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February 25, 2002
Hey hey, kids! Here's an
Hey hey, kids! Here's an interesting bit on the sorry state of race relations and the utter lack of integrity in American Standard Media, Inc.
I'm always amused by these instances of blatant media bias because they make me think of good ol' Noam "You Are Being Propagandized" Chomsky. Just look at the story: a guy gets offered a ride, then dragged to death under a truck. But he's a white man killed by black men, so it doesn't warrant headlines. It was even in the same town: lovely Jasper, Texas. So: which side is putting out the propaganda? The side that asserts that being an American of African descent automatically confers a superior victim status, or the side that views all murder victims as equally newsworthy? The side that treats the historical victims of racial intolerance as a single martyred group, or the side that prizes human individuality? The side that wants to criminalize our very thoughts and more severely punish those who murder with "hate" inside their private minds, or the side that condemns all examples of extraordinary cruelty as equally deplorable and therefore equally subject to severe punishment in our courts?
Well Noam, what do you think? Is this a spectacular achievement of propaganda or what?
Tom Tomorrow on the idiocy
March 05, 2002
Oh, dear. It looks like
Oh, dear. It looks like the crematory in Lafayette, Georgia is working after all. Which means that Ray Brent Marsh may have had other reasons for keeping 300 corpses around. There's also the matter of the pictures of decomposing bodies he apparently kept on his computer.
A regular Necropolis! Who knows what "based on true events" films will be made of this. The terrible tale of Mr. Marsh, living alone at his crematory in rural Georgia, stacking corpses like cordwood, just to...have them around for company? Produce really great mulch for flowerbeds? Or...something else?
Calling Tom Savini!
March 09, 2002
So…the fellow who brought the
So…the fellow who brought the NYC nuke plot info to the Feds made it up. He claimed to have overheard it in a Las Vegas casino. Lovely.
Another Muslim with visions of black-eyed virgins sucking him off in Paradise walked into an Israeli café and killed lots of people. Swell.
The U.S. is working up its nuclear contingency plans. Another “secret report” that got leaked to the press, which means another message that the government wants sent. The message: do not fuck with us. Great.
Meanwhile, Alec Baldwin shoots his mouth off once again, having failed to keep his promise to leave the country. Another actor who thinks that exposure must mean that he has something intelligent to say. What “moratorium” on criticism of the Bush government, Alec? Folks like you, Sontag and Chomsky have reams of press plus hours of radio and TV time. Bush was bashed left and right for his steel tariff decision, something that I don’t pretend to understand and therefore don’t comment on. What do you understand, Alec? Judicial activism? Constitutional law? Political philosophy? Idiot.
March 15, 2002
Weird. My trusty information spies
Weird. My trusty information spies tell me that someone from the Weapons Division at the Naval Air Warfare Center has visited Astonished Head three times this month.
Perhaps my recent ranting about various weapons of mass destruction has gotten the site caught up in some sort of routine 'Net keyword sweep.
My tax dollars at work! Go, man, go!
Either that or some government employee is surfing when they ought to be working.
My tax dollars at work! Go, man, go!
March 18, 2002
D'oh! Horowitz retracts the "cheery
D'oh! Horowitz retracts the "cheery tidbit" I linked to in my 3/15 post. Perhaps I'm too ready to believe the Horowitzian line...on the other hand, I stick by my characterization of the soft pacifists who are incapable of seeing the moral difference between 9/11 and the unfortunate consequences of misguided American policy.
So there!
March 19, 2002
The Delphic oracle was huffing.
March 28, 2002
I sent this off to
I sent this off to frontpagemag.com in response to Jamie Glazov's "Andrea Yates Part II. A Reminder of the Need for Execution." Glazov's work is a continual disappointment.
"Dr. Glazov's arguments are incoherent.
Dr. Glazov’s seemingly interchangeable use of the terms ‘ethics’ and ‘moral’ indicate that he has little or no idea of what the terms mean. ‘Ethics’ refers to the discipline of studying that which is good and bad and what constitutes moral obligation. ‘Moral’ refers to the principles that actually determine what is good or bad. The presence or absence of the death penalty has nothing to do with the presence or absence of the ongoing ethical study of our human cruelty to each other. The existence of the moral principles that underlie such study are similarly unaffected. To claim that this is not so is naïve at best.
Dr. Glazov may also want to examine the meaning of the word ‘categorically.’ It means ‘absolute, unqualified.’ The fact that Dr. Glazov can demand an unqualified condemnation of the taking of human life as part of an argument for the necessity of taking human life does not reflect very well on his thought process.
Dr. Glazov’s characterization of the ‘fear of the innocent’s condemnation’ argument is, quite simply, logically and morally wrong. To casually claim that the imperfect nature of the state system intended to dole out death as a punishment has ‘absolutely no bearing’ on whether the death penalty ought to be implemented gives the lie to Dr. Glazov’s moral claim that he believes in the preciousness of human life. His claim that arguments against the death penalty imply that life imprisonment ought to be abolished because it is also unfair to sentence an innocent person to such punishment is similarly illogical and sloppy. A sentence of life in prison bears with it the possibility of revisiting the trial and conviction. A sentence of death, once carried out, is irrevocable. The two punishments do not exist on a continuum. One is categorically different from the other (and I use ‘categorically’ here in the way that it is supposed to be used).
Finally, Dr. Glazov seems to have forgotten that Andrea Yates committed her crimes in a state that enthusiastically embraces the death penalty. That didn’t seem to affect her decision to kill all of her children.
The final question Dr. Glazov asks is important, but his answers contribute nothing of substance to the debate."
