Embarrassing childhood revelations, vol. 1

For many years of my youth, I had the characters of Gilligan's Island all mixed up. I thought that the little short guy in red was Skipper, and the big tall guy was Gilligan. To this day, that's how I prefer to think of them, even though I know better now.

An instant message between brothers

BradCzrk: are you gonna go see Cake?
greasypeso: perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

We need Dana Carvey in here

What do you do when you're a doofus faced with a non-docile interviewer? You become openly hostile! (Italics mine)

Q Indeed, Mr. President, but you didn't find the weapons of mass destruction.

THE PRESIDENT: Let me finish. Let me finish. May I finish?

He said -- the United Nations said, disarm or face serious consequences. That's what the United Nations said. And guess what? He didn't disarm. He didn't disclose his arms. And, therefore, he faced serious consequences. But we have found a capacity for him to make a weapon. See, he had the capacity to make weapons. He was dangerous. And no one can argue that the world is better off with Saddam -- if Saddam Hussein were in power.

Q But, Mr. President, the world is a more dangerous place today. I don't know whether you can see that or not.

THE PRESIDENT: Why do you say that?

Q There are terrorist bombings every single day. It's now a daily event. It wasn't like that two years ago.

THE PRESIDENT: What was it like September the 11th, 2001? It was a -- there was a relative calm, we --

Q But it's your response to Iraq that's considered --

THE PRESIDENT: Let me finish. Let me finish, please. Please. You ask the questions and I'll answer them, if you don't mind.

It turns out there's no excuse for Bush's question-dodging and hostility, as per White House policy, any Bush interviewer must submit their questions three days in advance.

Now you know

Q: What is the proper response when the Vice-President tells you to "fuck off" or to "go fuck yourself"?

A: "Suck my Dick, Cheney!"

Don't label me with your labels

This story hits a little close to home:

Not so long ago, the name ‘‘geek’’ was one to be avoided. But now the wearers of pocket protectors, flood pants, and thick glasses have acquired a certain geek mystique — so cool, in fact, that two companies are battling in federal court over who has the right to be called ‘‘geek.’’

The Geek Squad Inc. of Minneapolis, a unit of retailing giant Best Buy Co., recently filed suit in US District Court in Boston against Geek Housecalls Inc. of Lexington, charging trademark infringement. Both firms provide technical support for home computers. In its complaint, the older Minnesota company claims the Massachusetts company adopted a similar name to capitalize on its established reputation and business.

But Dave Ehlke, the founder of Geek Housecalls with 30 years in the technology, said he and his partner, Andy Trask, adopted the name for two reasons: ‘‘We’re geeks. And we make housecalls.’’

‘‘Geek’’ has a long history in the English language, and, until the technological age, was the term applied to carnival performers whose talent consisted of biting off the heads of live chickens and snakes. It later became part of the technical lexicon, describing the technologically astute who just as voraciously ate computer bugs, said Brian Jepson, an editor at the technology book publisher O’Reilly Media Inc.

Crapping out a diamond

Usually I think Thomas Sowell is a flaming conservative doofus. But I wholeheartedly agree with this "random thought" of his:

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and 'exculpate' meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.

Why you can't miss the Daily Show, part 2

If you didn't see the Daily Show on Monday, then you missed a very important half-hour of television. The Talent Show tries to capture some of the magic for you.

Gay like a fox

I know that some of my readers believe men are evil and worthless. Unfortunately, the following story (in two parts) affirms that theory.

Link to part one

Link to part two

There is truth in puns

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, preach."

(I thought I was being original here, but Google proves me wrong.)

Wank wank wank, vol. 1

Overheard at the Ben Folds/Guster/Rufus Wainwright concert:

Drunk teenager: Is it possible to be infatuated with your own band?

Hardy on mathematical reality

A while back I linked to Professor DeLong's statement that "Pi has a unique and stable value only in those parts of the universe where gravity is weak." At first, I used Euler's identity to try to disprove that. But now I'll defer to the master, G.H. Hardy. Here's an excerpt of his book, "A Mathematician's Apology":

Let us suppose that I am giving a lecture on some system of geometry, and that I draw figures on the blackboard to stimulate the imagination of my audience, rough drawings of straight lines or circles or ellipses. It is plain, first, that the truth of the theorems which I prove is in no way affected by the quality of my drawings. Their function is merely to bring home my meaning to my hearers, and, if I can do that, there would be no gain in having them redrawn by the most skillful draughtsman. They are pedagogical illustrations, not part of the real subject-matter of the lecture.

