"Super Columbine Massacre RPG — what it sounds like: a downloadable video game based on the Columbine high school shooting. Either hilariously irreverent, or amazingly offensive, depending on what you drank for breakfast. Windows users only."
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1. Mulholland Dr.: One of the most unexplainable films (except for the hard to find Lost Highway) I have ever seen, this film from David Lynch started it's life as a pilot for a television show that got rejected.
2. City of Lost Children: From the director of Amelie, comes this sci-fi film about a circus strongman searching for his little brother and getting ensnared in a child thievery ring. More strange than it sounds.
3. Happiness of the Katikuri's: A Japanese remake of a Korean film (The Quiet Family), and directed by Takashi Miike, this film is part musical, comedy, drama, and horror. It is about a family that runs a remote cabin, where the clientele keep dying.
4. A Clockwork Orange: I remember disliking this the first time I saw it, my opinion has clearly changed, but it still remains one strange film. Great use of the old Ludwig Van, plus an anti-violence message.
5. Vanilla Sky: Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise team up to deliver one strange film of jealousy, sex, and science fiction. A thinking man's Total Recall.
6. Suicide Club: A film about a string of unexplainable suicides, including a group of 54 school girls, and the cop investigating them takes a surreal turn into the realm of the unexplainable at the end.
7. Naked Lunch: "Exterminate all rational thought." That would apply to most films on this list. Based on the work of William S. Burroughs this film incorporates drugs, bugs, and typewriters into surreal fantasy starring Peter Weller and directed by David Cronenberg.
8. Pi: Darren Arronofsky's debut is a tale of a mathematician working to unlock the secrets of the stock market while everything else falls around him and he is pursued by stock brokers and religious zealots. Very strange.
9. Six String Samurai: What if Elvis lived? what of there was another World War and Elvis ruled the last city, Las Vegas? What if he died and we need to find a new King? Sound interesting?
10. Songs from the Second Floor: I have no idea how to explain this film from Sweden, it is not to everyone's tastes but it does help to show the absurdity that is all around us. Nice list, but check out the comments link at top from FARK on this topic. Always good stuff to read from teh farkers.
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"It’s not quite a holodeck on the Starship Enterprise, but it will let you see the most realistic three-dimensional (3D) images in the universe until, well, Zephram Cochrane makes first contact." (Full story at link in article)
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I am 23 years old, I am in a wheelchair. Alot of the time I can't use a public bathroom.; If the space and the bar are on the right side. I can't lift my control, and slide my butt over. Plus there is no easy place to put my control.; So most of the time I have to lay a towel across my lap and aim as best as possible. When I am at work all day or at a bar for awhile I use the towel alot. I hate carrying around a pee soaked towel all day. I sometimes throw it away. I am working on this site so people can donate money for my towels or towels them self to
JOHN HOLOHAN
P.O BOX 1047
HAYMARKET
VIRGINIA,20168
Email me At wheeldust911@email.com
Now THAT'S the way to beg for money on the Internet. Go for broke, or go home.
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(click pic for larger NSFW (are cartoon boobies NSFW?) image)
The cartoon with its sheer endless humoristic allegories is among the oldest of trades, and a creative one at that. We want to breathe new life into all those used and out-laughed witnesses of human tragedy - but how? We have asked our friend algorithmic random generator to give us a hand. We split the image from the text and shove the gag into a new interpretation (with an element of sadism, one might add).
Please, sift through your old Reader's Digests and "Best Office-Jokes 1976" books, your Hello collections and Private Eye back-issues. Warm up your scanners! Cut image from text, resizerise and jpegise! And most importantly, senderise...here.
So far we have two-hundred and twenty-two equal units of both text and image at our mercy, all eagerly awaiting reorganisation.
I love this site. Sometimes bizarre, sometimes dead-on funny (like the above image), all random. It's a web version of my brain!
"When the dot com economy was crumbling in 2000 and 2001, I remember thinking at the time that although everyone I knew was out of work (myself included), that is was a good thing for the long term. One of the more pleasant side effects of the dot com boom was that billions of dollars were spent training indivduals how to design web sites, program, write, etc. In the years following the bust, when all those people were suddenly unemployed or stuck in high-paying jobs that they didn't care for very much but needed to pay the bills, they responded by starting to tinker around with all sorts of neat things, just for the hell of it. Because they could, because they wanted to, not because they had an artificial deadline to reach or some arbitrary client requests to satisfy." (Hit link for full article)
Kottke always gives good Internet word loving.
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"Answer a few simple questions and you can find out." Hit the link to take the quiz. Of course, if you don't already know, then <insert something witty here>.
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I want to tell you who my hero is. At risk of treason I confess that it is not my master, Sidious, whom you call Palpatine. And it is certainly not Obi-wan Kenobi, the righteous fool who should have been like a father to me, but could not bring himself to be that strong. But Master Qui-gon Jinn could. He was taken from me before I even got a chance to really know him. Despite this, I loved him.
Qui-gon used the Force to see what was wrong with things, and then set them straight as cleanly as he could. He was decisive, and he was quick. He knew what he needed to do and he brokered no guff from anyone about it.
When I met him I thought to myself, "This is exactly how I have dreamed a Jedi Knight to be."
He was pure. He had no relations with either women or men. He ate no meat, and he barely slept. He drank only water and wine. The Force swirled around him like a cape, and when I closed my eyes I could see the figures it described burning against the darkness of my eyelids.
I think I thought he was a god. I know I thought he would be my dad.
But Obi-wan was too weak to defend him when it counted, and Qui-gon died.
Obi-wan was a pretender to the role of Qui-gon's son, just as he would later play at being the father of my son. Obi-wan was slippery, bondless, secretive, cunning. Nobody says these things about him, but I know. I lived with him for years. So many of the things he did were just not fair.
