Wednesday, February 27, 2008

2008 is great!


It's both the international year of the Potato and Sanitation!

Ergonomics


One stick in my life's craw is ergonomics; If I can never unshackle myself from computer use, it will become imperative that the ergonomic situation is improved. I am hunched and my arms are thin and strained; If I'm constantly sitting at a computer I start developing tendonitis. It has happened to me at a few office jobs in the past; I experience numbness in my arms, and then shooting pain along the ulnar nerves that I feel up into my ring and little fingers. And then I can't use a computer for weeks, have to go through physical therapy etc. Mac is rumored to be working on a new interface this year. If I could work a computer like a theremin, like an interpretetive dancer , well, it'd be the bee's knees.

Operation Paperclip and The V-2 Rocket: The Spoils of War

I was never aware before of Operation Paperclip, the US operation to collect Nazi scientists for own use. I was never a good student of history, but I just can't believe I never heard of this, or I hadn't retained it if I had. This is from the V-2 article:

The V-2 rocket (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2) was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight,[3] the progenitor of all modern rockets and a direct precursor of the Saturn V moon rocket. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets in World War II. As many as 20,000 slave labourers died constructing V-2s compared to the 7,000 military personnel and civilians that died from the V-2's use in combat.[4]


It makes little sense to put Hitler in a class of his own when we have benefited so much by what he started. Just the sound of the last sentence is bloodcurdling, consciously or not, there's a disturbing chord in the tone of the writing: Well, despite the deaths of so many "slave labourers" there was a "gain" of 7,000 enemies killed. Yes the enemy in this case was the Allied Forces; but nonetheless the V-2 showed great promise as a killing device.

I know I'm reading too much into a wikipedia article. And I know that the technological advances of Germans were mutually sought out by the Soviets because we had to keep pace with one another. There's something about the idea of reaping benefits from the most vicious of legacies ever that is so...despairing. But maybe I've watched too much Star Trek; maybe it's my naïveté. It would be better if I looked at the continuum of human history as one giant war. There has never been peace, and there may never be peace. As I write these words people are dying, have been dying, will be. Satellites are been shot up and out of space. The US corporate-military structure is building up its arsenal for the next wars with the world. It will never stop in my lifetime.

20,000 Bullets


The cast of A Better Tomorrow II thanks you:
Chow Yun Fat
Leslie Cheung
Ti Lung
Dean Shek

We've almost hit a 20,000 plays--that's almost equal to the number of bullets shot in the final shoot-out in the movie!

And the cast in turn thanks you with a free podcast with a ton of our music, presented to you by Meltmaster's Raw From Selection:

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Maple leaf soliders..


This article is disturbing, I think. Is this proof that we don't have the capacity (in armed and trained forces) to protect our selves. Will this lead to Canadian/United States tensions beyond the silly jokes we know......Has anyone heard about this agreement with soliders being allowed to cross borders.....

Monday, February 25, 2008

Writing a Good Hook: Fuck it

I'm sick of hooks. I don't want my students to write good hooks. I want them to write good essays. If you have a good idea, it'll hook me.

I don't know if I could write an essay to save my life, but hooks are stupid.

I'm grading Korean essays and they are graded on the base of having a good hook and a good thesis. Both are equally valued, mind you. My thesis: This is illustrative of our (increasingly shared) endemic superficial culture that values shininess. And it's crap; and it makes me weep. This is what is wrong in my world; my tiny fixed perspective looking at the world from inside the microcosmic hollow-spere; and the little pinprick hook-stars are ugly and make my eyes bleed sadness.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Wikipedia

Had you checked my entry as of late? It's filling up with tasty details.



Or perhaps I should ask, have you check yours?

What's that you say. Oh, you don't have one. Hmmmmm. How curious.

Now we got a name for them

Old World Babbler

Monday, February 18, 2008

Sausage

I'm pretty sure it won't eat your computer.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Fashion show of the damned

McCain's A Commie: Vote McCain




"...on the contrary, I discovered that nothing is more liberating in life than to fight for a cause that encompasses you but does not include you alone. And that has made, my friends, all the difference in the world--all the difference."

Who does he think he is? JFK, FDR? Can we get him down to three initials? John the III. Christ, no wonder the base hates him. He talks like Jesus, except not about Jesus. Well, I still salute him, GW style:


Looks like a job for Fantasy Mission Force. Go!

This is wrong

Literature should not be used to inspire hope. It should be used to validate pessimism and the lost dream of actualizing human potential. Sham culture.

George Carlin...

Finally, he's edgy enough for me.

well, I like the first half. But then he gets preachy.

If I'm voting for Hillary...


...it's not because of Stan Lee and Cher!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Less Famous Cromwell


wikipedia:

I amongist other have indured a Parlyament which contenewid by the space of xvij hole wekes, wher we communyd of warre, pease, stryffe, contencyon, debatt, murmure, grudge, riches, poverte, penwrye, trowth, falshode, justyce, equyte, discayte, oppressyon, magnanymyte, actyvyte, force, attempraunce, treason, murder, felonye, consyle[ation], and also how a commune welth myght be edeffyed and contenewed within our realme. Howbeyt in conclusion we have done as our predecessors have bene wont to doo, that ys to say as well as we myght, and lefte wher we began.

Gone is the apprentice, in comes the master

McCain and Kristol's magnificent 10,000 year reign.

via cursor.

