Stairway to the Mechanical Penthouse

We're trying to decide if we should cancel our trip to Cancun. Swine Flu is all over the news and every fucking story is: OMG it's totally going to kill us all today! It's waiting under your car in the parking lot to eat you! Swine Flu will be the end of civilizationz!!!!

So, in the interest of knowing the threat, I decided to run the numbers CNN is hyping as signs of the Apocalypse.

According to CNN, there are 331 confirmed cases of swine flu worldwide. Mexico has 12 confirmed deaths with 150 "suspected" (read: totally unsure) since February. No other country has reported fatalities yet.

In comparison, every day in the US:
1787 people die of heart disease
173 people die of influenza/pneumonia
102 people die in traffic accidents.
85 people are killed by guns

According to the CDC, Every year in the US, over 63000 people die of influenza/pneumonia.

Worldwide, 3 million people die of Malaria every year. That's 8219 every day.

I'm not saying that we don't need to be concerned, but this is all just a little too hype-tastic for me.

Any of my UK traveling peeps know when BA and Virgin usually run their deals to London?

( It's THE CONTROVERSIAL SURVEY! )

( cut for rant )

Let me be the first to say...

Happy Birthday, jawalter!

( Come on, People! )

I'm holding off on getting a new camera until I can justify the purchase, but I'd like the current machine to run a little faster. I have a Canon SD110 and an old 128MB CF Card. I'm wondering if an upgraded card would fix some of the slowness associated with my pokey old camera. What say you, geniuses of the click-click-click-click-clique?

aphorisic told me about a program called Delicious Library the other day. It's a media cataloging program for macs that uses the built-in camera to scan barcodes off of video games, books, music and dvds. It utilizes Amazon's API to import records and images of the cover into your personal library catalog. It also has a circulation function to keep track of all those books you loan out and can provide recommendations based upon your ratings of what you own. I am so getting it.

This has been yoru gadget freak moment for the day. Carry on.

( To my photog peeps: )

I'm looking for a good and inexpensive Basic Drawing course in the Davis-Harvard axis. Unfortunately, I'll be away for the classes on offer for summer at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Any recomendations?

( Now with more Action! (Warning: Product does not actually contain action and may cause premature blindness, smallpox, diptheria, bowel spasms, dehydration, and/or the chicken dance.) )

Tech Geeks: Is Generic RAM a scam? I'd like to buff up the new iMac and I'm curious if I can get away with inexpensive memory. 18004MEMORY has 1GB for $67 and I'm sorely tempted.

I know some of you love it, so here you go.

Firefly Reborn as an Online Universe.

I'm hoping they let us play as Reavers, cause I'm gonna eat those Alliance jerkwads in the face.

( Why grab ground when you can own sky? )

I love the idea of swarm based robotics. Cheap, easy and distributed is definitely the way to go and the article below gives hints at nanoscale applications.

Swarm-anoid? Sure.

While in theory a humanoid robot companion would be keen, I don't know that I'd want anthropomorphic devices. If the machines were sentient I wouldn't mind, but the human shape tied to a non-sentient servant would cause all sorts of attachment problems. Then there's the connotation of slavery. Owning a humanoid machine would be too close to owning a person and that's morally unacceptable in our society (at least the northern part of it). Better to have an army of tiny networked roombas that live beneath the couch and clean while you're gone for the day.

I don't appreciate your eye-juice all over my belongings. Get a towel!

As the tender fires roast your sacrificial thigh before the gods of stuff and things, you may question the wisdom of your decision. Thankfully, or perhaps not, you can't take that gift back. All the empty headed yelping in the world is not going to save you when Jupiter decides to show up at your back yard bar-b-queue, just to wait in line and glower at your ineptitude on that grill. "I recommend gas", I say without much malace and just a hint of lime, but your back is turned and there is simply no way to decypher the secrets of the goat bones hidden in the trunk of your 1998 Jetta. Where did that case of vodka come from, oh one thighed man? Did it rain from the sky, stinging the eyes of little children trying to blind themselves with the laughing coronas from distant eclipses? Perhaps you should ask Jupiter, since you're mocking him with your jaunty cap and backsliding blasphemy. Maybe you've given up, but that doesn't mean we all have to listen to how cool the new "Flinty Eyed Scots" album is over and over and over. Indie rock is dead, and in it's place more of the same. If you weren't watching you missed the switch. Like guilty but guileful parents replacing plague ridden hampster corpses while you were away at camp. Sun spattered mornings are all we poor folk can ask, with all of our days spent in white walled rooms waiting for the sun to fall that we may again be free to wander about our homes, fallen to neglect with the passing days from too little to do and far too much time to get it all done. Where is that tuning fork, you miserable cad? I need it to open the tombs beneath the chamber within the center of the labyrinth under the hidden temple in my basement. The things that lurk there with solicitor smiles and loiterer lears can't stand the noise and I need the bomerang if I'm expected to beat this level boss proper. And that brings us back to dough, cause I need some. Gimme a dollar and I'll turn it into a bird. Give me five and a meal is born. Give me a million and I won't need work if I play my cards just right and that is why you've given up your thigh to the gods. Now shut up and get me some BBQ sauce.

