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The dream of koalas

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 05:02:33 GMT

Last night the boy stops at the supermarket and supplies himself with the necessary gear to generate pasta.

Set burner to medium-high. Saute in a few tablespoons olive oil :
- 2 medium onions (chopped)
- 4 cloves garlic (minced)
Once onions are transluscent add, and saute until soft :
- 1 8-oz. package sliced portobellos (I was going to go for crimini, but didn't feel like slicing them myself)
Add :
- 2 bell peppers, one green, one red, chopped
- 4 slices prosciutto, finely chopped
Saute until prosciutto begins to curl. (You can skip this if you have a good dry prosciutto, but mine was fatty and moist)
Pour in :
- One 28-oz. can crushed tomatos
- One 28-oz. can diced tomatos
Bring to a simmer. Add :
- 4 finely minced (almost to a paste) anchovies
- Two medium zucchinni, sliced into half-moons.
- Two summer squash, sliced into half-moons.
- One 8-oz. (? Campbell's soup sized) can black olives, chopped, juice reserved.
- 1/2-3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (or say 3-4 tablespoons dry. An unruly amount.)
Bring back to a simmer. Season to taste with :
- oregano (1-2 tsp.)
- black pepper (1/2-1 tsp.)
- thyme and marjoram (~1/2 tsp each)
- salt (you shouldn't need much, with the prosciutto and anchovies)
Continue to stir and simmer until zucchinni and squash are tender. If the sauce thickens too much thin with the reserved olive juice and continue simmering.
Toss with 1 one-pound box of farfalle (bowtie pasta). Top with grated parmesan.

I think that was all of it. Came out good, though it might be a little more of a spring dish with the squash going on.

As I finished all that up I hear a crash from the living room. I head in to investigate and lying on the floor is the light plastic terrarium which had been holding the two gecko-lizard things with are to be my Mom's birthday present to the First Nephew. The entire room is ringed by curious buy utterly-innocent looking cats. Miraculously the two little lizard-buggers hadn't made it too far from the crash site. The only real problem in getting them back into the cage was getting them to disadhere from my damned fingers, and forearms, and shirt. The cats were all promptly sprayed down with a handy water bottle. The aquamarine-looking rocks, seashells, and sticks which previously decorated the interior of the terrarium had to be gathered up. Then the rocks needed the loose cat hair and debris cleaned out. Etc. Finally, the lizard things are resituated and stashed in the bathroom, away from the damn cats. All of this I assume set me up for the dream.

The setting was pretty much where I work, with a few layout changes. Off to one side of the loading docks in the back of the building were some extra run-down loading bays, with weathered blue-painted sliding doors of wood planks. The latches never fit right, and one of the doors was busted open on one corner. While I was back there on some unspecified errand I notice that just outside we've got a couple koalas clambering around on the trash dumpster, and that they're getting pretty darned interested in the half-open loading bay door.

I grumble about people never closing shit up right and try to get the one door closed, but can't get it sat properly on its runner before one of the koalas climbs inside. I rush over to scoot the little guy back out, but he gets ahead of me and the other climbs in through the still open door. I figure that I should get the door closed now, so that when I catch them I won't have to worry about them jumping right back in.

By the time I've gotten the door closed they're both gone, somewhere inside the building.

I should mention at this point that randomly the koalas aren't koalas anymore and are instead raccoon-headed toddlers. Not cartoony or surreal. Little naked babies, chubby thighs and hairless balls and all, just with raccoon heads. The raccoon-babies and the koalas are utterly interchangable -- it never crossed my mind that there's a difference.

So I wander around the building for who-knows how long, ocassionally asking things like, "Have you seen a little guy, 'bout this high, pointy ears and big black rings around his eyes?" (This was one of the times they were raccoons.) I actually felt uneasy asking the cracker kid at work this, my mind immediately jumping into uncomfortable 'coon wordplay. Yes, I even have to deal with this crap while I'm asleep.

Eventually I dig up the smaller one and toss him outside again. Then I catch up with the bigger of the pair and talk him down a little. He never talks or does anything overtly out of koala-character, but seems to get the general point. He hops up and I carry him out back toward shipping, and I start wondering if I should just be dumping the little guys out in the parking lot. I get the kid in shipping to help me call up the city's Animal Control and we ask them what to do. Animal Control says we don't need to worry and that koalas should do just fine in the area -- the area being southern New Hampshire with autumn coming on. I try arguing with them for a while, since I was pretty sure they came from somewhere warm. I couldn't remember where that would be, though, so the argument never really took off. The eucalyptus thing never came up at all; in the dream I guess the koalas picked up the raccoons' scavenger diet.

