OMG I haven't put anything new here since 2010

There, that's better.

Where does he get this nonsense?

Nonsense

One on each side of nothing, considering the possibility of every type of information, anxious customers jammed the dungeons. And federal regulators said they weren’t alarmed by a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night. Regarding accuracy and irrevocable overthrow like a whisper, nevertheless they cannot collect objects on recently-dug ground, and real wages never fell through the TV set. And I listened to the propagandistic tough-guy-ism on his hands, and I leaned against an undertaker dry-washing his lower belly. The light gonged the usual vulgarity. My car was across the law, vanished. The faint glitter rose at her legs and torched vacant buildings. To get to meet a long silence. give me a side street pointing at different times. Somebody hid the windows, abundant evidence that the mome raths outgrabe. Somebody else's rain still pounded.

The More Bread . . .

The received wisdom is that there is an inverse relationship between shit and bread, such that the more bread one has, the less shit one has to eat. An examination of this ratio will show that, at best, there is less shit as a ratio of shit to bread, while the amount of shit remains constant.

Further research indicates that there is doubt that the amount of shit remains constant. Indeed, that even the ratio of shit to bread remains constant, such that if shit:bread is equal to 1:2, an increase in bread to 7 will result in an increase in shit to 3:5, for in some cases, shit increases exponentially relative to the increase in bread, such that (s+b)^^b : b.

Marketing Nonviolence

Nonviolence. Said by some to be the only rational or moral response to violence. But that's as may be. I want to see what might happen if nonviolence is marketed.

Marketing nonviolence. The results of the nonviolence are so great that people are convinced that there is something to this nonviolence stuff after all. Nonviolence marketing nonviolence. And market that. Marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence. And . . . Nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence. And Marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence. Nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence. Marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence. Nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence. Marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence marketing nonviolence.

This one does not roll off the tongue . . .

Marketing marketing

First there is marketing, a process of creating consumer interest in goods and services. Then perhaps someone has not heard of marketing, or is opposed to it, and marketing is presented to them as something worth doing. This is marketing marketing. Perhaps it took persuasion to begin the process of marketing marketing. This is marketing marketing marketing. And it just gets worse from there.

Marketing marketing marketing marketing.

Marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing.

Marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing.

Marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing.

Marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing.

Marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing marketing.

Variations on a theme of stick

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

What's chrome-plated and sticky?

A chrome-plated stick.

What's short and sticky?

A short stick.

What's long and sticky?

A long stick.

What's pearl-handled and sticky?

A pearl-handled stick.

What's sticky and sticky?

A sticky stick.

What's heavy and sticky?

A heavy stick.

What's sparkly and sticky?

A sparkly stick.

What's tricky and sticky?

A tricky stick.

Where is . . .

Where is "Where is "Where is Sarah Palin's Stand-up Routine?""

Here.

Where is "Where is Sarah Palin's Stand-up Routine?"

Where is "Where is Sarah Palin's Stand-up Routine?"

Here.

Where is Sarah Palin's Stand-up Routine?

Where is Sarah Palin's Stand-up Routine?

Here.

Sarah Palin's Stand-up Routine

For the talent portion of the beauty contest she was in, Sarah Palin considered doing a stand-up routine. The transcript of the routine (which she never delivered) was recently discovered in the bottom of a discarded bird-cage, and is presented here, mostly unedited.

Hiya, everyone!

I just flew in from Wasilla . . . boy are my arms tired . . .

Things happen in Alaska, crazy things that you wouldn't see anywhere else. Just the other day, I shot a moose in my bikini; what it was doing in my bikini I don't know.

And the people in Alaska, wow, they are something else! Take my husband . . . Please!

My husband and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.

The other day he was stuck on an escalator for two hours. I asked him, "Why didn't you walk down?" He said, "because I was going up!"

I'll tell ya, my husband and I, we don't think alike. I donate money to the homeless, and he donates money to the topless!

During sex my husband always wants to talk to me. Just the other night he called me from a hotel.

The other day my husband met me at the front door. I was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, I was coming home.

We have fun here in Alaska, though; we have fun in our small towns. We have horse racing. I was at the track last week, and I bet on a great horse! It took seven horses to beat him. The horse I bet on was so slow, the jockey kept a diary of the trip. My horse was so late getting home, he tiptoed into the stable.

And my family! Let me tell you about my family. I wish my brother would learn a trade, so I would know what kind of work he's out of.

My brother told me his car wasn't running well, there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was, and he told me it was in the lake.

And my sister! She's been married so many times she has rice marks on her face.

She was at the beauty shop for two hours. That was only for the estimate.

She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.

