Climate Change

It has snowed twice this week in Seattle. Snowed. Twice. When I was growing up here, this wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but in the intervening 20-odd years, Global Warming has kicked our climate in the nuts hard enough that a few snow flurries in the dead of winter is pretty much all we can expect. I'm frightened. We could be on the verge of the oceans reaching a critical desalinization point and ushering in the second ice age. OK, probably not. It is probably more like Two Days Before The Day After Tomorrow. We'll probably not be entombed in an icy wasteland by Superstorm Ice Hurricanes. But shit is going down in Antartica.

On Tuesday, it was discovered that the Wilkins Ice Shelf had begun to disintegrate. Well, at least Global Warming isn't real, right? I mean, it would really suck if our nation's leaders have been up there for the past, hrm, 8 years going on about how "Climate Change" is not scientific fact and we should wait until there's a consensus on the issue within the scientific community before altering policy that would have a detrimental effect on the economy, etc., etc.

Well guess what? It does suck like that. Far from being informed and honest about Global Warming, the Bush Administration has been either criminally dishonest, or criminally ignorant about the way science works. And common sense, for that matter, because common sense is really all that is required to understand what is happening with the melting of the ice caps.

The point at which the polar ice caps end is essentially just the equilibrium point between two forces acting in opposite directions: the freezing of the pole during winter and the melting of the pole during summer. Not that complicated when it really comes down to it, one season is entirely devoid of the warmth of the sun, the other comprised of nothing but. So much heat (A) during summer plus so much cold during winter (B) equals how much ice will survive through each summer and accumulate to become an ice shelf (C). A + B = C, where B is a negative number. The scientifically inclined will no doubt realize that this is a gross simplification, and that those variables are not even in the same units. But that's basically how it works.

This is a process that aggregates over thousands of years. The ice we're talking about is hundreds of meters thick, accumulated and compacted from thousands and thousands of feet of snow that fell on the mainland thousands of years ago. Some conservatives opine that the ice is so massive that a couple degrees difference one way or the other could not possibly affect it. Well, if you really think that you are either A. fucking retarded, or B. somewhat ignorant on the issue but will stop thinking that the second you become informed. I'm guessing that if you consider yourself conservative, vote republican, and maintain that "Climate Change" is the proper term rather than Global Warming, then you belong to group A and can just go fuck yourself.

Now that I've insulted the intelligence of conservatives everywhere, let's just go ahead and look at the proof of this. In 2002, the B-section of the Larson Ice shelf disintegrated. In THREE WEEKS. A hunk of ice shelf the size of Rhode Island and over 200 meters thick which had been stable during the entire period since the last ice age 12,000 years ago just up and crumbled away. Warming ocean currents under it had been eroding its underside, this was known beforehand. What was a surprise was way in which surface pools of meltwater were driving down through the shelf acting like huge wedges. A 100 meter column of water creates rather significant outward pressure.

So now, the Wilkins shelf has begun a similar process, and may disintegrate entirely during next summer. As a singular event, this is not a crisis, a fact upon which Idiotic Conservatives and other asshats love to focus. But its a canary in a mine. Polar ice melt is a process dramatically more sensitive to temperature trends than human memory. So if I'm sitting here in Seattle, occasionally waxing nostalgic about the colder winters of my youth, what the fuck would the ice caps be thinking? ...you know, if they were conscious and could think and whatnot. Something tells me it would be loud, filled with cursing of the human race, and very, very sad.

Tags: news, science, movies, rants, wtf

Leave the Emo Kids Alone!

Well, I was in the middle of reading up on some background for a new post, when I saw the following story on Wired. I saw the headline several times earlier in the day, but without a summary for context, it didn't really sink in that it really meant it. Apparently there has been escalating strings of violence directed at Emo kids in Mexico.

That's right, Emo kids. Getting attacked. By punk-rockers and rockabilly kids. And now they're banding together and rioting in response. Now, I have several insensitive responses to this, mostly revolving around my hatred of Emo music and culture, and my mild disdain for people who don't realize that punk died sometime in the last millennium and/or think that pompadours, mutton-chops and white undershirts as outerwear are good ideas. But my dislike of Fallout Boy notwithstanding, This Shit is Fucked Up.

Emo is strongly identified with homosexuality in Mexico, and we all know how manly and straight you have to be when a rockabilly dude. Some of the rhetoric surrounding the attacks has included the term, "emosexual." It would be hard to deny that there is something at least a little bit sexually ambiguous about the whole Guy-liner phenomenon, but when just the name of a musical genre has become hate-speech, that hardly fucking matters. Knock it the fuck off, just leave the Emo kids alone.

Tags: news, music, wtf

Justice, Diplo

Last night, Ryan and I got to see Justice perform at the Showbox SoDo, and it was awesome. I am a big fan of the phenomenon of two French dudes making sweet, sweet techno musics. Daft Punk's Alive 2007 album is one of the greatest albums ever made and the performance on the eponymous tour completely blew my mind. Justice is well on their way to living up to the very high standards set by their quasirobotic predecessors.

This was the second Justice show I'd seen, the first being this past October at Neumos, and I had some rather high expectations going in. Neumos, for those unfamiliar with Seattle's Capitol Hill concert venues, has a tendency to be full of shoegazers and other low-energy wankers even at the most energetic of shows. Which is unfortunate and also highly puzzling when the crowd for a show like Ratatat somehow isn't rocking the fuck out from the moment they start till the moment the house-lights come back on. But Justice at Neumos almost brought the place down. I was at the back wall and there was not a single stationary person there during the entire show.

I had never been to the Showbox SoDo before, and was unprepared for the experience of walking in and being surrounded, surrounded, by tools. Its like there was some kind of tool convention of which I was unaware and it was being hosted by Justice. Also, it was a type of tool I'd had only glancing previous experience with, the tool who looks and acts like a stereotypical frat guy who's trying to be a hipster. Most unsettling.

