April 23rd, 2004
Posted by fad at 5:06pm
Since I'm a lazy, lazy man, I thought I'd poll my vast audience. Anyone have any good suggestions for biographies of Petrarch? I'm still completely fascinated with this story.
[Moved this to the top in case someone actually has a suggestion.]
Posted by fad at 5:00pm
I love Mr. Cranky. He's not as funny as he used to be, but he can still crank out a good one now and again. From his review of "Connie and Carla":
This film appears to be something of an homage to "Some Like it Hot", which is kind of like saying that a bum taking a crap in a dumpster is an homage to "Star Wars".At which point many fanboys and fangirls think, "George Lucas already did that with the prequels!" and thought they were funny.
Posted by fad at 4:52pm
The important question is, were they there more than four hour?
A couple on the Atkins Diet have a beef with a suburban Salt Lake City restaurant after being booted from the buffet.Well, they could always go fishing instead.
Isabelle Leota and Sui Amaama say they were asked not to eat any more roast beef. When they asked for their money back, the manager asked them to leave and called police.
Posted by fad at 3:04pm
When the speaker gets to assign their own meaning to words, when they no longer are tied to some agreed upon, objective sense, then you can say whatever you want and not have to mean it. If you audience is gullible, it works great. Take this example.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi here on Friday condemned the recent suicide bomb attack in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.Sounds really nice, don't it? But when he says "innocent people", he doesn't mean it like, well, I would. To me, innocent people is a rather universal, wide-open club. To him, it means "dammit, you're only supposed to kill Westerners, at least for the moment!"
[...]
Asefi said that the attack was unacceptable, as are all acts of violence that threaten the lives of innocent people.
Posted by fad at 1:47pm
I like it when they find old stuff.
The project expert on hieroglyphs, Federico Fahsen, called it "one of the greater masterpieces of Maya art ever discovered in Guatemala," according to the news release.National Geographic is involved in this, so hopefully reports will hit tv or the magazine soon.
Posted by fad at 11:11am
Somebody thought they were real funny.
Passengers of a Southwest Airlines flight to Orlando were abruptly evacuated from their plane this morning at Lambert Field after a passenger found a reference to a bomb in a magazine.Some untossed salad shithead decided it'd be a ha-ha to write that in the inflight magazine and is probably at home giggling that it actually worked and disrupted everyone's day.
[...]
Mason said the writing in the magazine read: "There is a bomb on this plane. You are about to crash and blow up."
Posted by fad at 10:38am
The fallout continues over the very under-reported scandal at USA Today involving a star reporter's long career of making up stories and stealing from other news sources.
Hal Ritter, the newspaper's managing editor of news, submitted his resignation Thursday to publisher Craig Moon.
[...]
The newspaper's top editor, Karen Jurgensen, retired abruptly Tuesday at age 55.
Also on Thursday, Executive Editor Brian Gallagher, who is in charge of the paper's day-to-day operations, told staff members that he would remain in his current position only long enough to make a transition to the next editor. A search for a new editor is under way.
Posted by fad at 10:35am
Another bunch of quick things not worth their own post.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, one more Pirates thing. When the bad guy gives the kidnapped heroine a fancy dress for a dinner at which she grabs a knife, one can't help thinking of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mostly because that's a direct rip off from that movie. While Keira Knightley is hot and does a fine job of acting with her nipples, Karen Allen could kick the shit out of her.
Posted by fad at 10:31am
Pat Tillman has been killed in action. It may seem misplaced to focus on one semi-celebrity death amongst many combat deaths, but it often helps to be able to pick out one face to represent the many relatively anonymous. Plus this is -- not was, it still is -- a great story. He turned down over $3 million because serving his country was more important.
As with everyone over there, thank you for your service.
Posted by fad at 10:01am
April 22nd, 2004
Posted by fad at 8:48pm
Shecky Rumsfeld on if the government tried to start a daily newspaper.
"Consider what might happen if government were asked to put out a daily newspaper. Well, for starters, there would likely be a flurry of meetings, leaked memos, and then I suspect leaked recommendations, followed by the adoption of a draft policy guideline and then a 90-day open comment period where interest groups would proceed to shred that guideline.He's here all week, folks. Be sure to tip the waitstaff. They're working hard for you.
"Then we would need a request for a supplemental budget, for sure, possibly even a recommendation for a new federal agency, to be followed by a congressional investigation on why we missed our deadline, followed, of course, by an independent commission to study what the congressional investigation had already studied."
Posted by fad at 4:31pm
Ok, I think we have the seeds of a really crappy historical fiction novel. Since crappy fiction is my specialty, I'll get right on it.
