Bitter Old Punk

2009-07-20T08:54:00.001-05:00

Awesome dream. I'm catering a party for a rich lawyer who lives in a shabby mansion atop Red Mt. I'm there setting the bar up, and I overhear a conversation that convinces me that the guests are all mobsters. But now they're suspicious, and they try to kill me by trussing me up and hurling me off the back porch. I struggle free, manage to take one of their guns, and shoot one of them. All hell breaks loose. Pursued by angry mobsters, I flee, wrecking a house and stealing a car in the process. I make it downtown where I and my friend (who of course is Samuel L Jackson) fortify our catering company offices, hold off the attacking mobsters, and save the day, I'm rarely the hero in my dreams; I'm usually the quarry, it was nice to be on the side of the ass-kickers for a change.

2009-06-27T11:29:00.001-05:00

Afghanistan has a "Counternarcotics Ministry"? In other news, foxes to offer lessons in poultry security management.

2009-06-27T02:30:00.001-05:00

So now I can post to my lame-ass blog from my iPhone. The world trembles in anticipation.

2009-06-27T02:20:00.001-05:00

This is a test post.

In Which I Purchase Modern Technology And Am Duly Impressed

2009-06-21T13:01:00.004-05:00

You may have noticed that I just got an iPhone. No? Well, now you have, because I'm blogging about it. After having tweeted, texted, emailed, voice-messaged, and talked about it.

I bought the 3G S to replace my old cellie, which was so old that the camera used iodine-sensitive silvered plates and mercury vapor. And man, is my sexy new iPhone awesome. But the feature that has absolutely sold me on it was the one I least expected: using the thing as an e-book reader.

It never occurred to me that I might like e-books. I mean, I have shelves and shelves of real books. I have stacks of books by the bed, by the couch, in boxes in the garage. I like the physicality of books, the smell and the feel of them. I don't like reading on my computer: I'm constantly fiddling with the text size or shifting about to rest a tense neck. So I had no interest in an e-book reader.

Until I accidentally got one.

The first thing I did when I got my new phone all charged and activated and set up was what every new iPhone buyer does: head to the App Store. Scanning the the free stuff, I see the Kindle for iPhone app. What the hey, right? A few moments later I'm browsing the Kindle store, looking at the freebies. Fusty public domain stuff mostly. A fantasy novel about dragons fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Pass. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Meh, though I feel vaguely guilty for not being more interested in reading it. Then: Conrad. Wodehouse. Chesterton. Well, well. I never did get around to reading Nostromo, it'd be nice to have some Jeeves stories for amusement while stranded in waiting rooms and such, and I lost my copy of The Man Who Was Thursday....

Zoop.

(That's the sound data makes as it flies around, in case you were wondering.)

Neat. That was quick.

I continue futzing around in the App Store: Sudoku! New York Times crossword puzzles! After evaluating the use of the device as a mobile gaming platform (ie, crashing on the couch and doing sudoku and crossword puzzles all afternoon) I remember the Kindle thingie.

About forty-five minutes later I look up from "Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg". It had taken me less than a minute to configure the thing: white text on a black background; large, easily readable type; landscape mode. It weighs less than a paperback: this is what got me. One-handed reading! Go ahead, snicker, and no, I haven't yet downloaded The Story of O. But It's really COMFORTABLE. I never expected that. Reading in bed without a book-light is a life-changing experience.

But more importantly it addresses an issue I have always struggled with: I scan. I read fast and spottily, and though I grasp essentials I am rarely fully engaged with the text in the way a responsible reader should be. The brevity of each screen of text on the iPhone encourages me to read more closely.

Now, we'll see how well that theory works when I read something a tad more challenging than the tales of the cheerfully hapless Bertie Wooster. I just got Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy, so that'll be the test case. I hear the Kindle isn't necessarily the best e-book reader for the iPhone. So we'll see where this goes. I'm hesitant to actually PAY for e-books, though. I'd like to see publishers develop a model where the e-book version comes automatically with the paper version. That's a publishing model I could get behind: that way I've got the "back-up" for the shelf and the convenience of the e-text. But it seems like there's a wealth of free stuff out there to read in the Kindle format. And that scratches that Pokemon-like itch, too: it's a thrill to zoop a buncha free classics, knowing that they're there in your pocket all the time. Gotta zoop 'em all...

And I find it pleasing to put the highest-tech device I've ever owned to such a low-tech use.

Here's a brief summary of what I DON'T like about the iPhone: surfing the Internet, that fiddly virtual keyboard, the fact that with 3G enabled you can actually SEE the battery charge indicator dropping in real time. Pretty much the same complaints everyone else has.

On the whole, though, it's a happy-making wonder of a device.

UPDATE: OK, I totally snagged the book about the dragons who fight Napoleon.

Run Out And Buy This Immediately

2009-04-21T15:19:00.003-05:00

Be the first kid on your block to own Booker T.'s new record "Potato Hole", featuring Neil Young and backed by the ever-lovin' never-better Drive-By Truckers.

Well, you'd be the SECOND kid to own it if you lived on my block. Because I already own it, and am thus cooler than you could ever hope to be. At least for the next few minutes.

I would remind you that it is best if you were to simply follow my directives blindly and unquestioningly. Go buy this album. It's the soundtrack of your summer, you just don't know it yet.

You Know Who Rocks? Vulture Whale, That's Who

2009-03-30T18:40:00.002-05:00

I don't go out of my way to promote local music, because 90% of it sucks.

Vulture Whale does not suck.

Their new record is out on Skybucket Records.

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

2009-03-12T16:09:00.002-05:00

I guess I bought tickets online and somehow the local concert promoters harvested my email address so now I get the intermittent update on what Big Shows are soon to be in my area. Today's list was a perfect storm of Don't Give A Fuck:

Nickelback
Coldplay
Kenney Chesney
The Allman Brothers
Def Leppard

Wow. If I sat and thought all day long I couldn't have come up with a list of shows that left me more indifferent.

The Intellectual Leader of Today's GOP

2009-03-11T02:51:00.001-05:00

Watch Some Old Punks Tear It The Fuck Up

2009-03-07T13:37:00.003-06:00

<a href="http://www.fabchannel.com/buzzcocks_concert/2009-02-06">Live Concert Video - Buzzcocks</a>

I'd point out a particularly good song, but the truth is the whole show is great. Pete Shelley now looks like the typical punter down the pub, but that snotty adenoidal screech is still in place, the rhythm section is still amazing, the songs still make me wanna pogo. Oh punk rock. When did you become nostalgia?

Whatever. The Buzzcocks rock.

UPDATE: The site hosting this video closes down on March 13. Watch it now while you still can.

In Lieu Of Content: Some Lists!

2009-02-26T18:35:00.006-06:00

Because I am deeply lazy and all I've done in recent days is read comic books and allow my girlfriend to prepare me delicious meals, I have nothing of value to blog about. So I'll fake it like the rest of 'em and throw up some completely random and subjective lists of stuff!

Recent Things I Didn't Think I'd Like But Liked Anyway:

Brussel sprouts
There Will Be Blood
David Bowie, Heathen

Recent Things I Knew I Was Gonna Like, But Ended Up Liking Even More Than I Thought I Would:

No Country For Old Men
Iron Man
Agents of Atlas #1
David Byrne & Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Recent Things I Thought I Would Like But Ended Up Not Liking At All:

The Dark Knight
Brunch at Cafe de Paris
Getting prescription sunglasses

Recent Things I Really, Really Liked:

WALL-E
Incognito
Atomic Robo
We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
Eating a reuben at The Diplomat Deli
Don Chambers & Goat, Zebulon

Man, this blogging stuff is EASY!

Normally I Wouldn't Link To Pitchfork, But...

2009-02-21T09:27:00.003-06:00

When they put up a stream of Booker T. & the Drive-By Truckers with Neil Young, I make an exception.

I Tried To Like It

2009-01-30T13:49:00.003-06:00

... but The Darjeeling Limited has to have been one of the worst films I've ever seen. It was so bad it pissed me off. And I LIKE Wes Anderson movies. Really! I even liked The Life Aquatic.

I could list everything that's wrong with the The Darjeeling Limited, but I won't. You don't have all day. Let's just say that just about every directorial decision Anderson made in that film I took issue with. "Let's have them all stand around looking blank for an hour and a half!" "This film needs a moment of drama! Let's randomly kill off a poor brown child!" "See, they drop THEIR FATHER'S BAGGAGE, get it?"

The worst part is that, as a fan of Wes Anderson movies, I was really looking forward to watching this. Take it from me, folks: this movie sucks! Don't waste your time nor clog your Netflix queue. It comes across as contrived, too clever by half, heartless, soulless, manipulative, and empty. And if that's his POINT? Well, that's even worse, then.

Avoid this film.

How Did I Miss This? Awesome Performance!

2009-01-19T14:49:00.003-06:00

Bettye LaVette performing The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me" from the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors.

Further Erosion Of The Fourth Amendment

2009-01-16T12:45:00.003-06:00

Remember back when police had to have a reason to hassle folks? Yeah, the good old days of the Fourth Amendment, which protected US citizens from unlawful search and seizure. The "exclusionary rule", under which the fruit of the tainted tree would be thrown out of court -- a way of making sure the cops have all their ducks in a row before breaking down your door.

Those days appear to be gone. Well, going, at least. The US Supreme Court has ruled in Herring vs United States that "evidence obtained from an unlawful arrest based on careless record keeping by the police may be used against a criminal defendant."

Great. That's just what we need: an INCENTIVE for carelessness in law enforcement.

And we can't un-ring this bell. Even with a new administration.

Still, January 20 can't get here soon enough.

WTF, Christian Right?

2009-01-15T15:01:00.002-06:00

OK, this is just kinda creepy.

Man, the God-botherers squick me out sometimes.

I Know This Is Making The Rounds, But...

2009-01-05T22:22:00.002-06:00

Click this link for Internet satori.

It's especially good for just leaving open as a background tab and then when you get to that right part in whatever song it is you're grooving to, drop in a little DLR. Awesome.

Ballsier Than The Last Metallica Record, At Least

2008-12-28T18:50:00.000-06:00

From An Email Sent Earlier Today

2008-12-20T20:49:00.002-06:00

So a friend uploaded the Hüsker Dü record Flip Your Wig for me to snag and now I'm listening to it through cranked headphones. The song "Divide and Conquer" came on and I had on of those involuntary in-chair rock-gasms where something sounds so good and so perfectly essentially irreducibly RIGHT that it made my whole body shake and left a silver snake of adrenaline crackling up and down my spine. And I thought, this album came out in 1985. Almost 24 years ago. When's the last time a new piece of music has grabbed me like that? Or maybe that reaction is only possible with an old record that you've loved and set aside -- it's been YEARS since I've listened to Flip Your Wig. I long ago lost the CD through either pilferage or poor lending practices. I have it on vinyl, but who knows where that is, and me with no record player to boot. It's not even my favorite Hüsker Dü record -- that'd be New Day Rising. But I didn't need to listen to it: I could summon it up any time I wanted. Or maybe I could summon a ghost of a recollection of what I had felt like as I listened to it with new ears. So maybe hearing it blew the cobwebs out of those long-disused channels, amplifying the experience.

And I keep listening. You know, there are some bad songs on that record. And not good bad -- bad bad. Hackneyed melodies one step above a nursery rhyme coupled with trite pity-party lyrics. All awash in shiny, chiming guitar and heroin-soaked drums that lag a half step behind the beat.

But.

Then comes "Keep Hanging On", a song that kept me alive when I wanted to die, and I can excuse all the precious little songs and feel that rope again, not the one around my neck but the one that dangles at the bottom of the well and is strong enough to grip and climb. Sometimes nursery rhymes are all we have. How's that for a pity party?

