Erik Blevins, reloaded

I am upset that no one has bid on this yet.

Update - Really, people - come on!

Dammit - they pulled the auction and now this entry is about nothing and I look crazy! Thanks, eGay!

Even More Poetry (EMP)

Aka rap.

Artist: Dr. Octagon (Kool Keith)
Album: Dr. Octagonecologyst
Song: Biology 101
Typed by: OHHLA Webmaster DJ Flash

[...]

Delta 9, approximate time, I'm facin' Venus.
The sun is over there and nothin gets between us.
You're the earthling,
try to float, it's a mental thing.
I got oxygen, eight hours of spacetime,
you must return quick. Please, don't waste time.
You could die out here.
The moon is a place of fear
With two minutes on the planet,
you're only bound to panic
We have no extras;
bags; et cetera.
Whenever your obstacles backfires,
you inflate in seconds, nervous like flat tires,
one second's left to orbit, his last breath,
telecast to Earth a astronaut didn't make it
We move beyond your navigation and level of 32
Switchin like channel 13
Late at night you see a blank screen
Focus on "The Outer Limits," but you're back on stage.
On the line of scrimmage, I'm out here, come and get me,
with no equipment call the President.
Not even rocks or fossils left,
Damaged by, the elements.

I cannot find the original cd that has this track, which later was replaced by other, lesser songs. If you'd like to hear it, what with its tight Automator beats and production, maybe I can help. The original transcription came from here.

I can quote poetry too

After Years

Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instance. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun expoloded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.

Ted Kooser



And from the NYT Magazine interview:

NYT: "As poet laureate, don't you think you should be better acquainted with European poetry?"

Ted Kooser: "Think of all the European poetry I could have read if we hadn't spent all this time on this interview".

Mitch Hedberg

"My lucky number is 4 billion; that doesn't come in real handy when you're gambling. I'm gonna need some more dice; 4 billion divided by 6, at least"

RIP, Mitch Hedberg. [PG]

More poetry

Tancas Serradas a Muru (Walls are Encircling the Land)
Francesco Ignazio Mannu (Sardinia, ca. 1795)
Translation: Remo Bodei (taken from http://www.osvaldogolijov.com/wd39t.htm)

Walls are encircling the land
Seized with greed and in haste,
If Heaven was on Earth
They would grab it too!

A moment of silence, please.

And then another. And then lots more. In fact, just take that whole not playing music thing and run with it.

Russel Crowe's Band Breaks Up.

But we still have Dogstar, right?

Update - we do not.

Family Circle vs Cthulu

The Nameless Dread

[via American Digest]

Update - the link is now dead.

Update2 - or should I say, the link is undead?

A new low - I mean high; it's a new high.

The geekiest briefcase ever.

Smart people are dumb, perhaps the beginning of a series

I've been down this road before, and although I tend to harp on it, please don't think I've drunk too deep of the hateraide. Self-hateraide or otherwise, Nobel prize winners are dumb.

As an aside, the best line I've read today was: "I have always suspected that, at root, multiculturalism means, at least for westerners, tapas today, tom kha kai tomorrow, and tarte tatin the day after." By their palettes you shall know them.

Jeff Wood

Screw AllPosters, check out Jeff Wood's concert posters/flyers [G through R-rated, if you don't know who Reverened Horton Heat is, you may not like these], here and here.

Those are some pretty small shoes to fill

Potential '08 candidates look at wide-open field:

"Kerry, who barely broke stride after last year's election, is hoping to become the first defeated Democrat since Adlai E. Stevenson, the darling of 1950s liberals, to be nominated again."

Websites to surf while "running experiments"

Gearhead magazine.

Personal thumbs up, cause The Riverboat Gamblers kick ass.

ah hrmm smartness

It's all about the contrasts - sweet and sour meets dumb and clever.