You know, there's just too much to quote, so I suggest you just read it yourself. It's all about the history of Petrarch's skull. Here is one of my favorite details.
The bones of what was thought to be Petrarch's venerable head were in fragments when they were removed from his tomb. In 1873, it had been opened by an investigator, Professor Giovanni Canestrini, also at Padua University."Whoops! Uh...yeah, the air did it.....Air."
"He claimed Petrarch's skull disintegrated on contact with the air," said Prof Terribile Wiel Marin. "Since none of us has ever come across an instance of this happening, we can only conclude he dropped it."
Posted by fad at 3:48pm
Some people choose to be horrified by the newest cosmetic surgery fads. I prefer to be amused by what idiocies people will spend money on.
Doctors in the United States are offering patients voice lifts to help them sound younger.Since I've been told I have the voice of a "twelve year old boy", this, thankfully, will never be a problem for me.
[...]
But doctors say it is becoming popular with patients who have already had plastic surgery and want to sound as well as look younger than they are.
Posted by fad at 3:20pm
A bunch of quick hits instead of real content.
"lovedoll testing"
"okla fetish factory"
"hobbit feets"
I'm also #1 for "nazi funklord"
I need to work on a new tagline nickname for myself.
Posted by fad at 1:01pm
Mary McGrory has died at age 85. Long time readers know that previous versions of this site had an adversarial relationship to her columns, one-sided, of course, being just a small blog. I strongly disagreed with her on many issues, most strongly on issues of gender wherein men and masculinity were to blame for all the ills of history and society. Occasionally this jumped over into the insulting, but it was never intentional. What to me was sometimes insulting was merely her being consistent in her beliefs. In this case, misguided as it was, that was a bit admirable. Someone who had beliefs, not just a series of "gotchas" or floating to wherever today's opposite position needs to be.
Most important of all, Ms. McGrory could write. She didn't depend on cutsiness or cleverly turned phrases. She wrote clearly, concisely. At the end of her columns, one always knew what she was saying. There was no coyness or obfuscation. One of the reasons it was a pleasure to go after her writing was the clearness of it. One never had to fear a cringe when reading her words.
It is for this that at least I will miss her (and have since she left the pages to deal with her illness). All condolences to her family. Despite all differences of opinion, from all that I could tell, they have lost a wonderful person.
Posted by fad at 12:34pm
April 21st, 2004
The House passed a resolution (HR 9085) Tuesday asking for a musical salute to "America's Greatest Generation" -- those who fought in World War II -- during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXIX, scheduled to be played at Alltel Stadium on Feb. 6.If you're looking to honor someone, the Super Bowl half-time show is probably the last place to look. Here's part of the resolution:
WHEREAS, with a view toward "honoring the Greatest Generation before it is too late," it is suggested that a unique opportunity has arisen to recognize these American heroes through a timely and fitting thematic tribute during the 2005 Super Bowl halftime show, and it is further suggested that such a theme could be presented with a pregame flyover by (World War II) vintage aircraft, followed by a halftime patriotic musical salute, perhaps against a backdrop of a 1940's USO canteen with dancers in period dress and uniforms performing the "Jitterbug" to the toe-tapping, fast-moving music of the day.Oh boy!
Just give in and bring back Up With People.
Posted by fad at 5:50pm
John Kerry is so boring, I really never thought something like this would happen.
A federal indictment released Tuesday charges Ruppert with making a threat to the candidate and states he "did knowingly and willfully threaten to kill, kidnap and inflict bodily harm upon Senator John Kerry."You have to be really crazy to get that passionate, one way or another, about that wind-blown stone.
The e-mail was sent to CNN newsman Wolf Blitzer and the White House, according to court documents.
Posted by fad at 5:15pm
Up in Chicago, an AP reporter [name omitted to avoid inane search hits] went off his nut.
The judge [...] admonished a reporter from the AP. That reporter allegedly taunted Segal before the proceedings began Tuesday.Now the Chicago Tribune seems to have the most info on this incident, but it's behind the wall of registration. Now that's annoying enough, but even better is that multiple attempts to register have all failed. This AP report adds a little bit.
The reporter allegedly told Segal he would look good in an orange prison jumpsuit and asked him how it would feel when the doors of prison clanged shut on him.
"Our reporter acted inappropriately and he acknowledges it," said Chicago AP Chief of Bureau James Reindl. "We have assigned a different reporter to cover the trial."A search on "Segal" and the reporter's name showed that he was the primary AP reporter for this trial, his dispatches appearing everywhere, for some time. Oh, but I'm sure we can trust everything he has written so far. Being a professional journalist he has Magickal and Ancient powers of objectivity.
