frottage.

Vomit Culture

2007-06-15T16:42:00.000-04:00

Memorize, regurgitate, and copy. At the most critical point in brain development, this is what we instill. The first thing you're taught in most educational systems is subjugation. Kids should talk back if we expect a culture that is capable of critical thought. Instead, the grade school/high school systems are geared to make two things - Reliable worker bees AND - Soldiers.

There can be only one truth to anything and the answer is on a test somewhere. You only need one book/opinion for any given subject. Teachers can do no wrong and MUST be respected. You will be shown what is good and you will like it, or be punished. Stay in line. You eat when you're told to eat, not when you're hungry. In middle school we'll give you a choice between A and B, so long as you agree not to imagine C. We'll trust you to go where you're told too, since following in those lines trained you so well. In High School, you can pick your classes, so long as you fill our requirements as we know what you need. Play sports...support sports... go to the pep rally, OR ELSE. You're school is the best school, if you ever had any doubt you had better not say so out loud. Carry out your assignments exactly as ordered. Pay attention to how things work and find your place in the system, or there is no place for you in this world.

If you can do all this... maybe, just maybe, we'll let you watch TV.

Ever wonder why we cant elect a competent president? Why our media and discourse offer mostly usless entertaining tidbits? Ever wonder why people can't decide things for themselves? Why are most popular Movies, Music and art vapid formulaic crap? Why don't people feel in control of the things that matter? Why are so many under the impression that what they say doesn't matter and that any crisis will be taken care of by those that are in the position to do so?

Markets build our culture world. The less thoughtful and discriminating the market, the bigger it is. The bigger the markets grow the more our cultural DNA shrinks. Our culture becomes increasingly about the shit that it is fed, not about making better menus. The more shit we eat the less we are able to taste. The more people grown to eat shit, the less the need to put anything else on the menu.

Are you one of the ones who put shit on the menu for the rest of us?

The Virginia Tech Shootings Were Preventable.

2007-04-20T13:07:00.000-04:00

I hate the types of BS correlations which are drawn in cases like this. Guns didn't make this guy kill people, writing dumb plays didn't do it, and neither did his foul language, way of dressing, video games, or religion. The simple fact is that he was crazy. Did any of these things make him crazy? Fuck no, these were the things he liked. Generally, its the things someone doesn't like that dives them nuts. Should we politicize craziness? Why not?

What made him crazy? I know a lot of crazy people. Some of them go crazy when they're too alone... while others go crazy when they're around too many people. Some of them go crazy while driving in traffic, while some people are afraid to drive. Others go crazy when they haven't had enough medication, or had too much. Some people go crazy when picture frames are slightly to the left, while others may insist nothing should go to the right. Some believe that they are in the morally righteous no matter what they do, while others might believe that they are not allowed to do anything because everyone is against them.

What can we outlaw to stop crazy people? Hmmm... Let's make everything white. Infact, let's make everyone wear blindfolds so they are not disturbed by their environment. Why not just lock everyone in their rooms as well, removing any sharp objects. People don't need all the stress they have, so no one should really work... well some. We need two sections of society, the authority and the people. The authority is never crazy. If the people would just shut up, and listen to the authority, they wouldn't need to be crazy either. This will make society sane. Shootings like this will never happen again.

Evidence of Creationism from the Perspective of an Athiest.

2007-04-11T14:50:00.000-04:00

I do this mostly because it's absurd, but might make for fun conversation.

The human isn't a perfect thing and it's grasp on the reality around it is apparently severely flawed. So it's a safe assumption to presume that people are not capable of completely perceiving the world around them. These imperfections create differences in what everyone considers "real" and "true" sometimes to the point where they are not reconcilable within our limited brains. If someone were to construct a matrix-esque type reality (or if one were to grow spontaneously), and you were to enter it, the created realm would not be able to "project" the correct or intended truth of its reality into your mind. You would interpret this reality, and that interpretation would be the truth of it. Higher order outside of this might be guessed at, but it will never be real if it is never observed. Therefore truth is a creation and not an inherent natural standard. So the question of what is "real" based on what we can make of what we think might be a universe is entirely created by individuals themselves. Reality is created by people and changes at every moment. And people are broken.

Ash Holes on Ass Wednesday

2007-02-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

This morning I stopped off for my usual morning coffee. An older gentleman stood directly in front of the coffee dispensers staring blankly. I waited the obligatory 5 seconds for him to spring into action, however he continued to stand there drooling. I muttered, "excuse me." which yielded no response so I attempted to squeeze my way in to the coffee.

"EXCUSE ME!" the old bastard exclaimed, "You should say Excuse Me! You shouldn't just shove, it's ignorant!"

I replied, "I did say excuse me."

To which he responded, "No you didn't!"

I looked up at him and took note of the dumbo sized hearing aid hanging out of his ear and decided not to say "What the hell? Are you deaf?". Instead I continued to get my coffee and dropped the issue. I grabbed a coffee sleeve which required no shoving, but they were in front of the man, so once again he was incensed.

"AGAIN! Say Excuse me!" He lectured.

"Why are you standing there?" I snapped.

"I.. I'm thinking about the coffee." he stammered.

"Well collect your thoughts OUT OF THE GODDAMNED WAY! You obviously don't know what the word ignorant means if you don't consider it rude to block people from getting their first cup of coffee in the morning while you contentedly drool at the dispensers. I did say excuse me, you should turn your sonar up so you can detect it next time. And wipe that shit off your forehead you look like an ASH!" I said hoping that the stereo system attached to his ear would make sense of "ASH!"

He just shut up. He had a look of fear on his face as if he was just realizing then that he was poking a stick at a crazy man. I shook my coffee at him threateningly which finally got him to step away from the coffee dispensers. How do people like that grow to be old?

When the Fish Men Come to Dance...

2007-01-16T11:15:00.000-05:00

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night to see two giants in fish suits dancing in front of the wardrobe in my bedroom. Obviously, like most people, my initial instinctual response was to jump into the air while yelling at the top of my lungs and tackle the beasts. While I was in mid leap, I remember thinking... "Damn..I NEED to start double checking my door locks before I go to sleep... I didn't even hear them come in!" In reality the fish people were merely some sort of bizarre hallucination, so instead I crashed into a full length mirror hanging on my wardrobe door and glass flew everywhere. I had a good laugh at my self generated late night entertainment. And to think I didn't even need to get drunk before I went to sleep. Perhaps they'll be back, I'll bet they'd make great sushi.

Piracy Merit Badge

2006-11-25T02:50:00.000-05:00

The Boy-Scouts have begun a propaganda campaign brainwashing youth about copyright law. Kids who go through this process earn an "Anti-piracy merit Badge."

I decided Piracy Badges would be a much more cool thing to have. Support your local pirate by giving them a much earned badge for all their hard work. Visit the Cafepress store...

The Real World Just Isn't as Interesting as it Used to be...

2006-11-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

People are going bug shit for the new Playstation 3. Some are waiting in line for days (only to get kicked out), others are fighting, and still others are shooting each other with bb's. Fuck the game system, these people should just riot in Best Buy every day! It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and they can get their aggression out in a productive way. These people should throw down their controllers and destroy Walmart's everywhere! It's a good thing that crazy militia groups are mostly run by inbred mongoloids, because if they knew that revolution could be theirs if they had some Playstations to give away, they might actually be dangerous. Think of how much money could be saved in elections if all that politicians had to promise was free Playstation give aways.

I think that this is proof that it is not the video games which is corrupting the minds of citizens everywhere.... The problem is that we have too many stupid people in this country. Imagine how many people would go to vote if those Diebold machines would randomly raffle off a Playstation in addition to (sort of) tracking votes? I think people would be more worried about their raffle ticket getting lost than their vote. Diebold would never get away with their shitty machines, People don't care about the issues of the real world anymore. Why should they when we can make so many fake worlds they can control themselves? Politicians are trying to ban all the good games just because they know that they just can't compete with that sort of interest.

Milton Friedman Death Conspiracy...

2006-11-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

Nobel prize winning supply-side economist Milton Friedman has died, and suddenly CopyBot appears on SecondLife. I think it's obvious to anyone with a brain that Friedman has obviously spoken with the soul acquisitioners at LindenLabs to have his lifeforce transplanted into CopyBot when he died. It's the most blatant example of this sort of conspiracy since the Pope killed Terri Schiavo.

New Word.

2006-11-13T13:51:00.000-05:00

Spychotic (spy-kot-ik) : Characterized or afflicted with irrational, malicious, intrusive behavior.
See also : Homeland Security.

Please use as opportunity arises.

Diebold | It's not broken... It's Fixed!

2006-11-07T12:42:00.000-05:00

HBO's Hacking Democracy provides a good summary of how the US elections are now about fooling machines rather than fooling voters. I made T-shirts, magnets, hats, etc. HERE! Spread the word that not only does your vote not count, Diebold has made it so it might not even be counted!!

De-Plane - 10/11

2006-10-11T17:24:00.000-04:00

The "Bronx Bombers" will mean something different from now on. Are the Yankees going to get thrown in Guantanamo Bay now? I wonder if Cory Lidel gets 72 virgins or if he has to be a Muslim for that. Where do these virgins come from anyway? Is there a factory in heaven? Are they the same 72 virgins that just make rounds among legions of suicide cases??? Who the hell wants to share the frigging virgins??? Are they babies or something? Do you have to raise them yourself? There seems to be a disparity in the statistics... Just what is the deal here??

The Return of the Tuesday Sketch

2006-10-10T03:03:00.000-04:00

Hang this in the place where you do your creative work. As hardly anyone knows what the hell "Porlock" means, you will likely have an outlet for your artistic rage. It''s the greatest word since defenestrate.

Giant Bug Overlords Invade Germany??

2006-09-28T13:24:00.000-04:00

Giant Insect overlords invade Germany??? I hope David Icke's 4th Dimensional Reptiles may save us from this calamity. See for yourself Here.

