Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Whence and Whithergoest the God Blog Sunday Theology Post?

I've kept wanting to post a new God Blog Sunday Theology post. I have a bunch of drafts saved, made on Mondays through Saturdays and I always tell myself "I'll just finish that up come Sunday!" But I don't know what it is. Sunday comes, and...I guess I'm just not gripped by the Spirit. You can't proclaim and testify when you're not seized and gripped by the Spirit!

You end up just speaking plain English; getting bitten by snakes. Who's that going to inspire?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Holy Beans! Mary Baker Eddy Is Hot!


Whoa!

She's hot!

I need to learn more about this. Do you guys evangelize? Any Christian Scientists out there? Take the crux of it! Stick it in the comments.

Come on, man. Don't make me go into one of those Reading Rooms. People in there are creepy.

Wow, what actress does she remind you of? How come there's no movie of her?

What a fox. Look at the sheer, transfixing deep penetration of her stare, there! People say she was a nutty bat, but I'd hear her out.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It's So Catchy How He Does It!

It's weird how his voice keeps...what is that, some kind of a stutter? His voice keeps halting to a dead stop, blank for just a second! For maybe like a syllable - and it happens on several words in a sentence sometimes! But yet other times, he can reel off an impressive uninterrupted stretch of lyrics, for lines and lines.

The most amazing thing is how he is able to turn that weird speech impediment into a rhythmic device! He makes it work for him. A talented man who turns adversity in his favor - that's the kind of story we as Americans eat up cold for breakfast! We will choose uplift of that sort over any other food.

So feast your ears on Memphis Bleek Featuring DJ Clue and...I believe, one William M. Holler.



Seriously, those are some cool names.

I couldn't resist it!

You say Justin Bieber-I say Tupac

You say Lil Wayne-I say Biggie Smalls

You say Drake-I say Ice Cube

You say Soulja Boy-I say Big Pun
You say Gucci Mane-I say Rakim
You say New school-i say shut the fuck up
You say Pop-I scream Hip Hop!
You say Hannah Montana-i fucking punch you in the face

92% of teenagers have turned to New school and Pop.If you are part of the 8% that still listen to real music,copy and paste this message to another 5 videos.

Don't let the real hip hop die!
- skill99s4lyfe. 7 months ago. 50 thumbs up.

So yeah. I saw this posted on a You-Tube video and I couldn't resist the appeal. I am part of the 8%! I still listen to real music. So posted it to another 5 videos.

I believe it was the last movement of Beethoven's 7th, Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake"...something by Chuck Berry...I don't really remember. And a couple other suckas.

This Veggie Burger Is Kind of Disappointing.

I'd even go so far as to say it's not natural, normal or kind.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Smart Money's on Capitalism.

(Duh.)

Things I Noticed, More Thoughts on Sensitivity - and a Caution Flag!

Another thing I noticed is, people who you can perfectly well see are only a little overweight - they're pretty sensitive about it! Like, disproportionately so. You could look right at one and say "Hey, fatty!" - woman or man! - and they'd be all "HEY! That's not--! I'm not even--!" Look down, resigned sigh, shoulder slump. As much as concede that they are! Even though they're not actually fat. You see, it's because that's what they have been telling themself, that's what they've been hounding and pounding themself with, so when you say it, it's like a reinforcement. So don't do that.

Anyway, you shouldn't be calling people fatty regardless of how fat or thin they are, because it's not a nice word. And it doesn't really matter how you meant it, either. That's out of bounds. It's like playing the racecar.

I love that saying by the way! "Playing the racecar." It's one of those sayings where you don't really know what it means, but it's OK anyway, you just pick it up from context. And then you use it, and it just fits perfect! The sound is perfect, and the meaning just gets dragged perfectly along behind it. It's not necessary to know all of the little trivial derivations and etymologies. "Playing the racecar," we know what that means! We know exactly what that means, when someone is playing the racecar: they did something totally uncalled-for. It was a stunt, you pulled some dumb stunt because you thought it would impress people, but they're not impressed - it was just STUPID. You played the racecar.

