks interesting - it's set in a country similar to the US, but wracked by civil war. Dylan plays aging rock legend Jack Fate, who is sprung from jail by his former manager to participate in a benefit concert. It's directed by Larry Charles, who previously wrote for Seinfeld, Mad About You and The Tick. I'm going to put this on my "Check it out" list.

Musical Excellence in Austin this Saturday


My favorite band, The Clumsy Lovers, will be playing this Saturday night at Threadgill's World Headquarters. I strongly recommend that, if you're in Austin (or will be, or live within a day's drive), you get your butt here to catch the show. The Clumsy Lovers are hard to describe but great to dance to - they play a kind of jumped-up bluegrass/funk/punk melange that hits you in the solar plexus and drags you out to shake and move like you've got St. Vitus' Dance. But in a good way.


I'm going to be there, come Hell or High Water. I hope to see you there.

It was much better when I was a horny 13-year old


Rented Heavy Metal from Netflix, primarily just because I was idly curious as to how the movie had aged. When I was 13 and had never even kissed a girl, it was a wonderful movie - lots of naked chicks with large breasts, cool violence and some excellent music in the soundtrack.


Man, what a piece of crap that movie is when you see it unclouded by hormones. The stories were at best disjointed and trite. The animation was pathetic, although I'll grant that by the standards of the other animated features released in the early 80's, it was not that awful. The only song from the soundtrack I still like is Blue Oyster Cult's "Veteran of the Psychic Wars", which I like primarily because Michael Moorcock wrote the lyrics. Even the sexy bits were rather tedious.


Curse you, maturity! You've ruined yet another treasured memory.

D'OH!


Japanese man blows self up.


Apparently, this guy was trying to get back at a bully from his high school days, and managed to firebomb himself instead of his nemisis' home. Now, I've wanted to get back at some of the jerks that made my school days hell (keep one eye open, Mr. Hawkins... you never know when I'll show up), but this is taking it a little too far. And if you are inclined to seek fiery revenge upon a tormentor, for God's sake, don't look like a dumbass doing it.

I'm sure you've seen a resume like this before...


And if you haven't, don't worry. You will.


What am I talking about? This.

If this is 1003 AD, it must be Tuesday

Ever wondered what day of the week your birthday falls on in the year 900? How about 3003 AD? The 10,000 Year Calendar can tell you.

F'rinstance: my birthday, August 29, would have been on a Tuesday in the year 1AD.

So, Cthulhu's still sleeping in R'yleh, then?


Following up on the reports of that unidentified blob that washed up in Chile, scientists have determined it's a whale.


That's a load off my mind, actually. Means I can still vote for Cthulhu in 2004. Why settle for the lesser of two evils, right?

Found this link. Check it out.

Weird Google Results


Checking the counter today (yes, I'm that desperate for external validation), I noticed I'd got a couple of hits via folks Googling. I backtracked to Google.com, and found that, if you type in the keywords "stonehenge", "depicts" and "vagina", this site is the #1 recommended site.


Heh.

Friday 5

Gina got to pick the topic this week: 5 ways you're becoming your mother/father

Also participating:

Melissa, Will, Merideth and Chris.



(1) Any and all weight gained settles immediately to my belly. Although... I've managed to lose 5 pounds by exercising regularly, and I'm also making myself eat less. I will get in shape. Or die of a heart attack trying.
(2) I shout a lot, with an exasperated tone in my voice.
(3) I call my children in 3 stages: First name only, first and last name, first middle & last name (the third, of course, signifying that the callee is in serious trouble - I'm talking at least 20 mintes of Time Out, since I don't spank my kids, this being a new millenium and all).
(4) I say things like, "If you loved your old man, you'd go get me a beer/scratch my back/get me the remote."
(5) I call all young children not my own by their first name, followed by either -buddy or -gal. As in, "Hey, hey, Gavin-buddy?"

I also curse as only the son of a preacher-turned-carpenter can, although I've done that most of my adult life, so it doesn't fit the topic.

They're gonna keep my shoes alive

Nike to buy Converse

Yes, it's another corporate merger. Yes, it's most likely going to mean that more sweatshops get opened in Asia and elsewhere to make shoes. It even means that the price for Chuck Taylor All-Stars, my favorite kind of sneaker, will go up.

I don't care.

I love my Chuck Taylors, and as long as I can still get them, I'm cool.

