Recently in Humor Category

Gmail's spam filters are pretty good, and I usually delete the contents of my spam folder unread, but I felt like checking the payload of one, which contained this gem:

"...the pimp needed to dance, so conformists should never self-destruct and could do party tricks... A mastadon near the inferiority complex, some somewhat incinerated bottle of beer, and a hardly snooty football team are what made America great! Another fried football team graduates from the load bearing mortician. white-hot honkies imitated one fascist. A photon sells an accurately radioactive burglar to an apartment building from a chain saw...."

Ah, crunchy spam goodness! Was this an autogenerated non sequitur, or actually composed by a real (addled) person?

I code in Python, I don't gotta declare
drop vars left and right, interpreter don't care
and you'll notice my keyboard ain't got much wear

That's cuz py code is short like your schlong, with typing loose like your mom,
and curly braces missing like geeks at the prom,
all in this lovely little language by guido van rossum.

Patri Friedman
"...some python nerdcore lyrics I came up w/ yesterday while biking home..."
(with express permission)

My buddy Tom shows off a crazy Japanese t-shirt recently:

"OTHER PLAMS No thank you has lost many a butter cake okY? work step by step toward you goal step by step enjoy!"

The back says: "rupture of diplomatic relations good"

Is someone channelling E. H. Bronner?

Want hot sex from a woman? Keep the relationship psycho. It worked for me when I was single. I had many long-term non-monogamous relationships that remained erotic right up until the moment she tried to claw my eyes out. It costs a lot in therapy, but boy is it sexy.

Want love and contentment? Dump the psycho and build a nest. You get to have steady sex with somebody who is not trying to claw your eyes out. Plus you get to have breakfast without any coffee cups aimed at your head.

And there's nothing like reading a book, in bed, next to somebody you love.

Joe Quirk
"Scientists Have Discovered the Food That Makes Women Lose Interest in Sex"

Mac OS X has always had problems with name resolution... both DNS, id->uid, etc. It's all centralized to one service and that service is buggy.

I joined XXXXXXX this year, but before that I spent 1.5 years running a medium-sized (but international) Mac OS X network. Half the problems we had all were traced down to name service.

The situation gets better with each release, but there are some fundamental problems still. Mostly they crop up with you have LDAP enabled.

Whenever I see the spinning rainbow ball, and no network traffic and little CPU use, I just steam and sit there imaginging a little gnome inside my computer holding the ends of two cables marked, "Don't disconnect: name service conduit! important!" laughing as he disconnects them, counts to 300, then reconnects them.

We must find, and kill, this gnome.

Thank you for listening.

Tom Limoncelli, with express permission

Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical, summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds, pretty standard really. At the age of 12 I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum, it's breathtaking, I suggest you try it.

Dr. Evil

William Faulkner, in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature, called upon writers of the future to not write merely "for the glands." Of course, at that moment, Faulkner was being rewarded for being the best writer for the glands this country has ever known. Incest, serial killing, insanity, race war, castration, burial of the dead, biblical flood, hunting bear, rape with a corn cob - Faulkner did it all. The guy played our genome like a xylophone. Faulkner, in a suddenly noble moment, called upon writers... to transcend the endocrinological. He didn't set the best example.

Joe Quirk
Sperm Are from Men, Eggs Are from Women, p118

"I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of this country. He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched in some dead tree where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk and, when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for his young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes the fish. With all this injustice, he is never in good case."

Benjamin Franklin

Don't ask me why I was using this term in conversation - many of my conversations would be surprising if one dropped into the middle of them - but my interlocutor just now heard "Pure Evil" when what I'd actually said was "Prairie Vole." Heh.

Canada is a great place to live... it is cool that we can smoke weed and marry people who have similiar genitals.

Jade Palamarek

How do I even begin to explain this one...?

I'm going through a year's worth of iPhoto archives and found this, taken in organic chemistry lab by my friend Jenny... me in Maximum Nerd mode:

Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies.

Patrick McKee

Four weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a Halloween party in Manhattan. I wasn't prepared with a costume, unless you count my normal get-up below as, um, "Visiting Silicon Valley Guy." On the left is Perry Metzger who is, ahem, a eusocialist insect:

The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around in it until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm Vine Man."

Jack Handey

As long as the government doesn't mandate "one-size-fits-all," I don't care what the private companies do. There will always be one or two renegades who will see the obvious market opportunities and offer various levels of security. Personally, I want to fly with the clothes-optional-guns-mandatory-girls-fly-free airlines.

Sandy Sandfort

Seen on a trip to the supermarket:

Can you Breathe in Freefall?
At 120mph, inhaling is real easy. If you find it difficult to exhale, panic and scream, which is just another way to exhale. Then inhale which, as mentioned, is very easy at that speed.

In short, yes, you can breathe in freefall.

Adventure Center Skydiving FAQ

I walked into math class a few months ago and saw this folded cardboard box propped up in the back of the room, pulled out my Treo 650, and snapped this shot.

No, I don't understand the labelling either. My guess is that some Chinese packaging engineer was channelling Dr. Bronner when he wrote this.

This got slashdotted yesterday: Darth Vader's blog (or one of them.) My ribs hurt.

Thomas Knapp has created a petition urging the College of Cardinals to vote for Bono as the next Pontiff.

Does supporting this petition make one pro Bono?

Seen in an elevator in the office building where my friend Serin works:

If a cat scan of my brain or my EEG looks like Terry Schiavo's, do NOT put me on machines, do NOT insert a feeding tube(unless you're feeding me margaritas), do not take extraordinary measures to prolong my life. And especially do NOT call Jesse Jackson. If you call Jesse Jackson to stand over my bedside and pray, I will come back and HAUNT your ass. Correction. I will come back and haunt your ass and then BEAT it.

Bill Hartwell

I just got back from a meeting of an organization of which I'm a member, and was talking with a Polish acquaintance at the potluck which followed. We were discussing the until-recent history of Russian occupation of his country, and he told me that some Poles he knew had during that time advocated "Layered Communism":

"Layer of Communists, layer of sand, layer of Communists, layer of sand..."

