The Sacred Brotherhood of Mockolytes

Watershead?

2011-03-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

Regardless of repeated public outcry etc, would-be plutocrats believe themselves untouchable. An oft-echoed sentiment in the media has been that should This come to pass that it would mean the true beginning (as opposed to the 2008 election) of the Republican party's eventual dissolution.

All I can offer on that sentiment is a reflection on the lone sentence that makes up paragraph 8.

"Republican Sen. Dale Schultz cast the lone no vote."

Even though national eyes are on them, even though this is seemingly a PR nightmare for the party, every other member voted party line.

X-Day Prayer-Mantra

2010-07-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

Begin at approx 4AM EST July 5th (preferably 1998)

1) Assume kneeling position, place hands on knees, lower head.
Alternately, while kneeling throw arms wide at approx 90-degree
angle from torso and lean head back.

2) Eyes closed, begin chanting :

"Oh great Bob Shogoth Nu'guganth Ygvealanqe. Heed now this
intonation.
Though my tongue be foreign to your vile attentions, take my aether to stoke this spell's furnace. Come now before me, I invite you.
Grant me the vigor of madness! Open to me the twin paths of confusion and misconception. Through this sacrifice of my sane mind give me the secrets of Time Control!
Take my soul unto the Pleasure Vessels of the Sex Goddesses, and let
it ride reverse-cowgirl style to Valhalla on a rainbow mattress. Let
my flesh and mind remain here to fester and fail in the unholy and
despicable satiation of your vile desires.
I surrender all whom I love and entrust all that I hate to your
wretched clutches. Despoil and destroy me as would be your want.
Witness that I have touched your codex, and that my wallet bear your
unholy mark. The time is as such that this pact may be sealed. Take
my mind and give me in it's place your FIRE!"

3) Repeat as necessary until 7:03 AM EST. *

4) Enjoy your new lifestyle.

* Warning: May be ineffective without brain-destroying overdoses of
hallucinogens. PLEASE take ALL the brown acid you can get your grubby little paws on ASAP.

How many Popes?

2010-03-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

Written yesterday to an email address of some note:
---------------------------------------------------------
Dude or Dudette,
So I found your comic when you posted it on Whitechapel a while back, and I unabashedly love it. And I'm sure I would still...if there were updates happening. Yeah, that's right: this is a "get off your ass" email from a "fan." Get off your ass, entertain selfish ol' me. No, I don't deserve it. No, I didn't ask nicely. But I love your work.

Where's the love? There's the love.
a "fan"
---------------------------------------------------------

Yes, I recieved a response to this email, and yes, it was even thankful and polite. What's this world coming to?

And yes, since the universe is powered by irony (the REAL dark matter) you m,ay read this as a return to arms-or-whatevers.

Discrepencies

2009-06-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here's the Reportage line. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009327379_webraid11m.html

A few discrepancies with reportage on this story, as I heard the whole deal go down just outside my window.

First, when the police arrived they announced the raid over bullhorn. Specifically they announced the warrant was for 1019 East Pike st, an address that doesn't actually exist. They still served it on and arrested people within one particular apartment of 10** East Pike st, but what's a little paperwork?

The important thing is that people getting together in their private residences to play cards were arrested and their permanent records besmirched. Of course no police arrived the night prior, when 4 very clear gunshots were heard in the same parking lot (at about the same time of night, oddly). Sea PD, Keep up the good use of taxpayer money, we feel safer.

Excerpts From an Exit Interview

2009-05-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

What improvements can ________ make as an employer?

In 3 pages of questions this is the first real one that isn't asking me to evaluate my interactions with a ________ employee or software tool but the company as a whole, which I think is an excellent example of the experience I have come away from ________ with: A consistently dehumanizing one. Correspondence that I received directly from the company was consistently either cold and stilted or over-warmed and saccharine. Policies cited by ________ employees I interacted with seemed universally overbearing and short-sighted, even though those employees were always courteous and easy to talk to. Company emails addressing the employee base as a whole seemed pandering and patronizing in tone. In short: ________ and I partnered as agent and agency to make us each some money, and I would have preferred that the company's communications to me and published materials presented to me had reflected that level of professional disconnect. Instead the focus-group feel-good emails and don't-think-follow-orders policies have left me feeling as if the company merely sees me as another piece of equipment that has been used up and is now being discarded.