The Fear was beginning to rise until Ryan pointed out that the show was part of the Myspace Music Tour. Ohhhhhhhhh... *that's* what that is. While I'm all in favor of bands getting the word out and networking and all that good stuff, the cultural trappings of the Myspace phenomenon can fuck right off.

So things start off with the opener, Diplo. Wow, talk about unfulfilled potential. Diplo seemed to have a talent for building some rather excellent soaring, almost symphonic melodies and then utterly destroying everything 4 measures later in favor of 4 minutes of boring thumping beats. What the Fuck, Diplo? First of all, pick a style and stick with it. Second of all, if you are going to break up your melodies, you can't just ditch them entirely. Keeping some element of the previous section is required if you want people to think that you're doing something other than flipping the crossfader from left to right and calling it a mix. Third, pick a style and stick with it. I realize this is the same as first of all, but its such an important point I thought it was worth mentioning twice.

Needless to say, Justice wiped all of this from my mind the moment they started. Where their show at Neumos had been relatively similar to their album, this show overall seemed to take a serious hint from Alive 2007 and mixed things up in a serious way, pulling both new and unexpected, stylistically, samples into the mix as well as sections mashing up two of their own songs into beautiful new hybrids. It was just an audiovisual assault of excellence, from start to finish. My favorite mix from the October show made a reappearance and I was simply overjoyed. The party mixed over Master of Puppets. I had a pretty serious Metallica thing in high school, and this song just makes me happier than i can explain. If anyone knows where I can acquire it, please, please let me know.

Thank you France, for once again putting two of your dudes together for the purposes of making sweet techno. The world is a better place for it.

Tags: music, seattle

Nuclear Cat

If you're planning on traveling to or from Canada with a radioactive cat anytime soon, you may want to think twice before setting out. It seems that the U.S. Government has actually decided to throw down and implement an anti-terrorist system that actually works, in this case, a radiation detection network along the interstate. Though designed to detect a dirty bomb moving south along I-5 from Vancouver, B.C., it has thus far snared just one very sick cat, who had recently undergone radiation therapy.

I've certainly heard of this happening with people in airports, but there is something slightly Orwellian about this level of surveillance taking place on the road. At the border, sure. Roads which are points of entry probably should have about the same level of security as airports, but the cat in question was apprehended south of Bellingham, or for those of you not from the Northwest about an hour's drive south of the border. And also, it was a cat, not a terrorist. What's next, Family Sent to Gitmo Over Transportation of Red Fiestaware Near Border?

Of course, what they really need to help watch out for radioactive cats is this cat:

JackBauer Cat would have it all wrapped up by this time tomorrow.

Tags: politics, lolcat, wtf

Salute to That Guy

I enjoyed ranting about That Guy last week so much that I've decided to make a regular feature out of it. This time: That Guy who can't drive.

That Guy who can't drive is a major frustration in my life. I commute either on the bus or on foot, so when I am in the car, I generally actually want to get to wherever it is I'm going and as a result have very little patience for That Guy's shenanigans.

That Guy who can't drive probably thinks he's a really good driver. That guy is very cautious, lets people in when they're waiting to turn, and if he's not sure who's turn it is, he assumes its someone else's, lest he cause an accident. That Guy also signals well in advance, never stops less than a car length back at stop lights, and makes absolutely sure to look both ways before passing through a yield sign.

I can hear the disembodied voice of my father as I type this, intoning each of these items as advice, no, orders, as if I'm suddenly learning how to drive again. They all sound like things one should definitely do when driving, because that's what they said in drivers' ed, right? Well, yes. But not to the extent that That Guy does.

When That Guy lets someone in who is trying to turn, he usually does in the least safe method possible. That Guy will, while driving on an arterial, stop to let someone turn left off of a side street, despite the fact that the person turning has a stop sign, and the neither the traffic in the left lane, nor in either of the oncoming lanes is stopping. That Guy will just sit there, getting honked at, waving the left-turner on, oblivious to the fact that everyone who can see him is thinking to themselves, "God, I fucking HATE That Guy." The car waiting to turn left will probably be giving That Guy the finger and doing everything short of busting out signal flags to get That guy to unfuck himself and get traffic flowing again. That is how That Guy lets someone turn in front of him.

When That Guy is at a stop sign and unsure of whose turn it is, he will decide that the safest course of action is simply to assume it is not his turn, and let others go first. This seems reasonable. The problems with the implementation of this reasonable decision are:

1. That Guy will have this decision-making process whilst starting to transit the intersection and then stopping, thus making everyone else at the intersection think that he thinks its his turn and therefore wait for him to go and,
2. That Guy is incapable of keeping track of when it should be his turn next after having yielded and will therefore repeat the process in problem 1 after each new car passes eventually leaving him in the center of the intersection getting the finger and dirty looks from passing nuns. Nuns hate That Guy most of all.

In Washington State, you are required to signal a turn 75 feet in advance. For That Guy, 75 feet is just not in advance enough. That Guy will, if he remembers, signal at least 100 yards in advance so that you, the car behind him, will be ready to slow and accommodate his turn at every intersection for the 7 blocks prior to the one on which he intends to turn. Its just common courtesy, says That Guy. That Guy is, unfortunately, a complete fucking moron who fails to realize that after the 4th block we've written off his turn signal so when he slams the brakes before turning, he will be savagely rear-ended.

At a stop light, That Guy will leave at least 3 car-lengths between him and the car ahead of him in order to insure that the cars behind him who saw plenty of room into which he could advance and therefore followed him across the previous intersection will become stuck and unable to leave the intersection. When honked at to move forward, That Guy will remain rooted to the ground, ignoring the honks, because he is doing nothing wrong, and therefore people must be honking at someone else.

