16 September 2007

Which Race is Older?

And what language would a feral child speak?

A method to test, per Herodotus, (the Father of "History") -

actually, via Herodotus, per the ancient Egyptians.

Now the Egyptians, before the reign of their king Psammetichus, believed themselves to be the most ancient of mankind. Since Psammetichus, however, made an attempt to discover who were actually the primitive race, they have been of opinion that while they surpass all other nations, the Phrygians surpass them in antiquity. This king, finding it impossible to make out by dint of inquiry what men were the most ancient, contrived the following method of discovery:-

He took two children of the common sort, and gave them over to a herdsman to bring up at his folds, strictly charging him to let no one utter a word in their presence, but to keep them in a sequestered cottage, and from time to time introduce goats to their apartment, see that they got their fill of milk, and in all other respects look after them.

So after two years, the herdsman opens the door, and one of the kids goes "Becos!", which apparently sounds a lot like the Phrygian word for bread (this connection was made by pharaoh Psammetichus himself).

So the Phrygians are older, is what they figured.

Great page, by the way.

12 September 2007

06 September 2007

Fucking DEACTIVATE Your Old Blogs People!

Especially if you only post once! I thought that the freebeer.blogspot was a waste, but no.

I mean, yes, but there's worse.

Both didyouknow.blogspot.com and did-you-know.blogspot.com are stuck in loser limbo. I, a loser, cannot claim them! Fer chrissakes, people.

It's bad enough to take blog addresses that I covet, but okay - I can deal with that. I'm a grownup (albeit one who likes to write about poop and nuts). But to only post once, shittily, and then leave your blog to bloat by the side of the information superhighway? For shame. Shame shame shame shame shame.

If I could find you I would punch you. Or ask you nicely for your blog. Probably the latter, but really though. Come one.

04 September 2007

The Frangible Nuts

In rocket science (what the hell? I forget the proper term. Celestio-avionics? monsterphallusology? rocketry?) we use a little something called "pyrotechnic fasteners". These are devices that "fasten" until they "pyrotech" (the uneducated say "explode" or "essplode" - neither is correct).

Kubrick calls them explosive bolts. For technical reasons (as well as testical) I insist that they be called by their real name - Frangible Nuts.

Believe it or not, I actually had a good reason for starting this post, blog. Something about Gus Grissom, and how he didn't really blow the hatch off of his Liberty Bell space ship, even though he got blamed for it. And about how the explosive nuts blew prematurely (see why I got sidetracked?), and about how the explosion almost drowned him (!!). And then how NASA, in a tragic display of overcompensation, did away with the bolts, indirectly leading to Grissom's death in an oxygen fire.

Harrumph. Maybe I'll write something bout Professional Wrestling instead.

03 September 2007

Stumbling Around the Inter Net

!) Perhaps the worst Yahoo Answer yet - although the question left a lot to be desired. But you can't beat the reason the Asker picked the answer. All in all, an entertaining time.

2) Free as in Beer, or Free as in Blogger Accounts? A majestic one-shot blog that has Nothing to Do With Free Beer! Also, I think I am the only person to have looked at her profile. I've done it maybe twice. Oh lost love, or abandoned short story. Full of equal parts bathos and pathos.

Sigh. I really want the blog address though.

3) Duff's Device - "the most dramatic use of case label fall-through in the C programming language to date!" Exclamation point mine. Breathless tone Wikipedia's.

4) William Francis Buckley - did his kidnapping set off the Iran-Contra scam? Probably. Was he the most bad-ass librarian ever? Not by a long shot.

5) Typeface - Really, Marvel Comics? A Spider-Man villain named Typeface, who writes letters on his face with a grease pencil? For the love of Darwin... And he later fights a character named Spellcheck? Alright, that's it. I am outta here. (sound of door opening, slamming shut, feet walking down stairs.)

31 August 2007

Nerd Duty Pix





teddy ruxpin
re: Teddy Ruxpin

It is my nerd duty to disabuse everyone of the following LIE:

"If you put a heavy metal cassette into Teddy Ruxpin, he will sing heavy metal."


This is not true! Even though I thought it was, it never has been. How could this happen? (Have happened? Have had happened?)

He will play the music alright, but his mouth will not move. Nor will his head spin around. Nor will he subliminally incite your child to commit suicide. Nor will he unfurl his grafted cow tongue, flick it lasciviously, and then disappear in a shower of fire with the Star Child, the Space Man, and the Cat Man.

But most importantly, his goddamn mouth will not goddamn move.

His tapes were special tapes. The left track was vocals, and the right track was encoded pulse-position modulation.

The real tapes has notching on the top, and if there was no notching, Teddy would bypass his animatronics and simply play the tape.

Why did I not know this? I need someone to blame, and I think I will blame the Popples.

If it hadn't been for Punkster Popple, my inner rebel would not have been sated, and I would have put the damn "Smokin' in the Boys Room" tape into the damn teddy bear, and none of us would be in this crazy messed-up situation.

