Friday, December 28, 2001

The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century
Need to catch up on this when I have a chance.
I made potato and onion soup in my new pressure cooker I got for Christmas! It was yummy.

Thursday, December 27, 2001

Lady Sia
Lady Sia: An awesome GameBoy Advance game with super, cartoony graphics!!

Sunday, December 23, 2001

CAP ALERT
Now with more than 40 mathematical equations in every movie review!

I don't know what it is about fundementalism which completely deadens the intellect to such things as allegories, fantasies, and the like, but it's really annoying. He also compares J.R.R. Tolkien to Satan which is also really annoying.

Friday, December 21, 2001

School district upholds decision against rat

This is the biggest bunch of nonsense I've ever read. Put the picture in the darn book!
This may be a little on the ephemeral side, but I would have to say that I consider the GameBoy Advance to be the most well-designed videogames system we've ever owned.

Would only that it had the Lynx's backlight system.
Infanticidal Moms

Thursday, December 20, 2001

Pravda.RU An American Populist: PRAVDA.Ru interviews Patrick Buchanan

"Why is the West dying? First, for a simple reason, its people are dying. There is not one European country, except Moslem Albania, where the population is not stagnant or falling. In not one European nation are women having enough children to keep the nation alive. In some twenty European nations, there are already more burials than births, more caskets than cradles."
I hope they bring along a film crew! This would make an excellent documentary.

Wednesday, December 19, 2001

A Chip ID That's Only Skin-Deep

"The bottom line is, when people are trying to regain their peace of mind, they're more open to new approaches," said Keith Bolton, Applied Digital's chief technology officer.

No, he's not a fictional George Orwell character.
Movie Review—The Lord of the Rings (Opens Today)

Good news!
Yay! I rebuilt and fixed a complicated sink trap just now! I hope it doesn't leak. Or leak as much as it did which is to say, "Sploosh!" out from the cabinets and across the kitchen floor.

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Touring Information for Kurt Elling

Is it just my eyes or does that page look 3-dimensional to anyone else?

Monday, December 17, 2001

This I knew, but I think they're woefully misrepresenting the Victor Dog.




Take the Corporate Mascot Test at Willaston's Lounge!


Here's a shocker.
ChristmasTree.WPI.EDU

The Christmas tree IS the webserver. Get it?
"An ogre, a donkey, a princess, and an evil lord who has declared all fairy tales politically incorrect. No, it's not talk radio--it's Shrek!"

That's from Amazon.com. Any idea what it could mean?
Amazon.com: buying info: Tron - 20th Anniversary Edition

But no included soundtrack CD... pshaw!

Friday, December 14, 2001

And yes, I did sign the funky guestbook on February 12, 1996.
All this, and daikon radish! Theme of Kobe-chan

Very cool! I got props here for my song!!!

"As well as having a theme song, Victor Lams wrote a song called "Hooray for Kobe-san!". You can download it at Victor Lams' website. I downloaded it recently, and it was the funniest thing I'd heard all day. XD"

So, thank you very much fellow Kobe-san Fan! You have made my day for it seems that all those hours I spent last January putting that song together have not been all for naught.
Ho Ho Ho! (108k)
Bonfire Films of America presents G I G A N T I C (A Tale of Two Johns) | A film by A.J. Schnack
Already looks like a winner!

Thursday, December 13, 2001

Saint Edith Stein

"The darker it becomes around us , the more we ought to open our hearts to the light that comes from on high."
Had I really become so jaded that I didn't believe it to be possible that listening to a piece of music could make me cry?
Tonight I was fortunate enough to get to see (between TCM and AMC) two movies I'd wanted to see for a long time: Sullivan's Travels and John Ford's The Searchers. Both are excellent films and once again affirm that Hollywood doesn't even make movies anymore: they make 110-minute commercials.

Wednesday, December 12, 2001

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Security guards for 'nowhere' strike for contract...

Spooky.
Russian Archives Online
A nice collection of former Soviet-Union propoganda. It's kind of like reading propoganda for cancer or heart-disease, though.
I think that instead of calling ground turkey "ground turkey," they should call it "Turkey Jones."

Did I mention that six o'clock is way too early for me to be awake?

Tuesday, December 11, 2001

Salon.com News | Bush to withdraw from ABM treaty

Sorry to blogpoach, but here is additional indication that on SOME websites there is no fact/value distinction in how they report the news.

