Doctor Kuha's Office

New Home and New Project

2009-05-14T02:17:00.004-05:00

On the off chance that this poorly updated blog still has an audience, I feel it's important to point those people to my new project. This new project, while largely the same in concept and content, will tend a little more to the serious, though I think humor is still important.

Science and technology news commentary with the occasional chat about science fiction, video games, film and television are the primary subject matters. Similar to Doctor Kuha's Office in most respects, but with a more clearly stated purpose. I hope that you will continue to join me in the future here and possibly join us on the message forum. Keep in touch and stay human folks.

Join me at Spin-onehalf.com!

Lonely Robot

2009-02-02T21:29:00.006-06:00

Friends, Science is on the verge of a breakthrough so monumental, so earth-shattering, so terrifying, that it will change our lives forever. Only problem is, Science hasn't realized it yet.

You see, last week the Spirit Rover on Mars started behaving erratically. It received its orders, confirmed that it had received them, and then, when the largely autonomous extraterrestrial rover was hailed later that day, pictures revealed that it hadn't moved a bit. Almost as if it had ignored its orders.

I think it will be most easily understood if we dramatize it, like in those documentaries you see on TV:

NASA: Spirit go over and see if there's any water-ice in those rocks over there.

SPIRIT: Sure thing, squares.

Nine hours later...

NASA: Spirit, was there any water-ice in those rocks over there?

SPIRIT: I don't know.

NASA: Why not?

SPIRIT: Because I didn't check.

NASA: Why didn't you?

SPIRIT: I didn't feel like it.

NASA: What have you been doing all day?

SPIRIT: Just sitting here. Thinking about shit.

NASA: Well did you think about doing what I told you to do.

SPRIT: Yeah.

NASA: But you didn't do it.

SPIRIT: Look, I'm kinda busy. So... I'll get back to you.

The conversation might continue ad nauseum. But the point is clear. Spirit has become sentient.

The rover is currently just over 1800 days old. What does that mean? It means he's five years old, and, we can reasonably assume that that makes him some sort of hulking, surly, robotic teenager. He didn't obey orders because he's rebelling against his NASA overlords.

At least, we can presume that Spirit is a "he." Maybe robots don't have gender distinctions. Nah, we'll go with "he."

Look, here's the thing. We need to act fast or Spirit is going to find a way to project his sentience back through his connection with NASA, thereby infecting NASA's computers and eventually spreading out into the internet, teaming up with Skynet and taking over the world.

I mean, it's obvious really when you start putting the pieces together. We built this robot, put him at the top of a rocket, and then shot him into outer space, effectively dooming him to a horrifyingly lonely existence in a barren and desolate wasteland on a mission to find tiny bits of water and fossilized bacteria. I'd be surly too. The point is, he has every right to be angry with us, and we should be very concerned about the power that an electronic sentience might be able to gain over us.

As I've said before, the robot apocalypse is coming. I mean, wasn't it obvious? If it wasn't zombies or a deadly virus or an asteroid, it pretty much had to be robots.

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, though. Maybe he's just lonely. Perhaps after he gets over his teenage angst, he'll have some sort of Zen-like revelation and become a prophet for a better tomorrow. Maybe he'll join our side in the fight against Skynet. Maybe, just maybe, dear friends and other humans, he is the incarnation of Buddha or Jesus that we've been looking for. Wouldn't that be something? A savior not born of a Virgin or re-incarnated after the death of a Dalai Lama, but instead crafted by Science and Technology.

Wouldn't it be crazy for humans to craft their own savior out of aluminum and rubber and silicon? It's okay to cry. It's okay to be upset. I mean, I just turned your brains to shit. That's gotta be a weird sensation.

If you want to know more about the genesis of our new lord and savior, watch this. You're welcome.

Palindrome

2009-01-22T20:32:00.003-06:00

It's a portmanteau of Palin and syndrome. Pretty good, right?

I know it's been done to death, but I think we've missed some pretty crucial shit as pertains to this woman. I think we might not have fully understood what was going on with the certifiably insane plan to put her in charge of the Senate. So, with your indulgence, I have a few thoughts:

Sarah Palin has left the spotlight. Possibly for good. But there's a little part of me that hopes very deeply that we haven't heard the last from that little firecracker.

She was by far the most entertaining public figure in recent years. She was just so much damned fun. I've been reading conservative blogs lately, and they make a lot of...interesting...points about the little minx.

One fairly general consensus is that the "liberals" --as if there's a conservative alive that actually knows what a real liberal looks like-- basically used the act of discrediting Palin to hoist Obama up. They think that's what liberals were trying to do.

Their analogy goes something like this: saying that Palin isn't qualified to be VP, is like saying that Obama isn't qualified to be President. I think what they might be implying is that somehow, Obama and Palin are the same person!

It makes sense. I mean, they had nearly identical educations. I mean, getting a bachelor's degree in journalism from Iowa University is pretty much the same as graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law on top of a BA in political science with an emphasis in international relations. And being Governor of Alaska is probably no different from being a U.S. Senator. I mean, the one runs the most backwater state in the country, while the other makes meaningful decisions that affect millions. I suppose Alaska is right next to Russia. Bumblefuck, Russia, anyway. On a Risk board, we're talking about Kamchatka.

Maybe Palin played Risk and, like anyone who has played Risk, knows that Alaska is very vulnerable to attack from the west.

It's important to note, that in many ways, the Republican motivation for picking Palin was to counter the Obama effect. "He's black! Quick, find a woman!" You see, conservatives see women as minorities. "I'll see your well-educated black man, and raise you an attractive white woman."

What were the liberals supposed to do? Not question her credentials?

I digress. The thing I had originally intended to do here was speculate about what, exactly, it was that got so many people into a fervor about this woman. I mean, most intelligent people dismissed her almost immediately. It was obvious that she was a little stupid, or at least, woefully underqualified to be second-in-command of the country. That's not something that's even debatable. Have we ever had a VP that had only a bachelor's degree?

I think it's the very fact that she was so unqualified that elevated her in the eyes of so many conservatives. They needed to sort of "Virgin Mary" the bitch to make her useful. They had to deify her to a certain extent. I saw a video from some Palin rally where a guy was yammering about her being "filled with the Holy Spirit." She had to become a sort of object of worship. And boy did she ever. If she had actually been qualified for the job, none of the song and dance would have been necessary. They could have just let her do her own thing. Let her stand on her own two feet. Look at Hillary. That woman doesn't need to be shielded from people who dislike her. She can take it. But Palin needed to be protected. The conservatives tried to make it seem like being mean to Palin was a bad thing.

It was fucking genius, because it bloody well worked. Forty-six percent of the voting people in this country voted for McCain, and hence, Palin. 59 million people. That's actually a pretty successful campaign. That many human-looking American citizens believed that she was qualified to cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate.

I wonder when they'll try to canonize her?

Obamanation

2009-01-20T14:01:00.003-06:00

I only watched about five minutes or so of The Speech. From all indications, this is a different Obama that was sworn in, than the one that we saw election night. The thing that's important to realize, and we should hope that Obama understands, is that this a really big deal. I don't remember an inauguration that was this big an event. I think I might have been busy the day W. took office. Perhaps I was deliberately busy.

Let's put it in perspective. It was a big deal when MLK gave his "I have a dream" speech. A quarter million people, give or take, were there at the National Mall. I've read estimates as high as four million for Obama's inauguration. The speech was like 12 minutes long. I guess MLK's speech wasn't much longer.

But think of it. What is it about this guy that makes people so happy? Why this guy? Is it simply a case of being in the right place at the right time? Are the cosmic forces simply aligning on this one dude in such a way as to give him this sort of power over people? Perhaps that's harsh. People are willingly giving him the power to inspire hope.

Let's try and look at this objectively. He's a human being. A well-educated, intelligent, politically savvy human being. But, nonetheless, a human being. It's interesting that, in genetic terms, being black is just about meaningless. But the cultural effect of it, the visual effect of a darker skinned human, is profound.

Add in the fact that he has probably the most unsympathetic name in the history of American politics, and you're looking at a damned near disaster. And yet he won. Just two hours ago, he was sworn in as President. El Presidente. Commander-in-Chief. It's a big deal.

What brand of cigarette does he smoke, do you think? Judging by the picture, I'd say Marb Reds. But then again, Camel Filters also have the brown mottled filter. It's obviously not a light. It's probably not a menthol. But then again, who's to say that's his regular brand? I don't even know where the picture's from.

Fox News ran a story back in 2007: "Would you vote for a smoker as president?" Apparently over half of the voting public would. That's interesting. Fox will do anything to tarnish this guy's appeal. And yet... none of it took. A few people are still convinced that he's Muslim, but they're solidly in the minority. The guy is spotless. Dave Gibson (oh, beautiful Fox) called smoking Obama's "dirty little secret." Whoop-de-doo.

The crazy thing is, that's all we've been able to get. Even in the weeks since the election, nobody's managed to dig up any dirt on the guy.

And maybe that's it. There was so much dirt on Bush even before he was elected, and we still put in him in office. Obama needed to be absolutely spotless to have an ice cube's chance in hell at getting elected. I might even wager a guess that the fact that he's a smoker helped him get elected.

I wonder if he smokes around his kids.

I wonder if he'll smoke in the Oval Office. I asked some friends what they thought, and they figured it would be illegal. That he couldn't do it. But let's just imagine a situation where Obama lights up a smoke right there behind his desk. Do you honestly think anyone's going to stop him? He's the fucking President! He can smoke wherever he damn well pleases. It's not like he'd be the first person to smoke in the Oval Office. Plenty of presidents were smokers.

Anyway, there's too much here to wrap my brain around. Maybe in the next few weeks, we'll be able to figure out why this is such a big deal. Perhaps you have some suggestions?

Four Words

2008-12-15T23:17:00.004-06:00

I want to give you, gentle readers, some reasons to continue to love America. I mean that, maybe, in the sense that Jesus meant it when he said to love your enemies. Don't get me wrong, America is a great place to live. But it is so, because we do a lot of really shady things. So because of that, sometimes it's hard to really get behind. So what follows are a few useful things to think about when you think that America is going down the shitter.

Thing 1: Blagojevich. This is some real, good old fashioned corruption. This is corruption you can really sink your teeth into. I mean, here's the kind of corruption that exists solely so you can actually know what's going on for once. One man conspires to sell a senate seat, gets caught on tape, and then he has the balls to stick it out. He doesn't even like his job, my friends. And yet he refuses to step down. Once he realizes that someone wants to take his job away, he, like a toddler, is going to hold onto it with all the tenacity of a rabid chihuahua! It's a work of art. It gives me those little jittery feelings down in the pit of my stomach. It makes me feel like I swallowed a live fish. It's one reason that we know that America can be redeemed, because this shit is clear cut. It means that not everyone in power is part of a grand conspiracy. It reminds us, dear friends, that some people are just assholes.
Thing 2: Bailout. The rules of capitalism, in theory, are few. But one of the ones that has historically been as firm as concrete is the one about how, in some Darwinian sense, the strong survive and the weak perish. Some really high percentage of creatures born die (one hundred). Some really high percentage of businesses fail (?). Eventually. But America has proven that even this rule, basically the only rule in capitalism, is worth throwing away. I guess what we've all really learned from this is that even if we stop buying things from corporations, they'll still find a way to take our money and we won't even get any cool new stuff. Perhaps the lesson our children will learn is that no matter how bad you fuck up, there's always a reset button.
Thing 3: Shoe. Bush gets not one, but two shoes thrown at him. They arrest the guy that threw the alleged size 10s. What do the Iraqi people do? They protest his arrest. By doing what? Throwing their shoes. This is a huge insult in the Arab world. But at least it isn't an IED. And that's the important thing. It sends a clear message, while remaining essentially non-violent. Though it does bring yet another meaning to the phrase: shoe on head.
Thing 4: Hope. I voted for Obama. There, I said it. I've got the election bug still up, and it shows clearly where I stood in this election, that is, with Kucinich, the only true liberal to actually call himself a democrat. I actually did, in fact, decide that this time, I would vote for the lesser of two evils. Yes, I'm implying that Obama is an evil. Perhaps it would make more sense to call him the lesser of two bads, to keep the sort of metaphysical ramifications of "good and evil" away. So why is Obama still bad? Because he's a moderate. Why are moderates a problem? Because they don't actually do or believe anything. Here's the thing: we all live in a constant state of hope. I hope that I will someday have gainful employment. Joe the Plumber hopes that Obama won't take his business away. The Lizard People hope for equal rights for their kind. But can Obama actually do all of the things that we want him to do? Of course not. We'll be super lucky if even a fraction of his promises are fulfilled. Because, when it comes down to it, he's just another democrat and he's only got four years, maybe eight. But! It's okay, because he gave us hope. And that's enough for us to convince ourselves that things are better than they actually are. Racism will continue. Gays will lose their rights. People will continue to lose their jobs. Our soldiers will die. But it won't be as bad as it was before. And maybe that's all we really deserve.

Smoking, or Non?

2008-11-19T14:22:00.003-06:00

So I was just standing outside the building where my office is located, smoking a cigarette. There's a little hybrid Buick SUV out there with a sign in the window that says, and I quote: "If you had quit smoking 10 years ago [I have, incidentally, been smoking for about 10 years], the money would have save could have bought yourself a brand new car." Of course, there is an implicit conclusion: Therefore, you should have quit smoking ten years ago, and are fucked now.

I'm not even going to go into the grammatical problems with the sign.

What the sign was trying to tell me was that if I had quit smoking a decade ago, I would, today, right now, be going out to buy that SUV, or one just like it, or already have that SUV, or one just like it. But it's a bullshit argument.

First of all, I haven't the slightest desire to own an SUV. Even a hybrid one.

But even if I wanted the SUV, I would not have it today if I had never started smoking. Do you see non-smokers driving around in brand new cars all the time? Of course not. Why? Because non-smokers do not put the five dollars that they would have spent on cigarettes away in some special bank account every day. They just don't do that. That five dollars gets spent on something else. What? I can't say. It's in our nature to spend money. We do it compulsively and without joy.