The Arby's Logo...

2006-09-21T11:13:00.000-04:00

The Arby's Logo...

Just what the fuck is it?

On the one hand, it sorta resembles a hat... but not really. Maybe it's a mitten for someone who has whatever Lobsterboy had. What either of those two things has to do with roast beef, I have no idea... The first time I went to an Arby's, I was really in the mood for a hamburger... I was like "what do you mean you don't serve hamburgers... What the fuck do you do here then???" Instead they handed me a sandwich of flacid warm beef coated in a velveeta mush.

Perhaps the logo is the view of someone's throat as they gag when they're handed such a disgusting treat...

Or maybe, it's really a fish to further confound their customers:

Possibly it's some dude rocking out with his cock out. I know that some have this reaction to sweaty meat:

I know... It's some sorta allegory as to the roast beef being safer for you than the much more processed hamburger meat. The logo is an obvious condom, safety first!

They're opening up one of these shitholes near my house. Somehow, I don't think I'll ever bother eating there.

I've been diagnosed with TAPS... :(

2006-09-19T12:04:00.000-04:00

Sounds Serious, eh?

For about as long as I can remember, I've always had a weird sleep issue. Well, it's not exactly a sleep issue but more of a waking up issue. Nothing seems to work. Alarm clocks, people calling me, yard noise, animal attacks... I quickly find myself developing a tolerance for whatever it is. My perception of time turns dyslectic. I look at the clock at 8:15 and think to myself "yeah...I got time..." and even at 9:15 when I'm 15 minutes late for work the clock still looks okay to me! "Hrmph.. Good..Still have a few minutes..." It's difficult to wake up when you don't stop dreaming until you're ready to drive. Does anyone else have this problem? I hope someday soon some doctors will officially label this problem as some type of medical disorder. It would be great to have a "syndrome" or an "itus" or maybe even an "osis". I think it would truly be an E-Ticket disease! Better than even Narcolepsy(damn napping bastards)! This problem is more an issue for other people than it is for me. I don't mind the extra rest. When I'm late, I'd like to have the shiny disease label that says... "Yeah asshole! I have a disease, leave me alone!" Possibly even my own handi-capable parking spot.

Why wait? Why not take Stephen Colbert's advice and make use of the 'Wiki-ality' available in todays culture. I'm considering making a wiki-pedia page which defines this for people who inconsiderately don't care. Any ideas on a name? I've seen Windows machines which sometimes do this when coming out of sleep mode... Maybe "Gates Syndrome" would work. It might give the disease some false legitimacy if they think Bill Gates has it. "Time Dyslexia" sounds like something that might be real... plus it has a nice Sci-Fi ring to it. Or "TAPS" (Torpid Alertness Progressive Somnia). Any ideas? Feel free to comment suggestions on other symptoms I should add. I really think this could be next years Hip disease!

This Tuesday's Shivered Timbers

2006-09-19T00:27:00.000-04:00

Avast me hearty's. It be International Talk like a Pirate Day once again... Grab ye a lime and some grog and shove this weeks tuesday sketch down yer scurvy gullets. Try not to get ye horn pipes stuck up yer bung holes.

Arrrgh!!! and such.

Shots in the Dark

2006-09-16T18:22:00.000-04:00

I went to QXT's last night. My friend Jess just split with her boyfriend and felt like going out. I got to practice taking pictures in the dark, which is actually much harder than drawing in the dark. I've never been on good terms with my flash... But then again I often feel like taking pictures when there's no light, bad light, and a lot of motion. These things don't mix well.

I ran into a couple more people from my college days who I haven't seen in years. This has been like a mini-reuinion week of sorts.

Who Taught You How to Do this Tuesday Sketch?

2006-09-12T08:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, a friend sent me this link for "The Faces of Meth," which is a site that shows before and after pics of Meth Addicts. I just thought these were great. I wished there were more of them, but lacking this, I thought it was a great idea for this Tuesday's sketch. I picked friends who (hopefully) will find these amusing, but they were fun to make and I might make a second round of them at some point. If you'd like me to consider making you a Meth Face, just leave a comment saying so and instructions on where to find your face when I need it.

"Methstreams" Levay's Myspace

"Methodical" Mel's Myspace

"Methlab" Morelli's Myspace

"Tweaky" Bennett's Myspace

The Festivities(?!!) from this 9-11 Weekend...

2006-09-11T10:59:00.000-04:00

The geek rating on my Flickr page went up a couple notches this weekend. There's a couple hundred new pics of Ren Faire followed by Wrestling. Sorry if the title of this post misled (pronounced "mie-zelled" for those of you not in the know) you into thinking that I was at some 9-11 barbecue. I wonder what the shelf life is on horrible events before they're treated like just any 'ol holiday. Isn't Memorial Day supposed to be somber? How many years before flash mobs go into the city to do tacky re-enactments of 9-11 by covering themselves in dust and running around screaming while people toss smoke bombs out of their windows? Will kids on this morning in the future celebrate a day off to one another by saying, "Happy September 11th!"? Well, anyway, I wasn't so much thinking of the ren faire and wrestling as a way to celebrate 9-11. In fact I barely thought about the event all weekend.

I've never been much of a wrestling fan, but Nikki is. I'll certainly agree that it's significantly more entertaining than watching Rattle wrestle Mexicans in the streets of Atlantic City in the middle of the night. And Nikki didn't have to worry about being a liability either.

We went to the Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, NY which is a really nice area. I got to see a bunch of friends from college including a couple I hadn't seen in years. It was a fun tiring trip and much booze (including mead) was consumed and available all over the faire. I still need to color correct some of the pics, which I should get around to sometime this week.

The Tuesday Sketch that Seems like a Monday Sketch

2006-09-05T03:12:00.000-04:00

I hope no one had to do labor this weekend..

Reading is a better judge of character than writing

2006-08-30T00:45:00.000-04:00

I disagree that words alone are quite as powerful as some describe. Words serve as a utility in which to convey an idea. People often find offense with opinions which differ from their own, and sometimes might be shocked at an idea which they would have never thought of before. However, the power to have any effect at all is entirely generated by the readers own reaction and how the idea may inspire them. Words alone are generally quite useless. Posting a sign in the middle of the woods which reads "Fcuk Trees!" will not bother the trees (not even the typo). Your computer doesn't care when you type in most manner of gibberish. Even when you use commands to tell it what to do, it may act on them or rebel, but there's never any real passion in it. It's a matter of turning things on and off and the computer doesn't have a reaction because it has no will of its own. People on the other hand, may elect to allow themselves to be influenced by what they read. Some people are even influenced by the clouds in the sky, or by fire, or by the colored voices in their own mind. But the ideas always happen internally, words themselves are only guides. It's real easy to get the wrong idea depending on the ambiguity of the statement. And ironically, the more cleverly ambiguous the closer you are to the range of language Shakespeare could wield.

Speaking strictly of reacting merely to the format ones words take. seems like a bureaucratic and non-thoughtful way to disregard ideas. There is often great poetry in stupidity. What you read is not primarily about the words someone wiped on a page, but much more importantly the ideas that they are able to generate in your mind. Cave paintings may seem like crude drawings made by dumb humans, but when viewed with someone with imagination they come alive into a story about civilization long before history. If one looks at a page and is only able to think stupid thoughts, it is truly the reader who is lacking.

Just Another Tuesday Sketch

2006-08-28T23:41:00.000-04:00

As promised, by unpopular demand is this Tuesday's Sketch.

I call it Cuntjunktivitus in honor of my eye/sinus infection.
Any Guesses as to if he's pulling it out or sticking it in?

The Tuesday Sketch

2006-08-22T11:08:00.000-04:00

I misunderstood a blog post from someone else about the sketches they were going to post on Tuesdays. But since that's not what they were actually doing, I'm going to go right ahead and rip off the concept...since in a way it was my misunderstanding that made it anyway. Feel free to join me.

I'm going to try to post a random new sketch every Tuesday until i get sick of it, forget to or both. Enjoy!

PS. If the world really does end today, this will be the very last Tuesday sketch. So, please don't send me any email complaints.

The 5 Day Weather Report Neglected this...

2006-08-21T13:43:00.000-04:00

Just so everyone has the heads up... There's a higher chance of the world ending in a giant fireball this Tuesday, August 22, 2006. So remember to wear your tin foil hat, gas mask, lead umbrella, and galoshes. Get ready to greet Imam when he comes out of the sky to say hello. If I don't see you all tomorrow, maybe I'll see you all in hell!

This has been your weather report.

PS... Here, Here, Here and Here.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

The End of Voodoo Heathen Font Practices

2006-08-16T13:47:00.000-04:00

I posted about the woes of a reliable font management solution, in the past. I need to amend my guide on this subject. Last night I was working on a project when Suitcase™ decided to take a shit on me. The replacement backup fontvault solution just wasn't going to resuscitate the beast. I needed to get my work done and didn't have the luxury of time to perform the archaic voodoo arts of font juggling, pruning and general modern primatism involved with getting Suitcase™ to work properly when starting from scratch. If you ever find yourself in a similar predicament you should do as follows:

Send Rattle out for lots of booze. If either Rattle is unavailable and/or the liquor stores are closed, make sure to blame Rattle for all broken technology anyway. It might not be (totally) true, but he SO enjoys hearing this.
Prepare to dump all your fonts in to Fontbook. Yes, I know after struggling with the standard font solutions offered by most OS's turning to this one is a bit like renouncing your voodoo heritage in favor of the christian god (even IF its made by Apple), but you realize your options are currently limited. Start drinking and call your girlfriend if she's around.
Stare in drunken amazement as Fontbook. actually handles thousands of fonts passably without having to preform human sacrifice. You may have to adjust to the inconvenience of not relying on auto-activation, but moments like this show how Suitcase™ really shines in the convenience department. Also, it'll take some getting used to your computer starting up without Suitcase™ taking a fucking lifetime to load.

