Well, since we're on the topic of recent-election-diatribes, here's mine.

David Icke:

The Bush family is one of these ‘Illuminati’ ‘royal’ bloodlines that 

go back to ancient times and these are shapeshifters that can take 

either human or reptilian form. It’s all holographic trickery because 

everything, including the body, is a hologram and not ‘solid’ as it 

appears to be. I have had many reports of people seeing father Bush 

shapeshift. As for Kerry, he is said by Burkes Peerage to be more 

‘royal’ in his bloodline than any American president, so he’s of the 

shapeshifter bloodline, too. Only the bloodline gets into the Skull and 

Bones Society. Kerry and Bush are both related to the British royal 

family and Vlad the Impaler (‘Count Dracula’). Readers of my books 

will understand the significance of this.

More nuttiness here.

OK, listen up all y'all, coz this is the only post I'm going to make concerning the results of the recent erectionelection (well, you have admit, it was a cock-up) we had here.

First, I'll let the Onion explain how it happened. Next, they can explain what the other 48% of the country is going to back to doing now. And finally, a positive and uplifting message of outreach, healing and hope to Bush's political base.

Raise your hand if you think Florida has managed to fuck up elections in just about every way possible.

Thanks but guess again. Combine their complete idiocy with computer coding from the 1970s and look what you get.

If it weren't for the fact that "channeling" is

a) associated with spiritualism, ESP, ghosts, witchcraft and so on, and therefore "the Devil's work" (ooga booga! ooga booga!) and therefore anathema and scary to Dubya, AND
b) a bunch of horseshit,

Dubya might plausibly channel FDR's first inaugural address and utter something like "Fear of the unknown is the scariest fear of all fears."

These two themes (scariness & horseshit) also achieve nexus in the Homeland Security Advisory System of Tom "Ruby" Ridge's Department of Homeland Security, and thereby on the website of THREATMETER.com who are, at least, quite open about the fact that "We Profit from Your Fear".

I like to travel. Here's where I've been:



Hmm .. that map of Western Europe looks pretty much solid red. Here's the detail:



The little white dots in the big red splodge are: Andorra, Monaco, Vatican City and San Marino (but not Liechtenstein)

And in the US? Here's the states I've been to:



How about you?

Just the thing for cutting someone off (up) on the highway.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Come to Jesus.

It's good to know that all of the godless, heathen humans and other primates have already been converted.

I think by now we've all heard the infamous Steven Thrasher Canon helpdesk raveout, but you probably haven't heard the new improved version, with added piano accompaniment.

Truly the most hilarious, inspired, and impeccably-executed mash-up I've ever heard. Madd props, big ups and a shout out to all concerned. Hoorah!

A list of strange foods that some guy has eaten. Hachi no ko reminded me of a certain Simpsons episode. Here's my own list:

Reindeer - it's venison, what did you expect? Meat was an interesting dark red color though, even when well done. Had this somewhere in Germany.
Horse - don't recall this being much different than beef in either taste or texture. Had it in a stew, in Belgium, whence cometh French fried potatoes which, when done "right" (i.e. a la flamande) are actually cooked in rendered horse fat and apparently taste positively righteous.
Frog's legs - yeah, they taste like chicken. Had 'em in Chicago.
Goat - ate this curried in a West Indian restaurant in London with Rob Harrison on the occasion of some birthday or other. Tastes (surprise, surprise) like mutton.
Alligator - tastes like (tough) chicken. Not bad. Philips' Seafood, Baltimore.
Jellyfish (raw) - small threads of chewy gelatinous stuff. At a top-notch Chinese restaurant in Rockville, MD, in the company of a Hong Kong-Chinese guy who called two days in advance to order the meal; none of the dishes are on the regular menu.
Tigerlily buds - same restaurant, same meal as the jellyfish. Lightly braised in oyster sauce, I think. Very good.
Sea cucumber - eaten raw at a restaurant in Hong Kong. Sliced thin, served with equally thin slices of hot red and green chilis. Near transparent, slightly brownish color. Slightly chewy. Pretty good.
Chicken's feet - also in Hong Kong (same lunch), served in a disconcertingly sweet black bean sauce. Sort of like stringy, near-meatless chicken wings. Not really to my taste.
Tripe - actually pig, I think. Boiled for a long time, but served cold, garnished with onions. Had this in Tokyo. Pretty good.
Sea urchin - not sure this really counts; it was in the sauce on an appetizer at the W hotel in Atlanta. Uhh, it wasn't horrible. Quite tasty in fact.
Caviar (various) - Sturgeon, salmon and flying fish. Caviar is an acquired taste. If you like it, as I do, it's great. If not, there's not much you can say.
Eel - pretty pedestrian, I suppose. Have tried it hot-smoked (on a Danish cruise liner on the overnight route from Harwich to Hamburg) and poached (various sushi restaurants). Eh - it's OK.
"Variety meats" - a nice euphemism for various internal organs of meat animals. I've certainly (and knowingly) eaten kidney, liver, heart and brain of cow, and - honestly - various parts of chicken that I don't even know what they were. The former (the cow parts) were all in England (hence I can't donate blood here in the US now); the chicken parts were all served as yakitori in a couple of Tokyo dining establishments (where I also had grean tea and black sesame ice creams which were very good)
Bivalve molluscs - catch-all term for the oysters & clams I've eaten raw. These are pretty mainstream, but still not for everyone. I really love raw oysters. The stories about oysters being an aphrodisiac are not quite true; it is true however, that oyster-eaters make better lovers. After all, they say, if you'll eat a raw oyster, you'll eat anything. Ba-dum-bum.

Baffling babbling.

I completed the maze after 71 moves on my third attempt. How 'bout you?

Raph Nader debates John Kerry and Dubya. No, not the actual candidates. Dolls.

Yes, it's finally here, the combination you've been waiting for: Big game + treasure hunt + phone cam + semacode + giant animal totems = Conqwest 2004.

Can't let the whole month of October go by without at least one post about odd clouds.

sUS(B)hi anyone?

It has been said that there are no athiests in foxholes. But that not-as-often cited off-shoot that there are no satanists in naval ships has now been disproven.

"... like an uncontrollable welding torch from Hell ... causing the mineral oil inside to begin violently boiling ... clouds of superheated oil vapor ... explodes in a ball of flame", A very sobering look at the raw power silently lurking within a medium sized substation.

Did ye ken John Peel, and the New York Dolls?
Did ye ken John Peel, and the Sex Pistols?
Did ye ken John Peel, and those Cambodian Hols?
With his sounds and his chatter in the evening

To his radio show I'd listen in bed
And new musical tastes to which it led,
Peel's "Hello!" no more, for now he is dead,
And music fans round the world, all now grieving

John Peel, legendary BBC radio presenter and disc jockey, dead at 65.

Entry #3 in the list gives me Goosebumps.

Well, I guess that's one traffic warden who's now suitably chastened ...

Just so you Yanks don't feel abandoned, know that we up here in the world's leading exports of cold fronts are standing with you, er, above you, in your Nov 2 pursuit.

Now, some may think this is from an alopecia advocacy association, or subtly sponsored by Schick (dig the alliterations?), but really, it's just silly advertising that means nothing above the 49th.

Hey Cletus, how's about you reach over and grab me my shotgun? I don't think my beer bottle over its head is gonna kill this here fish.. Dang, no wonder the other fish aren't biting this morning...

Truth is relative. If you say something often enough, and people believe it, then it becomes true. This is the hallmark of the faith-based presidency. Anything else is simply the delusional thinking of "reality-based" types such as liberals, scientists, rational thinkers and other wackos.

The crackdown continues, and America barely notices. Doesn't anyone care? Whene's the outrage?

GB meets GWB

News flash - Japanese build 50-foot robot firetruck that also dispenses used schoolgirl panties ... wait, I'm not sure about that last bit.