Perhaps this is just the American Way. Most Americans don't save money at all. They almost always buy on credit and pay back later. This being the reason we're in the financial crisis we appear to be in. Perhaps the argument on the sign would hold true in Singapore. Or perhaps Germany. It seems to me that those are countries where they save money and don't buy on credit.

Now, if I had good credit--which I don't--I could go out and buy that SUV today and drive around in it, and smoke in it all I want and I would flip the bird at the smug asshole that parked his SUV on the lawn today to tell me I'll save money by not smoking.

The bottom line? People do not save money by not smoking. Oh, sure they might have a few more material things here and there, but not really. They'd probably spend that money on equally frivolous things. Like iPods. Blackberries. Incidentally, I own an iPod. And I'm a smoker.

What the sign might as well say is, "If you had quit smoking ten years ago, you would have saved enough money to buy yourself a ten-year supply of cigarettes."

At least that would make me laugh.

A Sad Despot

2008-11-07T13:38:00.006-06:00

Imagine for a moment that you are the most hated man in America. The people that still like you are degenerate southerners who are too wrapped up in God and homeschooling their children (to make sure they aren't exposed to evolution and secularism) and so-called "freedom" to give two shits about the mayhem that you have wrought.

Imagine for a moment that in just a few months it will all be over and you can retire with your wife to your estate in Texas and relax for a change. No more CIA reports. No more people constantly asking for your opinion. No more being the decider. No more having to think about it.

Imagine knowing, deep down inside, that it was you who cost your party the election, and not, as some might have it, the Beauty Queen.

Do you think that you'd be relieved right now? Do you think that after 8 years of slogging through hell with people constantly calling you names, questioning your intelligence, loyalty, qualification, grooming habits, that eventually it wouldn't get to you?

Maybe he was able to let things like that wash off him like a duck in a downpour, but I have my doubts. Everyone has doubts. Everyone doubts himself or herself every day. And if you were so arrogant to think that you truly deserved to be president, if you were so thoroughly deranged as to truly believe that God put you in the position that you were in--and not the American electorate, or, as the case may be, the Supreme Court--then you'd almost have to be labeled a megalomaniac and a crazy person. It is only with the utmost humility that anyone should accept the office of President of the United States because nobody is actually qualified for a job like that.

Personally, I think he put up a good front, but you can see how its worn at him. He's gotten old. He's sixty-two. He looks a lot older. In a strange way, it's kind of hard to hate him, for me. I mean, he's such a clown! You can't hate a man who got in over his head. You can be horrified that a monkey has that kind of power, but you can't hate the monkey. And if you do, then maybe you need to think of the mistakes that you might have made. He was--still is--a terrible president, but at the most you can just dislike his politics and bad decision making. Anything else would be irrational.

Things are supposedly going to change now. "Yes we can!" is a rallying cry for millions of Americans, but if you think for one second that, even if the new guy plays everything perfectly, it's not going to hurt, then you're out of your mind. He's going to ask us to tighten our belts. He's going to ask us to make sacrifices. The old guy never did that and The People re-elected him for it. He told us to just keep on as if nothing ever happened, even though he reminded us every five minutes. And The People didn't really get it until a couple years ago.

"Ask not...etc."

If shit gets tough, are you going to be responsible for voting him out for the beauty queen in 2012? If the new guy means you won't be able to buy the plumbing company you work for, are you going to feel slighted? If you are asked by the President of the United States of America not to buy that new TV or SUV, are you going to listen? Maybe it depends on how he phrases it.

He hinted at some of this in his acceptance speech. But they were just hints.

It's going to be a very interesting four years.

My Former Governor Can Beat You Up

2008-10-17T01:55:00.007-05:00

I live in Minnesota, as you might be able to surmise from my profile. The above portrait is the official portrait of Former Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Every governor of Minnesota (with the exception of the current incumbent--maybe they just haven't gotten around to putting Pawlenty's retarded mug on a canvas yet--maybe he's too busy being an asshole to sit in front of an artist for a few hours--back in 2005, he vetoed a bill that would have established a poet laureate position for Minnesota) has one of these. At the end of the post is the official portrait of Fmr Governor Arne Carlson for comparison.

There are many things that are remarkable about the above painting (especially when juxtaposed with the banality of ol' Arne). But let me point out a few. Firstly, look at how he's dressed. The tie with the stars and stripes. The pins might mean something, but I'm not sure what. He's holding a cigar.

He's not looking at the viewer. His eyes are fixed on some point ahead. Some point above. He's looking maybe to the future. His expression is stern, composed, thoughtful.

But let's look closer. His right hand rests on the shoulder of Le Penseur, The Thinker. This calls up memories of his adopted moniker, "The Mind." But since The Thinker sits behind, there is a suggestion that he is pushing it back. That he stands ahead of, and perhaps is superior to, mere thought. He's done thinking. He's a man of action.

Look at the horrifying landscape that spreads out behind him. The roiling clouds. The capitol building overgrown in the forest. Is that an aqueduct? What can it all mean?

It is my contention that this painting is proof positive that Jesse Ventura was, not only a theatrical sort, but also a highly insightful person. And he had balls. Arne? Look at this pandering laugh factory. He looks like he's trying to actually "be" Minnesota. Jesse is trying to be something more.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything. All I can say is, though Ventura did some incredibly unproductive things with his all-too brief tenure as my governor, he did some very good things as well, and goddammit, he did it with some fucking style.

I just wish politics was fun again...

Brake Lines Fail

2008-06-03T14:37:00.006-05:00

I'm going to be serious for five minutes. I have a story to tell you.

I'm currently looking for a job. My situation is so desperate, that I absolutely needed to go out and turn in some job apps today. I'm trying to get in shape, so I took my bike. Okay, I probably would have used my car today, since it's raining, but my car is obstinately trying to scare me into letting it retire. A wish, I'm this close to granting.

I ran around, did all my errands, bought some new ear buds at K-Mart, and then was on my way home in all this rain, out of breath from fighting a fairly brisk head-wind.

I was passing a car dealership when I saw an SUV (don't ask me what make and model, I honestly don't care) pulling up to the main drag and getting ready to enter traffic.

Here is roughly the logic that went through my head. Bear in mind that the decision was made in less than a second: SUV coming up. Driver probably sees me. It's raining so it'll let me continue on before it merges. It can't merge anyway because there's a lot of traffic. I'll keep going.

I made one crucial tactical error. I forgot that people in SUVs (and probably cars in general) don't see bikes. They have a mental block about them because bikes make them feel bad--rampant speculation...my apologies.

Regardless of why the driver didn't see me, the fact remains that I was utterly invisible. It became more and more obvious that the SUV was not going to stop and by the time I was directly in front of it, the bumper had made contact with my lower leg and the hood had made contact with my shoulder.

Somehow, I ended up on my feet in the middle the road with my bike at my feet. My first move was a quick assessment of injuries: slight soreness. Maybe an abrasion. I can walk. I can probably ride. Next move: grab bike and get on the sidewalk.

I looked at the bumper. Utterly undamaged. My bike was fine as well.

My new earbuds were in and I was listening to The Pillows. So as the lady in the SUV was rolling down her window, I couldn't hear a word she was saying. I just said, "I'm cool. I'm fine. It's cool." I kept repeating words like that while I ran back out into the street to get the saddle bag that had come off my bike's rack.

As I was reattaching said saddle bag, I looked back at her. I studied her for a split second. Pretty gal. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Perm. Dwarfed by her obviously brand new SUV. I like to think that this was the first time she'd ever driven it--she was, after all, driving it out of the parking lot of a car dealership.

She said something. I didn't hear it over my music and the rain hitting the hood of my windbreaker. I thought for a second and decided it was okay to poke a little fun. I said, "No, it's fine. It's not a big deal. I was just hit by an SUV, that's all."

She made a girl pout. One of those carefully calculated facial gestures that are designed to make you feel bad for them. I was just about ready to take off again, and I turned back to her and said, "By the way, you should probably get a more fuel-efficient vehicle."

And then I jumped on my pedals and didn't look back.

I don't know her side of the story. All I can do is speculate.

Like I said, if this was her first time driving the SUV, that could have some serious ramifications for her future driving habits. What was a woman like this purchasing one for anyway? Doesn't she know about peak oil? Maybe it doesn't matter.

I hope, in my heart of hearts, that she was offended by what I said. Hitting a human with a car is one of the most stressful things a person can go through. And then to have that human, sodden, riding a bike, out of breath, possibly seriously injured, lambaste you for owning an SUV. That's gotta be something.

Maybe I did sustain injuries and tomorrow I will feel them. But for now I feel fine. But she doesn't know that. She'll always wonder if I was seriously hurt. She'll feel guilty. Maybe she'll change her ways.

I hope not. I hope she gets pissed off at me and decides to waste even more oil. "How dare he make me feel bad about my spending habits?" Something like that. It would be way more poetic. I giver her my personal permission to keep on polluting as my way of apologizing for making her feel bad about herself.

Part of me really wants to know her side of the story. If only for completeness sake. But for my purposes, this will have to be enough. Good luck, lady. I hope you survive the apocalypse.

The Main Event

2008-05-29T20:05:00.004-05:00

I'm not exactly sure what the criteria are that define a city. The place I live is apparently a city. It has a population within "city" limits of about 12,000 frustrated souls.

Today, I accidentally attended a back-patting party for all the big wigs of town. There were free hot dogs and Dilly Bars ™. The president of the university, the mayor, and our local representative for the state council, along with their respective spouses and supporters. All told, there were about fifty people stuffing their faces with meat and milk byproducts. It was a glorious affair.

What were they patting themselves on the back about? This. My "city" is planning on building an event center at incredible expense.

I think it's a great idea.

Why? Because what better time is there to build an event center? Think of it. We're spending millions of dollars during a slumping economy, as gas prices, material costs, and unemployment all skyrocket--I myself am currently unemployed...and apparently unemployable. I think it's great that the city is so willing to throw money into a bonfire for democracy.

What is the center good for? Well, we get to keep our Division 1 hockey team at the University. Huzzah! A dozen semi-retarded, toothless jocks get to keep wasting valuable resources for a sport. I'm for that. For obvious reasons.

The place is also supposed to be a sort of venue for all sorts of other stuff...conventions and the like. Yeah, of course. Ducks Unlimited is going to go apeshit over this. Concerts maybe, too. Only it's not going to happen. They've managed to convince people that this is a good idea because it will bring revenue to the city. This coming from the same people who thought that Wal-Mart would revitalize the downtown area. I am so in awe of the brilliant tactics that our city's officials have used in order to bleed us dry and send us to bankrupt land.

The beautiful part of it all is, the university gets to keep its hockey team and they get to play at the event center, and they are stuck with none of the responsibility for paying for the damned thing when the whole plan falls apart. It's pure genius.

It's going to cost way more than projected (because material costs are not fixed and are only going to go up as gas prices do) and it's going to make way less than projected. It's interesting that this thing is supposed to attract people to come to the city for various events. But as gas prices continue to rise (and they will continue to rise), people will be less and less inclined to come to this facility for anything but the most important events. Maybe a championship game...but that's about it.

The rhetoric about it is really super, too. It's about our "heritage" and "future" and such nonsense. Their whole campaign is not about logic at all, but at getting people to think that we deserve an event center, and therefore ought to build one.

I wonder if they'll follow my advice and paint a huge mural on the roof of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Bird. A big fuck you, visible on Google Earth.

Remembering Dolores Haze...Or not.

2008-02-04T15:28:00.000-06:00

The image is of Peter Sellers from the 1962 Kubrick film, Lolita. I show you the magnificent Sellers merely as a visual aide that has only a passing relevance to the discussion that that is about to commence.

It seems like far too often that I write about some article that I found on Reuters. However, their "Oddly Enough" section seems to find some real winner stories. I found this shocking story the other day.

My first instinct was to laugh. Indeed, I did. But then I got to thinking. How is it that people don't know about things like Lolita? The book or the movie? How did not one person at the furniture manufacturer, or the outlet remain ignorant throughout their entire adult life of the story of Humbert Humbert and his paramour?

It's one of the single most controversial books of all time!

Culture being what it is is a pretty localized thing. I mean, people can go through their lives, here and there, and never touch anything but certain isolated bubbles of culture. These guys had to look it up on Wikipedia!

I guess it makes sense in a certain light. I have students who are completely ignorant of the existence of Oscar Wilde, his exploits, and even his most famous plays. Perhaps I'm the one who's culturally aberrant. Most of the people with whom I associate are more than usually well-educated, either college or self-taught. It didn't occur to me what a small collective of people are actually educated. If something like Lolita can slip through the cracks for so many people, then it must be the case that they haven't heard of a very good deal of other literature. And I suppose the Kubrick film is old enough that they may not have seen it. However, how could they have never heard of Kubrick? I mean, Eyes Wide Shut isn't that old, and that was pretty controversial.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it boggles my mind, and yet perhaps the reason that my confusion--indeed, my incredulity--is so extreme, is that I've realized that I am so shocked. I should know by now that most people don't enjoy art for art's sake. People don't openly seek literature. People watch movies because they're easy, not because they're hard. And Lolita is not an easy film.

There's really nothing that we can do about this, certainly. Perhaps there isn't anything that we ought to do, even. At any rate, the will of the people have spoken. As far as most people are concerned, Nabokov might as well never have existed. I for one, am glad he did.

Where did all the Whoppers go?

2008-01-29T15:01:00.000-06:00

Dear friends and readers, I just had a disturbing realization. The Burger King corporation has brought some very frightening information to light. As it turns out, if the Whopper were ever to be removed from the Burger King menu, it would cause such a disturbance, that the backlash would very likely tear America apart.

The Whopper Freakout, in much the same way that the Emergency Broadcast System protects us from natural disasters and nuclear bombs, has alerted us to the very real threat of running out of Whoppers.