In other news, I cleaned out my coffee mug at work today... It's been awhile. Some of the plastic has been eaten away by the caustic solution of what passes for coffee I drink every morning. I'm not sure if this means I need a new mug, or that I need to cut back on coffee... What do you think?

How fear of breast implants can destroy what the west stands for.

2006-08-11T13:22:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine had mentioned to me the other day that Hooters has an airline. It caused me to wonder about how such an airline might affect the likely hood of a terrorist attack and what sort of reaction this might have. Last night me and this same friend watched the 1986 version of "Stagecoach" and it immediately became clear how breast bombs could destroy the west.

American politicians often pride themselves with self-righteous fervor about how we fellow Americans need to protect our precious liberties from those who "hate freedom." "Stagecoach" fits into this paradigm. A stagecoach who's driver and passengers refuse to allow their fears ofGeronimo and his Apache brethren deter their pursuit of happiness by plowing right through hostile territory illustrate just how far America's romantic idea of itself separates from reality. There were no cavity searches on this stage coach... In fact, most of the passengers were armed. Hell, they didn't even search the banker who they knew had a stolen bag of cash because property and privacy rights used to mean something and had a value higher than life. This movie shows an America that faces fears rather than cowering away from them. Bin Laden and his 40 Al Queda do something much worse than simply kill people, they ruin the liberties which have been paid for a thousand times over in blood because Americans believe in the fake safety politicians sell them on. Wake up America! There is no safe place. We build places like six flags to simulate the thrill of it all, but the real excitement of life exists in realizing that we live on a living hostile rock spinning around the sun to inevitable destruction. Eventually everyone will be spun the hell off. The meaning of life is the slow process in which the universe ultimately rejects humanity and the conflict humanity has to hang onto the railing and not get blown off. The time has come to stop being afraid and to yell "GERONIMO!" and jump right on that plane.

Ironically, the day after me and my friend were discussing the Hooters senario, this fiasco in Britain happens. We were joking that a potential terrorist could fill a breast implant with an explosive jelly or maybe even a solution of silicone gel and thermite to ignite the fuel tanks. It put the mental picture in my head of a jihadist jumping out of his seat at the opportune moment yelling something like "ALAH AKBAR!!!!" and grabbing the nipple piercing of a stewardess and pulling them out like a pair of grenades. Yes... The breast bomb. Apparently, they are now not allowing liquids as carry ons on planes... to quote some random IRC person " Excuse me, officer, but I have it on good authority that the man who just boarded the plane is composed of almost 70% liquid!" What a stupid petty thing to do to increase the fake safety of airports. If you really believe someone can't come up with a way to blow up a plane despite all these obnoxious and invasive procedures in place, you might also be partial to solving health issues with leeches.

What has America come to these days when all the cowboys are either gay or like George W. Bush, the leader of todays brighter yellow America? Doesn't America realize that the most hateful threat to freedom which exists is blatant cowardice? The people who feel this way deserve to let go of the railing and fly off into the great oblivion. Only those who hold tight and exercise their freedoms really show that they deserve them. Which do you think is a more likely occurrence... being hit in a terrorist attack, or being violated by your over zealous government because they're cowards? I feel about as threatened by terrorists as I am being struck by lightning. Authorities are everywhere and they don't so much as even need a reason to effectively destroy your life by whim. We empower these types of people because we are afraid of the boogey man. To quote a line in stage coach: "We're going to decide this by majority rule."..."What does that mean?" "It means if 2 out of 3 people decide to die, the third gets to die with them." Damn right! The bastard would deserve it. Unfortunately, the people in todays America aren't as brave as they used to be, so they will likely no longer be as free.

"Deadly" Sins

2006-07-14T16:16:00.000-04:00

There's Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride...

Does anyone else think it's ironic that Murder is not a deadly sin? Some might say that you can't embody murder. Why not? Hitler did. You can commit murder without breaking ANY of the deadly sins (assuming that you only kill people for fun and only do so in moderation). And conversely all the seven deadly sins usually don't even kill anyone. This is plainly false advertising. Even calling them "cardinal" is retarded because murder should be more important than these other petty sins. We should throw all those slothy bums in jail because christians prefer murderers in the streets... Right?!

Maybe it's because they couldn't allow Resurrection or Creating Life or Zombie Making to be one of the holy virtues because they were afraid that there would be grave diggers, mad scientists, and voodoo priests everywhere. The Virtues are stogy and lifeless where they should instead make life more fun. Spontaneous creation of life would be fucking awesome. It would be a superior virtue.

It might also come down to some superstitious numerological malarky about the number 7. It's a shame that wasting peoples time with arbitrary bullshit wasn't one of the sins either. The people who wrote these dumb rules certainly had their heads up their asses.

Post to my blog, and:

2006-06-30T22:04:00.000-04:00

1. I’ll respond with something random about you.
2. I’ll challenge you to try something.
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you.
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you.
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this same meme on your blog.

Taken from Tara.

Muhammad Cartoon Update

2006-05-11T16:00:00.000-04:00

The holy-war in my photo album
has started up once again. In honor of this, I have marked down all the prices in the Muhammad Shop. Enjoy!

Brick Town... City of LIGHTS!!!

2006-04-20T22:11:00.000-04:00

I pass this sign everyday...
I have yet to see a kid come flying over the fence out into the street. Public works will put up a sign for ANYTHING these days. They should be sued for false advertising.

Speaking of the public works in my town, I am bewildered by their fascination with useless traffic lights. They put them up EVERYWHERE!!! There's a couple which aren't even at intersections... It's like driving around in a Dadaist obstacle course. If you have ever driven in a major city with ACTUAL traffic, you really have to wonder why someone would go through the trouble of manufacturing traffic by creating bottlenecks at every fucking corner. And then you'll remember that you're driving through the great American suburban nightmare... Where the world should be nothing but a giant strip mall with people living and working in it. The whole god-fucked economy and glamorous lifestyle may very well collapse without people stopping at these retail traps to buy various types of shit. What better way to get people to stop than to force them?? I'd be willing to bet that there's a correlation between the growth of e-commerce and the spread of traffic lights in this town. The more people who don't leave their house means that someone else has to be lured into buying something that they don't need. Hell, the only shortcuts in town are through the parking-lots of these very same shit-traps.

These assholes need to take it up a notch. The whole conspiracy... it lacks VISION! Picture BRICKTOPOLIS::
Knock all the houses, cut down all the trees, pave EVERYTHING in blacktop. Build three MEGA buildings in the center of town... One for shopping and working, one for living and one for parking! Why stop with just one town???!!! Pave the whole fucking state. New Jersey would be like a gigantic pachinko board with various concentrated towers amidst a sea of hardened tar!!! It would be fucking AWESOME! Or even if it's not too much different than what we have now, at least you'd be able to drive somewhere without stopping for stupid reasons!

Daylight Savings Time.

2006-04-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't it be great if you could really save the hour for when you needed it? Or even collect a buffer over the years just in case your bills are late, or you want to extend your vacation, sleep later, or just use them to not hurry around like some mindless busy body. People put to much emphasis on chump change time. Why get all worked up and irritated over a few minutes? Time spent rushing around has low value since it is not an enjoyable use of your time. People should sleep later, drive slower, and not expect more of anyone else. Old People have the right idea (maybe because they're down to the last few drops of time). People who get pissed off at others for "wasting" their time when they miss some arbitrary numbered second deserve the stress because they obviously are not someone who enjoys life.

PROOF! Bart Sibrel makes worse Documentaries than Michael Moore.

2006-03-30T01:32:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching "Astronauts Gone Wild", a "documentary" made to supposedly "prove" that the moon landings were a hoax.
The very first thing that makes this a bad "documentary," is the same thing which make Michael Moore a poor documentary filmmaker. I think Michael Moore films work as comedies, and as film-essay, but they hold no water as documentaries. Rather than seeking to answer a questions, a film-essay filters information to prove a point. Not to say that documentaries can't prove a point... but there's a significant difference between asking a question like:
"Why are things fucked?" and reaching an answer through exploring the possibilities one can reasonably think of to answer that
than there is by having a pre-drawn conclusion like:
"Things are fucked because of ALIENS shitting up the works." and only exploring the options which lead to that end.
Film-essay is a better medium for propagandists because no other argument is given fair weight, and often the only look into various points of view show them out of context and weaker than they may actually be. There is no regard for actually compelling people to discuss an issue, there is only a focus on getting people to agree on the same thing in the end. Michael Moore makes superb film-essays, but because he bills them as documentaries he looses all credibility. This film on the other hand, is not a very good film-essay. Infact, I began to feel sorry for the astronauts. It's really a cringe worthy piece. The point at which Buzz Aldren punches the director in the face for chasing him and calling him names is by far the highlight of the whole film. You can see a clip of some of that sequence on his online store. It's notable that they cut a good portion of harassment out of the scene itself. They also cut the sound off where the director calls Buzz Aldren a liar and a coward (which finally earned him the punch in the face). The irrefutable evidence the director provides is highly questionable. He would throw out things like "I have a CLASSIFIED tape of YOU FAKING footage of the trip to the moon...what do you think about THAT??!!" And the tape itself is kind of ambiguous. There could be quite a bit of things explaining the silhouette in-front of the window as the camera was not right against the glass. A fair question might have been "What was going on at this point in the mission?" although I'd doubt the astronauts would remember a non-historic out take of a god damn window decades ago. If I were there, I can think of several things I might be more interested in. The point is that the astronauts are guilty until they prove their case to the director, who is utterly retarded.
If somebody is making a film questioning the moral fiber of it's nations "heroes," you would figure some attempt at legitimacy and good faith would be maintained by the director as to not come off like some sort of ignorant hypocrite. I suppose Bart Sibrel feels that since he's decided that some people are frauds and , that gives him the right to be one too. Ambushes and interviewing under false pretense are scumbag tactics. It's further aggravating that he refuses to leave the people alone when they tell him to fuck off, and instead shove a bible in their face.
"SWEAR on this BIBLE under penalty of Perjury, Eternal Damnation, and TREASON that you walked on the MOON!!!!" Whoever chases people around this way doesn't not deserve compliance, they deserve to be beaten with that bible until they're in a coma or better. "Six astronauts REFUSED to swear on this bible, PROOF that the moon landing was a HOAX!!!!" Bullshit! Ever think that it might be great supporting evidence to the theory that you're an obnoxious fuck???
At no point does this film really give any convincing testimony to the directors "truth." Some conspiracy theory is touched upon, but is inadequately explained to be either compelling or very interesting. Probably the only reason to watch this is to see how much you end up hating the director by the end. You stop caring about what the people are talking about, and just watch a maniac annoy and provoke senior citizens... which is mildly entertaining I suppose.