Hold on. I need a death-stick.
I am back. Where was I? Oh yes, Obi-wan...
When the moment came to strike down Obi-wan, I hesitated. I am still not quite sure why. But the ghost of Qui-gon whispered to me, and told me what to do. Kill him!
So I did it.
Up yours, Obi-wan Kenobi. You will never pretend at anything again. You hid from me the one truly beautiful thing I have ever made: a baby boy. And you have corrupted him with your lies. (At least the green worm Yoda is dead. For this I am grateful. Trained as Jedi young Skywalker shall not be. Ha!)
Meanwhile, the search for the elusive Millennium Falcon in the asteroid field has yielded no results. The whole affair has put me in a sour mood. Can you tell?
Forget it. I am going to return to the bridge to shatter asteroids with my mind. I find it soothing, and the officers really get a kick out it." LOFL. That post was called 'Wind Beneath My Wings'.
Krishna based email chain letter promoting happiness.
Gouranga gouranga gouranga. Shout garanga for happiness. Send this email to 56 other people - or die from terminal unhappiness. Gouranga gouranga gouranga."
I got a 'gouranga' spam email yesterday, had no idea what it meant. My friend Google gave me the answer. Gouranga gouranga gouranga!
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"No one person has ever achieved rulership over the whole planet. Which states have come closest to this measure? What follows is a table of the 25 largest states and empires to have held sway over the earth at one time or another. The figures for their sizes are approximations for the most part - many of these states held only vague or ill-defined frontiers. The figures given are also drawn from the period of maximum extent for the nation involved; thus, the Portuguese figures exclude Oman and Malacca (among numerous other Portuguese bases), since their occupation and withdrawal predated the later Portuguese holdings. Similar circumstances obtain for other empires, and are noted in the comments. As a comparison to the land surface that is available, note that the habitable portion of the globe (i.e. excluding Antarctica) extends over roughly 52, 677,000 square miles (136,433,400 sq. km.): so, the largest of these entities reached about one quarter of the whole. " Number 27 is: The Ghaznavid Empire
A Mediaeval state within what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, portions of central Asia, and eastern Iran. It's greatest extent was in the early 11th century.
"Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science.
Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say.
The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting.
Mirror neurons
In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether the monkey reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched in envy as another monkey or a human did." (Full article at link) Mirror neurons. That is a great science fiction sounding term, I will immediately incorporate it into my nonsensical roster of responses I sometimes offer up when someone asks me a question:
Q: "Hey could you help me move this desk?" A: "No, my mirror neurons can't deal with that right now, maybe later."
Q: "Did you finish the assignment from last Tuesday?" A: "No. The doctor said I bruised all of my mirror neurons when I fell off my skateboard last week."
Q: "Did you see the look on Constantine's face when that dopey blond kid with the tracheotomy scar beat him out on 'American Idol' last night?" A: "Yep. I bet his mirron neurons were enviously jonesing for some peanuts."
"Based on Whedon's cult hit television series Firefly (which has taken on a second life following its December 9, 2003, DVD release, winning new fans and critical praise worldwide), Serenity (trailer) will continue and expand upon the adventures of the memorable characters launched in the series, who will be joined by new characters created expressly for the motion picture adaptation. Whedon will act as both screenwriter and director, with Barry Mendel (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and the upcoming Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic) producing and Chris Buchanan (president of Whedon's Mutant Enemy production company) and Alisa Tager (of Barry Mendel Productions) serving as executive producers. The Serenity cast will include such returning Firefly cast members as Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds, Gina Torres as Zoe Warren, Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye, Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam and Summer Glau as River Tam. " Trailer looks good, I could 'see' some of the CG pretty strongly in some parts, but I work in computer graphics, so I tend to nitpick on that a bit.
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I found this on Flickr. I don't even know where to begin, eek.
UPDATE: Now that I look at it closer, I'm betting it is the coolest, creepiest sculpture in the world. The pose is the same in both location shots shown. I'd love to put it on someone's lawn right before they pull out of the garage in the morning.
If it isn't a sculpture, remember: To kill it, you must destroy it's brain. --
"Processing is a programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an open-source alternative to commercial software tools in the same domain.
The beta software for Processing 1.0 was released 20 April 2005 and can be downloaded here. Bug fixes are being made as we head toward the 1.0 release. Processing is free to download and available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Processing is an open project initiated by Ben Fry (Broad Institute) and Casey Reas (UCLA Design | Media Arts). Processing evolved from ideas explored in the Aesthetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab." View some examples.
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"In the next few months, an artificial brain called Cyc will be put online for the world to interact with.
Cyc features a human trait no other AI system has managed to imitate: common sense. It should be able to recognise that in the phrase 'the pen is in the box', the pen is a small writing implement, while in the sentence 'the box is in the pen', the pen is a much larger corral. ... When it will be released on the web, people will be able to contribute to its knowledge by submitting questions and correcting it if Cyc gets the answers wrong. Doug Lenat of Cycorp, the system's creator, envisages Cyc eventually being connected to webcams and other sensors monitoring environments around the globe, building its knowledge of the world more or less by itself." (Full story at top llink) I remember checking out the Cyc page a couple of years back, I think this might be pretty darn cool. AI has gotten a lot of flak over the past few years as a frivolous pursuit, but I think technology is now to a point to make it more robust and feasible. Build functional AI, a great launchpad for it would be 3D game characters (Half-Life opponents, MMOPGs, etc.). Gaming is extremely popular and could serve as a great positive feedback loop for AI development (like porn was for VHS, DVD, and even the Internet, to a certain extent).