[10:48PM. The letter's not up yet. I didn't much care for ex-editor Richard Poe's polemical and scattershot argumentation, but he did manage the FrontPage forums well. -IW]
May 03, 2002
And Now The first paragraph
And Now
The first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence translated into Chinese and then back into English:
"When in the person event travelling schedule, it changes essential is one person dissolves with in addition connects their politics belt, and the supposition inside the strength Earth, the natural law and natural God they separates for the power with the equal station, the honest respect requests them to the humanity viewpoint to be supposed to declare impels them to the cause which separates."
And into Japanese and then back again:
"It comes being human and cause should be declared in order the time to suppose between power, those were connected with another ones of the thing between thing, it becomes necessary, for 1 people to disassemble the political band, the earth, law of God of place character and the character which are equal to difference gives qualification to those, the suitable point to opinion of the mankind urges those to the separation which is required."
And finally, from English into German, from German into French, and from French back into English:
"If during human cases, it necessarily for people, it will dissolve political volumes with others to have attached, and under energies of the mass, the different station and to even accept, which the natural laws allow them and the god of nature, an acceptable respect requires them in the opinions of humanity that they should explain the causes, to separation impel."
Clearly, I have way too much time on my hands today.
May 06, 2002
For someone who's supposed to
For someone who's supposed to be so smart, George Will can be awfully sloppy with the facts when he wants to make some clever point. He writes:
"If you have an average-size dinner table, four feet by six feet, put a dime on the edge of it. Think of the surface of the table as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The dime is larger than the piece of the coastal plain that would have been opened to drilling for oil and natural gas."
That's a nice image, George. Except that the oil's not all in one place. It's spread throughout the 1.5-million acres of the refuge in roughly 30 small deposits. The roads, pipelines, gravel mines, and other various and sundry infrastructure-type items required to connect those 30 deposits are exempted from the 2,000 acre "dime" George imagines for us. So, instead of a small swatch of industrialized land, there could be dozens oil fields of various sizes, docks, and seawater treatment plants scattered throughout the refuge, all linked by roads cut through virgin forest. This doesn't even take into account the exploration trails and water-withdrawal sites that would be required by the operation. For more info, and a speculative oil-development plan that meets with the defeated law's criteria, go here.
I'm not particularly a "Bushwatch.net" fan, but I have respect for footnotes and research.
C'mon, George...can't you spring for a research assistant? No, wait--I get it! Facts would get in the way, wouldn't they? Why spend money for a research assistant when you wouldn't use what they found anyway? We must therefore commend George for his frugality.
Way to go!
May 23, 2002
Meanwhile, back at the ranch:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: FBI agent Kenneth Williams marked his now-infamous "Phoenix memo" as "Routine," which insured that it would be at least 60 days before any decisions were made about it. Folks living in Washington D.C. feel more threatened by terror than the residents of other cities, while folks in New York are displaying that plucky New York Sensibility. Cheney says the "noise in the system" has increased, leading to this week’s threat warnings, and Rummy says that captured al-Qaeda operatives are feeding false information into that system to see how we'll react. Overseas, Bush says he's got no war plans for Iraq on his desk, which might mean they’re on that bookshelf over there, near the coffee table.
After indulging in the Big Big Panic for a few days, I find myself tired and sick to my stomach. The need for action, left unmet, eventually results in resignation and the realization that by and large the world is unmoved by one’s own wants and needs. Generally, that's a lesson learned somewhere around age two or three, but it's easily forgotten, and the older one gets the more psychologically disturbing the consequences of such forgetfulness become.
So I hunker down, and wait.
June 03, 2002
Alright alright alright. My legions
Alright alright alright. My legions of readers, their brains bloated with the hunger-gas of idea-lack, have not been pestering me to fill this space. Having (somewhat) given up on commenting in the world situation (always hovering between Bad and Sure To Get Worse) and having written (probably) most of what I want to say about Ground Zero (seeing as how it's all cleaned up now and whatnot) I suppose some brief blurt of verbiage regarding the Neurosis In My Head is in order.
I have indeed sort of thrown in the towel as far as politics on Astonished Head goes. It's just too goddamn depressing, for one thing. 'Politics' these days seems to be an endless parade of sterling examples of the worst in human nature: greed, cowardice, incompetence, prevarication, and, above all, thick-wittedness. We live in a system that guarantees representation to the greedy, the cowardly, the incompetent, the dishonest and the thick-witted. A noble idea, but the system failed to compensate for the fact that, inevitably, the worst of us rise to the top. People forget that cream floats because it's nothing but fat, and if you live on fat alone your arteries will clog up and you'll die, strangled by your own indulgence.
I can't play the game that is punditry (not very well, at least). It's all well and good to adopt this or that position...there's more than enough information floating around out there these days to serve any argument you care to make. It's all about research: finding the facts that back up the bits to which you've elected to lend the name of Truth, and then artfully arranging them in a convincing manner. Arguments fly back and forth like bacon grease at Springfield Elementary's first dance. But nothing really gets done, no fundamental changes are really made, and the political game continues on heedless of who plays what position; indeed, the game continues in flagrant spite of those who play it, ensuring that no one of sound, immovable principle can achieve any measure of real power. Arguing about it becomes an exercise in self-indulgence and a neuronal pissing contest. After trying that out, I've decided that I don't have a taste for it.
For another thing (the first 'thing' was mentioned way back there, in Paragraph Two) there are many, many people out there who do have a taste for it, and instead of scrambling after them and pretending like I'm a Clever Fellow Who Likes Punditing I'd rather be the Clever Fellow that I actually am, who is occasionally right about things but has the disturbing ability to sound much more right about things than he actually is, which is a Tremendous Power that must be Used For Good, Not Evil.