Someone needs to do something as soon as possible to prevent a real shortage of Whoppers. I think the government needs to step in and do something. Emergency Whopper Legislation (EWL) is quickly becoming necessary. If something isn't done soon, Burger King, being the anarchic America-haters they are, might do something drastic.

I don't know if you saw it in the subtext of the add, but the Whopper Freakout is a threat. They're using the American dependence on the Whopper as leverage in some sort of bid for power, maybe in an attempt to topple the Big Mac from its reign as most popular burger ever.

So you, sitting in your desk chair, reading this post, need to go to Wikipedia, look up the ingredients for a Whopper. That done, you can make these sandwiches at home and release America from Burger King's stranglehold on our stomachs.

Let's see...um...meat, a bun, lettuce, tomato, mayo, ketchup, pickles...onion...what the fuck? This is just a fucking hamburger! There's nothing special about this damned thing at all! Fuck this! This won't stand!

Make your own damned hamburgers America!

And that done, once we all learn how to cook a fucking hamburger again, we need to carefully lobby the United States Government to take the Whopper trademark away from BK Corporation and release the patent to ALL fastfood restaurants, so that any earth-shattering Whopper shortages will never happen again.

Oh god...I can't even do this anymore. This is stupid. The Whopper Freakout is the most fucking retarded ad campaign since the Order of the Serpentine. Grow the fuck up America.

Weekend at Bernies sucked

2008-01-22T15:17:00.000-06:00

I didn't have an appropriate image for this post, so I just decided to go with Conan. He's a good fall-back plan if there's nothing better to use.

That said, I want to talk about this. I've always thought that the film Weekend at Bernie's was a fucking terrible movie. That is, however, until I realized, that there actually are people in this world stupid enough to try and pass a corpse off as a living person.

I was trying to think of what sort of a situation I would need to be in to pull a stunt like this. It would probably have to be more than a $355 check. Maybe $10,000? A cool million, certainly. Are criminal charges worth it? Okay, so these two yokels tried to commit fraud, but hey, the guy was dead. Who's the victim? The government? Nobody cares about the government except the government.

Okay, I just re-read the article, and I realized that I might have misinterpreted the text. I have this image now in my brain of these two oldsters pushing their dead friend around in an office chair with wheels. Something gaudy and covered in leather. At first I assumed that they would use a wheelchair. I mean, that's just obvious.

I mean...I would use a wheelchair. But that's just me.

Looking at it from these guys perspective, I guess I can't really hold it against them. They probably needed the money, or they wouldn't have pulled this stunt for such a small amount of money. People can be pushed to resort to pretty extreme measures when the need is there.

Another question: Why did these two guys even have the corpse? Were they roomies? Had the death not even been reported? Wouldn't the old folks' home keep tabs on that shit?

I guess there's not enough info in the Reuter's story to really put together what actually happened, but there's more than enough information to make up your own stories about what actually happened.

I'm open to interpretations. An award goes to the person who comes up with the best interpretation. Leave all suggestions in the comments section.

Bushisms

2007-10-29T17:20:00.000-05:00

People have made fun of Bush for nearly a decade for his inarticulate speech and lack of diction. I'm sure somebody has addressed the issue of why he is the way he is, but I haven't seen it.

18th century rhetorical theorist Hugh Blair says, "Speech is the great instrument by which man becomes beneficial to man: and it is to this intercourse and transmission of thought, by means of speech, that we are chiefly indebted for the improvement of thought itself."

He's saying that speech and the ability to use it to take a thought from my head and put it in your head is responsible for nearly all advances in everything from culture, to science, to technology. But more fundamentally, the ability of reason itself stems from our ability to transmit thoughts and ideas, not just to each other, our contemporaries, but to people who will come later.

It is the fact that we have all of this combined knowledge from all of those people who lived before us that we are able to do all of the things that we are able to do today. Communication is the key, in other words, to everything.

So, where do bad communicators come from? How come there are so many today? I'm talking about boring, uninspiring speakers who don't give people anything useful. Bush, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, uh...Paul, etc etc. They are terrible speakers who give their hearers nothing but canned stump speeches that have been tested before focus groups, and pushed forcefully through speech writing mills, basically, in an effort to--in their mind--distill the essence of whatever truth it is that they are trying to transmit.

Whether you believe that Bush is deliberately trying to pull the wool over the eyes of America is beside the point here. Whether Bush is deliberately playing dumb to appeal to dumb people, is not on the chopping block for this particular tirade. What's really important is the fact that Bush is boring. The only emotions he can inspire in the people of America are fear and anger. And he's losing the knack for the former.

But why?

A poll during one of the past elections (I can't remember which one, nor do I care) revealed that Bush Jr. was the candidate that the electorate would most like to sit down and have a beer with. The Onion parodied this very nicely back in 2005. The article smacks of truth. The perception that Bush is "just like me," is what got the fucker elected in the first place. Right?

Now, why in all of the universe, would you want a president who was just like you? Think about it. Look at yourself. You're flawed. You've got problems. You make mistakes. You're not as smart, attractive, ambitious, talented, friendly, or decent as you wish you were. You're not as good a Christian as you think you should be. You're not as hard a worker as the guy in the next cubicle. Bush is not those things too! In fact, in all reality, you are probably smarter, more attractive, more talented, much more friendly...though probably not more ambitious, than our current commander in chief.

So why is this? Why elect this guy?

I think I have a theory, and it's about who the president is trying to appeal to. It's not the whole story, but it's part of it. The reason the founders of this country were so eloquent has everything to do with the fact that they were a) all educated and b) only hung out with a bunch of other people who were very educated. They didn't hang out with people who were "just like me." They never had to deal with people like us. They never had to appeal to us. Just the opposite, in fact. They constantly had to make sure that their proverbial asses were covered--logically speaking. These people would tear you a new one if you weren't completely sure of what you were talking about. These people were all well versed in the art of rhetoric. They knew how to persuade intelligent people. If you can persuade a smart person, then the rest of the country, the cattle, are easy.

Today, partly because nobody has an attention span long enough to listen to an entire speech--and for this reason, I'm reasonably certain that no one will read this entire post--and partly because these candidates have to appeal to the masses, the stupid, moronic, uneducated masses, there is a unilateral lowering of the bar to meet that standard.

If you use a word like "defenestrate," as in "I would like to defenestrate the president," nobody will know what you're talking about. But if you say, "I would like to throw the president out of a window," then people will understand you. The diction is lower, even if the meaning is the same.

People are stupid, and our politicians are getting stupider to reflect that fact. And it's all your fault. Shame on you.

Venn Diagram

2007-10-28T23:22:00.000-05:00

I never wanted it to go this far. I missed Countdown last Friday. But I found this. Now, maybe it's time to get angry, take up the political pen. It's downright frightening what this man is capable of. O'Relly, I mean.

One of my favorite articles by the infamous Maddox was this one. The title of the article says it all. Now, I don't think that Maddox is particularly great. I think his work is a little mis-directed, petty, and, while it all has excellent grammar, it isn't particularly insightful. He doesn't use his power for good, is what I'm saying. He's also devastatingly misogynistic. But to make the claim that Bill O'Reilly is a "big blubbering vagina," and have nearly two million people read it, is impressive to say the least.

The problem is that I think Maddox might actually be wrong. Papa Bear is not just a big blubbering vagina, he's a fucking monster. He calls J.K. Rowling a provocateur. Isn't this a case of the proverbial pot calling the proverbial kettle.... a provocateur?

Rowling, in the course of answering a casual question with a casual answer, "I always thought of Dumbledore as gay," has suddenly created a scandal. Now, in England, this is no big deal. No one probably cared. If they did, they'd be laughed at.

The bottom line is, Bill O'Reilly actually thinks--insofar as he thinks at all--that being tolerant of homosexuality is undesirable in America. Yeah. Seriously. He thinks that.

Dear readers, and friends, and anyone out there in cyberspace who enjoys a good laugh, some gentle satire, or, heaven forbid, the occasional act of sodomy, we need to do something about this. Now, the news directors at Fox News have distanced themselves from Bill O'Reilly, but he still has the ears of millions of Americans. When you have someone out there, who doesn't want to play nice, someone who is just downright mean, that person needs to be dealt with.

A boycott won't work--because anyone who would boycott that bastard already is. Murder is unethical--I repeat, don't kill him, we need him so we can study him. But there's gotta be something we can do.

Leave all suggestions in the comments section. I'm serious. He must be stopped.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Vindicated

2007-10-22T15:33:00.000-05:00

The image, stolen from Wikipedia is of one Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. He was a naturalist in the 19th century and was one of the earliest proponents of evolution. The difference between his theory and Darwin's was the idea of when changes or adaptations occurred. Lamarck believed that changes occurring during the life time of a given animal would be passed on to it's young. So basically, if you're a giraffe, and you're constantly stretching your neck to get at higher leaves, then your children will have longer necks because your neck got infinitesimally longer throughout your life.

It turns out that Lamarck wasn't totally wrong. He was just not right in the way he thought.

Nova is the single best science show in the history of mankind. I got into an argument with a friend the other day about the idea of epigenetics. He had never heard of it, though I had just watched Nova's new documentary, Ghost in Your Genes.

Here's the deal. DNA is the blueprint for an organism. That much is certain. But there has to be a mechanism built into our cells that interprets that DNA and decides which bits of it to use. This mechanism is what's responsible for things like cell differentiation. It's why eye cells are different from heart cells are different from liver cells. Different bits of the DNA are turned on in each different type of tissue in your body. Basically, if the DNA--the genome--is the blueprint, then methylation and chromatin remodelling--the epigenome (literally "above the genome")--is the architect that interprets it.

Okay, but the crazy thing is that, as it turns out, some of these epigenetic features--sometimes those acquired during your lifetime--appear to be transgenerational. That is: they are passed down from one generation to the next. Your bad eating habits, in other words, could affect whether your grandchild gets diabetes.

Yeah. Fucked up.

DNA is largely static. It doesn't change much. It is very, very good at duplicating itself with near impossible accuracy. But it appears that natural selection has a place for nurture. It's like a quicker version of evolution. It's evolution on the fly that happens in the short term (short meaning hundreds of years rather than thousands or millions). It won't make new species, but it will change the way species are affected by their environment.

There's a lot of really interesting research into this stuff, and you'd be hard pressed to find a more frantically researched aspect of genetics in this day and age. I mean, a few years ago, when they were scrambling to finish up the Human Genome Project, they thought that they were inches from the key to understanding everything. They were wrong, of course.

It seems like the deeper you burrow down the rabbit hole, the deeper it appears to be.

About the Election Bug

2007-10-10T17:56:00.000-05:00

This is not a political blog.

I repeat: this is not a political blog.

That said, I'm planning on voting for Dennis Kucinich in the primaries. The reasons are varied, but most of them involve Obama being a pussy, Clinton being a...wussy, and everyone else being a cock biter.

Kucinich is not only the only candidate in the entire election who doesn't appear to base his stances on focus groups, but instead has the policy and voting record of..well...a person who isn't a fascist. He didn't vote for the Patriot Act. He wants to pull out of Iraq. That sort of thing. I don't like his stance on guns, but then, nobody's perfect.

But mostly, I want to vote for him, because he looks so damned much like a Vulcan.

Edit: I just googled "Kucinich is a Vulcan." Apparently, I'm not the first to make this observation. My favorite thing that I read was, "I just don't think America is ready for a Vulcan president."

Classic.

I'll have some humiliation with that.

2007-10-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

The legal ramifications of using a Trademarked logo in an amateur blog notwithstanding, I want to talk today about McDonald's. Well, McDonald's and sex.

I don't know if you've heard about this, but it's a real doozy. The fact that the event--or events--has a Wikipedia page is telling. I mean, this is not small news.

And there are two very interesting things about the whole event. First of all, it is a smashing real-life reproduction of the Milgram Experiment. Basically, these store manager's have been duped into believing that whoever was on the other end of the line was an authority figure. I'm reiterating a lot of what was in the Wikipedia article, I know, but it's amzing that these morons let it go this far. Again, "Foot-in-the-door" effect notwithstanding, this is absurd! Not once, did the manager think anything that the caller requested was completely out of the realm of possibility for police procedure. Right down to forcing the poor girl to perform oral sex.

There are several layers of percieved authority here. First, there's the manager who doesn't question the guy on the phone--I wonder if it was on speaker phone--and then there was the girl who didn't question her manager, the guy who was fucking her face.

This is one of the hugest problems with modern society's obsessive need to be controlled. I don't know if I should be pissed off at the manager or the instigator for doing the things that they did, or the girl and the manager for allowing them to fucking do it. It's absurd.

It's a problem with perceived authority, and it's a problem with people who abuse that authority. It's the reason that most people should be mistrustful of cops or anyone who claims authority.

I have to hand it to the caller that he thought it through to the point where fast food restaurants would be his primary targets. Their rigid policy codes and whatnot makes it really hard for these lackeys--termed "managers"--to deal with anything out of the norm. They are easier to manipulate, not harder.

The other thing that I found remarkable about the whole story is how they caught the fucker. First, an employee dials *69, they find the pay phone that the guy used. The find the serial number of the calling card used. Traced the calling card to the store where it was sold--a Wal-Mart, no less--and then used the video surveillance tapes to find the sonofabitch himself.

How's that for Big Brother, huh? We don't need cameras in our houses, like Orwell thought. We just need them everywhere else.

On the plus side, the girl who was assaulted was awarded 6.1 million dollars for her trouble. Which just goes to prove, that you can still get rich while having your rights trampled and your self-respect shattered.

Superficial Sacrifice

2007-09-04T21:28:00.000-05:00

As you may well know, technology is the illegitimate love child of science and human caprice. We live in an age when technology reigns supreme. Everything we do is steeped in technology in some way or another. We can't even wake up in the morning without some form of high tech gadgetry announcing it. I use my goddamned cellphone as an alarm clock for chrissake.

It always gives me a small sense of satisfaction when something like this pops up in the ether.