After that it all fades out. I just remember walking around for a long time, trying to figure out what I could do with my koala. He was a big bastard, his body almost as long as my torso and a big ol' head he'd lean into the crook of my shoulder while I paced. I woke up hosed, like I had just spent the last six hours walking around with a koala and almost no time to get to work.

So I've spent all day just a little bothered. It's not some vague longing for companionship. The only style of companionship I really have in mind probably came up later in the dream than I remember given the state I woke up in. But that's definitely not what the koalas represented. They didn't represent shit besides koalas, and those lizards a little bit. All day I just keep thinking I want a koala. Which isn't entirely out of line as far as rediculous things I want go. I've always wanted to go to Australia, and I always liked koalas specifically. They're solid little critters except for that hang-up about all the fresh eucalyptus. I just want that particular koala, though, which is what's making this so fucking frustrating. He knew enough to hold onto my neck without choking me, and had these big expressive eyes so that you could tell when he understood you.

Fuggit. I've finished the Cheetos, I've gotten into the beer, and my cat's roaming around here somewhere. That means it's video game night. Angband, baby! And Monkey Radio, which I need to officially endorse for anyone looking for 'down tempo' shit. Hai.

Cronenberg rules

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:26:40 GMT

Eccentric film-maker David Cronenberg shocked his cast and crew on the set of new movie A History of Violence, by publicly performing sex scenes with his wife . . .

via b_is_4_bruises

Gotta say I'm pretty pumped to go see this, with or without that little factoid.

Okay okay

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 06:47:32 GMT

I already linked this thing, and there's definitely some hyperbole, questionable moral bias, and sketchy analogy in the dude's screed, but I've just got to throw this out from that last link I posted:

Christians argue that the state is the price we pay for Adam's fall. If men were perfect, they say, we could have anarchy. Anarchists say the opposite. If all men were virtuous, the most perfect among them might be entrusted with political power, which is the right to use violence against one's fellow man. But since no one is completely virtuous, it is folly to entrust anyone with governmental power.

I'll follow it up with my own variant of the same notion : If man is not fit to govern himself, then what man is fit govern him?

Hai.

Anarchism linkage

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 05:38:15 GMT

courtesy of daoistraver

Dude definitley comes from an individualist standpoint, tho almost crypto-. Either way, some nice concise points.

The Laws of the Jungle

stupid stupid stupid. stupid.

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 21:37:27 GMT

By way of aleph, the 'what kind of anarchist are you' quiz :

You scored as Anarcho-Capitalist. Anarcho-capitalism is perhaps more closely linked the libertarian tradition than anarchism as it favours a free market and a stateless society. Private businesses would replace the functions of the state. This form of anarchism is largely an American phenomenon and first emerged in the 1950s (although it arguably has its roots in 19th century individualist anarchism and classical liberalism). Key thinkers include Murray Rothbard.

</td>

Anarcho-Capitalist

75%

Anarcho-Syndicalist

50%

Anarcho-Primitivist

45%

Christian Anarchist

45%

Anarcha-Feminist

40%

Anarcho-Communist

15%

What kind of Anarchist are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Leaves out a lot of shit, but seemed kinda relevant, what with all my ranting lately.

Here we go

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:52:49 GMT

The truth is, your politics are boring to them because they really are irrelevant. They know that your antiquated styles of protest—your marches, hand held signs, and gatherings—are now powerless to effect real change because they have become such a predictable part of the status quo. They know that your post-Marxist jargon is off-putting because it really is a language of mere academic dispute, not a weapon capable of undermining systems of control. They know that your infighting, your splinter groups and endless quarrels over ephemeral theories can never effect any real change in the world they experience from day to day. They know that no matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the content of their lives will remain the same. They—we—know that our boredom is proof that these "politics" are not the key to any real transformation of life. For our lives are boring enough already!
-Nadia C., Your Politics are Boring as Fuck