'Good,' in this case, will probably consist of bits that are quite a bit lighter than the bits that currently reside here.
The lie will be given to this bit the next time I get ticked off about something, I'm sure. But for now I'm going to sit inside my hollow tree stump and think about what I can write about that actually entertains me.
June 04, 2002
And what amuses me today?
And what amuses me today? First, I am amused that the New Improved Blogger Pro version replaces all of my " and ' characters with ? characters. I cannot quote anyone without seeming to be very very inquisitive, or an inverted Spaniard. Why are there " and ' characters in this post, you ask? Because I am using the old New Improved Blogger Pro version, which leaves my " and ' characters alone.
I am also amused by this fellow, because he doesn't know what he's talking about. Anyone who can define eschatology as "the spirituality of any religion" and then proceed to write an entire column about out-Islaming the Muslims can only be amusing, and nothing more. My learned response to this bit of nonsense can be found as a comment to this item at VodkaPundit, if you're interested. The thing that gets me about this guy is that he was a deputy undersecretary of Defense for George Bush I. It's a wonder we got out alive...although I suppose that as a mere deputy undersecretary he probably didn't get to make any of the big big decisions, and certainly didn't need to know much about religion.
I am also amused by this Drudge item: "Martha's Vineyard town reverses bar smoking ban." Seems that once the town banned smoking in bars, the smokers moved to the street corners. Says Health Board chairman Joe Alosso: "The (cigarette) butts are a major problem, and so is the language you hear. They've taken the bar atmosphere and put it in the street." So it's not the cigarettes that are the problem, it's the people who smoke them. Better to have those...people...in bars, out of sight, where they can give each other cancer and we won't be subjected to their presence.
Finally: Georges the Dolphin. Pity poor Georges. Not only is he unable get any Dolphin action, which has forced him to harass human females, he has also developed a fascination with spinning things. Namely, boat propellers. I've seen that happen: sexually frustrated drunken fratboys roaming the city, looking for revolving doors to play in. It never ends well, and it probably won't end well for poor Georges either.
June 15, 2002
These, of course, are the
These, of course, are the least of the problems a human can face. Look out! It's taking-too-long-to-wash-his-coffee-dingus-man! Duck! and Cover! from the wrath of the stale breakfast-style apple thing. And the watery soap of doom! Not nearly as worrisome as the problems faced by a fellow I saw this afternoon, buying a bunch-of-beef-on-a-stick from the bunch-of-beef-on-a-stick vendor who recently perched his brand-spanking-new cart on the corner outside my apartment building. For a while, everything about that beefstick vending cart was new. All shiny metal surfaces, bright plastic umbrellas...even the ketchup, mustard and Mysterious Hot Sauce squeeze bottles were bright and clean shiny plastic. I've never seen such a sparkling new bunch-of-beef-on-a-stick vending cart. I wish it was somewhere else, though. Not that it matters, because I'm moving soon.
Anyway--this afternoon thin strappy-tee-shirt man bought some beef on a stick, and stood eating it with the small group of people who always seem to hang about the vending cart, eating various foodstuffs. Not just bunch-of-beef-on-a-stick, there's also slices of Mighty Spinning Meat Cone to be had, along with bunch-of-chicken-on-a-stick, and some sort of falafel-style mash. All messily eaten in foil or direct from the stick or occasionally from a styrofoam box. The stuff that comes in the styrofoam box constitutes, I think, a full "meal."
Thin strappy-tee-shirt man had some problems, though...after consuming most of his bunch-of-beef-on-a-stick, he got a funny look on his face, and staggered around a bit. I passed by him on the way to the video store to see about some more Sopranos videos and a Klondike Oreo ice cream sandwich thing. When I came back up the street, everybody around the meat-vending cart was staring up into the air, which I did too, because that's what you do when you see a bunch of folks standing staring up into the air. Thin strappy-tee-shirt man was hanging onto the topmost wire strung along the telephone poles, wailing miserably, his feet towards the sky, as though being pulled upwards...which, it seemed, he was, because just as I set eyes on him he lost his grip. Still wailing, he flew upwards as fast as falling down a well, and was soon lost to sight. On the sidewalk under where he had been hanging onto the wire was a grease-stained stick with a couple of browned cubes of beef still skewered on it, next to a dollop of pigeon shit.
That's why I don't eat at carts like that. I mean, you just never know what you're getting.
June 24, 2002
And before I get slews
And before I get slews of "Paxil changed my life" type letters: yes, I know they can work wonders for folks but the one time I tried such a concoction I felt the chemicals changing in my brain.
The brain isn't an organ like your stomach, which you're aware of because it gurgles and twists around and suchlike. It's silent and mysterious and hidden...like your spleen, maybe, or your gall-bladder...but even that's not quite right, because if your spleen goes off you don't start hearing voices and shouting at demons and so forth. To suddenly become acutely aware of my brain in such a systemic and subtle way was quite disturbing.
Didn't like it! No sir.
So I stopped.
That was years ago, and I am now the fabulously well-adjusted and happy camper you all know and love today.
Now, where's that goddamn hammer...
July 02, 2002
Odd with the dreams in
Odd with the dreams in the sleeping head last night. I was camping with Ted Nugent. Now, I'd be hard pressed to name a single song of his. But I read an interview with him a couple of weeks back and it's clearly stuck him into my brain. I could tell I was dreaming, though: Ted wasn't saying anything. That, and we were camping indoors. I was trying to jam the tentstakes into a carpeted floor.