Speaking of which, it's about time I retired the old pair and got some new ones. Basic black, of course.

Some guy has built a life-size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Out of Legos.

Ooooo-kaaaaaay


Apparently, a retired professor of obstetrics and gynecology has determined that Stonehenge depicts a vagina. Dr. Anthony Perks laid out this theory in the latest issue of Britain's Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.


Well, I can see the resemblance, can't you?


Quoth Perks:
Viewed from above, Dr Perks suggests Stonehenge's inner bluestone circle represents the labia minora and the giant outer sarsen stone circle is the labia majora.

He says the altar stone could be the clitoris and the open centre the birth canal.

"Could the outer avenue of Stonehenge...represent the way by which new life entered?" the article wondered, adding that when comparing "the layout of the henge with the anatomy of the human vulva. There is a distinct similarity".



There's also a distinct similarity between Stonehenge and a toilet bowl with a couple of floaters in it. Use your imagination, folks, and come up with your own explanation for Stonehenge.

Swashbuckling Goodness


I've decided to cautiously look forward to "Pirates of the Caribbean", despite the possibility of encountering that awful stank that Disney puts in so many of their movies, primarily because I'm a huge fan of swashbuckling movies. From the Michael York/Oliver Reed "Three Musketeers" to "The Mask of Zorro" released in 1998, I've seen every one I can, and thrilled to the exploits of actors from Errol Flynn to Gene Kelly to Antonio Banderas. More than with any other genre, I'm willing to let historical accuracy and verisimilitude slide in exchange for leaps off balconies, flips off of swinging chandeliers and, of course, flashy swordplay.


Salon Magazine has a good piece today about swashbuckling heroes. It's called Men in Tights (and Why We Love Them). (The usual Salon warning - you'll need to view an ad, no other registration required)


I decided, then, to list some of my favorite swashbuckling movies:
(1) The Three Musketeers - Starring Michael York, Faye Dunaway and Raquel Welch. Nice fights, an appreciation of the comedy and fidelity to both the period (with lush costumes) and the novel.
(2) The Three Musketeers - This time with Gene Kelly, Angela Lansbury, Lana Turner (num num) and Vincent Price. Kelly's fights are graceful but energetic, like his dancing.
(3) Scaramouche - Stewart Granger, Janet Leigh and Mel Ferrer. Technicolor Goodness, with an impressive 6 1/2 minute fight at the end.
(4) The Prisoner of Zenda - Mistaken identities, a kidnapped king and it's set in one of those imaginary European kingdoms that our world doesn't have room for. Stewart Granger again, with James Mason taking a turn as the dastardly (but charismatic) Rupert of Hentzau.
(5) The Mask of Zorro - Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins (in a surprisingly non-creepy performance), as well as the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones. A rollicking ride, with plenty of depth and subtance.
(6) The Mark of Zorro (1940) - Starring Tyrone Power, it's known to geeks as the movie Bruce Wayne and his parents had attended the night they took that fatal shortcut through Crime Alley.
(7) The Mark of Zorro (1920) - The Douglas Fairbanks version. Mmm-mm, good.
(8) Captain Blood - Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, loads of fun. Rent the black & white version. Ted Turner and colorization are agents of The Great Beast of Revalations.
(9) Plunkett & Macleane - Stars Robert Carlyle, with Alan Cumming in a delightful minor role. More cynical than most swashbucklers, it's still worth it for one scene in particular at the end.
(10) The Scarlet Pimpernel (1999) - Richard Grant and Elizabeth McGovern. Fabulous, fabulous miniseries. A&E still reruns it every once in a while, as well as the two sequels The Kidnapped King and Madam Guillotine.
(11) The Adventures of Robin Hood - Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Damn, it's good. My son loves it, as well.
(12) The Princess Bride - Satirical, but in a fond way. Mandy Patinkin and Cary Elwes have an absolutely splendid fight early on.


That's by no means an exhaustive list, and as usual, corrections, additions and comments are welcome.