It gets better. I flip over to amazon.com and there they are. Every fucking Hüsker Dü record you could ask for. I'd never thought to look. iTunes didn't have them, so why would Amazon? They've been in court wrangling for back profits and who owns what for years, right? But there they are: from Metal Circus and New Day Rising to the Eight Miles High/Love Is All Around (Mary Tyler Moore theme) split EP.

I buy them all.

Revisiting New Day Rising is like going back to my childhood home and finding it much smaller than I remembered. What I had thought of as an uncompromising "punk" record, screamy and spiky and loud, seems so much more melodic, somehow innocent now. All that angst, and beneath the bristling skin of Bob Mould's guitar and impassioned yowls beats the heart of a house cat. An angry, spitting, house cat, but a house cat nonetheless. Yet I'm not dismayed. I'm comforted. Even "59 Times the Pain" seems regretful now, not as strident as it seemed to the angry ears who first heard it in 1985. Bob sings, "All I feel is bitter, and it doesn't make it better" and these days that's worth a rueful smile, not white half-moons of fingernails dug into reddened fists. Is that maturity or resignation? Both, perhaps.

I can't separate the music from the memories, you know? It's more than nostalgia, I hope. Maybe not. The music brings back not just memories but memories of memories: a taste of my first serious girlfriend's lips, bitter with beer and cigarettes; the view from my dorm window; the smell of the library, dust and old leather. Central Park in the snow. Standing in Monet's Water Lilies room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ripped to the tits on acid, feeling submerged in aqueous pastels.

There are surprises. "Powerline" is a really lovely song: a bass line like a bed of smooth stones over which a liquid wash of guitar burbles and chimes. And "Books About UFOs"! What a blast of pure power pop happiness!

Then we hit "Whatcha Drinkin'" and "Plans I Make": it's this perfect hardcore one-two punch. My legs twitch: I know how to dance to this. My body wants to own these songs. The galloping drums struggling to keep up with Bob's chainsaw guitar, Greg Norton's bass set to subsonic stun, the last song's desperate shouted pleading lyrics occluded by the chaos: "Make plans. Make plans. Make plans."

Such good advice, so sorely unheeded. And the last note soaring up into supersonic nothingness. Beautiful.

From there I move on to "Eight Miles High", a cover of the Birds classic, and one of the great cover songs of rock history. Hüsker Dü's manifesto. Melody via screaming. Beauty through feedback. Everything louder than everything else.

But now my ears are getting tired, and it's all beginning to sound over-familiar. Same old stuff. I'm glum: have I really ossified that severely? Am I stuck in 1985? I try not to be.

Drive-By Truckers Get Some Love (Just A Little Bit)

2008-12-18T16:36:00.004-06:00

Robert Christgau, writing in Slate, lists Brighter Than Creation's Dark as his number three record of the year, and "The Righteous Path" as his number nine single. I guess that's a bit of cold comfort, as the record was ignored by everyone else making such lists, including Spin, Rolling Stone, and Blender. He goes on to call DBT's latest "the most underrated album of the year". Christgau's been behind this band since the Adam's Housecat days, and it's good to see that he's still out there trying to get them heard. Especially since I, at least, still consider him the dean of American popular music critics.

link-type thang

It's Funny Cuz It's True

2008-12-09T15:45:00.002-06:00

Hee.

A Theory Of Birmingham Food

2008-12-06T19:01:00.003-06:00

Imagine a compass.

At the cardinal points are, starting at north and proceeding clockwise, Highland's Bar and Grill, Pete's Famous Hot Dogs, The Bright Star, and Milo's. So you have north-south and east-west symmetry between the two major food groups (which are, of course "delicious high-quality fare prepared with pride and precision" and "delicious cheap-ass fare that's probably deadly somehow").

In every other direction?

An untamed ocean of barbecue.

(This theory doesn't account for Nikki's West, and so needs more work...)

Dear Mayor Langford,

2008-12-01T10:42:00.004-06:00

I am sure I am not the first to say BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Here's the (101-count) indictment (.pdf). Langford's only accused of 60-some-odd of them, the rest fall on Bill Blount and Al LaPierre.

This was NOT, by the way, a particularly clever or elaborate scheme. It looks like, reading the indictment, Blount and LaPierre were MAILING GIFTS TO LANGFORD'S OFFICE.

Jesus Christ, guys. Haven't y'all watched TV in the past, I dunno, twenty fucking years? There's SO MANY better ways to bribe people.

Besides, you didn't have to give the Mayor a Rolex! You know the man would have settled for some crack and a new stem! That would have been so much cheaper, and it would have kept that money in the community, you know?

More later maybe when I can think rationally. Right now I can't stop chuckling.

Go Watch Some Cartoons

2008-11-26T14:36:00.003-06:00

Here's a link to the complete Fleischer/Famous Studios Superman cartoons, made from 1941-1943. Lovely fluid animation, utter xenophobic racism (Japoteurs! Jungle Drums!), Art Deco flourishes, big red trucks with "TNT" painted in huge letters on the side careening off cliffs... what's not to like? (Found via a link on MetaFilter).

Up, up, and away!

Something To Look Forward To In 2009

2008-11-25T20:06:00.002-06:00

Lemmy, the Movie.

Predictions For The New Year

2008-11-25T15:58:00.004-06:00

Gazing into my crystal ball, I predict:

(Very Likely)

The economic downturn will continue, consumer spending will dry up, the stock market will sink below 6000, and the GOP will blame President Obama.

The courts will overturn California's Proposition 8, noting that "traditional marriage is between one man and one woman" is a relatively recent historical construct and asking haters to take their heads out of their asses and stop dwelling on a mythical past. Society will not collapse into anarchy.

Rosie O'Donnell's new variety show will be awful and will get canceled after less than 10 episodes.

"Heroes" will get canceled at the end of the season, leading to a fan backlash and the show getting picked up by the SciFi Channel, which will then cancel it again because the only reason anyone watches it now is in the hope of seeing some Hayden Panettierre sideboob, and she's too savvy to allow that to happen on basic cable.

The Detroit Lions will take a quarterback in the first round of next year's NFL draft. That quarterback will muddle through three losing seasons, four offensive coordinators, and two head coaches before getting cut. He will go on to be a starter for the 49ers and take them to the playoffs in his first season with the team.

President-Elect Obama's Cabinet members will, as a group, be too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.

George W. Bush will pardon Scooter Libby on his last day in office. That's actually not a prediction: I guarantee this will happen. Iron-clad, take-it-to-the-bank guarantee.

(Likely)

Sometime in 2009, Jefferson County will go bankrupt. No one will notice.

Sometime in 2010, Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford will get convicted of at least one form of financial chicanery involving city funds, non-profits, and "helping the children". He will get a suspended sentence, go on a speaking tour, and start a charity to help the children.

(Long Shots)

Rush Limbaugh will suffer a massive coronary and die while broadcasting. He will be replaced by a talking mule, or perhaps a sentient toaster oven.

Federal drug laws will change to include a provision for medical marijuana, and society will not collapse into anarchy. Sales of brownie mix will skyrocket.

Flying cars! (Because every end-of-the-year prognostication must include flying cars.)

Metallica will break up. No one will notice.

Having a Facebook page will become really, really uncool. Anonymity will be the new black.

A picture of President Obama smoking a cigarette will scandalize the increasingly infantile American electorate.

Saturday Night Live will move to an all-YouTube format, but still will not be funny.

The Atlanta Falcons will put together back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in the history of the franchise.

So, what do y'all predict?

Brief Thoughts On Marvel Comics From An Ancient Fan Returning To The Fold

2008-11-19T21:24:00.005-06:00

Fuck DC.

I've nothing against Superman and Batman and Sgt. Rock (OK, I DO have something against Superman, but that's just me, not them, and I've worked through much of it with my therapist, Dr. Luthor). It's just that when I was a kid, DC Comics were white bread in a whole-wheat world. Pale. Filling yet unfulfilling. Lacking depth, lacking complexity, lacking substance.

Marvel heroes were the stuff of my childhood mythos. Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, the Defenders, the Inhumans, Prince Namor, Thor, Ghost Rider, Moon Knight and even Luke Cage (who I knew as Power Man) and Iron Fist-- these were my comic-book heroes.

Well, it just so happened that about three months ago I happened across the novel Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. I liked it. It was over-the-top gonzo bile. Right up my alley. Turns out Warren Ellis writes comic books. Who knew, right? (Gimme a break -- I'm an agoraphobic 40-something with a library card, I don't spend a lot of time mulling over trends in the graphic novel industry. I barely know who Neil Gaiman is. I just know that Chris Claremont wrote the good X-men books.).

So I pencilled "Warren Ellis" into my mental notebook and forgot about it.

Then a comic book store opened next to my neighborhood supermarket. And it became too easy to stop in before the weekly shop and... yeah. You comic book people know the rest.

Marvel's Civil War story arc -- wow. And Warren Ellis writing Thunderbolts. Wow wow.

Stepping back into the Marvel Universe was great. All the old familiar faces and places. The Baxter Building! Like what you've done with the place, Dr. Richards! Hiya, Beast! You're certainly looking more feline these days! Oh, there's Hank Pym. What an asshole. Guy can grow to tremendous size, but he'll always be smaller than his inferiority complex.

There were changes, of course. The Sentry? Worst. Superhero. EVAR. Or at least worst-written. I know Marvel heroes are always wrestling with their inner demons, but The Sentry is so paralyzed by indecision that you just want to slap him. And there seem to be some new mutants running around Dr. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Hulkling? Wiccan? Eh. OK. Whatevs.

But the biggest change I noticed was in the tone of the comics themselves. They seemed... smarter. More knowing. More engaged with the world beyond their covers. Still stuffed with ridiculous amounts of muscle and spandex, still filled with THWACK and BAMF and BOOOOOOM, but somehow more sophisticated than I remember.

Well, actually the BIGGEST change is the price. Comics are no longer cheap! In fact, they're damn expensive.

But I can't help but grin when I go to the comics store and a new comic is in and I know that after I schlep the groceries home I'll have a good half-hour of pure escapist enjoyment...

Plus, that Thor #600 might be worth something someday.

Hey Punx Listen Up

2008-11-14T12:30:00.004-06:00

The new Dillinger Four record is out, and it's pretty good. In fact it sounds just like an, uh, Dillinger Four record. Having given it a complete if cursory listen, I'd say it's better than Situationist Comedy but not quite as good as Versus God. Which is still high praise, because Versus God is a phenomenally good punk rock record.

But if you like smart, pop-tinged, fast punk rock with shout-along choruses, you'll like C I V I L W A R (caps and spacing their idea, not mine).

*checks band website for tour dates*

They're touring with NOFX?

*sigh*

Oh well, there's no accounting for taste.

Hey, Whaddya Know

2008-11-13T13:16:00.002-06:00

There's new local music blog called Bham.fm, and so far, it's pretty OK.

Check 'em out.

Maybe we'll see representatives of said blog at the Dexateens show at Zydeco this Saturday.

In Which I Jettison Everything I've Ever Stood For

2008-11-08T10:13:00.001-06:00

Yeah. Blind Guardian is the greatest band in the world.

Look, if you can't appreciate German power metal, then you shouldn't be discussing rock and roll.

*sneaks off to listen to Hammerfall*

Obama Be Thy Name (Election Night Background Music)

2008-11-04T12:19:00.002-06:00

I Have Seen The Future Of Birmingham's Domed Stadium

2008-10-27T16:22:00.001-05:00

And it's not pretty. (NY Times link, may require sign-in)

My Endorsement

2008-10-26T22:05:00.001-05:00

After months of deliberation, I have decided which candidate to endorse for the office of President.

More information about my selection is available here.