Next, we were sitting on a small rise overlooking a parking-lot type patch of asphalt, with a road on the far side and beyond that, a river gorge. There were children playing. A young black kid was flying a small black and white remote control helicopter...way too close to me for my taste, so I batted it out of the air, and smashed it into the dirt, and threw the wreckage down onto the asphalt near the kid. I got the sense that Ted didn't approve--he didn't say anything, of course, because this was the weird alternate universe of dreamworld--but he gave the kid some kind of Nintendo Gameboy device, to replace the smashed helicopter.
Feeling guilty, I decided to buy the helicopter-flying kid some inflatable rubber playground-type balls, so that he and the other children could play with them. Suddenly (using interDream Transport, I expect) I was at the front of a store that I knew sold such things. It was run by Orthodox Jews, and for awhile the one behind the register ignored me. Then he pulled a black ski mask on, covering up his locks and his beard, and directed me to the big wire basket of balls in the back. I had already paid for three of the balls at $2.99 each, but I also saw a big red Jumbo ball, two feet across, and I absconded with it.
Back to the playground, sitting with Ted. I tossed the balls down...one of them bounced across the road, and I tensed, waiting for the children to chase after it and get creamed by a speeding car. But it didn't happen...and then I faded into wakefulness.
What does it mean? Perhaps that a military helicopter will be shot down somewhere, that there will be an incident of Jewish terrorism, an oppressed people will be granted a boon, and will be put in danger as a result. And Ted Nugent will achieve silent enlightenment.
July 15, 2002
"Individual investors," writes William Safire,
"Individual investors," writes William Safire, "Even in an era of pension funds and expert money managers, have a responsibility to assess their risks and to resist the roar of the crowd."
To which I reply faintly, hear hear. Fortunately, finances kept me from dumping money into the Bubble, and I will most probably be entering the market post-bursting...I'm one of Safire's contrarians. That's a good thing. What I find fascinating about the whole debacle--and Safire paints the market's portrait quite well--is that it's a sterling example of what works in this system. Witness the market punishing the ethical lapses of Arthur Andersen. Sure, companies are deserting Andersen for entirely selfish reasons, to avoid guilt by association, but look at the net effect: you do wrong, you get caught, you are punished. Bad company! No profits.
For a supposedly soulless system of supplies and demands, that's a peculiarly moral correction. The same goes for all the other mega-corporations that are even now plotting the best way to come clean, and can see the Wrath of The Market bearing down upon them to punish them for their iniquities.
This is exactly what's supposed to happen. And it started happening before Bush made his speech, before Congress adopted its posture.
None of which, of course, is a comfort to those who got burned...but Safire's got it right. They didn't even have all their eggs in one basket: they only had one egg.
July 31, 2002
"I don't think we, as
"I don't think we, as a species, actually evolve at all. I think we're as cruel and as awful as we were 10,000 years ago."
Huh. The next time I see you, David, remind me to bash your skull in with a big rock, eat your liver, feast on your marrow, and drag Iman back to my cave so that I can impregnate her and propagate my DNA.
September 19, 2002
And now: the results of
And now: the results of a VodkaPundit/WorldWideRant mention: yesterday, traffic jumped from 58 hits the previous day to 879 hits. That's nearly what I've been doing in a month. Thanks Stephen! Thanks Andy! Hoo-hah.
So: welcome, new folks, thanks for stopping by. If any of you are inclined to poke around further, the Archives link is over there on the left. I'm out of coffee, though, and all I've got for snacks is a stale Krispy Kreme. Many apologies.
As someone who's at some
As someone who's at some risk for melanoma himself, I think this is a great development: they've created white blood cells in a lab, then injected them into cancer patients, with reportedly startling effectiveness. In one case, the amplified lymphocytes essentially gobbled up two pounds' worth of tumor.
But the AP headline--Cancer Cells Killed In Test Therapy--immediately conjured up in my mind's theater a group of scientists wearing white coats in their high-tech lab, enthusiastically smashing dozens of petri dishes with big hammers while a spokesperson explains: "We felt that a simple, basic approach would produce better results than more complicated therapies, so we went after the cancer cells with brute force."
September 24, 2002
The word for today is
The word for today is Yurch, which is onomatopoetic in that it perfectly describes my state of bodymind this morning. Persistent ear trouble has left me partially and hopefully temporarily deaf, the wrenchings of my new schedule have rendered my brain highly susceptible to cascading neuron failure, and the onset of fall allergies has further degraded my mental capacity. My sinuses are packed with cotton and glue. I need a haircut and a dehumidifier for the basement. My cat is much too fat and there's too much beer in the refrigerator. In addition, I think that the ghost of Howard Hughes is trying to contact me regarding a box of gold coins that he stashed somewhere in Utah. All of this makes it very...difficult...to...concentrate. That is why I'm wearing the tinfoil hat. I probably shouldn't have downed all of that cough syrup, though. It�s messed up the vertical hold on my eyeballs.
Inna gadda davida, baby...oh...yeah...sing...it...*hic*
October 01, 2002
Well, it's finally happened. Or
Well, it's finally happened. Or rather, happened again.
I've snapped.
Gone buggy!
Holy Psychological Disturbance, Batman!
Shut up, old chum! You'll disturb the leeches... in my tights.
I suspect I need a break from this mayhem of writing and ideas and putting myself in the Macy's window. Bit too far out there. Not prudent. Can't have that.
Just when you think you're starting to get over something...baff! comes the knock on the head, and you're down!