You had to play the racecar. Stupid. Who the hell did you think you'd impress with that, by playing the racecar?

Actually, the more you say it, the more it kind of DOES make sense! It's not only stupid, it's dangerous, because here you are toying with something really powerful and elemental, that's a fast hard monster roaring down the track, right? A RACECAR! And you're out there PLAYING with that? DUMB. REAL STUPID.

I can't believe you went there. I can't believe you played the racecar.

I love these idiotic expressions. They add so much color and depth, complexity to the languages. Beautiful!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Deathly Allergic

It's a good thing I'm not deathly allergic to peanuts, because I eat peanut butter all the time! Just last night I had a half-sleeve of Ritzes, each cracker dolloped high with good ol' peanut butter.

I could easily have died.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Quote of the Day: Two Great Tastes

"You know, these tablets seem quite strong tonight. Maybe I shouldn’t have had the whisky with them after all." - Warren Ellis

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Regional Brewery Spotlight #4: The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery, Farmville, North Carolina

http://www.duckrabbitbrewery.com/beers.html

This is certainly one of the finest corporate logos I've seen. At first I was like, wait, yes it's awesome - but WHY is it awesome? You can take it at face value - it works either way you look at it: it could be a thoughtful, hopeful sort of bunny; chin lifted, contemplating an almost-reachable frond of tender shoots, or, it could be a truly disturbing duck with soulless, demonic eyes and a weird, backward-projecting skull that houses its mutant demon bird brain. This is one logo that works on more than one level.

But the audaciously ambiguous ace visual up front is only half the tale to tell. This is a logo with deeper, almost psychological underpinnings behind it. It's one of those where you get the reference first on a deeper-than-conscious level. And then later on, it hits you consciously: it's a reference to the classic Warner Bros. short "Rabbit Seasoning"!

So of course, I was dead-set on ordering a t-shirt, immediately, by means of the internet - until I got a good look at what they had on offer. Question #1: how could they mess this up? With a beautiful clean eye-catching design like that, how can you go wrong? Question unfortunately answered by Question #2: what is with these "polo-tee" designs they have these days? Where the shirt front has only a teensy pocket-size logo, and the back has the big bold display you would have wanted on the front? The visual you want is wasted on the back of the shirt! I'm not going to order one of those. It's useless. People are already going to know how cool I am by the time I they see me walking out of the room. I want them to know right when I'm walking in.

In this economy especially, merchandising is important, so I hope they get it together.

Now let's talk beers. The Duck-Rabbit Amber Ale comes with a label whose red ground is a bold choice to complement the bold black and white of the Duck Rabbit itself. Note that this is the only label in which the Duck Rabbit's eyes are white, instead of the prevalent red. The Duck-Rabbit Brown Ale is known for the deep, rich, nutty brown of its label. The Duck-Rabbit Porter is complemented by the twilit silvery gray of its label, and the Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout features a stark white that brings to mind the clean, cold purity of winter's first snow.

I need to get to North Carolina at some point, try some of these brews. I could write a much better review then, I am sure. Who knows - perhaps a part 2?

Anyway, if you happen to be in the area, stop by the brewery and tell them to get their act together on those t-shirts. And while you're at it, please pass on this hint with compliments from me, would you? Free marketing/R&D advice: in the cutthroat breakneck dog-eat-dog world of regional brewing, seasonal brews are the hottest thing going, and The Duck Rabbit Craft Brewery is in the cat-bird seat to capitalize, if they hop to it! Or...waddle to it. They need to develop two seasonal brews: "Rabbit Season" and "Duck Season."

Then release both at the same time.

Sunday Theology God Blog: But What If There Is No God?

Wait. Explain it to me again - how's that my problem?

I mean, I'd see that as more God's problem, primarily.

Doodleoo #83: It's the Sorry Marmot!


Saturday, July 16, 2011

Hair of the Dog, Pt.2

Okay, it turns out the dog hair dog bite cure was a topical application. I was thinking about it wrong. Which makes sense, that restores at least a little of my faith in these old cranks. I mean, dog hair - that's got to be contraindicated for internal use. It doesn't answer the main question as to how it caught on, but at least it makes the treatment itself seem a lot less cruel. Pretty much harmless, really.