Browsing Arts and Letters:

Continental Drift by D.D. GUTTENPLAN

If you're gonna have political opponents, they may as well be smart and articulate, and they should leaven their writing with humor and introspection. How often can you say that about The Nation? Hardly ever, but this is pretty good; even if I think the conclusions are wrong. However, as long as the left refuses to consider that the motivations of Republicans and Neo-Conservatives may possibly just might in some tiny way it could perhaps be true in rare instances where they circumstantially extend beyond greed/wrath/lust/avarice/pride/sloth/envy and in fact have a moral underpinning based on many things considered classically libearal, well, they are gonna wonder in the wilderness. 40 years ain't got nothing on where they are going, cause you don't come back from that.

Do you ever wonder if there was another tribe that got led out in the desert and messed up so bad that they never came back? That would make for an interesting old testament.

Item the Second: The three or four newspapers articles I read when Bobby Fischer was released from Japan and flew to Iceland were fawningly concillatory and never mentioned any of this. Rot in hell you fucking bastard - and you will. [pretend I sound really erudite when I say that - cause human learning is always vulgar] Anyway, their coverage of this is yet another reason to shit on the MSM.

Ahem, Happy Easter.

Btw, we're going nuclear. [nue-kle-er]

There's more there, but you can dig it out yourself.

ha ha dumbness

[via Ace]
(If he linked to it, this must be a million years old and everyone else already knows about it, but who am I to criticize?)

No splashing please

At low pressures, a drop will not splash.

I'm waiting for parts of my current experiment to stop drifting, and so I'd like to point out that this is the goofy sort of science I would like to do, maybe someday. Invariably, though, this sort of news leads on Fark with a "Still no cure for cancer" tag. I'm not really bitching, cause my path is self-directed, but this onus can take a lot of the naive joy out of the work.

Update: By the way, if there is any upshot to peeing while exposed to the vacuum of outer space, this would be it. Although, chances are your piss would instantly freeze, or vaporize, or something else tremendously unpleasant which would suggest that pee-splash control is the least of your problems. Maybe that's why you were drinking so much that you are now peeing pure alcohol. Open the pod door NOW, Hal, I gotta drain the lizard! Like I said, it may be the only minor positive aspect to an overwhelmingly bad situation.

Coming to a desktop near me

Slick. Click.

Ford Shelby Cobra GT500

Schwingg!

UPDATE:

Upon further reflection: Boingg!

Image taken without permission from AutoWeek.

Interesting

Apparently DNA can heal itself in the absence of a known perfect sample. [nyt, registration required, more to come later]

Final update - _for tonight_

Dr Octagon - Biology 101

Current music update

1) Previous track = Concrete Blonde, God is a Bullet.
2) Current track = Cypress Hill, Dr. Greenthumb.
3) Next track = Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Open Up and Bleed.

Truth be told, I have no idea why I am telling you this.

UPDATE: Front Line Assembly, Prophecy.

Updated update: Foreign Legion, Full Time B-Boy.

Fear of a Nerd Planet

Banned on Vulcan [citation = Flea]

Wolfowitz and Penderton: Separated at Birth - an entry that was postponed and then finally abandoned, but not before it left this detrius behind.

I was going to write an entry yesterday about how Paul Wolfowitz reminds me of Austin Penderton (Professor Larrabee from What's Up, Doc?), but Blogger's disintegrating infrastructure prevented that. Then I actually started looking at pictures of them and noticed that, well, they don't really look like each other anyway.

Quote of the day

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers [Insert nuevo-bloggo reference here] is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."

Ben Hecht

Once again with the iPod-bashing

Previously felt and still true now:

(iPod coolness)/(hipster dorkness) < $299.

Additional new feelings:

(iPod tube amps coolness)/(uberhipster dorkesss) << $obscene

Interesting things in Iraq

Interesting, albeit second-hand, story on InstaPundit.

Yeah, I know, I'm not having a real productive start to this morning's work

So, come last October, the election seemed to have gone on forever. The seeds of oak trees had lofted through the air, found root in the shadow of their forebears, grew ancient and returned back to the soil. Mountains thrust up from the continental edges, only to be ground to dust under the relentless passage of the seasons. Primordial gasses swirled in the heavens and
coalesced into burning atomic foundries. When they died, with their fuel nearly spent, they strobed the universe with brilliant novas in a final blaze of glory. Across the universe, their tumult rose together into a staccato report, you know, like a sea of flashlamps in the crowd at a Presidential speech.