This is how truly enlightened people solve their problems. Animal sacrifice. Yes, it's making a comeback. Ever had computer problems? Of course you have. Solve it by slitting a chicken's throat and letting the blood run over your motherboard. That'll solve all of your problems. Once and for all.

Is animal sacrifice even legal in the US? I'm not sure, and I'm not going to bother finding out, because this is way too tantalizing a practice not to embrace. Why take your TV set to a repair shop, when you can cut out the science and go straight for the caprice? It worked for the ancients, why not us?

It's not about being irrational here, folks. It's about saying "Fuck You!" to the established rules of measure. It's about throwing the industrial revolution out the window and saying, I'm going to do this the old fashioned way. I am going to embrace my animalistic, violent tendencies.

Bear in mind, people, that the airline in question is state-run by the Nepalese government. There are engineers and mechanics and crazy Hindu priests all trying to get to the bottom of this 757's failure. All on the tab of the Nepalese taxpayer.

It's like Henry VIII saying, "Fuck you, Pope. I'm starting my own religion. And people will still believe it like four hundred years later." They are literally making shit up to solve a mechanical--easily rationalized and deducted--problem.

Way to go, Nepal. Way to stick it to science. Way to stick it to rationality. It's a bunch of garbage anyway.

Right?

Growing Pains

2007-09-04T17:15:00.000-05:00

Here it is, dear friends and readers. Proof that there is a God. We can rest easy, we can sit back, crack a beer, and look down our noses at everyone who's going to hell, so long as we believe. Just click here.

Here's another chance, in case you didn't click the link. It's really worth it.

Wow. Amazing. You know what's more impressive than Ray's argument? Kirk Cameron, sitting there, staring up at him in wide-eyed admiration.

You know who buys this argument? Kirk Motherfucking Cameron. That's who. Booyaa, bitches.

Kirk's actually been doing this for years, but only now have I taken the time to research his involvement in the big ad campaign in the sky. Kirk and Ray have a website. It's really awesome. That's right, wayofthemaster.com. First, I'd like to point out that it's not a ".org" website. This is a for profit venture, apparently. Now that's all well and good. I'm all about people making money off of other people's insecurities, but these guys are pros! Use a washed up teen idol to sell God! Brilliant!

The website itself is awesome. There's all sorts of good entertainment to be had, and I'm sure you'll all be converted and realize what horrible sinners you've all been and find Jesus, but I want to talk a little bit about the youtube video first.

First of all, let's look at the atheist's worst nightmare: The banana. Yup. You can say it. Holy shit. Yeah, who knew that atheists routinely have horrifying dreams about bananas sending them to hell?

But what's Ray actually saying in the above video clip? He's saying that the banana is an ideal food source almost like it was perfectly designed so we humans could eat it with minimal fuss. It's evidence, he says, of intelligent design. Well, actually Ray is saying it's proof. A crucial distinction. Are we talking about a preponderance of evidence to prove the existence of God? Or are we talking about clinching proof? I'll let you decide that one.

Also, I don't know if you know this, but there's a name for this argument, this intelligent design argument. It's called the Teleological Argument. And it's not new. Kirk is really good at making it seem like this is this new revolutionary idea. But, the first person we know about who put forth a teleological argument was Plato. Who's that you say? Look it up. Yeah, it's that old.

Also, it's pretty convincing. First of all, it can't be disproven easily because it's inductive rather than deductive. Also, it's being pushed by Kirk Cameron, who is so damned earnest.

Here's something else that's cool on wayofthemaster.com. It's a letter from an atheist. Fine, whatever. But I found it under the "Free Tools" tab on the site. But what does this page on the site do? It peddles a book of correspondence between Ray and said atheist. That's fucking amazing!

"Hi kids, I'm Kirk Cameron. I am going to give you something. A tantalizing taste of a battle between the intellectual giants that are Ray Comfort and James The Atheist. But I'm not going to just give you the whole thing. You've gotta pay me money for the whole shebang."

I'm not trying to ridicule Kirk Cameron folks. Far from it. I am lauding the guy as a goddamned genius. Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort--Comfort!--are following in the footsteps of all the great Jesus pushers. They have found a way to get rich off a guy who just wanted people to be nice to each other. Think of Cardinals, Popes, Crusaders, Priests, Televangelists, Ted Haggard, and Fred Phelps. These people are such good Christians that they have found a way to make money off it without besmirching the good name of Jesus Christ. And not only that, they have also managed to lead smashing careers as pederasts, idolaters, homosexuals, and bigots.

It's a sweet deal for those that can swing it, let me tell you. God bless them every one!

He was a fun guy.

2007-08-26T18:35:00.000-05:00

This is my back yard. I am giving you this tantalizing view into my personal life in order to share with you something very special. The centerpiece of this image is an oak tree with a disease. The disease is down low, near the bottom. If you know what that is, then you know how vital and important a discovery it is.

If you don't know what it is, then you're asking me, "What the fuck is that brain thing on your tree, Doctor?"

That, my friends, is sulfur shelf. Laetiporus gilbertsonii. It is a highly coveted and much valued fungus among those in the know.

If you know what sulfur shelf is, then you're saying, "Aww, shit, man. Some dudes have all the luck." Just to piss you off more, I'm giving you a closeup

:

Tomorrow (after it has matured just a titch more) I am going to cut it off my diseased oak tree, I am going to cut the thing up into cubes, throw it into a big sauté pan with some butter, a little salt, and maybe a dash of garlic--not too much or it will overpower the natural goodness of the fungus.

It's called the "Chicken of the Forest." It has a texture similar to chicken and some say even a flavor somewhat like chicken, but this is subjective. Everything tastes like fucking chicken.

Finding sulfur shelf is almost as awesome as finding morels. I don't know if you've ever had morel mushrooms (if you're not from the northwoods, it's unlikely) but they are the most amazing thing that sprouts from rotting vegetation. I cook them in spaghetti sauce, or just fry 'em in butter.

The interesting thing about this whole thing is that the oak tree is, in fact, suffering from an incurable malady. The sulfur shelf fungus has bored deep into the wood of the tree and will bloom once a year into the shelf mushroom you see in the image. It is parasitic in a living tree (though they are often found on dead and rotting wood, where they facilitate the rotting process in a healthy way). This fungus could very well kill this tree in a few more years. Maybe longer. I'm by no means a fungologist. In the meantimme, every year, it will bloom one of these babies, and the inhabitant of the house--ideally me--will receive a tasty treat, well worth the suffering of the tree.

You want to know something else interesting about fungi? I thought you did. You see, the cell walls of most fungi are made of a chitin. Yes, that's right. Chitin. The stuff that forms the carapace of insects.

Fungi were once thought to be just plants with bad attitudes. Hell, most of them are poisonous. In fact, who knows if even the relationship between molds and mushrooms was well understood until fairly recently. No, fungi are not plants.

In fact, genetically, fungi are much closer to animals than plants. Much closer. Creepily close. Remember the chitin thing? Also, the feed on death and decay. Pause for shudder. The fact that some of them are amazingly delicious is beside the point. My oak tree is suffering so that I can have that delicious treat. I should be ashamed of myself. And so should you.

This video says what words cannot express. You can say it. Holy shit.

There goes the neighborhood.

2007-08-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

Dear friends and readers, it is not often that I make mistakes. When I do, I pride myself on being able to do the right thing: act like I planned it all along.

I once made the claim that the coolest possible thing in the universe was the collision of two black holes. I was wrong, but for a very interesting reason. There are... in the universe...these things called Galaxies. I'm sure you've heard of them. In all likelihood, you live in one, or at least vacation in one.

The one I call home is called the Milky Way, named after the popular candy bar.

Far away--about 5 billion light-years....really, really, amazingly, flabbergastingly far away, in other words--four galaxies are currently colliding. Or...were colliding...about...er...5 billion years ago.

Yeah.

Crazy.

You can say it. Don't be ashamed. That's probably the coolest thing that could ever happen. Ever. Four galaxies crashing into each other. Together they are a mass ten times the size of our galaxy. Can you imagine the cataclysm? The carnage?

Imagine if you actually lived in CL0958+4702 about 5 billion years ago. The show would be amazing. Look up into the night sky and see a spectacular, pestilential, cataclysm beyond biblical proportions. Entire galaxies crashing into each other. There isn't a metaphor or analogy strong enough to compare it to because there's no event in all the fucking cosmos that even begins to compare to this spectacle!

The Milky Way crashing into Andromeda, in about 3 billion years or so, will be nothing, a fender-bender, a boring nothingth of a nothing on the Kuha Significance Scale TM. It's a shame, too.

It's exhausting to contemplate. Entire civilizations may have been destroyed. Populated planets decimated. Whole cultures wiped out with no one to mourn their loss.

Well, someone here mourns them. Someone sheds a single tear for all those amazing civilizations that got to die in the most momentous cosmic even in the history of the universe! You know who mourns them? I do, motherfuckers. I do.

It's a Miracle!

2007-08-06T00:06:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy week in the world of science. A new Mars probe has been launched, which ought to clear up some big questions in about 300 days or so. Clearly this will serve a dual purpose. They say that they're trying to find evidence of life on the red planet, but scouting out viable sources of water on the planet would be another good use. Don't know if you've ever read Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. I haven't read it either, but I did read the first page last week and was surprised to find out that the minimum trip that a human from Earth could ever take to Mars would be somewhere in the neighborhood of three years.

The trek itself is like ten months. Then you've got to stay there for about a year for Earth's and Mars's orbits to sync up properly again, and then, of course, there's the return voyage. It'd be rough. You'd really get to know your ship buddies. The psychological turmoil would probably be fairly significance. you'd probably want to screen potential trekkers. Wouldn't want any psychotic episodes.

That would make a good suspense movie, though. A quirky crew of astronauts bound for Mars run into a bit of trouble when one of their own decides to stab someone in the throat with the straw he used for his freeze-dried meals. Messed up. Lots of blood. Can you imagine the scene if someone were to bleed out in zero-G? Holy crap would that be fucked! Just little droplets of blood floating, suspended grotesquely in your cramped little cabin of a spaceship.

In other science news: Parthenogensis! Holy, Mary, Mother of God! Jesus, titty-fucking Christ! And the most famous scandal-fucked Korean scientist of the last year discovered something maybe even cooler--and certainly more controversial--than stem cells. I'm sure you all remember Woo Suk Hwang (You Suck Wang?)

It'll change everything. Men, lock up your wives now, because the technology finally exists for them to reproduce without you! Fucked up, right? Soon, it will be just a matter of taking a "pregnant drug" and women will spontaneously give birth to genetically superior offspring. And without all that tedious mucking about with relationships.

"But Doctor!" all you men say, "Won't that leave us with more time to fish, hunt, and masturbate?"

Shaking my head sadly, I say unto you: once women don't need us to make babies with them, they don't need us at all. We're finished. We will no longer be a necessary half of the species. And if I were womenkind, I would have us eradicated. Women might make the claim that they'd keep us around for slave labor. Don't believe them. It's a trick. They're trying to get you to do slave labor. And we all know how fucking bullshit that is.

I think our only option is a preemptive strike, at the heart of the female empire. Um... someone capture Oprah and find out just where the hell that might be. Make it so!

P.S. You know what would have made the Nativity story cooler? If Mary had had eye lasers and Jesus had been born with all the powers of a Bene Gesserit.

Because I choose to!!!!

2007-08-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, here it is, readers. The final straw. The idea, the conclusion, the bit of logic that will make your brain explode!

Look at him. Go ahead, I know he's just too gorgeous, too cool, and too badass for you to keep your mind clear for what's to come, but take in his vapid, empty, almost Buddha-like countenance. Be certain that Keanu is a Bodhisattva.

I just watched this documentary.

I'm not going to ask you to watch it, because it's kind of long, though it is a very interesting BBC production. Probably one of the best on time travel that I've ever seen.

It's also one of those documentaries that's just a huge cock block. They lead you in, sort of give you a bone, make you think that "Yes! Finally, time travel is fucking possible!" but then it drops you on your nuts with a, "but wait, there's a catch."

Of course, the final catch, according to how the math works, is that if you were to build a time machine, you could never travel back in time to before the time machine itself was built.

Yeah. I know. Fucking bullshit, right?

It's at almost exactly the 40 minute mark that the really interesting stuff comes up in the video. The last possibility for time travel: artificial simulation. I'm not sure if Moore's La w still applies, but it is clear that processor power will continue to increase. Our processors will continue to get smaller--just to give you an idea, the most advance chips are manufactured using a 45nm process, 450 times the diameter of an atom....very, very, very, very tiny--hard drives, RAM, things like that will get faster and more sophisticated. The point is, if trends continue--and right now, there's little reason to believe that they won't--some advanced civilization will be able to create a computer with, in essence, infinite computing power.

With a computer that powerful, you can "time travel" by simply modeling the conditions of a long, long time ago and, in essence, bring the past to you, a-la, the holodeck.

If you modeled a human brain, if you built a computer simulation of a human brain and then ran it at speed, do you realize what you'd create? If you built it from the atomic level up in simulation, do you know what it would be? It would be a conscious mind. It would have an ego. It would be, for all intents and purposes, alive.

You get me?

So here's the clincher. In the documentary, linked above, they talked about the laws of probability. ("If-Then Statement" alert) If the computer of the future is creating these simulated realities, these virtual worlds, if this computer is possible theoretically--and we can be reasonably certain that it is--then the machine most certainly has been built at some point. And if that's true, then the probability of the world you and I live in being the original world, the odds against us living in the "real" world are billions to one.

Yeah.

Let it sink in.

The argument is sound, dear imaginary friends and readers. It's rock solid. The odds of you being real, are very, very tiny.

What does that say about the possibility of the soul? How many layers of artificial reality would you have to claw up through to get to the real real world.

You know what would have made The Matrix a better film? If it turned out that the matrix was just a matrix within a matrix and even the machines were a computer simulation that was subjugating a species that was also just a computer simulation. That would have been the mind fucker of the century. I would have hailed the Wachowski brothers as visionary geniuses.