Except also though, Mike Dukakis would have won the '88 election, leading to a world of all flowers and butterflies and free soda (except for the Soviets, who would still exist).

And I would still have all my Popples. And a Lamborghini Countach QV, with which I would escape the coming Red Army invasion of the U.S. (thanks a lot, Democrats!) , and would lead a rag-tag army of malcontent rock stars, and we would rescue all the Americans imprisoned in the salt pits, where they'd mine salt for Premiere Willie Horton.

And eventually, people would be in zoos and Monchichis would rule the Earth. Get your boy doll puppet paws offa me, you damn dirty ape!

Pop Levi - A style called crying chic

Got this from Ddogg, and I must say that it is awesome.

Literally (visuo-spatially?) awesome. I am in awe.

The creative use of construction paper makes me want to pee my pants.

30 August 2007

Porno Bush


For a man who has screwed up so much and screwed over so many, I'm surprised that this hasn't been done before. I am also surprised that there is no actual bush.

GW Bush portrait made entirely out of porn. Let's hope he gets boinked directly in the eye.

They Made Frogs Smoke Til They Exploded

I can never get too much stop-motion animation. especially when stop-motion is contaminated with drawing.

This video is tops - plus, it's got kids' heads being ripped open.

That'll teach the fuckers to make frogs smoke...

28 August 2007

डॉन'त प्रेस थिस बटन!

Tricky. This may or may not be in English. I apologize either way.

Funny apocryphal story between a pornographer and a Sandwich.

The Earl of Sandwich says to John Wilkes:

"Wilkes, you will die either of the gallows or the pox!"

To which Wilkes replies, "That depends, m'lord on whether I embrace your Lordship's principles or your Lordship's mistress."

23 August 2007

Mr. T vs. Weezer

The first part is hilaarious. Most of the second part, too. Then it starts to go downhill (e.g. most of the 'jokes' consist of repurposed Weezer lyrics).

Still, the first page or so is genius.

C'mon, humor - cleanse my palate! I need to sleep, and I don't want mugging dreams...

Stuck Up

Well, I just got back from the police station. It's 4:22am.

I got held up at 11:02pm. I called the police at 11:03. Drove around with an officer until 11:30. Went to the station and and a detective had me look at 500+ mug shots. Couldn't id the suspect.

They let me go at 12:30am. Then I waited for a ride home. While downstairs waiting, the detective came down to say that they maybe caught the guy. So I got into another car and met the paddywagon.

It was the guy. So we went back to the station, so that I could give another statement. All done at 1:00. Waited and waited and waited for a a ride back. The ride dispatcher was very unhelpful.

Called Dave at 3:00, but I think he was already asleep. Should I walk home? I said yes, but kept putting it off. I was only a mile away from home, but now it was very late (and tonight seemed like a bad night, station-traffic-wise). Waited with two other victims of these mugger assholes. The ride dispatcher said he didn't know when we would get a ride, but we never actually saw him radio to anybody or ask any of the cops.

Finally I just walked out. And a nice detective offered me a ride, except that an officer actually drove me home. It took five mintues, tops.

And now, dear blog, that is that.

22 August 2007

Everything You Need to Know About DIY Animal Cruelty (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Who knew that dressing cats up as crazy shit had such a long and varied history?

As usual, it was the Japanese who were the real innovators.

So here we go with Unlickable Nameneko - a.k.a. dressing cats up as crazy shit.

Cutting Across the Line

Aha! I think I understand what it means to 'cut across the line'.

I still do not understand why some consider this bad, or disorienting.

p.s. - first came across this concept while reading about the shooting and editing of 24

This is Not 24!

Here we have a formerly-undercover CIA agent and a U.S. Congressman talking about the tv show "24" at a Border Security Conference. As you can imagine, neither the CIA representative nor the actual Representative really knows what he's talking about.

Let's try and picture this scene, blog. First off, cue the beeping.

Split the screen into three boxes - in one, we have Representative Silvestre Reyes (D., TX); in another, Jose Rodriguez (Director, National Clandestine Service). In the last, Kim Bauer is in some kind of distress (let's say that she hid a little girl in some cardboard boxes, but now can't find the girl - so she's panicking).

CHAIRMAN REYES: We have an individual here that... was really the genesis – with a few liberties that Hollywood takes – the exploits of Jose Rodriguez are documented in the series “24.” So he admitted to me that he likes fast cars. I won’t tell you about the women, but I will tell you about the fast cars. (Laughter.) He is a connoisseur of fine wine. I said, well, in my experience, coming out of Camp Fear was I know the difference between Morgan David and Ripple... Please give him a big round of applause.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ: When I said yesterday that I was a little nervous because I was dropping trou – I didn’t mean it in the “24” series sense; I meant it in dropping cover.

Wow. Loves fast cars, may or may not be heterosexual, connoisseur of fine wines, pantsless? That is definitely Jack Bauer they're describing. No doubt about it.

KUH-shunk KIH-shunk, KUH-shunk KIH-shunk.