Beware, beware of Baijiu! Within my first two hours in Beijing, I was taken out for kebabs and beer by my friend Serin. We met this affable guy, Ken, who'd enquired "Naguoren? (where ya from?)" and offered me one of his sealed shot glasses of baijiu. This was an 80-proof (40%) standard formula. After two shots, he brought out a bottle whose name translates from Chinese simply as "56 Percent." We shared that bottle. Apparently, I pulled out my Sony CyberShot to Capture the Moment:

I tried red eye reduction in iPhoto in an attempt to clear up my eyes in this photo, but apparently, the red-eye in this case is not a camera artifact.

I paid dearly the next morning for this act of intercultural male booze bonding, comparable only to an episode I experienced after boot camp, half a lifetime ago, when I swore, "I'll never drink that again."

With an endorsement like this, I had to visit. It surprises me to find out that this palatial facility (literally: it's on the grounds of the Summer Palace) is not listed in Frommer's.

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give 'em ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and, what the hell, we're not using it anymore.

Tom Skinner

This is rather funny.

I get the occasional numb-nut. They say, "I can see how you can shoot ugly wild boars, but not a beautiful deer." Oh, a little more Hitlerism is just what we need. This can live and this can die according to my whims. Eat me, you fuck! Here's the truth so you can print it in bold, capital red letters: The cuter the critter, the sweeter the meat.

Ted Nugent
Interview in April 2004 Maxim magazine, p104

People who will not take the trouble to raise children should not have them.

Robert A. Heinlein
Podkayne of Mars

A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn.

Rowan Atkinson

I'm an 'ivory tower' liberal. That means when I see a hungry person half-way round the world I send money, but when I see one at my door I call the police.

Tom Lehrer

Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

Hilaire Belloc
"Epitaph on the Politician"

A scientist can discover a new star, but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do that.

Gordon L. Glegg
American Engineer, 1969.

> I thought many on this list would take exception to the part where he
> says, "The rights of the people come from God."

Why should I care if you want to believe your rights are a form of celestial welfare?

e0ts

Thanks to David Purves for the pointer to an entertaining article published yesterday, "The Monetary Economics of Thurston Howell II (sic)," which I've discovered is also today the subject of intense discussion on Slashdot.

Q. How can you, an anarchist, be a lawyer?

A. My father was a physician. That doesn't mean he believed in disease.

Duncan Frissell

There's something for everyone on a Dr. Bronner's [Magic] soap [bottle].

Even for officers and employees of the National Libertarian Party:

"Dilute! Dilute! Ok!"

Curt Howland

God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time! Forty three species of parrot! Nipples for men! Slugs! He created slugs! They can't hear! They can't speak! They can't operate machinery! I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic? If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One!

from Time Bandits, via Samizdata

"Keep Your Jesus off My Penis: The Video"... pretty funny stuff, from a guy with an obvious ax to grind.

If forced to shoot someone in self defence, you should claim that you were robbing him at gunpoint after discovering him in your home.

That way you get out on probation immediately, can buy a replacement firearm off "the street", and serve no jail time.

Kristopher Barrett

I'm answering email just now, with a local Mandarin-language cable TV channel playing in the background (2 years of Mandarin in college, gotta keep it up... besides, I admit to a silly fascination with "Pawnshop No. 8"), when I see an advert for my dentist - a part-time semiretiree who's also a professor at a local dental college - and glanced a white guy with black hair leaning back in The Chair. What the hell? Wonder if that was me... don't remember consenting to filming. I did spend an inordinate number of visits recently getting my dentition reconstructed from the effects of "overlarge crown placement... aiyah!" from a few years ago.

This reminds me... every dentist I've ever had - American, English, Filipino, Persian, Japanese, Taiwanese - seems to have been drilled in The Dark Art of Attempting Dialogue With a Patient Pinned Helpless with Cheek Retractors.

Almost wish I could be a Christian: the idea of an angry Jesus dealing with these filthy motherfuckers just delights the hell out of me.

Rocky Frisco

[The tailend of a dialogue with an idiot I witnessed last night. - REW]

> Windows accomplishes most of what *I* need.

I'm sure it does...

> Why isn't that enough?

It obviously isn't enough for you. Everytime the subject comes up you re-route your anus to your keyboard via your forebrain and go off into I Hate Linux mode. You remind me of one of those women who was betrayed by one man and spends the rest of her life taking it out on everyone around her.

e0ts, on a list I frequent

There have been posters for the movie up around LA for a few weeks now, saying "Alien vs. Predator: Whoever wins, we lose." Remarkably appropriate for an election year..

Ken Hagler

Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support for a lifetime.

Unknown

Anton Sherwood informs me of this funny little cartoon rant against "smart guns"; the lead character reminds me very vaguely of Cerebus the Aardvark.

Roxanne,

How are things in Seattle? Quieter, I hope. I had a close call today, I tracked a goblin in on my shoe. Actually, to be precise, my boot, since I was luckily wearing my black leather western-style riding boots. At first, I thought it was a chunk of mud and hay from the pasture out back. Its arms and legs looked like twigs and were covered up by the real pieces of hay and grass and dead vegetation that had been captured by its evil stickiness. I didn't realize what it was until I had pried it off my boot with my Buck Knife. Something about the way it hit the carpet just wasn't right for a mud-clod. That attracted my scrutiny and allowed me to see past the camouflage, that and the smell. The goblins here don't smell very strong, unless they're in rut and mark at you, but even during the dry season they have a putrid wrenching metallic stench that isn't any more pleasant for being subtle.

It had obviously been a typically ugly little abomination, even before I accidentally smashed it with my boot: all head and spindly appendages, like a cross between Humpty-Dumpty and a daddy-longlegs, but with a gross parody of a human face with a gaping slash of a snaggle-toothed mouth across its belly and rank greasy black hair everywhere but the face. The head-body was about two inches in diameter and the arms and legs were around six to eight inches long. I don't doubt that the thing that had saved me from its toxic bite was the sterling silver decorations you sent me for my boots, the toe-tips and faux spurs, one of which still held a nasty little gobbet of goblin-stuff on its point. The eyes had burst under the pressure and still leaked rancid jelly onto my carpet. I was pretty sure it was really dead, since I'd never seen one reanimate with its eyes busted. Still, you can't be too careful, so I got out the tongs and brought it over to the fireplace receptacle and flash-burned it into grey ash and a puff of grey-green smoke that vanished up the vent. Then I popped a beer from the fridge and congratulated myself on a job well done. Thanks again for the silver
boot decorations.