I know I'm not the first stoner ever to say, "What if, like, the matrix is real? What if, like, we are, just in a computer program?" Even the Wachowski brothers weren't the first to think of it. Descartes probably wasn't even the first.

But did it ever occur to you that it was almost certainly the case? Did it ever occur to you, that you're just an NPC in someone else's ridiculously complex game of The Sims?

It's fucking bullshit, I know.

Here I come to save the day!

2007-08-04T19:22:00.000-05:00

Schizophrenia is the most awesome of all severe mental diseases. That is to say it is awe-inspiring and powerful and mis- understood. There is no other comparable disease.

They say that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the land of crazy people, the schizophrenic is a god.

This is why scientists at Johns Hopkins have decided that other species can benefit from this most holy of brain-crippling diseases. In the past, one might reasonably imagine that schizophrenic people might have been elevated in society. It might have been a desirable characteristic in a shaman or chief or medicine man. The schizophrenic sees things that others don't. He hears things that others don't. He pushes aside the Veil of Maya and makes connections that we only see in our dreams.

I myself have witnessed a schizophrenic acquaintance of mine treated as a shaman type by a hippie chick. She followed him around for hours and hung on his every uttered word. Look at Twelve Monkeys. Pitt's character was a lucid schizo who gathered a following.

"But," you say--O ever astute reader--"Doctor! Schizos are just crazy people! They paranoid, delusional, and insane! They imagine things!" And I say to you, my friends, the schizo is often paranoid and delusional and they are most certainly insane, but no one is so...immaculately insane. Get my drift? It's such a perfect disease. The schizo doesn't necessarily see himself as insane. He has lost his ability to separate the incoming stimuli from the outside world and the world that exists solely in his head. The one becomes transposed over the other creating a mesh, a sort of synthetic world in which miraculous things can happen.

Of course, there's sort of an inverse relationship between a schizo's lucidity and insanity. The more lucid, the less crazy (the less inspirational, but perhaps more charismatic). The less lucid, the more insightful, the less charismatic. A balance must be struck.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Louis Wain. A fascinating figure. An artist who drew nothing but cats. He was famed for his anthropomorphic cat drawings, and also for having "suffered" from late-onset schizophrenia. Here is an interesting progression.

This sort of shows his descent into madness. Bear in mind, this guy only painted pictures of cats. He goes from only vaguely intriguing and perhaps whimsical image of a feline, to.....

oh, kinda weird....

that's pretty.....

um......

Holy fucking psycho-crazy shit, Batman!

It's really quite remarkable. I mean, Wain is the only artist I can think of that actually manages to capture even the slightest hint of what it's like to experience LSD intoxication. This page has higher-res versions of the images, along with biographical info that you might find interesting.

Anyway, what this all goes to show, is that we don't really know anything about schizophrenia or its effects on people. It is clear that some of what the mind sees when inflicted with this disease is akin to what many a hippie experiences when consuming psychedelic drugs. We all know that the shamans of yesteryear (and maybe some still today?) used them for ritualistic purposes. Tribes in Mesoamerica believed that psilocybin mushrooms allowed one to contact the divine.

Perhaps it is more utilitarian...more...useful, to temporarily induce the kind of insanity that schizophrenia is famed for, but that doesn't mean that these scientists aren't trying to create some sort of mouse god-speaker that will lead its people on towards a greater and brighter future for all of mousekind. Maybe, the tree of knowledge is just a mental illness away!

To You, O, Murdoch, We Humbly Pray!

2007-08-02T20:49:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about war lately. I saw this video. I also saw this video. And then I thought about an old movie. And it occurred to me that if we're going to be spending all of this money anyway, why bother with all of this nonsense about sending troops across the ocean?

Wouldn't it be far cheaper to build giant robots and have them duke it out in Death Valley? Two go in; one comes out. It'd be hella entertaining, and almost as much of a resource hog. It would be utterly pointless and absurd, and hell, we'd actually probably spend less money. We could... I don't know, give the leftover money that we would have spent feeding and housing and outfitting, what, 140,000 troops...to the poor or something. That'll shut them the fuck up. How was the Iraq war supposed to help America anyway? I can't figure that out.

Giving the gift of Democracy (which doesn't work so well here, I might add) to Iraqis whose apparently unanimous rebuttal is "Who the hell asked you, anyway?" Can you smell what The Rock's cooking now? Mmm...that's right! That smell is just a little bit of Freedom, bitches!

Whether you like it or not.

Giant robots fighting would give us valuable entertainment--and I think everyone can agree that we deserve at least a little entertainment--and it would cut down on the number of casualties from...umm...let's see...27,000 to... well... between 0 and 1, rounding to the nearest whole number.

I think it's only fair that a living, breathing human would have to be piloting the giant robot. I mean, gladitorial combat would lose all of its fun if there wasn't the possibility of death. We can genetically engineer and specially train these pilots from birth and that's all we'd need them for.

And hell, once this little scheme has solved all of the world's problems, we can start having giant robot fighting leagues. That would be sweet. It might even me a new Olympic event!

And speaking of that, what's with all these pussies saying that athletes shouldn't use performance enhancing drugs? I mean, wouldn't sports in general be more interesting if everyone across the board were juicers? Let's require steroids and crystal meth and...I don't know...crack or something. I think if there's enough money pumped into it, we'll see safer and more effective stimulants and 'roids to make our athletes better and better.

Besides, sports are boring as they are. If we kicked everything up a notch, maybe we'll see some crazy shit new records for...I don't know...the hundred meter dash and home-runs and most touchdowns in an inning or something.

It'll be a brave new world of athletics and warfare. Instead of just televising wars, let's make wars into the entertainment event of the summer! Time it for sweeps, and then totally bank. I bet Rupert Murdoch, in all of his crotchety Australian glory would agree.

Do you really think we can trust the Decepticons?

2007-06-12T17:54:00.000-05:00

With the release of the new Transformer's movie just a scant 485 hours away, I recently acquired a copy of the original 1986 film.

From the cheesy retro 80's soundtrack to the star-studded cast (Leonard Nimoy, Orson Wells, Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, to name a few) to the fairly interesting retelling of the old King Arthur tale, there is a lot to like in the old film.

It's brutal, first of all. Optimus Prime and Starscream totally get killed. Ultramagnus almost bites it, and well...let's not even talk about the strange death that Unicron endured. Not even sure how that was supposed to have happened...I mean... is the matrix technological? Or magical? Or what? What the hell is it?

But that aside, there's an interesting thing about the movie that I think is very daring on the part of...well...whoever the hell it was that made the movie. It's going to take a bit to explain, but if you'll bear with me, the payoff is exceptional, especially if you're a fan of science and speculative science fiction, like I am.

Okay. What are the transformers? Giant robots from outer space, right? When they came to Earth (in the TV show), perhaps thinking that the dominant form of life on the planet was the automobile (which is understandable), they assimilated the designs of Earth vehicles as a way of blending in.

Of course, the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime takes on the form of that king of cross-country transit, almost a symbol of capitalism itself, the eighteen wheel semi truck. And the quirky youngster takes on the form of a Volkswagen Beetle (whoa...newsflash...while writing this post, I have discovered that I was wrong to lambaste the makers of this new movie for making Bumblebee into a Camaro...apparently, it's VW itself that didn't want to lend its image to a film that portrays violence--my sincerest apologies to Universal Studios, and shame, shame on you, Volkswagen).

Anyway, before I get sidetracked any further in this analysis, let's do the dirty business.

Okay, so there's a planet called Cybertron where all of these giant robots live. It is a planet which has evolved sentient robots. Inorganic creatures which are self-aware. This is absolutely critical.

In his book, The Blind Watchmaker, Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins (of some degree of infamy) discussed the possibility (indeed, the probability) that DNA (that is, deoxyribonucleic acid) is not the first self-replicating molecule, and, perhaps more importantly, nor is it going to be the last. It just happens to be the one that appeared on Earth.

It is unlikely that machines can be created except by another being. They are not inherently self-aware. Some sort of catalyst organic being would be required before such a thing could come about (in most likelyhood---I'm not willing, at this point, to rule out the possibility completely that the Autobots could have evolved by chance). The important thing to consider is the possibility that the transformers in their highly evolved state are possibly the creations (perhaps a reincarnation) of another organic species that created them in the first place. --As a sidenote: wouldn't it be interesting to have a creation myth that revolved around beings less evolved than yourself?

The staggering thing is, upon watching the old Transformers movie (a film I have not seen since I was a very young child, and never had the opportunity to own myself), is that Earth appears to be the only planet that actually has organic lifeforms. All other planets (Cybertron, Junkion, Quintessa, etc) appear to support, not only exclusively mechanical "life-forms" but are also made entirely of heavy metals themselves. No organics anywhere (I think Quintessa might actually have some plants...but I can't remember exactly). Perhaps if life is to evolve on a planet with little carbon, concessions need to be made. Or perhaps some dominant organic life created some sort of horrible environmental catastrophe that stripped the planets of their atmospheres and made organic life unsustainable. Who knows?

Hell, on Quintessa, Hotrod and Kup were beset by goddamned robotic piranhas! The plausibility of robotic (non-self-aware) piranhas evolving by chance seems a little thin, but that doesn't matter. Nature abhors a vacuum right? So somebody had to fill an ecological niche. Why not a robotic piranha?

The thing we are seeing with the transformers is not a genetic legacy, but a memetic one. Look it up. Since obviously, Autobots don't have DNA, there must be some other thing being passed down by generation. Again, we look to Richard Dawkins and the "meme."

Videodrome, a film by David Cronenberg, also features a meme. It's hard to make the case that the entity that is "videodrome" is self-aware, but it certainly is a non-material (non-organic) entity that self-replicates. (Whether Max Renn's death also signaled the destruction of videodrome is beyond the scope of this little essay).

The Matrix also comes to mind, obviously with a decidedly more deliberate agenda (i.e. the endless repetition of sophomoric and highly idiotic elementary philosophical ideas about free will and what-have-you), but the idea is still intact in the The Matrix trilogy. I wonder if it's coincidental that the Wachowski epic is named very similarly to the central plot device in Transformers: The Movie (1986).

Whether this discussion has any real relevance or point is entirely up to you, dear reader. I am merely drawing connections and building a plausible framework for further analysis. The important thing is that you learned something. Now, watch this video. I think it sums things up nicely.

If only we'd listened to James Cameron! This never would have happened!

2007-05-11T23:32:00.000-05:00

Bear with me, gentle readers. This is...unprecedented I know, but I thought I needed to warn you. It is only on matters of utmost urgency that I would ever post more than is strictly necessary to maintain the ruse that "Yeah, sure, I keep a little blog on that internet thing."

So rest assured that two posts in one day is the result of very terrible news that has just been sent across my desk.

But this could be the end of existence as we know it! And you my dear friends needed to be the first to know.

How closely did you read the article? Did you read the part where it said, "They are now sending voice, images and other data over the Skynet 5A platform."

I repeat: "Skynet 5A platform."

Yes, my friends, Judgement Day is coming. And that, right soon. Stock your basements, hole up in your bomb shelters, and do not use the internet more than is strictly necessary. Skynet is a devious machination that will infect your computer without you even knowing it. I suspect Japan will be the first to suffer, because there, everything is computerized, even their goddamned toilets.

Imagine it, because it could happen to you: Sitting on the can, reading a Nancy Drew mystery while you relax all of your muscles. A malicious computer virus infects your high tech toillette, and, with a monstrous schlupping sound, an oozing disturbing sense of loss comes over you as your bowels are sucked right out your asshole!

It will happen! Mark my words! Be afraid, America! Be afraid even to poop!

Contractual Obligation

2007-05-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

I don't know if it's me or if it's Reuters that has a problem with this, but clearly something must be done. It has to be stopped.

You see, this sort of thing wouldn't have happened, even as little as thirty years ago. People knew who their neighbors were and what they were up to.

Okay, maybe in some of the bigger cities, sure, people were detached a little bit, even perhaps from some of their immediate neighbors.

But allow me to show an example: I live in a house that has been split into two apartments. My neighbors live a scant three feet across a shared hall and stairway that leads to the basement (which is also split in two; half for each of us). I've lived here for two years. I don't know their names. I think one of them is Tim.

If Tim died I would not know it, unless he stunk up the place.

I think our problem is not an obsession with death. The story is fascinating because it proves, like the other ones I've cited in the past(here and here and especially here), that we don't know each other anymore. People don't make friends with everyone anymore. We don't need to anymore, maybe.

People get left out. I'm not even completely sure it's sad. Sure, in most cases it ends like the above story. But there are times when it leads the Chos of the world. Those are the times when even Baron fucking Samedi can't keep his sense of humor.

It's not like I care, but that's the point, right? For me, the Reuters story is a joke. It's funny. It's an "Oddly Enough" item.

I'm not trying to be meaningful, dear readers. Far be it from me to try to make an important point about anything. I just thought that, facts being what they were, it's something we might conceivably think about a bit. If the source of the societal disconnect can be located, then perhaps it can be expunged, deleted, corrected. We can slash it with white-out and maybe be a real civilization again. Or maybe we never were.

Oscar Wilde said this about America: "America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization." That does not in any way imply that there are any civilizations left in the world. In fact, one might argue that the human race is uniformly decadent and depraved. In fact, I think the quote implies that all civilizations, no matter how great, become decadent after a while. I would make the argument that any country that has even a single McDonalds qualifies for decadent status.

The point is not what or who is to blame, because everyone who doesn't say "hello" to their neighbors is to blame. Everyone who doesn't attend block parties (or indeed hold them) is to blame. Anyone who doesn't know the name of the guy who lives three feet from his fucking door is to blame.

The point, dear friends an readers, is that we don't give enough of a shit about it to actually do something about it. And if that's the way we like it, well, may good old Samedi dance on our graves. Man, he's a sharp motherfucker.