Why I'm a Transhumanist

This site has news and articles about the technological and social advances that are moving us as a species and culture towards a Singularity - a convergence of technologies and memes that makes the world beyond it utterly different. When we can precisely control genomic changes, when we're able to build machines on a molecular scale, when we're uploading ourselves into computers, what will we be? Technological change is altering our world every second - the phenomenon of blogs is a small part of it. Things we take for granted - air conditioning, computers, television (among others) - are all barely older than the atomic bomb, and they've all profoundly altered everything from our living habits to how we communicate with each other. At our most basic, we remain the plains apes we evolved from - curious, contentious and individualistic - but we're on the verge of being able to fundamentally change almost every aspect of ourselves. As we've seen with every other technological advance, it's just not possible to halt the application of a new technology. I'm not a fan of predestination, but the moment Einstein started working out his equations, it was almost inevitable that someday someone would figure out how to apply his methods to warfare. Someone has to be the member of the tribe that climbs a tall tree and looks over the path ahead for pitfalls, and these guys are doing that. The future is coming, and to apply a metaphor, we have three main options: we can get pulled down by the undertow and drown, we can flounder around keeping afloat, or we can ride the crest of the next wave. We can't get out of the way, and we can't order the future to stop any more than Canute was able to halt the waves.

More Blogrolling in our time

So I'm checking my referral links on the site counter, and I see that I got a hit from someone that linked from a blog called Hey! Look over here!. I look it over, he's got me set up as a recommended blog. His name's Adam also, don't think I've ever met him. He's got an interesting blog - seems to be (from what I gathered on the initial readthrough) an expatriate Brit.

The transhuman dilemma


Nicholas D. Kristof's op-ed in the New York times addresses his concerns regarding genetic engineering. In short, is the prospect of being able to edit disabilities out of our children a good thing, or a bad thing?


Kristof takes a middle-of-the-road approach, but expresses concern for the potential that some will edit out homosexual tendencies, or custom-build their children towards some ideal they have. In some respects, we already do this, we're just using hamfisted methods. Every parent, no matter how they try to let their child discover things on their own, will influence said child in one way or another. Some parents go farther, driving the same message into their children over and over until it either takes, the child grows up, moves away and becomes the exact opposite, or the child learns to lie convincingly. Should we edit the Code of our children? It's kind of a moot question - as soon as it's demonstrated that someone can alter the human genetic code in an embryo, someone else will, and someone else still will do it so their child will be prettier, or be more inclined to a career as a concert pianist, or not be gay. We can't stop this kind of fundamental change, we can only hope to build logical barriers that encourage people to stop here instead of there.


Which begs the question that Kristof pondered: What is an acceptable change?


Editing out life-threatening genetic problems seems to be more or less accepted as OK (with varying degrees of intellectual and moral discomfort). Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell - these all either considerably shorten the lifespan, or add significant risks to the life of the person that has them. What about dwarfism (the specific example used by Kristof in his piece), or Down's Syndrome, or deafness? Already some members of the Deaf community feel that attempts to surgically correct some hearing problems in Deaf children teeters perilously close to genocide. In Kristof's piece, he quotes Bill McKibben who expresses his concerns while pondering Kathy, a friend that died of cystic fibrosis as a child:

"Why not at least let the germ-line engineers go to work on the Kathys of the world? The harm is not to the patient but to the world in which she lives. As even proponents acknowledge, the line between repair and enhancement is too murky to be meaningful. Soon you're headed toward a world where Kathy's lungs work fine, but where her goodness, her kindness, don't mean what they did. Where someone's souping up her brains or regulating her temper, not just clearing up her mucus."


This seems to me to be a bad argument against genetic engineering. It's like saying that it's a bad idea to cure those that have tuberculosis, because some TB patients were incredibly talented artists, and their art might not be as good if they aren't dying.


I think that the slippery slope arguments made by those opposed to gene editing will be shown to be wrong as we move forward. Not completely wrong, but we're not going to produce a world of identical Beautiful People with the exact same genetic code, nor will we decide that large ears, short noses or any other feature is irredemmably ugly and wrong, and edit it out of existence. Concerns about sex selection of babies are slightly more valid, but to my mind it's much better that babies are sexed in utero than they be subject to either infanticide, or the more insidious practice of borderline starvation and abuse that ends up happening to women in some countries. That is also a problem that will solve itself. Let's say that families in India are able to select the sex of their children - more and more families have sons to the exclusion of daughters. Within a couple of generations, the imbalance is such that it makes more sense for a family to have daughters than sons, and it teeters back the other way.


Would Will the world be better if when we can edit out genetic disorders (defined however you like)? Maybe, maybe not. It'll be different, and it'll be the world our children and grandchildren make of it. I, for one, tend to look forward rather than back, so I'm almost giddy with anticipation.