Would you consider returning to ________ for another contract position in the future?

I have for all intents and purposes already committed to this. And in all honesty my personal interactions with ________ staff have been absolutely the most professional and pleasant of any agency I've contracted with. However do not misunderstand: I will return to ________ because that is how one gets the kind of work I do. If such work wasn't exclusively available though agencies such as ________ I would certainly NEVER use one. The experience of working with agencies has always been a frustration and headache. Just because ________ has been the least unpleasant agency I've worked with doesn't mean that I've felt my interactions with the agency totaled to anything more than an inconvenience at best.

So listen up, Boy...Or pornography starring your mother will be the 2nd worst thing that's happened to you today.

2009-05-18T10:09:00.001-07:00

Captain, it appears to be an uncharted nebula...

2009-05-06T14:19:00.001-07:00

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Numpad-Burster

2009-05-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

not quite the ORB remix...

2009-04-30T09:36:00.001-07:00

" Meg, I don't have that problem and I don't know any woman who has."

2009-04-07T10:21:00.001-07:00

A Canner Exceedingly Canny, One Moring Remarked to His Granny...

2009-03-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

"Well a canner can can anything that he can but a canner can't can a can can he?"

Recently I saw a bottle of Seltzer water that had an expiration date of March 3009. That begs too many questions:

1) Do they expect the plastic bottle to last an entire millenium?

2) What exactly would happen to seltzer water when it expires? Would it become flammable?

3) How did they test to determine that it would last for a full 1000 years? Did the Catholic church seal some Canada dry away in the Vatican archives at the beginning of the dark ages?

4) If this stuff lasts 1000 years how long do twinkies last? Has the first twinkie even expired yet?

Slogging for Sanity

2009-03-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

More to come when I'm not 'effing working...

I Believe Bill Hicks Predicted the Events to Follow This...

2009-02-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

Holy 'effing shit, batman. http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/11/health.hiv.stemcell/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular

You may now begin fucking in the streets. Too bad I live in a primarily gay district of town....

Master Wayne, Would You Like a Manwich?

2009-02-09T16:26:00.001-08:00

So yeah....Roomie got MKvsDC, and I gotta say: much much much MUCH more playable than the universally sucky MK titles that followed MK2.

And that's as ringing an endorsement as you'll get regarding any series of games that have a 4 armed character who only has 2 pectoral muscles. I mean GEEZ! What kind of F-minus did your art director have to get on his Drawing from Human Anatomy course in college to think he could get away with that? Y'all had time for hidden shadow characters and special friendship endings but no-one thought that maybe your half-dragon fantasy-man might need to lift his arms?

I mean come ON. Could you please come to work one of the days this LIFE and finish up drawing the 2nd set of pecs? Did the digitization budget remove the $ required for the texture artist to add a 3rd & 4th man-nipple? Honestly. Professionalism, look it up.

Anyway, new MK game, not as sucky as you've come to expect from those acne-covered adolescents.

Clerk, Read the Minutes Back to Me...

2009-01-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

Let the court now hear the evidence against the accused:

Should the evidence presented before these proceedings today be found to be true, the court shall have no choice but to sentance all who have polluted Terra of premeditated Murder in the 1st degree, and all mouthpieces who have denied this evidence found to be complicit in the charges of Treason and Crimes against Humanity.

There can be only one sentance.

Bailiff: release the rabid wolverines.

I Cheated....

2009-01-27T09:41:00.001-08:00

At a Dinner in his Honor He was Poisoned, Shot, Stabbed, Beaten and Drowned. And Yet We Have Seen Him Here Alive Today...

2009-01-16T13:46:00.001-08:00

Grigori Grimoire from FancyPants on Vimeo.

Hans?

2009-01-15T09:10:00.001-08:00

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

To whom DOES it matter?

2009-01-12T16:07:00.001-08:00

That's but one of the two real questions here. Let's assume for the sake of charity to the video's producer that everything cited is truthful (attack ads never are, but hey). The implication of course is that because article II is not explicitly being met that Mr. Obama's claim is forfiet, regardless of election results. Article 2 goes a bit like this:

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."