Worse, there was much that needed to be done that waited for that waft of Presidential smoke to tell us how the next four years would go.

Yet, now I miss Kerry, cause he's so goddam unlikeable and laughing laughing laughing at him just makes my day. Sorry if you disagree, but oh well. Although the election is over, Kerry is here for us, still out there flailing away. It might be like picking on a lesser child of God - but as P.J. points out, he's a lesser child who's really an ass. [via The Unpopulist]

Heh

Senator sells car for $356 - and the guy overpaid.

The sea inside

The sea inside, by Alejandro Amenabar (2004)

I have been stunned by the depth in this movie (I am also somewhat envious that the director is *younger* than I am).

I do not condivide the position expressed in this work but I do not venture in a criticism because it is evident that the reflections of the author are much deeper than my own and come from a life experience as well.

The only note, this is not just a movie about euthanasia - it has wider horizons. Just to say: an experience that I think all of us shared (at least in a less radical way than the protagonist) is wanting to achieve something and finding it impossible; the movie therefore is not only dealing with situations that are out of ordinary. It is just sufficient to see how it gets people that watch it emotionally involved.

This said, excellent actors, excellent acting, excellent cinematography.

Words

A little bit more of traditional poetry. Each fragment is complete in itself. I made up the titles - I hope they help as an explanation.


Village festival

They sell in the stands
apricot and prunes
and in every corner
you go court a girl.


Thoughts of a girl

The name of my boyfriend
is Generous
but when I don't see him
I feel pretty nervous.


A girl waits ... but for how long?

On the top of that mountain
I sit down and embroid clothes;
I am waiting for a love declaration,
this evening (or maybe tomorrow night?).


Scuffles at the festivals!

We go to the festival of Saint Greek
in a big merry company
and back we come together as well ...
with our heads broken.

Why I am humble, despite what you might think otherwise

Better men than me.

How to start a startup

I may be nave, so very nave, but I think This is genius.

Pentagon Memorial Site

Memorial website for the victims of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.

I think the design is alright, but it is derivative of the Vietnam memorial. The website suffers from somewhat overwraught architect speak, which is hyperbolic, e.g., "Memorial Units" instead of "benches."

My suggestion, since the world is panting to hear it, would be to add a statue, so that people cannot leave feeling that they have only been to a very nice city park. Maybe closer inspection of their plan would change my view, but I would vertically stand a remnent of one of the aircraft wings, or something evocative of a broken wing, on a pedestal.

Iron Toilet

Get ready, ultramodern, electronic, "I am pleased to recieve your waste" toilet from Japan, because American toilet-ingenuity strikes back.

Update - you know, it's not really ingenuity so much as just making everything really huge. I guess you gotta lean into the curve or something.

Mike's PaleoCon Blog

MIKE SMASH! ARGGH!

Holy Foods

I read Dr. Frank's "An Organic Experience" yesterday, to which I say amen. Whether to go to Whole Foods via the metro or take the metro and drive somewhere else is a choice I make, day to day. I'll say this: I feel like I'm watching a ska band when I go to Whole Foods, which may sound odd, but I swear there are always more employees there than customers. Also, the employees have this look of, I don't know, the afterglow of a recent religous conversion.

My two cents - go there to buy either expensive things, like Tuna steaks, or cheap generic things, like their store brand butter. Avoid the middle-priced things like cereal and whatnot. Seafood is hard to keep fresh, and so you should buy it from someplace whose whole ego is riding on just that fact. Maybe there's a better fish market around where you can buy it right off the boat, but figuring that out and plying the logistics takes more time and energy than I've got.