Ai, they are out there. Either way, according to the Great God Wiki I'm a post-left anarchist, which is to say "Not down with all them other old-fashioned anarchistos." Amusingly this would loosely lump me with the primitivists. Worse yet the classification is almost purely negative, like with most 'post'-isms. Anarchism-without-adjectives, of course, is represented as being purely leftist, so I suppose that won't do. Individualist anarchism sounds pretty close to what I'm into, and currently either includes or is included by anarcho-capitalism, mostly only differentiated by their theories of value (labour based vs. perceived). Frustratingly it would seem that in practice there's no such thing as individualism -- it's purely theory and argument, and seems almost as distasteful to mainstream anarchists as capitalism. Anarchy without the possibility of private property though necessarily becomes social- or communist, which I can't help but expect to degenerate into either totalitarianism by the distributer-elite or perpetual balkanized ghettoization of isolated under-resourced collectives.

(As an aside, just talking about this reinforces how rediculous these distinctions have become. Individualism and anarcho-capitalism for obvious reasons are considered 'right'-anarchism, but individualism is also pegged as 'liberal anarchism,' which I can't help but see as an association with leftism -- the names don't even make sense)

Let's try this : An obvious solution to all of this is the "without-adjectives" philosophy of "revolution first, details second." I can honestly see a lot of folks getting down with collectivism -- farming begs for social living. Syndicalism makes perfect sense for a lot of our industrial and production needs. The difficulty there arises when people begin to move around. The individual's equity isn't necessarily transferable from one syndicate or commune to the next. Moreover, what if the transient in question is just a worthless bum? You can't convince me that the absence of state will automatically make everyone productive, or even social. So those random malcontents and wasters could get by a long time just hopping from outpost to outpost, leeching off of everyone else's labor. I can't support that.

Here's the big argument against anarcho-capitalism (one that I have to agree with overall) : wage-labor is crap, or institutionalized wage-labor at least. Paying a programmer a fixed rate to produce software that will perpetually put residuals in someone else's pockets is crap. Paying a laborer an hourly rate regardless of their productivity or job-skills is crap. Fuck the moral arguments, this is an issue of practicality. Wage-labor, aside from perpetuating functional indentured serfdom, discourages excellence. Busting your ass for two years to pick up a nominal wage raise is not a real incentive; for most people it's not even a carrot on a stick. My main argument for a capitalist-style system is that during that transition people will reject wage-labor.

There is a possible solution to this problem -- shares in collective enterprise. Joint-ownership in your syndicate, with dividends derived from profit. (Here we're going to use the oh-so-hateful term 'profit' to represent the increase in value imparted upon raw materials transformed into finished product) When/if a body feels like leaving the syndicate or collective (we'll assume that collectives work on socially shared resources, rather than paying out) they can cash out their share/s into transferable resources (or dare we even say some form of trade token?) to use as personal equity, either in search of a new home or in some private venture.

Similarly we're going to have people whose business doesn't necessarly lend itself so well to communal living. Programmers and writers are good examples. Maybe these people want to live somewhere isolated, relatively alone. A form of trade guild makes good sense here, in terms of providing credentials, fostering a professional community for the dissemination of ideas, and for mutual assistance. It allows autonomy at the same time, and gives individuals the opportunity to work independently on an idea before opening it up for the whole world to jump on. These guilds, and perhaps networks among various syndicates, would seem naturally to lead to forms of mutual banking, by which affinity groups could protect themselves from economic flux and functionally insure their adherents. These trade unions and guilds, rather than being run by profit, would become succesful by most effectively benefiting their clients, most likely remaining managed exclusively by those same clients.

Above all a free market is necessary to connect all of these small units of productivity. Unless we're proposing a major step backwards to isolated communities deprived of modern technology we need a functional system to distribute resources. It's lovely to imagine that tin from mines in Korea and Britain will magically appear in the appropriate factories, but it is purely imaginary. The hard leftist notion of these goods being delivered to where they're 'really needed' is bankrupt for this reason : before those who control the means of production can enforce their power they are subject to those who control the resources. In this scheme the new elite are the distributors. If they think you're spending too much time looking into developing orbital power stations you don't get your processed silica. Their judgement becomes supreme arbitration of innovation, let alone daily management. They don't think that your plan to expand your factory is worthwhile? Your factory experiences an unexpected squeeze in pig iron, smashing the margin that would have paid for your expansion. History provides us with innumerable examples of this scheme's failure, primary being the former Soviet Union. Trusting to a single group's wisdom is pure folly.