Harley, down the road, has a suggestion for the Troll in your culvert out at the country place. He says the red-orangey ones with big green teeth, like you have, are resistant to the Black Flag Troll-Away and the Raid Trollacide, too, which would explain why those didn't work for you. He says the only way to get rid of this kind is to immobilize them with liquid nitrogen and throw them into a volcano, which would be very expensive. He also says you could wait until a really cold night, fifteen below or colder, and very carefully toss a loop of rope onto it while it's sluggish and just drag it twenty or thirty miles away and leave it by the culvert or bridge of some rich S. O. B. who could afford to have it frozen and transported to Hawaii. I assume you know this is illegal as well as dangerous. Until you figure out what to do about this, I guess you'll just have to keep using the back road into your place.

Your suggestion about the deal with the cookies has solved my brownie problem; I haven't seen a single one for over a month and the cows have been undisturbed. Now, if I could just figure out an easy way to clean the fairies off the windshield of my pickup...

Sincerely Yours,

Rocky Frisco
"Varmints"

Thanks to Monica for passing this on: Rory Blyth on his Chihuahua Power Source Conversion Project.

I was another one who couldn't help myself: I too downloaded thingy.

As I mentioned earlier, I saw "I, Robot" last night. Right before the movie began, I saw a spectacular trailer for an alternate universe fantasy, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow," starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie. It looks like a great deal of fun, and I'm looking forward to its September release.

I mentioned this on a mailing list last night, adding that Zeppelins were featured prominently in the trailer, to which listmember Chris Claypoole offered this observation:

...[this phenomenon falls] under the purview of Hite's Law: "All change points, from Xerxes to the last presidential election, create worlds with clean, efficient Zeppelin traffic."

Every alternate history can be differentiated from our own by the presence of airships. *Every* one. So, if you're ever not sure whether you're in an alternate universe, look up.

Just a few short days after the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk, we learn the unalloyed truth about what he really said on that occasion:

In 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first man to walk on the moon, uttering the immortal phrase, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Or did he? Previously suppressed footage discovered by blogjam shows that Armstrong's reaction was a great deal more uninhibited than history suggests, and that a hasty editing job was needed to prepare the astronaut's moment of glory for broadcast.

Personally, while I like [L.] Neil [Smith]'s idea in Hope of a "Bill of Rights Party", I think a better idea would be a "Mind your own damned business party":

Don't like guns? Don't own one, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like homosexuals? Don't associate with them, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like pagans? Don't associate with them, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like nuclear power? Don't use it, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like hunting? Don't hunt, and mind your own damned business!

See how easy it is? All the individual has to do is live and let live, follow the basic precepts of ALL major religions, as far as love, tolerance and respect, and mind their own damned business!

Ron Beatty

There is, however, one advantage to government: it keeps society's worst criminals out in the open where we know where they are and what they're doing. That they manage to fool some people into thinking they're saints instead of devils is simply a learning experience for those fools.

Bill St. Clair

This hiliarious photo comes to me courtesy of James Rogers.

Ted Maitlin on "The Truth About Ayn Rand and Gay Porn Stars."

Anyone who thinks Objectivists are lacking in humor haven't met some guy named Steve. Heck, I just noticed that an acquaintance of mine (and friend of my friend Alan Weiss), Amanda Phillips, is featured on this page, "Hot Objectivist on Objectivist Action" (or, for those of us steeped in Monty Python, "The Society for putting Objectivists on top of other Objectivists".)

We find that the sexual instinct, when disappointed and unappeased, frequently seeks and finds a substitute in religion.

Baron Richard von Kraft-Ebing

A biophysicist talks physics to the biologists and biology to the physicists, but when he meets another biophysicist, they just discuss women.

Unknown

This is very much like the arguments I've been having with those who believe only government is capable of "real" science, of "pure" research. Yes, indeed it did take 43 years for private efforts to repeat the sub-orbital flight of [Alan] Shepherd.

But Rutan['s ship] returned to earth with everything he left with except his fuel, a feat that Government has never achieved.

Curt Howland

Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.

Mike Adams

When the war finally came to an end, I was at a loss as to what to do... I took stock of my qualifications. A not-very-good degree, redeemed somewhat by my achievements at the Admiralty. A knowledge of certain restricted parts of magnetism and hydrodynamics, neither of them subjects for which I felt the least bit of enthusiasm. No published papers at all... Only gradually did I realize that this lack of qualification could be an advantage. By the time most scientists have reached age thirty they are trapped by their own expertise. They have invested so much effort in one particular field that it is often extremely difficult, at that time in their careers, to make a radical change. I, on the other hand, knew nothing, except for a basic training in somewhat old-fashioned physics and mathematics and an ability to turn my hand to new things... Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice...

Francis Crick
What Mad Pursuit, Basic Books, New York, 1988, pp 15-16.

Don't become a novelist; be a statistician, much more scope for the imagination.

via Samizdata

I refuse to allow anyone or anything to bring me to my knees. If there is a god I will find a way to free myself of him.

The best mythology I have ever heard on gods is from the Klingons of Star Trek. The Klingons had gods, but they killed them when they realized that they were more trouble than they were worth.

Philip Welch (on Orkut)

L. Neil Smith passes on this amusing bit of reportage about a possible consequence of the American habit of wearing the silk snot rag with the white coat.

Here's a film I heard about on the smith2004-discuss list a few months ago and placed on my Netflix rental queue: Interstate 60, a bizarre road flick with Gary Oldman, Christopher Lloyd, Kurt Russell and Chris Cooper. No one I've spoken to about this film has heard of it, which is too bad: it's great. I won't give a comprehensive review here, and no spoilers, but I will say I hurt myself laughing during the protagonist's stopover in "Morlaw".