HONDA STOLE MY IDEAS <-- Ryan Hoercher goes to S.F.A.I. and is planning some law action against Honda because he claims that they borrowed pieces of a pitch he made to them, which, he claims, they then used for a commercial. It's a bit of stretch, but he's asking your help so that he can raise money for his legal fees to take the case further. Ok, I checked out his claims on his site, he needs $3,000 to mount a legal degal attack upon Honda and wants donations. (Quote: "This is a chance to pitch in and help get an original idea rewarded instead of pilfered.")
Donations? LOL. Get in line, bud, I'm begging for change myself. How about taking this golden opportunity to... I don't know.. sell some t-shirts to raise cash? (CafePress: Honda stole my idea, all I got was this crappy t-shirt?) Put up some Google ads? Something? Anything?
I can't believe he's gotten $300 dollars so far. If he gets $3,000, he better just stick it in the bank and call it a good day of tapdancing for change on the Internet, because Honda or the advertising firm will sic their rabid lawyers on whatever 'Ironsides' Ryan hires and eat him alive in court. In other words, $3,000 won't cut it.
How much does he think his commercial idea is worth, I wonder? Comparing his pitch letter to the actual commercial, the only thing they have in common is dollar bills coming out of the tailpipes of cars. Neat idea, but not something so original that a good ad agency couldn't have brain-stormed on their own. In his post-broadcast Response Letter, Ryan claims that he has 'implied copyright'. Copyright? Of what? Dollar bills coming out of the tailpipe? The rest of his ad pitch is nowhere near the same as what Honda actually ran, as the ad agency's lawyers point out in blow by blow detail.
In other words, Ryan, what those lawyers are telling you is: Nice try, here is your hat, don't let that doorknob clomp you on the ass on the way out.
Since he's panhandling 'for justice of the downtrodden little guy', he really should go all out. I think he might get more cash from begging if he promises to give peeps a cut of potential lawsuit winnings (MILLIONS!), maybe even his first-born child to a random donater. I think it is supremely lame-o to just cry foul and beg for cash and not offer to reimburse donaters if he wins any type of settlement, which is extremely doubtful at best.
Seriously, if his case had any real chance, a lawyer would pick it up in a heartbeat and not ask for front money, they'd just take it out of winnings. Lawyers analyze potential cases to see if they have any real merit, and if some lawyer takes his $3,000, Ryan Hoercher might as well kiss that cash (ahem: chumps donated money) good-bye.
"Alan Macfarlane is a historian cum anthropologist. You can find some of his writings and videos on witchcraft, on the family and on English individualism on the site. " (more at link) Historian cum anthropologist?
I think that is taking specialization in a field of research a bit TOO far... --
[malygris] Hey, interesting. I just got an email offering 20% off rabbits. [malygris] So I clicked it. I like rabbits. They're cute, and I have lots of other animals anyway, so a rabbit or two might be cool. [malygris] Turns out that 'rabbit' is apparently some sort of slang for neon-coloured dildos with anal stimulators. [malygris] Good prices, though." At least they are neon-colored AND tricked out with the anal stims. That's a two-fer. --
"Two Star Wars TV series will follow the latest movie in the hit film franchise, director George Lucas has said.
Animated show Clone Wars, currently broadcast as three-minute episodes, will become 'a 3D animated' series of 30-minute shows, he said.
It would be followed by a live-action series featuring characters from the six Star Wars movies, he added.
'We're probably not going to start that for about a year,' he told a Star Wars convention in Indianapolis." (full article at linky-link)
NEWS FLASH: George Lucas vows to own every dollar in America!
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"An Israeli soldier killed in the West Bank on Monday night was shot by his comrades, in an incident in which a Palestinian driver was also shot dead." Wait. He was dead, then they shot him? (I'm talking about the way the headline reads...)
(They need to re-word that headline.)
(Yes. I did RTFA and understand what the headline meant. I'm just sayin', that's all...) --
Chris Ware, the award-winning cartoonist behind the groundbreaking alternative comic book series The ACME Novelty Library, has reached an agreement with longtime publisher Fantagraphics Books to become his own publisher on the popular title with its 16th issue.
Under the arrangement, Ware will pay the book's printing bill and work directly with the printer on all matters, but employ Fantagraphics to distribute the comics, an agreement which will include standard marketing assistance such as the appearance of any book-formatted issues of the series in Fantagraphics' catalog for W.W. Norton. Ware has also arranged for the book to be stored by his former publisher. (more at top link) Cool.
"In September 1969, as I began ninth grade, a rumor circulated that the Beatles' Paul McCartney was dead, killed in a 1966 automobile accident and replaced by a look-alike. The clues were there in the albums, if you knew where to look.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's 'A Day in the Life,' for one, recounts the accident: He blew his mind out in a car / He didn't notice that the lights had changed / A crowd of people stood and stared / They'd seen his face before / Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords. The cover of the Abbey Road album shows the Fab Four walking across a street in what looks like a funeral procession, with John in white as the preacher, Ringo in black as the pallbearer, a barefoot and out-of-step Paul as the corpse, and George in work clothes as the gravedigger. In the background is a Volkswagen Beetle (!) whose license plate reads '28IF'--Paul's supposed age 'if' he had not died." (Full article at link)
Winning bid: US $202.50 (Reserve met)
Ended: Apr-23-05 11:37:24 PDT
Start time: Apr-18-05 11:37:24 PDT
History: 32 bids (US $9.95 starting bid)
Winning bidder: coyote ( 188Feedback score is 100 to 499)
$202.50? Sweet! I grabbed a pic of it off of the eBay listing, in case it goes away in the near future.
Of course, if you owned said time machine, you could travel back in time and look at the picture again and again. Or get into a paradoxical bidding war with yourself. Or just shock your nuts off.