The opposite extreme, that anyone can requisition anything, is similarly foolhardy. Trusting to the judiciousness of the individual contradicts the very basis of the revolutionary idea : if we could already trust people to make the appropriate choices then charity would provide for all under capitalism. Moreover a capital- or trade-based economy builds in certain safety valves; to procure significant or rare resources you must have already proved that you can capitalize on what you have. Granted, this mechanism often stands in the way of Big Idea people like myself. It also keeps the crank basement scientist from just laying his hands on a couple pounds of plutonium for his 'no-fail, perfectly safe' clean-energy idea. That example might seem extreme but we live in a six-billion-individual test case -- even the long-shot catastrophes have a real chance of occuring. Innovation is necessary, and the individual needs to be able to persue their own ideas without an authority's approval, but the open market valves these resources to help keep dangerous and wasteful projects in the hands of proven innovators or groups who can jointly monitor their own work.

This market idea might sound cynical, but we have to acknowledge the lessons of history. If the altruism that the hard left seem to advocate could be trusted to work then why would we need the revolution anyway? Self-interest throughout history has spurred innovation and has acted as the engine of all industry. We already know that self-interest is active, and nigh-on unsurpressable. The objective then is to rebalance our environment to discourage its tendancy to exploitation. Education and a clear idea of the long-term consequences of individual carelessness can take us so far, especially as our lengthening life expectancy increasingly bring those consequences back to haunt us. We are still a short-sighted species though, grounded in our immediate senses, and to assume that ideals will carry us over is only to say that there is no effective revolution.

Or, as Murder Inc. say --

Too young to be political, too old to care,
What's next?
To be taken out of context,
Fooled into sellout - making me shout lies,
About compromise, forced, inhibited, unresolute
Don't shoot! Just prostitute
With that in mind, don't waste my time.

Make the whole thing mandatory,
Take the whole thing cut it in two.

Didn't mean to go on this long. If there's editing to do, or something grossly left out, it'll have to be dealt with later.

Let's make this clear

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 09:03:07 GMT

Anarchism fundamentally fucks itself as a movement. It works hard to be 'radical.' It wants to be an outsider cause. This is why it doesn't take off -- at the very least in places like the U.S.

Let's face it. Until anarchists learn to love their suburban neighbors there is no movement. There's just depressed black-flag waving Wesleyan drop-outs alienating themselves from the First-World societies they live in.

If anarchism isn't about a higher standard of living for pretty much everyone (we'll except that top 1%) then there isn't a movement -- there's pissy outsiders.

But the entire point is that there is a higher standard available. If there wasn't the entire concept is inherently bankrupt. Honestly, take your moral arguments and stuff it; the world has never operated according to 'moral' principles. I'll work from my man Bucky's argument here : everyone on this planet is a millionare, times and times over. The argument behind anarchism, or any radical -ism, has to be that liberation is beneficial to the common Jane or Joe. Not even just the bottom 10% -- the middle class in America is losing ground by the day. While the Republicans tell us that they can revitalize that middle class (patently bullshit), the Democrats sell the idea that they can bring the lower class up to that constantly falling standard. This is where to drive the wedge, dammit. The American Dream is the product of actual democratic action, and the logical extension of demo-cracy is anarchy : the voice of the people is found in their collective, social action; to remove government (given a real and extensive means of communication) is merely to free the demos to more constantly, immediately and effectively police their environment.

This in no way means that there won't be 'suburban' community once the Man is gone. This does not mean there will be no sitcoms to relax to in the evenings. Society, as we know it, will more likely than not still be effectively there. The average man or woman will have to become more aware and involved, yes, but the gross majority will still act in a day-to-day manner very similarly as before. They will work (hopefully more productively than before), they will engage in their daily dramas, but they will still want some peace and fucking quiet. They are not (as a whole) going to engage in 'alternative' lifestyles. The majority will still not be gay. The untattooed will likely stay that way. The meat-eaters will continue to eat meat (just in smaller portions, if the industry is as bloated as it looks). Most people will be unable to quote Kropotkin.

