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Uncle Dirty: an 86 year old, former body builder who builds trains, sew and wear thongs, cut and paste penises onto magazine adverts, and grease-up his once majestic body with baby oil. There are some NSFW pics of an old man, but it’s….interesting?
links for 2008-03-04
Categories: Daily Link Dump
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We Chase Misprinted Lies / We Face The Path Of Time
It’s ten past eleven at night. I’m sitting in my recliner with the computer in my lap watching “Good Eats” (the Spinach Salad episode). Ellie’s sleeping soundly under her favorite down blanket on the couch. In a few minutes I’ll probably make myself a Nutella-sandwich and wash it down with a big glass of cold milk.
By all accounts I should feel pretty content.
But I don’t. I’m simultaneously anxious and depressed, and no matter how much Excedrin I take, my damn head just will not stop throbbing.
Since this blog isn’t a cyber-substitute for therapy, I shan’t elaborate further, but I will say that before I tuned in to A.B. I made the idiotically tragic mistake of watching some election coverage. Answer me this: Is Sean Hannity serious? Surely his show is a parody of some sort. And what the fuck is up with Larry King? I’m not sure he’s even paying attention to his guests anymore. Rosario Dawson was on his show tonight promoting her organization, “Voto Latino,” and while she was talking Larry abruptly and inexplicably cut to a promo. I think Larry forgot he was talking to someone. And if Paul Begala’s smile gets any wider the sides of his mouth will touch his freakin’ earlobes.
Leigh and I plan on voting tomorrow. Part of me is excited to participate in a primary where Texas, and my individual vote, actually matters.
But the Gen-Xer in me just knows that the system will never allow a candidate who actually cares about the American people to get into office. My generationally imbued-cynicism keeps whispering in my ear, “Forget hope…Forget change…Expect the same…Expect the same…”
Categories: Blogging, Music, Politics
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You’re Not Thinking Fourth Dimensionally
If nothing else convinces you that “time” is a man-made, artificial construction meant to keep people from twiddling their thumbs and staring up at the sun, it should be today. Today is February 29th, which, according to our Gregorian calender, is a Leap Day. What’s a Leap Day? Well, our 24-hour day, 365-day a year calender is off kilter because it actually takes the Earth a bit longer than 365 full days to complete an orbit around the sun. So we have to “add-in” an extra day to the calender every four years so that our calender-year actually matches the Earth’s orbital-year.
I think we should just go ahead and have a calender with 365.25-days a year. Wouldn’t that be cool? The last day of the year could be 6 hours long, which would either mean a very short work day, or one helluva drinking binge.
And while we’re on the subject of time, where the hell is our time machine? Science-fiction has promised us one for decades now, and I’m sick of waiting. And flying cars. Wait, a Flying Car Time Machine!! That’s the ticket. Oh, and teleporters. Oooo, and sociopathic, megalomaniacal, sentient computers!
Okay, I could do without the last one. I guess what I’m trying to say is that real science needs to get a clue and start being as interesting as fake science. What would you rather study: the mathematical reason our solar year is slightly fucked up, or the ways to prevent people from inadvertently telefragging each other?
That’s what I thought.
Categories: Nerdology
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links for 2008-02-28
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“BookletCreator – is a free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document. It reorders pages so that after printing and folding the pages you get a small book.” I’m saving this more for myself than for your readers. So I’m selfish. Deal
Categories: Daily Link Dump
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I Might Be An Idiot
Currently, I’m teaching four classes–two of comp I and two of comp II. At UTSA, comp I is “informative writing” and comp II is “argument.” In the comp I classes my students work on using research as a means to inform their readers. There are several things the students need to keep in my when writing their papers in comp I: summarizing and paraphrasing correctly, using MLA parenthetical citations appropriately, learning to structure an essay competently, etc.