Woooee, good times. Honestly, pretty clear as well. If the office of the President is to be decided & run as per the constitution then by technicality Obama's right out. Of course there are a few other things in section 1 of article 2 as well. Like the very last paragraph:

"Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

That statement implies a lot, but more than anything else it cites the defense of the Constitution itself as the President's paramount priority. Combine this with section 4 of article 2 :

"The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. "

Now, again we're going to be way-more-than-Jesus forgiving and look past the well-documented international crimes which as a violator of the Geneva convention leave no doubt that Article 6 of the constition was violated (which would definitly qualify as a High Crime, and ALL the evidence points to bribery as the motive)

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. "

Sure, there's absolutly no question the section of the constitution that was designed to legitimize our nationhood in the eyes of forign powers was blatantly and repeatedly violated without modestly. No, let's ignore the SUPER-EASY ones and just focus on the bill of rights.

How about Ammendment # 4? The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Violated it!

How about Ammendment # 5? No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Violated it!

Article 6? Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; ">to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. Violated it!

Boy, it's a good thing the lame duck had his fingers crossed when he took that oath of office, or he'd be in trouble. Luckily though for him and us: despite 2 horribly mismanaged natural disasters, countless protests, mountains of evidence of scandal, disragard for his own campaign promises and endless graft this fine journalist has readied a warning to America about the REAL violations of our national ideals. the overwheling election a man (despite a MASSIVE and pervasive voterigging effort against him) who's birthday is techncilly celebrated on the Grenwich mean instead of Mountain time.

I propose that whomever made this little film be treated to the fine accomodations at Gitmo. After all, he clearly understands which parts of the constition need to be taken seriously, and which parts don't actually matter.

Local Wildlife Preservation Information

2008-12-15T13:09:00.001-08:00

Dancin' with Dogmeat

2008-12-01T15:13:00.001-08:00

What does Google know anyway?

2008-11-14T15:36:00.001-08:00

Found while Googling myself at work (insert tasteless pun here):

Name Origin and Meaning:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forename:
Origin: French (Root: Andrew)
Meaning: Manly, Courageous

Your personal power animal is the Sumatran Orangutan

Your 'Numerology' number is 1. If it wasn't bulls**t, it would mean that you are ambitious, independent, and self-sufficient. Although you are generally happy, loving, dynamic and charismatic, you can sometimes be egotistical, selfish and melodramatic.

In ASCII binary it is... 01000001 01101110 01100100 01110010 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101111 01110010 01100100 01100101 01101100 01101111 01101110

Baby, I didn't mean to hit you...

2008-11-04T23:39:00.000-08:00

There's an undeniable electric feeling rolling like waves over the streets of (Seattle's) Capitol Hill. The streets are thronged with serfs and lords, bailiffs and jesters. There's an intoxicating relief, a knowing hopefulness that winks at you from around the streetcorner and honks at you from the multitude of sensible automobiles that slaps a silly grin across your face. The wars aren't by any means over, but ticker-tape falls from windows on to the crowds below like the old celluloids at the end of #2. Fireworks fill the sky and everyone you meet is another heart that was broken until tonight. The din of happy shouting is just icing.

It feels like the Bastille's been stormed. It enraptures like the return of Helen to Greece. It massages the idea of an America with a heart back to life. I've never known a night like this.

I'm 31 now, but I had never been old enough for a celebratory drink in the neighborhood pub after the good guys won. Not until today. It's an intoxication that overtakes the chems in my bloodstream and shoots me up into a high like unto no other.

It must be very easy to be cynical about the process or the choices or the system. I mean hell, I just did it hours ago myself, so any dipshit must be able to. And I'm sure that this feeling of enlightened goodwill, of nationalistic unity will fade. Before I know what's happening I'll be crashing out and it'll all be another set of DT's. That's the circle and now that it's spun my way the day when it spins back is 24 hours closer.

It's been written that politics is like a drug, that it gets in the blood and rides you through high times and into low dregs alike. Well we're buzzing now, so don't harsh me, man. We'll worry about the hangover once the honeymoon's over.

Vote Autocratic Party Ticket

2008-11-04T16:18:00.001-08:00

Write in "Me" for every office. Who else is fit to lead you?

Seriously though, go out and Vote! Because if you cast the right vote wars will magically end, the economy built on exploitation will suddenly pay fair wages, actors will fall in love with their stalkers, cars will suddenly run on seawater, people in the ozarks will get teeth, racism will cease to be a problem, all police brutality will end.

BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: The person YOU support is certainly not a corrupt say-anything carreer politician who is owned by big industries, lobbies and/or unions who would rather penetrate you sexually with a switchblade then give up an inch of their power or a cent of their money for the greater good. No way, because whatever political party you're supporting isn't a cadre of corrupt murderers, sniviling syncophants and spinless leeches. Nuh uh!

So yeah, "go vote", Hero. You're saving the 'effing world, appairently.

I'm reminded of a quote from good 'ol saint George, may he rest in peace:

"I'm happy to tell you that on election day I stayed home. And I did essentially what you did. The only difference is when I got finished masturbating I had something to show for it."

So go vote. And by "vote" I mean "away from me you self-deluding pile of living feces."

Oh, and by all means feel free to leave a bunch of self-important comments about how I'm not helping to save the world but you are because a tree died for you to scibble "puppet # 1 please" on it's flattened bleached corpse. Don't go out and feed a homeless person. Don't step in and put an end to the domestic violence raging across the apartment hallway. Don't tutor an autistic child. Vote. And then find someone who doesn't think you're Jesus and act all high-and-mighty to them.

I hate your species.

True...

2008-10-27T08:30:00.001-07:00

Excerpt from Service for Dies Dominii Aprilis MMVIII, part 2

2008-10-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Community Service

2008-10-13T14:24:00.001-07:00

Snubbed

2008-09-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

Seems perfect... but what if it's NOT?

2008-09-23T09:52:00.001-07:00

I Never saw the X...

2008-09-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

Who you gonna believe?

2008-09-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

People with degrees, or people who didn't believe in gravity?

Clearly, somebody up there loves me...

2008-08-14T09:28:00.001-07:00

My Milkshake Brings all the Cults to the Yard

2008-08-11T09:51:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-08-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

No it's not my birthday for another 5 weeks. However, my happy happy 31st will now be immortalized as the day the earth stood still....or at least that some of the Brownian motion within it's gravitational sphere began oscillating in a nonstandard configuration. That's right junior mad scientists, they've announced the day the CERN will first turn. And let me tell you: It's about frikken time.

I tell ya, ever since watching that elevator scene in Ghostbusters as a wee mad scientist lad I've always been a fan of unlicensed nuclear accelerators. Not because they shoot orange-pink beams of kablooey: that's just special effects, dummy. No, because in those seconds between final trial sequence completion and first confirmed successful firing of the positron collider the REAL gambler's high kicks in. The odds are not just PROVING that phycists know a hell of a lot more about a hell of a lot then those idiots who believe in hell, but also a tiny chance of total positronic reversal or as Egon might say "It could be bad."

Now some folks out there have kicked up alot of dirt about how "bad" the result of total Terran atomic disruption would be. And of course those people are all expert scientists with long-studied degrees in subatomic physics I'm sure. Otherwise responsible people would kick them in the nuts as soon as they started blabbing on about shit they don't know shit about. But I kinda hope in my black heart of black hearts that they would be proven right. Two reasons here:

1) it would prove that man is WAY better at magic than God, who it has been said would take a considerable time to disassemble our mudball. Total electromagnetic collapse would take less than a minute to spread from Geneva to Australia.

2) they'd all be too dead to gloat about being right. And let's face it, they already overgloated about all the things they SAID were right before they were proven wrong.

Now of course I'm being a bit facetious. Every one of these concerns has been trumpeted by people whose reading habits swing between scripture and sci-fi. And that's the real divider between man and beats after all: Men do the math. Beasts just roar.

I guess what I'm saying here is that while quantum reactions are certainly academic good times to those of us who USE the thinking part of our skullmeats, knowing every fucking fundie who ever opened their ignorant hole was finally undone by science would sooooo be worth total ionic dissipation. It's a win-win happy birthday for Dre, so please pass the cake.

The New Scum

2008-08-06T08:58:00.001-07:00

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Adfunny videosFunnyOrDie.com

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Excerpt from Service for Dies Dominii Aprilis MMVIII

2008-07-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

Most Chinese Live in Fear of Secret Police.

2008-05-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

"Most Chinese Say They Approve of Government Internet Control"

Am I the only one who sees the above when I read headlines like these?