In Which I Do Not Write A Blog Post

2008-10-25T14:19:00.004-05:00

OK, I've been playing Fable II, and it's fair-to-middling awesome. It's definitely FUN, and that's the primary goal of a game, right? I intend to put together a spectacularly ruminative comparison of Fable II to Fallout 3, but I won't get my grubby little hands on Fallout 3 until Monday at midnight, and then playing the damn thing will take a hundred hours or so, so that post may be some time in the making. I know it's not really fair to compare and contrast a light-hearted fantasy RPG with a gritty, shooty post-apocalyptic RPG, but I'm going to anyway, and damn the consequences.

It seems like there is a fundamental difference in design philosophy between Lionhead and Bethesda, and illuminating that difference sheds light on what games are and how they do what they do... that's vague to the point of irritation, but I can't quite put my finger on what I mean... I'll have much more (MUCH MORE) to say next week after playing Fallout 3.

Suffice to say for the time being that Fable II is a mechanism for linear story-telling (deep but narrow), whereas Oblivion was a mechanism for constructing narrative (shallow but broad).

That's not quite it, either.

Oh well. I'll blather more next week. Now I'm off to defeat Lucien and buy Fairfax Castle for my bride-to-be, Jemma the Whore (she was the only cheerful, good-natured raunchy bisexual I could find in Bloodstone. What?).

Poor John McCain

2008-10-17T17:36:00.003-05:00

You sold out everything you believed in to be President, and now you're going to lose. You hired the people who pilloried you in South Carolina, you kissed the rings of the far-right fundy fatcats you'd always loathed, you repudiated every progressive stance you've ever taken to make yourself palatable to the fanatical wing of your party, and you're still going to lose. You chose a running mate based solely on her ability to rile up the mouth-breathers, and she went out and drove the final nails through the heart of your campaign. You're going to lose. It's not even going to be close.

Now you won't be the President, and you won't have the solace of knowing that at least you were true to yourself.

You were an honorable man, Senator McCain. You were the candidate that free-thinking lefties like me used to look at and think, "Eh, he's the best of a bad bunch." What happened?

Investment Advice: Short Sell Heroin Futures

2008-10-15T11:49:00.003-05:00

According the BBC, half of the world's heroin supply is missing. There seem to be two main theories as to why this is: either some countries are drastically under-reporting their rate of heroin use (Russia? China?), or someone somewhere has a big fucking warehouse stuffed full of pure heroin.

I propose a third possibility: in the same way that the people in charge of big trading companies seem to be able to magically make billions of dollars disappear, the people in charge of big heroin operations are magically making thousands of kilos of heroin disappear. Stockpiling it all in one place makes no sense -- too much risk, not much upside. But spreading it around makes more sense -- no one would have enough to hedge against the global market, but everyone involved would have enough to insure continuity of supply in case of, say, a major US offensive against opium growers in Afghanistan.

So get your money out of the heroin market now! Invest in safer commodities like LSD and ecstasy -- much lower production and transportation costs, plus much, much easier to stockpile (a suitcase instead of a warehouse, say). And in this new age of tight credit, it's the intangible costs that'll bite you in the ass.

It's About Time

2008-10-13T06:52:00.002-05:00

Maybe now we'll see a little accountability in the folks running our state prison system.

This!

Are The Democrats That Timid, Or Simply That Well Bought?

2008-09-23T20:13:00.004-05:00

This (like many things) pisses me off: the Democrats are going to roll over and allow the moratorium on offshore drilling to expire next week. WTF, guys? Are y'all truly so craven that the big bad MINORITY PARTY is gonna give you a swirlie that you simply gave in? Or are you just another set of bought-and-paid for tools of Big Oil?

Is there a single person in the United States of America who can both walk and chew gum simultaneously who believes that expanding offshore drilling now will have ANY effect on short-term oil prices? If so, who the fuck are these people? They're either lying or retarded or both.

And this would have been a great moment for a bit of political theater. The Dems could have brandished alternative energy proposals, accused their colleagues across the aisle of stifling American entrepreneurial innovation, alluded to the growth of the technology sector under previous (Democratic) administrations, made hay with both the high-tech sector, the manufacturing sector, and the greens.

But they caved.

What's the thought process there? "We must be seen to be doing SOMETHING, even if it's the wrong thing!"

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not necessarily OPPOSED to more drilling. Fuck ANWR, drill away, I don't care. But don't set in motion a DECADES-LONG process and tell me it's gonna bring back the days of $2.50/gal gasoline.

How many nuclear plants could we bring on line in that same time frame? How much more efficiency could we build into the national power grid in ten years?

The simple fact is drilling for oil brings high-paying blue-collar jobs to eastern coastal states that vote Republican. Make of that what you will. I am, again unsurprisingly, disgusted by the whole thing.

The Queers RAWK

2008-09-18T20:49:00.004-05:00

Joe King might be the only man left in America who understands punk rock.

OK, y'all calm down, I'll wait.

The Queers make PRETTY SONGS and they make them defiantly, and they reference the Beach Boys, and they don't apologize to you, to me, to anyone. They make gritty bubblegum that you'll sing along with whether you want to or not.

I think that's Punk As Fuck. So do they.

They took the Beach Boys and the Ramones and they smashed them together in a confessional, ironic, knowing way.

Joe King's sister's a novelist. At least memoirist. Look it up. The fambly ain't dumb.

Go see this band at the Hi-Note Lounge next Friday. It will make you a beter person, like Jesus and tofu.

O RLY?

2008-09-18T20:49:00.002-05:00

Here's a letter making the rounds among some conservative Christians these days. This is what passes for political discourse. If you don't find this almost as chilling as an Osama Bin Laden video, then we are living in different universes:

Dear friends:

Barack Hussein Obama has taken the nation by storm. From obscurity, with zero executive experience, or much of any kind, he has vaulted into the position of Presidential frontrunner. It is stunning. On the surface, it appears attributable only to his eloquent oratory and his race. But an invisible factor may be a strong spiritual force behind him, causing some people to actually swoon in his presence.

I have been very concerned that he has publicly said that he does not believe Jesus is the only way to heaven. This makes both the Bible and Jesus a liar, and it means that Christ has died in vain. A person cannot be a true Christian who believes that there are other ways of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life with God. Only Jesus has paid the price for that.

Therefore, there is, indeed, another spirit involved. And this spirit has come into our national life like a flood. Last week at Obama’s acceptance speech, that spirit exalted itself in front of a Greek temple-like stage, and to a huge audience like in a Roman arena. Omama was portrayed as god-like. His voice thundered as a god’s voice.

At the end, Democratic sympathizer Pastor Joel Hunter gave the benediction and shockingly invited everyone to close the prayer to their own (false) gods. This was surely an abomination, but it was compatible with Obama’s expressed theology, and Hunter’s leftist leanings.

God was not pleased.

And God says, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19).

Enter Governor Sarah Palin. With incredible timing, the very next day, Sarah Palin also appeared out of nowhere. Her shocking selection as John McCain’s running mate stunned the world and suddenly took all the wind out of Obama’s sails.

We quickly learned that Sarah is a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, attends church, and has been a ministry worker.

Sarah is that standard God has raised up to stop the flood. She has the anointing. You can tell by how the dogs are already viciously attacking her. But they will not be successful. She knows the One she serves and will not be intimidated.

Back in the 1980s, I sensed that Israel’s little-known Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen by God for an important end-time role. I still believe that. I now have that same sense about Sarah Palin.

Today I did some checking and discovered that both her first and last names are biblical words, one in Hebrew the other in Greek:

Sarah. Wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. In Hebrew, Sarah means “noble woman” (Strong’s 8283).

Palin. In Greek, the word means “renewal.” (Strong’s 3825).

A friend said he believes that Sarah Palin is a Deborah. Of Deborah, Smith’s Bible Dictionary says, “A prophetess who judged Israel…. She was not so much a judge as one gifted with prophetic command…. and by virtue of her inspiration ‘a mother in Israel.’”

Only God knows the future and how she may be used by Him, but may this noble woman serve to bring renewal in the land, and inspiration.

Jim

The author of the letter is Jim Bramlett, a stooge for Pat Robertson, and a purveyor of recordings of angels singing. I shit you not. Well, damn. I'd link to it, but mysteriously all the links to the singing angels have been pulled since I started working on this post. Funny, that. You'd think you'd want folks to hear that beautiful, heavenly music.

So it seems certain segments of the Froth Squad have anointed the divine miss Sarah the best thing since, well, Old Testament justice itself. Or maybe they're scared they'll lose the elction and they're scrabbling for every deluded moron's vote that they can find.

I mean, I couldn't write that bombastically if I'd been huffing paint all day -- and believe me, I've tried.

RIP, David Foster Wallace

2008-09-15T18:06:00.003-05:00

David Foster Wallace (DFW) is dead by his own hand.

I'm not his biggest fan. I didn't like everything he wrote. I thought Infinite Jest was way too long and self-indulgent and navel-gazing. I thought much of his writing worked as literature in the same way that a good close-up magician works: it's all a trick, but you're dazzled nonetheless.

I tried to read Everything and More and I was baffled by the math. He made me not just feel dumb, but KNOW dumb: I was the kid with his nose pressed to the window of the bakery, the dog staring at the pointing finger.

He hung himself. I wonder if he left a note. I wonder if that note had footnotes. I wonder how many miles of verbiage his act of desperation will generate. I wonder how many more people will kill themselves now. If that mind, that beautiful machine, that culmination of nature and grace -- if THAT mind can't take it, what are the rest of us supposed to do?

It would be easy to say he aimed too high. That would excuse us all for aiming lower. It would be easy to paint his as a cautionary tale -- hubris, over-intellectualism, the danger of youthful success. That would excuse us all for the failings of our ego. It would be easy to say he was depressed.

It's harder to think that that fine mind looked ahead, sensed the patterns in the weave, and made a rational decision. I don't believe that. I don't want to believe that. I'll wear this body down to a nub before I'll give in. We all tell ourselves that.

Fuck you, DFW. You were a genius. A polymath humanist trying to make sense of it all, or at least to dissect it into such discrete parts that others could admire the assemblage. But*

*this space left deliberately unfinished.

Shunning The Stupid

2008-09-08T12:15:00.004-05:00

There's an interesting set of articles up at The Chronicle of Higher Education with the delightfully terse titles "On Stupidity" and "On Stupidity, Part 2". The first is a review of several books which collectively makes the argument that:

Americans, particularly those now entering college, have been rendered "stupid" by a convergence of factors including traditional anti-intellectualism, consumer culture, the entertainment industry, political correctness, religious fundamentalism, and postmodern relativism, just to name [a few].

While this smacks of "round up the usual suspects", the author makes the case in Part 2 that pedagogy has trailed technology, and so a teaching emphasis on using electronic tools effectively and intelligently can offset some of the damage done by young people's absorption in the medium. It would be nice to think so, wouldn't it?

Sexy Science Webcams Are Waiting For You!

2008-09-07T19:19:00.005-05:00

Watch the beginning of the end of the world as the first beam circulates in the Large Hadron Collider LIVE September 10 (from 9:00 to 18:00 CEST) at CERN's website: clicky

Of course, there will be no danger of spontaneous black hole formation or sudden presence of Combine shock troops because they won't actually start the smashy-smashy until later this year and the facility is not located at Black Mesa. This is just a preliminary lap, a warm-up. Physicists hope that by colliding ever smaller particles with enormous amounts of energy they'll find the Higg's Boson, or top quark, the particle that (we think) imparts mass to other particles and that sounds like the name of someone in a horizontally-striped shirt with a parrot on his shoulder. A secondary goal is to provide employment for physicists everywhere, as well as giving them a sweet place to crash while they're in Switzerland. (See whut I did thar?)

SCIENCE!

Edited 9/09/08 to correct description of Higg's boson.

Support Palin as VP? Read this first

2008-09-04T16:08:00.003-05:00

This letter was written by a Wasilla, AK resident who is quite familiar with the woman who would like to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Thought-provoking for conservatives and liberals alike.