I guess next time I have a hangover though, that means I need to pour a drink over my head?

Hair of the Dog, Hair of the Dog

See, I don't understand this whole "hair of the dog" thing. "The hair of the dog that bit you!" That's a remedy. That's medicine. You get bitten by a dog, next thing to do, take some of the hair of the dog that bit you. That'll fix you up! Not sure how you "take it." Perhaps grind it real good in a mortar and pestle? Mix it in orange juice, swig it down? Maybe just stuff a wad in your cheek, and kind of ruminate on it a while, 'til it gets soft enough to swallow.

See, none of these sounds like a very good delivery option to me. But that's not even my primary objection to this course of treatment. My main problem is, I just can't understand how this ever caught on. Sure, yeah, I can accept why people might come up with the idea to try it. But how did it ever catch on? The idea itself, sure - sympathetic magic, homeopathy, "like cures like," mystic chicken kitchen voodoo or whatever - any number of theories or systems of belief or even systems of science might lead somebody to say, "Hey! Got a dog bite here. What do we do, hmmm - maybe we go straight to the cause of the problem. Root around on the dog itself. There, we may find a key to efficacious treatment." But isn't the next step in that thought process, "Let's try it, and see if it works!" Because come on, you can't tell me it ever worked.

It could be they weren't using double-blind placebo trials. If enough people got better on a dog-hair regimen because, well, there was nothing wrong with them in the first place except for the injury itself - I guess it's possible they felt the dog hair helped. Damn these incompetently-designed trials, back then. There is nothing worse than a flawed experiment for foisting bad medicine on people. Because let's face it, ingesting dog hair is not going to make any possible dog-bite-related medical problem you could have get better.

I mean, worst-case scenario. Worst thing I can think of from a dog-bite wise is - contract rabies. Rabies! Invariably fatal, back then. They would have known that! They would have noticed. And they would have to have known that dog hair is not going to work! Because nothing would. With rabies, without that modern course of huge puncturesome injections straight to the abdomen, you die in every case. I don't care how poorly set up their system was overall - this is something that could not have escaped the notice of the era's physicians. So what kind of sick fucks would they have to be to say "Wow, rabies...he's a goner. Let's see if we can get him to eat some funny shit. How about dog hair?" Those sick fucks.

Besides which, if you're operating on the theory that cause contains cure, or like cures like, what made them settle on the hair? I mean, really you'd think the efficacious treatment would involve the teeth of the dog, if you're trying to use the cause to cure. The hair didn't do anything. It's those teeth made the puncture wounds. Pull a couple teeth, grind 'em up - there's some viscerally poetic satisfaction there, if nothing else! "Well that's one gnarly looking bite there Sylvester, and you're going to die of rabies but you'll be happy to know we took some pliers to that bitch and pulled a couple well, I guess 'canines' is the technically correct term. Ground 'em up in a mortar and pestle, put 'em in this protein shake. Bottoms up!"

I just don't understand what possible sick tradition of medicine could have foisted and fostered this kind of a blatant prank cure on centuries upon centuries of poor dog-bite sufferers.

Friday, July 15, 2011

A Sensitivity Manifesto

Some people who take offense really do care about the issues underlying. Many people who take offense, however, do so not because they care about the issues underlying, but as a means to control others. They mean to dictate what people may or may not say. They wield discomfort as a club to keep others in line. They are the tyrants of cowardice, and we must oppose them courageously.

Sensitivity Manifesto:

1. Prefer a world where people let whatever they mean flow - questions, jokes, serious statements - to a world where people are too uncomfortable to do so.

1A. Apologize to individuals as needed. If a person admits to being personally offended, apologize. Go further. Put out a deeper and clearer statement of what you really feel on the matter. How they react to a sincere offer to discuss soberly the underlying issues will tell you a lot about the nature of that person's objection.