Service for Dies Dominii Aprilis MMVIII, part 1

2008-04-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

You, hey YOU! You're looking kinda pink over there. Yeah! I see you. Are you pink? Are you pink, motherfucker!? Yeah I'm talking to you, Pinkie! Oh what's that? What's that you're not pink? I dunno, all the way down there you're lookin' kinda pink to me! Lookin' a bit pinkish down there! Maybe you wanna come up here? Come up here on stage and prove to me, prove to BOB ALL MIGHTY that you are not pink.

Do you promise to not be pink?

Promise?

promise me?

That's three times you're promised to me, _____________. Raise your stark fist.

Mutant, do you hereby cast down the SHACKLES of your pink slave name?

Do you hereby swear to refuse your membership in the human community?

Do you declare your allegiance to the SubGenius race and your own household kingdom?

Do you swear to promote devisions and wars among non-mutants?

Will you work always to unmask the conspiracy, to install a strict anarchy or formal chaos?

To extend your Endurance as an Overman by indulging in excesses of Every Kind?

Do you pledge to not actually "work" at any of the Above?

I hereby Name you _______________________. Rise, accept your doctorate in the forbidden science of _______________________. Act honorably in your new position _______________. Take your place by my side, and we shall rule the galaxy as __________ and ____________!

Amen, bitches.

Drinks I've Invented:

2008-02-28T18:31:00.000-08:00

Claims laid down HERE for the following alchemical concoctions:

1) The Red Chinese

1 part vodka
1 part Kahlua
2 parts Egg Nog

Serve over ice in whatever type of glass you normally choose to serve White Russian. Stirring optional.

2) The Slow Comfortable Screw Hard Up Against the Wall so I Can Sleep

2 parts Sloe Gin
2 parts vodka
3 parts Southern Comfort
1 part Galliano
2 parts Whiskey
5 parts Orange Juice
1 shot of NyQuil

Muddle all non-medicinal ingredients with ice and serve in a pint glass. After serving pour in the Nyquil and stir slowly.

Charing is Caring

2007-11-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

http://projecterin.com/

"Just like those fucken' Yank's. Think a pill will solve all their stupid problems."

2007-06-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, Blue Monday

2007-04-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

My Hero.

he·ro [heer-oh] –noun, plural -roes; also -ros.

1.	a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

2.	a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_en_ot/obit_vonnegut_29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

http://www.vonnegut.com/

the Bokononist last rites:

"God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God."

Kurt is up in Heaven now.
That was his favorite joke.

It has been years since I cried, but today I cried for all of us. So much poorer for having lost him. Christ, now I've started again.

Daylight Spendings

2007-03-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

As every US citizen not living in Arizona has now figured out, we're doing things a bit different this year. Moving the clock ahead a few weeks earlier this season, saving daylight while we're still technically in Winter. For those without the details the United States Congress took well over an hour out of their valuable schedules last year to legislate against the passage of time itself. Of course it was due to the overwhelming voice of the people demanding such things that caused this to occur, not the lazy machinations of a group of senile out-of-touch bureaucrats idling the hours while their jailbait pages are in school away on do-nothing legislation.

Of course there has been a small public gasp regarding this occurrence, as people in the technology field have been quick to point out that human laws hardly apply to pre-programmed computer chips. Some media outlets even referred to it as "mini-y2k" hoping to squeeze a few panic-pennies out of fearful consumers, indicating that just maybe with the right combination of crossed-circuits and incorrect timestamp logs Western Civilization as we know it might lose so much more than a mere hour. The real aftereffects being more along the lines of my cellphone's alarm not notifying me that the clock changed the time automatically while I slept, causing me to groggily check it against my watch (that I had made sure to update update) about a dozen times while half-awake before work this morning.

What really burns my britches about the whole incident though was the attitude taken by our legislative body itself. That the troupe of washed-up ex-astronauts and B-list actors who have been given the responsibility of seeing our nation run smoothly either

a) don't understand the functions or basic operational theory of modern electronics, a HUGE part of our American economy and civil infrastructure or

b) didn't care enough about the possible impact to point out to whomever floated the bill that it might just cause more problems than it addresses and maybe they had more important things to do. Either way: incompetence would be my summary judgement, but maybe that's a little too harsh.