Monday, February 11, 2008

News from Laogzed


Laogzed sends his regards. He also has some issues he wants to bring up with the A&S community. Namely issues of wealth, disparity of wealth, notions of class, and other things. To further the argument, whether for clarity or obfuscuity, I just want to say that I don't have a political opinion about rich people. I just have an emotion. But this emotion, namely, hate, or envy, or whatever you want to call it is not rational. It is a self-hatred, because I am among the rich; although not among the super-rich. And if there was a global catastrophe I'm not sure what side of the wedge I'd fall into. There is a great deal of money in my extended family--but we are not aristocrats. We don't have keys to the underground tunnels. So maybe that's what I really hate, is the ones with the keys to underground tunnels. Laogzed will have something to say about that as well, I'm sure! Hoping to get him in the studio soon.

The Party of Ideas

Atrios posted this.
10,000 years! Man, this guy thinks big!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Alien Underground

If our demands are not met such idols will be quickly released on the ABM (Alien Black Market)..
P.S. We hate rich people, too. This is what we do to mess with their minds.


Saturday, February 09, 2008

Friday, February 08, 2008

Attack of the Killer Novelists

As out-of-work writers go home to unearth their innermosts, to wit:


A former advertising copy writer, Jim Jennewein has written the films "Richie Rich," "The Flintstones" and "Getting Even With Dad" with his partner Tom S. Parker. But even for a successful writer like Jennewein, the "spin cycle" of endless story meetings, dumb notes and production green lights that turn to red has taken its toll on his muse.


Can't wait for it, Jim. Can't be worse than this or this.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

I Love Rich People


In my soup.

Just a random post of things



Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Our future hangs on one Pilonidal Cyst

Well, possibly not. But you never know. Could be the linchpin of everything. And just what exactly is an anal poisoning? Is this a reading of Hamlet I haven't heard before? Is McCain King Hamlet? I do see Rush Limbaugh as Polonius. A man of gaping, polluted orifices.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Repost/Reprise

Here's a nice shot of Herzog with his protégé:




I got a--I got a-- I got a poem.You want to hear it? Yeah. Daddy, can I read a poem? Okay. "Midnight chaos... Eternity chaos... Morning chaos,eternity chaos, noon chaos, eternity chaos,evening chaos, eternity chaos, midnight chaos,eternity chaos, morning chaos, eternity chaos,noon chaos-- evening chaos,eternity chaos, midnight chaos,eternity chaos... morning chaos,eternity chaos, noon chaos,eternity chaos, evening chaos,eternity chaos... midnight chaos,eternity chaos, noon chaos, eternity chaos, evening chaos, eternity chaos..." Julien, cut it out. "Morning chaos, eternity chaos..." You're repeating "Chaos, chaos."It doesn't even rhyme. - It rhyme with chaos.- Oh, come on. Come on, stop that.That's not a poem. I'm not finished. - "Midnight--"- What kind of poem is that? It doesn't even rhyme.You repeat "Chaos, chaos." It doesn't even rhyme. - How about that?- "Midnight..." Shut up. Shut up. I don't like it becauseit's so artsy-fartsy. You see, I likethe real stuff. I like something like, uh, the end of "Dirty Harry." I saw this "Dirty Harry,"and the end is really-- a terrific showdown. What? There was thistremendous shoot out. You should better listen.Just listen. Grandmama, listen.Just listen. There was this shoot out. Dirty Harry hasthis bad guy cornered. I mean, he wasa real bad guy, and there's thistremendous shoot out. They're really exchanginglots of fire. They're shooting bulletsat each other and they keep missing. At the end the bad guysomehow drops his gun. It's just down thereon the bottom. Harry hovers over him, and now Harry, he is reallyfull of contempt. Harry's standing there,he's totally full of contempt, and he says to him,"We've wasted many of our bullets. Do you think there's stilla bullet left in your gun? " and he says to him, "You know, now you've gotto ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?'" At that moment, the bad guylunges for his gun, raises itand it goes, "click." He hasn't got a bullet left.And Harry blasts him away. He blasts him into a river. He knocks him off the feetand blasts him away. You see,that's good stuff. I truly like that. I don't likethe artsy-fartsy thing. I think I hated his poem.

A Possible Truce Between The Radical Right and The Radical Left

My modest proposal is that we stop calling each other fascists. The left should call the radical right Capitalists, and the right should go back to calling us Commies. Not communists or pinkos, but Commies.

I don't have a better term than Capitalist; but in my book that's harsh enough. It suggests a mercenary, social-darwinist point of view of the universe, and that's what every commie should be against. And it's a name that isn't offensive or loaded with the political-meaning of "fascist." They should be happy with that term; and then I can counter their entire existence (except for Christopher Hitchens) with this simple phrase: Jesus was not a capitalist.

Of course, food for thought: Kligson wasn't a capitalist either.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Dark skies, muddy hands

Only five days to the Chinese New Years. Meanwhile, my horoscope tells me (I'm a Wood Tiger):

Certain natives of the sign will have to fear for the security of their jobs or can be compelled to forgo their professional responsibilities for health reasons. Your psychic state will probably leave much to be desired. You'll feel that your head is empty, or on the contrary full of ideas which will jostle one another so much that they'll blur your judgment. If you entrust other people with certain works, don't be totally confident in them; take care to verify what's been achieved; in this way you'll prevent many problems.


I must be vigilant. I don't want to be fired before I've even started the job. Well, I've started it, actually. I'm up now, drinking Chai and grading papers.

Here are some of my penitent Youtube videos:

Can't go wrong with Gonzo serenading a Chicken:


Now that we're warmed up, let's add a little Beaker to our youtube traipse.


We're really cooking now. (Incidentally, I wondered if this planted the seed for my only published story.) Peter Sellers:


Here's the best, a short film that Henson made in 1965.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Meltmaster and Meyermeister


Click on the badge to download my collab with my nephew.