I think I need to spend some time in the old orgone collector, yes indeedy.
October 07, 2002
Today, I am functioning on
Today, I am functioning on 3 1/2 hours of sleep. I attended a fine, fine wedding yesterday, but somewhere after the fourth blue martini I decided that a cup of coffee would be a really good idea. Which it was, until I tried to get to sleep last night.
So now, everything looks like a Jim Henson production and my head is a big bale o' cotton. Oh, Lordy!
I did receive yet another excellent comment about last week's improperly and immorally politicized winery visit, which I will address when my other brain cell begins firing.
In the meantime, please feel free to recoil in inexpressible horror from the Plush Cthulhu.
Woo-hoo! I've been ripped off.
Woo-hoo! I've been ripped off.
Yes!
October 11, 2002
Astonished Head is a window
Astonished Head is a window pane that looks really, really good!
Who'da thunk it?
Try it yerself.
October 18, 2002
Getting Squashed
Go read about Deb and her maybe-Zumpkin. It's a cringe-counteragent.
October 21, 2002
"Bones, there's a...thing out there."
--Captain J. T. Kirk
October 25, 2002
So far this morning, a talking-head on CNN has wondered aloud about the lack of attention being paid to Muhammed's Nation of Islam connection. Then, via Our Friends at NPR, I heard a former associate of Muhammed's--with whom he opened a karate school--remarking in a telephone interview that Muhammed "was not happy with the government, I could tell that." Also noted was Muhammed's Gulf War service; he was described as a "good soldier," and had receieved a commendation.
Of course, he was trained as a combat engineer, and not a sniper. There's already information floating around (with a handy diagram provided by CNN) that he had converted the Chevy Caprice in which he and Malvo were found into a prone shooting position. He had two holes in the trunk, through which the rifle barrel and scope could protrude, and took his shots by folding down the rear seat and strecthing out in the trunk.
So: the sniper is a nomadic African American who converted to Islam 17-years ago, served in the Army from '85 to '94, served in the Gulf War, provided security at the '95 Million Man March in DC, and has been through a couple of nasty divorces. At one point, it was reported that the person the police were talking with via telephone was demanding millions in cash. The victims were of all ages and races.
I think what we've got here is a loon with a gun. A miserable, insane son-of-a-bitch who hated the world.
The thing that always struck me about Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the September 11 thugs, was his eyes. Have a look. There's something about them, isn't there? Creepy. Sort of dead-looking.
Below is the sniper suspect. Check out the eyes. This is an old photo, from his military service days. But there's something similar, there.
Perhaps it's the set of the face. Then again, maybe it's just that I know they're both murdering bastards.
Images are funny that way: a bunch of neutral pixels, arranged just so, can become a repository for the perceptions of the viewer. Would I think that either image was cold and creepy if I didn't already know that the person depicted therein was cold and creepy?
Reynolds and others are wondering what a homeless unemployed man was doing flitting off to Jamaica, and where he got the money for the trip, not to mention the rifle and Caprice.
Good question.
And, as if to accompany the recent slew of human evil, evil fate drops by to say hello: Senator Paul Wellstone, along with his wife, his daughter, and several staffers, died in a plane crash just a few hours ago.
I don't know a damn thing about his politics, really, but the death of any leader of our nation is occasion for pause, and grief.
October 28, 2002
OK...everything seems to be in order now. Except my head. Too late to pontificate, and so forth.
October 29, 2002
One morning, some proto-human staggered out from his cave, scratched his hairy evolving ass, looked up at the big big sky with an inquisitively squinted eye and said, “Mrrrrgh…” This was the beginning of religion and, eventually, science. Mrrrrgh is the primordial phoneme of human curiosity. It is also the noise of getting up much too early in the morning and being confronted with a world that seems not-quite-ready to be experienced or observed, which in turn necessitates the ingestion of vast amounts of water that has been filtered through a coarse powder made from the half-burnt berries of the Coffea arabica plant. Such is the state of my pancake-bloated brain and sleepy belly this morning, having wandered through Hoboken, crossed the river and plopped down before my computer monitor with little or no detectable electrical activity in my synapses.
Please, say it with me: mrrrrgh.
October 31, 2002
Today, I want to talk about coffee. Or rather, the un-coffee. The Budweiser-piss of coffees. I'm referring, of course, to the FLAVIA® Beverage System.
We used to have coffee grinders here at the office. Dump a pound of shiny oily beans into the big big bin. Pop a snow-white filter into the filter cup. Slide it into place under the grinder spout, and push the button. Wonderful crunchy mechanical noise ensues, and equally wonderful freshly-pulverized coffee pours into the paper filter, a beautiful fragrant bounty of stimulating goodness. Extra-tired this morning? Hit that button again! Then scoop about half of the extra grounds out, so that the resultant brew doesn't remove the lining of your esophagus. Save those leftover grounds for tomorrow. Grab a coffeepot full of water from the water cooler (Never make coffee from faucet water. Faucet water has chlorine and a billion other things in it that make for an evil brew). Pour that water into the shiny, three-burner Bunn brewer. Watch while pleasant gurglings and friendly steam ensue. I always stuck my cup under the spout, to catch the first, freshly-dark outpourings, then *fwip* swapped my cup for the coffee-pot, ultra quick-like. For all that, I only needed a half, or maybe three-quarters of a cup...four, maybe five ounces. But: Mmmm...caffeinated.
Compare that to:
"Every FLAVIA® beverage is brewed fresh on the spot - from fresh gourmet coffees...which have been sealed, free from oxygen, in our unique FLAVIA® Filterpacks."