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"People are taking satellite snapshots of their hometowns and annotating spots with memories from their past." The net makes for the ultimate creative mashup, every new service offered will get a group of people to combine it with something else, creating a new sub-genre.
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"Before we even turned on the news or opened the paper this morning, we knew that the Vatican had chosen a new pope. How? Well, as we were making toast for our breakfast, a puff of white smoke issued from the toaster. Then we were amazed to find what was surely a sign from on high: a piece of toast emblazoned with the unmistakable image of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the new Pope Benedict XVI." If the toast was part of a planned breakfast meal, did they call the whole repast 'Pope Eggs Benedict XVI'?
"'Total estimated retail sales of graphic novels in the U.S. in 2004 were between $205 million and $210 million, about a 35% increase over 2003 sales, according to Milton Griepp, director of ICV2.com, a trade news Web site focusing on comics and pop-culture merchandise. The sales figure includes sales from general bookstores and the comics shop market. The 35% growth rate was down from the nearly 50% sales increase posted in 2003.' -- Publishers Weekly (friggin' subscription req., damn them all to hell...)"
--
"Overheard at the McDonald's drive-through, Sunday, April 24, 10:54 AM
Man in Volvo wagon: “What kind of oil are your hashbrowns fried in, do you know?”
Disembodied drive-through voice:
Man in Volvo wagon: “...Miss --?”
Disembodied drive-through voice: “I’ll have to check.”
Man in Volvo wagon: “I can wait, thanks.”
Disembodied drive-through voice:
Man in Volvo wagon:
Disembodied drive-through voice:
Man in Volvo wagon:
Disembodied drive-through voice: “Sir --?”
Man in Volvo Wagon: “-- Yes?”
Disembodied drive-through voice: “‘Really, really hot,’ they said.”" LOFL. That, dear readers, is pure comic gold. Nothing beats real life situations for good ha-ha.
The first force-feedback cell phone is about to hit U.S. shores. It'll do wonders for games, the manufacturer claims, but what about teledildonics? By Elizabeth Biddlecombe. (full story at link)
Teledildonics? That is a great word. Try working it into office conversation, see who catches it.
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Technorati is tag-errific! What? You don't know what tags are? Here's a quick run-down:
What's all this? This page shows current tags in alphabetical order. The size of the tag indicates how full of goodies it is.
What's a tag? Think of a tag as a simple category name. Bloggers categorize their posts, photos, and links with any tag that makes sense.
Here are a short sampling of some of the most active tags being tracked at Technorati: (current as of this post, you'll have to check back at the provided link to see updates)
: "/* ** ************************************************************************* ** ************************************************************************* ** The Non-Sequitur Express ** Published belatedly (but not belligerently) by Phillip Thorne. ** Volume 4, Issue 7: Tuesday, 15 October 2002 ** Previous issue: Wednesday, 4 September 2002 ** Next issue: Whenever its contents self-assemble. ** http://nsx.underbase.org/ ** ** 'James Isaac Neutron! Haven't we warned you about tampering with ** the unstable nature of a chaotic system?' ** --Judy Neutron to her son, after accidentally inducing a new ice age; ** 'The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius' ** ************************************************************************* ** ************************************************************************* */"
Battle of the ideology-driven dating services: bigchurch.com vs. secularity.com!
"'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.'
- Genesis 2:24"
or...
Join our community of ethical godless people.
Religion-free homepages, events, dating & fun! Do opposites attract? Mebbe these 2 groups should try to co-mingle and tingle, yoke themselves to an ox of a different color, pray and spray!
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"I am Mr. Laurent Mpeti Kabila, a senior assistant leader of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone.
I present to you an urgent and confidential request: I request your attendance at The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference. This is an excellent opportunity to meet your distinguished colleagues, learn new marketing techniques, and spend your hard-earned money. Attending this conference demands the highest trust, security and confidentiality between us." LOFL. Check out the link for the full site. Greatness!
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Splatterpunk: "First Appeared in Tabula Rasa#6, 1995
Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions? The Serapion Brethren ETA Hoffmann, 1821
The word splatterpunk is a product of the mid-eighties, coined by David J Schow at the World Fantasy Convention in Providence. The term splatter movies had already been brought into prominence by John McCarty in one of his various film companions, though it had apparently been previously used by George Romero. There was much debate in horror circles in the late Eighties over the term, the 'quiet versus explicit horror' argument, and in 1990 Paul M Sammon edited an anthology called Splatterpunks: Extreme Horror."
Splatterpunk is a neologism coined to describe a subgenre of horror fiction distiguished by its graphic depiction of violence. Clive Barker is often cited as the best known writer of the style, although the actual genre was named by author David Schow, who is considered an innovator and exemplary within the Splatterpunk school of horror writing, as well as the bestselling team of John Skipp & Craig Spector, whose modern vampire classic The Light At The End (1986) is considered a seminal work. --
"Black Entertainment | Black News | Urban News: '*The bad news is – R. Kelly was hit with another lawsuit. The good news is – it has nothing to do with an underage girl. This time, a former employee has filed a class action suit against the singer for unpaid overtime wages." (More at link)
Man, it's just one thing after another for R. Kelly.
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Class Action Lawsuit News: "The action, entitled Raspa v. Electronic Arts, Inc. et al., Case No. (not yet assigned), is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and names as defendants, the Company, its Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Lawrence F. Probst, III, and its Executive Vice President, Chief Financial and Administration Officer, Warren Jenson. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained from the Court or can be viewed on Wechsler Harwood web site at: www.whesq.com'" (more at link)
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"The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch. The pastor, Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, met with a senior Microsoft executive in February and threatened to organize a national boycott of the company's products if it did not change its stance on the legislation, according to gay rights activists and a Microsoft employee who attended a subsequent April 4 meeting where Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, told a group of gay staffers about Hutcherson's threat. Hutcherson also unsuccessfully demanded that the company fire two employees who had testified in favor of the bill." (full article at the link)
Ah, nothing like a little Christian peer pressure to knuckle a corporation under. Antioch Bible Church accepts all races.