That Guy is wary of yield signs. At a yield sign, you might have the right of way, but you also might not. That Guy's innate indecision, as mentioned earlier, will go ahead and fuck everything up. That Guy is unaware of this, however, and so thinks its really much safer if you actually stop at yield signs every single time. Even if the intersection has completely unobstructed fields of view with no cars in sight. In a similar fashion, That Guy will slam on the breaks as if to avoid a baby in the road the second a light turns orange. That Guy would rather get rear-ended at a yield sign or slide halfway through an intersection to stop for an amber light than learn how to drive and for that, we salute him.

Fuck you, That Guy who can't drive.

Tags: rants, That Guy, driving, blog, sarcasm

The Google Wireless Network Was Not Meant To Be

For those of you not keeping track of telecommunications news, the FCC just auctioned off the 700Mhz band of the wireless spectrum. It was a silent auction, rather than the enjoyble, from a people watching perspective, variety. Also, it was anonymous, and therefore significantly more mysterious. And mystery is awesome, right? Well, there probably isnt a whole lot of awesomeness in a room full of telecom lawyers doing math and wagering billions of dollars on the rights to a particular frequency of EM radiation.

Oh, yes, BILLIONS of dollars. Verizon managed to win the much-talked about C-Block for $9.4 Billion. The C-Block is apparently the block of spectrum most easily used by current wireless tech and therefore was sought after much in the same way a room full of drunks will scramble for the last beer. A really delicious beer, that brought in over half of the $16 billion the auction posted overall.

At some point after announcing their competitor to Apple's iPhone, albeit more of a competitor to the OS, as they seem to eschew the hardware world, Google announced their interest in the C-Block and then followed up with scraping some loose change together to back it up. Needless to say, I think a GooglePhone Network would be pretty awesome and I would drop my current carrier in a heartbeat should such a thing have come to pass. Alas, it did not and Verizon has walked away with that delicious last beer.

But there is a small victory for Google in all of this, and that is the open access requirement of the C-Block. Essentially this means that Verizon will be required to permit 3rd-party hard and software open access to its network, will be prohibited from engaging in any vendor lock-in with the hard and software it sells, and will be further prohibited from using any kind of network administration shenanigans to make unlocked and other 3rd party devices and software less desirable. Or, in other words, a significant portion of the typical telco sales arsenal is utterly banned within the C-Block.

Now, I've been a loyal Sprint customer for the past 8 years. They don't fuck me over too hard, and in return I don't shop around. But my current phone has T9 that won't learn new words and the media functions have been locked off so as to prevent me making my own ringtones. Granted I hardly ever have my phone on anything but vibrate, but if I could import some awesome video game themes or the Hawaii 5-0 song, or something equally awesome for free, I fucking would. But I can't. And that makes me SadBeard.

So my plan, and I encourage everyone to join me, is to compile a list of complaints, wait for Verizon to get off its ass and market this shiny new toy of theirs, and for Google's Android to become an actual product, find a sweet phone onto which Android might be installed, then go to your provider with an ultimatum: fix my complaints, totally and without charging me a penny more, or I'm ditching and going to this new network where Verizon is prevented from fucking me over too hard and where I'll have this sweet gPhone.

Granted, there remains some confusion about how the open access rules would be implemented. It all depends on how Verizon decides to use the spectrum. Should the C-Block be used by devices that also access Verizon's existing networks, which set of rules will they abide by? I think we can safely assume that Verizon will opt for trying to force the existing lack of open access rules to spill over as much as possible. The issue will likely be tied up in litigation for years and blah, blah, blah. I, however, will continue fantasizing about that wonderful call to Sprint Customer Service.

Tags: Google, news, FCC, Verizon, cell phones, Sprint, iPhone, Android

Regarding "That Guy"

I have several times now referred to someone as That Guy. For those of you not in the know, That Guy is a highly technical term for a very specific type of douchebaggery that at the same time has an almost limitless spectrum of possibly applications. I cannot claim to be the originator of the term, by any means, but it has become one of my favorite means of insult and fits very nicely with what I was recently told is my habit of telling people to fuck off while not actually fighting them.

While not every situation has a That Guy, almost all irritating situations do. Sometimes its a That Girl, but for the sake of discussion, we'll be kicking gender neutrality in wherever one kicks something neutral and sticking with the masculine. My favorite That Guys are those that exist in everyday situations, for their very everydayness makes it all the more improbable that That Guy doesnt know he's being a tool and pissing everyone off. For example, you're sitting in line for a coffee at your local francise espresso house, and you notice that you haven't been moving very much. You look up only to see That Guy at the head of the line talking on a cellphone, looking very important, and holding up a single finger to the barista as if to say, "I'm so important that I'm just going to stand here not letting you do your job. Oh, also, I'm more important than everyone behind me, so fuck 'em." The barista will most likely look like murdering him even harder than anyone has ever wanted to murder someone.

Everyone's seen this particular That Guy, even That Guy. As a matter of fact, That Guy has almost certainly bitched about another similar That Guy in the past. "Man," That Guy probably ranted, upon reentering the office 5 minutes later than usual, "I cannot believe That Guy wouldn't hang up and order his latte. I mean, everyone was about to kill him. WTF" Not realizing that you are being a type of That Guy that you have previously ranted about is, of course, a hallmark of That Guys everywhere and should in no way be considered an inconsistency in the theory. It might, in point of fact, be a requisite.

A great That Guy I encountered recently was That Guy Talking on a Cellphone on the Bus. Man, FUCK That Guy. Here's this dude, maybe 30-32, black jeans, black leather coat, a pompadour, and these big bushy mutton-chops just yammering away at top volume about how he didn't want to be the guy on a phone on the bus. Well, Vic, or whatever totally wannabe '50's tough-guy name you've given yourself, why don't you just hang up the phone? This is the type of question that *never* occurs to That Guy. Even in the midst of having a conversation about how he does not want to be That Guy, That Guy will consider *not* being That Guy only as an absolutely last resort.