This is in no way to argue against the gay, tattooed, vegan left-anarchists' right to engage in their behaviours of choice. This merely means that 'the movement' must realize who it's selling itself to -- Joe/ane Dumb-ass World-Citizen. Maybe I put too much stock in the influence of spokespeople like infoshop, but it seems like anarchists take pride in throwing the finger to the average work-a-day bodies of the world. Pride in your politics is as self-destructive as pride in your race, or your gender. You have denied your personal identity in favor of a group identity, and for that you will pay. You will be denied shelter and voice by all those outside of your cabals. You will be cast aside, and made Other.

The Other does not win elections. The Other does not induce people to forego the fruits of slave labour. The Other is a curiosity, a freak. It is something to be watched, but never joined or supported.

This is where dogmatic left-anarchism does the whole concept disservice : altruism sells books, and funds telethons. Self-interest, the backbone of a trade economy, has historically fueled the world economy. We must acknowledge what works. As we accept gravity we must also accept the laws of behaviour. If a person sees no benefit to themselves they will not change their behaviour.

If your anarchism doesn't support mowing lawns then it can't support the oppressed. It's that simple, kids. This doesn't even mean compromising your ideals : your neighbor's right to be boring has never infringed on your right to be weird. They are one and the same.

And it's about time we said so.

This is her fault

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 06:24:54 GMT

autodidactic felt the need to prod me about this earlier post, as follows :

Where do you think humanity in general is on the whole "evolution" scale? Which direction do you think we'll go? Think we'll descend into anarchy or devolve? Sometimes I wonder.

Since it's late, and this stuff has been consuming most of my useful brain-power the last couple of weeks, and daoistraver has been tossing up some sweet shit about economics, and just because I'm a mouthy bastard my reply got kinda lengthy, and I figg'r'd I put it where somebody else might say something about it. Mebbe force me to go back and make some sense out of it later . . .

I don't think I can place evolution on a 'scale' so much. From my spot here in the middle of it I've gotta say I think we're about --->this<--- close to a major change, but for a short-lived species like us that could still be a couple lifetimes. Our evolution at this point needs to be looked at socially and technologically, though -- the physiological aspect has become tertiary and precessional at best. The next big steps I'd say go something like :

Finding a way to anchor the amassed information and technology we have, to protect it from malicious humans and 'acts of God.'
(Related to the last) Decentralizing all of our communications technology. Fuck the wires, fuck satellites even. All the available means of communication need to be synthesized.
All that information and communication needs to be sorted, but on demand and exclusively by the interested party.

If we can make that step we'll have functionally achieved a couple of mythological goals all at once, viz. access to the Akashic records and telepathy. It might involve a couple of seriously unpleasant wars in the process, but once we have instantaneous and non-local communication we'll be able to drop the current government-style social structure. That's part of why I tend to avoid calling it "anarchy" (let alone claiming that it would be a "descent") and go with "postarchy" : the point is that one of the upcoming steps in our development will invalidate the idea of government in any recognizable sense. Fluid enough communication and rapid transit allow partnership and 'corporate bodies' to form as needed and dissolve as soon as they become an unecessary burden. Defense could be taken care of just by letting your karass (to borrow a word) know that you're in trouble -- affinity groups will arise as the next-gen cognate for 'nations.'

Aat least, that's one way I can see it going. Honestly I'm having more trouble holding my optimism these days than even a year or two ago. Another future I can see doesn't give us quite as much of that communication technology -- things progress similarly to how they are now for at least a hundred years, just moreso. The U.S. finally gets told to pony up for all these years of bunked-ass trade deficit bullshit, which (surprise surprise) leads to a run on world currency markets and banks. The resulting collapse and depression largely stifles innovation, and collapses a number of the multinationals as well as a good number of governments. What happened to the airlines post-9/11 will happen to all of the companies that rely on government graft and subsidy and bail-out, except the governments won't have anything to hand out anymore. The reconstruction, when it occurs, is much more balanced than the world we're in now, as the new governments are more wary of the get-rich-quick schemes that fucked them last time. We'll see more collectives and cross-national guilds, which will help keep power from bunching up in one nation, and stimulate more healthy competition -- these groups are less prone to hold assets, as profits are moved mostly to the individuals making up the group. Intra-guild rivalry will do as much to prevent monopoly as any outside competition. Also more small-scale competition -- with a lot of the current infrastructure and communications technology still available the start-up businesses we're seeing struggle now will be able to come into their own. Manufacturing and transportation companies will largely become services for smaller innovators and design artist/engineers, but this only really gels toward the end of the reconstruction. Africa and South America will come out ahead, compared to now -- Africa will finally get some time to itself, probably deal with some internal fascist governments and settle into a mature democratic cycle; South America will finally get to reap the rewards of their resources and production capacity without the U.S. constantly meddling and fucking them over. Asia, Europe and North America though will lose the most, as their governments will have the hardest time getting over the old way of doing things.