JOB SKILL

2006-03-16T17:04:00.000-05:00

This is an actual "Job Skill" someone sent to us on a resume today:

Excellent verbal skills, phone contacts and knowledge of main frame computers, Email and Fax machines, calculators and various other office equipment

I suppose the "phone contacts" part was to emphasize his leet verbal skills. The man is obviously a genius though... How many people have knowledge of both main frames AND calculators??

Update: My boss couldn't figure out how to do a proportion on a calculator today... Maybe this guy might get a call.

Muhammad Cartoon for the Cartoon War

2006-02-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

Flickr Discussion

I had to make one. How can I grow old as an artist and have people ask "What did you do during the Cartoon War?" and have nothing to show for it except a thumb up my ass. How many calls to arms will artists get in a lifetime? Artists should have a duty to make their own personal Muhammad Cartoon! Causing fear is how terror extremist groups gauge if they are winning or not. The world needs to stop being afraid of these idiots and paint them up like clowns with guns. Any group which cannot respect another world view deserves to look stupid. They need to start taking themselves much less seriously. Remember The Guru Maharaj ji ? He ripped off his followers for decades and promised to levitate the Houston Astro Dome with "Green Energy"(where was this bastard during Katrina???). I understand that people like to believe in their magic little spiritual worlds, to get the rush you get when you feel self important for no good reason at all. And everyone should have every right to do so. However, not acknowledging fundamentals of reality makes you look like an idiot to people who see things differently. Do you think some people are stupid? So do I! It's not about morality, right or wrong, or any self-righteous platform... It's about TRUTH. If you want yours to Dominate someone else's, those people are going to look at you either like a big fat DUMMY or a God (as if you have to ask which you might look like!). Getting irate, belligerent, and violent doesn't change the fact that some people are not interested in your Kool-Aid! This goes for you neo-right-wing-jesus juice slurping-fascist-christians as well. If your spirituality is not a PERSONAL experience... There is a large chunk of the world who considers you an ASSHOLE and your way of life ANNOYING! If you don't like having your bible-bubble burst, then SHUT the fuck up and it's a non-issue! When you open the panel for discussion, you will learn that "religion" does not equal "reality" and you will deserve it.

T-Shirts and other merchandise of my cartoon are available HERE. I think that the fact that I made one when there are Fatwas going around prooves that my balls are big enough to warrant your support.

Johari Window Meme

2006-02-16T10:39:00.000-05:00

Maybe it will sucker you in too. PS... I can still eat your brain Here.

Which Nintendo Character are You

2006-02-15T14:39:00.000-05:00

Taken from Krysta.

You scored as Samus. You're so into technology. It shows with that kickass suit you wear. You often wonder: "When's the last time I didn't get sidetracked on a mission and ended up fighting those damn Space Pirates? I miss the money more than anything."

Link

80%

Samus

80%

Pokemon Trainer

53%

Kirby

53%

Fox McCloud

47%

Mario

40%

Donkey Kong

33%

Which Nintendo Character Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

The Rawker, and another A Capella hit

2006-02-13T22:09:00.000-05:00

There were a few of these awhile back on TheRawker which now seems to redirect to a red cross Katrina donation site. I'm glad at least one of them is archived on google video. Apparently this guy was kicked out of a band (probably because he was just so rawkin) and left a demo tape of him rawkin out to the classics A Capella style at a record shop. The long awkward pauses and stopping to find the lyrics are hilarious. And "I'm Gonna Give You My Love" is just perfect for Valentines Day.

Video

Also, speaking of A Capella, this gem of some singing group singing 8 bit nintendo themes.

Video

Font Management Software is Painful

2006-02-12T15:51:00.000-05:00

(This post is mostly for graphics folks. If you are not, please play with the nifty category cloud I added on the sidebar instead of reading this. Enjoy.)

SEE AMENDMENT

I upgraded my font software this weekend. The previous version of Suitcase really seemed to hate that latest Tiger update. All font management applications leave something to be desired, and as unstable as it is, Suitcase seems to be the best available, especially if you have a massive amount of fonts to work with. Suitcase Fusion does have a couple new features above the previous versions, although at the same time it does seem slightly more unstable (possibly because it added Font Reserve's instability to Sutcase's old eccentricities). The biggest difference is its blazing speed above its predecessors. Everything moves faster, as if they installed power steering. It even crashes faster, as if they forgot to install the brakes as well. Other improved features include separating fonts into faces (which makes it easier to deal with conflicts), copying added fonts into something they call "font vault", a more friendly way to remove duplicates (unfortunately it's no "smarter" than earlier versions), and some better sort/find features (although still somewhat limited as well).

This program has a tendency to be flakey in which fonts it seems to "prefer" for fairly arbitrary reasons (as far as I can tell anyway.) So, if you're looking for a program you can dump all your fonts into which will magically make them all friends and helpful to all your applications and your operating system, this version of Suitcase still isn't it. Suitcase needs to be dominated, or else it will insist on driving you insane. If you do not beat your Suitcase on at least a semi-regular basis, the beast will become unruly, and you will need to put it down. So, I will explain some tips to help guide you through the voodoo arts which sometimes make Suitcase more usable. Feel free to add your own personal font-management jutso in the comments.

Training the Suitcase Beast

Prepare Your System
Suitcase claims to manage system fonts... but it doesnt always do the best job of it, such as when conflicts arise. So, the first thing you should do (especially if this is your very first version of suitcase) is kill the majority of your system's fonts. They live in a few places throughout your system. In the directory: "home/library/fonts/" take out all of the fonts from that location and put them in another folder on your hardrive. Perhaps in "home/documents/oldsystemfonts." The next directory is "startup volume/library/fonts" and in this one remove all of the fonts and place them in the "oldsystemfonts folder you made" allowing any duplicates to erase. Next, in "startupvolume/system/library/fonts" copy all of the fonts into your "oldsystemfonts"folder allowing any duplicates to replace. Delete most of the fonts in the "startupvolume/system/library/fonts" folder **Important** except for " Geneva.dfont, Keyboard.dfont, LastResort.dfont, and Lucida Grande.dfont" which your system needs for display. All the rest go in the trash which will require authorization. Finally, if you are one of those poor bastards who must still use "classic" mode... go to your "system folder/fonts" folder and remove all the fonts except for "Chicago, Geneva, Monaco, and Sand."

Adding Fonts
Adding fonts is the next Herculean task. If you are upgrading, you might want to try your luck by importing the previous versions database. If you are like me, and this does not work, your suitcase will die a horrible crash on its first launch and refuse to open after that. You must then dig into the "home/Library/Application Support/Extensis/Suitcase" folder where there should be a file called "Suitcase Font Database.suitcasevault" Delete that file and start over. When you try to launch suitcase again, it will ask you if you want to try the import again... I'd recommend saying no for the second try.

If you start fresh, you need to add in your fonts from wherever they live. Before you start, go into the Suitcase preferences and check the boxes under "scan for corrupt fonts" which say "Before adding fonts to suitcase" and "attempt to repair automatically." I'd start adding with the "oldsystemfontsfolder" and just drag the folder onto the sets pane. Next, start dragging your fonts in. I'd recommend adding fonts in foundry sets, with sub sets by letter. For instance, making a Set "adobe" and inside that set, making another set "A" and adding in all the adobe A fonts in A. And so on. It is not the greatest idea too add the fonts in in batches that are too sizable. Work in small chunks because Suitcase will crash often when it finds fonts its afraid of. If you get a message saying something like "Suitcase was not able to repair your dirty fonts" just click "add the good ones." When you finally finish, go back to the "home/Library/Application Support/Extensis/Suitcase" folder and make a backup copy of the "Suitcase Font Database.suitcasevault." Place it in a folder "documents/backup_fontdatabase_DATE/."

Pruning.
Adding in those fonts, despite having checked the box "scan for corrupt fonts" still probably added fonts which suitcase will have decided to hate later. If you don't get rid of most of those now, they will make you miserable someday. Might as well be now. Pruning out fonts in Suitcase is something like pruning a Bonsai tree which keeps wincing in pain and running away and hiding under the furniture. First, go to the menu "tools/find duplicates" and get rid of fonts you have more than one of. Then, you need to go to your font sets, and start previewing all of your fonts. Sometimes suitcase will hate a font, crash and flag it for easy removal... Other times it will not flag it and just pretend nothing happened. So you need to figure out manually which font it was and kill it which can be really annoying. You need to close the preview pane before you remove it, because the preview will only make suitcase run away again. After you've gone through all the sets and removed all the scary fonts, go back and do it at least one more time. Sometimes suitcase will like fonts one minute, and hate them the very next. The more times you repeat this, the more stable suitcase will function in the end. When you've had enough, back up the "Suitcase Font Database.suitcasevault" file. If suitcase ever crashes and refuses to open, replace that "Suitcase Font Database.suitcasevault" file with your backup file so you can revert back to the stable state you whipped suitcase into.

Any questions or comments, feel free.