I'm not sure how to make this any more awesome:

• Japanese girls - Check!


• Bitchslapping - Check!


• Girl on girl - Check!

Amazingly this is safe for work.

[CLANG]
Bring out your dead!
[CLANG] {0}

I wonder if the hospital got their ninepence from this guy.

Fact really is stranger than fiction. Even Monty Python's fiction.

And in other Python-related news anyone up for a trip to NY to see Spamalot next Spring?



{0} In case you haven't memorized the script ya pansie.

Crank up the war machine - the Bush campaign is conducting it's own private re-enactment of the Battle of the Bulge, only the bulge in this case appears to be a wireless audio prompting system (banned by the agreement that binds the debate format - see pages 4 and 17 for relevant bits) so that Bush could appear to participate in the debates without sounding like a clueless idiot (go figure).

Who needs Diebold when you have the AP in your pocket?

I'm hoping this will be the last in the trifecta of sites-that-look-real-but-then-you-wonder-if-they're-fake-but-then-again-maybe-not.

Following on from Ken's earlier post, about "ever see something that you were sure was a satire, but then found it was actually true?"....

Check out Rockwell Automations Retro Encabulator! Now, with drawn reciprocation dingle arms!

Decide for yourself. True, or not true.

Topical post!

If you get this before the US presidential debate on 9/30 I've found a way to extract a bit of amusement from it while your stomach churns at watching our current president's performance. Debate bingo. Share and enjoy. If you can.

And yes, I plan to make this a drinking game. I don't think I could tolerate W for 90 minutes otherwise.

Hey Florida: God called. He has a message for you: Wake the Fuck Up!!

I have GOT to get/make one of these. Imagine all the uses around your users. Ok, you may not have users (come to think of it I don't either) but we've all done tech support for friends, family, neighbors, random strangers who accost you on the street and can read the "geek" written on your forehead.

Ahhh.... the combination of sweet satisfaction and the tangy smell of burning flesh.

Wow. And you thought live kids were annoying.

The future is here. And it appears to have a bad slavic accent and wear clothes that would embarrass Buck Rogers.

Shocking

Two things from Tex-ass that don't suck - in the same week. This one comes from Dubya's adoptive home town, to boot. What's going on?

A reader's "top tip" printed in Viz magazine once described "moving as far away as possible" from this town as the best way to avoid depression; now, it seems, a reader's poll in another magazine, The Idler, has voted the same place to be "the most crap town in the UK". What town are we talking about? Why, Luton, of course. But wait! Maybe this could be the start of a turnaround for Luton, as a spokesberk for last year's "winning" town (that would be much-unloved and deeply unlovely Hull) reported:

"Hull didn't suffer at all by receiving the number one 

accolade last year.



If anything it was good news for the city as it made 

people look at the city, visit the city and realise 

that Hull is in fact a thriving, vibrant place 

undergoing a stunning renaissance."

Of course, it may be argued that the reason Hull didn't suffer at all last year is that things really couldn't get any worse than they already were. As for Luton, well, this may the be first, and last, time you'll see its name in the same sentence as the words "thriving", "vibrant" and "stunning renaissance".

The Onion reviews Matchbox Twenty's next album.

Ever stumble across a site that looks real, but you become convinced is a parody, only to find it's real after all? No? Well, if you're so smart, you tell me.

Eventually, I guess, by sheer chance it had to happen. Something good come out of Tex-ass, I mean. No other explanation.

Gropey Goofy gets grumpy!

How much more ridiculous could a pickup truck get? None. None more ridiculous.

Parodies are good. Comedy is good. Heavy metal can be good. This combination... uhm, maybe not so good.

Bonus points for whoever can figure out what was the motivation (chemical or otherwise) for the authors.

While looking for directions to the nearest IBM office in Singapore, I came across this page and the disturbing image depicted thereon. View at your discretion. (Don't worry, it's SFW - after all, it's an official IBM web page).