That Guy can also be used as a warning to friends and loved ones, so that they might check themselves and thus prevent becoming wrecked. Your friend has passed annoying and has reached the point of aggravation induction that blows might come to pass if left unfettered. "Dude, don't be That Guy," you say. Clear, concise, yet not emotionally loaded for uncomplicated use in company, this phrase communicates that your friend's behavior must stop, that things are no longer all in good fooling, and that should the situation not be rectified, uppance will be coming. This really is the best of all possible uses, when you get right to it. Its the preemptive action, friendship in the Aristotelian sense, forcibly correcting the behavior of your friend for his or her own sake. For if you fail to help them check, they might become wrecked before anyone can do anything about it.

As so wonderfully summarized by Married To The Sea:







You don't want to end up like, that, do you? On a slab in some turn of the 20th century morgue? Of course not.

Tags: That Guy, sarcasm

Fuck Floor Warden Training

The following was written using non-digital means and later transcribed into the aether. Enjoy.

So this is coming to you retro pen-to-paper style, as I'm stuck in a pointless training meeting, and am so bored I may actually open my wrists with my pen just to have something to do. Crossways, obviously, not sideways. I don't want to die, I just want to end the agony that is Floor Warden Training. Bleeding = Excitement; Informational Videos on Fire Extinguisher Use = my brain actually shutting off its own blood flow just to stimulate some endorphins in a vain attempt to prevent me from hurling my chair through the window and leaping to a meaty pancake death 27 floors below. Man, I started that thought not suicidal. This is worse than i thought.

I am a Floor Warden in my office building. What does that mean, Weirdbeard, you might ask? Well, that means that I have to be That Guy during the fire drills making sure that everyone is leaving the floor, and treating the situation with more gravity than it deserves by anyone's definition (with the exception of building management, who is clearly getting off on the whole thing).

I hate it.
I only agreed to do it because our facilities manager begged. Well, not so much begged as asked nicely and batted her eyelashes and smiled, and I caved like a house of cards that has been inexplicably topped with the complete unabridged Oxford English Dictionary rather than a final card.
<no context rant at trainer> NO I WILL NOT BUY AN ORANGE VEST WITH MY OWN FUCKING MONEY AND WEAR IT DURING FIRE DRILLS TO IDENTIFY MYSELF AS A LEADER. FUCK YOU. </no context rant at trainer> this is clearly not a real tag, but is rather intended to indicate my desire to shout the enclosed remarks at the trainer, who is apparently a total toolwad.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, so the facilities manager is a hellof cute redhead, and I'm totally incapable of saying no to her. So I am a Floor Warden.

But Its not all emasculation and bullshit.
There are perks.

Every summer there's a Floor Wardens Picnic. A picnic, you say? Well, that sounds about as enjoyable as the training you're bitching about.

Ordinarily, I'd agree with you, magical third party interrogator, but its on the roof of the building. On the 55th floor. With uninterrupted views of Mt. Rainier and Puget Sound, The Olympics around to the Cascades. And that's pretty fucking awesome.

But this is, of course, absolutely of no help to me now, as I'm in this bullshit meeting writing this rant on paper perched on the windowsill like its the fucking middle ages or something.
<no context rant at trainer>Dude, Really, Trainer? We should use Common Sense in the event of an emergency? Get the Fuck Out. Here I was planning on getting a good bit of momentum going and then running through the offices screaming at the top of my lungs, "WE'RE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIE!!!!!1! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! USE THOSE SMALLER AND WEAKER THAN YOURSELVES AS SHIELDS AND/OR BAIT. OH EM GEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee..." Fuck you and your common sense, I'm gonna have fun. Bait, of course, in the event of a Monster or other Creature-Event based emergency. Remove the head or destroy the brain. For Fuck's Sake if the rats are stampeding, run WITH them without questioning it. </no context rant at trainer>

Sigh
Floor Warden Training.


On an unrelated note, I highly suggest that those of you who like ranting and video games and english people go check out Zero Punctuation's game reviews every wednesday over at The Escapist Magazine. A limey ranting about videogames = awesome. That's math, you can't argue with math.

Tags: jobs, writing, blogging, rants, seattle

Chaos

Just watched the fine heist movie Chaos, starring Jason Statham, Ryan Philippe, Wesley Snipes, and a collection of various That Guy Who Played. That guy who played Ritter in Clear and Present danger, that guy who played Krycek on the X-Files, that guy who plays the chief on Battlestar Galactica, that chick who plays a reporter on Battlestar Galactica, that guy who played the huskier lieutenant on Battlestar Galactica, that guy who played Captain McRaperson on Battlestar Galactica, and that guy who reminds me of BD Wong, but was actually Chuckles, on, you guessed it, Battlestar Galactica.

Now, given that both are filmed in Vancouver, B.C., it certainly makes sense that there would be a lot of crossover between small speaking roles acting pools. But I'm always a little irritated when filmmakers shot exterior shots in Vancouver and then try to tell me its Seattle. Just fucking call it Vancouver and be done with it. Oh, you're having a nice walk through downtown Seattle in this shot? Well, then, why the fuck isn't a hill in frame anywhere? Downtown Seattle is comprised of One Gigantic Fucking Hill. The only level spot is around Westlake and Nordstrom, and you've got the Sound on one side and Capitol Hill on the other.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't give two shits about this. Filming in Vancouver is cheaper and there's a very decent-sized film industry which has been patronizing the city for some time. Seattle, on the other hand, is run by a bunch of prats more interested in sucking off Paul Allen's construction and development cronies (see the South Lake Union Streetcar. Actually everyone calls it the South Lake Union Trolley, as they may then claim to have ridden the SLUT, or seen it at least, as nobody rides the dammed thing) and calling that 'bringing businesses to the city' than anything that would require significant outlay, like, oh, I dunno, building infrastructure or any other element of urban planning. I understand not wanting to deal with the hassle of whatever it is that has prevented a realistic portrayal of the city in film thus far. But if you're gonna set your movie in Seattle and then film it in Vancouver, please, for the love of my willing suspension of disbelief, do not open with a montage of wide shots of Seattle, covering the entire urban center of the city only to cut to a shot of several entirely different skyscrapers. Skyscrapers from Vancouver. And while I'm at it, please do not repeat this maneuver each time you have a B-roll transition. At least 3 fucking times Chaos did this, and that's just stupid.