Maybe Antioch Bible Church needs a new unifying motto. Here's a few to choose from:
"Antioch Bible Church: Jesus saves today, but not if you're gay."
"Antioch Bible Church: Only straights through the Pearly Gates."
"Antioch Bible Church: Gays to the back of the bus, please."
"# It allows workers to keep 100% of their pay, with nothing withheld for the IRS or for Social Security and Medicare payments.
# It is revenue neutral with the present income and payroll tax system, funding the federal budget at current levels.
# It shifts the tax to consumption. Records show that consumption is more stable than income, therefore the tax revenue stream is likely to be a more stable and predictable amount.
# It is progressive, a “prebate” of the tax amount up to the poverty level is given to everyone. This means that those spending below the poverty level have a net gain because the “prebate” exceeds the amount paid in taxes. (Under the present system the working poor pay the 7.65 percent payroll tax even if they get a full refund of income tax withheld.)
# It doesn’t tax pre-owned items – clothes, cars, homes. Only new items are taxed when sold by a business to an individual." The rest of the list of reasons is at the linked site. I like the sound of it, but I'm sure big government will poop on it.
(spotted on FARK, check out the ton of comments on this article here.) --
Woman yells at cop. Officer kindly checks her melon for ripeness.
"This happens in Spain. At the scene of an incident a woman starts yelling at cops in riot gear. She obviously pushes one cops button and gets 'put in place'..." That'll leave a bruise, for sure. Rodney King says, "No comment."
Eat Poop You Cat (also known as I'pupiukat, EPYC, The Picture Sentence Game or Telephone Pictionary) is a party game that has been likened to a cross between the telephone game and Pictionary. It is also considered a modern-day cousin of the Exquisite corpse game, as well as bearing many similarities to 1000 blank white cards. It is played with a group of people, preferably a large one. You will also need a pad of paper and a writing utensil. Writing or drawing ability is not required.
How to play
The first player begins by writing a sentence or phrase. This can be anything and in reference to anything; the more surreal your beginning sentence, the funnier your final result will be.
The next player then attempts to come up with an illustration that fits with the starting sentence. Once the second player is done illustrating the initial sentence, the piece of the paper with that sentence on it is folded over so that only the current picture can be seen. It is then passed on to the next player.
The next player then attempts to formulate a caption for the illustration he sees. Once the third player has captioned the illustration, the piece of the paper with the illustration on it is folded over so that only the caption may be seen, and the paper is passed to the next player.
This is continued until the game ends. There are a few different opinions as to when the game should end, but it should always end on a sentence, not an illustration. One variation says the game merely ends when every player has had at least one turn. Another says that the game ends only when the entire sheet of paper is filled, and that for a longer game, two or more sheets of paper should be taped together at the start of the game.
Notes
Much like the telephone game, this game is about starting with one meme, and through sharing it between several people in a chain, mutating it into a completely new meme. Comparisons between the initial and final sentences are often humorous, as well as comparing two consecutive sentences or two consecutive illustrations.
Because changing the meme is somewhat the goal of the game, creativity is a good thing. Putting a little spin on your sentence or using some artistic license on your illustration will cause a more desirable end result.
One variation says that each player in the group starts a separate piece of paper, and all are passed when all players are done with their turn. This is, in effect, the same thing as playing several games at the same time.
"A Dutch woman was diagnosed with human mad cow disease, the authorities said Thursday. This is reportedly the first case in Netherlands.
It's believed that the woman acquired the disease so called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) eating tainted beef.
In the UK alone, there might be 3000 cases of vCJD without any symptoms. In the U.S., a 27-year old woman died from vCJD, who is believed to have contracted vCJD from a trip to England where the mad cow disease was more popular than anywhere else in the world.
There is no cure for this brain wasting disease." Mad cow disease is popular? Whatever. I bet no one asked it to the prom in high school.
--
"PITTSBURGH -- An evangelical Christian talk show host who questioned the beliefs of the Catholic church and entertained a caller's question about whether the late Pope John Paul II would go to heaven has been fired.
Marty Minto, 39, a senior pastor at a New Castle church, was fired Friday after three years as a host on WORD-FM in Pittsburgh. He said he was told that he was alienating listeners." (full article at link)
He was making listeners into aliens? Cool!
That, my dear friends, is the REAL story here: Religious transfiguration into alien critterhood via FM radio.
"Here's something you don't see every day: A car covered with keyboard keys." Better covered with keyboard keys than bird poop. Can you imagine flossing the dung from between them? (on the car, not your keyboard.)
Hit the link to see the pics at j-walk! I'm too lazy to bump them up on flickr!
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Love at First Bite [The Publisher’s Ring] (Couple bites off each other's finger tips)
"I think to everyone’s surprise — including theirs — a whirlwind romance quickly brewed between Gillian and Clive, as some of you may have noticed on their IAM pages (judging by the spike in hits on both their pages (typealice and rookie), I’d say more than a few people have been vicariously reading those journals). What happened next came as a surprise even to me. Looking rather sheepish, they came into my office, holding hands, and began, “remember that thing you said about cutting our fingers off...?”
They’d asked to keep their story private at first but have agreed to let me interview them here about what happened next and share a few of their photos publicly (the full video will go up on the new video site as soon as it’s launched, and a few more photos are scheduled for the next BME/extreme update as well)." Ow. Ow. OW.
Let me state that the page is laden with pics of 2 sexy looking young adults WHO BIT THE LAST DIGIT OF EACH OTHER'S RING FINGERS OFF TO SEAL THEIR LOVE PACT.