Building a web site for the house you're trying to sell is a good idea. Including pictures is a very good idea. Forgetting to check the view out the windows is not a good idea.

In case you don't see it check the comments.

Nice house.

Browsing Amazon the other day, saw this nice little self-referential occurrence that seems to indicate that the disaster foretold has already befallen us:

"Disneyland with the death penalty" is how sci-fi has-been William Gibson described Singapore in Wired magazine back when Wired was interesting.

Sure enough, when you come in to land at Changi, you can't help but notice the friendly notice on the back of the disembarkation card: "WARNING - DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS UNDER SINGAPORE LAW". Just in case you didn't notice, the flight crew helpfully remind you of this fact too, as you're on final approach, and strapped into your seat. "Great", I think to myself, "now I can't even get up to flush these three keys of China Cat I'm carrying". I keed, I keed.

The Singaporeans are far from the humorless drones Gibson makes them out to be though - I saw an ad last night that had been illegally fly-posted on the side of a box housing traffic-light electronics that had originally read "Condominium for rent", which some soul had creatively edited with a pocket knife:



And this (presumed) drug abuse education ad was just plain ... strange ...



What's the message here? Don't wish peace on your friends?

Still, the funniest thing I have seen so far is the unintentional humor in a sign in a bathroom here in the office building I'm working in. The sign itself is not very funny on its own; the goodness is that the sign promoting accurate pecker pointing has, in the bottom right corner, the logo of the company that provides the facilities management for the building:



As reprobate Jeff said - "There's no such thing!"

Whenever I visit websites featuring images of prurient interest that are contributed by members of the public (eg 1, 2), I consider that it is inevitable that sooner or later I will feel the shock of recognition at finding images of someone I know.

Well, today it almost happened, but it was not quite what I would have anticipated. What I recognized was not a "who" but a "where" - I have been four-wheeling up the very waterfall depicted in this pastoral image of female nudity; it depicts (aside from the strangely unattractive unknown naked chick) a waterfall on the inappropriately named Dry River in the George Washington National Forest, west of Harrisonburg, VA, near Harrisonburg Reservoir.

I know this waterfall very well - the rock step is just the right height that the shackles on the underside of my truck's front bumper make a bone-jarring clang when they hit it. I have surmounted this particular obstacle maybe three or four times; the last time I did it I popped the right front tire off the rim, lost all the air pressure in it and had to try and change the wheel in the middle of the stream, after I'd winched the truck up the waterfall. I did not succeed in changing the wheel as the lug nuts were a bit too tight to be loosened by hand so I consider myself very lucky indeed that I was able to reseat and reinflate the tire sufficiently with the truck's onboard compressor. Huzzah!

Man robs bank with rusty pitchfork. Story from a stupid criminals file? Nope. True success story from, you guessed it: South Carolina.

Yup, he got away.

By wearing sunglasses and a mask.

And getting picked up at a fast food restaurant so that the dogs lost his scent.

Only in the south, home of George W. Bush's core constituency.

I have to go cry now.

Remember:

Tera Patrick - porn star.
Tera Patricks - Mac journalist.

All clear now? Good. Next week: Jenna Jameson's guide to Windows shareware, Janine Lindemuller's Unix scripting hints, and Peter North's reviews of the latest 802.11g gear.

So let's say you named your company after a Chilean desert. Let's further say your marketing people decide to continue the Spanish-language theme by giving your products Spanish names. So far, so good. Wouldn't you expect, maybe, that they would choose, ahh, appropriate names for your products? And so what to make, then, of a Windows-based product named "Bitch"? Oop - just answered my own question I guess ...

Ever wondered how the world's press would react if we should happen to receive a radio signal from an alien civilisation? I'd always imagined it would be something like one of the Onion's "The Onion In History" covers like the one that recorded Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the Moon ("HOLY FUCKING SHIT! MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MOON!") or the outbreak of WWII ("WA- (headline continued on page 2)")

But maybe not. Maybe it starts like this.