I've decided I should take the time to read through the sessions of the ol' 106th and take a look at the bills introduced in 2k5 and 2k6 respectively. Boring, sure. But maybe it'll make for a good laugh, I'd like to think those senile pederasts are good for something. Stay tuned for more.

I Knew People

2007-03-06T15:59:00.000-08:00

Of course, as the intro/bio states, I am a Seattle ex-expatriot. About the time this chronicle was originally conceived I was in the process of fleeing the Emerald City for the warmer and less-sociable streets of Las Vegas. Off to spend my 40 days in the desert, as a few months of bad luck in my bidding of contracts eventually pushed me back in the direction of here. I was only out of town from St Valentine's day through the 1st of April, couldn't have missed much right?

Good friends were of course sorely missed, minor acquaintances as well, plus about every other friendly SoB with whom I'd enjoyed a good drink or a good time. I had a somewhat sizable pile of little scraps of paper I'd left behind, each scrawled with one or more email addresses, phone numbers, friendster account names, etc. Some were simply ignored and eventually discarded, others capitalized and contacted. As is oft the way, a few simply failed to connect me with anyone I knew. One such was an email address with the name "Jeremy" scrawled above it.

I'd never actually known Jeremy's last name. We'd met at a party at his house that a mutual friend invited me to, and we were pretty decent pals. Ran into each other about once a month via assorted social gatherings and had a few good times. I knew he was a wine seller, and that he DJed occasionally. I'd heard him spin once or twice, he was pretty good, although I never remembered his stage name. He never replied to any email I'd sent to that address, but I didn't think much of it. We'd see each other sooner or later, we knew all the same freaks. Eris would handle the details.

11 months later and I hadn't given it any thought at all. Bored at the office hitting the random button on wikipedia waiting for the proverbial bell the whistle. I found myself at an article on King county, and of curiosity started clicking local links, Seattle over to city crime figures over to The Capital Hill Massacre.

Something of a curiosity, this Morbid event occurred just days after I left town. A bolt of psychological lightning I psychically dodged by mere circumstance. No mourning memories or sad epitaphs, now only a statistic in another city far far away. Seeing a list of the names of the victims on a friend's myspace page I was relieved none of the names were ones that I recognised. Of course, sometimes you never find out a friend's last name.

I've found Jeremy, turns out he isn't in Seattle anymore. He isn't anywhere material, really. There's just an entry in a list next to picture of him DJing. A list on wikipedia of the victims of the Cap Hill Massacre. His last name was Martin.

http://www.jeremymartin.org/wp/

I Hear The Presence

2007-02-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

Now if only I could score some Opal...

It's Not Stupid, it's Advanced.

2007-02-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

For those unclear of my means of sustenance, I do tech support. Everyone in the industry has got some funny "ha ha" tech support stories, and some funny "not so ha ha" tech support stories. I have many, and after yesterday now I have one more, the categorization of which I'm not quite certain of. Read on.

8 days ago MS Vista was released, meaning it's that time of the support cycle when I write a whole new set of training docs for newbs & customers and teach myself a whole new spate of blue language. My company purchased a new Dell computer at the end of last year for the purpose of installing Vista once it's on the market so we can use the system for a testbed. Toward this end we purchased it under a special offer from Dell for a free upgrade to Vista post-release.

I attempted to perform the upgrade via their automated process and hit a snag, my computer's make/model was not shown on the list of units eligible for upgrade and the automated system would not allow the process to proceed. The Dell sales rep and I parted the system out with compatibility in mind, but it is a custom model. No big deal, says I. It's a new process, they just haven't ironed out the bugs yet. Sure.

One gold medal for the hurdles event of the ol' telephone olympics later and Dell eventually gets me to the Vista upgrade dept, he's how our conversation went.

Moi: "Hi there, I purchased a new system listed as Vista compatible in late October and I'd like to perform the free upgrade to Vista now. My customer number is ________"

He: "Oh, um sure. Let me just ask first: this is a test machine, right?"

Moi: "It's not my workstation if that's what you're asking. I'm just installing the new OS to test compatibility with our existing products and start writing our new training docs."

He: "Oh, OK then. Yeah, I was worried it might be your workstation. Didn't want to screw you up. So what exactly is the problem?"

Moi: "Well when I punch my ID tag number into the upgrade page it just tells me that my system isn't on the compatible list, even though when we parted out my system we did so with compatibility in mind. My system's ID tag says _______"

He: "Yeah, when I try that it doesn't work.... hmm, looks like none of my part numbers listed here work."