(click pic for larger image, better yet, go see the gallery at the link)
Wonderful stuff, intricate and whimsical. The clockwork pieces (bottom of the gallery page) are really nice. There is also a special exhibition web page of a motorized piece called 'Sun, Moon, Stars and Me' (WMV file, right click to download) that would look great in my home, but I suspect that it would be way too expensive for my meager wallet.
My favorite was this one: (click for larger image) Harvard actually said something similar once about being monkeys under an umbrella, and that we should all stay under the umbrella so we don't get wet because nobody likes a wet monkey. _________________ 'No different. Different only in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.'" Heh, the 'basketball' poster is one of my favorites, too. These funny jabs on a serious topic still tickle people's funny bones from time to time, my scathing humor serves up large doses of justice for the oppressed! I need to post the whole series of EA Management Motivational posters I made to Flickr sometime. --
Matt Everitt animates four shorts set to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s XFM radio show.
Nicely done. Talk about contrast, take the cute visuals of CG teddy bears and animate them to an adult-leaning broadcast.
"Scientists begin to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long-lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome
By David Keys and Nicholas Pyke
17 April 2005
Eureka! Extraordinary discovery unlocks secrets of the ancients
Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world
For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.
Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.
In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.
The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".
Christopher Pelling, Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, described the new works as "central texts which scholars have been speculating about for centuries".
Professor Richard Janko, a leading British scholar, formerly of University College London, now head of classics at the University of Michigan, said: "Normally we are lucky to get one such find per decade." One discovery in particular, a 30-line passage from the poet Archilocos, of whom only 500 lines survive in total, is described as "invaluable" by Dr Peter Jones, author and co-founder of the Friends of Classics campaign.
The papyrus fragments were discovered in historic dumps outside the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus ("city of the sharp-nosed fish") in central Egypt at the end of the 19th century. Running to 400,000 fragments, stored in 800 boxes at Oxford's Sackler Library, it is the biggest hoard of classical manuscripts in the world.
The previously unknown texts, read for the first time last week, include parts of a long-lost tragedy - the Epigonoi ("Progeny") by the 5th-century BC Greek playwright Sophocles; part of a lost novel by the 2nd-century Greek writer Lucian; unknown material by Euripides; mythological poetry by the 1st-century BC Greek poet Parthenios; work by the 7th-century BC poet Hesiod; and an epic poem by Archilochos, a 7th-century successor of Homer, describing events leading up to the Trojan War. Additional material from Hesiod, Euripides and Sophocles almost certainly await discovery.
Oxford academics have been working alongside infra-red specialists from Brigham Young University, Utah. Their operation is likely to increase the number of great literary works fully or partially surviving from the ancient Greek world by up to a fifth. It could easily double the surviving body of lesser work - the pulp fiction and sitcoms of the day.
"The Oxyrhynchus collection is of unparalleled importance - especially now that it can be read fully and relatively quickly," said the Oxford academic directing the research, Dr Dirk Obbink. "The material will shed light on virtually every aspect of life in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, and, by extension, in the classical world as a whole."
The breakthrough has also caught the imagination of cultural commentators. Melvyn Bragg, author and presenter, said: "It's the most fantastic news. There are two things here. The first is how enormously influential the Greeks were in science and the arts. The second is how little of their writing we have. The prospect of having more to look at is wonderful."
Bettany Hughes, historian and broadcaster, who has presented TV series including Mysteries of the Ancients and The Spartans, said: "Egyptian rubbish dumps were gold mines. The classical corpus is like a jigsaw puzzle picked up at a jumble sale - many more pieces missing than are there. Scholars have always mourned the loss of works of genius - plays by Sophocles, Sappho's other poems, epics. These discoveries promise to change the textual map of the golden ages of Greece and Rome."
When it has all been read - mainly in Greek, but sometimes in Latin, Hebrew, Coptic, Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Nubian and early Persian - the new material will probably add up to around five million words. Texts deciphered over the past few days will be published next month by the London-based Egypt Exploration Society, which financed the discovery and owns the collection.
A 21st-century technique reveals antiquity's secrets
Since it was unearthed more than a century ago, the hoard of documents known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has fascinated classical scholars. There are 400,000 fragments, many containing text from the great writers of antiquity. But only a small proportion have been read so far. Many were illegible.
Now scientists are using multi-spectral imaging techniques developed from satellite technology to read the papyri at Oxford University's Sackler Library. The fragments, preserved between sheets of glass, respond to the infra-red spectrum - ink invisible to the naked eye can be seen and photographed.
The fragments form part of a giant "jigsaw puzzle" to be reassembled. Missing "pieces" can be supplied from quotations by later authors, and grammatical analysis.
Key words from the master of Greek tragedy
Speaker A: . . . gobbling the whole, sharpening the flashing iron.
Speaker B: And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle's songs, that wakes up those who are asleep.
Speaker A: And he is gluing together the chariot's rail.
These words were written by the Greek dramatist Sophocles, and are the only known fragment we have of his lost play Epigonoi (literally "The Progeny"), the story of the siege of Thebes. Until last week's hi-tech analysis of ancient scripts at Oxford University, no one knew of their existence, and this is the first time they have been published.
Sophocles (495-405 BC), was a giant of the golden age of Greek civilisation, a dramatist who work alongside and competed with Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes.
His best-known work is Oedipus Rex, the play that later gave its name to the Freudian theory, in which the hero kills his father and marries his mother - in a doomed attempt to escape the curse he brings upon himself. His other masterpieces include Antigone and Electra.
Sophocles was the cultured son of a wealthy Greek merchant, living at the height of the Greek empire. An accomplished actor, he performed in many of his own plays. He also served as a priest and sat on the committee that administered Athens. A great dramatic innovator, he wrote more than 120 plays, but only seven survive in full.