Why I Play Video Games

2008-09-01T21:47:00.001-05:00

"When a man cannot get what he wants in one world, he finds it in another." -- Voltaire

It's Like A Dream Come True!

2008-08-26T20:12:00.003-05:00

Drive-By Truckers AND The Hold Steady together in concert!

W00t!

Saturday, November 1 at The Tabernacle in Atlanta! Tickets on sale now! I just bought mine!

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art

2008-08-26T13:46:00.004-05:00

I been reading the novel Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra, because it's a mix of several of my favorite things: a doorstop of a book; a novel of modern India; a crime thriller; and a cinematic, fast-moving, plot-driven epic.

So it came as a surprise to find that one of the book's characters was just gunned down by police in New Delhi.

Bunty, it turns out, was a real-life criminal of some stature in India. In the novel, a character named Bunty is second-in-command to the head crime boss, Ganesh Gaitonde. In the author's notes at the end of the book, Chandra coyly thanks those people who made the book more realistic but whom he'd prefer not to name. Hmmm.

I'm sure there's tons of subtext here that I'm not picking up on: perhaps every reader with a connection to India knows who Bunty is (was) and using his name in the novel is an in-joke that elicits knowing chuckles from the better-informed.

But seeing news of the death of a novel's character in the actual news was jarring to me. It was like hearing that scientists have captured the creature from the black lagoon or something. I hope Chandra will write about it on his site.

Yo, Wandering Druid: Your Captcha Don't Be Workin' In Safari

2008-08-24T21:43:00.004-05:00

This is what I would have posted as a comment on the latest post at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility if his captcha were working:

I never post to Eve blogs. I barely read Eve blogs. I even more rarely undock my freakin' ship and do anything in Eve anymore besides pay for it every month because, hey, $15 is peanuts and some day I might actually play the game beyond logging in and setting skills (oh yeah, once I undock, I should be SO uber).

But I had some down time and had to log in to set a skill anyway so I figured what the hey, I'll run a mission. Jumped in the ol' Caracal and puttered out to do a LEVEL TWO mission that I've done APPROXIMATELY 18 BILLION TIMES BEFORE.

It was touch and go. I had to warp out and rep twice, and the last time the rats were chewing structure before my frantic key-hammering had any effect. I was in a 0.5 system with 30-something people docked. (Yeah, I'm a carebear. Screw you.)

I did the same thing you did -- holy crap, why's my connection so slow? I'm running Eve on a Mac with intermittently wonky cable internet service, so I figured it was on my end. Nope, it wasn't me.

I didn't bother filing a petition. I figure I ended up completing the mission and didn't lose the ship (God forbid -- another Caracal might break the bank /jk). But it reinforced my antipathy toward actually participating in the meat of the game. I can't imagine what the lag is like in fleet combat.

They'll still get my money, because they're the only MMO that's even vaguely interesting. Unfortunately, they're becoming more frustrating than interesting.

I mean, come on. I WASN'T EVEN ENGAGED IN 1-ON-1 PVP, and the lag was vicious. That's unacceptable.

I feel your pain.

Hey, Check This Out

2008-08-21T14:02:00.003-05:00

All three of my loyal readers (OK, the two loyal ones and YOU, the shifty character in the corner) are hereby encouraged to check out a few new (to me) sites that will help you get your rage on:

Electicker is a site with an astounding amount of aggregated information crammed onto it about the upcoming US Presidential elections and PoliticalFilter is a MetaFilter knock-off (with better design -- sorry, Matt) for posting political links that the membership can then yell about.

Both of them were highlighted on today's Big Big Question, yet another site with MetaFilter connections -- it's run by MeFi moderator cortex.

*extends grasping hand* OK, guys, I pimped your sites -- pay me now!

I Hate The Comments On Al.com

2008-08-21T13:17:00.003-05:00

In the Birmingham News today, the lead story concerned a terrible mass killing that happened in north Shelby County. Five men were found with their throats slashed. There were few details reported in the dead-tree edition, so I went to al.com to find out more.

Sure enough, like any good news website, they had more information. The men were all Hispanic, and they had no identification on their corpses. The bodies were taken to the state crime lab in Montgomery. FBI, US Marshalls, ABI were all getting involved to help solve the crime. So far, so good. Then I made the mistake of reading the comments following the updated story.

I've got to leave this state.

Reading those comments is like being smacked in the face with a wet Klan robe. The level of racism, bigotry, and sheer stupid hatred expressed therein was dismaying, to say the least. I won't repeat what was said. You can read them for yourself if you choose.

But if that's the level of intellect (among the people who actually bother to read the paper, don't forget), then this state is doomed and we deserve whatever we get.

I'm dismayed, disgusted, and saddened.

I guess I should have expected it. But DAMN, y'all. We can do better.

This Is A Test Post. It Is Content-Free.

2008-08-18T19:16:00.002-05:00

I just signed up for Twitterfeed, and I want to see if the doohickey is properly affixed to the whatchacallit.

There is nothing to read here, please move along.

Heh

2008-08-11T14:18:00.002-05:00

Editorial headline in today's Birmingham News: "Troy King wants to end cockfighting".

What's the matter, Troy? Tired of staying up at night greasing your zipper?

Lazy Sportswriter Pun Alert Countdown

2008-08-07T11:27:00.002-05:00

Here at Bitter Old Punk Central, we're now monitoring the intartubes for the first reference to the New York Bretts.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: We have a winner.

It's Almost Football Season!

2008-08-02T13:39:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Birmingham native Andre Tippett for his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Also, HOF congratulations to Darrell Green, a real class act, one of my all-time favorite players, and probably still one of the fastest men on the planet.

Yay, football!

Not To Say I Told You So, But...

2008-07-31T09:20:00.003-05:00

I started this blog as a reaction to the absurd state-mandated brainwashing I had to go through following a conviction for misdemeanor possession of marijuana. I had to go to twice-weekly piss tests and "counseling", I had to attend AA/NA meetings, I had to do 30 days in jail.

The jail I didn't mind so much. The biscuits and gravy for breakfast every Friday morning were much better than those served at Shoney's. I picked up roadside trash, lost some weight, got a tan. It was the stupid fucking counseling sessions that really got my goat. I was told, over and over, in the solemn terms usually reserved for those speaking from a pulpit, that I was a Marijuana and Alcohol Addict, and I Needed Help to Stop, because Addiction is a Disease.

Prove it, I said. The DSM-V, the manual psychiatrists use to diagnose mental disorders, has removed "alcoholism" as a disease diagnosis. Instead, it lists "alcohol abuse" and "alcohol dependence" as different diagnoses. About marijuana addiction? Eh, not so much. In fact, it specifically states that there have been NO studies showing marijuana to be physiologically habit-forming. This didn't stop the sad-eyed hand-wringing by the counselors, who were convinced I was ~~going to Hell~~ doomed to die an addict.

I bitched, I moaned, I threw hissy fits and tantrums, I raged and railed against the dying of right reason in a pseudo-clinical setting.

My ~~interrogators~~ counselors were not pleased. I was not willing to accept Jeebus, I was not willing to kowtow to pseudoscience, I chose not to play. I followed the letter of the law in order to get through the damn thing without getting additional charges thrown at me or getting more deeply embroiled in the bureaucratic nightmare of drug court, but in our group meetings, I let my feelings be known.

I was in Denial, I was solemnly told. Doomed! Doomed! The ONLY way to solve my Addiction Problem was to Submit to a Higher Power, to go to Meetings, to Follow the Program. To Admit my Powerlessness.

Bullshit, I said. The counselors wrung their clammy hands and regarded me sadly.

Well, whaddya know. Turns out all that claptrap they were selling was just that.

Don't get me wrong -- addiction treatment is the right thing for many people: junkies, tweakers, pill-poppers, wet-brain long-term drunks. But it turns out (SPOILER!) that most people figure this stuff out on their own. Amazing! People shape up when they're sick and tired of being sick and tired! And many of them do it without state-mandated brain-washing!

Of course, the massive treatment industry consisting largely of marginally qualified sanctimonious hand-wringers will roll right over this study, because they want to keep their jobs and they're unqualified to do anything else.

But it's nice to be right once in a while.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go light a spliff, eat a baby, and sell my soul to Satan.

Troy King's Wide Stance

2008-07-10T23:26:00.004-05:00

Well, it looks like our notoriously prudish state attorney general may be less of a prude than we had believed. Rumors are swirling that Troy King, he of the sex toy ban and the anti-gay rhetoric, has been booted out of his home after his wife found him canoodling...with another gentleman. This is still merely a rumor, and so for the moment Mr. King is assumed to be as stalwartly hetero as John Wayne and Hitler, but should it turn out to be true, then it's another data point supporting my theory that cognitive dissonance is a necessary precursor to success as a right-wing politician. I mean, this is the guy who wrote this hateful screed to the student newspaper while in law school:

The time has come for the majority to rise from its figurative slumber. The picture on the front page of Monday's issue of The Crimson White looked like the front page of Sodom and Gomorrah News the day before those cities were destroyed. I and a majority of the students were appalled not that these students would pose for this picture, for we have seen that the homosexuals in America will do anything to grab a headline but rather I am furious that this paper would sacrifice its journalistic integrity for a tabloid-esque reporting! It is indeed sad that America has fallen to the point where she will condone any type of deviant, immoral activity in which a group desires to participate. However, perhaps even more compelling evidence of the perversion of America is evidenced not only by the fact that this story was published in the newspaper but rather that it was graphically depicted on the front page.

The existence of the Gay/Lesbian alliance on this campus is an affront to the state of Alabama, its citizenry, this diversity and its students. However, it is also an outrage to compel those students with both moral and religious objections to the activities and ideas espoused by this organization to contribute money, via student fees, to subsidize these activities.

One has but to look at the forces which the controversy has united--from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Organization of Women to the Queer Nation just to name a few--to clearly see how corrupt a cause this truly is.

The argument can often be heard that what goes on in the bedroom is private. However, it is flawed reasoning to attempt to justify the gay movement in America today on this basis, for they have taken sex from the confines of the bedroom into the streets, the evening news, and now even the front page of the newspaper.

Boy, it would suck to be so filled with denial and self-loathing. I imagine Troy King is thinking, "I'm not queer! I just like having sex with men!" If the rumor is true, that is. I have to admit to a frisson of anticipation at watching this sordid story unfold.

Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite.

RIP, Thomas Disch

2008-07-06T20:20:00.003-05:00

Is Thomas Disch the Right God for You?

(An Advertisement}

Once a mortal, soon to be in Heaven, I may be
your best chance to distinguish yourself
as someone specially Blessed and bound for Glory
without going to a lot of trouble or expense.
The Scripture is out there now
[The Word of God, Tachyon Press, $14.95],
proclaiming my Divinity and promising Salvation.

So why not declare yourself a believer Now
and reap all the associated Tax Advantages?
Start with a little Tom My God shrine beside the BBQ
and before you can say Glory Be the whole back yard
and all its gardening tools are tax-deductible!
If your tax returns are challenged, show this poem
to the judge and ask him how many believers
constitute a Faith. More than a dozen?
That's what Christ started with. The Word of God
has got at least that many blurbs on its jacket.
And more keep coming in!

Then there's this: Believing on Me is a good way
to trump someone else's ace in an argument.
Suppose you come up against a McCain supporter
at a School Board meeting, who wants you to vote for
his guy while at the same time getting the Board
to buy a line of Science textbooks that show
how Darwin was no more than a know-it-all atheist
and no kind of scientist at all. You can insist
the School Board buy My book instead (there will be
a ten per cent rebate for orders of fifty or more).

Or suppose you just want to masturbate
and you're a teenager whose Mormon
(or Catholic or born-again Baptist) parents
absolutely forbid you to spill your seed
after the fashion of Onan. As one of my followers,
you are free to spill any amount of seed
(just do it in your own bedroom, alone;
otherwise somebody could be arrested).