Do not buy Iomega

2006-02-04T16:41:00.000-05:00

Here is a copy of my complaint to Iomega for their useless support:

Allowing your people to trouble shoot more than one brand of burning software would have been useful.

The main issue though, was that with every step, rather than trying to eliminate issues, your tech support would attribute blame to something arbitrarily. Such as one support person reccomending I use TDK media. And the very next person telling me that i needed to use Verbatum or Imation instead, despite the inconsistency. Do you really expect your users to stock a sample of every DVD brand in fucking existence?

I also do not appreciate the hard sell for software. They could have supplied me with a download link for the demo software (which is available on the third party's site) so they might troubleshoot the issue using your recommended burning software without hassling me with semantic games. I found the link myself no thanks to your people who would only argue with me and try to sell me this crappy software instead of being helpful.

Then the conclusions they reached such as "Well it appears your drive needs to be replaced" was completely without ANY form of trouble shooting evidence. When I asked what the cause might be (thinking that this guy MUST be psychic), he replied that there must be a problem with the internal laser. When I pressed as to why it was still able to burn CD's (just not DVD's) there was a long pause. After which he told me the only thing i could do was use another computer. That is totally ridiculous. How many computers does one need to own to get competent customer service from Iomega??? I had to jump through hoops to get the software these techs guaranteed was necessary for troubleshooting this device, I get it, and they don't use one damned feature of this super-software. And instead of using the cop out that my software was not good enough to receive support, they now tell me that my computer is no good either. Ever see the monty-python cheese skit? A long drawn out sequence of asking the clerk if they have various types of cheese, and the clerk keeps replying, "No!, Not today, Sorry, we're out of that, etc." Until the person asking finally asks in frustration "well do you in fact have any cheese???" to which the clerk replies "No sir, I was deliberately wasting your time." That Is what your tech support is like. Even at the end, your person told me that i could call their support line on Monday. And then doesn't give me the number. It wasn't until I told him how helpful that info was without a number, did I get one.

I have dealt with tech support for various products over the years, from various companies, with various problems. But in the end, there has always been a satisfactory conclusion. Your support could not reach one which makes it the most inept and useless I have ever dealt with. I am very dissatisfied.

Do not buy Iomega. Iomega Tech Support is the Reason Why We Outsource to India.

Put on your METAL FACE!!! | James Vance vs. Judas Priest

2006-01-22T23:09:00.000-05:00

The T-Shirts are now available! Enjoy the METAL!!!!!

James Vance made metal history on 12/23/85 when he was inspired by Judas Priest to blow his face off.
WAY TO GO JAMES! A TRUE METAL HERO!!
Support the METAL!!! Tell your friends!!!!
Buy T-Shirts NOW!!!

By Popular Demand, BLACK T-shirts also available HERE!

Slaughtered Vomit Dolls

2006-01-14T00:37:00.000-05:00

I guess you could say that this one falls into the "acquired taste" category of films. Slaughtered Vomit Dolls combines some of the better elements of Subconscious Cruelty and the August Underground movies. All of these movies are pretty nasty. Subconscious Cruelty is artful enough to make some of the nastiness look almost beautiful. There's no beauty at all in the August Underground movies as they seemed to take effort to make them as gritty and unappealing as humanly possible. I thought these films were a bit rough to watch, but neither really succeeded in really disgusting me. Subconscious Cruelty was too ambient, and the August Undergrounds reached a certain level of vile and scraped along that intensity throughout. Slaughtered Vomit Dolls has ebbs and flows. It's like drowning slowly in an ocean of your own vomit. Through the use of jump cuts and surreal sound effects the whole movie sort of has the feel of a bad hangover. The assault continues as you get to briefly know several prostitutes who get introduced in intertwined snippets, get dehumanized both mentally and physically, and get brutally mutilated with some better gore than I expected. This is edited together with cuts of one of the girls performing in front of the camera when she was little. The film slows down a bit to take a closer look at these and some other prostitutes who you can't help but to see a bit differently than you did before as most of them are treated as similar inhuman objects. Until finally, one of the prostitutes seems more human than the others. You start to understand what the cutter seems to get off on through a kind of a bizarre love story focused around human suffering. This plot is almost so understated that it really isn't important at all. It does get somewhat draggy assed and repetitive after awhile in a montage of sex, vomit and blood, but it ends well. Overall, it does several new things with horror which I thought were fairly effective (and I've sat through MANY of these fucking things.) Not for the feint of heart.

Narnia needed blood.

2006-01-08T15:01:00.000-05:00

Narnia was better than I expected it to be. My major complaint has more to do with Disney than the movie itself. It needed blood. Lot's of blood. I'm not inclined to feel sorry for things that don't bleed. If you wonder why people are desensitized to violence from watching it on the screen, battles without blood is the perfect thing to cause it. Groups that censor gore, horror, and suffering don't seem to understand that when you remove these things from violence IT LOOKS LIKE LOTS OF FUN!!! A war where people are skewered, flattened by rocks, and frozen to death sends a really funny message to kids especially when all of the good-guy's who were killed get up afterward. I think Disney might be okay with violence so long as it trains kids to want to join the army when they grow up.

King Kong Sucked BIG Monkey Dick

2006-01-03T14:05:00.000-05:00

It's usually polite to mention that you'll be giving spoilers away with a review of this type, but I think that can be waived for lack of any suspense or surprise for the entire movie. There's nothing to give away.

Most bowel movements contain more excitement... While they might not normally be so interesting to film, at least they gain points for concision. I have never taken a 3 hour shit, but King Kong was as close a simulation as I'm likely to find. You don't even get to see the star for a full hour. Most adept film makers generally take advantage of a full god damn hour of your time by providing mostly relevant content so that the story moves along. Peter Jackson seems to have a different theory on this because it takes him a full hour to show the main characters get on a boat and go to a fucking island. During which time we meet in detail several mostly irrelevant characters. Oh, and they spend ten minutes avoiding a wall in a drawn out unremarkable sequence. They finally land at the island which seems at first to be abandoned... but is really filled with dirty dark people who've apparently been hiding in holes since prehistoric times just to ambush a group of idiots. They seemed to be chanting something which sounded really close to "DONKEY KONG!!!!" over and over. But anyway you finally get to meet the main character Donkey Kong as he quickly runs away with the girl. The movie then takes 45 minutes to re-hash Jurassic Park and kill off a few people in interesting and pointless ways. Then the wimpy script writer saves the girl from Donkey Kong and everyone else captures the thing. They don't even bother explaining how they got the fucking thing on the boat, they just cut to the unveiling of Donkey Kong Live on stage. It doesn't take him long to break free, break a bunch of shit, harass the wimpy scriptwriter, and recapture the girl (who goes seeking out Donkey Kong). This is where they take about 15-20 minutes to turn Kong into an ET like figure with things like a ten minute ice skating sequence. Yep, that's right Ice Skating! He and the girl climb up the empire state building where they slowly fall in love (because 25 ton gorilla's are so damn endearing). Occasionally even the ape would get bored and climb higher to swat at air planes. Then go back to courting the bitch. Eventually she climbs up with him to protect him from the air planes which are shooting him. Donkey Kong then promptly falls over and dies. The girl hooks up immediately afterwards with the wimpy scriptwriter (what a slut... she could have at least waited until they buried the fucking thing). The End. But not before Jack Black says something puke-worthy.

I want to see an edit of this movie thats a half hour long even though I know they're probably going to stuff an even more bloated 5 hour version on the DVD. I also think they need to make an alternate version where Donkey Kong has the face of George Bush. Oh well... It would probably still be dog shit.

Wave of Obscenity Prosecutions Leads to Closure and Self-Censorship of SM Websites

2005-12-16T00:11:00.000-05:00

Though adult content is, in theory, protected by the First Amendment, only a jury can determine if a work is obscene or not under the subjective set of standards that vary from one community to the next established in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Miller v. California.

Text is not inherently more protected than images when it comes to obscenity charges. The erotic fiction website Red Rose Stories is facing obscenity charges after federal agents raided the owner's home on October 3rd, taking computer equipment and diskettes that contained all of their files and site information.

How is someone supposed to know how "the community" feels about your ideas unless you are allowed to express it? The community's offense will always be generated by their own personal issues. I personally find it offensive that these "communities" are unable to control their genital apparatus in the presence of such material. If they are affected so, i think they should submit themselves for psychological testing, because those are the folks who have something wrong with them.

Creators express their desires and world view through whatever method they are able. They do not inflict their world view on others and force conversion of the general populace to that view. It is always merely food for thought... a choice which may exist. The essence of the freedom of expression and the marketplace of ideas hinges on the unrepressed discussion of the public imagination. On the other-hand this "Community Standard" does inflict and subjugate other view points to its own. That is why the "Community Standard" is always a reprehensible one. Your truth is not the only truth out there. Get over yourself and the notion that all worlds revolve around your small one.

Besides... I still think all these obcenity laws are really to keep porn viable.

Christmas Music in Stores

2005-12-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

I hate it.

Don't these retail workers keep in mind that Christmas time is suicide season? When I worked somewhere that I controlled the Muzak™, I made damn sure to set it to the blues station in the hopes that it would push one of the miserable patron fucks to do themselves in that holiday season. The customers in these places make me want to kill them... the people who work in retail during the yuletide can't be too fond of them... If they would only play the blues instead of the shitty merriment, everyone can shop easier knowing that maybe some of their fellow asshole customers would bite it this year.

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

2005-11-27T22:38:00.000-05:00

Stolen from Tara

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Black Comedy

In your life, things are so twisted that you just have to laugh.
You may end up insane, but you'll have fun on the way to the asylum.

Your best movie matches: Being John Malkovich, The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me.

2005-11-14T11:03:00.000-05:00

Originally uploaded by drogulus.

My cat was in heat this week. I gave her three chances, but she insisted on pissing on on the floor which I suppose is the kind of kink she's into. I however, am not. So, I locked her in the bathroom for most of the week. She finally snapped out of it yesterday... So I let her free again. Only she doesn't want to leave the bathroom. I think she might like having her own room maybe. The thing's been institutionalized.