Now let us go a stage further. The room in which I am lecturing is part of the physical world, and has itself a certain pattern. The study of that pattern, and of the general pattern of physical reality, is a science in itself, which we may call 'physical geometry'. Suppose now that a violent dynamo, or a massive gravitating body, is introduced into the room. Then the physicists tell us that the geometry of the room is changed, its whole physical pattern slightly but definitely distorted. Do the theorems which I have proved become false? Surely it would be nonsense to suppose that the proofs of them which I have given are affected in any way. It would be like supposing that a play of Shakespeare is changed when a reader spills his tea over a page. The play is independent of the pages on which it is printed, and 'pure geometries' are independent of lecture rooms, or of any other detail of the physical world.

Music conflict

Damn!

Motor City Rocks has posted the schedule for the free rock music festival going on this weekend, and the two bands I really wanted to see (Brendan Benson and Blanche) are playing Sunday night. The same time that I'll be at Freedom Hill hearing Ben Folds, Guster, and Rufus Wainwright.

Why you can't miss the Daily Show

Tonight, on Back in Black, Lewis Black showed a clip of Grover "Loony Bin" Norquist arguing for Reagan's face on the $10 bill. Norquist pointed out that Alexander Hamilton had been on the bill since 1928, and said that while he was a great Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton is the only non-President on the currency.

Lewis Black responded (and I'm paraphrasing), "Really? The only non-President? Are you sure? I bet you $100 you're wrong!"

In need of a big break

"If Rufus Wainwright was writing and recording and performing in 1960s and 1970s, he would be considered a classic rock star right now."

Obligations to consumers, part 2

There are cultural differences between the West and East when it comes to corporate responsibility. Take this news story for example:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The head of a food company jumped to his death after a government investigation found that his company sold dumplings made with rotten ingredients, police said Monday.

A witness said he saw the man jump from a bridge in Seoul's Han River on Sunday, a police official said.

Police have yet to find the body but found his identification card and a recently written will.

He was identified in media reports only by his family name, Shin -- the head of Vision Food, a dumpling company.

Last week, South Korea's Food and Drug Administration announced that at least 12 companies had been using rotten radishes in their frozen dumplings and ordered the dumplings pulled off the shelves.

The government has confiscated 20 tons of what the local press dubbed "garbage dumplings."

In his will, Shin said that he faced economic difficulties with creditors following the dumpling scandal, the Yonhap news agency said. He wrote his dumplings were harmless to people.

No illness have been reported from the dumplings. But department stores have said that dumpling sales have dropped by up to 90 percent.

I wish corporations and businesses felt a sense of responsibility to the consumers they serve, but today capitalism is purely concerned with profit.

Freshly-baked Cake

Here's the news straight from the horse's mouth:

CAKE's new album "Pressure Chief" will be available in stores September 7th.

Ashcroft the hypocrite

Mmm mmm! That's a tasty helping of hypocrisy coming from Mr. Attorney General!

Chicago, Day 2

You can learn things from loud creepy people in the subway. I learned that if I were ever interested in smoking crack cocaine, I could obtain some on Argyle Street. I also learned that crack cocaine would help me "trip out" and "feel like Superfly". I'd better file that helpful information away!

I've decided that I want to live in the Wrigleyville/Lincoln Square area. It's block after block of lovely neighborhoods.

I'm tired of standing here thinking of other things to say, so I'm signing off. I'll try to be more comprehensive tomorrow when I get back to Detroit.

Chicago, Day 1

Well, I'm on a G5 at the Apple Store on the Magnificent Mile, and my fingers are sore (?), so I'll make this blog entry brief.

I flew into Chicago last night. The traffic on the way to the Detroit Airport was crappy, and then my flight left late, so I was in a bad mood. :) When I finally arrived in Chicago, I decided to try the L-train instead of hailing a cab. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the Orange Line doesn't have a convenient stop near my hotel, so I ended up walking a good distance through the rain. I checked in around 9 pm (Central time), grabbed a quick bite, and rushed back to my room only to discover my hotel doesn't carry Comedy Central. That's the first episode of the Daily Show I've missed in a LONG time!

Today I'm going to go check out Wrigleyville, which is apparently where all the hipsters hang out. Wish me luck getting there -- I need to find where the Red Line is!

See ya Detroit

I'm off to Chicago. Be back in town Sunday.

Hardwood

John J. Miller on the National Review's blog:

I hope our national day of mourning on Friday doesn't involve flags at half mast. I've regarded that as a peculiar tradition. Rather than lowering our flags, wouldn't it be better if our flagpoles had telescopic extensions on them--so we could actually raise them higher on special occasions? I know, I know, it's too expensive. But it would be nice to see American flags flying all this week, at full mast.