One of the most foreign concepts to the students is the notion of audience. The majority of the students don’t truly realize that at its most basic element, writing is simply a form of communicating with other people. Too often, the students turn in their papers without ever considering the fact that someone might actually read what they wrote. They only think of writing as a means to fulfill an assignment, but I find that if I can break through that intellectual wall and help the students recognize an audience, their writing generally improves exponentially.
Last week the students had to turn in a process analysis paper (fancy term for “how-to” paper). As an author, one of the biggest challenges of this paper is deciding when technical terms need to be defined for the readers. I tell my students to err on the cautious side, and if they have any doubts whether or not a term needs to be defined, they should probably go right ahead and define it.
One of my students turned in a paper where he mentioned the second law of thermodynamics in passing and where he stated, and I’m paraphrasing, that everyone knows that the majority of the electricity we use in our home comes from burned coal.
I kinda know the definition of the second law of thermodynamics, something about entropy increasing in closed systems, but I had no idea about coal and electricity. Just for a moment, I wondered if I was too big of a moron to be reading his paper.
So to make myself feel better I told him that a normal audience would probably need those terms defined.
It remains to be seen if I’m a moron.
Categories: Teaching, Writing
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In That Moment, Between Now And Then
I’m not a big believer in the importance of interpreting dreams. I don’t lend any credence or significance to them, and I think dream interpretation books are on par with fortune cookies and magic 8-balls.
That said, I do have pretty cool dreams (Don’t worry, I won’t describe any of them. I always feel like a total d-bag whenever I try to describe a dream, so I usually just don’t talk about them) I also have some pretty scary dreams. I regularly scream myself awake. I also occasionally wake myself up crying. One night, I thought I was fighting a midget. In my dream I was kneeing him in the head. I woke up holding Leigh by the shoulders, kneeing her in the back. Needless to say, she was not at all happy with me.
The other night I woke up suddenly, and in my mind I was repeating the phrase, “In that moment, between now and then.” I was just repeating that over and over in my head: “In that moment, between now and then.” I thought it sounded cool, so I quickly grabbed a pen off my nightstand and wrote it in the front cover of the Steven Pinker book I’m in the middle of reading.
So tonight, out of curiosity, I googled that phrase. And oddly enough, I got one hit. That phrase was also written by the author Kanaan, and the line of text is in a book of erotic poetry titled “Delicate Torture.” Here’s the poem that contains the line.
I’ve never read that book, nor heard of the author, so I know I didn’t unconsciously memorize that line. And I’m not a statistician, but taking into account the number of ways to construct a phrase and the number of words in the English language, and the odds of two people coming up with that exact line must be astronomical.
I have no ending for this, other than to say I was totally disappointed that I think the same way as an erotic poet.
Categories: Blogging
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links for 2008-02-25
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Google trends provides some…interesting information.
Categories: Daily Link Dump
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Guy’s Big Bite Bites My Ass
I realize that I probably spend entirely too much time watching the Food Network. I’m pretty much an Alton Brown devotee, but I’ll watch whatever piece of shit the Food Network decides to air. Hell, I’ll even leave Ray Ray on as long as it’s not a marathon.
But dammit, I just can’t stand Guy Fieri. The dude is a complete douchebag. I mean, just look at’em:
I suppose I could call his culinary style “fusion,” but only if I’m being nice. If I’m being honest I’d describe his culinary style as “dumbshit cuisine.” Since he doesn’t really know how to make classical dishes, he simply throws a bunch of stuff together and calls it “manly.” His culinary knowledge makes Ray Ray look like Julia Child.
He calls roasted red bell peppers “red bells.” ‘Cause he’s just that cool, ya’ll.
When he has to take his jewelry off to actually touch the food he says he’s going to “de-bling.”
He has the hairstyle a twelve-year old wannabe skateboarder and he shapes his goatee. He also wears his sunglasses on the back of his head, just in case you didn’t see his totally badass tattoos and miss the point that he’s a fucking rebel.
I hope the peroxide that Guy Fieri uses to bleach his stupid, spiky hair soaks through his skull and into his brain, and he slowly goes insane before finally choking to death on a red bell.
Categories: Jackassery
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