Now, with that little rant out of the way, Chaos was pretty sweet. The IMDB date of 2005 with a release date of 2007, usually a mark of a movie too crappy to go up against anything strong, notwithstanding, the film was interesting. More slowly paced than an action movie, less bravado-ridden than a normal cop-flick, and less annoyingly obsessed with minutiae than most heist-movies, Chaos seemed satisfied with fucking with its viewers on its own terms. The twist was reasonable and not so over-the-top obvious as to recall that steaming pile of a film The Village (which I actually liked despite wanting to choke Shyamalan with his own smug, twist-shitting entrails. That twist ruined what would otherwise have been a very interesting pilgrims-era supernatural period piece. Fuck everything he's done since the 6th sense) and the resolution of the film left me feeling satisfied for everyone involved, but not in a particularly Hollywoody way.

Not a great work of film but a decent movie and worth a rental if you like movies about things being stolen, explosions, confused cops, and Jason Statham being a badass.

Tags: Jason Statham, movies, Battlestar Galactica, Vancouver, Seattle

Whatthefuckery from Greta

Greta will go ahead and send me random tubes.

Here is a potty training anime from the craziest of island nations, Japan. With what I'm sure are entirely fictitious English subtitles.

Enjoy

Edit: After a few minutes of clicking through youtube's "suggested videos" from the aforementioned video abomination, we managed to come across this gem. For those of you familar with ihumpedyourhummer, its kinda like that, but with a boston terrier and pikachu. Fuck you, pikachu

Tags: wtf, japan, youtube, hummers, pikachu

he just wants his bukkit

Ok, so I'm not a huge Michael Jackson fan. *ducks* I wouldn't say I actively dislike the MJ, but in the face of people who seem to think the man can do no wrong (musically speaking, of course. He fucked little kids, and that's just not cricket) I will tend to put out a bit of a, "Fuck Michael Jackson in his stupid face," kind of vibe. And by vibe I mean I've been known to say those exact words.

But when it comes down to it, the older half of his library is pretty tits. Anyone who doesn't like thriller, well, your ways are foreign to me. Don't feel the beat and outright requirement to dance to bad? You, sir or madam, might be republican.

That said, the later years with the increasingly crazy costuming and behavior, and decreasingly good musics can basically piss off.

Why have I suddenly started spouting off about teh MJ, you ask? Well courtesy of Scanner over at nerve.com, we have this amazing video entertainment. Its a walrus. Dancing to smooth criminal.

No, really. A fucking walrus in a coordinated dance routine to smooth criminal.

Tags: Michael Jackson, Thriller, Scanner, walrus, lolrus, wtf

A Kamel in the Desert

So my friend Ryan has joined the cesspool, wasteland, nonplace and unHeideggerian thing that is the blogosphere.

I fucking hate that term, by the by. At least when its used entirely sincerely. If there isnt at least a tinge of awareness of the inherent silliness and absurdity in both the term and the ephemeral nongroup of things it purports to include when you use it, UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Erm, sorry bout that. One of the problems with the somewhat unedited (read: I'm not editing this) way in which I write this'a'here blagoblog is that I'll just go ahead and tangent off into an unrelated area of rant with no warning. Sorry, but you may want to steel yourself for the possibility that this will be a consistent feature here.

So Ryan's blagz is A Kamel in the Desert. Thus far, it is fucking hilarious. But I can picture the look on his face writing it. Kinda the same look he had reading Dada poetry those however many years ago and we realized that making no sense was significantly awesomer than making sense.

Speaking of which... I had a hilarious idea for a concept restaurant the other day. Morgan and I were discussing the relative efficiency w/ which we have been served our midday meals downtown (Quizno's: bad. Asia Ginger: staffed by an efficiency robot masquerading as a japanese lady) and he recounted how the dude at Quizno's had not understood what the sandwich combo was, like that thing on the menu that undoubtedly has a button on the till, and then gave him a fork with his soup.

Well shit, that makes perfect sense. But how about taking things one step further? How about an entire menu based around this? Bistro Dada. No, wait, that makes too much sense. Golf Umbrella Dada.

First of all, there can be no continuity between the dishes, no set of starters, no main plates, no consistent culinary style... but of course only so far, or that becomes a theme. Consistently inconsistent is the lofty goal for which we will strive day in and day out.

Second, as a bump to the inspiration, none of the utensils can be used to eat the food they're served with. A straw with steak, fork with milkshake, chopsticks with miso, a full formal dining lay complete with crab fork and escargot-poker-thingie for a plain ham sandwich on white hold the mayo. If the patron isnt confused as to how to even begin eating the food they don't understand, we will have failed as restaurateurs.

Third and lastly, there will need to be some manner of completely baffling public non-art/whatthefuckery, you know, just to really show the fallacious underpinnings of the entire concept of restaurants. I mean, come on. No there isn't a rest of that argument, its dada, form is for conformists. I'm thinking maybe a mime will have a table in the corner, just grating into a cellphone like Gilbert Godfried all night about intimate details of his personal life, or maybe none of the servers will be allowed to use the letter E. Regardless, nobody will know what the fuck is going on, and I will sit there laughing while dumping buckets of my backers' cash down a bottomless hole.

How fun does that sound?

Tags: blog, blogging, bloggers, dada, restaurants

It is ON!!!1!

Just thought I'd give a bit of a bump to hilarious developments between two of my friends who work at the internet.