Obligations to consumers

From chapter 5 of "Case Studies in Business Ethics" by Thomas Donaldson:

History reveals marked differences in the ways that cultures treat business obligations to consumers. The Code of Hammurabi, almost 4,000 years old, holds merchants to certain standards of fair dealing and product safety. Seventeeth-century France under the rule of Louis XIV maintained a complex set of regulations and procedures governing product quality. Yet with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and the influence of laissez-faire economic theorists such as Adam Smith, there came a dramatic loosening of government restraints. Smith and others argued that efficiency is significantly impaired when government tries to guarantee consumer satisfaction and safety; in turn the doctrine of "caveat emptor," or "buyer beware," dominated the economic scene during the first chapter of U.S. history.

All government regulation is inherently harmful! Do you want to follow France's lead? All France knows how to do is drink wine and surrender, and that's not American. Look at the Arabs -- 4,000 years ago they granted consumer rights, and now they're all a bunch of towel-head terrorists! As Reagan once wisely observed, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

Ok, R.I.P.

Fafblog has melted my cold, dark heart. I have reconsidered my position on Ronald Reagan and I'm almost ready to feel sympathetic.

The bachelor and the bride

Best romantic advice ever.

(I mention this because I saw the Decemberists in concert tonight with an old friend, and they were fantastic. Now I need to go find their older material, because I'm completely hooked.)

(UPDATE: Apparently I wasn't clear enough -- the statement "Best romantic advice ever" was ironic. I see that page as the natural extension of the "Since you asked..." column on Salon.com, where the editor drowns you in irrelevant prose before giving some crappy advice. "Crutchy" drowns you in the abstract of a sociology paper before giving useless advice. Hopefully all Geekable readers realized that Crutchy was probably joking, and I was joking also.

Oh, and the title of the post is also the title of a Decemberists song.)

R.I.P. my ass

What's with all the sympathy for Ronald Reagan now that he's dead? I don't think he deserves it -- he screwed over my generation by placing us in trillions of dollars of debt! I like Brad Graham's take on Reagan's death, as I think it offers the proper level of respect.

Dad, it's a party at Ricky's

Here's a movie discussing the dangers of drugs and alcohol, brought to you by retarded British kids and Flash.

(Via Lindsayism)

Bitch

Reader "NSP" (who I'm assuming is a particular ex-girlfriend of mine) emailed me this link, and told me, "This made me think of you....I assume you'll see why."

No, I'm not sure -- is it because when you saw that t-shirt, you immediately wanted to wear a bunch of other t-shirts while telling that t-shirt it's the only t-shirt you own?

Let's clear some shit up

For the record, the only place I leave anonymous comments is at Slashdot.

Rufus update

Sounds like there's new Rufus Wainwright material in the pipeline:

...Really looking forward to getting back to the old U.S. of A. and my own material. Brace yourself to hear some new tracks from Want Two. This time it's for real.

Hope you enjoy a couple of ditties that I am releasing before the upcoming election. They will be available on June 29, 2004 on iTunes.

Love,
Rufus

Gut feeling

I feel lonely.

Inspirational wisdom

Here's the optimistic thought of the day.

You can short-circuit the two or three neurons that people use for common sense by appealing to their greed. Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion. You can use this quirk of human nature to your advantage and it won't cost you a dime.
--Scott Adams, "The Dilbert Principle"

Fight crap

Back in high school, a fellow student told me to watch a couple of movies. One of his suggestions was "Fight Club", because it "changed [his] life". After carefully considering the source of this advice, I completely avoided Fight Club for the next five years.

Tonight, however, I watched most of it with my brother as I waited for a computing task to finish. As I suspected, it sucked. The worst part is that people consider it some sort of revelation. Wasn't anyone able to contemplate their own life of quiet desperation before the Fight Club movie came along?

The Fight Club movie takes Thoreau and kicks him up a notch using standard postmodernism. Thus, our capitalist consumer-based society has ruined everything, and people only find solace in purchasing things. The solution is Fight Club; much like Thoreau had to escape to Walden Pond, the men in today's society escape by beating the shit out of each other.

Gag me with a spork.

Unfortunately, the members of Fight Club eventually become a terrorist organization hellbent on destroying the capitalist society by bombing credit card companies and TRW. (This sounds like the wet dream of a screenwriter still paying off student loans from his MFA days.) How interesting that the slaves of capitalism turn into mindless slaves of Project Mayhem. Even more interesting are the real-life Fight Club-bers who become slaves to the ideas inside of the movie.

I find it ironic that so many people purchase the Fight Club DVD (which was manufactured and sold by large multi-national corporations), and then feel their life has been "changed" and decide to start a Fight Club or buy Chuck Palahniuk's books. This is exactly the type of braindead consumerism the movie was complaining about, morons!