Which puntuation mark are you?

2005-10-27T00:02:00.000-04:00

A neat quiz I stole from Krysta. Written, oddly enough, by Stephen Zoltán Brust.

hyphen

You scored 38% Sociability and 41% Sophistication!

You are comfortable around others. While you don't have to go out every night, yet you take pride in being easy to get along with. This should not, however, be misconstrued as believing (as many do) that you are without subtlety. In fact, you have the power to inform the anal retentive that, indeed, they are discussing an anal-retentive issue. Who else can do that? Quotation marks intimidate you a little bit.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 25% on Sociability
You scored higher than 14% on Sophistication

Link: The Which Punctuation Mark Are You Test written by Gazda on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Bush Defrocked

2005-10-11T12:48:00.000-04:00

Hungry?

I sure am.

yum...

The Whale Meat Story

2005-09-26T18:40:00.000-04:00

Clive Barker relates a tumorous tale of Grandma's Whale Meat at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, 09/25/05.
Video.

Eat your heart out, Tokyo!

2005-09-01T11:01:00.000-04:00

Losing the city of New Orleans is certainly devastating and tragic... The builders of that city must not have read the three little pigs.
But, Hell, I'll bet the Japanese must be damn jealous. They've been dreaming of something like this to happen to them for decades. We've managed to one up them. We need to follow through though, and waste no time in building NEO-ORLEANS. There will be people living in Hovering Shanties above the Toxic Gumbo! Voodoo priests commanding armies of Aquatic Zombies! Mardi Gras will look like something out of Waterworld, and there will be Psychedelic Cajun Drugs! There will be Mutants speaking Creole! They will rename the SuperDome, Thunderdome!

New Orleans was great, but I think NEO-ORLEANS will be fantastic!

Piracy Czar

2005-07-22T15:12:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has created a new senior-level position to fight global intellectual-property piracy and counterfeiting that cost American companies billions of dollars each year, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said Friday.

Calling "piracy" lost sales is really misleading because you count "pirates" as potential customers. First, the language "Pirate" is inaccurate. "Hobo" would be a more accurate analogy. A Hobo might bum a ride but never buy a ticket. This makes a Hobo a non-customer. A Pirate on the other hand, steals the actual potential for something to make a sale. Does a Hobo? No... A Hobo takes up unsold space on a train. In other words, while there is an unfair product distribution, this does not impede the rightful owner from selling more product. An IP Hobo in some ways encourages other potential sales. Most artistic tastes rub off by group contact, so for every Hobo'd copy has a good chance of selling a real copy and widening an audience that otherwise would not have known about a product. Video rental stores and Libraries purchase at least one official copy of an IP product. IP Hobos are free to borrow these copies and absorb their content. There isn't much of a difference between this type of distribution, and P2P methods. There are the added benefits that a single copy can be passed seamlessly along to the next reader/viewer/listener without the need to wait for the first person to finish (which is ideal for an archive of information). In a Library model, the person returns the media borrowed, but in this case is it even important? Most of these people aren't reading the media over and over again, the work simply exists as a part of the library.

What's the difference between a song you remember, and a song on your computer? A computer might have a somewhat better copy, but I think the crucial difference comes down to means of access. You can hum the song, its not quite the same as hitting play, however it is a means of access and distribution of a copy-written work. You hum the song, before you know it, your friend is humming the song, and his friends, and their friends and so on. Are these people thieves? Or is the fact that "Humming" is a degraded copy make a difference? Hmm... Lets say one person buys a CD and his friends hear the content while in this persons car... Did they purchase the rights to hear this music? Did this person have the right to expose this material? Should these things come with memory erase pills, so that no one remembers "content," but instead only remember liking or disliking it so you can buy an official licensed edition? Lets say you hum the contents of an album, and release a torrent file of the humming? Is that any different then releasing a shitty recording of the actual music in a torrent file? Is the shitty recording in any way less of an IP violation then a higher quality release? How much of this can be fairly determined? Wouldn't it be fair to assume to at least some extent, after you publish something it becomes apart of other peoples imagination whether you like it or not? Humming a song, or letting your friends borrow a CD may be a natural reflex of this, and therefore so might P2P file sharing.

The conflict between P2P and the IP business has much to do with general economics. A traditional library system can be more easily measured, and the idea of archival lending of media through this model are tolerated. P2P on the other hand, bashes the scale. P2P, unlike a normal library, alters the value of IP as we have traditionally used it. One copy may spread wildly across a network almost instantaneously. Those in the IP businesses therefore, need to know the real value of selling one individual copy. By the end of the day, you'd want to have the right price to sell enough individual pieces to justify their production and make a profit. Let's say the price is set high to account for every reader/viewer/listener who will get their hands on the media. In that scenario, the actual seeds you'd create might be in less abundance then what the lower price would yield. This might mean less eventual profit. Keeping the price reasonable would likely sell many more seed copies and therefore grow more support for whatever creative work is being sold. As communication and network systems become more sophisticated and efficient a natural by product is the de-valuation of original idea. Every idea will be diluted by the popular imagination naturally, regardless of what laws are in place. The greatest benefit of having a sophisticated and efficient communication system should be the speed at which great ideas may be spread and developed. Laws de-value this effect, while at the same time these laws will not add value to these ideas, and in-fact, will slow the creation of better and more valuable ideas.

An "Anti-piracy czar" seems like a really destructive and stupid position to band-aid the effects of broken laws.

I finally found a use for those pennies building up in the panel on the door in my car.

2005-05-08T12:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I arrived at a traffic jam at the route 3 exit on the Garden State Parkway. The cars ahead of me moved at a crawl when they moved at all. As I was waiting to move along, some mongoloid in a truck drove up on the grass and cut off a car about three ahead of where I was. I really hate that. I don't care when people speed, go too slow, or change lanes like a crack head, but those fuckers that can't wait in line should be shot. This is what I thought as I approached the exit. The mongoloid pulled into the first parking lot on route 3 presumably to find some way to bypass the traffic on the highway. A dead end caused him to turn back toward the highway, ending up directly behind me.

He couldn't even rush right! I took a minute to block him from passing on the right toward the next exit on grove st and rolled down both windows. I slowly gave him enough room to pass, and as he sped by, I nailed him with a handful of pennies from the panel on my door. He sped ahead and suddenly jammed on his brakes to a stop. When I reached him, he shouted, "Did you throw something at me, Motherfucker?!!!!" I replied, "They were pennies to show you what it pays to drive like an asshole." This enraged him enough to throw his cell phone at my car. I threw a second handful of my two cents and then some, this time hitting him (as his window was rolled down.), and running over his phone. He squeels, "YOU MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!" and pulls his truck in front of my car to block my path (nearly hitting me) and steps out of the truck. He walked around behind my car and I pulled around his truck. He jumps back in his monglomobile and chases after me, nearly hitting other cars in the process. I boxed him off the road, forcing him to take the first exit to valley road. I waited a moment at the mouth to the second exit until I saw him come up the hill to re-join highway traffic. I flipped him off and laughed an evil laugh as I proceeded down the hill.

That was satisfying.

Virtual Economy

2005-04-29T15:17:00.000-04:00

I think the biggest problem with e-commerce and pay for content type sites (including music, movies, porn, books, art, etc.) is that it expects real cash for virtual service. The internet needs a reliable system of monopoly money for virtual values. Everyone who uses the internet has the ability to earn virtual value which then can be used for other content all based in a fake economy. Let content pay for content. Hell, think of how kick ass Bittorrent would work if everyones supplied bandwidth could actually be cashed in on. For the first time, a person's intellectual clout will be worth its own rewards. Someone needs to make this.

And then someone needs to make the get out of jail free card.

The smell of death eminating from my refrigerator...

2005-04-24T12:53:00.000-04:00

Is alarming because there is nothing in my refrigerator other than a few half empty bottles of seltzer, a bottle with about two shots left of Ribina, various bottles of hot sauce (mostly unopened), a half gallon of soy milk (still fresh even), a bag of carrots (which are quite healthy...In fact I think they're about ready to sprout), and some baking soda (which has been there since before I moved in a year and a half ago.) In the freezer are 3 ice cube trays, a bag of coffee beans, and a frozen steak (which has been there so long that its practically a friend, I don't think I'll ever eat it. It's inoffensive smelling at any rate.) It's otherwise fairly clean (except for a soy sauce spill on the door which has since become some sort of brown plastic coating which has been there since christmas eve of '04). While it raises the question of what the fuck I could be cooking with these ingredients, there's nothing that should be giving off that morbid smell.

I think it may be haunted by something I ate long ago. I have angered the supper gods.

Who's paying you to think?

2005-04-18T23:08:00.000-04:00

A rising tide of employees have recently been reprimanded or let go for running afoul of their employers' taste or temperament on personal blogs, including a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines who learned the hard way that the carrier frowns on cheeky photos while in uniform and a Google employee who mused on the company's financial condition and was fired.

Aren't these companies not allowed to discriminate on the basis of belief? Shouldn't companies pay extra if one is not allowed to have an opinion (possibly negative) about where they work? Does Walmart really have the right to fire a worker for including Walmart in the reasons why their life is shit? Should that be any different for Microsoft? McDonalds has no right to deny work to a member of PETA, should they be able to fire them they find out they're a member from their blog? Even KKK assholes (the few who have jobs) should not loose them if they refrain from being a racist prick at work. Are these places paying you to do a job, or to like a job? If it's the latter, I think it should be a separate agreement.