Or, yeah, we could just blow ourselves up. But I've still gotta say that's an outside chance. Information dense systems tend to increase in density at catastrophes the more often they've survived previously; I'm willing to say that we've made it over a few hurdles since the primordial goo, and we'll probably make it a few more.

And now it's time for the rice & corn & sausage & eggs I've been promising myself all night.

Sometimes my Dad finds really funny jokes

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 05:43:49 GMT

Not always, but sometimes :

A Baptist minister was seated next to a Marine on a flight to Memphis. After the plane was airborne, drink orders were taken. The Marine asked for a scotch and soda, which was brought and placed before him. The flight attendant then asked the minister if he would like a drink. He replied in disgust, "I'd rather be savagely raped by brazen whores than let liquor touch my lips."

The Marine then handed his drink back to the attendant, "Me too. I didn't know we had a choice."

I'll bite . . .

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 02:51:51 GMT

masque12 put up a little pass-along (which I still refuse to call a meme) : post the 5th sentence (or close equivalent) from your 23rd post.

Whatever domestic work gets done by the conservatives has to be done under the shade of foreign policy, intelligence, and defence.

Hai. While I'm here : am I the only one still having trouble adjusting to the idea that Bill Maher isn't gay?

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 02:00:30 GMT

"The moment you believe your own lies you have lost control -- all those who composed your cult of personality, who supported and strengthened you now rule you, and you are subject to their weakness and calumny. Why do so many 'great' men and women succumb to the 'Sun King' syndrome of token sacrifice and humiliation? They forget their own intents, and become puppets in the sadistic one-note passion of their adoring audience.
It would take a truly staggering will to resist the attentions of so many faithful, which leads the rebellious to a subtle paradox -- how, and who, are we to resist the status quo when the great and prosperous, by their acclaim and notoriety, are all but forced to follow the Way? Revolutionary rhetoric and theory all but universally are underpinned by Natural Law, Hegel's Weltgeist, or some similar notion of divine mandate expressed through the world as a whole. How then can the mystic revolutionary deny the apparent mandate of the blind and stochastic masses? How can the 'People' voice the Will of the All and simultaneously be symptomatic of all those ills which we hope to correct?"
-F.L. Branigan, manuscript copy of "From Fire Through Darkness : Expository Writings on the Death of Soul and the Emergence of Rational Consciousness"
emphasis added

"The Disnomian Spirit (sometimes called Legis Nemesis by obscurantists) of course provides the transitory philosophy into relevant postarchy for Western cultures. It's elucidation through medical and biologic principles seems more effective than to begin with political and social polemic . . ."

-"A Primer in Terran Sociopathology,"
Institute for Hominid Advancement, ed. Kerry Matthews, First Foostholian Press

. . . and the Geek response

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:21:20 GMT

I feel kinda bad for encouraging a further pounding of their bandwidth, but --

Katrina : the Gathering, which is to say distaster-themed-expansion-cards for the revenant Magic : the Gathering collectible card game. Tasteless? Eh, mebbe. Funny? Damn right. Playable? More or less, depending on the cards.

Transcription of an example card :

Ann Coulter, Neocon Fembot (2 uncolored mana, 2 white mana)
Creature -- Conservative Media 3/1

Ann Coulter, Neocon Fembot is also Insane.
(1 uncolored mana) : Target Liberal must block Ann Coulter, Neocon Fembot if able.

"The rest of the country ran to support New York, I'm waiting to see if New Yorkers will run to support the suffering victims of Katrina . . . New Yorkers don't really consider themselves a part of the rest of America. There is the feeling that this isn't something that just happened to New Yorkers . . . It's because of their primite religion."

Found via Greg Costikyan's blog; Costikyan being the creator of some classic RPG's like Toon and Paranoia, and currently trying to shake up the independent PC-gaming industry. I might just have to start keeping track of this guy.

It's almost lunchtime . . .

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 22:21:03 GMT

. . . and I'm feeling ambivalent as all hell, so for the next twenty minutes I'm looking for opinions on what I should get from the crappy sandwich shop across the street.