N.B.: adoring me is not a crime,
it's your God-given right! So have yourself
the same kind of fun other believers do
by making a public nuisance of yourself
and pissing off all the officious old farts
you know. Insist that your First Amendment rights
be respected. And save Saturday night for Me!

So Be It!

-- Thomas Disch, June 24, 2008

(Shamelessly stolen in its entirety from Disch's Livejournal page. I'll take it down if he bitches from beyond, or if his earthly minions make me. Disch died by his own hand July 4. He was the author of Camp Concentration, 334, The MD, The Priest, The Businessman and several volumes of wonderful and underappreciated poetry. You may know him as the author of The Brave Little Toaster.)

Oh PayPal, How I Hate You So

2008-06-10T17:01:00.004-05:00

So I want to send some money to a friend in Canada. It's a significant amount of money, but no more than many middle-class folks earn in a week. I figure, hey, I have that PayPal account I never use, I'll just do that and zap it'll be there instantly, right?

Oh, no. Not even close.

I start this process last Saturday, where I sign in to my PayPal account and send the money. No problem. About an hour later, I get an email from the recipient, who informs me that, uh, thanks for the cash, but I don't think you meant to send me this. I check email addresses. Damn. She's right. Her email address is one letter off from the correct one -- I have made a mistake, and I'm lucky that the person who got the payment was honest enough to notify me. I email her back, apologize for the hassle, and ask her to deny the transaction. Done. OK, now that that is straightened out, I figure I can resend the amount to the correct address.

Oh, no. This is just getting started.

I try to resend, this time to the (triple-checked) correct email address. Transaction = FAIL. I call PayPal (who do not offer their customers an 800 number -- yeah, it's a 15-minute hold on a long-distance call). The guy I talk to tells me that because the first transaction was denied, the second transaction won't be possible until the pending charge on my credit card is reversed, which makes a weird sort of sense, so I figure I'll wait until EOB and resend in the morning.

The next day, the transaction fails again. I need another form of payment, PayPal informs me. Though I have no way to do so, short of driving to their headquarters and standing in the parking lot with a bullhorn, I wish to inform PayPal that they will never ever ever have my bank account information, no matter how they beg and plead or cajole and demand.

So today I spend a good HOUR (at daytime long-distance rates!!!) on the phone with some lady who claims her name is Joan but, judging by her accent, is more likely named Jalbala (pretty name, means "lotus flower", I think). She is kind, compassionate, well-informed, and completely and utterly unhelpful. I speak to her supervisor, Anna. For the record, Anna is not a bot. But she may as well have been, because she is snide, cold, unhelpful, and completely unsympathetic.

Here's what I learned from Anna-Not-A-Bot:

1. My credit card is now flagged to hell and back by PayPal's ominous-sounding "Internal Security Department" and can NEVER EVER BE USED FOR A PAYPAL TRANSACTION EVER EVER AGAIN STOP ASKING.
2. I mistyped an email address and had a transaction denied. Therefore it is all my fault, nothing they can do, tough shit, so long sucker.
3. There are no humans who work in PayPal Internal Security, only Cylons who do not deign to communicate with meatbags.
4. The only way to resolve this problem is to give PayPal my bank account info.

Um, no. I use a credit card online, because I'd rather risk THEIR money than MY money, and because my card issuer has a phalanx of lawyers just quivering for the chance to sue some hacker into dust.

So I went to Western Union. With a wad of cash. Which they cheerfully accepted. And sent to my friend. Took five minutes. No problem. Even got a smile from the little cutie working the desk.

I'm going to post this, then go to Amazon.com and attempt to purchase a book using my PayPal account. If that transaction is denied, I'm closing the account with a hearty, "Fuck you, PayPal!"

Fanboy Lust

2008-06-03T12:11:00.003-05:00

All three of my readers know that I love video games. But I've never been tempted to spend money on the collectible crap that's pushed out into the market along with them.

Until now. That's so awesomely awesome.

Free Speech, Unless You're In High School

2008-06-01T17:29:00.002-05:00

This left me flabbergasted.

If I'm reading the story right, the precedent is now that what a teenager says FROM HOME and ON HER OWN TIME and ON HER OWN BLOG is now subject to the whims of school officials under the false flag of "ultimately causing some disruption in the school setting."

Douchebags.

A Checklist For Pastor Hagee

2008-05-23T16:08:00.002-05:00

I figured that since Jeremiah Wright got a full week of press to demonstrate his asshattery, it would only be fair for John Hagee to get the same. Hagee, you may recall, is the jowly dough-boy who opined from the pulpit that Hitler was an instrument of God for shooing the Jews back to Israel where they belong, and that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for New Orleans holding a Gay Pride parade (then why was the gay part of town the least damaged, I wonder?) Here's a summary of his stupider statements. Oh, and did I mention that McCain went out of his way to seek this idiot's endorsement because you can't be a Republican contender until you get down with the fundies, and digging up and embracing the corpse of Falwell was deemed too aerobic an activity for a 71-year-old man? And then it took McCain three months to reject said endorsement, after Hagee's increasingly insane rants came to light? So with that in mind I've put together a series of talking points for the right reverend Hagee to use when he stops running from the press:

God digs genocide. The genocide in Rwanda was God's way of showing the power of radio and the glory of the machete: a cheap, efficient, and useful weapon, whether clearing brush or butchering the neighbors. Plus, it's just black people -- God doesn't like them much.

Indiscriminate death always benefits the faithful. The Black Plague wiped Christendom's slate by killing all the feebs and weirdos, leaving only the strong Christians to rebuild Europe: just like God wants it. AIDS almost killed off the gays until the damn demon-possessed libruls stepped in and came up with retroviral therapy.

The mind of God is an open book, which only I am privy to read. That's right, MY Bible has stuff in it yours can only dream about. With pictures. And flowcharts. And stuff.

Democrats want to eat your babies. My babies? Yes, your babies. Raw. And they'll set up government-run camps to breed babies for their awful blood orgies during which they summon the spirit of Socialized Medicine and dance around nekkid.

Global warming is either a lie perpetuated by the liberal elite or God's wrath on the liberal elite, I haven't decided which yet. But when I do decide, I'll be sure and let you know what God thinks about it.

In Which I Watch C-SPAN, And Am Disgusted

2008-05-19T04:02:00.003-05:00

OK, it's late. I'm drunk.

But C-SPAN flipped my shit tonight.

It's the prototypical Senate subcommittee hearing: the Government Affairs Subcommittee on Government Information, in fact, chaired by Tom Carper (D - Somewhere). Testifying before the committee committee committee (sorry, it's just somehow fun to type that word committee committee committee), the Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, was blase and reflective about Lockheed-Martin's software that the Nation Archives was using to store all government documents.

Wait, what?

Lockheed-Martin?

Really? Rilly? O RLY? 4RL?

Lockheed-Fucking-Martin?

Don't they make airplanes? And land mines, and super-secret-Navy-Seal-tell-you-hafta-kill-you stuff?

Do we really want Lockheed-Martin in charge of the PROGRAM FOR PRESERVING OUR NATIONAL HISTORY?

Worst part of it: the Inspector-General of the National Archives and Records Administration, Paul Brachfeld, quotes a Dave Matthews Bland lyric, and the subcommittee subcommittee subcommittee chairman winks at the motherfucker.

Salient quote: "People would be shocked at the kind of records we hold." Good thing that's all classified, then. Oh, wait, no it isn't.

It's the NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

I Wonder How Many Sermons On The Evil Of Homosexuality He's Preached?

2008-05-16T16:13:00.006-05:00

Megachurch minister arrested in Texas for planning to have sex with 13-year-old.

Of course, it isn't the church's fault. I mean, they have 26,000 members and 40 ministers, who can keep up with all of them?

And I'm waiting for the tearful "we have all sinned" court appearance where he'll inevitably ask for forgiveness and seek compassion from his invisible sky wizard, and by extension, the jury.

It must be nice to go through life convinced that not only are you irreparably flawed, but that forgiveness is just a genuflection away. How that must relieve one of responsibility.

I'll bet money this guy will "minister" to other inmates while he's in.

Because he's a man of God.

*barf*

Cory Maye: A ReasonTV Recap

2008-05-16T10:41:00.004-05:00

I've blogged about this before, and now ReasonTV is covering the story, based on the admirable reporting of Radley Balko.

This story is a tragic example of how the Drug War ruins lives, for both the cops and the people they are supposed to be protecting.

Click the title for the link.

Plot of GTA V Revealed!

2008-05-11T17:32:00.003-05:00

Not really.

This is just what one rabid fanboy (me) think it should be. With a title designed to draw suckers into reading my blog.

OK, Rockstar always ups the ante with every iteration, right? And having built the game systems they can now squeeze out another one (a GTA IV.5, so to speak) like they did with III. So next year, I want to see a GTA game starring....

....Dwayne Forge's lesbian ex-girlfriend.

Think about it. Unless you haven't played the game, in which case you are excused and you should probably go here instead. Dwayne, the surly, chronically depressed ex-con who is crippled with self-loathing rivaled only by his disdain for the system that chewed him up and spat him out, is one of the best characters ever written into a video game. But he shouldn't be the main character -- that would be too close to CJ from GTA:SA. Dwayne is the Greek chorus of the game, and he should be on the sidelines in the next one. And by making the character a lesbian, Rockstar gets to mess with the heads of the player base, while addressing issues of sexism and gender and sexual freedom in a visceral way (rocket-propelled grenades = visceral).

So, here's my idea. Dwayne gets framed and jailed. Maybe he's sitting on Death Row. It's up to his ex, who has accepted herself and changed her life while Dwayne was inside, to free him. She follows a trail that leads from gangbangers to crooked cops to a conspiracy involving the highest levels of government. Remember, this game will take a couple of years to make, at which time we'll be deep into the corruption and treason trials of several key former Bush administration officials (a man can dream, can't he?).

I think it could work.

Sexist Radiohead T-Shirts

2008-05-10T13:12:00.004-05:00

At the Radiohead show in Atlanta Thursday night I was standing at the T-shirt booth and wondering just what kind of idiot would pay $40 for a t-shirt. Then my phone rang, and it was my friend Terry asking me to buy him a t-shirt.

"They're 40 bucks, dude," I said.
"I don't care. I want a Radiohead t-shirt."
"They're not all that great. They have slogans written on them. They don't even say they're Radiohead tour t-shirts."
"What do they say?"

I read a few of them to him. They were the kind of cryptic dyspeptic grumbling beloved by Radiohead fans. One, though, stood out. On a plain black t-shirt, in a font that mimicked the electronic CRT displays of the 80s, was printed: "I am trapped in my body and cannot escape."

"That's the one I want," Terry said. I should mention at this point that Terry is trapped in his body and cannot escape. He has inherited spastic paraparesis which has locked his muscles, stiffened his jaw, and left him nearly blind. For him to wear that t-shirt would be a truly blackly humorous form of performance art.

So I told the woman running the kiosk that that was the shirt I wanted.

"It's a baby tee," she said. "A girl's shirt."

"There's not one with that slogan on it in a men's size?"

"Nope. That one's for women," she said.

Wow. So the assumption there is that only women are trapped in their bodies. I understand that body image is a problem that disproportionately affects young women, but still. Also, it's a baby tee. One size: curvy and small. No fat chicks need apply. BBW who are trapped in their bodies will hafta choose a different shirt.

That's kinda sexist, Radiohead.

So I got Terry one that read: "You used to be all right. What happened?"