People are allowed to fuck who they want, talk about how it was, and still be employable. Your job should not be able to fire you because it found out in your blog that you got a blowjob from jose's sister (for the same reason they can't fire you for having a family). If you met your SOB manager outside of work and he felt like hanging out, there is no reason you should get fired for telling him to fuck off. You're being paid to do a task. If you do it well and work well with the people you work with, there is no legitimate grounds for firing. Do you think sanitation workers are doing it because they like it or because they're getting paid? They have every right to express that sanitation is shitty work if they want to without fear of reprisal. Most people aren't working to pass the fucking time, they work because they don't have a fucking choice. Unless you're being paid to be a spokesperson for whatever company, they shouln't be able to fire you for doing it wrong. Anyone who has been, should send a bill to that company for advertising fees.

More Airport Security

2005-04-16T03:24:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON - Starting Thursday, air travelers will have to leave their lighters at home. Unlike guns, knives and other dangerous items that a passenger cannot carry aboard but may stow in checked bags, lighters are banned everywhere on a plane.

I've said this before, I don't think the emphasis should be on keeping planes safe... The real danger is to keep the world safe from planes. (buildings, skyscrapers, and crowded places. That's the real danger. Otherwise a plane isn't all so different than a train or subway (in fact, a train can potentially be significantly more dangerous in some ways). There is no "Safe" railroad and every attempt to make one so far has been useless. A plane used as a missile is ultimately what we are trying to avoid though. The real easy way is to have the pilots enter the cockpit from another entrance and keep the cockpit isolated from the rest of the plane. Armed guards might not be such a bad idea either. Aside from that, dying on a plane is only a negligible risk and placebo cures only aid to ease the of mind of the cargos of sheep the planes carry.

Airport security... Which has irritated a ton of average folk and bloggers but has yet (as far as I know) catch one single terrorist before they did what they came for. The risk of a terrorist on your plane even in the pre 9-11 days was next to nothing. Even with all these extra measures I'ts not going to significantly improve a rating of next to nothing. The only logical option is to find ways to minimize damages as much as possible, and with a plane the largest potential is outside the vehicle. Trying to protect the poor fuckers in the air isn't worth the extra effort. So yeah, airport security today is lame. There are easier, and more fun ways to do this without violating anyone's rights.

How about this for safety --

Give EVERYONE on the plane a package consisting of a broad sword, a cross bow, a bundle of poison darts, and some light body armor as they board the plane. Fly safe and free in a mexican standoff. If there is ever a problem, at least it will be fucking entertaining. For those who plan on bringing bombs... there's no real 100% effective method to stop them... Why not make it sporting? Have a guarded self destruct button in the middle of the air plane...If one is able to fight their way to the button, they win.

Just a thought...

2005-04-13T10:22:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder if there are people out there who are desperate enough to ruffie themselves in the hopes that they might get date raped or taken advantage of? Does their self esteem drop even lower if this doesn't happen? What sorts of relationships can develop from this kind of beginning?

Coincidence????

2005-04-01T10:16:00.002-05:00

First Terry Schiavo gets unplugged, then the Pope starts getting sick...
He's obviously been slowly draining her life force over the past fifteen years through that tube and now that she's dead he's got to find a new host. It's always the religious leaders who do this sort of thing.

FCC ensures the viability of porn.

2005-03-28T11:39:00.000-05:00

I think the whole indecency campaign is just to keep porn valuable. You wouldn't be able to sell it as easily if it were allowed to be everywhere. Also, people probably wouldn't give a shit after awhile. Once a taboo like this is widely exposed, Christians may no longer need to giggle when they say the word "penis." Once the whole family sits around and watches hours upon hours of fucking on thanksgiving, they might be comfortable with themselves and their bodies enough to forgo the watching of violently repressed homosexual ball rituals every year. The FCC is just trying to keep the billion dollar porn industry alive and thriving.

Under New Chief, F.C.C. Considers Widening Its Reach

WASHINGTON, March 24 - The television and radio industries are about to come under renewed attack over sex, violence and profanity in their programming, both in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission.

Medicine Head...

2005-03-22T23:49:00.000-05:00

Fucking SPRIIIiIiiiIIIIIIIiNg TIiIiIMMMmMmMmE!!

Ever since I quit smoking, I've found it strange that my body prefers tar to plant seamen, because ever since I quit, I've had this fucking allergy problem I never had before. If I was still a smoker, at least I could still fucking breathe! (Albeit lead, tar, and nicotine). Still, today, halfway through work, my nose decided to stop functioning. It felt like the flesh around my skull was going to pop like a mucousy balloon. I went to Baja Fresh to raid their hot peppers. Not only did they not drain my sinuses, they made my pressure filled gelatinous head feel warm and itchy.

I drove to a Shoprite after that to get some drug relief. Do they set up Shoprite's to be obtuse and ridiculous on purpose, or was it the mucous affecting me? The parking-lots are generally strange, like those marble mazes. They make you walk through a a slow moving revolving door filled with rotating retards who push their fucking shopping carts and stop as if they expect the god-fucking door to push their lazy asses out the orifice and into the Shoprite. Then you're confronted by a pseudo police stand where the customer service should be. Who the fuck wants un-refrigerated pork anyway? Right behind that is the Kosher section. The pharmacy with the drugs, unlike most grocery stores is filled with soda. The real drugs are in an aisle like the normal products. Then, after you find your drugs its off to the god damn Self Checkout Lanes if you're on lunch break.

Self-Checkout always sounded like a great idea to me. Then again, I'm not stupid, old or incompetent. My expectation inevitably leads to disappointment because that's all you wait on line behind in the fucking things. It's worse than having a Mongoloidal cashier ring out assholes who don't know what the fuck they're doing, it's letting the asshole run the show unrestrained. You get vegetables looking at the condescending touch screens like man saw fire, mesmerized like moths about how the fuck to scan the fucking bar code and hit "PAY." How do these assholes afford to eat if they can't even hack cashier jockey bullshit? And why won't these OLD assholes do it the "OLD Fang-old" way instead of pretending that they're going to survive the year on the produce and neo-service the ghetto shoprite provides? Die already!!! They didn't call it the "fast lane" because they thought you were quick, they called it that out of hopes that even the stupidest idiot wouldn't shit up the fucking works with their fucking inferior perspective. You have to know you're stupid before you try to buy FOOD asshole... Just stay out of the way from now on. Some know what the fuck their doing...But still have to wait for a cashier to fix what the automated machine fucks up. This can take upwards of ten minutes. If you say "fuck it" and take what you have and go, this time is reduced dramatically as poorly paid security agents and pseudo un-refrigerated pork products will tackle you before you reach the revolving door of BULLSHIT! I really hate shoprite. Almost as much as banks.

By the time I got back to work, I was feeling fine... Thanks for the Drugs, Shoprite!! I'll need them.

from cHaoS!! ChAOs! CHaoS!!!!!!!

2005-02-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

The blood of christ is my favorite drink. It makes my urine a terrific florescent orange color, not unlike the vests construction workers wear. They should make Blood of Christ Ice Pops. They would certainly go great with Eucharist Wafer style chips. Picture it: Flavored Eucharist wafers, like Mesquite Messiah, Nazarene Nacho, or Baja Jehosafat. It would be fun for the whole family.

Easter Terrorism

2005-02-13T22:03:00.001-05:00

Put an egg in a bowl. Put the bowl in the microwave. Set the microwave on hi for about a minute and a half (or a second or two before the egg cracks). Let the egg cool down. Dye it, make it look like a regular easter egg. Replace any of the easter bunnies eggs with your special eggs. On easter morning, when the unsuspecting christians try to eat the easter gifts, the eggs will explode violently. They deserve egg on their faces for making their easter rituals utterly silly.

All work and no play.

2005-01-22T18:11:00.000-05:00

It's the first big snow of the year, so I'm going to celebrate by watching the shining.

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY"Operator...Give me WASHINGTON."

2005-01-17T23:21:00.000-05:00

NOTICE: This document may contain initial and preliminary reporting which may or may not be accurate or be supported by corroborative information. The HSOC is actively evaluating the reporting to establish its accuracy and to determine if it represents a possible link to terrorism. If recipients have any additional or clarifying information, please contact the Homeland Security Operations Center Senior Watch Officer (HSOC SWO) at (202) 282-8101

Some interesting reading here.

Pixel Fest Collaborative Experiment

2005-01-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

Pixel Fest Collaborative Experiment

Join others in an attempt to create a picture pixel by pixel. Surprisingly fun.

TV begone

2005-01-16T13:17:00.000-05:00

TV-B-Gone From Cornfield Electronics: "Hangs on your keychain and
turns off virtually any television!"

I Hate "Love"

2005-01-16T01:59:00.000-05:00

Love is an undefinable emotion...

Oh yeah? That means it's fucking dishonest. Love is a fucking lie. No one feels love, because love is ambivalent. Love is not a fucking emotion.

Some say, "I believe in love the noun, not the verb." What the hell does that mean? Can you phrase that in two sentences which aren't song titles or slogans? Would they be "All you need is love?" or "Love is where it's at?" Well, I've been "to" love and I've "had" love. Fuck that sense.

Do you love your kids? Are you some sort of pervert? If not, you've chosen the most vapid, retarded way to disregard your children. Can't you come up with some better words to describe the way you feel. Are you stupid or something?

Love is not definable... I'd say it means a way you should feel but in all honesty you really have feelings. You don't feel "love" ever. If you ask the scorned, they will tell you how much love sucks... Ask the "in love" and it's all flowers and togetherness... Ask the religious and it is purposeful... Fuck all of that, love means nothing, not all of this. No one feels it, it's an interpreted bullshit word to create an empathetic bond between more than one asshole based on connotation. Word defined.

You want to develop trust? You want to bond with somebody? You want a relationship that counts? Why the fuck would you tell the motherfucker you loved them unless you were some sort of an asshole? How do you really feel? Are you a fucking robot sent upon this world to sell the bull-shit called "love." Well, fuck you. You are the reason hate exists. And you cannot be so ambivalent when it comes to hate. Hate means "something." I hate Love. I say how I feel, I don't lie about this, and I am respectful of changes in cycle with whomever I'm with.