Posted by fad at 4:19pm
I've wondered why there has never been a movie about the 1972 Olympics terrorism. So far there has just been some good and not so good TV specials (HBO had a pretty good one 2 years ago, if I remember its quality right). Spielberg is changing that.
Spielberg plans to start production in June and is eyeing actor Ben Kingsley for a role in the upcoming drama, which will chronicle the Summer Games marred by the kidnapping and slaying of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militantsNormally I'd be happy and quite interested that this is finally coming to the screen. But, you know what? I don't really trust Spielberg to let a story just be without clumsy attempts to manipulate the audience. Spielberg is one of the main reasons I miss the fact that major release movies* no longer can end unhappily or unsettled (think "Chinatown"). Now, despite what is right for the story, the happy ending must be reached which can almost ruin a good movie for me (think "Minority Report" or "LA Confidential"). Hopefully he can restrain himself on this one.
*Changed from just "movies" to "major relase movies". I realize tons of gay cowboys eating pudding movies have fucked up endings.
Posted by fad at 3:29pm
Before the question "is our children learning?" was ever misspoken, we knew that putting compooters and the interweb in every classroom would create a new breed of super geniused children, all who could read at a 7th grade level and express complex emotions using colons, semi-colons and parentheses. Now, the world is merely littered with unused, expensive to store devices. Oh, and the broken dreams of children who will not know the newest meme at the moment of its creation.
More than $2 million in computer equipment bought by the state to help colleges, schools and local governments get online sat idle for three years, according to an audit released Tuesday.$2,000,000 was paid out to buy it, but that wasn't the end of that sap train.
Over three years, $341,148 was paid to store and maintain the unused network routers.Over $100,000 a year just to look at it. I hope it was at least pretty. And I'll bet some report or politician touted that money as cash spent on actual education. Since that didn't do any good, someone will use the same bottom line to plead that more needs to be spent. After all, this is The Children™ we're talking about here. No amount of money wasted is too much, as long as it is in their name.
Posted by fad at 12:55pm
Ha! I knew it was the media's fault I hate myself!
Waifish models are often blamed for the poor body image many women have, but those well-toned lads in after-shave ads may leave men feeling inadequate too, new research shows.And here I thought it was my general worthlessness and the constant rejection. Damn you, media! Damn you straight to hell!
[...]
Poor body image has been linked to low self-esteem, depression and unhealthy eating habits
Posted by fad at 10:53am
If there's one thing I hate more than organized batshittery, it's wannabe batshittery.
Two homes were completely charred and a third was damaged in arson fires set early yesterday morning that targeted new houses in a golf course subdivision east of Snohomish.You'd naturally think it's them ELF fuckers (or "the ELF" as this story calls it).
The Associated Press quoted an unnamed federal agent as saying the note apparently came from an eco-terrorist group.Seriously, just because your thinking is half-assed doesn't mean your actions have to be. Do it right, or stay home. Actually, just stay home. Unless you'd like me to burn it down to reclaim that space for Gaia. Really, I have the spare time and pent up rage. It'd be no problem.
[...]
No slogans were scrawled on walls or sidewalks as is typically the case in actions conducted by the Earth Liberation Front, which last year claimed responsibility for arson attacks targeting luxury homes in California and Michigan.
But the incendiary devices appear to be similar to devices that the ELF has used, one investigator said.Maybe it is ELF, but a new chapter that has only collected enough dues to buy the firestarters, but not the pamphlets explaining what to scrawl all over the site.
Posted by fad at 10:26am
April 20th, 2004
Pringles is going to introduce a chip this summer that is going to make you smarter -- well, kind of.Get back to me when they print porn on 'em.
That's because the chip maker is using new technology and a partnership with the makers of Trivial Pursuit to print trivia questions right on a chip.
Posted by fad at 3:53pm
Yeah, sorry I'm not back in the immediate swing of things. I'm still trying to get unfucked up from the last couple of days.
So in the stead of real content -- ok, having to think of real content -- here are some meaningless tick-offs.
Posted by fad at 3:04pm
The NEA (the directly tax-funded one, not the indirectly tax-funded one) is getting in to the post war, or post tour, effort.
"I was talking to my old friend, (poet) Marilyn Nelson," Dana Gioia said.Name dropper.
"She had just taught at West Point and my own sister had been called to active duty, in the Navy reserve. We were talking about how separate the worlds of literature and the enlisted man and woman were."Profound these artists be.
Gioia has decided to change that. The NEA this week is unveiling "Operation Homecoming," in which troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will attend workshops run by such writers as Tom Clancy, Tobias Wolff and James McBride. The best submissions will be published in an anthology, scheduled to come out at the end of 2005."Definitely an interesting idea. Someone dug up Norman Mailer to see if he gave a fug about it.