Gentleman, I would like to propose an addition to the challenge: 5 consecutive Pearl Harbor viewings seems a little harsher than 40 whenever episodes of Sealab. Therefore, between each 10 episode chunk of Sealab, Kevin watches one of the Aqua Teen episodes featuring the Mooninites. And drinks mexican beer. Nobody can withstand the quad-laser.

FUCK daylight saving time

To those of you who know me, this rant will be nothing new, but whatever: FUCK daylight saving time.

This particular spring morning was probably the most jarring spring-ahead I've ever experienced, though in all fairness, that was probably due more to the cats engaged in a fucking Thunderdome on my bed than with the fact that it was suddenly dark outside again when i got up. Once i managed to remove the ball of angry cats from the vicinity of my man-parts, however, I was struck at just how balls-dark it was. Though I rarely greet the morning with a cheery smile, I do not usually experience the "Oh, fuck this bullshit," feelings i experienced this morning. I just spent the last few weeks getting used to it being gradually lighter and lighter when my alarm of doom first sounds, and now that its DST again, I'm going to have to spend another few weeks training my unconscious from hitting the alarm and going back to sleep because its too dark.

DST is totally ass-backwards, too. Its supposed to give us more light in the evenings when we're home from work. WHAT? The summer is when there's NATURALLY more fucking light when we're home from work. If we really wanted to accomplish the stated goals, why switch back right when days are getting shorter again? It makes about as much sense as a giraffe in rollerskates trying to go to the opera, which is to say, only in some bizarre Seusian netherworld of anti-logic does the summer need more daylight in the evenings and the winter less. I would LOVE to have another hour of sunlight on my walk home from work in the winter. Not only is sunset over the Olympics and downtown Seattle beautiful from Capitol Hill, but I'd probably be spared at least 1 near-death experience crossing the street at Pine and Boylston just from the extra visibility. But, NOOOooo... lets have it at the time of year that makes no sense. That makes more sense.

Then there's the "well it saves electricity by letting people leave the lights off longer each night" argument. That is stupid, or at the very least, completely wrong.

Usually people love the falling back portion of the DST Useless Fuckery, but guess what? I can even find the dark center of that silver-lined cloud. Last-call at bars in Seattle is 2am. DST ends at 2am. The second it strikes 2am it is instantly 1:00:01am again... yet not a single bar wants to continue serving me alcohol sat/sun night. NOT ONE. This seems like absolute bullshit to me. Not that I expect them all to do so, shit if DST ended at 5pm friday and my boss wanted to work the second 4 o'clock hour, I'd probably get fired every fall for telling bosses to go fuck themselves. But its Capitol Hill, a neighborhood comprised entirely of bars and shady mini-marts and restaurants that are mostly bars. Wouldn't you think that ONE of them would throw down some extra cash to the staff and take advantage of having ALL of the Hill's drinkers come by for the SuperSpecial ExtraDrinkingHour? I would be so there. My friend Josh would be too. Seattle bar owners, start planning this special event now, and I will bring the customers. Help me help you help me drink later than is usually allowed.

Really the only saving grace of the whole fucking ordeal is the fun I personally derive from not changing my clocks and watching my friends double-take whenever they check the time. I didn't take them off DST until after New Years this year.

Tags: daylight saving time, cats, rants

Movies and Music

This will, assuming I actually keep going with this vomiting of my opinion into the aether, become a fairly regular fixture here. I watch a lot of movies and listen to a lot of music, and have opinions about both.

Yesterday we went to see The Bank Job, starring Jason Statham and the 1970's, and man was it awesome. I have a fairly significant mancrush on Statham, and will probably see just about whatever he does, with the exception of that Uwe Boll piece of garbage, the trailer for which made me want to burn my eyes out with acid and ice-pick my eardrums just so i wouldn't have to experience any more of the pain. The Bank Job, fortunately, was the exact opposite of this. Based on a true story, the film quickly lets you know that it will not be falling into the trap so many others have before it of "true story + bullshit contrived fictional elements = weirdbeard heckling the screen." Only so much is known about the robbery on which the film is based, so only so much is, in turn, shown.

Clearly, it is a fictionalization of a real event, but the way the story is told lends a sense of realism I find lacking in most films of this sort. Focus will jump back and forth between characters and events in a way that at first doesn't seem to be building towards anything besides the inevitable heist. And this feels weird. Heist movies are supposed to start setting the background of how awesomely clever the criminals are and/or how awesomely gritty and determined the cops who will be chasing them later are, or going on about how exceptional the loot will be. But this isn't The Bank Job, a Jerry Bruckheimer Production, this is Film, and I feel that all too many of the heist movies recently have been the former rather than the latter. Its mainly just refreshing to see well-made dramas with action and emotional depth that lack emotional pandering and needless explosions.

I have a rather serious thing for the aesthetics of the '70's. I remember watching a BBC miniseries a few years ago of a John le Carre spy novel starring Alec Guinness, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and being struck by the opening scene wherein the Secret Spy Organization's morning meeting is kicking off, and this guy walks in wearing a Harris Tweed suit, with a swirly purple shirt and a day-glo orange polka dot tie. "Damn," I remarked to my girlfriend at the time, "that's a hellof sweet suit. I thought the '70's were supposed to have sucked." Needless to say, my idea of acquiring a similar getup was met with some amount of resistance, or at least incredulity. I wouldn't consider myself a highly fashionable person and would generally rather spend my disposable income on food, drink, and merriment, but it is gratifying to look around at hipster culture today and know that all across Capitol hill, dudes were having those same thoughts.

There was going to be a music section here, but through the combination of having been unable to get a ticket to The Helio Sequence's show last night and being about to nap so hard I may injure myself hitting the pillow, I'm just going to bump a few things I've been listening to.
MGMT
Sally Shapiro
Battles
Hot Chip

Their most recent albums make a playlist of excellence.