21 August 2007

Stuff I've Had Open in My Windows For Like More than Two Weeks Now

I read things on the web. And I want to share them, but with who? And but I procrastinate, so then I just leave the page open and say I'll deal with it later.

And but so my computer runs out of memory, and restarts. In the past, the pages were lost to the void of entropy. And I was born again.

But so now my Firefox asks me if I want to restore my lost session. As an unreformed packrat, of course I click "Yes!" (If there were a button that said, "God please yes please please please give it back! Let me keep it!! GIVE IT BACK!" I would click that.)

And so but then now so what I've got is 8 browser windows tabbed out the wazoo, and growing.

Gah! I post some of them here so that I can close them, and maybe again watch video on my computer. Notice that these are just the wikipedia articles.

1) Longevity myths - "Longevity narratives include the story of Fountain of Youth, the village-elder narrative, the story of Shangri-La, the "Nationalist"-tale, etc."

2) Chanakya - the Indian Machiavelli! The premiere economist! Because he was born with all his teeth, he had them knocked out as a baby! I had enough trouble with the teeth coming in. Poor kid.

3) Abugida - like an alphabet, but different. The vowels are part of the letter, so that 'ki' and 'ku' are different letters. More than half of the world's languages use an abugida! Also, superinterestingly, the name is derived from Greek alphabet order, just like our own "alphabet". Except it's the first four (Α, Β, Γ, Δ) instead of the first two.

4) Cecil Rhodes - the founder of the Rhodes scholarship, the namesake of Northern and Southern Rhodesia, and a supreme bastard. Who knew? Seriously, because I didn't. I thought he was a nice guy (maybe because of the scholarship?) But really - what an a-hole! He wanted to form a world-wide secret society to keep Great Britain on top. I shit you not, blog. It was in his will.

5) Ussher chronology - a story in which the Primate of Ireland (!) says the world began October 22, 4004. Probably fiction.

6) Joseph-Désiré Mobutu - aka Mobuto Sese Seko, a.k.a. Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga, i.e. "Mobutu the earthy, the peppery, all-powerful warrior who, by his endurance and will to win, goes from contest to contest leaving fire in his wake." Not bad for a fake name, if I do say so myself.

7) Cord Widderich - perhaps the most famous of all the German pirates.

8) William R. Higgins - USMC Colonel who, in 1988, was kidnapped by a group suspected of ties to Hezbollah. The Reagan Administration designated him a hostage, instead of a P.O.W., and so did not insist that he be treated according to International law. The videotape of his hanging became a hot news item around the world.

9) Reagan Assassination Attempt - check this shit out: "Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley Jr. who allegedly shot at Reagan, was to have dined tonight in Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the Vice President's sons....The Houston Post said it was unable to reach Scott Hinckley, vice president of his father's Denver-based firm, Vanderbilt Energy Corp., for comment. Neil Bush lives in Denver, where he works for Standard Oil Co. of Indiana. In 1978, Neil Bush served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush, the Vice President's eldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Neil lived in Lubbock, Texas, throughout much of 1978, where John Hinckley lived from 1974 through 1980."

10) Radio Masts and Towers - I just like this a lot. Nothing interesting to anybody else, I don't think.

11) Katharine Graham - head of the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal, threatened by the Attorney General with a tit-wringing, alumna of the Madeira school (whose red plastic cup used to be my toothbrush holder).

12) Deborah Davis - wrote a book about number 11. Also, refused to provide ID to Federal Police when riding on a public bus. The Government threatened her with a year in prison and a $100,000 fine (in violation of (at least) the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments), but dropped all charges the day before her arraignment. Pussies.

Nose is on Grindstone - What Now?

Me: It has been too long, blog. I'm sorry. you deserve more of my attention.

But I don't want to post crap. If I fill you with crap, you become crap. I have seen this happen to me. Like with Gouda-type-cheese-food and fake German pumpernickel bread. I was so full of shit that I was coughing farts. Only a Dresden-esque poop saved me. There hadn't been a number two like that since Fat Man.

And you cannot poop, Blog.

But it is more important to me that you live, than that you live well. So I guess what I'm saying is that I love you, Blog, but also, "Fuck you." I can't worry about your self-worth, and also give you the attention you need.

Blog: Bring it on!

Me: Oh snap! I do love you, you know.

Blog: Fuck you, right back atcha.

03 May 2007

It is Now Okay to Eat Veal

Sometimes, while or shortly after eating veal, I have had pangs of something which is not indigestion. I assumed they are guilt.

I have no guilt. If calves pull this shit, then I say "The gloves are off!".

Bring it on.

27 April 2007

Aw, geez - my trusty schoolbag burnt down!

At a Brazilian barbecue for my boss's birthday!

Someone put charcoal into an uncleaned propane barbecue. The propane tank caught fire. And then so did my schoolbag.

Sigh.

That thing was indestructible! But apparently not fireproof.

It lasted for over five years, and it was from Old Navy! What? I know. I had given it six months tops, when I got it.

[bagpipes]
Amazing Grace
[/bagpipes]

Fare thee well, schoolbag...