I have, quite literally, nothing new to report.

It's somebody's birthday.

Happy birthday!

I'm looking for a mac based gmail reader that can cover multiple gmail accounts.

Suggestions?

This is my brother. He's one of the coolest people in the world and a constant source of pride.

http://adambernard.blogspot.com/2006/05/artist-of-week-bisc1.html

Buy his album. You will not be disappointed.

Does anyone know whereabouts I might go for Pa Kua classes?

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051204103616.htm

My carbon footprint is less than 1/3 the average for an American. This proves, once again, that I am the schiz-nite! Here I thought I was being cheap and apparently I'm being good for the earth.

This isn't especially work safe.


http://feed.proteinos.com/item/4157

Our anniversary went strangely forward in fits and starts. We had a nice lunch and a bike ride and some sloth and dinner was awesome. I really like Tu E Yo in Powderhouse Square and will happily go again. We went there on our fantastic first date and haven't been back since despite having a really great time. The food was truly delicious and I'm looking forward to dining on some of their more exotic offerings. The grasshopper tacos sound particularly delightful. The real point of the evening was to celebrate a whole year with my wonderful girlfriend. The time has just flown by, but I can honestly say that never in my life have I been this happy in a relationship. Despite all the employment misery of the past year I've had someone to love and care for me and that means the world. Hell, she even understands me 70% of the time. Now who the hell else can say that? I feel like the people in the eHarmony commercials, except I'm not a fundie with bad fashion sense.

Oh and you should seriously watch The Island. It was great, maybe my favorite Michael Bay film of all time. I especially liked all the random explosions and car chases tacked onto a completely implausable sci-fi toss-off. And I wasn't at all offended by the obvious concentration camp zyklon-B shower scene used to further the action during the big finale. Put The Island on the top of your Netflix queue and you'll be foaming at the mouth from strobe induced seizures caused by horrible action editing just like me!

Catch you bitches on the flip, I've got to tend to my osso buco.

I just want you to know...

there's a spider on your back!!!

Horoscopes - This Week 2056

This week's horoscopes were calculated by the unsurpassed wisdom and unguessable intelligence of the Clute-Del Ray A.I., in orbit with the Europa polar nodal complex. It uses the New Revised Standard Zodiac agreed on at WorldCon 2025 and is accurate to within three-tenths of a recension for all Sol-neighborhood outer-planetary colonies, ringworlds, and slower-than-light generation ships. Predictions are not valid on or beneath the surface of Earth or any of its moons.

Asimov/Clarke (Dec. 16—Jan. 2)
You will be thrilled to encounter a science so highly advanced that it is indistinguishable from magic—a science primarily concerned with generating rabbits using common headgear, producing endless amounts of colored handkerchiefs, and sawing women in half.

LeGuin (Jan. 3—Mar. 14)
Your attempt to build a peaceful, agrarian matriarchy in the former northern-Californian archipelago fails miserably when the thousands of cat-fights breaking out amongst the basket-weaving lodgers are traced back to overexposure to winsome folk music.

Gernsbacchus (Mar. 15—Apr. 21)
You realize that your world is rapidly approaching perfection, ruled as it is by the benevolent power of supermen-scientist atom-masters. Nevertheless, sometimes you can't help but feel that humanity has lost something of its near-divine spark.

Roddenberry (April 22—May 13)
You've never encountered a problem that can't be solved by the combined mental and spiritual resources of the enlightened people of the galaxy or by swinging from the doorframe and kicking people in the gut.