There Will Be LOST

So if you have a problem with that, we probably wouldn't be friends. There will also be lost spoilers, so if you care, probably dont read this fine source of my opinion on Lost night. Which is Thursday.

I came late to the phenomenon of Lost, starting through just after season 2 had finished airing. A lot has changed since it was just about some people who inexplicably survived their plane breaking up in mid-air and then plummeting to the earth on a mysterious island eerily resembling Oahu's north shore. In fact, the thing about the show that brought me back from the very beginning was its tendency to increase the What The Fuck quotient with every episode. Just from the pilot, there's a paraplegic who was able to walk again immediately after the crash and a monster who ate the pilot and uproots trees. And that's the baseline of the WhatTheFuckiness.

My friends and I have been discussing whether or not Locke will end up being the ultimate antagonist of the show once all is said and done. Some people do not agree with this. Obviously, their opinions are wrong. You know who you are. We were watching some of season one the other day and those of us in the "man, Locke is totally gonna be the villain," camp were struck by how his back-stories, drastically more so than anyone else's are tales of hardship and woe at every turn. He's really given the history of someone destined to turn to the Dark Side. Nobody has ever really loved him, except the one woman who could have saved him, but he fucked it up. Locke makes bad decisions. There was the whole "conned out of a kidney" incident, just to name one.

But tonight Ben really threw his name solidly back into contention again with the revelation that in addition to being a crazy-eyes killer and brilliant criminal mastermind, he's probably also BATSHIT INSANE, and as a result maybe just a tad psychotically and homicidally jealously obsessed with Juliet. Because she looks "just like her." Who's "her?" Now why the fuck would Lost bring up and answer a question in the same episode? We'll probably figure out who "her" is in the fucking series finale. Though, now that I'm writing this, it occurs to me that they may play the 'juliet looks like Ben's mom' card (you know, because she's blonde and is a woman) and have the whole obsession run along the lines of "OMG I MISS MY MOMMY WHO I NEVER MET" in addition to the obvious sexual tension. yuk. Either way, the man is at most only slightly hinged. Awesomely so.

A final note: Secrets. Secrets really do not do a body good on Lostisland. Nikki and Paulo died of secrets. Sun got clubbed over the head with secrets. Pretty much the only person capable of keeping secrets is Ben, and he might be the devil. So Farraday and C.S. Lewis go off on a secret mission to save everyone on the island, but do it in the sketchiest manner possible, and fraught with secrets, mug Kate in the process, have an awesome C.S. Lewis/Juliet hotchick-fight while Daniel Farraday is doing science, and then get all up on the cross about how offended they are at not being trusted. 'the HELL kind of plan is that? How about, "Hey, so we're going to go disable an as-yet-unseen to the viewer DHARMA station that could kill everyone. Here's how, and who wants to help?" No... nonono. Clearly, sneaking off in the night without telling anyone is a better way to not irk the losties, who are totally acting like the others more and more each show. Great plan.

Secrets aren't just no fun and hurting someone; they could KILL EVERYONE. Stop it.


On a completely unrelated note, I'm cat-sitting for my parents while they're out of town. My mom, bless her, has trained them to do the most retarded thing ever: drink water from her hands held under the bathroom sink faucet. So basically whenever I'm in the bathroom, or walk by the bathroom, or get up from the couch, they both run in there and I'll find whichever got there first sitting in the sink, meowing. What the HELL, mom? Where does that start making sense? It certainly hasn't for me yet. I'm sure there's a lolcat just waiting to be made. SINK... UR DOIN IT WRONG. SINK CAT IS IN THE SINK.

Oh, snap. Its ReRe.

My friend Graham has justly pointed out that he, too, has of teh blogos. Though he has pulled up his roots and ventured south to the great city of San Francisco, leaving behind the beautiful northwest, he's still pretty rad.

Graham was, in fact, the originator of my nickname as weirdbeard, though he points out on his blagoblog there that it is properly spelled WeirdBeard, and as the namer of the nick, I suppose I should defer to his call on this. But I've been using it all lowercase online for several years now, and I'm afraid its fairly well ingrained.

Graham is a nut. If free-association had a patron saint, it would be him. It is because of him that dim sum is now The Height of Service, our friend matt is sweetshat (SweetShat?), I am weirdbeard, and he, himself is ReRe.

We were hanging out one summer eve at matt's house, and we had planned for ourselves an epic evening. We had pooled together 4 CD players and were going to listen to listen to The Flaming Lips' Zaireeka. Probably at least twice. And it was going to rock. I feel like a total nerd for linking wikipedia on that, but really, whatever. I am a total nerd. So Zaireeka is an album on 4 separate CDs meant to be played simultaneously on 4 different CD players. Every machine plays at a slightly different speed, and you never hit play on all 4 at exactly the same instant, so each time you listen to the album its different, and each time its an event. I've only heard the whole thing maybe 6 times, and its easily one of my favorite albums of forever. So if you've never had the pleasure, you should really look into it. Also, I'm officially cooler than you, so take that.

Now, setting up a jambox, a discman hooked up to computer-speakers, a shelf-system, and a computer in a different room up to all play at the same relative volumes and all the other bs logistics was being taken care of by Graham and another friend josh. Matt was just kinda wandering around in anticipation. Rounding out the group was PJ. PJ and I took advantage of the brief wait by boring me to fucking tears with some turn-based rpg PJ was playing. As i stated earlier, I'm a total nerd. I've spent more hours playing Diablo II than I'm comfortable admitting, and I'm currently playing through the Super Mario Lost Levels on my wii (what was mario 2 in japan but was deemed to difficult for america and thus never released stateside until Super Mario All-stars. Also the fucking hardest game I've ever played), but really, turn-based rpg's can be left to wither and die in a pit of boredom of their own creation as far as I'm concerned. I just completely fail to see the appeal. PJ was totes into it though, and my non-enjoyment was clearly not on the radar. Its cool, we all do that.
Salvation! Graham says they're set. But PJ has one more thing to explain about the game! Graham is impatient! And then the moment of transcendental brilliance, as Graham calls from other room, "Dammit, Captain WeirdBeard, get the hell in here, SweetShat's out here and we're ready!" It should probably be explained that I was at the time sporting a very silly chinstrap-type beard, so the appellation was certainly apt.