On the other hand, these places are totally into the "We're giving you an super fair deal" and "Fair trade" mentallity, which is easy to take advantage of if you do not live up to the social contract and buy everything they sell. Especially if they offer a non-organic generic version of the more expensive item. Their bargain brand price/quality ratio seems predicated on you also buying their non-bargain brand items. So then, you can let the NPR crowd buy the expensive stuff, which carries the cheaper brands with its profit margins. I say, ride their Gore-Tex coattails. Thinking of things in this way also makes contact with them easier to endure.

So I make two trips, one for Cheerios and shamoo and whatnot, at the same Shopper's Price Mart/Safeway/etc you see the immigrant mothers shopping at, and the other stuff at TraderJoe's/ Whole Foods/etc. BTW, follow the non-english speaking people's shopping habits. They often know where the bargains are.

Donnie Darko Director's Cut Redux Reduxed

The title? Oh that. Yeah, that's just cause I like writing Redux.

Previously, I was a little down on the Director's Cut version of Donnie Darko. Because I am infallable, I still am.

However, I had not yet put in the second disk. OMG! It is worth the extra $10. I just worry that the guy doing "#1 fan: a darkomentary" is serious. That would not be good. I do not think he is. However, like the movie itself, it's ambiguous.

My new advice? Buy both discs. Trade the theatrical release version disc for disc one of the Director's cut, and then you have something good in the Director's Cut case, and you can ponder if your morals allow you to return the Theatrical Release Case.

Also, as you will also see on disc two: the British still have bad teeth, like seriously, and still have an air of superiority that comes off as blood in the water. Dear British People Talking About America, Please stop trying so hard to come off as better than the Americans who don't appreciate things so subtle as you do, and perhaps it might actually come true, instead of making you sound desperately self-hating. By the way, the fact that every Englishman with a broadband connection seems to use it exclusively to download American TV shows, not to mention the fact that the movie you're raving about is an American film, severly undermines the cultural snobbery angle.

MIKE's CAST IRON RULE OF LIFE: If you have to tell someone you're cool, you're not. If you have to tell someone you're subtle, well, that's not very subtle, is it? In fact, ask yourself why you have to tell someone anything if it's supposed to be obviously true, cause SHOCKING ENDING it is likely neither true nor obvious.

UPDATE: The rest of the second disk, beyond the aforementioned #1 Fan segment, is pretty average DVD extraneous crap thrown in for the faithful.

Libertarianism in ten words or less

"I'm an affluent young white male--leave me alone"
- Orrin Judd

Ha ha, take that reason magazine.

The middle mountain

The middle mountain (traditional poetry).

You are that deserted mountain
all mossy rocks and pools,
dressed in oaks
and crowned by four other mountains.

Tell, to how many and to whom you gave shelter,
with more raids, kidnappings and plunders
than you can hear deer-bells
from "Black Skin" to "The Enclosure"

If you had speech and memory,
mountain, you should tell me what you have seen,
to let the whole world know.

Take a pen and write a history
of what you have held in your bosom,
and tell that you are the mossy mountain!

Mountains that are alone, black and steep,
neither sun nor hope can enter there,
so much high and deep are their walls,
they are the safe-haven for the ill-loved!

There the bandits, those with a bounty on them,
have their house and comforts,
they come and go with their whole gang,
bringing stolen pigs and oxen.

"The Heights of 'Chercu' " is the door,
and in the first opening one can see
carcasses of horses, and corpses of men.

Prey birds and their nest:
there all of the thieves are gathered,
in "The Enclosure", "The Leafy" and "Tramazza"

Well, this evening someone told me:
"The bandit in the mountain wants you".
I went and I found him,
having a good time with his men.

He gave me a seat and I had dinner there,
cooked pork and exquisite wine,
and then humbly he asked me for
nice songs for his lady.

I sang them for him, and in that night
my face became as white as snow
because I heard a sound, eh! good heavens!
I said "This is the wail of a dying man",

and one of them answered me: "You're afraid of owls ..
or it's just the call of a deer in love,
sing your songs, and don't bother about it,
because here it is such a merry company;

pour him some of that good wine,
that Goatie is dying of fear"

And I answered to him -
I swear I shan't come back, never again.


Crapinu (Goatie)