I know I could use one of these shirts and I suspect that others here would find them useful too.

Or am I wrong about the reprobates demographic?

Even low-life scumbags need love too.

Next time someone calls you a sheep maybe you should lie down, roll over and take it as a compliment.

None more black?

I saw this ad on The Onion's site, and it just didn't sit right with me. Check it out - what do you think?

Finally, a group of veterans came forth to fill in the gaps in George W. Bush's military record. Now I can sleep at night.

Now I understand where all those great, insightful Ziff-Davis magazine reviews come from - they outsource them to these guys.

" ... it's to enhance the performance, to make the udders bigger and more beautiful ..."

The Bush administration is known as being probably the most secretive US administration in history - all the better, of course, to cover their dubious dealings with their fat-cat buddies in the energy industry, and so on. Except, of course, when they can score points against someone who threatened to weaken their story justifying the invasion of Iraq, or, say, when it really really matters.

Prozac found in UK drinking water. Nation reports it "feels more like its old self again". Empire-rebuilding to begin immediately.

When kids disappear, they put their pictures on milk cartons or (more likely these days) mass mailings (aka junk mail). Many, apparently, do return.

But what do you do when a lake disappears? That one came back. Others, it seems, are gone for good.

It's not every day you see an image of John Kerry picking his nose on TV. And what makes it more interesting is the creative way he's doing it ...

Now why do you think this guy would expect an apology? Under the current administration, and especially since it took place in Texass, he ought to be grateful he's not being billed for wasting police time.

Official UK Government emergency preparedness site, and a parody of same.

How To Be Lazy, by some French tart. I kid you not.

Oh! Canada! "Last month it was reported that Canada had issued a record number of visas to strippers to meet a national shortage" (BBC News). And, to make sure the women being granted stripper visas know what they're getting themselves into, they're being asked to provide nekkid pitchers of theirselves ...

Raffi is a Canadian guy who makes funny, clever, gently weird music for kids. There's a strong overlap between, say, Raffi, some works by TMBG, and Trout Fishing in America.

One of his best-loved (and catchiest) pieces is the title track from 1994's Bananaphone. A little too catchy for some people, it seems ...

What would you do with $2,000,000,000? Well, this guy has some ideas on what Sun Microsystems might do with their windfall from our old friends Monoposoft.

Speaking of which, anyone want an @monoposoft.com e-mail address? I just might know the "JS" character who owns the domain.

This is a followup to my post of July 16th on weird weather phenomena.

I'd heard the term lenticular clouds before but didn't think to include it at the time - see also here and here - heck, you can just Google up loads of examples.

Not quite a weather phenomenon, perhaps, but mistpoeffers or "the Barisal guns" is (are?) an interesting atmospheric phenomenon.

Seems there's also been some recent developments in the search for the elusive red sprites and blue jets that sometimes occur above thunderstorms; also, although it's not news as such (other than being news to me), it seems that the visible return stroke of lightning strikes is preceeded by emissions of X-rays, gamma rays, and beta particles ("fast-moving electrons"). Who knew?

Finally (at least for now), no roundup of lightning-related phenomena would be complete without at least a passing reference to ball lightning - anecdotal evidence here, scientific speculation on its nature and origins here, and a pair of Kiwi researchers who think they know what causes it here.

The voices in my head made me do it.

Every now and then, a name will pop into my head, unbidden. The names are mostly uncommon, and within a day or two I usually see the name (or a close variant of it) written somewhere, or on TV.

A good example of this is the name "Arbogast", which popped into my head sometime in late June or early July 2001. I know this because it was followed a few days later by the incident in which then-8-year-old Jesse Arbogast had his arm bitten off in a shark attack. I later found out there's also a local tree and lawn-care service in this part of the world called Arbogast (Arbogast the Arborist?)

A few weeks ago, the name was "Inamorata". A day or two later, I spotted an article about someone whose surname was "Enamorada". I'll take a Spanish version of an Italian name as a "hit".