Moi: "So the page itself is broken?"

He: "Looks like it. To tell you the truth you're the first person who's tried to upgrade."

I had to hit my mute button so I could howl with laughter. I guess that means it is "ha ha" funny after all.

Paradox, noun, A problem no merehum is smart enough to solve.

2006-12-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

My favorite Blog BoingBoing.net posted an interesting logic problem earlier today known as the Newcomb Paradox, and needless to say it peaked my intrest. Link to a complete dissertation and analysis here, I do suggest reading it or you may miss all they 'layers' to this 'onion'. The reader's digest version follows below:

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A highly superior being from another part of the galaxy presents you with two boxes, one open and one closed. In the open box there is a thousand-dollar bill. In the closed box there is either one million dollars or there is nothing. You are to choose between taking both boxes or taking the closed box only. But there's a catch.

The being claims that he is able to predict what any human being will decide to do. If he predicted you would take only the closed box, then he placed a million dollars in it. But if he predicted you would take both boxes, he left the closed box empty. Furthermore, he has run this experiment with 999 people before, and has been right every time.

What do you do?

On the one hand, the evidence is fairly obvious that if you choose to take only the closed box you will get one million dollars, whereas if you take both boxes you get only a measly thousand. You'd be stupid to take both boxes.

On the other hand, at the time you make your decision, the closed box already is empty or else contains a million dollars. Either way, if you take both boxes you get a thousand dollars more than if you take the closed box only.

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Now sure, I'm that arrogant brand of Yeti who thinks he's always right. An egotist until x-day as it were, but I see a simple solution here.

I take the closed box, then reach into the open box and take the $1k bill but leave the box itself. The superior being in question would have accuratly predicted that I would do this. Taking only the closed box with the $1000k and still also take the 1k note without removing the empty box doesn't queer the parameters of the experiment, if it were outside the rules of the situation, he would have predicted I would try this and warned me against it.

Oh sure, some may argue that I'm dancing around the rules on this one, but really: aren't rules only for pinks and other sheep?

Almost Every Goddamn Weekday...

2006-12-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

my life goes a little like this.

Semper Infidelis

2006-12-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

Who Would Jesus Destroy? One of the most engaging stories of military service told to me by my pal Gun-Nut Gregg has always been his account of being harassed by his DI in boot-camp regarding religion. I may not have all the hard-details right but the jist is that each night after the first few weeks there was a small amount of time for the recruits to attend services in the camp, of which there were christian and jewish varieties available. Being an agnostic ol' Gregg would instead take the time to do some stretching and relaxing instead of attending, as boot camp has been known to lead to a few aches & pains. After a few weeks of this his DI noticed that he wasn't attending services and took a closer look at Gregg's dog-tag. Seeing that it listed him as agnostic he took it up with the recruit immediately:

"Says here that you're not a believer, recruit. Don't you know there are no atheists in foxholes?"

DI didn't seem to understand that the quote in question is anti-war and not pro-God, but perceived wisdom is in the meme of the pink parrot I suppose, and that's not the point anyway. What's notable is that after that when the other men were in service Gregg was given extra drills to perform, since it would not be fair to let him have some downtime while the other boys are arduously praying. This was the crotch of course, no rest for the wicked (or miserable).

Such doesn't seem to be out of the Marine Corps character really though. The not-so-podunk town where I was raised still has the signpost emblazoned "Christian Marine Corps Recruiting Office" on the 75+ year old downtown branch. Others I know who served in the military have noted similar situations. A Jewish (by blood) friend in the Rangers with an atheist tag talks about how his first CO gave him no end of shit about both his race and beliefs. My father was listed as Baptist against his will by influence of his father, who was major brass at the time of Dadu's service. So surprise surprise that now we have this in the news.

Now, maybe I'm just one of those biblical scholars who fails to ignore all the necessary passages to not be miffed by murderous hypocrites, like Psalms 68:30? "Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls with the calves of the people, until every one submit himself with pieces of silver; scatter Thou the people that delight in war." Sure it commands righteous people to avoid non-militia service and also notes that warhawks are not welcome in Yahweh's communities (and by extension should certainly not put in charge of them) but it is the OLD testament, and as the family of messianic Jews I know who eat bacon love to state: the old covenant doesn't apply anymore because Jesus represents a new covenant.

