31.12.04

Patience is a virtue...

...but then, so is chastity, and that's no fun either.

For any of you out there who give a rat's ass, I promise that I am not yet clinically dead, and that, moreover, whilst I still retain some level of neural function, I plan to resume the word production at some point in the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, feel free to hang out, browse the archives, enjoy the complimentary mmusic music in your head, and, when you get ready to leave, howsabout you follow this carefully selected totally random link that I culled from a selection of edifying material pulled out of my ass just now.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid, kids.

Hasta pronto.

11.11.04

My Apologies

...for the preceding nonsense. I've been playing with a spiffy little blog interface tool called w.bloggar. Seems like a good thing. Give 'em a jangle, huh?

Why are we here?

What's life all about? Is God really real. or is there some doubt?

I swear, sir, I've never even heard of anyone named Monty Python...

10.11.04

Big Brother Says...

Gee, boys and girls, all sorts of nifty-keen things have happened since we talked last. Let's see: Well, we've mobilized an assault on Fallujah in concert with the "Iraqi military" (including all fifteen troops and their five jeeps). Ostensibly, this effort comes under the direction of the equally dubious Iraqi government. Of course, if you listen to the right people, pretty soon they'll have you believing Zell Miller is a Democrat, the coal industry respects the environment and Elvis is alive and well and running a Kia dealership in Duluth. Anyway, the combined might of the American armed forces and their few 'willing' compatriots has been funneled through Fallujah, where all those lucky lads have been given the opportunity to hone their skills on the world's most fiendish Hogan's Alley. Meanwhile, the insurgent forces, in what is probably the least surprising development in the history of modern warfare, have largely abandoned the city, fleeing to Allah alone knows where. Now, I'm no military strategist. I'm not even a lowly soldier--and praise be to whatever Gods there are if I should never be. But surely I'm not the only one who, upon examining the enemy's combat behavior, is visited by inexplicable visions of broken Nazi machinery, half-frozen French infantry, and, far away in the background, just out of focus, the vague suggestion of Moscow in flames?

The counting of votes from election night '04 still goes forward in some locations. In addition, the analysis of vote tallies has become, in some places, a large element of the local economies. Apparently, these are cities located in some nearby parallel dimension wherein there is still some dispute over who won the election. As I've said before, no matter what the investigations turn up, the election is over. Even if you somehow manage to prove that George W. Bush is carrying on clandestine homoerotic sado-bestiality rituals with the founder of Diebold and three of the company's top shareholders, the result is much the same: regardless of who actually got elected, George Bush won, and we are substantially the losers.

In other news, those of you who haven’t left for Canada yet but still wish to avoid the coming draft, I'd suggest moving up your travel plans. President Bush just this afternoon, during a joint interview from the oval office with the head of NATO, reaffirmed his commitment to provide his military commanders with anything and everything they needed to fight this war. Last I checked, they weren't phoning the White House asking for cookie dough and nail polish. Oh, by the way, I checked, and Sealand is not offering any new citizenships at this time.

John Ashcroft is out. I’m sure terrorists the world over will be breathing a sigh of relief as they strap on the ol’ Semtex waistcoats tomorrow morning.

In these trying times, it is only to be expected that certain grave issues come to light from time to time: questions of morality, possibly, of mortality, most certainly, and let us not forget that issue which has plagued the great minds since the dawn of mankind: whether or not we should prospect for oil in Alaska. I’m normally the first to come down on the side of Mother Nature, particularly when the interests of Big Business are concerned. But right about now I’ve got far more important things on my mind than whether or not a bunch of Texans are throwing together a wildcat oil expedition in the Arctic. I don’t care, right at this very moment, if they are probing for fossil fuels inside the bodies of endangered owls. And yes, I do recognize that this is precisely the sort of reasoning that has allowed this foolishness to be resurrected in the first place. Frankly, I think the sooner we run out of oil, the sooner we’re all going to have to stop bickering like children and either get along long enough to find alternatives or destroy each other outright.

Either way, there’ll be quiet.

I’ve got a great deal more to say, but right now I’m tired and hungry and I have reason to believe that I’m becoming cynical.

End Communication

It's About Time

This is better than anything you're going to find here.
Go read it, then we'll talk.

This thinking business is fun, once you get the hang of it.

8.11.04

America 101

I know I promised to lay off the politicking for a while, but it's time we got some things strait. What follows is the first installment in what is to be a series of thumbnail dissections of life in this slice of alternate reality we like to call the United States. Stay tuned, and remember to take copious notes, because there will be a test...
Alright, kids, pay attention. Class is in session.

"Values":

The Neocon morality circus is based, by all appearances, on two things: gay rights and abortion. As for the abortion issue, I can only say that the female body is just one more place that the government should absolutely not be sticking its collective beauracratic proboscis. It's bad enough that Uncle Sam feels driven to legislate the rest of our meager existences, but I'll be damned if I can understand how we're expected to allow him to issue mandates to the females among us detailing the choices they're allowed to make concerning their own bodies. Our leaders need to demonstrate a little more concern for the economy and foreign policy and leave the womb to its owner. Period. End of fucking story. You conservatives want to talk to me about the sanctity of human life, stop parading the youth of America around the globe forcing them to trade their lives for your heinous warcrimes. Then we'll talk. Frankly, I think you women out there ought to be marching in the fucking streets.
And concerning gay rights, I have a couple of thoughts. First, there is no reasoning, absolutely none whatsoever, that anyone can construct to oppose equality for homosexuals that is not rooted either in old-white-monied, country-clubbing, myself-and-people-like-me status quo fetishism or deep-woods Bible-beating fundamentalist Christianity. There's no way anyone can convince me that any person, at any time, has ever been harmed by the legally-recognized marriage of two people of the same sex. And let's have no more of the imperative of procreation codswollop, shall we? Not unless you intend to dissolve the marriages of a large portion of the heterosexual population who either cannot or will not reproduce. I'm sick and fucking tired of being lectured on the sanctity of a holy institution by fat, balding white men who probably go straight home afterwards, swill a fifth of Beefeater, and beat the shit out of their wives before falling asleep in front of the Cubs game. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, unequal legal treatment of homosexuals is nothing more than old fashioned good ol' boy bigotry. "What would Jesus do?" my ass.

Things I Hate More Than Politics

In the spirit of random curmudgeonry, I've just brainstormed a list of things that generally annoy the hell out of me. Further, in the spirit of being a heartless bastard, I'm making you read it. Therefore, here are, in no particulary order, several things that piss me off:

  • Toneless, tuneless, amelodic power noise music played above 3 dB
  • Middle-aged men who wear bow ties
  • Any food product accompanied by a "crisping sleeve" or a "seasoning packet"
  • Anyone who prefaces a remark in a debate with the phrase "Well, Dr. Laura says..."
  • People who accost me with unsolicited religious texts
  • People who attempt to win an argument by repeating something I said only two minutes previously
  • Rush Limbaugh
  • The realization that I've just eaten something that shold have been thrown out three weeks ago
  • Answering the telephone only to have the person on the other end of the line ask "Who is this?"
  • Television program seguays that insist that I "Don't touch that dial!"
  • People whose clothing bears slogans in a language they don't understand
  • Theatres that refuse to electrocute patrons who conduct phone conversations during a movie
  • Stupid lists
  • Meaningless rambling by bloggers with nothing at all to say
There. I feel better.