A Second-Hand Anecdote

2008-04-23T08:17:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine is a project manager for a software design firm, and regaled me with this story. This is as told, with only identifying details changed to protect corporate and individual identities:

So we're taking a tour of the data center at a financial institution that's contracted us to do some coding. As we're walking through their server room, the guy giving the tour gestures to a tall black box along one wall. "That's Big Bertha," he said. "We're not sure what it does or why it's here. And the last guy who knew the password died three years ago." We all laughed, but the guy was serious. "It was installed in the late 1980s, we know that much. And we kinda know what it does, because we've checked the data going in against the data coming out. But we're not sure that that's ALL it does, or even how it's doing it. We've lost all the documentation, and there's no one here left who was around when it was installed. Every bit of our data runs through it. When that box goes down, we're fucked. We keep a full bottle of whiskey in the break room so that when that box dies, we can all get drunk before they fire us."

Boy, talk about your "legacy systems". Did I mention that this is a financial institution whose job is keeping track of millions of transactions, all of which seem to get routed through the Mystery Box? I hope it runs for a while longer, because eventually people will start lighting candles before it and worshipping it like a god.

Cognitive Dissonance In The Snack Food Aisle

2008-03-17T15:48:00.003-05:00

The other day I went grocery shopping and my head exploded.

One of the first things you see on walking into my neighborhood Publix, right after you pass the seasonal display in the front, is a row of two-for-one bins. Crackers, mayonnaise, canned soups, and, today, chocolate chip cookies. Buy one, get one free. There's a variety available: chewy, white chocolate chunk, peanut butter, original. I examined a package more closely.

"REAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!!!" it declares.

Well, yeah. I don't see why that's worth stating, much less bragging about. Of course the package contains real chocolate chip cookies. If it were full of mousetraps, or geraniums, or something, it would probably state as such, too. But the implication is -- there are FAKE chocolate chip cookies out there, just waiting to tempt the witless, innocent cookie consumer. These are REAL, much better than those FAKE ones.

In the right hand corner of the package is a smiling chocolate chip cookie, replete with eyes and chocolatey eyebrows.

That cookie is obviously a fake.

So to advertise the realness of their chocolate chip cookies, the manufacturers have chosen a fake cookie. And they then thought it necessary to reassure them that the cookies were, in fact, real.

I think I may have drooled a bit, then.

I stood there stunned as an ox for a couple of beats.

And yes, then I bought the goddamned cookies. Two packages. They aren't very good, but they are indisputably real.

Planning A Long Trip?

2008-03-14T20:40:00.001-05:00

Google can help!

Watch Idiocy Unfolding In Real Time!

2008-03-04T16:29:00.002-06:00

Skipping the 20th century entirely, the Birmingham City Council will begin live online streaming video of their meetings next Tuesday.

Watch the sausage getting made here.

Sufferers, Rejoice! A Cure For Depression!

2008-02-22T14:48:00.003-06:00

...47...48...49...50...51...

Oh Larry, We're Shocked, Shocked

2008-02-19T21:11:00.002-06:00

So now John Katapodis has stated in sworn testimony that money from a computer charity (Computer Help For Kids) he ran with Langford went to pay a gay porn star.

Read it and weep. Tears of laughter and hot, hot shame.

Birmingham OLPC: LULZ FUXXORED D00DZ

2008-01-23T18:08:00.000-06:00

Aaaaaaaand we're off, with the national tech media beginning to pick up on the story of Birmingham's new mayor and city council managing to make epic fail from technology designed specifically for

the world's poorest children living in its most remote environments

That's from the OLPC website, which appears borked ATM, perhaps due to some recent troubles. Irony? You're soaking in it.

WhineFest '08

2008-01-23T17:15:00.000-06:00

The economy's in the crapper, we're bogged down in a war we can't win, and now I need a real estate agent, a lawyer, an accountant, and a bunch of other besuited parasites designed to rid me of my money under the aegis of "consulting".

Mom was confused and irritable all day, demanding that I take her "home", that I "go find the cat she left at the other house" and that I give her her car keys back if I was just gonna ignore her, dammit.

Hint: there's no other house, there's no other cat, and you haven't driven in over a year, you crazy old bat.

And it never stops. That conversation loops through her head all day, and it erases every ten minutes. So, every eleventh minute it's like SHAZAM! what a great idea she's had! And I hear it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

And then I lose my shit. "GODDAMMIT LISTEN TO YOURSELF ARE YOU CRAZY?" And she looks so lost and confused and hurt that I feel like the lowest scumbag to ever get lippy with his sainted mum.

I need a break.

It's A Miracle!

2008-01-06T21:18:00.000-06:00

Someone should sell this dog's ass on Ebay.

W00t! I Got Anonymously Quoted in New York Magazine!

2008-01-02T17:04:00.001-06:00

The Givewell debacle over on MetaFilter continues to snowball, and now New York magazine has picked up the story. One of their quotes was one of my snarks. Hooray, my spitefulness and vindictive behavior finally pays off! Well, not really. Since I didn't actually get, you know, PAID. Or attribution, either. Oh well.

Interesting that something I posted less than an hour ago was quoted online elsewhere within the hour, and I began blogging about it minutes later. The Internet is happening in real time, people.

Oh, Snap

2007-12-31T13:48:00.000-06:00

Hint to hedge-fund 20-somethings with scammy Internet charity sites: don't astroturf AskMetaFilter and expect to get away with it.

Heh. That's why I love that place. That, and the pancakes.

And you gotta figure that if the founders of that site are as unprincipled in person as they demonstrably are online, their "administrative costs" are probably sky-fucking-high.

Happy New Year, everybody!

I Don't Know Why This Is So Fascinating

2007-12-26T21:22:00.000-06:00

But it is.

Happy Horrordays!

2007-12-20T01:30:00.000-06:00

I'm fed up. I'm sick of this shit.

Our president is EVIL. And the Democrats are QUISLINGS.

I have nothing good to say.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

Got My Ass Handed To Me On Metafilter Today

2007-12-13T21:16:00.001-06:00

So someone threw up a lame one-link FPP about British women vs American women. The poster probably (surely, I'd bet money on it) saw it here.

Now, MetaFilter has been abuzz for weeks with a sexism meme (which has been accompanied by all sorts of tempest-in-a-teacup internet drama like long-time members resigning and thousand-post threads). I didn't contribute a lot to those threads. I followed them, and I think I made a couple of posts in one. But I was neither instigator nor propagator. Least, I tried not to be.

Anyhoo, I was contributing to this admittedly lame thread today and suddenly one of the mods yanks it. WTF? All we were doing was piling on the author of the linked article for being a shallow dumbass.

So, being a consummately moronic individual, I go and call the mod out in MetaTalk. You know, as I write this, it becomes more and more narcissistic and masturbatory and stinking of fail and overweening irrelevance that I may not continue.

Lemme take a breath.

Needless to say, I got torn a new one.

I may revisit this post and put down some more meat as to why I called the mod out on the deletion -- I mean, it's like the mere whiff of men talking women IN ANY CAPACITY is now verboten on MetaFilter, and that's not only stupid, it's patronizing and lazy.

But I hate to be lumped with the "I'd hit it!" sexist fuckwads, which is what would happen if I said that on MetaFilter.

And I think I'll frame the issue more clearly with a bit of sleep.

Consider this post a marker. More To Come. Wait With Baited Breath, All Three Readers.

Don't Try The Marijuana!

2007-12-08T17:50:00.000-06:00

How To Understand Punk Rock

2007-12-04T23:21:00.001-06:00

If you like this, you'll like punk rock!

48 Seconds

2007-12-03T14:22:00.000-06:00

...is how long it takes a Texas cop to go from pulling a car over speeding to shocking the driver with a taser.

The cop, who according to online records was hired by the force in 1994 and as of the time of the stop in November 2006 had risen to the lofty rank of corporal, one whole pay grade in 12 years, which probably tells you all you need to know about this dingus, starts off by being an asshole and then find s a whole new gear of "violent asshole" when the driver actually complains about being pulled over for doing 70 in a 65. Oh, and it's a white male cop tasing a black woman who's only other offenses besides a rinky-dink speeding charge seems to be that she didn't have a socket set to attach her rear tag, she had to fumble in her purse for her license and proof of insurance, and oh yeah, she's black and in Texas.

I shouldn't post stuff like this. It's pointless. It just jacks up my blood pressure and makes me angry and sad.

Do cops not understand that THIS IS WHY EVERYONE HATES THEM? Do they not get that a speeding ticket and an illegal tag is not grounds for ENDANGERING SOMEONE'S LIFE?

It used to be that when I'd see a cop, I'd be mildly annoyed and irritated. Now when I see a cop I'm actually afraid of getting tased, beaten, shot, or worse. That may be completely irrational. But I'm sure I'm not alone.

I'm sure it's tough to be a cop. They have risky jobs that make them do unpleasant things to unhappy people. I get that. But the attitude of cops toward the people that they have sworn to serve and protect frightens me.

If You Hate The Hold Steady, Skip This

2007-11-25T00:00:00.002-06:00

Someone please tell me why I should hate this band. Beside the fact that they do everything wrong: derivative licks, pretentious lyrics, frat-boy posturing.

I wish I hated this band. But I am not cool enough to hate this band. I love this band. I love the way they find that expansive big riff that carries the song. I love the way they shamelessly worship gesture rock. I love the way they sound like Social Distortion meets Molly Hatchett while The Fall mediates the peace talks.

I'd like to see them tour with the Drive-By Truckers, so folks could see side-by-side what a trying-to-sound-like-a-rock-band band sounds like next to a real rock band.

There's a deep sad irony in why Lucero and DBT aren't the shit yet The Hold Steady manages to garner significant press. Don't get me wrong: I love this band. Like, I play "Arms and Hearts" over and over again. I love 'em. But they have copped that hipster pose that allows them to ape authenticity without having the responsibility to back it up. DBT backs it up. And Lucero is simply too good for people to grasp until the band dies horribly or saves a baby from a well.

Leach the irony from a Hold Steady song, add pedal steel, better songwriting, and a Southern drawl and you have the Drive-By Truckers.

But DBT has been honing their craft in bars for 20 years, and The Hold Steady arose from the remains of Lifter Puller (an admittedly pretty good band)....like, Tuesday.

DBT actually thinks that there's a vernacular rock and roll that matters to people. They still exist at the locus of rock, R&B, country, and blues. The Hold Steady sees that as a pose and tries to take something from the dead parts and build a zombie out of it.

Both approaches have merit. Guys go for looks, girls go for status. That's hard to argue with.

Mass Effect: Further Impressions

2007-11-23T14:16:00.000-06:00

I had about ten hours of game play done and I kept getting my avatar's ass whipped and I realized that I was fundamentally DOING IT WRONG so I deleted all my save games and started over. Yeah, I know. But isn't that how other people play RPGs? You're not committed to that first game, right? It's just for experimental purposes, to try stuff out. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. Playing as a female vanguard instead of a male infiltrator, and enjoying the combat much more -- it's really fun to cast warp into a crowd of enemies and watch their knees buckle as they collapse to the ground. Whipping through the early plot points with the intent of getting the Normandy and accumulating as many paragon points as possible in the process, I also have taken the time to pick up a lot more Citadel quests. I thought I'd explored pretty thoroughly the first time through, but there was more to see and do.

I've scanned 20 of 21 keepers, and have no idea where the last one is (yes, I found the one in the docking bay and the one on the balcony behind the bar near the embassies). Wrex killed Fist, and I chided him for it. Garrus and the quarian have joined the team. I haven't picked up one p[arty member yet, and by the outline, I'd say it's an asari female. Don't know when she'll appear. I hope I haven't someone permabanned her by turning down a branching plotline inadvertently. I'm trying to finish all the Citadel quests before going forth to explore the galaxy, my thinking being I'll have more skillz at a higher level than I did before, so the combat should be a little easier. Or maybe I'm just a n00b who can't figure out the subtle nuance of Mass Effect's combat system.

Mass Effect: Initial Impressions

2007-11-20T13:06:00.000-06:00

Can't talk, playing Mass Effect.