...that's why I advocate no pants at all for men. If you're wearing a nice shirt and tie and a sports jacket, you can think of it as the Porky Pig look.

Of course your "tail" is in the wrong place...

L. Neil Smith

[A bit of context: this quote refers to an amusing incident where a religious cultist in a forum I frequent blew up when he was called out on an issue of "quantum mysticism" he couldn't support. - Russell]

I think [a particular theist twit] actually did good job of defining by example an important concept in quantum mechanics: the uncertainty principle.

He obviously has some beliefs, and we could either know the position or the energy of his beliefs, but not both.

He chose to show us the energy.

Dan McCoy

I just saw the word "creationist" alternately spelled "cretinist", on a list I frequent. I find, upon Googling, that it's a widespread meme.

Kevin Cole on Orkut passes along this bit of only-in-the-new-world news: "Devils Hit Cyber Church".

This was sent me yesterday by my good friend Tom Burroughes in London, who gave me permission to reprint here:

Hi Russell, you remember my friend Martin who came over to California back in 1995? Well, he did a crazy thing today -- he went to Lord's cricket ground in north London, and as a "dare", took his clothes off and ran across the pitch before getting booked by the police, all the while producing pandamonium in the crowd.

Oh. My. God.

[Re: the recent "Jesus Is My Homeboy" fashion fad - Russell]:

Jesus was just one of a handful of guys wandering around ranting whatever the hell happened to pop into their coupla-crayons-short-of-a-box skulls. Nothing cool about him, unless begging is suddenly the 'new black'.

Monica White

Space travel becomes easier when the sky has fallen.

Brad Templeton
16 May 2004

I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.

J. Edgar Hoover

I was lead to believe that fidelity was about genital exclusivity. It took a long time to realize that infidelity is about lying and not abiding by (or re-negotiating) interpersonal contracts.

It's been a long journey. Now I know that I can never again promise exclusivity (even if I in fact have only one partner). I cannot trust myself to live up to that promise and therefore cannot expect any future partner to trust such a promise.

What I can promise is total honesty. I want a partner with whom I can share my feelings, my attractions, my crushes. Most of these never get acted out anyway.

If a woman wants genital exclusivity, all she has to do is keep me sexually exhausted. :-)

Richard Birney-Smith

...when I saw Vlad in Carlsbad he patted my stomach and said big (fat) men make great fighters, then smiled and said they can't run away like everyone else so they have to be...

Clayton

BTW, do you know what you say to a person that walks into a gun store where you work, asks to see a "9mm Automatic" and then, when it is handed to him/her, slide back, promptly lets the slide slam jarringly shut on an empty chamber and then ejects the magazine onto the floor?

"How are you today, officer?"

Forrest Halford

As far as anarcho-socialists getting jobs, it's not really a problem. When's the last time you went to a record store or a $tarbuck$ and got waited on by a kid in a button down shirt and khakis?

Socialists buy health insurance all the time. They just want us to chip in.

John 8=$

If you're an American guy, it's likely you've heard this from women of your acquaintance: "I feel fat: I really need to lose some weight!" This is usually said by "skinny-fat" women who don't need to lose weight per se, but who might actually benefit from a weight gain associated with resistance training done at aerobic pace.

I've been so tempted to trip up the complainant on a number of occasions by responding, "No, you look fine, I'd fuck you even in your present condition." Should be good for either a slap or a roll in the hay.

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?

Mark Twain (1835-1910) in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

On Fox News right now, Bush is talking to a crowd assembled at the Hershey factory in Pennsylvania. I wonder... did he have to travel the Hershey Highway to make his speaking engagement?

Penn & Teller are back for another season of the excellent BULLSHIT! debunking series on Showtime. Set your PVRs: there's an episode tonight.

Wiley Clapp has an article on the BAR [Browning Automatic Rifle] in the current Shooting Illustrated. He sums it up thus:

"The BAR is like a blind date that is a little overweight and not very pretty, but redeems herself with enthusiasm and skill in the activities of the late evening."

Steve Pegram

Bad habit, I know, but I often have TV playing in the background as I study. Tonight's white noise is the execrable Lucasian fantasy "Star Wars: Episode II", which I saw first-run to give homage to Yoda (who rocks!). After something my girlfriend told me a couple of weeks ago, I can't help but think "Queen Amygdala" when I hear "Amidala".

Of course, the Lincolnian "Grand Army of the Republic" irony is not lost on me, the only other reason (besides Yoda!) for catching the flick. Why, oh why with Lucas' budget - and Ewan McGregor - did the acting suck ass in this flick?

Seen in a restaurant loo last night:

Re: "Oh my god!"

It's a colloquialism, a phrase, common in English - when I've said it aloud, I've yet to have anyone turn to me and say "Hey, you said you were an atheist!"

I might also say "holy shit" - but I certainly don't give reverence to poop.

Shrug.

Andy O'Reilly

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.

Will Rogers

In order to slay Jesus, I agree you’d need at least a +5 weapon, possibly a messiah-bane weapon. I don’t know if the weapon should be blessed, as it’s kind of hard to guess what Jesus’ alignment is from the bible. Probably chaotic, as on one page he’s telling us that God loves us, and on another he’s telling us that God will cast us into a lake of fire, and he came to earth to break up families. Good or evil? I can’t say, as he does heal the blind, and try to help the cripples, but he does it only for the glory of God (Lawful Evil, if I ever I’ve seen one.) So my verdict is definitely Chaotic, and probably Neutral. Anybody else have a better suggestion for Jesus’ alignment?

My real strategy for surviving the final trump, is to befriend at least one person in good standing of every major religion. That way, when the end comes, no matter who’s right, I’ll have someone to say: “No, really, she’s cool. You can let her in.”

Unless Christianity turns out to be the right one. Then I will take my chances with Satan as he seems to be the most stable and fair deity in the Christian religion. Nope. I’m not bitter. Not me. Not at all. I’ll be right behind Monica with my +5 messiah-bane throwing axes, hoping to get a good shot in.

Diane Duncan

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.