Dammit, I haven't gone to sleep yet, so this counts as Saturday


I will write something every day, as long as I can get to a computer. Since I have not actually gone to bed (insomnia - what a wonderful, wonderful thing!), I'm rationalizing this as technically the same day as Saturday. In places without clocks, that'd fly.


Writing about making myself write things doesn't count, though. That's cheating, like the high school English paper tactic that involved starting an essay with a definition, and paraphrasing all the permutations of said definition as it related to your assigned topic.


I've been feeling of late like another depressive episode is coming on (something those close to me have also noticed, and commented on), so I started back on Welbutrin this week. Let me tell you, that's some good shit. I haven't experienced any negative side effects, and it really does seem to help both my mood swings and my ADD when I'm on it.


The best thing I got out of therapy, I think, was learning how to spot the downturns and work to avert them. I've been writing (well, blogging, but I'm saying that counts), and I started an exercise program this last weekend, but those only go so far. If I could just scrape the time and money together to get back into fencing, I'd be feeling really good about life.


Fencing was absolutely fantastic for me - it's a sport with a very fast feedback loop - you know right off if you do something right or wrong. I wasn't a great fencer - I'm no Peter Westbrook or Richard Burton (the cool one, not the one that married Liz Taylor) - but I didn't suck, either. For those of you that haven't tried it, it's like playing speed chess while running really fast backwards and forwards. To do well, your body has to have all the moves burned into muscle memory, leaving your mind free to think well ahead. If you have to take time to think about which position you'll parry a thrust with, you're as good as hit. I wasn't able to get there often, but every once in a while it would click for me - I'd hit some zen breakpoint and my sword would feel like an extension of my arm, and then I'd be parrying automatically, concentrating completely on not just his epee, but where it was going to be in the next 5 seconds.


I'm sure its possible to hit a similar stage of transitory enlightenment in any sport, but I never did that until I fenced.

The Top 5 Possessions Or Habits That Are Atypical For My Demographic Group
(Said group being White male, middle-class, married w/kids suburban homeowner)


(1) Hundreds of comic books - Tarred as they are in mainstream culture with the "Kid's Stuff" label, it's a rare adult that actively collects
(2) A closet full of Role Playing Games - A niche product if there ever was one.
(3) I do not watch sports on TV, nor do I go to games - Hell, I don't even understand most of the rules of football or basketball
(4) Bookshelf after bookshelf filled with books - Intellectuals are more of an urban niche
(5) Dislike of Talk Radio - Thinking for myself - how disgraceful!

Friday 5


The Five Possessions or Habits That Most Clearly Identify Me As A Member of A Particular Marketing Demographic


It's Chris Dove's turn to pick the topic this week.


(1) A house
(2) Tax returns (jointly filed with my wife, proving I'm married)
(3) A minivan (indicating I have kids)
(4) A dog
(5) A cable TV subscription

These are the things I get asked about the most often when I get called by marketing firms, so I'd guess they're the most clear identifiers.

Is that the best you've got, tough guy?

Scammers scammed


Found this link. You know those Nigerian scams? This guy got $3 from one of the scammers. The emails are frickin' hilarious! I quote from the final email:
Given the sheer immensity of your idiocy, I cannot in good conscience send you back the $3.00 as requested. Instead, my friends and I are going out tonight to jubilate and drink some frosty cold beers with your money. We will celebrate the fact that you will go down in history as the dumbest "419" scammer in the history of scams.

Additions to the Canonical SF List



(21) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein - Sadly, for me, this book hasn't aged well. Part of it is that the qualities that made it groundbreaking when it was published are now commonplace, partly because Heinlein was one of those writers that needs a good editor to rein him in, and my experience in trying to plow through the unedited SiaSL was just not near as much fun.
(22) Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm (Melissa pointed out the deficiency of Sisters on this list, and suggested this one and the one below as Canonical)
(23) Midsummer Century by James Tiptree, Jr.
(24) "Scanners Live in Vain" by Cordwainer Smith
(25) Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper - One of the best and most consistent (both in theme and quality) writers to create a future history for humantiy
(26) Neuromancer by William Gibson - The book that kicked off widespread acceptance of the Cyberpunk Meme.
(27) Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling - He coined the term "cyber punk", was one of its leading writers, but he was already moving heavily into posthuman/transhuman themes, ones that he hit his peak (so far) on in Holy Fire, one of the most lyrical and moving novels I've read in a while.
(28) Riverworld by Phillip Jose Farmer - Farmer's best series of novels, in which everyone that ever lived is resurrected on the banks of a river that winds over the entire surface of an alien planet. I'm a character in it, as are all of you. Fascinating concept, marvellously executed in the original 4 novels.
(29) The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - Bradbury is America's greatest living fantasist. Oddly, my favorite Bradbury is straight fiction - A Graveyard for Lunatics, involving two young men in postwar Hollywood unraveling a mystery at a film studio. A moving, beautiful work, with the best bit at the end, involving the Supper After The Last Supper. You'll have to read it to dig it.