Zork (May 14—June 24)
Exhausted after fleeing the harsh realities of an increasingly boring life in front of the computer terminal, you will awake to find yourself transported to a colossal cave, where it will seem like you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Delany (June 25—July 31)
Despite your years of earnest effort to create a civilized and compassionate dialogue on the emotional languages of race, love, and desire, most of the universe will still insist on calling you "that one black gay weirdo."

Severian (August 1—Sept 6)
You will be unable to shake a deep feeling of unutterable sadness as you roam the world with a scruffy band of misfits at the end of history, performing the occasional execution in your search for your lost mother/lover and a way to rekindle the dying sun.

Zelazny (Sept 7—Oct. 13)
Even if you do find their unique combination of style, universal competence, ennui, and raw ambition strangely exhilarating, you'd probably be a lot happier if you stopped keeping company with suicidal types, immortals, and suicidal immortal types.

Kirbii (Oct. 14—Nov. 20)
You will be unable to shake the feeling that society at large would be improved by even more chunky, quasi-cubist levitating machinery of mystic origin, as well as the increased use of triple exclamation points by the general populace.

Bester (Nov. 21—Jan. 1)
Prepare for major life changes this week, Bester. You will achieve great commercial success, vast literary acclaim, and a premature death while completing your magnum opus, The Bars My Destination: A Guide To All 24 Hours Of Orbital Nightlife.

Monday, Monday, Monday at Johnny D's it's team trivia and FREE PIZZA. Aly and I are going with the neighbors, but I'm sure we can finagle a few extra folks onto our team. Alternately, show up with your own crew and try to take us. I dare ya!

Starts at 6:30, but we'll be there earlier to sign up and shit.

What say you, party people?

Aly has a desktop w/monitor to give away. Surely one of you will know of a charity that will take the old girl. Alternately, perhaps someone is looking for an older desktop for some purpose?

It's a bit old, but far from antique. It was running XP with some alacrity prior to a solid wipe with Dban. Fresh as new fallen snow with no OS in sight.

Seeing as how it's the fifth of May and I still have a good deal of booze at my home, would anyone care to make the trek out to JP for some Cuban food and free alcohol? Perhaps a screening of some film or other could be arranged. Come, get your drink on!

Call me, I'll be out for a little while.

I've been having these horrible game cravings lately. I suppose it's partially nostalgia for simpler times, but really that's shit. School was WAY harder than playing in a kitchen each night. I need to find some sort of output for my overactive imagination and game is a tried and true method. Can't draw worth a damn and all of my writing feels forced. Just an old fashoned storyteller in the classic tradition. I could really go for a Mage game right about now.

Many thanks to all who showed up at my little Fete. Sorry about being so distracted the whole night. Between jobs to get done and the kitty incident I was running around like a crazy person for the first few hours and missed some real conversation with everyone. Next party is going to be a cookout, so the daylight will make planning easier.

For those who failed me, prey for the sweet release of death. I have a sack of flesh eating termites and a funnel right here, bitches.

So the new pope was a hitler youth. Surprise, surprise, surprise. As the resident Jew, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the 1600 years of official Catholic doctrine that led to the extermination of millions of my people. Christianity, in the guise of Catholicism and (later) Protestantism, laid the anti-Semitic groundwork for the Holocaust and managed to wipe out, rape, torture, force convert, orphan, abduct, marginalize, and expel millions of Jews before Germany chose their final solution. The Church is especially culpable as it has been a continuous entity for the entirety of the time, not to mention its close association with the empire that scattered us to the wind and leveled our Temple in 79 c.e. I don't ask for reparations for past sins, but I do believe a little FUCKING SENSITIVITY is in order. A former Hitler Youth? Ok, so he was "forced at gunpoint" to join. Honestly, association with Nazism in any form should have been an immediate pass amongst the college of cardinals. Yet now the pope is a German, raised and indoctrinated by Nazi propaganda, to bring two great flavors of historic enemies together. Here I sit, amazed at the total, absolute and ridiculous "fuck you" I, and all my people, have just received from Christendom. Will he be a good pope? Possibly, but I'll be reserving my judgment for a little while as I'd like to see where the man stands before locking in an unwavering opinion. Were there better choices available that wouldn't re-open one of the worst wounds in the history of western civilization? You can bet your shiny little ass there were!