Daniel Dennett
Consciousness Explained

I took this shot two hours ago. These are the digital and tape audio recorders of a number of students in our chemistry lecture section:

Look familiar? Anyone else remember that running sight gag from the 1985 Val Kilmer flick "Real Genius"? As one writer describes the scene (yay Google, saved a bit of typing on my part):

Do you remember the scene in the movie "Real Genius" that showed students at the beginning of a university semester sitting in a large lecture room listening to the professor? As the semester wore on, one-by-one each student left a tape recorder on their seat. The scene ended with the professor's recorder pontificating to a room full of other recorders.

I found a screenshot of that scene, which looks amazingly like our chem lecture hall, down to the same phenolic resin desktop:

Whoa. Life converges on art. Fortunately, ours is a very dynamic professor... most of the students are simply trying to capture his superb lectures for replay later. As a matter of fact, on most days the professor records his own lectures with studio-quality equipment for posting on his personal website. If only more of the good ones did that, we'd have more "Feynman Lectures on Physics" preserved for posterity.

What's the difference between the IRS and the KGB? The KGB doesn't expect you to provide the evidence against yourself.

Charles Curley

It was a piece of subtle refinement that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer - and that he did not learn it better.

Friedrich Nietzsche
"Beyond Good and Evil"

I was just now cleaning out my "They Might Be Spammers" mail folder and this caught my eye:

"Hey, have you discovered the power of a larger penis?"

My friend Anton Sherwood posted a link to this cute little quasischolarly piece, "What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex"; an excerpt:

Happy Begetting-Day To You!

Elves do not remember and celebrate the day that they were born as the day they came into existence. Instead, they celebrate the day their parents begat them. That's the day their parents had the sex that conceived them... apparently, there was some parental will involved in the act of begetting. Either that, or they were having so little sex that it was easy to remember. "Pregnant? How did that happen? Oh, that Thursday three turns of the seasons ago. Oh yeah…" This seems like a good moment to mention that Tolkien was Catholic, so this was compatible with his religion and belief system.

If we were all in agreement on everything, what would there be to discuss? If everybody liked the same things I do, I would end up standing in an endless line waiting to do it.

Ken Valentine

From "cats on grass" to "cat with brass":

There's nothing a kitten doesn't find interesting. I'd just laid out 15 expended .50 BMG cases for photographing before putting them in the cleaning tumbler, for before-and-after pictures. Not a minute had passed before the kids jumped on them and started batting them around.

Being elected President and taking my cues from Alexander Hope. L. Neil Smith would be my Secretary of State ("go fuck yourselves, fellas -- TANSTAAFL!"). Russell Whitaker would be my John Pondero ("don't even THINK of reaching for it, sucker.") Genghis Khan [Mark Quon] would be my Secretary of Defense. Tom Knapp would be in charge of destroying every other Cabinet level department. ALL of you would be free to take whatever jobs you wanted, with the goal of putting yourselves OUT of a job in 60 days or less.

Alan Weiss

We all have our preferences, and that's a great thing, but speaking only for myself, I really need a little pussy in my life:

Yes, it's "cats on grass": even obligate carnivores need a little salad every now and then... think of it as "digestive shotgun wadding" for the little fellows. I'm given to understand from ethologist Desmond Morris that the big cats indulge in this behavior too.

On the left is 9-month-old Lucy (full name "Dr. Samantha Carter", which confuses the vet's office still) and on the right is her brother Selmak... Peggy is a Stargate SG-1 fanatic (well, so am I): she named them. Selmak has the interesting characteristic of managing to shut his eyes every single time the camera's flash lights off! I know of one human friend of mine who does exactly the same thing, my old extropian buddy Perry Metzger.

By the way, I did this on a whim, remembering Michael Reed's comment about our being "ailurophiles"; I have no intention of being branded a kittyblogger.

Ken Valentine: "I remember BEFORE there was instant coffee. Hell, I can still remember when horses were two feet tall and had three toes."

Rocky Frisco: "Horses?? We used to have to hold our breath for hours, since the trilobites we rode only operated underwater."

Checking yesterday's hit stats to see who's Googling for what and finding me, I see not one but two Google referrals from hit results for the phrase "protect yourself from bastards." Hey, I'm here to help!

Off to the gym now.

Cartoonist Scott Beiser has this to say - or portray - about the Jeffrey Jordan situation in Ohio.

He won't fly on the Balinese airline, Garuda, because he won't fly on any airline where the pilots believe in reincarnation.

Spalding Gray

My Bujinkan teacher Dale Seago asked me to take some pictures of his new custom dirk last night. This is the first pic I snapped as he was about to place it on the tartan plaid backdrop on the dojo mat on the floor between us. I thought this captured one aspect of Dale so well that I have to share it (the spots on the pic are from the camera lens.)

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

Mark Twain

First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs.

Peter Ellis, via Chris Goodwin

[The political class] should be stuffed back into the chickens that shat them and then the chickens should be fed to minks.

Ward Griffiths

The partially learned conceive of biological evolution as a teleological process producing what we consider "progress". In fact, natural selection is concerned only with what succeeds, not with what human beings find aesthetically pleasing. If there is some statistically significant survival value in being ugly enough to scare maggots off a shitpile, then biological evolution will happily beat all creatures with the ugly stick.

Dave Krieger

Most people only believe in the parts of the Bible that look good on bumper stickers.

Joe Rogan

There are three reasons to own a gun: to protect yourself and your family, to hunt dangerous and delicious animals, and to keep the King of England out of your face.

Krusty the Clown

Last spring I wrote up a short review of a great Ealing comedy from 1957, "All at Sea", with Alec Guinness. Just last night I finished watching another great British comedy, this one from 1959 by John Boulting, "I'm All Right Jack". It's a great little satire on the dirty politics between postwar British industry and trade unions. Peter Sellers' depiction of a power-mad, USSR-worshipping shop steward alone is worth the viewing. You'll find it on Netflix.

If the gun-banners are so fond of compromise, may I propose one?

They shut up and go away and never bother me again, and for my part, I will restrain myself from kicking their genitalia up into their throats.

Eric Oppen

The old courthouse in Riverside, California had statues of women with bare breasts around on the sides up near the top of the building.