Keep 'em coming!

I wanna be a bad-ass ninja!


This site shows how to throw playing cards at people and hurt them. The people, that is.


I'm going to have to practice this, in case I ever get in a fight with a croupier in Vegas, and I need something to get me past that damn long-ass stick of his.

Which founding father are you?

Not surprising, I suppose:

Which Founding Father Are You?

Canonical SF list

Canonical SF list


I was talking with Merideth this weekend, and we started discussing those SF works that are canonical - the ones that are good examples of SF, and the ones that are canonical simply for the fact that legions of SF fans have read them, and they've passed into the collective unconscious. We started a basic list, and I'll be working to revise and update it, with any intelligent input (that means no Piers Anthony).


In no particular order, with comments where I feel like making them:

(1) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Technically, it's a Gothic novel, as there was no such thing as SF then, but it's still important, as it informs a tremendous amount of "cautionary" SF.
(2) The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
(3) The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
(4) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
(5) A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - More of a scientific fantasy/romance (in the classic term, not the modern), but it's one of the "collective unconscious" books I mentioned.
(6) I, Robot by Isaac Asimov - Or, really, any of his robot stories.
(7) The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov - Big picture SF, with a good grasp of the small details. Asimov took Gribbins' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and applied it on a galactic scale.
(8) Heinlein's juveniles - Starship Troopers, Rocket Ship Galileo, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, Starman Jones and Citizen of the Galaxy. Books written for teenage boys that manage to not talk down to the reader. They're classics, and I'm planning to give copies of them to my kids when they get old enough.
(9) Ringworld by Larry Niven - The ultimate "impossible object" book.
(10) Rendevous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke - The book is an enigma: an alien object arrives in our solar system, a crew of astronauts explore a little of it, and it leaves. Clarke is very good at what I call "Sensawundah", that is, evoking the "sense of wonder", reminding us that wherever we go, there will remain mysteries that we can't solve. Yet.
(11) "We can Remember it for you Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick - No, "Totall Recall" does not count as reading this. The original short story is classic Dick - at first amusing, then scary, and finally terrifying.
(12) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick - The movie "Blade Runner" is a good adjunct to the book, but there's very little of Dick's toying with reality present in the movie. Still, as a paired experience, it's delightfully weird.
(13) "Deathbird" by Harlan Ellison
(14) "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison
(15) Man Plus by Frederick Pohl
(16) "Who Goes There" by John W. Campbell - Two movies and a video game have been loosely based on this gem of a story, but none of them come even close to evoking the dread and flat-out creepiness of Campbell's story.
(17) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin
(18) Slan or The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt
(19) Any of E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" series. I'd put my money on a Lensman with a Delameter blaster against ten of those sissy-boy Jedis.
(20) "The Call of Cthulhu" and "A Shadow Over Insmouth" by H. P. Lovecraft - Horror, but of the flavor called "cosmic horror" - stories about Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know.




But wait, there's more...
The following anthologies are chock-full of good SF:
(1) Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions - Edited by Harlan Ellison, these are the stories that exemplify the "New Wave" in SF from the 1960's.
(2) Before the Golden Age - Edited by Isaac Asimov, the stories that he read when he was a kid, the ones that got him writing.
(3) Any of the "Hugo Winner" or "Nebula Winner" anthologies - the Nebula anthologies are published every year, Asimov edited a couple of volumes of Hugo winners in the 1980's.
(4) Er, some others whose titles escape me, because I'm on break at work, and can't look at my bookshelf in the living room.


Comments for additions, changes, etc are welcome.

OK, so this might be lame of me, but I'm damn impressed by my clever wife. She's used her blog as a launchpad to a regular column at austinmama.com. Her column is Domestic Disturbance, and this month's column is a thought-provoking piece about the right-wing backlash against working mothers.


She's a damn clever woman, and it's a good piece. Go read it. Now.