I shall comment further as the situation develops and I can nearly guarantee that my words will not be so measured or pleasant.

http://www.lightover.com/epic/

I need to escape being poor. There's just too much debt in my life and it completely sucks. School and credit cards must be paid off, that I may once again live free and peaceful. FREE AND PEACEFUL, FUCKERS! Give me money! I command you!

I should be asleep right now. I have to be up in 4 hours to catch a chinatown bus to Mohegan Sun. Why on earth would your humble narrator brave a massive, noisy building full of miserable elderly new yorkers? Why, to see my dear grandparents, score some free food, allay the constant guilt-tripping that comes from being too busy and carless to trek out to Haverhill each weekend... Oh, the reasons are myriad. The point is, I should be asleep. Sadly, I'm not even remotely tired. I suppose I should sleep on the bus, but I have a Marquez novel I've not yet read and it's calling to me from my book satchel.

Rather than join in the No. 9 Park festivities I spent the evening on groceries, cooking and Logan's Run. I *heart* Logan's Run. If you don't like it, you suck. There, I said it. Suck! I hope everyone had a great time and should I come into money not immediately slated for bills, food and the general necessities of survival in this hardened urban wasteland perhaps I can come along on the next trip.

In the mean time, have a fun day at work. I'll be off watching people gamble away my limited inheritance and eating bad buffet prime rib. See, we're all winners in the casino of life, boys and girls. All except you, miserable bastard that you are.

I'm in heaven. So filled with joy I fear my heart will burst. Truly, there is nothing better in life than this feeling. No drug or marvel, no achievement or acquisition, can ever make life as wonderful as it is right now. I haven't stopped smiling since Friday, just a little after 6pm. Everything is light and peaceful and warm and I'm finally free of the horrible weight of loneliness.

Her name is Aly and I am completely infatuated.

Well, I'd like to thank ya'll for makin' this a rootin-tootin hog wallow of a birthday. My nipples are still stiff from the excitement. Thanks to everyone for coming out to JP on Friday, I could feel the love deep down inside, where the special place is. Special thanks to cayetana for the choice tunes.

Cheers

Well, the consensus appears to be cheap.

This provides us with a couple options:

One) You folks can FINALLY come out to JP. We'll grab tasty cuban food or dig something up on Centre St. and hit The Milky Way for drinking and candlepin bowling or the Brendan Behan for inexpensive low key booze action.

Two) We can meet up in Harvard Square for Pho and select a choice alcohol dispensery after that.

Now I know you lazy bitches are going to go for Cambridge, but I wanted to put the JP option on the table should anyone feel adventurous.

EDIT

Just ate Cuban, so that's out.

We're going to the Milky Way! Centre St in Hyde Square. Invite everybody! Bowling and drinking and then more bowling and drinking.

How do people feel about doing something this Friday instead? Seems this old man has little to do and I know you're all bored out of your minds. LETS BOOZE UP AND RIOT!

I think I have a birthday comming up. It's on monday, so maybe someone would like to score a meal/drink the night away on the following thursday or friday? I must insist upon no productions & no presents, just something to do. Interested?

Welcome to the list. Let's breakitdown:

1) Former Child Star. It was low budget porn, but I was a child at the time.
2) Can't cook worth shit, but I'm good at faking. Speaking of which...
3) Once faked an orgasm because I really wanted a sandwich.
4) huge spiders on my face. Ohgodohogdohgodpleasehelpme.
5) I am not, nor have I ever been, owl flavored.
6) I cause cancer. Me. Now all you fuckers are gonna die.
7) Despite my pleasant outward demeanor, I'm the most sadistic, vile, twisted, malicious and hateful monkey in this here tree.
8) I know, I make it look easy, but the simple truth is that I can't dance worth a shit.
9) I have a contingency plan for zombie attack. How many people can honestly claim that?
10) STOP! HAMMERTIME!

And although this past week sucked my neatly shorn and remarkably youthful nuts (thank you, Scrotox) through a bar straw...

I love artwork days. I framed and placed about 20 photos today, finally managed to weave the 2nd trunk thingy for the big metal tree, and did the edging on the plexiglass for my light sculpture. Now all I need is to set up the scroll saw in its new home (sculpture3 needs some precision cuts, boys and girls), assemble the main body of the tree project, and begin gluing together a couple dozen slices of black edged plexiglass.

