Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Fun Games

Here is a fun game you can play while cranking through the last putrescent vestiges of the Fountainhead.
1. Give yourself an interesting megalomaniacal moniker. For example, let's use the Ultra Supreme Perfect Being on Earth.
2. Introduce this name into normal everyday things that people do.

We obtain such gems as...
"The Ultra Supreme Perfect Being on Earth is having a chicken sandwich for lunch."
"The Ultra Supreme Perfect Being on Earth just checked his rearview mirror before changing lanes; this is the perfect way to change lanes."
Some people enjoy poop, so we have
"The Ultra Supreme Perfect Being on Earth is now pooping in a hotel bathroom."

If you mix instant coffee with instant hot cocoa, the result is a good result.

What's the story with Don DeLillo? I just read Cosmopolis. I was significantly less impressed by this work than by, say, Cryptonomicon. In fact, Cosmopolis sounded very much like the book that Kivistik would write about the Information Superhighway. Thoughts?

Good News

So, before yesterday the best news story I'd ever heard on NPR was on late at night (around midnight) when they play BBC selections from all over the world. There was this story from Germany. Here was the story: It seems a man had a life long desire to kill and eat a person. Just any person would do. He made it into his forties or fifties as a normal work-a-day German. At that point, he started to advertise this desire on various web services. He got a series of applicants. He corresponded with them. More than one of them came out to his house (he lived outside of the city) for a meal and an "interview," leaving completely unharmed when they turned out not to be completely sure of their decisions. Don't worry though, the story has a happy ending. Eventually, he found a man who passed all his test. They eat dinner together. Had wine. Then, our hero calmly killed the man with a knife. He stabbed him in the chest. I like to picture this part something like that scene near the end of Saving Private Ryan with the hand to hand combat. He then, proceeded to eat part of his guest, saving him for later. How do I know all this? How did it end up on the BBC? He was being tried for murder and his defense was that it was a mercy killing, on a level with assisted suicide -- a punishment, in Germany, which, apparently, only carries a small monetary fine, as opposed to the life jail sentence associated with murder -- and the defense submitted a video tape of the whole endeavor. I don't remember what the verdict turned out to be (you can read about it here if you want to know, but I'll warn you that the print version strips away the folksy charm that the BBC radio version had and that I've been trying to impart here), but it wasn't the full sentence for murder. At the time, I just thought that this was so great because it's such a moral quandry. Was what this man did wrong? If so, how wrong? Is it akin to not helping a suicidal person who comes across your path, or of hunting down a victim to murder? Should it even be illegal?

Anyway, yesterday, I heard a totally unrelated story (except for the fact that I think it also took place in Germany) that might surpass the German cannibal for pure weirdness. Apparently, scientists in Germany have discovered a gene that controls the point when muscle growth stops. Or, more acurately, they discovered a gene that (if you have both copies, it's recessive), makes it so that you don't generate the hormone that tells your muscles to stop growing. They discovered this because of. . .an incredibly strong baby. A super baby. This baby has the gene from both parents and so no hormone inhibits the growth of its muscles. It (he?) is four years old and can lift eight pounds with each arm. Picture a baby, or a little kid, with lots of muscles.

Anyway, in school I think part of the reason we listened to NPR 23 hours a day was because if you listen enough, eventually you hear it wander out past the edge of sensible reality into areas like these. You can always tell its happening because of the audible delight in the voices of the program hosts. I remember lying in bed late at night and laughing listening to an hour long program about "caravans" (campers) on the BBC. It just went on and on into all of this rediculous detail about caravan culture and sales and trends.

I guess hearing the story about the super baby with lots of muscles made me nostalgic for those moments. Half of the fun of them is sharing.

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Porn

I don't know if you guys have seen this yet, but the Supreme Court just handed down a decision that blocks the Child Online Protection Act from taking effect. This act would have required sites containing "objectionable material" to use age verification before allowing users access to said material. The Supreme Court said, in a 5-4 split, that this was too restrictive, and it wasn't clear that the onus of protecting children from porn needed to be on the webmasters, rather than on the individual users. This seems like a relatively "liberal" decision, so it makes sense that among the majority were Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens (pretty consistent liberals), and Kennedy (probably the most liberal conservative on the court). But I think that it is funny that the majority in a case about preserving easy access to pornography was rounded out by...wait for it...Clarence Thomas.

Thursday, June 24, 2004

I'm In

There seemed to be a sad lack of fat jokes and friend-hatred on this blog, so let it me known that I am here, ready once again to fill the role of whipping boy and general pool noodle target. It's pretty great that I have another thing to do not-work with, since I seemed to be spending too much time with my license generation. I will be out of here in a minute to go catch some Beaver action (sadly, a minor league baseball game), but I just wanted to make my presence known on this hip and with-it new blog.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Setting Priorities

Man, I am way behind on my gamecube skillz. Do you know that I have neither finished Zelda, nor even played MarioKart? This is shameful. I write this while not working on papers.

Cameron, why on earth are you continuing this deathmarch through the shitmonster? I doubt it's going to pick up around like page 600 or so. And anyway, if I recall correctly, the Objectivist Club is annoyingly present at Berkeley. They can probably tell you how it ends. And then yammer on about how if everyone just listened to the white man, everything would be peachy keen, or something like that.

Also, Chuck and Buck had flaws. Therefore, it totally sucked. And I reserve my right to vituperate stuff that totally sucks. Though I do actually like Mike White otherwise.

Yogurt + Raisins + Total = Tasty. Odwalla Lime Quencher = Gross

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Does this work?

I'm not listed as one of the contributors to this blog yet, so I was just trying to see if publishing a post would rectify that. I'm hungry. It's about time to make that tofu in caramel sauce.

Cameron, from whence came the expression "raving shit-monster?" It sounds like something I'd say; I'm just blanking on the context. Or is that information too sensitive to disclose in such a public forum?

Ayn Rand

Not all of you already know this about me, so I felt I should share. It's true. Ayn Rand sucks my ass. With syrup. Lapping it up with those sickly, scrawny cracker lips of hers.

Btw I'm trapped now somewhere in The Fountainhead. Nearer the end, thankfully. A more apt title of this "raving shit-monster" (thank you, Will, for that turn of phrase) would be something like "A Study of the Mating Habits of Ubermenschen in their Natural Habitat" or perhaps "The Ubermenschen Fuck, Too!" Some others that I have considered include "Fuck Nature!... Huh? Fuck You, Too!" and "My Piss-Poor Philosphical System Also Produces 'Raving Shit Monsters' in Literature!"

For some time now, a sci-fi/fantasy author by the name of Patricia Morrison-Kennealy has had the distinguished honor of nibbling my black asshole with Mensa-tested cracker lips. But now, a challenger has come, the challenge laid, and White Womanhood has found a new, and far greater, Syrupy-Ass Sucker.

Aaaaaarggggghh!

And so begins the shouting. . .

Cary and I just stopped (reluctantly) playing the new Bond game. Third person. Actually having to aim (whole new non-auto aim system). Collaborative multi-player mode.

Anyway. . .I thought this would be a good place for us all to keep in touch and keep up some patter. Neh?