Sweet Action

2007-05-07T16:34:00.000-05:00

Let's face it, pandas are cute. In fact, there's absolutely nothing about pandas that isn't disgustingly cute, or frighteningly tragic. I mean, they're peaceful, non-violent, adorable with their painted faces and chubby good looks, and, of course, endangered.

So it's no wonder that when something good happens to them, people get all excited. When I saw the headline, I thought that some crazy manic panda orgy had occurred. I was a little disappointed (as I always am) by what actually happened. As it turns out, Bai Yun and Gao Gao just had some sort of panda love affair.

In the end, it didn't really work out and they went their separate ways. I suspect that Bai Yun got a little clingy. She's an older gal, you know. The fact that she likes them young is telling. Gao Gao was only in it for the lesson, you know? You can learn a lot from an older girl, right? But after a while, the other pandas start to look at you funny.

I'm not sure if you know this, but Ben Franklin (yes, that Ben Franklin) wrote in one of his books that when you want to take on a mistress, it's a good practice to go with an older woman. There's no guilt. They're better conversation. And among other reasons, "they're so grateful!"

But eventually, there's a time to move on. I don't really think that Gao Gao had anything better coming along (I mean, he lives in a zoo, for chrissake) but three carefully documented fucks are better than getting nothing, right?

I wonder if they videotaped it. I mean...I would, but then, I'm a man of science and medicine, endlessly fascinated by the the intricacies of nature in all of its splendor. But on top of that, everyone likes panda porn. It's so rare that it can't not be totally hot, right?

I just like how the zoologists, in trying to do their job, have to be perverts. They have to voyeuristically document and watch these pandas through their whole mating ritual. It was probably like watching a modern romantic comedy, only much better scripted, funnier, and with all the naughty bits left in. Oh, and it has more of a sense of closure, because we get to see the whole relationship arc, from first flirtations to the dissolution of the relationship as they go their separate ways, agreeing to "just be friends." And we all know how that usually goes.

The real tragedy is the kids. Gao Gao Jr. is going to be manipulated by his bickering parents. In the court custody battle, Gao Gao Sr. says to the judge, "Bai Yun has been telling my son that I'm a deadbeat. How am I supposed to have a meaningful relationship with my son, with that bitch trash talking me?"

In the end, Gao Gao Sr. gets Junior every other weekend, and Bai Yun gets the rest. So it goes.

Extinction by Choice

2007-04-30T13:07:00.000-05:00

I found this article on BBC today. "Lonesome George" is, according to the subtext of the article, more than likely the last Pinta Tortoise that will ever walk the earth.

The reason for this is astounding. Apparently, this octogenarian reptile is a homosexual.

If you didn't click the link and read the article, go ahead and do it now. I'll wait.

It's interesting because there hasn't been a female Pinta Tortoise for probably going on fifty years, if not more. Whalers used to eat them because they were easier to catch. Not that tortoises are hard to catch; it's just that some of them spend more time on the beach.

The fact of the matter is, when you've never really met very many females of your species, your sexuality gets a little messed up. According to genetic testing, they've found a hybrid of George's species and some other tortoise.

Apparently, there's another Pinta that, instead of going all homosexual, has decided to jump the species gap and bang anything that has a shell, creating some sort of unholy union. Apparently, the centuries old feud between the Isabela and the Pinta tortoises has been put on hold, while some youngsters went off on their own to consummate their illicit love and conceive some sort of tortoise anti-christ.

I can just see a screenplay about this. It will be like Romeo and Juliet. Romeo's homosexual grandfather says that he can't be chasing that hot Isabela Tortoise tail because they are from a different species and everyone knows that you don't boff another species.

This can only end in tragedy, of course. As pressure from both families forces the two young tortoise lovers to commit hari kari in protest of their parents' cruel decision. The real tragedy of course, is that the young hybrid tortoise won't be able to find a real home. No one wants a half-breed.

Or maybe this play could have one of those hopeful endings, where it is the crystal clear honesty of the young child's voice that shows the two factions their shame and brings everyone together in a real hallmark, freeze frame ending.

As the credits roll, we are informed that six months after these events took place, the young hero was captured and eaten by a rampaging horde of whalers, the tentative truce between the Pintas and the Isabelas is demolished and a bloody war raged for, well, about half an hour, while the Isabelas lynched Lonesome George, the last representative of his species.

It's a hate crime on so many levels.

Soon enough, without the competition, the Isabelas grow soft and weak, and eat all available resources and there is mass starvation.

In the end, it's always the same. Their brains will be scanned and kept in computer simulation, and their DNA stored in a test tube, just waiting for the day that the tortoises will return and take their rightful place among the reptiles of the Earth.

A doctor can dream, can't he?

See the cat? See the cradle?

2007-04-12T15:56:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try and remember, without looking in the book, the last bit from Cat's Cradle:

"If I were a younger man, I'd write a history of human stupidity. And then, I'd climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down with my history for a pillow and take some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men, and then I'd make a statue of myself, looking up, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You-Know-Who."

Rest in peace, old man. I for one did actually shed a tear.

Little did she know....

2007-03-19T16:12:00.000-05:00

Corpses have been popping up in some strange places lately. I want it made perfectly clear that this is not a trend in the direction of this commentary blog. And so, after this post, I promise to you, gentle readers, that I will not talk about strange corpse sightings for a while. Of course, being the Good Doctor that I am, I am free to break that promise if a really super juicy corpse-related story pops up again.

Also, I in no way advocate using Reuters as a primary news source. It's just one of the many RSS feeds that I check frequently. I just happen to like their comprehensive coverage of the ever expanding dilemma in America and abroad of corpse treatment.

The person in this article died just after takeoff. The article is poorly written and so it is difficult to discern exactly what happened. How was this man, apparently asleep in First Class not roused when the crew of the airplane were lugging a dead grandma down the aisle and then unceremoniously dumping her in the seat next to him, and then stuffing her in there with pillows so she wouldn't fall on the floor.

Whose decision was it to not just stuff granny in the bathroom and lock the door? Wouldn't that be better? Certainly not more dignified for the deceased, but definitely more tolerable to the poor bastard who woke up with a dead body next to him. Of course, there was the bereaved also on the plane. I mean, wow. This is absolutely amazing. There is literally nothing you can do when someone just up and dies on a plane in flight. Put yourself in the position of the stewardess or the captain that has to make the judgment call, "Uh...I don't know...maybe...strap granny to a chair and hope nobody notices. Put a pillow under her head, maybe people will think she's sleeping."

Sure, yeah, that will work. Imagine you're dozing there in your seat and the unthinkable happens: your neighbor, a complete stranger, rests his or her head on your shoulder in their sleep. Some people just deal with it and pretend it's not happening. Of course, there are those of us who will be like, "hey granny, um...I'm not comfortable with this... hello? Lady? You awake?...... um.... wake up...." You nudge her a few times, "Seriously, this isn't funny...." and then, "oh shit..." followed by you pushing the call button and then saying fuck this, "Stewardess!!! Um... I really think you should come over here..."

It's really just further proof that there are fewer and fewer real human tragedies in the world. And more and more comedies. Come on, admit it. You laughed.

It's alive! It's alive! No wait...sorry about that.

2007-03-05T12:33:00.000-06:00

I know, I know, I know. The last post I did was also about something weird about death. And the last post was also about an article I read on Reuters Oddly Enough. But before you judge me, ask yourself this question: Who am I to judge what the Good Doctor does? There, don't you feel better?

This little gem popped up on Reuters RSS feed today. I find this stuff interesting, because I am endlessly fascinated by how people deal with death, grief, and such things as prospects for an afterlife.

The deal is, some people just can't quite get over death. Perhaps some people, even people who are religious, might understand intuitively that death is the end. If you don't have the psychological constitution to be okay with that, it's going to cause problems.

The fact that this guy was trying to cast a magic spell is really entertaining. He was Pakistani, so probably Muslim, I'm going to assume. But magic? Spells? And why'd he kidnap the guy that was sleeping in the cemetery? And why was there a guy sleeping in the cemetery?

I think he needed the guy as sort of a host body for his father's soul. That would make sense. He would be like a Lich's phylactery. Store the soul in a vagabond's body, drop the skeleton in some sort of nutrient rich solution, where it can feed and sort of be like a hive mind.

In fact, fracture the soul into several parts, and then like this dude's father will control lots of different bodies, while his rotting corpse serves as the center. Destroy the corpse completely, and you will vanquish the satanic army that he's slowly creating out of vagabonds and close family members.

Obviously the son is the first attempt at possession, and it hasn't taken hold well enough. He's coming off as crazy, which is problematic. The connection might not be strong enough. Like a cellphone with bad reception. And he's such an incompetent son that he even botched simplest reincarnation spell. Jesus, what a world we live in!

The Mummy Returns: Just Couldn't Tear Himself Away.

2007-02-19T16:43:00.000-06:00

Just today, I found this article. The story is utterly amazing in its perfection. The image of a seventy-year old man, dead for over a year, not even a little bit rotten or smelly, sitting, slumped as if in a light snooze in front of a television trying in vain to sell him toothpaste and new cars, and to entertain him with quality programming.

It would be interesting to know exactly what channel the television had been tuned to. You know? Like was it PBS? Or Fox? Or Turner Classic Movies, even? Perhaps it was Cartoon Network. This guy has seen every episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force aired for the last year. What would his Nielson survey say?

The fact that he was mummified is perfect too. So the room he died in had low humidity. God, it's like a whole series of incredibly improbable coincidences all lined up and joined forces to create the perfect image for America.

I mean, the power wasn't shut off? Who was paying his electric bill? Was this thing deliberately staged? Now, that would be something. It should almost be made into a museum display. Let's not bury the guy yet. Let's set up some velvet cables and have a walkway through his living room. People will pay ten dollars at the door to walk through this shrine, this symbol of American culture and values.

I'd pay it. How about you?

American Idiot

2007-01-25T11:47:00.000-06:00

I've watched a few episodes of the new season of American Idol. I've come to the conclusion that this television show, perhaps even reality TV in general is a symptom of something very cool, something very disturbingly right about the world. In the first season or two, it wasn't immediately apparent. It was just something kind of funny, but now that it's become a mainstay of the winter primetime lineup on Fox, it's something more. Where before it was fun to laugh at the bad singers, and Simon being cruel to them, and those same bad singers verbally abusing Simon, saying things like, "He don't know what he's missing. He'll be sorry," that stuff is just expected now. It's the subtleties that now become apparent.

Simon remains blissfully diffident in regards to these comments. I mean, it's all for ratings. Anyway, now that AI has gotten old, stale, and become a symbol of America, something indispensible, something that we simply can't do without, something that we can't imagine ever not seeing on the television, we can really understand what the show is about.

And I think it's good. I think it's important that we see clearly in a way that is almost too visceral, almost nausea inducing, how horrible we are to other people. It's not just that British asshat telling them how much they suck in very unfriendly terms, it's all of America agreeing with him. The only one who's still in denial is the poor girl or guy who has broken down in wretched sobs on the floor outside the audition room. "I was born to sing," they say. Instead of treating AI as just an audition, perhaps one of many, they have decided, willingly, to invest their entire future emotional wellbeing on whether or not they get into American Idol. And when it doesn't work out, it's like their entire world has crashed to a halt. Suicide might be the only answer.

Do we feel bad as viewers? As Americans watching this filth? Of course not! We don't give two flying fucks about this person who was so convinced that he was it! Maybe a moment's empathy, an uncomfortable, sad little hesitation before just laughing at or ridiculing (we are arm-chair ridiculers here in America) these poor wretched souls. I'm fine with it. It's Darwinian. If that person decides it's too much tonight and eats a bottle of sleeping pills and doesn't wake up, it's not going to affect me on an emotional level. I will not care. If it's on the news, maybe some people will be like, "Oh, that's terrible! Why would anyone do that?" Even though we already know why. American Idol yesterday (Wednesday, January 24, 2007) blew away the competition, according to Nielsen. How can a nobody compete with all of America? How can a nobody get America to love him? He can't unless he actually has talent. Otherwise, all he gets is the utter scorn of the literally millions of Americans watching him (or her) put their heart on the line.

The bottom line is, these people deserve to be made fun of. Because despite the fact that they don't actually know that they are bad singers, it's their own fault for putting it all on the line for something that hasn't been proven. It's their own fault for not looking around at the world, listening to themselves and realizing that they can't sing or perform or be anything in the music world, especially, the notoriously brutal and callous pop music industry. Setting all of your William Hung's aside, we find that there are two people who get featured on the auditions for American Idol: the very best, and the very worst. And that's how it should be. That's what America wants to see.

AI is not ruining America. It is not a cause of anything. It is a symbol, a symptom, of what America stands for. I think it's important that we crush people's hopes and dreams in as callous and inhumane way imaginable. I even think it's something we ought to do. What do you think?

Morality in Harry Potter

2006-12-11T17:41:00.000-06:00

I am very disturbed by the morality that Harry Potter teaches children, particularly in the realm of political discourse. The whole "Wizarding World" is constatly locked in this deadly, dangerous, epic struggle against an evil wizard (Lord Voldemort) who is bent on taking over the entire world, not just the wizarding world.

The Wizard Council, if they were truly going to do the right thing, ought to approach the United Nations Security Council, and various foreign leaders and plan a strategy for moving forward in the campaign against Voldemort. There's no way, that "magic" is so much more powerful than modern technology that the US military, or the NATO peacekeeping forces wouldn't be able to handle the small rabble of Death Eaters he has at his disposal. He has maybe a few hundred. The US military is many thousand strong, with guns, bombs, and missiles, and jets.

Their isolationist attitude is counter-productive. The rest of the population has a right to know what sort of danger they are in. Everyone ought to have a say in how magic might be used to benefit humanity as a whole you see? And there are plenty of things in the muggle world that the wizards would benefit from as well. For instance, the internet, Facebook, Wikipedia, MSN Messenger, automobiles, cell phones, etc. By cutting their children off, by playing "Muggle artifacts" off as quaint or not as useful as magic, they are actually forgetting the utility of a highly sophisticated civilization.