Filterpacks? What modern horror is this? I'll tell you. A "filterpack" is an utterly non-recyclable flat pouch made from a layered plastic and mylar. At the top is a small plastic knob-nozzle device. An insufficient amount of preground coffee is hidden away inside. Select a coffee variety--say, French Roast--from a rack of dozens of these packets, each tray conveniently labelled with a "Strength/Force" rating, on a scale of 1 to 5, which I suppose is intended to convince us that there's some difference between "French Roast," "Columbian," and "Costa Rica." Then, approach the machine. It... sort of looks like a coffee-maker. There are three buttons: "Coffee or Tea," "Espresso-style Coffee," and "Choco." Warily push the "Espresso-style Coffee" button. Look out! A small hatch springs open with a Star Trek servo whir. Don't be alarmed: it wants the filterpack. Put it in. Close the hatch. There are various clunks, hisses and gurglings. Inside the machine, hot city-supplied water is injected into the filterpack through the small plastic knob-nozzle device. The filterpack expands, revealing the "filter" part of the technology: it's hidden in the bottom of the pack. The coffee is being brewed in the filterpack. Finally, an anemic, pale-brown fluid dribbles forth, slowly and first, then with a bit more energy, finally spluttering out, spent. A pause, then a mechanical crunching as the spent, bloated filterpack is sucked into the bowels of the machine. Repeat the process: the "Espresso-Style Coffee" button provides perhaps three ounces of somewhat drinkable coffee-style fluid, and more is required to achieve the requisite stimulant dosage. For an on-the-edge experience, mix French Roast Espresso-style coffee with a filterpack of Irish Creme Espresso-style coffee, or some Hazelnut Espresso-style coffee.
I don't know what the "Coffee or tea" button provides. It can't be good. And "Choco?" Mostly sugar, with some cocoa processed with alkali, a dash of dipotassium phosphate, some silicon dioxide. Good, European-style cocoa, just like Grandma Bloch used to make.
This entire mechanized industrial coffee delivery system was created in 1985 by Mars, the candybar folks. There is a "FLAVIA® Way," which, while not requiring me to learn levitation skills from a small green swamp-bound puppet, is apparently intended to "satisfy my thirst for individuality." Unfortunately, such thirst is not quenched by a selection of identically-styled plastico-metallic filterpacks filled with asphyxiated preground coffee from a factory in Philadelphia.
I repudiate the FLAVIA® Way! I turn to the dark-roasted side! I give in to my anger and hatred of the whole new method of approaching office beverage and coffee service!
But they took our grinders and Bunn machines away. Now I am forced to endure the FLAVIA® Way. FLAVIA® caffeine is different from fresh caffeine, I am certain. Too much of the old, fine coffee gave me pangs of anxiety and twitchiness. Too much FLAVIA® makes me sweaty and feel like I need to go out and get some crack before the stuff wears off.
I suppose I could buy a cup from one of the two Starbucks around here...or the two or three other, non-Starbucks-style coffee joints.
But the FLAVIA® is free.
Mmmm...complimentary low-quality caffeine...
November 01, 2002
Police in Louisiana have tied John Muhammad to a September 21 murder in Baton Rouge. The rifle was used to shoot a shopkeeper in the head, and witnesses place Malvo at the scene, stealing the woman's purse. So far, the rifle has been linked to murders in four states.
I'll say it again: a Muslim, yes. But not a terrorist, except in the broadest possible sense of the word. Sullivan has called his choice of the DC area "no accident," [his archives are broken, so no link] implying that Muhammad chose the nation's capital as a terrorist target. But before then, he was killing people just to rob them, and--given reports of the 10 million dollar extortion attempt--the DC killings were just robbery writ large.
The man is a murderous criminal jackass. That's all. Calling him an Islamic terrorist gives him credit for a sense of purpose that he doesn't possess.
November 03, 2002
And having said that, allow me the brief indulgence of claiming that my head is currently full of late-night, cold dark sky blurriness, topped with a light froth of verisimilitude and a sprinkle of powdered morning. I've got rainbows in between each of my toes, and my fingers have gotten long and spidery as they scratch the moon's face (see the marks, there!). My eyeballs are globular and bouncy like the big superballs you used to get for a quarter from the red-topped vending machine near the supermarket exit, and my heart is wrapped in tissue paper in a box in the closet under the stairs.
What...what's that...it's K-K-Ken c-c-come to k-k-kill me...? No! It's a bucket of botulism slung in the hand of a giant walking bassoon! No! Wait! It's a free set of steak knives, with oxygen-action! And a monkey! No, no, it's...it's!
Christ, is it time for bed. In the hissing words of Tom Cruise, Now More Than Ever.
Thank you! I'm here 'till Thursday.
November 04, 2002
Very innaresting. My IP elves tell me that--in addition to getting a burst of visits from Bombay last month, which looks like it will continue this month--in the past three days I've gotten three hits from Saudi Arabia. The Ripe WHOIS database entry for the IP addresses in question helpfully tells me that
"If you experience high volume of traffic from IP in this block it is because your site is very popular/famous of Saudi Arabia community."
Fortunately, three hits does not constitute high traffic. The three sequentially numbered IP addresses originate in Jeddah, in Western Saudia Arabia, and--like all IPs in the that country--are administered through the Saudi Network Information Center at the King Abdulaziz 'City' for Science and Technology in Riyadh.
So...uh, hi, I guess. Thanks for letting us use our bases.
Oh, wait.
I guess I meant thanks for letting us move our stuff the hell out so we can use our bases in Qatar, instead.