Please note: the 1972 AMB treaty was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union (not Russia). The Soviet Union collapsed ten years ago. The treaty should've been dissolved at that time (along with every single nuclear warhead on the planet, in my opinion).

It would be as if the U.S. and China signed a treaty and then after the U.S. fell apart everyone assumed that the treaty would still be valid between China and Virginia.

Monday, December 10, 2001

Le Cri Modulaire - ELECTRIC LOVESONGS
I'm going to need to have a listen when I get some time.
The Droidz - Entertainment Robots
Uh... yeah.
MP3.com - Victor Lams
Aw yeah! My music has been played 1,250 times.
Since January 2000.
All right, so I know that's not all that impressive.
And I know I won't get my $6.73 they owe me until I've been played enough to get $50 worth.
And I know I'll have to be played about 10,000 times to get $50 worth.
So don't remind me.
Especially don't remind me that this guy has a computer sing his lyrics and he's been played 8,702 times.
But is he a novelist?
Probably.
Mr. Dancey
Once again for old times' sake.

Sunday, December 09, 2001

Salon.com People | Waiting on the prez

So I don't want to hear anything about how I never blogged a story from Salon.com. It's a good story.
At this early stage of the game, Walker's story, whether you consider him a traitor or if you just consider him someone who was following his dreams, seems to be the sad result of two things:
1) a young man struggling to find meaning and permanence in the pop-culture-drenched and impermanent world around him and 2) the utter failing of Chrisitan evangelization to be there for him.
But then all the facts are hardly in at this point.
Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support - Report

I guess you could say that in some bizarre way you always get what you deserve.
Dreidel For One - FoxNews.com

Beneath the awful, awful pun in that headline is a rather somber and moving news story about the two remaining Jewish people in Afghanistan. Who hate each other. This would make a fascinating play or movie, if anyone's interested.
Will Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Be True to Tolkien?

This is a very good article, I think, for anyone considering that question.
LETTER TO FAMILIES
Here's an excerpt:

"Among these many paths, the family is the first and the most important. It is a path common to all, yet one which is particular, unique and unrepeatable, just as every individual is unrepeatable; it is a path from which man cannot withdraw. Indeed, a person normally comes into the world within a family, and can be said to owe to the family the very fact of his existing as an individual. When he has no family, the person coming into the world develops an anguished sense of pain and loss, one which will subsequently burden his whole life. The Church draws near with loving concern to all who experience situations such as these, for she knows well the fundamental role which the family is called upon to play. Furthermore, she knows that a person goes forth from the family in order to realize in a new family unit his particular vocation in life. Even if someone chooses to remain single, the family continues to be, as it were, his existential horizon, that fundamental community in which the whole network of social relations is grounded, from the closest and most immediate to the most distant. Do we not often speak of the 'human family' when referring to all the people living in the world?"
Pope John Paul II    2 February 1994    Letter to Families
This is really beautiful.

Saturday, December 08, 2001

Man, oh man. Is Cookie Crisp ever a delicious anytime snack or what?

Friday, December 07, 2001

DVD: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season One
Back when the show was cool.
ESPN.com: MORESPORTS - Alleged pirates claim self-defense in Blake death

I'm still staring at this story and asking myself: "This happened in 2001? Priates!?"
Having novels printed at Kinko's is a little expensive.
AU Press Release -- November 29, 2001

An update from some who have forgotten (forgotten/made-an-industry-out-of-spouting-off) that any so-called "separation of church and State," intended by those who put together our Bill of Rights (and the phrase itself appears nowhere in the Constitution) was intended to protect the church from the State (these were, to some degree, people who had left England because they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs). The idea that the Imperialist State which taxes and punishes with impunity would need to be protected from someone who wants to put the Ten Commandments up in a classroom is only an indication of how much some people fear being reminded of their own mortality. Especially since the entire notion of individual liberties like freedom of speech, et al, did not exist until a fundamentally Judeo-Christian worldview took hold which upheld the fundamental dignity of humankind. People forget that some of the first people who tried to create a separation between church and State for the reason of protecting their faith (as well as their lives) were the early Christians. Try telling Nero Caesar that there's a division between church and State and that he's not really a god. A lot of Christians tried to do just this and a lot of Christians were crucified, beheaded, or killed in the games.