But few notable books have come from recent conflicts. Mailer has cited the end of the draft, in 1972, leading to a pool of troops that may not have a "high literary orientation."That's our Norm. Can't open his trap without insulting someone or letting us know that no one has been able to reach the heights he ascends. I'm guessing there's a little of that trope that the military is staffed merely with the poor and uneducated who are forced by circumstances into the military. Meanwhile all the smarties know better than to make that mistake. Gioia concludes with this.
"I have noticed a lot of similarities between the military world and the literary world. Both are highly specialized and highly professionalized. And when that happens, you tend not to see a lot of things outside of your immediate world. I'm hoping this program will make a difference."You mean to say the artists, those who speak for the very soul of our society, those who say for us what we cannot say, those who observe and comment on us may be just a weensy bit insular?
Posted by fad at 1:34pm
April 19th, 2004
C-26. That's a distressingly high gate number. Especially when there is a connection to catch. Oh well, which gate hosts the connection? F6. Good thing it's not F5; bad memories of overpriced systems trying to mask simple interfaces to FreeBSD builds. Let's see where F5 relates to C-26 on the map?
Huh. Well, better get walking since this flight already arrived late due to winds cutting the airport down to one runway.
After a time, the suspicion begins to sink in that what is advertised as a connecting flight is really a walk from Minneapolis all the way to Madison. This suspicion is finally allayed 20 minutes later when gate F6 approaches. A peek around the corner upon getting there and.....
Hmmm.....I guess we got one of them invisible planes! But the board still shows the flight leaving at 6:58pm. After a bit, I ask a guy if they bothered to make a status announcement. They had not, but someone else had checked an arrival board, and the flight we were to continue on was now scheduled to arrive at 7:10pm. "So I guess we're not going to make that 7:00pm departure time," he said.
"But it says 6:58pm!"
"Oh...well, then that changes everything."
7:10 turned to 7:30 on the board, just for the arrival, when the announcement came into the terminals: due to strong storms, the whole shabang had to be shutdown for the next hour. Yup. No more beeping and flashing and flashing and beeping.
After the hour, our estimated departure time -- they were still working that angle - went to 10pm. Then 10:12pm. That was hours away, so we were told to go stretch our legs and check back. I did just that, a nice, brisk 20 minute walk. I returned to find the flight canceled.
Oh, did I mention I had an 8:00am interview that I really didn't want to miss?*
So I got put on the standby list for the next flight to Madison leaving at 11:15pm. Well, along with the other 200 people. 11:20pm rolled around, but no plane. Finally, they cancelled that flight, too, and told us to head out to ticketing to rebook.
The airline provided free phone service to their call center to try to rebook. The nice man told me that the first flight to Madison he could get me on was at 6-something pm the next day. Yeah, ain't doing that. I told him I just wanted to go back to St. Louis. A supervisor is the only one who could permit that, he said. So, into the line for me.
The line. Deceptively short, but lasting forever. I stood in that line for 2.5 hours. If not for the amazing length of the Cryptonomicon, the day of reckoning would have been at hand. One guy, a typical, arrogant business type two people behind me, decided to spend the time hitting on the woman right behind me. "Oh, you're a nurse? Yeah, I considered being a doctor before I got into software." She saw right through it, but played along anyway because...well, that's just how it works. Later he tried to rabble rouse because, as the Algorepha Male, he needed to take charge.
At 2am, they announced they were closing the ticket desk in30 minutes. I had 7 people in front of me. At 2:30am, I had no one in front of me. That includes anyone working the counter, because they closed when I was next in line. Oh, but they'd be open again at 4:30, so all was well.
We scattered, trying to find a comfortable spot. Hundreds of us stuck in the airport. The hotels were filled. I didn't have Lileks' number. Hey, he woulda come right out to get me!
I feared trying to sleep, knowing I would sleep through 4:30 and get stuck in back of a huge line again. Thanks again to the Cryptonomicon and its huge, meandering, engrossing meaninglessness.
The line begins to reform at 4:15. I get about 10th in line. By 4:25, there are at least 300 hundred queued. 4:30am, the clerks appear. I go up, now on my 21st consecutive hour awake, and say I just want to go home. I have already called the place I was to interview and told them the story and asked to try to reschedule. Again, I just want to go home. She says, "Well, there are 3 spots left on the 7am. Would you like one of those?" "Sure! What the hell!" Yeah, I'm punch drunk as all hell by now. Plus I'm flush with the satisfaction of finally punching off that "Spend the night on the floor in an airport by yourself" life-goal. Never tell me I'm not goal-oriented.