That argument being total bullshit aside (we'll deal with that subject another day), logically it must then have been Jesus who told people that military service careers are a good way of spreading love to your fellow man, right? I mean if Jesus wasn't a warmonger then we certainly wouldn't have R. Lee Ermey shouting to recruits about how the chaplain has a Christmas sermon in which he'll "...tell you about how the free world will conquer communism with the aid of God and a few marines." Or how "God has a hard-on for marines because we kill everything we see." Forgive me for quoting two FMJ lines instead of the bible for this side of the argument, but I wasn't able to find that passage in which Christ tells Peter not to turn his sword on the soldiers sent to arrest him because he's about to unscrew their heads and shit down their necks.

But historically it seems that the lamb of peace's words have always be used to dull the remorse of those committing the greatest offenses against His love. And the brainlessly pink modern alternative of protesting funerals of dead soldiers is on stupidity-par with stoning rape victims to death. Sure, action isn't necessary since it's just pinks without real souls killing more pinks without real souls, plus action is kinda fruitless. Kurt Vonnegut's agent summed it up best when in regards to KV publishing slaughterhouse 5 as an anti-war novel told him "You might as well write an anti-iceburg novel." But all that slaughter is still a bum trip.

Sure, I'm a firmly-committed scientific-atheist, but that doesn't mean I don't have any respect for what the big J was preachin'. And few things irk me more than large herds of pinks beating their chests about their sacred beliefs while simultaneously desecrating them left and right. Last time I checked there's a very specific word for someone who claims to be in the service of a God while really betraying all that the faith represents. Someone without fidelity...

Now let's be totally clear here. I don't advocate stopping them from believing what they want, that's a government-guaranteed right and the laws of man are higher than the laws of imaginary-man. I just don't want to hear them calling it Christianity in public anymore. So how's an honest being with respect for life go about shutting their filthy infidel mouths? Preaching the gospel is a recipe for failure, they've already edited-out the bits they don't want to hear. Advocating rational thought is just as useless, they shrugged it of before the gospel even got there. Resorting to any level of violence would be self-defeating and ultimately suicidal. The answer my mind keeps coming back to is shaming them. And since they will shrug off the judgements of unbelievers we are left only to act through mockery.

So next time you see some street-minister advocating war with islam, sending troops overseas to kill children or secure natural resources call them out, and do it with zazz. My personal favorite is to out-scream them mid-rant with a smattering of the following phrases. Most of these will both humiliate the hater and draw the crowd to your side of the pulpit. Mix and match to your own liking:

"Did Jesus tell you himself that they need to die for America?"

"Using Jesus's name for war is a perversion of his love!"

"Yeah, let's kill those Samaritans, just like Jesus would have!"

My personal favorite (and a great ender)

"Only the Devil would twist Jesus's words into hate. You are not welcome in our community/house/church. Get thee behind me, Satan!"

Shame them, mock them, humiliate them, and when the pulpit is yours spread the real good word: that sardonic disrespect is more humane than violence, and that Jesus advocated turning the other cheek.

Just so we're clear about the bearded holy men out there...

2006-12-07T11:42:00.001-08:00

minato, originally uploaded by jimjoneswannabe.

Apologies to SomethingAwful.com as the hard work of their goons will no doubt be reprinted here regularly.

Are you there "Bob"? It's me, Andre...

2006-12-07T09:59:00.000-08:00

Greetings & salivations young brain-dead drooling pinks and a hearty chuckle to you fellow smartass anti-theologians. Contained hereafter are the unschedulable often-offtopic mumblings and guffaws of Revered Andre Brothel, founder of the sacred Mockolyte brotherhood, minister in the holy service of "Bob", shaman to all streetfreaks, living patron saint of druggies. Tune in whenever-y and read or re-read the nonsensical rantings posted herein and find yourself enlightened and/or angered.

To the enlightened: Sure I know some stuff but really, am I the guy who should be molding your thought processes?

To the angered: Fuck you if you can't take a joke, you're not allowed to stain my holy words with your heathen eyes anymore. Get off my lawn.

And remember Brothers, reasoning with the Con and the dupes it feeds has never worked, the path to enlightenment is found through belittling it and them.