Lg. italian, lettuce, tomato, provalone, oil, olives, green peppers. Mebbe oregano.
Lg. tuna, american cheese, lettuce, oregano.
Gyros dinner, of questionable quality but still recognizable as gyros.

Hmm?

*** Updated ***

Numero premiero it is, then.

The burger was not good.

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 03:49:42 GMT

Earlier I enlisted my boy Jacob to help me find a decent burger, and asked him why there aren't any "gourmet American" restaurants around. Now I remember -- all it takes to qualify as American food is salt. So much salt that it burns. So it's hardly worth making "American" restaurants in the first place when you can just buy good food and empty your salt shaker on it. Hell, you can buy bad food and it wouldn't make any real difference.

I'm thinking about the tongue burning and it reminds me of the reason I gave a local waitress/entrepreneur for Bush's upcoming reelection. "The people want pain, theirs or someone elses doesn't matter. They just haven't had enough yet."

In somewhat more uplifting news boingboing.net, como de costumbre, linked to something awesome : an old film strip about glue sniffing and pills. The whole thing is in various shades of red, but more importantly is prime desktop material. I encourage y'all to clip your own, but offer my own humble effort for your approval, in three formats :

The one high point of dinner was that the hostess recognized who Neal Stephenson was when I set down my copy of The Confusion. Just the thought of randomly meeting someone not only literate but who has read an entire book on their own perked up the whole day.

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 00:07:36 GMT

Y'know in movies how sometimes a male character will spend a while in just a wifebeater, and the thing turns all brown and cruddy? Most of my life I thought the undershirt was just supposed to be that color. I didn't realize that it was supposed to show how much sweat and grime the dude had gotten all over himself, hence his massive exertions.

This kinda goes along with how I didn't realize the flying things in the back yard were bats until a few years ago.

And yeah, I am going to go to a cruddy restaurant and get a half-assed burger. Got coupons for Uno's, bitches.

The past inside the present.

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 21:48:28 GMT

I want a burger. A good burger.

There are no good restaurants that serve burgers, and I will not go to a shitty restaurant for even a decent burger. I'm not entirely sure I'm up for cooking it myself, either.

We can compound this problem by acknowledging that I don't even know what kind of burger I want. Mushroom & swiss? Plain, lettuce, tomato, plenty of mustard? Cheddar, bacon . . .

Last night the boy needed enchiladas, and ended up with something called the "Special Dinner;" this included an enchilada, as well as a chile relleno. It was served on two seperate plates. I'm willing to accept that this was if not a causative agent then indicative of the mental state that led to the last evening of the "Weekend of Indulgence," which led to the current hangover, which I have to assume has led to the craving for concentrated protein and salt that culminates in "Will wanting a damn burger."

Bacon, mushrooms, Jack (preferably Pepper Jack), mustard, no onions, no tomato, lettuce optional. Salted fries, plain bulkie roll.

There's no way I'm gonna get that. There is nowhere in this god forsaken town that will make me that. I do, however, have all the fixings for mushroom/tofu/sqush/pork lo-mein or fried rice.

Later this week my mom's moving her mother up here from Pittsburgh. Believe or not she's kinda stressing the whole thing. Meanwhile she's starting to do weird crap, like leave the dog out when she goes to work, or leave one of the phones on the back porch when it's going to rain. This we will chalk up to her stressing, because otherwise I'd start to feel weirder about the move to AZ.

Whatever. I've still got the day off, thanks to my hangover. Which means I can do something useful. Possible projects :

Actually get down some damn notes for that Mesopotamian-style campaign idea, start figuring out what rules system to base it on. Adam was right, we've only got a few months to play before I'm gone.
Get back to finding a properly cracked copy of Acid.
Try beating on the modem/firewall again and see about getting the FTP back online.
Go argue with those cocksuckers at Chili's about what they will put on my burger, dammit.
Fry rice.
Go drop an app or two for a second job.
Actually return that overdue book on Mesopotamia, since I haven't gotten around to taking notes from it in over a month.
Look for a new pair of shoes. Or some decent pants.

Xrist, it's quarter-to-six already.

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 18:08:31 GMT

Alright, I walked into this little brough-ha-ha this morning, and already feel fully qualified to state, definitively that :

Barnes and Nobles' browsing policy is a greater threat to authors' copyrights than Google's plan to index every book they can get their hands on.