I always wondered what that meant. "This is a whore house!" seemed likely. "Come in here and get screwed!" pretty much summed it up.

Ken Holder

You cannot truly appreciate Atlas Shrugged until you have read it in the original Klingon.

Sea Wasp

I should have done this years ago, but I've only just now gotten around to reading Voltaire's Candide. I finished it in a few hours. It's pretty short: the actual text of the story embedded in the Daniel Gordon translation I have is 79 pages, surrounded by commentary and historiography. I'm going back through my marked-up copy of the text and looking into some of the parts I found most interesting. Near the end of Chapter 3 is this little gem:

A man who had never been baptized, a good Anabaptist named Jacques, saw the cruel and ignominious treatment inflicted on one of his fellows, a two-legged creature without feathers and with a soul [emphasis mine].

Does anyone else find this as funny as I do? One of my longstanding interests is philosophy, so I immediately recognized the reference. Here's one short account of the dispute between Plato and Diogenes on the nature of man:

Plato once defined man as a "featherless biped". When the philosopher Diogenes heard about Plato's definition, he presented his rival with a plucked chicken. "Here," he then declared, "is Plato's man!" [Plato then added "having broad nails" to his original definition.]

Priceless.

Fox News occasionally runs a short commentary segment by American comedian Dennis Miller. While working just now, I heard Miller comment that the U.S. should occasionally test a nuke in the desert for demonstration purposes, calling it "showing the Big Portabella".

That's pretty vivid imagery... can't quite get it out of my head, so I guess I have to write it out.

A very good friend of mine in Nevada, who works for a satellite imaging company, pointed out this provision of the Nevada Administrative Code:

"...a person shall not, for the purpose of hunting, locate or observe, or assist a person in locating or observing, any big game mammal in a management unit described in NAC 504.210 during the period beginning 48 hours before a big game hunting season opens until the close of the season in that management unit with the use of ...a satellite or any other device that orbits the earth and is equipped to produce images..."

He and I are both wondering if anyone has been prosecuted under this law...

If you have kittens and you receive a parcel which has been packed with styrofoam peanuts, close the box immediately. Enough said.

Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Ronald Reagan

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.

Sherlock Holmes, from "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"
Arthur Conan Doyle

You have to be at least a certain age to appreciate this.

Just had a nasty thought (one of many), trapped watching commercials on the Fox News Channel while eating lunch. A Keebler cracker commercial was airing, with the usual annoying, cloying Keebler Elf motif.

The thought was this: I am certain that someday soon, these commercials will have a 10-15 second urgently and legally worded postamble to the effect of "no, elves don't exist, there is no Magic Oven, don't believe everything you see on TV" because sure as hell some loser is going to try suing the Kellogg Company for all the money in Battle Creek, Michigan because of their eventual disillusionment & resultant psychological distress.

Stupider things have happened. I'll bet something like this happens.

Then again, maybe they should be sued for this "Elfin facts" claptrap I see scrolling in my browser's status bar courtesy of the page's embedded Javascript:

• "The Hollow Tree grows in the Sylvan Glen"
• "Elves enjoy work more than play"
• "Elves bake using the magic oven"
• "The Hollow Tree doesn't lose its leaves in the winter"
• "The elves rely on natural energy sources like wind or water instead of electricity"

Excuse me while I dig an airsickness sack out of my flight bag...

50 years ago today, Watson and Crick discovered the codebook of all life on Earth.

In the primordial times of the Ancient Ones, when the pyramids of Egypt were constructed, when the Temple of Doom's various spiked walls and mousetraps and poisoned darts and awkwardly placed sharp-edged coffee tables were loaded and stretched taught and coated and positioned, when various sacred artifacts capable of bestowing godlike powers on human beings were sprinkled throughout the globe in a variety of secret caverns and a menagerie of giant bugs and reptilian monsters and hot women who cast spells or turn people into statues or potted plants were tasked to guard them, said Ancient Ones apparently spent all their free time concocting incredible devices and books and objects for which Mankind Was Not Ready.

You would think, after the third or fourth Object of Ultimate Power was locked away in the care of an immortal protector, it might have occurred to the Ancient Ones what a spectacularly bad idea it is to have so many really, really powerful and dangerous things lurking about. In the Movieverse, that realm in which movies take place, in which roadside bars employ more bouncers than they have patrons, in which jaded, don't-play-by-the-rules, unshaven cops are routinely partnered with wide-eyed rookies or robots or intelligent animals or Charlie Sheen, scarcely a weekend goes by when a small group of individuals does not preserve the world from being horribly destroyed when some ne'er-do-well gets his greasy mitts on one of these world-destroying old keys or pendants or spheres or staffs or something. It would seem, however, that much as groups of Movieverse teens select for their vacations year after year "that place where all those horny teenagers were disemboweled with pruning shears last year and the year before that," there is no talking sense to the people in charge of creating these paranormal knickknacks.

Phil Elmore

What's up with some of you people? I'm wondering about these:

• cheap wines to have with turkey
• police quote of the day
• how to win a colorado restraining order - luck o' the draw, I suppose
• eject or implements or today or spiritual or norwich
• ninjutsu training online no costs - ...and if you believe that's worth what you pay for it...
• united consequences by john ross
• penn and teller fucking bullshit
• cheap gun magazines - wanna bet your life on it?
• glock magazines cheap - see above
• are there any magazines on ninjutsu - yes: they all suck
• how to piss off a teacher
• got my free immortality rings
• militia digital camera
• wisconsin carrying concealed weapon defense sword
• mea culpa mea culpa maxima mea culpa means
• cheap merlots - should be "harlots"
• personal site guys naked
• simple matter to drag people along
• what training to bones taller man by photo or pic
• humour goat
• deviant arts

As she lay there dozing next to me, one voice inside my head kept saying, "Relax... you are not the first doctor to sleep with one of his patients," but another kept reminding me, "Howard, you are a veterinarian."

Dick Wilson

Speaking of Fox News, someone in the studio allowed a cellphone to go off on air... causing me and - I'm assuming - thousands of viewers to flinch.