I know what you're thinking, what a negative son of a bitch... You'd be correct...as I am. However, at least i'm able to describe what I feel without taking the template as to how one should feel. Test me if you doubt. When I truly feel happy and comfortable with someone, I describe in detail why they make me feel whole, terrific, and a part of something unique and perfect. When I no longer feel this way, I am fairly able to discern why I had been so far off. To call that love is beyond pretension. By calling it love, I would flag myself as the most pretentious bastard existing because i would not respect the real feelings that comprise the subject.

Fuck the lovers. They are reptiles. The warmth is the same as the cold. It happens all to them. Beware the ones who tell you about love, look for those who say what they mean.

For those on tribe.net

2005-01-11T09:37:00.000-05:00

cHaoS!! ChAOs! CHaoS!!!!!!!
You want a finger of love where it counts? Ever have cheese in your drawers, shit in your hat, or bacon on your lawn? I'll bet you're incapable of swinging your meat away from the master's carpet. I saw a reflection of red death in my cereal and rang my easter typer to create a fabric which would be perfect for the occasion. I'll never forgive you. You are why there are times like the three yesterday when black flames shot out of the preacher's asshole and ate the cherry topping. Be a friend and bury my balls in the sock. No one listened when they were commanded to tape up the face. The face just kept calling for justice in the belly of the white whale. You were out that day. Calculations are made, plans set in motion. When can we go yet? Will you be here on tuesday?

Zombo

2005-01-07T13:14:00.000-05:00

You can do ANYTHING at zombocom. Anything at all... The only limit is yourself.

zombo

the science of cooking

2005-01-06T10:10:00.000-05:00

This is useful. My cooking has been compared to laboratory experiments.

Fuck this post

2005-01-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

In order to call someone a fucking asshole, It assumes that they know what the words mean (even children), so eliminating words will not protect the innocent. Invectives of all kinds are really similar to making a disgusted face or saying "ouch." They are matters of expression which often trancend language barriers and reach the same effect.

Oddly, the use of these invectives is often in response to something which the invector(?) found offensive (reasonably so or not) and expressed this offense in the most base terms (perhaps even growling).

Let's look at offense this way... Let's say I have an OCD. One day you, you beat me to my favorite chair. Rather then explaining my case and trying to rectify the situation, I respond expressively by growling at you. Offended, or possibly scared of someone growling at you, rather then finding out why someone is growling at you by asking, you call the cops or the mental hospital out of defensive instinct. Both reactions avoid constructive debate, yet both indicate accurately an expressive emotional response someone felt like sharing.

So, if the person sitting in the chair, instead tried to rationalize with the growler, and got only more growls, this could become fairly frustrating and threatening. The person certainly has the right to sit there, but is the growling fair expression (so long as it wasn't ever violent)? I'd say that it was...at this point it becomes something like an irritation over someone's kid screaming in a park. It's part of what you tolerate by sitting somewhere and respecting space.

Color Test

2004-12-29T16:24:00.000-05:00

Free personality analysis from ColorQuiz.com.
Generated on Wed Dec 29 13:21:14 2004.
Your Existing Situation
Having difficulty in making progress. Despite the attempt to conceal impulsiveness, his activities lead to problems and uncertainties, making him tense and irritable.
Your Stress Sources
Wishes to be independent, unhampered, and free from any limitation or restriction, other than those which he imposes of himself or by his own choice and decision.
Your Restrained Characteristics
Believes that he is not receiving his share--that he is neither properly understood nor adequately appreciated. Feels that he is being compelled to conform, and close relationships leave him without any sense of emotional involvement.
Feels trapped in a distressing or uncomfortable situation and seeking some way of gaining relief. Able to achieve satisfaction from sexual activity.
Feels rather isolated and alone, but is too reserved to allow himself to form deep attachments. Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense.
Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Able to obtain physical satisfaction from sexual activity but tends to hold aloof emotionally.

Your Desired Objective
Needs a way of escape from all that oppresses him and is clinging to vague and illusory hopes.
Your Actual Problem
Feels restricted and prevented from progressing; seeking a solution which will remove these limitations.
Thank you for using ColorQuiz.com.
Please recommend us to your friends.

Well, I suppose its good I can get off... Color is a funny thing.

2004-12-26T22:13:00.000-05:00

Since 9/11, why are more people afraid to fly then to go into sky-scrapers? More people died in the sky-scrapers, right? Why are we trying to improve airport security when we need to make our buildings plane proof? As idiotic as it is, it might be more realistic then current airport regulations.

Another year almost down

2004-12-24T23:51:00.000-05:00

Ya know, every year I start off expecting a better year then the last. As if inevitable, each gets worse in surprising and interesting ways. So Fuck it... I expect this year to suck. No resolutions, no delusions of grandeur, and no hope of luck improving. I'm looking forward to this being the worst year EVER.

Happy New Year everyone! See you in the bomb shelter.

Etymology of spontaneous retardation.

2004-12-21T11:25:00.000-05:00

spontaneous retardation.
Originally uploaded by drogulus.

Let me just tell you how much I love running on three hours of sleep. I have my quasi-retarded friends to thank for their gradually worsening disputes which finally came to a head last night. We had all planned on not arguing, so instead we decided it was best to settle on talking about non-controversial topics -- like the Middle East, while drinking Rum & Guinness of course.

Keeping in character of past discussions, the problem had nothing to do with the actual point of debate at all, but instead became a dissertation as to why a person shouldn't interrupt (which seems to be the grave-site for just about every drunken conversation the three of us have had for about a year now). Friend A has fairly poor listening skills. So poor, that even though this dissertation has been started in various incarnations all year, from both me and my friend B, Friend A has not let it finish without interrupting. Sometimes claiming things like, "I do NOT interrupt." Or interrupting that he has gotten so much better at not interrupting. Or explaining at length about his mad-uber listening skills which multi-task and process ALL information in his domain. He has actually suggested that our conversations would be much more productive if we all talked at the same time (because obviously, that's better if you're a good listener. Think about it.) The fact appears to be though, that Friend A is conscious of little else other than his own grating voice. Most people remember vivid experiences of their lives, Friend A seems to have notes on a roll of mental toilet paper which he refers to about these events. His recollection of past events seems more like he's remembering his own commentary on the events rather then really remembering the real sequential facts of what happened. None of these personality points are improved by drinking. Not to be misunderstood, Friend A is a good, loyal friend with integrity, imagination, and ambition who has helped me out on many occasions and generally tries to make a bad situation better. But sometimes I just feel like killing him. We've known each other since high school. We didn't really get along until I punched him in the face one day, and we got to know each other during in school suspension (that's another story). I'm not the only one who's felt like committing some act of violence to him. Why, just last week someone who met him three weeks ago was telling me that she felt like killing him for a conversation they had. My response was,"Eh, he does this. Try not to hold it against him."

Friend B certainly possesses his share of personality and social quirks. Probably more, and he'll be the first to call himself an asshole. He can be brutally abrasive, he's never on time (plus he stalls), and although his recollection is often better then even mine, the story he tells is often purposefully misleading, fabrications for entertainment value, or just something to generally provoke anger. His particular, slow to the point dissertation on interruption is designed to drive Friend A completely insane (not that Friend A's any better for falling for it EVERY time).

We've all known each other for over a decade, and have all had our various falling outs. This one was plainly stupid. Friend A used the word "Etymology" in an unusual context. Friend B immediately demands Friend A's definition of the word because it sounded like Bullshit. The definition was nowhere near. He insisted, shouted and interrupted that he knew that this was the definition of the word, swore up and down and insisted i pull up his BLOG as if it's some great reference for looking up words. So I pull up dictionary.com. As soon as I type "Etymolology" He's like, "NO, That's not the word!!" Even though that is what he said, I started checking the suggested "could this word be:" list for what the fuck he could have meant. Amidst the yelling and screaming, Friend A charges at Friend B to be met with three punches to the chin from Friend B. I briefly thought about breaking this up, but I figured this had been a long time in coming and they needed to get it out of their system, so I went back to checking words. I finally stopped it when Friend A had Friend B in a choke hold and was beating him about head. Friend A wasn't at all hurt, while Friend B had bit his tongue fairly badly in the scuffle (causing him to speak like, "Frenze schull en fight." for the rest of the evening. ) So, I told Friend A, that none of the words on the list were this famous, important word. We checked his Blog (bastion of knowledge that it is, and all), and it turns out the word he meant was "Ethnographer" and insisted for the rest of the night that this is what he had said all along (they're just so similar, right?). So of course, this eventually degrades into another fist fight (how else do people sort these things out, ya know?). After that, it turned into a mutual exchange of personal attacks, and then into me and Friend B explaining to Friend A that he has a shitty swiss cheese memory on top of being a lunatic, and his recollection of even his own grating voice was provably distorted from reality. He can't even manage to listen to himself. So he storms out. Leaving me to drive Friend B home when I had to be awake in three hours. He was nice enough to return to pick him up though. I wonder if they killed each other on the ride home.

Grunt.

Rudolph

2004-12-19T11:28:00.000-05:00

Thing

2004-12-19T11:14:00.000-05:00

eyebot
Originally uploaded by drogulus.

The Bitter Drink

2004-12-19T04:45:00.000-05:00

On the sofa, the grease stains were like a coat of yellow vinyl.
Bitter eyes greet the prospect of sightlessness.
He granted her one last picture in the form of ice.
In pools of red, thick juice, the frenzied pair pressed and rubbed into burning oil.
Ice scratched the bare wool away and left ash in the smokeless hallway.
They wandered into poisoned throats, spilling into them spice.
The air burns, it thickens and chokes hope.
Needles and sores cover flesh like a field of grass.
Spider-like limbs bent her around the road to get there faster.
They mangled in murky malaise toward a swampy death in one-another's arms.
Compulsive and desperate wishes cry for closure.
Enraptured and engorged en-route behind a truckload of misery,
they ended in massacre.