I'm fascinated. Is it a student, this Saudi reader? A government peruser of Western media? Maybe it's just a search-bot.
At any rate, I'm glad the IPs are in Western Saudi Arabia, because the North and South, apparently, are full of Jihadists-in-waiting ready to flood into Iraq for the sacred privilege of getting puffed into pink paste by our expensive laser-guided munitions.
November 06, 2002
Daft! Absolutely batty! Completely snockered!
And so forth.
Back in the pre-Internet days--the mid-80s--I spent quite a bit of time on the ham radio, using the unfortunate call-sign of KB2GBV (it was unfortunate because four out of the six letters rhymed, which is a problem when you're working a weak signal and can't be heard very well). I wasn't much for DX (long distance) because I was using a homebuilt 10-meter wire antenna, with a 50-watt transceiver. Nonetheless, I used that wire to reach Japan once, and regularly spoke with folks from the West Coast, Canada, and South America.
The median age of today's dwindling ham population is over fifty, and rising. There was a brief moment before the advent of the Internet when ham radio was at the cutting edge of communication technology, with innovations such as packet radio (sending computer data over the airwaves) and SSTV (slow-scan-television--essentially, amateur TV). Then the Internet exploded, and there was really nothing that ham radio could do that it couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper. Two decades' worth of lax FCC enforcement have turned the allocated amateur radio spectrums into a free-for-all. I set up my radio for a couple of weeks in Queens, and heard tons of LOUD chatter in Spanish that I could tell, from the lack of call signs and protocol, wasn't coming from licensed operators.
In short, amateur radio is dying. Technology has advanced to the point where being handy with a breadboard and a soldering iron isn't enough to build your own top-flight rig. Most 'netheads can't comprehend why the hell anyone would want to try and join in the static-laden fray of a dozen radio operators trying to make that rare contact with McMurdo Station in Antarctica when you can just dial up and jump in a chatroom, or send off an e-mail, or open a webcam page and see a live feed from just outside the station's front door. The idea of using a communication medium the effectiveness of which is subject to an eleven-year sunspot cycle seems quaint at best.
This technological nostalgia was brought on by a perusal of my website logs this morning. I've gotten the occasional hits from the UK, Germany, Italy and (yesterday) South Korea. For the most part, though, my regular readers are stateside, and a good many of them are from places in the Midwest. There are also many folks reading from New York, California, and the like. But back in my ham days, most of the people I talked to were in the Midwest, or rural areas--ham radio is not a hobby well-suited to cities. I got a certain picture of America from ragchewing with old-timers who had been radio operators in WWII, or with younger folks who lived well outside of the insular NorthEast corridor.
I suppose the point of all this rambling is that I'm very pleased with the scope of my readership, which has been growing steadily over the past month or so. There are folks from Davenport and Chicago, from Palo Alto and Littleton, as well as New York and London. It used to be that I could go for weeks and not talk to anybody more than 100 miles away on the radio. Now I can reach people in Bombay without even trying. That's very cool.
So: thanks, everybody. I appreciate your visits.
And a special thanks to my number one repeat visitor fan: a chap named "Google" in New York.
November 07, 2002
A bit addleheaded this morning...methinks I've upset the serotonin levels in me head with a couple of glasses of fine Porto Fino last night. Not a hangover, but...what?
My god!
418 Kit-Kats are eaten across the globe every second!!!
Sorry. I really shouldn't write with the television on.
More later. I've got molding to cut and paint, as my continued domination of all surfaces of the bedroom continues. Avast!
It's amusing that, after writing a bit about ham radio and speaking with distant, far-off Japan, I have managed to locate an old friend in China via the power of the Internet.
I last saw Nino back in 1994, shortly before I embarked on an ill-fated move to Mexico, and he headed off to China to teach English for awhile. I got a letter or two while in Mexico City, and then he vanished. He was part of a crew of four of us who used to hang out in a graveyard in Hopewell, NJ, sitting upon the homey grave of Amos Sked and his wife Mary Jane, who died in the early part of the 20th century. We'd...uh, "relax" a bit, then play our music...guitar, banjo, flute, and a small keyboard (that would be me, playing the Casio SK-1, battery-powered, with a good sampled piano sound, all tinkly and high-noted). Nino played the banjo, and he took it with him to China, where he planned to teach his students to sing "Home On The Range."
It's been awhile since the Oral Fixations--that's the band, y'see--played their odd, rambling versions of Dylan, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, and Poison (long story) tunes. I had planned to put up a "Where's Nino?" page on this site at some point, but yesterday, after entering his name into Google for the 30th time, I got two hits, once of which had Chinese Unicode next to it. The website was for some sort of food-marketing company, based in China, and Nino was quoted on the homepage. Sort of a "satisfied customer" blurb. I sent a note to the site's webmaster, explaining that I suspected that this particular Nino might be an old friend of mine, and asked for an e-mail address.
Not knowing how well the recipient read English, I phrased the e-mail formally, requesting assistance with my quest. Judging by what little I know of Chinese poetry, the theme of long-lost friends and reunions seems to resonate within their culture. I was pleased to recieve a reply the next day from Funny Wang, the webmaster. (Really). Funny was very happy to be able to assist with the reunion of two old friends, and wished me success. I sent an e-mail to the address he provided and, after seven years, I found Nino.
It turns out that he's been married to a woman from Shanghai for most of those seven years, and has two kids. He's working for an Asian division of Mars, trying his "damnedest to get the Chinese consumer to realize the joy of eating M&M's." He had given a blurb to a friend in Beijing, who put that blurb on his website, which is what generated the Google hits.