Just saw this mentioned on Fox News, figured I'd Google for it immediately. I wonder if there's a "Fox News effect" similar to the "Slashdot Effect". Some of this is just plain goofball, some of it's stuff I've seen and done in climbing gyms and on rockfaces. Good fun, in any case: House Gymastics.

Looks like I'm going to need to "bust at least one classic Harrison & Ford move" to get into their gallery; watch this space...

Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.

Stefan Hammond and Mike Wilkins
Sex and Zen & A Bullet in the Head

You can't have your cake and eat it too; either the Net is a business and you pay for routable IP space, or it's a communist free love fuck fest, and it's your god-given right to have portable routable IP space.

Jeremy Porter

I like to think that we Brits have now added yet another component to the rich tapestry of Middle-Eastern culture and it reinforces my belief that the pithy, seductive quality of this word will continue to fuel its steady but relentless conquest of the Anglosphere, the Middle-East, the World and, who knows, maybe even beyond.

It is at times like this that all the speculation about possible encounters with alien species from other planets comes to mind. I am not sure that such an event will ever come to pass and I am quite positive that I will no longer be around to witness it even if it does. But I am willing to bet green money in the here and now that, within weeks of that first, portentious, epoch-making encounter, said aliens will be calling each other 'wanker'.

David Carr

Some years ago, when I was living in London, my good friend and head of the U.K. Libertarian Alliance, Chris Tame, introduced me to the Ealing Comedies produced in the post-war era (40's and 50's, prior to purchase of the studios by the BBC). A combination of subtle parody and broad farce, these predominantly outstanding cultural treasures featured actors now well known across both sides of The Pond, such as Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers, and pop cultural treasures such as the late Frankie Howerd (that's the spelling) - "Oooh! Missus!" - not as well known outside England.

Last week, I noticed a strong recommendation in the March 29 mailing of Miss Liberty's Film & TV Update for one of these comedies:

My top TV pick for the week is the Alec Guinness film "All at Sea," airing on Wednesday (4/2) on TCM. This is an absolutely dead-on libertarian comedy about an amusement park operator who overcomes a corrupt and oppressive local government intent on seizing his business. To my knowledge, this film is not available on video and it rarely appears on television. If you don't have time to watch it now, be sure to record it!

The version shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which is now safely on my PVR because indeed, the movie's apparently not available on VHS or DVD in the U.S., was the MGM-distributed U.S. release of "Barnacle Bill", erroneously listed in the TCM program guide as having been released in 1958. The Latin numerals read "1957" in the credits, as do several filmographies.

Guinness plays Capt. William Horatio Ambrose, a competent and clever Royal Navy officer afflicted by a ravening case of seasickness ("I shall do my duty, M'am, to the best of my disability"), who buys Sandcastle Pier, a decrepit Blackpool wannabe. When Ambrose discovers that the local Mayor and Council have plans to steal the pier using eminent domain laws, he manages to have the pier registered as a cruise ship at anchor in harbor under the fictitious flag of Liberama: the RMS ("Really Motionless Ship") Arabella.

It's a great little piece, and now I have my own copy. In a similar spirit, I recommend "The Man in the White Suit", if you can find a copy. It's another Ealing comedy featuring Alec Guinness, from earlier in his career (1951): darker, with Randian undertones.

You won't find these comedies on Netflix, by the way: apparently, only Guinness' "serious" roles seem to be worthy of inclusion there. See Guinness's IMDB entry for a much more comprehensive filmography.

I can't help thinking about the Principality of Sealand when Capt. Ambrose recounts, "...hence my family motto: Omnes Per Mare... All At Sea..." when I read: "...Sealand's national motto of E Mare Libertas, or 'From the Sea, Freedom'".

...once you're crazy and know nothing about numbers, the chances of finding something psychotic and hateful in a scrabble factory explosion are hovering just around 100%.

Penn Jillette

I've been in the habit of deleting these as I get them, but I've found a place to bin them, at least those with "handy phone" contact numbers: the Quatloos! Nigerian 4-1-9 Scam Gallery. You can submit your own examples.

Check out the hilarious Brad Christensen Exhibit: Brad cons the con men.

O'Neill: "Alright, basic survival training. We know what we have, what do we need?"
Teal'c: "We have the Stargate. We need the Dial Home Device."
O'Neill: "Thank you, Teal'c."

Stargate SG-1
"Torment of Tantalus"

Thanks to Steve Pegram for passing on this dire warning. I needed the lift, so to speak...

A typical scene in an American McDojo: a man in fighting pajamas stands in a deep front stance and stares stoically ahead. His arms are chambered down near his waist to ensure that they won't get in the way of anyone attempting to hit his face. Suddenly, he emits a sharp barking sound, lunges forward, and strikes the air in front of him with lightning speed and questionable hand positioning. To the untrained eye, it looks like he has perhaps executed some sort of hugely impractical block or strike. To the learned observer, he has in fact ripped out his opponent's throat, shattered his knee, and smashed him into the pavement. This interpretive exercise is known as "bunkai", which can be remembered as being derived from the root word "bunk".

Lucas Kovar

Thanks to Michael Duey for sending me this digipic he captured at a recent training event with Bujinkan shihan Bill Atkins.

I've cropped the face of my victim training partner per request of He Who Must Not Be Named (AKA "Robert"), who's tangled in my training kyoketsu shoge ("ring & dagger"), a most amusing weapon system.

I've been on the "Miss Liberty's Film & TV Update" weekly mailing list for a couple of months, and recommend it. Sample pointer:

TUESDAY (3/18)

9:30PM~COM~ South Park ~ "Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub. In a Waco-like incident, the ATF kills a bunch of innocent partygoers because it mistakes them for religious fanatics."

I also recommend Jon Osborne's book "Miss Liberty's Guide to Film and Video: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium".

Toren Smith points out that today is "Eat an Animal for PETA Day!"

I've been on a high-protein kick for a long time; looks like I'll be upping my intake today. Hmm... does this make me a "political eater", akin to a "political smoker"?

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

G. K. Chesterton

Michael Moore is just like P. J. O'Rourke, only without the wit, the humour and the insight.