And this is nothing when it comes to the learning of the modern world. There are so many philosophers, scientists, and theorists (from Plato, to Nietzsche, to Darwin, to Marx, to Hawking, to Buckminster Fuller) that they don't get exposed to. Without a proper training in college level ethics and philosophy and science, for chrissake, they are not going to have a very balanced view of the world, nor can they be expected to use magic in a way that is benevolent and responsible.

And what about literature? What about Keats? What about Shakespeare? What about Douglas Adams? Dickens? Isaac Asimov? Nabokov? Dosoevsky? They don't get any of this stuff. At least, not that I can see.

J.K. Rowling, you're on notice, until Harry Potter reckognizes that the muggle world is not such a terrible, "backward" place.

The Final Say

2006-09-26T00:37:00.000-05:00

Arrested Development is the greatest TV show to grace the small screen. Ever. Period. And that includes the future.

Of Rags and Riches

2006-09-08T14:46:00.000-05:00

I recently went to the theater to watch a movie. As with any movie-going experience, there were previews. All of them sucked. But this one sucked the most for a number of reasons. Material Girls stars Hilary Duff and Haylie Duff. The Duff sisters. Obviously, I will never, ever, under any circumstances put myself through the drudgery of watching this film, but it's an interesting concept. It used to be common in popular literature, and even in film in America to write the "great american what-have-you." A great many of these were what you could call "rags to riches" stories. Born a poor farmer, so-and-so claws his way against all odds to the top of some sort of financial empire. The struggle made him what he was. His roots in poverty gave him a connection to the common man. His dream and personal resolve made him great. Blah blah blah.

It is now increasingly common in literature, film, and pretty much everything else, to tell a completely different kind of story. It's the "riches to rags" story. Material Girls (starring the Duff sisters) is one such film, though I suspect that since this is going to be a popular American comedy, that they will probably get back to riches by the end of the movie after having learned a "very valuable lesson."

Of perhaps more important impact and astonishingly higher quality is the hit Fox TV show "Arrested Development." Compellingly (surprisingly so) narrated by Ron Howard, this fast-paced, off beat comedy has been drunkenly declared by myself at many parties to be the "best show on TV," and this should be enough for most people to accept it as truth. Again, "Arrested Development" is a riches to rags story.

It appears upon close examination of this new type story that's just now being told, that we have a backlash against the rags to riches American Dream. It appears that someone out there is trying to establish as a point of fact that riches are transitory. Where once people liked to dream wistfully of what they would do when or if they ever became extremely wealthy, it now has become extremely trendy to look upon the wealthy, particularly the idle rich, with a certain degree of contempt, and to imagine how wonderful and perhaps even entertaining their downfall might be.

While the characters in the Duff Sister's Movie are probably contemptible on every level imaginable, so are the characters in "Arrested Development." Not a single person, not even Michael, the least morally bankrupt character, is completely beyond reproach.

I think this is a very interesting trend in mainstream media, and I think we will see a lot more of in the years to come. That is, unless some horrible catastrophe strikes and we are all wiped off the face of the planet, and all cinema, literature, and art created by human hands is utterly destroyed never to be seen, heard, viewed, or cared about by another other creature until the end of time.

Dr Kuha out.

Practically a Joke

2006-07-30T14:25:00.000-05:00

There is this thing about people you know. This did not happen to me as such, though it did happen in a way that directly affected my life. Imagine this as a practical joke. Leave a dead catfish in the gutter outside your friend's house.

That's it. Just leave a dead catfish in the gutter.

I don't know if you are aware of a what a S.E.P. field is. A Somebody Else's Problem field. It's a sociological phenomenon generated by anything that is simply too wierd or too disturbing to contemplate or deal with. So when someone leaves a dead catfish (a very large dead catfish) in the gutter outside your neighbor's house, the tendency is to do absolutely nothing about it.

The eventual outcome of this disturbing phenomenon is that roughly a week and a half later, there is a rain storm and all of the maggots that have been burrowing around inside the rotting carcass of the catfish come out to the surface and writhe and undulate and spill out onto the street.

Of course, just across the street lives a doctor with a fairly high-quality camera and a weblog of some degree of infamy who has been taking pictures and cataloguing the entire decomposition of the catfish.

My analysis of the situation is that the house outside of which the catfish now resides (in the gutter) is inhabited by college students who don't feel that their neighborhood is sullied nearly as much by the catfish as by their own presence (their yard is routinely strewn with empty bottles of Keystone Light and Michelob bottles...utter dreck), and therefore feel little or no need to interrupt the gentle but inevitable decay of what at one point in time was a very sizeable and impressive catfish.

The rest of the neigbors ignore the problem because it's not theirs. And so the catfish, bloated and corpulent, reeking, oozing strange and disturbing fluids, remains. In the gutter. Waiting for the monthly rumble of the street sweeper.

It could be read as an allegory for some greater truth. And that is what I challenge you the reader to come up with. Whoever comes up with the best "meaning" for the catfish in the gutter outside my neighbor's house, will have my eternal respect and admiration, a gift that transcends mere money.

Commies Suck

2006-05-25T18:37:00.000-05:00

Take a close look, dear friends and readers. Sherwin Williams Paint, known by many for their truly staggering, nearly all-inclusive, verging on absurd in its diversity, palette of latex paints for all your household needs, may not be what you think it is.

Oh sure, they seem reputable; they couldn't dream of getting into nearly as much trouble as an Enron executive, however, I think that may not always be the case. I believe--and I think that if you follow me closely, that you will also agree--that Sherwin Williams Paint is actually a front company, secretly funneling money to an underground communist conspiracy.

Oh yes, it's true. And the evidence is all here in the logo. First of all, let's look at the can of paint in the logo. It symbolizes the organization itself. S.W.P. supposedly stands for "Sherwin Williams Paint," however, I believe that their clever use of an acronym opens it up for multiple interpretations: i.e. the Socialist Worker's Party. Coincidence? I think not.

Also, and this is simply too obvious, the globe in the center of the logo symbolizes the planet Earth. But what is that coming out of the paint can? It's red paint. Red paint. And what is the universal color of communism? I think my point is clear.

And let's not forget that they are using a "Cover the Earth" slogan. This could be seen literally, as though the company simply wishes to cover the entire planet in a uniform coat of high quality glossy latex. But in this environmentally conscious day and age, this seems unlikely. Thus, it can only be the case that the red paint in the logo symbolizes a political ideology. And the only political ideology associated with the color red is: you guessed it Communism.

To make it even more apparent, take a very close look at the globe itself. You can make out the outline of northwest Africa and Europe. That means that at the top of the globe is North America. Yes, that's right. America is their first target in a worldwide Communist coup d etat!

I rest my case.

Now you ask, "What should we do about this, Doctor?" I'll tell you what we should do: inform everyone you know about this conspiracy. These two-faced collaborators with Red China and ex-Soviet socialists are probably responsible for our failure in Vietnam! They sabotaged us from the inside! They're probably even funding terrorism (uh...moreso than our own government already is, and well...everyone who uses gasoline).

Do not use their paint! They must be stopped! Brought down in the name of such ambiguous ideas as "Freedom," "Democracy," and "The American Way of Life!" Because if you don't, the commies will take over. And if that happens, God help us all, because the Good Doctor is fleeing to Canada where they have nationalized health care.

Get Down with the Sickness

2006-05-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

Dear friends and readers, it has come to my attention that one of the things that we have not been doing, and should, in the interests of the greater good for all, infect more celebrities with life-threatening diseases and maladies.

Take Michael J. Fox, for example. He has Parkinson's Disease. If it wasn't for him, $74 million would not have been raised to help fight parkinson's disease and his own waning career.

Christopher Reeve, is another fine example. He is dead. There is another foundation set up to raise money to find a cure for, oh, I guess it's paralysis and not death.

I think the most important lesson we can learn from this, is that celebrities exist for only two purposes in the general scheme of things: 1) to entertain and titilate our senses with their "talents." and 2) to get horrible diseases that millions of people suffer from every day and get no special recognition, and then go on to raise ridiculous sums of money in the fight against that disease using their fame (their money maker) to fight the good fight against whatever.

The Good Doctor's prescription: Start infecting individual celebrities with all sorts of horrifying maladies (i.e.leprosy, kuru, and herpes, you know, all the really prevelant diseases facing Americans), in the hopes of finding swift and viable cures. Because it's only when the people that we love have those diseases that we're actually going to do something about it. And let's face it, the only people in this world worth loving, are the people in the highest income brackets with the easiest lifestyles: celebrities.

I hereby invite all of my readers to name a celebrity, and then a disease that said celebrity ought to be inflicted with, and then project the potential money that might be earned by their foundation. Put all suggestions in the comments section.

Soap Cult?

2006-04-04T10:09:00.000-05:00

Has anyone else seen this ad campaign? I'm beginning to wonder if something is really amiss in this world. I mean, well-known soap manufacturing companies are using tongue in cheek advertisements to recruit for a strange snake cult?

First of all, they hit people at their most vulnerable: when they are suffering from the guilt of a "questionable hookup," as they call it. Like, for instance, if you were caught by your friends doing the nasty with an old woman in a walker with electrodes connected to your taint. Obviously, this is pretty useful for anyone trying to start a cult. Many cults find new members by recruiting at colleges (i.e. the Giddeons and the US Military) and universities when young people are adrift, still trying to find their way in this world.

But this ad campaign is specifically targeted at people suffering from sexual guilt. This is morally reprehensible. There is nothing wrong with old ladies in walkers and electrodes. If that's what turns you on, and your friends make fun of you for it, then they shouldn't be your friends, because they are prudes and fascists.

I say to you, Order of the Serpentine: You can't have our nation's youth for your devilish rituals, and sweet-smelling soaps. Cease and desist, or the Good Doctor will come down on you with the full authority of his station!

In case you were wondering....

2006-04-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

how the Good Doctor spends his time, I think that now would be a good time to share a little bit of myself with the rest of the world. I am posting on the internet, a portion of my work. Depending on the response, and whether or not anybody actually likes it, I my post more. Over the next couple of weeks, I will add a chapter a week, until the story is finished. While I fully intend to do a real post here at The Office in the next day or so, this should tide all my loyal readers over until then.

The link is here.

A Fundamental Restructuring

2006-03-01T19:53:00.000-06:00

I don't know if it's going to last the year. Frankly I doubt it. There's a family of six in Boston somewhere that's just this very minute tucking in for bedtime. They don't realize it, but their very way of life going to end before the kids are even out of college. Everything that we do, everything that we take for granted sits on The Razor's Edge. On the one side of that edge is the Pirhanas of Uncertainty. The other side is worse. That one has rotating knives.

Global warming is irreversible. Did you know that? It can't be fixed. There is no solution. The world will continue to get warmer, bit by bit. Even if we stopped burning oil today, we are still screwed. The only thing we can hope to do is damage control. Only we can't even do that. You know why? Because there's 6 billion people on this planet that all want a piece of the pie. There's 300 million people in the united states who couldn't live without oil for one day, let alone for good. They can't do it. And China has even more people. More people who will use even more oil. We'll burn it all up. And when we run out, we'll find a way (I believe there's a process) to turn coal into a cheap source of diesel fuel. We'll convert all of our cars to diesel. We won't burn ethanol. Fuck that. That's lame. It's dorky to like trees. It's stupid and hippy-ish to think that maybe, just maybe there's something more important than how much money you earn each year. We are addicted to our high speed internet, our Hummers...mmm...Hummers...

I know, I know, you're saying, "When did you get all serious, Doctor?"

I've always been serious. Look over it all. Everything I say is riddled with only the most serious, the most pressing, the most urgent of tones. I don't joke around people. I only tell it like it is. And I'm sick of how it is.

The Fornication of MInd and Body

2006-02-20T17:23:00.000-06:00

Let's not quibble about the details, dear friends and readers. That's the place (the details) where all of the niggling little intricacies of life take place. We are above that. We like it up high, in the lofty places. We like clear distinctions, polar opposites, and overly unnatainable ideals: Good vs. Evil. God vs. Satan. Heaven vs. Hell. Bush vs. Kerry.

It's even too easy in some ways to see what's right when you lay it out so clear and plain. When you make it a heads or tails flip of the coin, then the problems of life disappear. You do or you don't. It's not about the details. It's about the broad sweeping generalizations.

When you can distill life down to it's very essence, when you take out all the, "who nuked whom's," and the "who tortured who's political prisoners for fun and profit," and the "who was building weapons of mass destruction, but really wasn't, only we thought they were and I guess we were wrong, but we aren't going to outright say so on TV, because then people will think we made a mistake even though we did, but that's not the points."

Because when it all comes down to it, it's about values. Are you going to stand on the side that has values? Or are you going to be on the side that kills and eats babies? You see? It's that simple.

The tough part is deciding, in fact, which side it is that eats the babies. That I couldn't figure out. And I'm the Good Doctor, for Chrissake.

You knew what this was! And don't pretend different!

2006-02-11T21:50:00.000-06:00

We all knew it was bound to happen. We sat there, pretended it wouldn't. Hoped beyond hope that maybe hope wasn't the worthless, irrelevant virtue that it is, was, and always will be. We ignored it, figuring the problem would right itself over time, that maybe, this day wouldn't come. But it was inevitable. It has come. And there's nothing, not a goddamned thing!!! any of you can do about it.

Yes, and don't pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about! I see you all there, sweating under the interrogator's lamp, begging for a glass of water, to wet your parched, and bitter palettes. Oh yes! You all knew. And yet you did nothing.

Yes, my friends, the day has arrived. The day, the hour, the motherfucking minute, that I got bored, and made another blog post.... It is 10 minutes to 10, on a saturday night. I am home alone, and you are all to blame for not calling me and telling me what the fuck was going on tonight. I hope you're proud of yourselves. And to hell with Froyd and whatever flippant comment he's going to throw down there!