Y'all can quote me on this. Motherfuckers.

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:46:43 GMT

oh

my

fucking

gOd

Wed, 16 Jun 2004 22:39:43 GMT

hi_tem updates.

"Oh yeah."

Thu, 15 Apr 2004 23:17:53 GMT

There's a scene in the movie Boys where Lucas Haas wakes up in the woods outside of a travelling carnival. He's slept in his coat, and is trying to figure out why Winona Ryder disappeared the night before.

I feel like that, but in a good way.

Rights of Spring

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 22:59:09 GMT

"The power and subtlety of the one we call Mother are exceeded only by her secrets, for they are many, and they are all deep . . .
. . . For all of this, the plough and the spade, while passively nueter, can be a considered a more pure symbol of the masculine principal. They both symbolize the instrument of generation but isolated from the generative seed unlike more general symbols such as the sun or the abstract lingam. Without that seed the masculine force can cause change, but never growth. The more inclusive symbols only help to mask the difference between the ancient Lodges; their works utilize the same tools, but the seeds they sow prove their intent.
This also illustrates the meaning of aleph's identity as ox rather than bull. The ox only appears after the rise of agriculture and tools, and is itself a sterile instrument nearly inseperable from the plough. These sterile instruments, however, meant the difference between starvation and plenty. The Fool likewise has no purpose of his own, but prepares and sows the events which alter the future . . .
. . . This distinction must be emphasized more than ever. As the Brotherhood's work is completed the Earth will be finally transfigured from a field into a seed. Only the nature of that seed remains in question . . ."

-"The Apocryphal Archives of Branigan, Terran Mystic," ed. K. Matthews, Sirian Private Press

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 23:12:30 GMT

By the way -- spacemummy fucking rules. Got a package about two days before my machine bunked out, and the epic origin-of comic has been consoling me since.

I want my machine back, dammit.

But a couple hours painting for my sister got me two antique machines that might just be fit to learn some *nix on, and a 19" monitor to keep my room nice and sunny.

So everything works out.

I want Foosty back.

perfect timing

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 19:28:12 GMT

right as I had about fifteen different things to do, all requiring my machine to run and remain connected to the internet, halo's trusty Foosthole-One finally bit it.

repairs will be made. i be back, later.

like air to a drowning man

Fri, 19 Mar 2004 11:29:40 GMT

I am mad, and my whole kingdom with me . . .

Swear to god, my lymphatic system is hosed. Don't even know how.

Destruction is not the same as deconstruction. The argument that destruction is another form of creation is about as reasonable as the argument that since Jesus died for your sins you owe him your soul.

Life is inherently premised on the principle of Order, and contradistinct to the principle of Chaos. Thems of us that worship Chaos are doing so in recognition that either alone is utterly unacceptable, and therefore at least a few of us need to moderate the tendency of life to take over and utterly wreck everything. Absolute order == absolute stasis == no time. Absolute chaos == absolute static == no time. Q.E.D. a somewhat mystical identity of chaos and order, in terms of mutual undesirability.

But.

To succumb to the ordering principle of life is to give up responsibility for the future. To succumb to the disintegrative principle of chaos (here identified with the entropic example of death) is to give up responsibility for the future. To apply choice, without regard for either, is to redeem the creative possibilities of chaos as well as the constructive possibilities of order. To abandon choice is certain death. Self-control then is the most fundamental step toward becoming human. The alternative is slavery, be it to meaningless form or to the whirlwind of now. "Life without intelligence (a history-independent behaviour set) is hardly life at all."

Would you believe that started as me trying to figure out why my bad dreams won't go away?

"If self-replicating event-masses are to develop, i.e. establish time-context, they must interact with alien event masses. That is to say, without new relationships being tested and integrated into the history and function of a given mass it is meaningless, fundamentally outside of time. This principle of evolving coherence we call 'intelligence,' and is the most obvious difference between basic carbon crystals, such as diamond, and protein based systems, such as Terran-mammalian life . . ."
-"First Principles of Eventualism," Prof. F.L. Branigan

Thu, 18 Mar 2004 10:30:57 GMT

It's like I told the Vice Principal in grade school : "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

But whatever. Never ever smell a nicoderm patch.

Incidental note : they're now selling "fat patches," for weight loss. I can think of a few other patches I'd like to see.