Today, the name was "Sutphen". Sutphen, it turns out, make various pieces of fire-fighting equipment.

More interesting, though, is one David Sutphen, hypnotist, who wrote a widely plagiarized piece on mind-control and brainwashing.

While following up on one of the terms he used (specifically "voice roll"), I came across this review of a book called "Trance Formation of America". Given the overall non-believing tone of the review, I assumed it was a site run by skeptics, until I came across this little aside:

I'm not suggesting False Memory Syndrome but rather that she may be 

accessing, via her imagination, the lower astral plane which is rife

with ethereal perversions, the very plane that attempts to control 

us through low vibrational thoughts

Ahem.

Anyway, the review also contained an interesing term I hadn't seen before - NLP, which stands for "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" which turns out to be yet another pseudo-scientific area of study, of "techniques for mind, body and spirit [...] applicable in business for sales, management, communication, and coaching, as well as teaching, sports, therapy, and personal growth". The site goes on to say that "These techniques really work, producing tangible results" which, to me means precisely the opposite.

Still, all in all, a nice little diversion thanks to the incredible neuro-linguistic feat I achieved by tapping into the, uh, lower vibrational modes of the astral plane. Well, either that or complete coincidence.

Insect Battledrome - a new concept in entertainment.

Anyone who knows me probably knows I like hot, spicy foods. But what I like even more is hot sauces. Because with a hot sauce, I can make any food (or drink) as spicy as I like. Which, by most people's standards, is pretty damn spicy.

So, I've been delighting in local establishment RJ's Hot Sauces, here in Leesburg. Now RJ himself is a bit of a mystery. He opens the store only on Saturdays, and then only from "about 10am" to "about 5pm". In practice, "about 5" means that you are likely to be out of luck if you get there beyond 4:30. He is, as you may have guessed, very laid back, and very knowledgeable about the hundreds of hot sauces, salsas and bbq sauces he stocks.

RJ, however, is going to be closing his store at the end of the month of July because he's lost his lease. So, anyone who lives nearby and shares my passion for hot sauces, get yourself over to RJ's - he's opening his store every day except Sunday to move his stock, and offering a "buy three, get one free" promotion. He's not real thrilled to be working in the shop every day, which makes me wonder how he actually makes a real living. But I digress.

So, I was hearing RJ's tale of woe and talking sauce and decided to stock up on some of my faves (1, 2, 3) and maybe see what else he had to recommend.

Well, seems ol' RJ's been holding out on me, because it was only last week that he hipped me to Ring of Fire, which he casually described as the "world's greatest hot sauce". He wasn't kidding. It's not that it's incredibly hot (because it isn't - I mean don't get me wrong, it's hot, but it's not, say, Pure Cap), but it is intensely flavo(u)rful - a wonderful mix of hot peppers, vinegar, crushed black peppercorns, coriander and other things.

I opened some today, mixed with a regular store-bought salsa and ... oh ... my ... God ... yeah, it's that good.

So, needless to say, I'll be back there this weekend to buy some more while it's easily available from a local merchant, and I suggest you do too.

Flash: Dodge Ram trucks' hood ornament proclaims: "I am a pussy". No-one surprised.

It may sound like the punchline to a bad joke, but it's not. The entire proceedings of the 9-11 Commission Hearings are available for free download on the iTunes Music Store, free of charge, courtesy of C-SPAN. 50 hours of hearings are spread across 36 volumes. Can't wait to hear the remixes by Coldcut, DJ Shadow and Jay-Z.

Finally, truth in politics. Of course the idea of W being able to complete full sentences and remember his lines puts a hurtin' on that whole "truth" thing.

Still, it's funny stuff.

As the Onion commemorates the 35th anniversary of the first moon-walk in its own inimitable style, it's nice to know that the men possessed of The Right Stuff were also capable of fluffing their lines, and taking a few bum holiday snaps, too, recently and lovingly scanned at super-high resolution from the original film for all to smirk superciliously at.