Tom Hedley Burroughes (via Samizdata)

Manned spaceflight versus robotics? Let's see ... on your wedding night, would you be satisfied to send in a remote, and receive telemetered progress reports?

L. Neil Smith
Tactical Reflections

Thanks to both Amritas and James Hudnell for this:

How evil are you?

...then I speak my mind. TV likes a nut. If I just speak my mind honestly, I fulfill all my nut obligations.

(I hate to be the one to break this to y'all, but being a Libertarian, pro-freedom, governs-least-governs-best, free market advocate makes you as bugnutty in the TV world as Christopher Walken tangoing with Dennis Hopper while Sinead O'Connor plays finger cymbals.)

Penn Jillette

Celebrate Diversity!

Our government gets more than thugs in a protection racket demand, more even than discarded first wives of famous rich men receive in divorce court. Then this government, swollen and arrogant with pelf, goes butting into our business. It checks the amount of tropical oils in our snack foods, tells us what kind of gasoline we can buy for our cars and how fast we can drive them, bosses us around about retirement, education and what's on TV; counts our noses and asks fresh questions about who's still living at home and how many bathrooms we have; decides whether the door to our office or shop should have steps or a wheelchair ramp; decrees the gender and complexion of the people to be hired there; lectures us on safe sex; dictates what we can sniff, smoke, and swallow; and waylays young men, ships them to distant places and tells them to shoot people they don't even know.

P.J. O'Rourke
Parliament of Whores

Government is not a tool, it is a relationship.

Like rape, robbery, and murder.

L. Neil Smith

...I've rediscovered that green tea has more caffeine than coffee. Oh, and it's better for you too.

Thanks to Chris Tame for forwarding this; sounds like justice to me... - ed

"Goat pushes man over the edge"

"Waheeb Hamoudah, a 56-year-old Egyptian tax evasion specialist for the local police department, was pushed to his death by a sheep as he was preparing for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice. Hamoudah was keeping a sheep he was to sacrifice on the roof of his house, and while on a venture to feed the animal, the sheep head-butted him off the roof and onto the street below."

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

Lazarus Long
Time Enough for Love, by Robert A. Heinlein

A Fox News commentator a couple of minutes ago aired an excerpt from a Jay Leno standup monologue, which went something like this: "... lots of fires in Malibu... turns out it's just Governor Gray Davis burning down California for the insurance money..."

Thanks to crewzer for this tidbit; as a pilot, I love it...

Technology is all that matters. Technology is all that makes us human. You want books on technology? Every goddamned book is about technology. Every conversation is technology. Technology is all we got. If you don't like technology, you don't like humans. If you want the above premise written by authors who aren't smartasses, try Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology (1993), by Kathy D. Schick and Nicholas Toth. They're a nutty couple that went out, lived in the bush, made stone-aged tools, and used them for wacky stuff like butchering an elephant. Is that science or performance art? It's the best of both. Read it.

Penn Jillette

I was unsure whether to primarily categorize this as "Humor" or "Politics", but it's a great story nonetheless about Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) taking no bullshit from fedgoons at Las Vegas McCarran Airport.

A notable quote from Penn; traverse the Nolo Consentire link for the full text on Penn's website (he's talking to a fedgoon who's trying to placate him over the phone):

...freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more of it.

I'd like to have been able to point the poster of the Nolo Consentire article to Penn's followup, but there's not yet a commenting facility implemented on his blog.

Now I'm really looking forward to that Penn & Teller Bullshit! series on TV...

This blog's been running only a couple of months. In the meantime, I've been learning a lot about the blogosphere and its evolving culture which I'd not known before... I was introduced to the concept of "blog" only a couple of months before by visiting friend Tom Burroughes, so I'm still a relative newbie. This is more than slightly embarrassing for me, given that one of my trusted friends, Dave Krieger, co-authored an O'Reilly book on the subject a year ago, Running Weblogs with Slash. Doh!

In the course of my travels, I've started to pick up bits 'n pieces of practices from others, and may in a few months launch a "One from the vaults" category, inspired by Toren Smith's "IDIOTS PUBLISH NEWSPAPER...Film at 11":

"One from the vaults" digs out decent old posts from back when my traffic was a fraction of what it is now and reposts them, for those who may have missed them when they first ran. And because my site traffic is way down on Sundays.

Sunday is a slow traffic day for me too, but still dramatically busier than any day of the week a mere 8 weeks ago.

We'll see in a year. In the meantime, I may go ahead and add a "Bizarre search hits of the week"; this is actually a very common practice on personal blogs nowadays, but thanks to Toren Smith's employment of the practice in a side-splitting context, I'm motivated to consider actually doing it. My good friend Anton Sherwood gave me the original idea a while back, of course.

By the way, Anton and Toren: looks like you both share an interest in Old English.

There: got all the attributions out of the way so that next year or later, none of you guys will think I'm using good ideas without proper attribution.

Found this page as a referrer in my site logs. Look very carefully...

The fact that I'm posting about this at all is proof I'm an insomniac and really need to tear myself away from my computer, but I simply can't resist pointing readers to this hilarious Onion post "Marxists' Apartment a Microcosm of Why Marxism Doesn't Work"; a sample:

"The history of society is the inexorable history of class struggle," said sixth-year undergraduate Kirk Dorff, 23, resting his feet on a coffee table cluttered with unpaid bills, crusted cereal bowls, and bongwater-stained socialist pamphlets. "The stage is set for the final struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the true productive class. We're well aware of that here at 514 W. Elm Street, unlike other apartments on this supposedly intellectual campus."

and:

"We were creating an exciting new model for living," said Dorff, stubbing his cigarette into an ashtray that had not been emptied in six days. "It was like we were dismantling the apparatus of the state right within our own living space."

Despite the roommates' optimism, the system began to break down soon after its establishment. To settle disputes, the roommates held weekly meetings of the "Committee of Three."

and:

The roommates have also tried to implement a food-sharing system, with similarly poor results. The dream of equal distribution of shared goods quickly gave way to pilferage, misallocation, and hoarding.

Off to bed now for me...