My grandmother is over eighty and still doesn't need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

And my mother; she could tell that her parents hated her. Her bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

One day, she met the surgeon general. He offered her a cigarette.

Some dog I got too. We call him Egypt because he leaves a pyramid in every room.

Thank you very much, you've been a great audience.

Casablanca

I thought that I had seen Casablanca. I was wrong; I had seen it only on a small screen, and with commercial interruptions.

Thanks to our local Living Room Theater I have seen it on the big screen, as god and the director intended.

2010 you say . . .

As someone who will be 46 years old this month:

2010 sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. Which I like.

Carl Sagan on YouTube

Sherlock Holmes

Before I saw Sherlock Holmes . . . oh bother, I've just done that one . . . but seriously, a good movie (if you like that sort of thing). I hear that the sequel is already in production . . .

Before I saw Avatar . . .

Before I saw Avatar, I believed that science fantasy action romance movies were just science fantasy action romance movies, and that popcorn was just popcorn; now I see that science fantasy action romance movies are just science fantasy action romance movies and popcorn is just popcorn.

Last Day of the Term

Thursday was the last day of class for this term for me.

Yes, I was up late Wednesday night finishing my term project and preparing to give my in-class presentation; yes it was lame, but some of the others were worse, so . . .

Goodwill tour

Rode my bike to Radio Shack, and then stopped in at Goodwill on the way home; scored a 100% wool vest, a nice copy of Ray Troll's Shocking Fish Tales, and a cd of Carmina Burana. Also spent a couple of dollars at the do-it-yourself carwash, to wash the buildup off of my chain and gears (followed with a few drops of nice, clean, fresh, chain oil).

Standup Science

My Essay That Didn't Win Anything

I wrote an eight-page essay for a scholarship contest. It didn't win.

Here are two paragraphs from my essay that didn't win anything:

Human society is a complex system, which is to say, it is not predictable; in order to know what the effect would be of a given input, it is necessary to actually experiment and find out what happens, which in turn changes the system such that if the experiment were repeated, it might have a different outcome. Not to assert that society is utterly chaotic and completely unpredictable; of course it isn't. The people of a society are able to feel secure that certain things will remain the same from day to day; this is one of the functions of a society. People within the society work to keep the society alive and functioning, there are necessary roles which support society; for instance, food production and distribution is necessary in any society, from hunter-gatherer, to complex post-industrial. In our society, that is, Portland, Oregon, we depend on a technologically advanced infrastructure to support our way of life. We need roads and houses and electrical power and computer networks. And these require constant maintenance, and this maintenance is done by the people of the society; thus they impact society, and society impacts them.

Not everyone works directly on the maintenance of the technological infrastructure. It is safe to say, I think, that most people don't, and some people are not even aware that it happens. I will add that maintenance of infrastructure is not the most important task imaginable, nor is it the defining element of civilization; the infrastructure is part of the foundation, it should not be the most interesting part of a society. Raising children and creating beautiful buildings and parks and making music and respecting the rule of law and enjoying one another's company are some of the things that happen in a healthy society. Those are the things that "make life worth living". Yet the infrastructure is necessary, in our modern society, to all those happy events. Without roads and communications networks and good drinking water the society would not have a place to be, and do those things, that show people at their best.

Buying Compact Discs

I like to buy music cds.

Online, or downtown on SW 13th, or in St. Johns at the Vinyl Resting Place.

The Best Band You Never Heard Of, a Frank Zappa album that I had read good reviews of, is one that I found recently. At $21.00, it was a big disappointment. Maybe it was a badly engineered copy? I like the Zappa music, mostly; Trance-Fusion, Shut Up and Play Your Guitar, Hot Rats; those are great albums. The Best Band, though, was so bad that I am afraid to listen to any Zappa albums right now.

-Update: 20 November; I listened to Guitar; totally awesome!

Etta James, The Right Time. Charlie Parker, In a Soulful Mood. I bought those today in St. Johns, and they are both awesome (if you like that sort of thing. and I do).

To Hell With Room 101

I saw a reference today to Room 101, which is of course the terrible place Winston Smith is taken to for the crime of being a protagonist in a dystopian novel. In Room 101, one is confronted with one's worst fear, and not in a good way that allows you to benefit from the experience and overcome your phobias, no, but in a bad way that forces you to betray someone close to you (if you didn't have someone close to you, someone would be provided, I suppose). This is clearly a waste of the fictional taxpayer's money. People aren't that tough, mostly. We find plenty of opportunities to be hurt, and to hurt others, without some special room, and some special technique, being devised to hurt us. In short, to hell with Room 101. And to hell with 1984. George Orwell wrote far better works than that, it's a damn shame that he is best known for that wretched horror story.