1B. Do not act as if or accuse entire groups of people of being unable to take a joke. If a person claims not to be offended on their own behalf, but rather on behalf of hypothetical others, who "might be offended," inform the person that they are free to be as cowardly on behalf of others as they wish, but that you consider it a disgusting insult to any group of people to assume they so utterly lack that most humanizing of virtues: a sense of humor.

A sense of humor is not the highest human virtue. It may even be the lowest. But it is the one virtue we need most, if we are to get through life with our sanity intact.

If you can't take a bad joke, you can't take a joke. I will suffer having to frown through every bad joke I have to, because I want to live in a world where the good jokes are not stopped by bitten tongues, are not kept shut up behind pursed and worried lips. I want to live in a world where the dangerous questions are not swallowed unasked.

I want to live in a world where serious statements are made. Whenever they need to be.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Sun Came Out, and It Didn't Go Away

No, it didn't


it didn't go away.


7 Worlds Collide. Featuring Lisa Germano. "Reptile"

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Further Biblical Exegesis: The Book of Judges

The Book of Judges is the bomb. I tell you it's an action movie franchise extravaganzaramathon waiting to happen! I know I've mentioned before my killer screenplay treatment, which I've been working on (JUDGES XII: Samson Goes Bananas). That's my whole 'hook' - start with the big headliner everyone already knows about, Samson, then use the massive profits from that blockbuster smash to reboot the franchise all the way back, prequel-style - and tell it from JUDGE ONE. That's a guaranteed Hollywood plan for box office legs and storytelling excellence! And finally - for once - we'd have a major big-budget special effects laden action franchise that tells the truth about the Jews' struggle. I think this concept can succeed on all cylinders. Literally every cylinder.

Because really, a lot of people don't realize that Judges is way more than just Samson and his freaky superstrength hairdo. He was perhaps top dog in a long line of asskickers, but all of the Judges were very much cut from the same cloth. Back in the day, one sufficiently-righteous Jew armed with the jawbone of an ass was a force to be reckoned with!

What the Philistines really needed to do to lock that area down, they should have instituted strict Jawbone-Of-An-Ass Control laws. Like, a 40 day 40 night waiting period or something.

Institute

I always kind of wanted to live in an Institute. Or not an actual Institute, really, but one of those concrete modernist buildings with a jutting diagonal and a lot of tinted glass? The kind that kind of looks like it could be an Institute.

There's a lot of houses around here that have that look.

If I lived in a place like that, I'd sink a dull brass-composite plaque in the front facade that says CENTRAL CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE AGAINST MATTER AND ENERGY. The entrance would be a tinted glass door in a tinted glass wall. There would be a security box with a steady red light on the inside of the glass wall, attached to the door lock. You couldn't get in. You're not authorized.

Beyond that shatterproof glass barrier, in the reception lobby, you could see a round reception desk with a terminal and an empty chair.

Business hours would not be posted, but if you went to check out the website, you'd have considerable cause for alarm.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Ask The Internet #7: "Hey Mister Big Bucks! What did you do, rob a bank?"

Doesn't that ring a bell for anybody else? I swear, it's from a movie or a commercial or an infomercial or something! It's driving me crazy.

Google let me down on this one.

Saturday, July 09, 2011

No. The Metric System Does Not "Make Sense."

Fuck no. It does NOT make sense. If the metrics people were pragmatists, it would be:

millifeet
centifeet
decifeet
feet
decafeet
hectofeet
kilofeet, etc.

It would be:

milligallons
centigallons
decigallons
gallons
decagallons, hectogallons, kilogallons, etc!!!!

They could have adopted ANY STANDARD BASE UNIT THEY WANTED.

They chose to pick some arbitrary BULL SHIT. "Oh, let's make the meter...let's make it based on...the wavelength of Hydrogen, or some shit...!"

Well, fine. Fuck them, then. All base units are arbitrary. If they were serious about getting people to adopt that nonsense, they would have picked an arbitrary base unit that was relatable to people, not some nonsense bullshit that was relatable to what...atoms?

Fuck them.

Their system rots, and it will continue to rot. Yeah, the American educational system is fine! YEAH, THEY TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!

In history class.

That's right.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011