How dumb do you have to be to seriously suggest that Micro$oft would ever EVER think of simply calling it quits? Answer: this dumb.

Of the three possible reasons Dvorak cites for MS's recently announced $1B cost-cutting drive ("Someone sees a rocky road ahead, they are even greedier than ever, or they are planning a shutdown") the one he chooses to write about is #3. As a credible precedent, he mentions the orderly shutdown of "Processor Technology" (uhh ... who?)

You don't even have to ascribe this exercise in prudent corporate governance to greed - it simply reflects their responsibility to the shareholders. Oh, that, and the fact they're the most fucking avaricious donkey-raping ass-monkeys ever.

Florida, it seems, is the new California.

Used to be that stupid crazes started, pretty reliably, in the Golden State. Now, it seems, the Sunshine State (you know, the one that's shaped like the receiver of a semiautomatic) has become the breeding ground for all things weird and ... well, weird.

Take, for example, the "dangling yourself from meathooks embedded in your own shoulder-flesh" craze. Hadn't heard of that one? Well, here's some suggestions for how to get ahead of the curve and get a jump on the next Next Big Thing:

The "Shave your head and tattoo a serial number on your arm" craze

The "Take a shower with Zyklon B" craze

The "March yourself at gunpoint into a communal gas oven" craze

This ignoramus (from Florida!) hit his girlfriend with an alligator. Apparently he couldn't lay his hands on a bat. (Bonus detail: not only was he charged with battery, he also charged with ... possession of an alligator. A neat twofer.)

Weird weather phenonmena: sky haloes and sun dogs, anticrepuscular rays, hole-punch clouds, (also here and here)

Why do news outlets bother putting a date on warnings like this, rather than just, say, run a continuous ticker that says "Microsoft warns of critical flaw"? I guess in theory it allows you to distinguish one incident from another (or another). But when something keeps happens over and over and over and over again, doesn't it eventually stop being news?

If you thought that having a Republican administration meant that DC was full of clowns you ain't seen nuthin' yet. There's always the DC city council. But wait, there's more. Maybe these folks can teach the GOP a lesson on humor, humility, heart, compassion and other namby-pampy crap.

Note to self: don't type such things while drinking Coke. It hurts like hell coming out of your nose.

How better to combine a love of tinkering with mechanical gadgets (made from such diverse components as a KitchenAid stand mixer - here, and a Sawzall - here) and extreme hard-core porno than with Fucking Machines? I'll be buggered if I know! (But preferably not with any of the equipment illustrated). Thanks, Tim! (Incidentally this company, one of the equipment suppliers for the site, has nothing to do with me)

Recipe:

Take one lack of understanding of basic camera optics, add some scientistic mumbo-jumbo, and hey presto - OrbStudy! (aside: the supposed birthplace of this phenomenon, Gulf Breeze, is also the name of a cracking Eat Static track that can be found on both Abduction in its original form, and in the Zetan remix on Epsylon. But I digress)

Got Cray?

Come on, Ken. You know you want it.

Those of us who are single can certainly understand the frustration that comes from not being able to find just the right person. Some people look to personal ads, or their on-line equivalent: dating web sites like match.com or Yahoo Personals. Others have tried speed dating or other creative means. This woman, however, claims to have taken her fate into her own hands by demanding that she be married by the end of 2004. Or at least expecting it. Or something like that.

Anyone here want a desperate, high maintenance, needy woman? Look no further!

Tired of having nothing to put on your Freedom Fries since John "Ketchup" Kerry became the presumptive Democratic candidate for President of the United States? Fret no more. God's Own Party has the solution for you. What would we do without them?

Wait - don't answer that.

From the "way too much time on their hands" department, I present to you this interesting waste of time.

The Washington Post either loves or hates the new Spielberg film, Terminal. Either way, it is based on a bizarre but true story.

(Thanks to John for this one) I wonder what her hobbies are?