So I do not think that the AU is truly looking out for anyone's best interest here -- not even their own. One of the things I have learned is that some people just really hate to be confronted with the truth or with the permanent issues of God, Freedom, and Immortality. Confront someone with an unwelcome fact and don't be surprised if they take your head off just because they don't want to hear it. Yeah, it's mature. But such is the prevailing ideology these days: If I don't want to hear something, there's no reason why I or anyone else should have to hear it. We're reduced to a nation of spoiled, rebellious teenagers but what are you gonna do?

Honestly, what else can you say about a group which calls itself a "watchdog group," and every group which shares an opposing point of view is a "religious-political extremist group," or a "regime."

Not that I'm going too vehemently to defend any Fundamentalist Christian group, because I believe that they are to no small degree fundamentally flawed in regards to their interpretation of both Scripture and the role and authority of the Church. Oddly enough, though, I was recently called a Fundamentalist Christian once, though. Even though it was meant as a pejorative term, I did feel a little honored because I know a lot of Fundamentalist Christians and they're some of the most courageous, stalwart people I've ever met. Either way, I had to laugh.

What it comes down to is this: you better damn well know yourself and you better damn well check to make sure that whatever it is that you believe and attempt to get others to believe is not just something you've made up to cover up your own personal faults or intellectual or moral shortcomings (such as: I don't have the character to hold religious beliefs therefore I should never ever have to be confronted with religious or ethical questions). As I am to no small degree a libertarian, it makes me very angry when people do this: they shouldn't have to interfere with my life or my personal freedoms to cover up for their own inequities.
Kinko's is a very attractive place to me, and I think that that is because of my love for all blank media: blank CD-Rs, printer paper, blank Digital-8 video cassettes. I love the possibility of spontaneous creation and then having something tangible to hold afterwards: something actualized. Kinkos is the place where you can take in a CD-R and come out with anything printed in color. That's very exciting to me.
It is finished!
The rough draft anyway!!! Final word count, for the rough draft is 70,998.
Maybe I should add two more words ("The," and "End,") and make it an even 71,000? No! Sleep now!

Wednesday, December 05, 2001

Tuesday, December 04, 2001

Sexy Santa 2001
Call me old fashioned, but MSN's turning of Christmas into a "sinsual," holiday is pretty much just asking to have the Wrath of God brought down upon their collective head, in my opinion.

So keep your eyes on those XBox sales, Microsoft.
I have always loved Eliza.

Eliza, Computer Therapist
They Might Be Giants: Better Living through Better Music

Where you can download TMBG videos if you're patient.
65,250 words. The good news is I'm moving into the final part of the book, so only maybe another 5,000 words? The ending is definitely coming together. Ooh! Inspiration! Gotta go!
BBC News | SCI/TECH | Tiny gecko is 'world's smallest'
And it's so cute!
Yahoo! News - Reuters Photo
Too many German Santas.
Do not mourn the blog for what it is (which is still pretty cool!). Rather, celebrate what it was and what it will be again.

Sunday, December 02, 2001

The next time we twenty-somethings start talking about how much our job sucks, we'd do well to recall the life of these poor workers, in age our peers but in every other way some of the most pitiable people I've ever heard of.
Just goes to show ya that anyone can have an attack of conscience when you least expect it.
Writing for Your Readers

Golly! I might be guilty of doing this very thing!
More Ginger details may be coming

Okay, so it's not THE people mover, but A person mover. Like some sort of climbing scooter or something with a good sense of equalibrium.

You know, anti-gravity boots would be a lot cooler.
CBS News | The Wizard Of IT | Wed, 07 Mar 2001 09:00:07 EST

Did you know that this whole IT thing has been going on for almost a year? And now, after all the hype the biggest thing they could come up with is the people mover?
Hmmmm... so "IT" (is "IT" the same as "GINGER"? I'm thoroughly confused) is a self-balancing people mover.

Living as close to Detroit as I do, I must say I am not impressed.
We saw Legally Blonde last night. I had been worried that the dialogue in the novel I'm writing seemed stilted, or artificial, or fake and unrealistic. After seeing that movie, and realizing just what a big hit it was, I'm no longer worried. I would include some of the choice bits here but I've been able, thankfully, to forget most of them. I sure hope Reese Witherspoon sees another good role after Election.
For those of you counting along at home: 61,342. My best guess is that this thing runs about 65,000 words, counting the epilogue. That's about 260 pages, they say.