Last week's remarkable finds also include work by Euripides, Hesiod and Lucian, plus a large and particularly significant paragraph of text from the Elegies, by Archilochos, a Greek poet of the 7th century BC. " Since the jerks at Independent News are charging 1 pound UK to read this article, I threw down the 'bullshit gauntlet' on that noise and found it (for free) in Google's cache. Besides, I get great satisfaction from having a really long post title.
"Max at Udargo has created a new Burton comic." Creepy and fun, how often do you get those two flavas served up in one lil web comic? It floats meh goat.
(Click pic for larger se(a)men. Damn them liberal women!)
"Semen makes you happy. That's the conclusion of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners don't.
The study showed women who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed. Researchers think this is because mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through the vagina. They say they've ruled out other explanations.
"I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that people abstain from using condoms," says psychologist Gordon Gallup of the State University of New York.
He led the team that divided 293 female students into groups depending on how often their partners wore condoms, and assessed their happiness using the Beck Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed.
`We are not advocating that people abstain from using condoms'
Psychologist Gordon Gallup,
State University of New York.
The team found women whose partners never used condoms scored eight on average, those who sometimes used them scored 10.5, those who usually used them scored 15 and those who always used them scored 11.3. Women not having any sex scored 13.5. Gallup said his team already has unpublished data from a group of 700 women confirming the always-use group was more depressed than the usually use group, suggesting the discrepancy in the smaller study was a sampling error.
The team also found depressive symptoms and suicide attempts more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who didn't. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
But is it really semen that affects women's mood? Researchers say they looked at alternative explanations, such as whether women who seldom use condoms took oral contraceptives, how often they had sex, the strength of relationships, and the possibility a certain type of personality influenced the decision to use condoms. But none of these factors can explain their findings, they say.
NEW SCIENTIST" Oh yeah? Then why do those bukkake girls always look so beat down?
"Since I haven't seen anyone posting about this, I suppose I will. I'm guessing not many people have it yet, but there's a new feature in Gmail called Web Clips, which displays little headlines above your inbox or message and is fed via, um, feeds." (more at link)
Apparently they haven't added this to all accounts yet, only the l337 get the coolness for now...
"He drew the most cheers when he told gun owners they should never give up their right to bear arms and should use their guns to protect themselves if needed.
'Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em!' he screamed to applause. 'To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em.'" The message here is:Don't fuck with Ted Nugent.
I wonder which is worse, getting shot with a bullet or a bow and arrow? (Nugent is proficient with both.)
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(click pic to see larger image at Mark Brooks gallery)
"If you haven’t checked out the amazing work of Mark Brooks (*diablo2003), you’re missing out. A professional artist (penciller and inker) for Marvel comics, we’re very lucky that Mark frequents deviantART and posts many of his creations for all to see. A penciller is responsible for interpreting the story, designing the characters down to even the smallest details, then creating the layouts that will become the blueprint for the comic. You don’t even have to be a comic fan to ‘marvel’ at his amazing work. Mark exists as proof that pursuing your passions and artistic tendencies can lead to a wildly successful career.
Since the age of 12, Mark has been drawing comic art and fine tuning his craft. Today, you can see his work in the major series’ Marvel Age Spider-Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Amazing Fantasy, Cable & Deadpool and Streetfighter. For Marvel Age Spider-Man, Mark was assigned the task of re-creating the classic tales from the 1960’s Spider-Man series. To do this, he utilized modern day elements combined with his own unique style to reinterpret the characters while staying true to the classic spirit. How’s that for a project? For the Amazing Fantasy series, Mark was given only a personality description for the characters, beyond that he had artistic freedom to design the visual aspects of basically the entire cast.
Did we mention that Mark Brooks will be just one of the speakers/instructors that we have lined up for the deviantART Academy during the Summit on June 17th and 18th? Please check out the deviantART Summit website (www.deviantartsummit.com) and sign up so that you can attend. Seats are limited." Beautiful artwork, lots more at Mark's gallery. I've loved comic book art since I was a tiny chitlin, and Mark's work is top notch. --
[fr. Gk heteroklitos, irregularly inflected]
/HET ur uh klyt/
1) Gram. irregularly inflected
2) fig. [a] abnormal, anomalous, off the beaten
path [n] obs. a person or thing that fits such
description; a maverick
"Nor could I have dreamed the heteroclite crew..."
- Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun (1997) I thought it was something fun and naughty at first glance.
--
"I am acutely aware that this thesis will meet
with some resistance because it is still somewhat
unfashionable to assert that any work of literature,
no less a work as complex and heteroclite as
Ulysses, can be approached as having established
a fixed center.. that governs its meaning."
- Stephen Sicari, Twentieth Century Lit. Fall, 1997
"Our Parliament would affect to be an heteroclite to
all other parliaments."
- Henry Brooke, The Fool of Quality (1792)
4.6MB WMV Link, Mirror Pretty awesome, I love to juggle, what he is doing is pretty hard. It's cool to see how his upperbody stays so still, while his legs are going all over the place.
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"Q-What is alt.sex.fetish.robots?
A-The alt.sex.fetish.robots (ASFR) newsgroup is dedicated to the discussion of the concept of sex with or sexual attraction to robots and robot-like beings. This can range from metallic, non-humanoid machines to humanoid androids. Discussions can deal with specific fantasies, fiction relating to the topic and connected ideas like people behaving like/turned into human mannequins, dolls, toys, and other hypnosis and mesmerism fantasies that involve the mechanical/monotone response that appeals to the members.
Q-You mean you want to have sex with robots? Why?
A-Well, many of us fantasize about such things, but as many newsgroups will state, there's a difference between imagining about something and actually doing it.