From our "Wow, you mean it isn't just me?" department ("Microsoft-product-related woes" division) - Windows XP and Wi-Fi - not a happy combination.

Gotta love the typical MS doublespeak in here:

To some, the most infuriating part is that the wireless network connection 

icon in the XP taskbar doesn't display any indication at all that something's 

wrong. When there is a genuine hardware failure, the icon displays a small 

red X to indicate that the connection was lost. But with these mysterious 

disconnections, the icon continues to show a connection.



Microsoft said users shouldn't be misled by the icon.



"It indicates that you've associated with an access point. It is possible 

for you to be associated without having (Internet) connectivity," said 

Shai Guday, a Microsoft wireless group program manager.

Ah, right, so that whole thing about "XP" meaning "experience"? What it means is you have to have experience as a fecking necromancer to discern the talmudic, hair-splitting difference in meaning between what the icon appears to mean and what it really means.

Here's another great quote that nicely illustrates how, once again, MS completely misses the point:

"We don't have data that suggests Windows XP drops wireless connections 

more than any other system," said Greg Sullivan, the lead product manager 

in Microsoft's Windows division. "Wi-Fi configuration in Windows XP is 

much different and easier than in previous versions."

Different! Easier! Happy happy! Joy joy!

What about the fact that no matter how different and easy it is - it DOESN'T WORK?! And furthermore, when it doesn't work, Windows will happily insist it is still working (see rantlet, above, about stupid icon-state semiotics), and certainly won't tell you how to fix it.

Happily (?), there is a little rain-dance you can do that seems to restore connectivity:

• Go to Control Panel.

• Choose Administrative Tools.

• Select Services. A two-pane window comes up.

• In the right-hand pane, scroll down and click Wireless Zero Configuration.

• Click Stop the Service. A progress bar may come up briefly.

• Click Start the Service. Again, a progress bar may come up.

• Close the Services window. At this point, Fleishman said, the 

  connection should come back.

Remember - Different! Easy! User experience!

What's the betting the codes on these babies just got changed to '11111111' in 1977?

My very favorite part of the Washington Post is the Style Invitational - a weekly contest in the Sunday edition of the paper's Style section whereby The Empress sets the readers a challenge, the winning entry is announced a few weeks later, and the best entries are re-printed for all to enjoy. Frequently, much hilarity ensues.

Few SI contests, however, have been so funny or so memorable in recent memory as the one which ran in the March 28th issue, which you can see here. This is an idea with legs - "X is a good name for Y, but a bad name for Z". Since encountering this concept, I have found myself subconsciously thinking of values for Z for every X and Y I come across. For example, X = "Chocolate Thunder From Down Under®", Y = "a dessert (scroll down) at Outback Steakhouse(*)", and Z = "a laxative"

* - Outback Steakhouse, an Australian-themed steak house in the US is originally from ... yes, you guessed it ... Miami.

It is one of my fundamental beliefs that any pastime can become an unhealthy obsession, and therefore a nerdly pursuit. One popular dictum has it that any given hobby has gone too far when you purchase special clothing for it - what this says about lingerie, I'm not sure. Still, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing, specializing to the nth degree, and arguing about the most abstruse, hair-splitting details - at least as some might see it.

In this spirit then, I offer the hentai dictionary. As the author of this fascinating glimpse into nihongo culture observes:

Why are Japanese so enthusiastic about giving names to every possible kinky act or

combination of acts? In general, Japanese are much more SINGLEMINDED and focused in

pursuit of their hobbies. For instance, if you're a good Japanese pervert, you don't 

want to walk into some porno store and just get any old panty-fetish DVD, you 

specifically want to get a DVD of panties being 'flossed' between the lady's pudenda 

in a sort of labial tug-of-war. And you want ALL the DVDs of this fetish EVER MADE. 

Since you don't want to spend 5 minutes explaining that to the drunk grandmother 

behind the counter, isn't it handy to be able to simply say, "kuikomi, please?"