After seven years of randomly searching: bam! There he is. The mind boggles.
This, of course, was foretold at a week ago when I wrote about the Flavia coffee system...invented by Mars, the company Nino works for. Synchronicity, anyone?
November 13, 2002
No soup today. Instead, I was going to send you to Saskatchewan to drive a miniature remote-controlled tank around for a few minutes, but the applet's busted. So solly.
Actually, there will be soup today, regularly scheduled soup, to be precise, but I was too lazy and tired to make it last night for posting this morning, so I will have to make it later today for posting tonight, which is typical, I guess, now that the staff has gone on strike, and is picketing the asphalt around the plant, while I sit alone at my hulking desk in the office above the factory floor, shadowy behind grime-opaqued windows, listening to the ruckus outside and smoking a cigar by the dim light of the single gooseneck lamp, leaning my waistcoatted-pocket-watched bulk back in the wooden rickety frame of the four-wheeled chair, trying to figure out how to get those damn anarchists off my payroll so that I can get back to the business of making celluloid collars for the people who need them, by god, what's this country coming too when a man can't run his business the way he sees fit...
Excuse me. I seem to have channeled an early 20th-century tycoon of some sort.
November 20, 2002
"Momma's got shortening! We like shortening! Shortening bread!"
--Edgar the Pathologically Charming
Man, I’ve got the big flaky be-Jeebuses this weird Wednesday-style day. My minions have abandoned me and gone back to perching upon cornices, waiting for the next thunderstorm so that they can once again spout rainwater onto the heads of unsuspecting passers-by. A tremendous amount of oatmeal knots my gut. I read that Sadaam Hussein thinks that he’s the man to “make life pulsate and fill hearts with happiness,” and said oatmeal threatens to fly free on a mission to the heavens.
It’s not the thought that counts, goddammit! It’s the act! *Bang!*
Then there’s the little warbly voice in the base of my skull that keeps telling me: Build the artificial creatures and set them free to do my bidding. That’s a scary one, but it’s pretty well under control now.
And now:
figs.
November 21, 2002
...boom boom boom-boom...
...boom boom boom-boom boom boom boom-boom boom-boom boom-boom!!!
Do you hear that?
Hear what?
Exactly. The drums...they've stopped.
I don't like it.
Neither do I. It's too quiet.
November 22, 2002
Huh. I seem to have picked up a bad case of inertia. I'm sure it will pass. I'm also supposed to put up episode three of "Theophany," which I'll do...at some point.
The holidays always screw things up...who thought of having them all at this time of year, anyway? I've got this whole Birthankschristyear's Day confluence thing that starts November 18 and doesn't end until January 2, and every year it rounds up all the excess serotonin receptors in my brain, takes them out back and shoots them.
If you're bored and have a decent broadband Internet connection that isn't behind a big nasty firewall, go here and drive this miniature tank for a few minutes. It's in Canada.
November 27, 2002
Dance, spidery mutant freak-boy! Dance!
That is all.
[From xeni.jardin via BoingBoing]
November 28, 2002
It is Turkey Day. I've got to go out back, catch one, and cut off its head. So, of course, I'm taking the day off, and I hope you are too.
December 05, 2002
We're snowed in! Food is running low. Bob the Cat is looking appetizing. God have mercy on our souls!!!
December 06, 2002
Apologies, folks--I seem to be pretty tapped out this week. Not sure why, but sometimes it happens.
In the meantime, I would urge any of you who are intrigued by the phrase "Remote controlled blimp" to go here. It's the home of Plantraco, creators of the aforementioned blimp and also of a very small remote controlled tank-like thing called the Desk Rover. I received a blimp for my birthday, and I think everyone should have one.
Plus, the company itself is very cool. For example, instead of an "On/Off" switch, the control for the blimp has a "Groove/Snooze" switch, and it's not just some stuck-on label...the "Groove" and "Snooze" words are molded into the plastic. That, to me, demonstrates a certain commitment to being slightly odd. You should buy something from them, so that they are encouraged in their oddness.
December 09, 2002
Mmgh. My malaise continues. I cannot be stirred to correct someone’s erroneous impression of the “Sixth Commandment,” or to weave a proper tale of the thrice-mentioned Decalogue in the book of Exodus. My energy levels are extremely low. I squeezed my big toe and my earlobe, and the thin yellow Power Strip that runs up my left side only rose up to just below my knee. I need to spend some time in the recharger; this is getting to be a habit.
December 10, 2002
Well. I've halved my dose: from 20 mg to 10 mg. I have, as recomended by various Kick The Slouching Paxil Junk Beast sites, kept the other 10 mg half of my pill with me, in case I get the screaming heebie-jeebies and the elves start popping out of the file cabinets. But I haven't, and they haven't (although I'm fairly certain I saw I giant ambulatory eyeball scoot into one of the hallway stairwells and close the door after it as I rounded the corner).
Most anecdotal accounts suggest that the real fun won't begin until three or four days after I've halved my dosage, so we'll see how well things are going on Thursday or Friday.
In the meantime, I still have no urge whatsoever to correct the large pile of erroneous, bad, and flat-out wrong religious half-truths that are rapidly accreting on the edges of the infoscape. Ignorant heretical dogs! Soon the fires of hell will toast your tootsies! 'Ware the wrath of the Jealous And Most Correct God, who will pound your misguided noggins into the mud of truth and then do a funny little dance on your upraised rumps, sort of like a Divine Hokie-Pokie, and man that's what it's really all about! Just you wait! Rrrrrghh...!
Huh.
Apparently, it's lunchtime.
Toodle-oo!
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