I'm about three hours in. Haven't gotten command of the Normandy yet. Exploring Citadel Station and finishing the prologue. I hope that's a true indicator of the scope of the game: more than three hours to finish the prologue.

Here's my first take, which will of course change as I figure the game out and get deeper into it:

This is KOTOR on steroids. That's a good thing and a bad thing. The good: buckets of plot in which to wallow, the best NPC-conversation system yet devised, and a rich backstory that makes you feel like you're starring in a 1980s science fiction movie. The bad: talk talk talk talk talk talk, I still feel constrained by invisible walls, squad members get in my way when trying to select objects or talk to NPCs. Also, the tutorial-to-handholding ratio is weirdly skewed. There's an acre of text telling me how to use the (simple and intuitive) mission computer, but not a word anywhere about how decryption works, exactly.

The combat is odd, but fun so far. It's easy to pause the action and issue squad commands, but the targeting (or absence of) is weird, I haven't figured out how to use the sniper rifle yet, and I'd like an indicator in my HUD telling me how many medkits I have available.

Visually the game is gorgeous, and the pop-in and frame-rate stutters that other reviewers have mentioned don't seem that bad. I've yet to see the game really rev up for a big boss battle yet, so that may change.

Thoughts so far: do you like words? Lots of words? Spoken, displayed, and scrollable words? Yes? Then you'll like this game! I'm enjoying it, but I can see how people with less patience would toss away the controller. I'm looking forward to seeing how the world opens up after I get command of the starship.

Country Music Sunday

2007-11-18T16:14:00.000-06:00

Been feeling rootsy.

Here's what's scratching the itch these days:

Dale Watson
Bobby Bare Jr.
Bradley Walker
The Meat Purveyors
Kelly Hogan (she usta be in the Jody Grind!)

I'm even rockin' rootsy:

Two Cow Garage (Warning: MySpace link)
Matt Mays and El Torpedo
The Sadies
Scott Miller and the Commonwealth

Next week I'll be back to the usual screamin' rawk, but for right now, on a gray Sunday afternoon, nothing suits the mood better than Dale Watson. Why is this guy not the biggest star in country music? Oh, that's right. Because country music isn't country anymore.

An Open Letter to Mayor Langford

2007-11-15T01:28:00.000-06:00

Hi Larry.

Congratulations on your election, until such time as it is overturned on a technicality because you don't really live in Birmingham. Of course, I don't either, and I care about the city, too. I can't really blame you for being confused by all the redistricting and gerrymandering and meandering squiggles that geographically represent money and power and influence fleeing the city limits -- you'd have to be like a county commissioner or something to figure that shit out.

You may not remember me, but a while ago I was a cashier at the Fish Market downtown and you ate there frequently. We chatted. I think you once offered me a cigarette, which I accepted, and we sat in the sun on the bench on 21st Street and talked about public transportation. I was the skinhead-looking dude. I'm different now, but that's not the point. You're different now, too. You're the Mayor.

All that hard work has finally off.

But I gotta say that I'm torn, Larry. Torn like an old sweater. On the one hand, I know you're a smart guy who's always working the angles. You're energetic and enthusiastic, and this town needs a good swift kick in the ass. On the other hand, you're the Machine, man. You've made a career out of picking up a taxpayer-funded paycheck (I know, you worked for Birmingham Budweiser, too, but was that really a job job, or was that a "job"?) and then erecting some boondoggle while raising sales taxes and swiftly moving on. We don't need a goddamn dome in Birmingham, Larry. We really don't. We need cops walking beats, we need to sell off some fucking land to the rich municipalities who want it, we need to take advantage of a crumbling but miraculously largely intact downtown infrastructure (sans Terminal Station) and make Birmingham COOL AGAIN.

That's right, cool again. When was it ever cool, you ask yourself? And I answers: it was cool when it was a filthy, unsafe, industrial cesspool full of syphilitic Greek prostitutes and steelworkers. The 1920s.

Think about it, Larry. Hookers on every corner. Cops on the take. Liquor stores and gin joints and knife fights under the gaslights along the trolley line. A simpler time, Larry. A time when the blacks lived in one-room shacks on one side of town and the whites lived in two-room shacks on the other.

OK, maybe not.

I do have some concrete suggestions, though. One: stop hiring consultants. City-wide moratorium on any new contracts. Consultants don't actually DO anything, you see, and your campaign slogan seems antithetical to that premise. Two: take your energy from the dome project and focus it on selling downtown retail space to a good grocery store/pharmacy in walking distance of the loft district. Tweak the city code and allow merchants to live above their shops again. *Waves at cousin Jimmy, defiantly living above his shop for years* Let's get a neighborhood established downtown. That means COPS HAFTA WALK BEATS, Larry. Not drive them. Bike them, maybe. Remember, city limits are gonna shrink. Three: speaking of bikes, let's figure out how to move people around more efficiently. That means sidewalks and bike lanes and stuff. It doesn't mean more parking decks and corkscrew off-ramps.

I've gone on too long, Larry, and I know you've got a lot on your plate. So I'll wish you well and let you get to work. Just, please Larry. Don't steal us blind. That's sooooo been done.

Toys For Troy

2007-11-12T22:08:00.000-06:00

Maybe if we send Troy King something to fuck he'll stop turning his raging moralistic hard-on on us. That seems to be the thinking behind a recent "Toys For Troy" proposal, dreamed up by Alabama's finest shit-stirrer, Loretta Nall. With our lead lawman sporting major wood and gunning for Hoover's own Love Stuff, purveyor of skimpy lingerie and butt plugs, the time has come, citizens, to take matters into our own hands.

And when you're through, towel off, wash up, and finish reading this post.

There. Feel better? Cigarette?

I am trying to imagine just what it is about the sale of sex toys that has King in such a lather. As usual, my imagination is not equal to the task. Why would anyone waste tax dollars and time pursuing this? Does Troy King really think that dildos and fucksleeves and nipple clamps are a problem? Why? Is there a mad, nipple-clamped dildo bandit on the loose? That actually might explain the gaping assholes recently exhibited by a host of GOP ne'er-do-wells, but I haven't read anything about it in the papers. What's the basis for this? If not for a general fear of sex and sexuality and honesty about the naughty bits?

Troy, c'mere man. See that? No, I'm not going to touch it. That right there? That's your PENIS, Troy. And you know what else? God GAVE YOU that penis, and He made orgasms fun for a REASON. And those orgasms, Troy? WOMEN HAVE THEM, TOO! I know, huh? Who'd a thunk it? And sometimes your penis may not suffice, or perhaps you climaxed when she removed her burqua, and then she might need a little artificial stimulation. Because making women happy during sex is OK, Troy! Really, it is. And while we know that YOU have never suffered from any sort of sexual inadequacy, God forbid, others HAVE. And in order for them to stay married and keeping pushing out babies to create the great Christian army, sometimes they require ASSISTANCE. In the form of a BIG FAT BLACK VEINY DILDO.

I'm glad to see that your ban on sexual aids like Viagra and Cialis is working so well. What's that? You haven't declared war on THOSE forms of sexual assistance, just the ones that you find titillating? S'OK. I'm sure you'll get around to it.

Meanwhile, the state constitution is the laughingstock of the developed world, Northern paper companies continue to evade property taxes that would fund rural schools, Alabamians' access to hospitals and primary care doctors continues to decline while our insurance rates skyrocket, and METH LABS ARE TAKING OVER SOUTH ALABAMA.

But please, continue your crusade against sex toys. It'll make us all a harder, firmer, more tumescent state.

Pop Has Eaten Itself

2007-11-09T22:09:00.000-06:00

I'm kinda glad the cake is a lie, because there is no spoon. I was just thinking about a plate of shrimp, though.

Alabama Court Watch: Huh, What?

2007-11-05T01:52:00.000-06:00

My main crush on teh intarwebs, Loretta Nall, has invited me to participate in the Alabama Court Watch blog, and I have accepted her gracious invitation. I have naught of value to offer besides drunkenly bilious semi-coherent bathos, so I will refrain from posting there for the time being, but know that I am hovering, always frowning in disapproval at bad grammar and sloppy spelling. So, Loretta: it should be "I and another Court Watcher attended...", not, "myself and another Court Watcher attended", for fuck's sake.

And when I was in court-mandated brainwashing and was subjected to several watch-me-pee sessions in Shelby County, I was always, without fail, offered a receipt. Never even had to ask for one, at either the court referral officer's office in Columbiana or the dank windowless warren of torture rooms that is the Shelby County Mental Health Whatchamacallit down 31 near the Alabaster city hall. And I don't remember anyone there not getting a receipt or complaining about having to ask for one. In fact, I specifically recall one time the network was down in Columbiana and dude had the old-fashioned spiral-bound carbon-copy receipt book out and had been scribbling in it all day by the looks of it. So, while human error or authoritarian malfeasance is never out of the question, I tend to think tweaker dude was lying his ass off about not getting a pee ticket.

And getting called onto the carpet and publicly humiliated by your public defender is probably good formative character development for a mopy emo kid, whatever the reason.

So I look forward to participating in this project (largely by throwing bricks from the sidelines). I gotta ask about this, though:

Because, we are convinced that the majority of the defendants that make up the bulk of drug court case loads are adult marijuana smokers who are not breaking any laws other than possessing small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

Really? Surely there's hard data on that. Don't we pay people to keep track of this stuff? I imagine what we'll find is that marijuana is the most common illegal substance found but rarely the actual arresting offense. That's a guess, pulled directly out of my ass, but I suspect I'm right. Guy gets a DUI, cops find a roach in the ashtray. Guy gets popped selling pills, he's got a bong in his apartment. Gal picked up for public intox has a gram of kind bud in a cigarette pack. Pot's like the bonus bust for cops. No extra work, plenty of extra profit.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Nerding Out In Eve

2007-10-29T00:03:00.000-05:00

After what seemed like waaaaay too long, some Level II missions started showing up for me in Eve Online. I'm feeling cocky, rocking the Caracal, 30 million isk in the bank, another 10 or so in minerals and material back in the hangar. I figure I'm wrapping up the Level I stuff. I've got enough BPOs to replace any decently rigged Kestrel with barely a dent in my mineral inventory, so even "Worlds Collide" is cake. Got a full back-up set of the shitty low-level implants in case of poddage. Stretch those wings and fly, you Caldari mission-runner, you.

The first Level II mission I get is "Stop the Thief" or something like that. Here's how I have the Caracal fitted:

High: 1 x Heavy Assault Launcher I (Terror), 1 x Heavy Launcher I (Havoc), 2 x Compact 'Limos' Assault Launcher (Bloodclaw), 1 x Salvager I
Medium: Named Afterburner, Medium Shield Booster I, Small Shield Extender I, Shield Boost Amplifier I
Low: Power Diagnostic Unit I, Ballistic Control System I

Like an idiot, I warp to zero, and I'm in a pack of elite mercs who have chewed into my armor within seconds. (It's a fucking Caracal, so my armor is basically a thick layer of gray paint.) I kite, take two mercs out, and warp out, chastened and shaking. I was seeing red rainbows, deep in hull, and I hit warp just in time to watch what would have been a ship-destroying clot of enemy missiles sail through the empty space where I'd been a moment before. Holy shit. Maybe I need a battlecruiser to solo Level IIs.

I limp back to station and drop over 200K on ship repairs. Reload the launchers. I brood. Then, without really thinking about what I was doing, I undock and try again. This time I warp to 30K. I immediately target the nearest guy, hit the afterburner, and head away from the blinky red crosses of death. Kiting the whole lot of them works like a charm. By keeping the nearest guy locked and hitting him with the light and assault missile, I could still have the next guy out well into armor with the heavy launcher and the other light launcher. Judicious shield boosting kept me at about 3/4 shield throughout the fight. Still, pretty hairy. And no good loot!

But.