Needless to say, I was impressed. I've never been a fan of the nicknames, in general, but somehow this just worked. After some discussion of the appropriateness of our new names,(I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to fill in the gaps on why SweetShat was so clever), we somehow gave Graham the pseudonym of ReRe. It is, I feel, a testament to the good times had that night that I have no recollection of the origin of the ReRe, other than it was self-applied at our insistence that there be names for all. Graham, I'm sorry man. ReRe has a wonderful capacity for Snoop-Doggification, though. Sometimes its Re-to-tha-Dizzle and various rhymes thereof, sometimes the more self-sufficient RizzleDizzle, its all about the improv, naming as performance art. Sometimes we'll be talking and I realize that no real words have been used in 30 seconds. I've since been promoted to Rear Admiral WeirdBeard, though again, I'm not entirely sure why. Regardless of the underlying causes, when amongst civilians, I just drop the rank entirely, it seems somehow stilted and self-important, you know? Like i should be in dress-whites with full shoulder-boards (or circles) with my beard all hanging out weirding. But if you ever hear ReRe say something about The Admiral, you may now know with certainty that I'm The Admiral, and when the situation merits it, I will thank you to remember it.

Thus is the story of the naming, the story of The Height of Service will have to wait for another time, as I'm balls-tired.

British Sea Power

So this doesn't really fit into my scheme of ranting and/or laughing at things, but you know what? I really don't fucking care.

Its 1:30 in the morning, i have to get up to go to work in a few hours, I'm somewhat drunk, and I just got home from a completely kick-ass show.

When I first ran into the EP that would become British Sea Power's new album, Do You Like Rock Music? my first thought was, "damn, this is the tits." Upon grabbing the full album, my second thought was, "damn, this is a balls-ass pretentious album title." Pretentious on paper it might be, British Sea Power has an unassuming stage-presence coupled with an understated yet somehow screamingly energetic style that shows what might be interpreted as pretense is actually a genuine query. Do you like rock music? 'Cause we're gonna fucking play some.

In the time it took for the crowd to warm from tepid shoe-gazers to a sea of somewhat frenzied head-boppers (about 7 seconds) Martin Noble, the lead guitarist, had sliced a pick-hand finger on his Gretsch, wiped the blood partly on the signal flag he was using as a belt, the rest on his face, and then helped the keyboardist with his air-raid siren solo (I'm not even fucking kidding, he had the thing up to the mike cranking it and everything) by screaming harmony into his guitar's pickups. I was somewhat impressed , to say the least.

Go and acquire this album. Now. It is, as i originally thought, the tits.

So...

... a friend of mine recently started blogging, and I must say, I've viewed the catharsis he has been having with increasing jealousy, and have therefore decided to vomit my thoughts and feelings at the tubes as well. Except unlike his site which is calm and collected, I will, as the title of this tube suggests, be either laughing at something, or ranting about it. So if you have a problem with either random anger or humor, you'd better move along, as there is nothing for you to see here.

Now that that's out of the way, lets start things off with a rant.

Fixed gear fanatics:

If you live or work in a major metropolitan area, you've seen these people. I used to think they were some sort of bizarre fringe of the cyclist world, as the only two I ever saw were the dude commuting down Capitol Hill with his feet tucked into the frame while his pedals whirled past, and the bike messenger downtown who was clearly such a bad motherfucker that I was honestly a little scared to make eye contact. But recently, they're EVERYWHERE.

Now, I'm no stranger to the phenomenon of "do something odd because it makes you cooler," but what's the deal? Whenever I see someone struggling to pedal up Capitol Hill, or just walking along side, clearly having decided that the sisyphean nature of their task was just too much, I honestly cannot decide whether to laugh or heckle. For those of you unfamiliar with the topography of Seattle, its nothing but fucking hills. Some big, some small, but gentle slopes are few and far between. So why the fuck would you purposefully choose a means of conveyance as ill-suited to this terrain as a bicycle with one gear and no brakes? Clearly, I'm missing something, and I'd probably feel less cool for having missed it if I wasn't so convinced that this special whateverthefuck comes at the expense of logic and safety.

That's right, safety. Generally I'm of the opinion that safety concerns can go fuck themselves faster and deeper than political correctness and Ron Paul supporters, but in this case, I make an exception. Mainly because I, as a sometimes driver in Capitol Hill, which seems to be the headquarters of fixed gear fanaticism, have no desire whatsoever to run someone over just because they failed to check themselves, and were thusly wrecked.

We have bike lanes for a fucking reason, and that is to keep cyclists unable to keep pace with traffic the fuck out the road. But then you have the fixed gear asshole riding down the hill who is only able to slow down by stepping back on their rear pedal and skidding the rear wheel out to the side every few yards. Needless to say, this causes half the bike to suddenly swerve out into the road.

Now, really, what the fuck are you people thinking? I'm all for sharing the road: I'm an aggressive pedestrian who will just go ahead and walk across the fucking intersection, forcing cars to stop by placing my body between them and wherever the fuck they're trying to get. I understand the "FUCK YOU, CARS, you are teh SUCK," mentality, but the behavior of most fixed gear cyclists is less akin to sharing the road and more like kicking a Kodiak grizzly in the balls and expecting to avoid a savage mauling.

If you don't want me to run you the hell over, please stay either entirely in the bike lane, or have the common fucking decency to know how to handle your shit before hopping on that deathtrap you seem to think gives enough extra indie-points as to somehow make yourself infuckingvincible.

Ever see one of the bike messengers downtown lose their shit? No, they know what they're doing, and until you do as well, keep out of the street.