Unable still to sleep, I wander about the two hours before my flight trying to repep and prepare for my interview which is supposed to start at 8am, but won't get going until 9am if they still let me. I call and leave a message that I will be there, but will be late. On the hour flight, I actually catch 20 minutes of semi-sleep.
We land at 8am, and I catch a cab to the place. Finding a bathroom, I change into my suit, which has now been stuffed into a suitcase for 18 hours. Surprisingly, it looks pretty good. I hit the interview punch drunk, strangely wired and just plain loopy. I'm absolutely flying. I was too tired to remember I hate myself, so instead was charming and confident. It was almost an out of body experience.
After the interview, I bum around a bit, and then head to the airport to go home. Once again, I must go through Minneapolis. Once again, gate C-26 is where we arrive. This time, the connecting flight is at gate F15. If F6 is a walk to Madison, F15 is across the Illinois border. But I survive. Why? Because I'm a trouper dammit!
Have I mentioned I've only had 20 minutes sleep in the last 38 hours?
*For reasons I do not wish to get in to, I could not rent a car.
Posted by fad at 9:43pm
I typed this up Saturday so that if anyone left a comment on Monday, this would show up so there'd at least be something.
I have never been in a fight, nor physically abused, but since I played lots of sports and other stuff, I have been hit in the face many times. As a treat to you, I decided to rank the various ways I have been hit in the face on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means "it was nothin'" and 5 means, "I said it was nothin'!"
- A Baseball:
- Luckily I never took a pitch straight to the face, but I did once have a bunt shoot off the bat up into my nose. That hurt quite a bit, I admit, but not as bad as expected. There wasn't any blood, so it couldn't have been that bad. Out in the field a took a couple flyballs off the side of the face too, but there were no concussions, just really sweet knotted bruises. 3.
- A Football:
- For some reason, every time I've been hit in the face with a football, it has always hit me in the mouth. Let me tell you, catching a spiral with your teeth hurts a hell of a lot. This does result in a pretty bloody mouth and a really well rung bell, but never resulted in a noticeable concussion at the time. 4
- Elbows
- Elbows are by far the worst I've dealt with. One of the times I broke my nose came from one of those damn things. Some skinny fucker during a pick-up game of basketball in college caught me right in the nose, snapping my head back (I think I blacked out for a bit too). I got the full "I'm not going to tell you a third time!" double black eyes and everything. It took weeks before I could blow my nose pain free. I'm pretty sure I got a good concussion from it too. Another time, someone in the group I was with decided to run up to us and jump on an old woman bench. The bench collapsed under him, and he brought the full force of his elbow into my temple. Knocked me clean out for a few seconds. 5
- A Frozen Bag of Peas
- I have, or had, a reputation for having very good reaction time and being able to catch most anything tossed at me. One friend used to think it was a really fun game to grab something in a store, throw it in my general direction, and then say, "Hey [fad]!" I'd turn to see what was up, see movement in the corner of my eye and catch whatever it was. We were at a friend's apartment once when I heard the familiar, "Hey [fad]!" By now I was pretty sick of it, so I decided this time I was going to ignore it. Let whatever he threw land where it may. Well, turns out it was a nice big bag of frozen peas BAM! right into the side of my face. That didn't hurt so much as surprise and piss me off. 1.
- Toe Punch to the Head
- Ok, technically this wasn't a hit to the face, but I'm still pissed. I was playing keeper for my soccer team when I was 13. I fell on the ball, and some punk shit on the other team ran up and toe punched me right on the crown of me noggin. I rolled over, threw the ball out of bounce and lay there. The ref, and there was only one working this game, runs over, "What happened?"
"I got kicked in the head!"
"You did?"
Yeah, he was real good at his job. That was the first concusion I really remember getting (my mom tells me I fell off some monkey bars when I was 3 and landed on my head on the sidewalk). I spent the rest of the game leaning against a goalpost (technically supposed to get a yellow card for that, but they let it pass) because the damn field kept wanting to tilt to the left and knock me over. 4 - A Basketball
- This is my most frequent fash smasher. It is the reason I got contacts in the first place. Most people get contacts for cosmetic reasons. Since the majority of people have made it clear that no matter what, I am, in the words of one recent observer, "completely physically unattractive", cosmetic reasons were not mine. By the time I was 14, I was sick of having my glasses jammed into my face by an errant pass or a rocketed rebound. That I didn't suffer many cuts around my eyes is still amazing. Another probably broken nose or two can be owed to this one as well. 4.
Posted by fad at 3:47am
April 18th, 2004
Posted by fad at 8:45am