As for 'why,' to quote the breakfast cereal commercial, 'we just do.' We find the look, the movement and the sound of the mechanical body attractive. It's no different than liking people that wear a certain type of clothes, of hairstyle." Egad. Although now that I think on it a bit, Tin Man did love getting some sweet lubrication from Dorothy...
On the April 8 edition of CNN's Inside Politics, CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Judy Woodruff discussed Pope John Paul II's funeral with Crossfire co-hosts Paul Begala and Robert Novak, both Catholics. Blitzer opened the segment by suggesting that while "I'm sure Bob is a good Catholic, I'm not so sure about Paul Begala." In responding to Blitzer, Begala took exception to on-screen text* earlier in the program that characterized many Catholic doctrines as "conservative":
BLITZER: While they were united today in mourning the death of the pope, U.S. Catholics are a diverse group, as illustrated by two of our Crossfire co-hosts, the conservative Robert Novak, the liberal Paul Begala. Both good Catholics -- I don't know "good" Catholics, but both Catholics. I'm sure Bob is a good Catholic, I'm not so sure about Paul Begala.
BEGALA: Well, now, who are you to pass moral judgment on my religion, Mr. Blitzer? My goodness gracious.
BLITZER: All right, go ahead, go ahead.
BEGALA: On the day of my Holy Father's funeral. My eldest son is named John Paul, after the Pope.
BLITZER: So you are a good Catholic?
BEGALA: I'm serious, that annoys me. I don't think anybody should presume that a liberal is not a good Catholic.
NOVAK: Paul, Paul, Paul is a good Catholic.
BEGALA: The Holy Father is liberal. And in fact, when [CNN contributor] Carlos [Watson] was speaking [earlier in the program], I was in the green room. Underneath, some producer had written, "Many Catholic doctrines are conservative." Absolutely correct. Many are liberal as well. The Holy Father bitterly opposed President Bush's war in Iraq. He came to St. Louis -- and I was there -- and he begged America to give up the death penalty. President Bush strongly supports it, as did President Clinton and others. Many of the Holy Father's views -- my church's views -- are extraordinarily liberal. The Pope talked about savage, unbridled capitalism, not Bob Novak's kind --
BLITZER: I was certainly not questioning -- I was only teasing.
BEGALA: Okay.
BLITZER: Don't be so sensitive.
BEGALA: Well, it's an important day for my faith.
BLITZER: It's a very important day --
BEGALA: It's the only pope of my adult lifetime, so I'm a little emotional tonight.
BLITZER: It's a very important day for Bob Novak. Go ahead, Bob.
Oops. Looks like someone stepped in poop. That's what Wolf Blitzer gets for trying to be a comedian.
Leave the jokes to Jon Stewart, you ain't got the feel for it. --
April 18, 2005 · When pianist Laura Rosser performs, she hears more than sounds. She hears colors -- each note has its own associated hue. Rosser has a rare neurological condition called synesthesia. Stimulation of one sense produces the sensation of another. (full article at title link) Ken Kesey would dig all that crazy scene. Twist your melon with some crazy color sounds!
Now in 2005, we believe that this ability called Synesthesia is perhaps not as rare as it was once believed to be. Though synesthesia has been known for the past 300 years, it is only in the last two decades or so that it has been seriously studied by scientists. Two developments have greatly contributed to this greater awareness and attention to synesthesia: the development and use of fMRI scans, and the Internet. The use of fMRI scans have launched numerous scientific studies worldwide, and the Internet has permitted synesthetes, for the first time in history, to learn more about their abilities and to be in touch with one another.
Not to be confused with these vampire guys who sip blood and can't spell for squat. (Hint for The Lost Boys:Just because you type the word a bunch of times doesn't mean it's going to spell-check itself.)
Synethesia: Synethesia means "to perceive together" and is a condition in which a two senses are sensed at the same time, where one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
I am synethetic. Especially when drinking blood. However, my synethesia extends to all sensations, especially music. For instance I am listening to Peter Murphy's Holy Smoke and would describe it as passionate, darly moving, tastes like smooth dark chocolate, and feels like brain tanned leather (if you haven't felt brain tanned leather you are missing a treat).
I know of a couple of sangs who are synesthic. Considering how rare synethesia is, this appears to be noticeable. Do vampires tend towards synethesia?
Ok. So, ‘we’ have liberated women, but does equality = equality, or a simply a new way to exploit women.
Here is my case and here is my take on it.
Michelle Wie’s second attempt, and the third overall by a woman, on June 16th to make the cut at a men’s golfing event is a sad publicity stunt.
Does it benefit her monetarily? Of course it does.
Is it done because she has a legitimate chance to win or even make the cut? Of course she does not. If she did I would be rooting for her to win.
“Event director Clair Peterson said: "We expect there would be spectators here who might not come out otherwise.”
If a one armed transvestite would draw in more people and money, and not result in bad publicity they would roll him out instead of her. This is not an attempt to equalize things or see is she can win the tournament, but just a way to bring in more people on the days in which attendance is not so hot.
I do not see the difference between this and the tournament having strippers every third hole. In both cases a woman is being used to draw in attendance because they are a woman, and not because they are going to compete to win the tournament. In one case she can play golf almost as good as the men that can not compete at this level and the other one are ‘hotties’. --
Step on back, playas! The 80's arent safe from this one man extraveganza! You have to visit the website to see the videos, drink deep of the madness that is McRorie!
What joo say? You want to visualize this force of nature? Think John Tesh meets Biker Fox. --
Here we are again, a election-season worthy sampling of search terms that plopped peeps down here at good ol' SnarkySpot! The Dick Vitale's Popapalooza image is strong in the Borg minds of Google and Yahoo!, yes... --