I'm gonna need better heavy launchers, and more of them, if this is what Level II missions are like. And that means they'll use more cap, which I ain't got, either. So. I can't afford to buy a Drake, much less fit it and fly it. I can run through a pretty much infinite number of humbly fitted Kestrels, but that would be suicidal, not to mention counter-productive.

And I really, really, really hate losing ships. I know, I'm playing the wrong game. But losing that Caracal, which fits out so nicely and I know so well, would really fucking suck. Especially losing it on a mission, for Pete's sake.

What to do?

I can see why people play this game without ever really playing it. Just sit in station and skill-train for three or four years until you're uber. Skills are another thing. Having purchased all the learning skills, I now feel the obsessive need to max them out, even though I know this is supremely illogical, and No Real Fun At All. I read somewhere that it takes 456% as long to train a skill to V as it does to go from I-IV. Egad. But that month I'll spend will shave a whole week off the time need to get that Titan! Yeah, right.

And this is what I really love about Eve: I'm not gonna decide right now. I'm gonna skill all the basic learning skills to IV, get all the secondary ones to III, and keep running missions until I have amassed a back-up Caracal BPO and all the assorted fitting BPOs. That's probably ten times more expensive than buying a Drake, but it suits my sit-at-the-edge-of-the-pool-with-one-toe-in-the-water style.

So by the time I buy a Drake I'll be rated to fly a Raven. That's the plan within the plan-without-a-plan.

Yeah, Well....

2007-10-26T04:35:00.001-05:00

Eleven days is a long time between posts.

Fuck you.

Texas Juvenile Corrections Proud Of Accomplishments

2007-10-15T22:00:00.000-05:00

LICKSPITTLE, TX -- With the publication of a report in todays' New York Times detailing shocking squalor and violence in Texas youth detention centers, the acting director of the Texas Prisoner Creation Program proclaimed her work a success.

"By turning these potentially troubled young men and women into decidedly fucked-up adults, we have ensured a constant source of revenue for our the Texas correctional system," she declared at an impromptu press conference held atop a flaming pile of skulls. She continued, "...and this stream of wretched human cattle ready for lifelong warehousing at taxpayer expense has been achieved with as little expense as possible on the part of our partners in this enterprise, the great people at EEVL Corporation in Boca Raton, FL. Thanks for the mai tais, guys! We'll see you at the winter team-building conference!"

The agency faces state and federal investigations into sexual abuse by corrections officers, and a report disclosed October 1 states that juvenile detainees at one center were denied outside recreation for weeks at a time, fed bug-infested food, and forced to defecated into bags due to broken plumbing. But the director thinks they can do more. "Only forty-three percent of juveniles leaving our care have intestinal parasites," she stated. "Our commitment for the upcoming fiscal year is to get that number into the fifty-five to sixty percent range."

The director warned that the agency should not rest on its laurels, but must press forward with its work. "We look forward to the day that we will be able to break the spirit of every child in Texas, not just the juvenile delinquents. Only then will rich white people be safe. Thank you, and God bless Texas."

The Lonesome Death of Gary Aldridge

2007-10-14T21:58:00.000-05:00

[this is me trying to be John Prine]

Well I like to feel constricted
Though I've always been constrained
I think Jesus doesn't care about our pleasure,
just our pain

But sometimes the two slop over
and I can't tell them apart
I've got a dildo up my ass
and the Good Lord in my heart...

Won't you hold me,
won't you hold me oh so tight
Come enfold me
wrap me in the darkest night

You can say that I'm conflicted
Or that I'm a hypocrite
And you'd be right
So come enfold me,
Come and wrap me in the night...

I'm so sorry that I left you
To clean up this sordid mess
I was a good man and a father and I did my best
I guess

You deserved a whole lot better
I suppose my flock did too
but I was bound by faith and rubber
And to neither was I true so

Won't you hold me,
won't you hold me oh so tight
Come enfold me
wrap me in the darkest night

You can say that I'm conflicted
Or that I'm a hypocrite
And you'd be right
So come enfold me,
Come and wrap me in the night...

until I...

see...

stars...

Triumph Of The Motherfuckin' Will, Bitches

2007-10-06T20:27:00.000-05:00

Rock Hall Of Fame Announces 2007 Inductees, Rush Cries Like Little Canadian Girl

2007-09-30T01:18:00.002-05:00

No Black Flag, Husker Du, or The Minutemen, either.

Quel surprise.

But really, if they're going to put second-rate hacks like Jefferson Airplane in the Hall of Fame to please the hippies, then it's about time to start pleasing the punks, too. And for that matter, if you're going to include Willie Dixon and Leadbelly, how about Mother Maybelle Carter and Vassar Clements?

*looks at inductee list further*

That Madonna and the Beasties get in before Minor Threat and Bad Brains is a travesty, veritable proof of a godless, cold, mechanistic universe aligned against the forces of good music.

And Jesus God, the fucking Eagles. But no Warren Zevon.

And Clapton gets two gift baskets, I guess, as a solo artist and with Cream. Wait, three, the Yardbirds are in also. Fuck Eric fucking Clapton.

And now I notice as I pore once more over the illustrious roll of inductees, an obvious and glaring omission: The Stooges. Now I get it! It's a scam, designed to get people to visit Cleveland!

From their website:

Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria include the influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.

The Foundation’s nominating committee, composed of rock and roll historians, selects nominees each year in the Performer category. Ballots are then sent to an international voting body of more than 500 rock experts. Those performers who receive the highest number of votes - and more than 50 percent of the vote - are inducted. The Foundation generally inducts five to seven performers each year.

Yet nowhere is the term "rock expert" defined. Hmm. That's shifty. And you know, I'm such a dork that I actually wondered how much real research is getting done behind those glittery walls? Just for a sec, tho. Of course, the hall seems content to be more of an archival resource and party palace than a real museum where real academics do real work. And I'm glad they boast holdings of "virtually every song of every performer inductee" but don't we already have that? It's called teh intarnet.

In Which Nick Saban Outcoaches ESPN

2007-09-22T20:48:00.000-05:00

Live-blogging the Bama/Georgia game.

Note to ESPN camera and production crews: Tuscaloosa is a vibrant, colorful place that is no doubt filled with interesting people and vibrant images. The football game, however, is happening in that big stadium over there. You might want to put a camera on it.

Throughout the first half of the game, ESPN cut away to tailgate parties and crowd shots during the middle of drives. Then they'd abruptly cut back to a pile of players heaped on the field, and the announcers would be forced to tell us what we just missed.

I know you guys are accustomed to Alabama football proceeding in geologic time, but it's a new era. They might run a hurry-up. Especially when, yuh know, there's two minutes left in the half. Keep cameras on feeld, plz. Kthxbai.

Leigh Tiffin sucks. OK, he hit the field goal at the end of the second quarter. Hooray. He'll miss one before the game is over. Maybe at the end of his college career he can start a consulting service with Scott "Wide Right" Norwood.

Oh, wait, Scott Norwood was GOOD in college, that's how come he got to miss field goals in Super Bowls. Leigh Tiffin will be selling used ATVs from a dirt lot in Wetumpka. (Bad Bama QBs become car salesmen, so I guess bad kickers get slotted slightly further down.)

Pass interference on Simeon Castille. I call bullshit on that, he was going for the ball and he never altered the receiver's body position. Bulldogs score on the next play. Alabama secondary's arms becoming more and more alligator-like. Ruh-roh.

If Alabama's offense can't put together some time-eating drives and let the defense rest, this could get ugly. Punt punt punt downs punt punt.

C'mon, Saban, they're sitting back in the zone. Screen pass! There we go. Oh well, Bama punts. I smell a trend.

Later: uh-oh. Down by ten with less than 12 minutes left. Gotta get movin', guys.

Wow, what a catch over the middle by Keith Brown. And a nice call on the next play, too. Let's see if they can sustain it.

Oh, wait, first let's cut away to an update. ESPN, I hate you.

From second and inches to 4th and a bunch. WTF? Fourth-down try fails, Georgia ball. Or not! Huh? DJ Hall was NOT out-of-bounds. Suddenly, I like instant replay in college ball. This replay is taking forever. At least they get it right: first and goal on the seven.

Gah, field goal.

Stop the run, Bama. Stop the run. Nope. First down. Dammit. Then the defense shows up, Georgia punts. Cool.

Dude, Keith Brown ROCKS. Hellz yeah.

Wow, Bama isn't folding like a stale cracker. Maybe these folks are getting their $4 million worth. TOUCHDOWN!!!!!

And the game is tied. Huh. Whuddya know.

It must be like a jet taking off in that stadium right now.

Well, fuck. Hooooo. Field goal went wide. We're goin' to OT!

And then in OT, Leigh Tiffin......MAKES a field goal. And the announcers start talking about.....Britney Spears. They are on drugs, and I am not, and this makes me sad.

First snap from Georgia in OT: touchdown. Game over.

Oh well.

I'm tired of writing this, anyway.

A Taste Of Eve Online Banter

2007-09-22T18:39:00.000-05:00

Shadow XII > Hello. Just testing your signature radius
Angel Rio > stop it
Shadow XII > Just testing your shields
Angel Rio > seriously, stop.
Angel Rio > OMG! STOP SHOOTING
Shadow XII > Just testing your armor.
Angel Rio > STOP SHOOTING ME DAMMIT
SShadow XII > Just testing your structure.
Angel Rio > OMG
Shadow XII > Just testing your pod.
Angel Rio > WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?
Shadow XII > You failed the test. Good day.

.....courtesy of omgrawr.net. Actually, I stole it from them, so there was no courtesy involved.

Funny, though. No one talks in local in the system I'm usually mining in. Paranoia is a side-effect of Eve's gameplay mechanics. I gues once I have some ships and isk in the bank I'll be a bit more free-wheeling.

In Which I Preach Wisdom To Ancient Republicans And Fail Miserably

2007-09-20T09:12:00.000-05:00

So it's seven in the morning and I'm having coffee with my neighbors. We're enjoying the perfect weather, the cats gamboling across the grass, the blooms on the butterfly bush. I, of course, have been up all night, drinking.

But I'm neither swaying nor incoherent. Indeed, I'd barely begun my binge by 3 AM, at which time I caught a cab and went to Marty's for some sorely needed shots of Bushmills. Insomnia and available credit is a combinatorial bitch.

My 85-year-old neighbor asks me who I'm going to vote for. I know better. This woman is slightly to the right of Hitler and thinks the New Deal opened the door for a socialized America. I should ease off and slowly step away. But no, I'm wearing tattered jeans, a ponytail, a bushy beard, and a T-shirt that sez "I JOINED DAN SARTAIN" with a picture of dude blowing his head off. Rawk. So I respond, just to piss her off, "Ron Paul, of course!"

She shakes her head sadly.

"Who are you supporting?" I ask, not really wanting to know.

"Romney!"

"Really? Even though he's a member of a polygamous cult that believes we all become gods of our own personal planet if we heed to the rantings of a racist 19th-century illiterate?" I wish that were a paraphrase, but it ain't.

"No, he's going to be tough on terrorists. He wants to expand Guantanamo."

After collecting the shards that resulted from my head exploding, I responded.

"You know that habeus corpus has been suspended by edict under this administration, right?"

"No. What's that?"

I explain to her that prior to the Bush administration she had the right to an attorney and a trial by a jury of her peers, just like it sez in the FUCKING CONSTITUTION, YOU STUPID BITCH, AND NOW YOU DON'T.

OK, I left out that last bit, at least the cussing and capitalization part.

"Well, that just applies to terrorists."

No, that applies to anyone the US government SEZ is a terrorist, whether you're a bomb-strapped raghead or a bong-clasped pothead. We've ceded those distinctions to a government that is out of control, out of line, out of ideas, out of smarts.

"Well, I'm 85. They can just come arrest me whenever," she snickered.

So I choked her to death. OK, not really. But I wanted to.