I was hoping to find some drawer slides so I could finally mount my keyboard under my desk for easy practice stuff, but that just wasn't happening at any of the JP hardware stores. So disappointing, perhaps next week will include some quality Home Depot time.

Does anyone remember how to make the cheap glue for Paper Mache? I have a homecoming float due on Saturday and the 90210 kids just aren't helping me make this work.

Now....

BATTLE ME, MONKEYMAN!!! BATTLE ME TO THE DEATH!!!

Interesting Anagrams - Only useful if you know my name.

Magi Christ
Magic Shirt
I Scam Right
Mica Rights
Mach Tirgis
Cigar Smith
AC Rightism

And my favorite (drumroll please)

A Smirch Git

Do you need a larger PENIS??? What about a pair of gigantic breasts growing out of your left thigh? Taking our new dietary suppliment will make your urine stream so acidic it will burn right through porcelain. Delicious, flavorful cinnamon buns have absolutely nothing to do with this amazing offer, but they are quite tasty. Perhaps, with a gigantic man member and a pair of misshapen, hairy bosoms projecting outward from your sinister quadricep, you too will be fed cinnamon rolls by naked, semi-deformed, transvestite, crack addicted midget prostitutes in a man-juice stained hotel room in Columbus, Ohio at 3am.

I hate Valentines Day. If I could, I would personally fill the small intestines of each and every happy couple with molten lead. I want to feed all those filthy, cheery, cuddly, frolicking pustules decaliters of laxatives and dance around their coiled, screaming, evacuating, prostrate forms. Now, this isn't just the ranting of a miserable single person. This is the ranting of the poor bastard who is going to have to feed 75 happy couples a variety of grilled meats tonight. See, Valentines day is all about the meat. Who's giving and who's getting meat is the only question of the night. FUCKING MEAT!!!

HAPPY FUCKING VALENTINES DAY YOU VILE RECTUM GNAWING RAT THINGS!!!

Hello Peoples.

As I'm sure you've read, I'm Voltron. While this would make some people happy, I was really hoping for Rick Hunter from Robotech. He's so fucking dreamy and all the bitches want into his hot, white flight suit. Voltron isn't fit to lightly tongue Rick's frosty balls. That comment was likely inappropriate, but that sounds like a personal problem on your part.

Updates...
In the next few days, some of your internal organs may go missing. I'm not to blame and I have NO IDEA what happened. So, before any of you do... STOP FUCKING CALLING ME!!!

The dead will not be rising any time in the coming week, but once the thaw hits those corpses are gonna start stinking. I recommend digging them out now, grinding their still frozen flesh into paste and smearing it on neighborhood cars. Better to be safe than sorry.

Someday soon, your face is going to stick like that and then you'll be sorry! Now apologize to your sister!

I've found that the only thing that's 100% guaranteed to stop the voices is dousing the local children in your own urine and flicking lit matches at them screaming, "You're covered in gasoline! Fire! Fire! Fire!" The screaming totally drowns out the eagle making his shotgun sound for ford motors and the Viêt-cong banana shaving battalion hiding in my root cellar. Run!

That's all for now.

You scored as Voltron. Take it back to the original morphing mechanical thingies. Voltron could so lay the smack down on those gay little Power Rangers. </td> Voltron 67% Transformers 58% Thundercats 58% Shera 33% Heman 25% Smurf 25% Strawberry Shortcake 25% Which 1980's Cartoon Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

There is nothing worse than having a cold winter's day off. I don't want to go out because I'm sick of aimlessly trudging around in the cold, direct tv has cut us off for some reason (no TV?), I have 3 art projects I should be working on, harmonica to practice, laundry to do, a stack of books I'd like to read and I'm sitting here doing jack shit in front of a screen. What the hell is my problem. I could be creating or exercising or learning or practicing or doing something productive, but I just can't escape this stupid little screen. Fuck! At least when I'm working I can feel useful and creative. Lately, home means slacking off and getting nothing done beyond cleaning my room. I need inspiration, a muse, someone to tell me to get off my ass and do something with my life. Oh heavens, bring me a muse that I might get some harmonica practice, laundry and exercise into the next 3 hours! I surrender to your tender mercies!

Anyone up for dinner tonight?