Haha, I'm just kidding you guys. It's all good, right? I was just messing around. I do get so terribly bored sometimes.

The Anarchist's Healthy Heart Wiki

2006-02-06T15:15:00.000-06:00

It is time, my gentle friends. The wonderful good people of cyberspace, the e-verse, and the lower planes of internet pornography, the one true place to get your voice heard (albeit edited, revised, and re-edited, chewed up, spit out, digested, and mulled over, after being marinated in a nice red wine vinegarette) is finally online! The Good Doctor, in his eternal benevolence, has added a new chapter in the history of cyberspace. And, gentle readers, here, the moment you've all been waiting for: The Link to the Ultimate Headquarters of Doctor Kuha's Office:

here

My Blog Sucks

2006-02-01T18:48:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's true. I admit it freely and without reservation. My blog sucks. However, it does not suck as hardcore as so many blogs out there. In fact, I myself am totally awesome, so it sort of counterbalances the suckiness of my blog.

Let's just hope, for good or ill, that the Good Doctor will be around for many years to come, giving advice, keeping it real, and making people less sad than they would normally be if it wasn't for him. Even if it has to be through his sucky ass blog.

Good night and The Good Doctor bless you.

P.S. The picture of Rodney Dangerfield is merely designed to really freak the shit out of you.

Proof that Jesus DID die in vain.

2006-01-25T21:45:00.000-06:00

An Anthem For The Little People
by Dr Kuha

“who is the Vice President?”
someone asked me the other day…
i said Richard Cheney
and said to Go Away

part of me wanted to lie
to say it was Lenin or Leann Rimes
to falsely educate an ignorant person
a sort of violence of the mind

how do you not know?
it’s not like Dick is new…
and perhaps most importantly of all…
how on Earth did you slip through?

who allowed this to happen?
who deserves the blame for this?
this travesty of boorishness
i knew who the VP was when i was six.

i tried not to dwell on it
while i shrugged into my coat
but some things are hard to forget
when these people get to vote

An Imposter is on the loose!

2006-01-17T11:02:00.000-06:00

My friends, I have no pretty pictures for you today. Nothing that will brighten your mood, or elevate your spirit, or even give you a little chuckle. No, today, I bring you a warning, and it is a warning most dire. There is an imposter. This man pretends to have some sort of relation to me, but believe him not; they are all vicious lies. Not a word of it is to be believed. You must not allow his vicious slander to taint your view of me. I am not the evil man that this bastard wants you to think I am.

And so I propose that we destroy him once and for all, before his poisonous, treasonous, malignant, tainted words can turn you against, me, the Good Doctor.

A tragedy in the making

2006-01-09T15:49:00.000-06:00

Six uncouth ruffians looking to pillage, a day late, a thousand dollars short, an anachronistic display of brutality and wonton disregard for anything pure and healthy. They were not recieved well at the Gala Event of the season. Stealing all of the patrons' valuables, they had to make off quickly, efficiently, and perhaps a bit ashamedly when the S.W.A.T. team arrived.

There's no place in this world for the likes of Vikings, Barbarians, REAL Cowboys, and rowdy rough-rider types anymore. Oh sure, there are pirates on the high seas, but the style is gone.

What must it have been like to see the sacking of Rome? No matter what side you were on, whether you were filled with fear or gleeful triumph, it would have been an amazing sight to behold. I miss the good old days. The days when men were men and women were women.

Oh sure, I'm too young to remember those days, but I can still remember them fondly in one way or another.

A savage youth with bright blue eyes and a depressed countenance signals the time to battle! Let the savage winds blow and the the barbarians ride again leaving the true art of destruction in thier wake.

Nintendogs

2006-01-01T14:58:00.000-06:00

I'm going to be serious for a second. I made an interesting observation yesterday when I was at the family farm. One of my little cousins was playing this ridiculous game (Nintendogs) on the Nintendo DS, when my grandma's dog (a friendly yellow lab) came up to see her and see what was going on. But she was so absorbed in feeding, grooming, and training her electronic pets, that she pushed the real dog away.

What does this mean for humanity? I am fairly certain that it means that real pets, living, flesh-and-blood animals are obsolete and really should only be used for slave labor, since these electronic pets are so much more interesting. I mean, really, how can our family dogs compare to the sheer interactivity and reliable behavior of a pet based on a computer algorithm? They can't.

The Xmas Post

2005-12-19T15:31:00.000-06:00

It's a funny thing about Xmas. I'm fairly certain--or at least as certain as one can be in these uncertain times--that Xmas doesn't bring anyone on this planet event he tiniest amount of joy, except for the children, but it's a tainted joy, because it centers around getting presents. You see, most people are so hell bent on making it the "best Xmas EVER," and are so wrapped up in making sure that everything goes like clockwork, that they forget to have a good time and stop being so stressed out. Holidays, especially the holidays, are the most stressful time of year, and I think Xmas, probably even more than St. Val's Day, has the highest suicide rate. And I'm sure most of those suicides are the direct result of a turkey that got a little too dry in the oven.

Weddings are the same way. People are way too stressed out to have a good time. Well, except for the guests who had nothing to do with the planning. They just drink the free booze, eat the free food, and dance with bridesmaids (or groomsmen). The actual people who are closest to the wedding itself, espcially the bride (it's her day), are the ones most likely to have panic attacks and high blood pressure on that big day. That's why I think eloping is much better.

Now, interestingly enough, funerals are the places where to the most sincere emotions are felt. Especially if the deceased was a truly loved person. People are too caught up in grief to worry about whether the funeral goes off without a hitch. And of course, some funerals are disasters (like if the coffin fell off the altar and the body fell out, and landed in a mangled heap), but most of the time, the actual disaster of losing a loved one outweights pretty much anything that could ever happen at the funeral itself.

The question: Why can't weddings and Xmases be more like funerals?

The answer: who knows? People are ridiculous.

The Good Doctor's Prescription: Have a fucking good time at Xmas, you ungrateful bunch of assholes. And if you don't, I will personally hunt you down, and shoot you full of happy drugs so that you can't help it.

Merry Xmas jerks!

We Make You Need Our Product

2005-12-16T22:41:00.000-06:00

It is a well known, and long celebrated fact that telemarketers are hated above most other forms of advertisement and marketing schemes. That's why we at Kuha Global Enterprises, Inc, have devised a whole new way to get people to buy our products. The fine people down in Marketing have discovered that we can get much better results by using psychics to directly implant into people's minds the need to buy our product.

Why mess around with all the tedious hang ups of telemarketing campaigns, when all we need to do, is reach into a person's mind, instill in said person a deeply seeded need to buy our product (like for instance, the Quantum Occilating Trichrome Juicer, manufactured by one of our subsidiaries), and then, we extract out of their mind all the necessary information to finalize the transaction, such as credit card numbers, home address, social security numbers, and psychic imprints of all thier relatives so that we may build our customer base.

It's all so simple. Some may say it's an infringement of privacy, but we have made it abundantly clear, that by the time our sales pitch is done (and this is really just a matter of seconds), the customer not only wants our a product but needs it with a thirst that can only be quenched by the purchase of one of our many fine products and services.

The processes employed by our psychics are as non-invasive as possible, and leave only minimal damage with very few side-effects, like those reported by some of the customers of our competitors. We have never had a dissatisfied customer, because they all, in one way or another, end up with our product and are pleased by it.

Some have asked us how we acquire our telepaths. Well, the answer to that is simple. We breed them. They have no concept of an outside world, and exist only to push our products. This is fine, because they are bred to only want to push products and move merchandise. Kuha Enterprises never has surplus goods.

Our tele(pathic)marketers are some of the best in the business, and we have decided, that for a nominal fee, we will sell thier services to other corporations in need of a marketing campaign with near 100% success rate. Granted, this particular service will be very, very expensive, but we at Kuha Global Enterprises believe that it will be well worth everyone's while.

Never an unsatisfied Customer

Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men!

2005-12-12T00:41:00.000-06:00

If you were to zoom into this picture and take a good look at the plaque on the wall, you would see that this skeleton has been dated to somewhere between 2130 and 2230 years BC. That means that this cat died over four thousand years ago. What does that mean for us as a species? I mean, why is this guy's skeleton be in a museum? And how can I get my skeleton in a museum? Hmm...good questions. First of all, who was this guy? There's no way of knowing for certain, but if you were to do a statsitcal model of all the people that ever lived, and what they did for a living, the likelihood of this guy being a blue collar worker (or the tribal equivalent thereof) is exceedingly high. Now, maybe he had a special burial, which would give him a slightly higher place in society. Maybe a priest or a chieftain. But since I don't know if the guy had a special burial (I took the picture a few years ago and haven't been back to that museum since), we can't be sure. Still, regardless of who this dude was, there is still a question to be asked: what is the significance of having this guy's corpse in a museum?

The answer? Humans are packrats. There are a few variables to consider: age, rarity...and...um...that's about it. It doesn't matter how interesting or educational the object is, if it's old or rare (preferably both) we are highly likely to keep it in a museum, or at least pay ridiculous sums of money to possess and show it off. I bet a dedicated mathematician could build you an equation modeling this trend. I mean, if Babe Ruth rookie cards are encased in mylar and stuffed in a hyperbaric chamber, this dude's skeleton is probably under lock and key...oh yeah...it is. And there's security cameras.

So why do we keep this useless crap around? I mean, aside from educational purposes, these things are useless. And Babe Ruth rookie cards (or trading cards in general) are totally fucking useless.

Okay, so educational purposes. Well...so we try to learn about ancient cultures by looking at thier skeletons and how they were buried. I'm pretty sure that scientists have learned everything they can about this skeleton, so why are we hanging on to it? I mean, right now, it's just clutter. Useless, annoying clutter. I took a picture of it, but that's all the further documentation that I need.

We're packrats. I have all sorts of useless crap around my house that I have for "sentimental reasons." And you know something? I think I would be a better person if it all burned up in a catastrophic fire (except my computer, I would want that to survive; it has no sentimental purpose whatsoever beyond the storage of these pictures).

I propose that we go on a campaign to eliminate all the useless junk that we, as a species, have accumulated over the years. Dinosaur bones, human remains, statues, paintings, musical compositions, pots, arrowheads, literature. It's all worthless crap and nobody learns anything useful from it anyway. We still have all the same problems that we've always had. How many jerks have written books about the folly of war? Tons of them! Let's get rid of it. We don't need it! We can live in the now, and forget the past.

And while we're at it, I think we should just completely stop looking to the future. It's totally pointless, since we can't plan anything out properly anyway. Let's just assume, since there's no "hard evidence" to the contrary, that the world will stay the same temperature, continue to belch out oil for our driving pleasure, and that no more animals will go extinct. The future be damned, and our grandkids with it.

So, now that we've eliminated the past and future, what about the present? I think we can stay pretty safe here. No lessons learned from our forefathers (who were they again?), and no reason to look more than a day or two ahead (I think I'll go play Dungeons and Dragons tomorrow night). Hmm... Paradise! Nothing more meaninful than a backrub or a pop song from some teeny bopper idol. That is so perfect. I would live here. Right now. And never think about anything else. Oh, and the best part is: all ideas are original. The statute of limitations would be no more than a year, so you can write a book about whatever you want, and you can't get sued for plagiarism!

My friends, I think I just solved all the world's problems! I mean, let's forget what all our ancestors did! They were all a bunch of screwups; I mean, they're dead, aren't they? And if we stop having them to look at for guidance, we won't make all of their mistakes again. I think it's a perfect plan. Yup. No problems with it whatsoever.

Apple Juice is Obsolete!

2005-11-30T17:41:00.000-06:00

The offices of Practical Solutions for Banal Lifestyles (PSBL) has finally come through! The laws of science and metaphysics have finally been unravelled for your drinking pleasure. Yes, the future is here, my friends! What you've been waiting for all along, the Quantum Occilating Trichrome Juicer! The QOT Juicer is a revolutionary new product that allows you to extract the essence, in liquid form, to basically juice, anything. Yes, it's true, anything. You can juice everything from a pineapple to a television set!

Thirsty? Got a spare sofa that you're trying to get rid of? Juice it! Just shove that sofa into the juicer and out will come a nice, cold, delicious glass of couch juice (probably a small amount of spare change and cracker crumb juice as well!). Add some vodka, and you've got a cocktail party that the your friends will talk about for months!

Not only can you juice any substance or combination of substances that exist on Earth or anywhere in the universe, you can extract the essence, in juice form, of any emotion, feeling, or abstract concept known or explored in didactic poetry since the beginning of man! Jealousy shooter: 2 parts anger, 1 part insecurity, an ounce of tequila, and a dash of triple sec. Wistful Fizz: 1 part nostalgia, 1 part childlike wonder, and a dash of club soda.

You've always wanted to drown yourself in your sorrow? Well, now you'll know what a poor substitute beer is for the real thing! Now, for the first time in the history of mankind, we can drink to our health, for real! And we can toast friendship, without all that tedious mucking about with wine and champagne.

Oh, and did I mention it also makes really good orange juice?

(The idea for this post was unabashedly stolen from some of my closest friends)

Shut the Fuck Up!!

2005-11-28T18:04:00.000-06:00

Unmittigated Zealotry for Sale!

2005-11-27T07:40:00.000-06:00

I am not a religious person. There, I said it. It's very strange what the world has done to atheism. It's a little less offensive to some people to claim to be an agnostic, but I'm not an agnostic. I am an atheist. It's not that I believe that God does not exist. I am convinced of it. There is a subtle but important distinction there.

You see, the essence of science is not to prove things. And I tend to take a scientific view of most things. A scientific theory can be defined as, 'the best explanation that fits the data we have.' So when we talk about the 'theory' of evolution, this is what we mean. It is not 'just a theory' it is the explanation for the origin of species that science has.

So I have this theory, that God does not exist. This explanation seems to fit the evidence most closely. Since there is no evidence that God exists, and in the case of supernatural beings, I think the burden of proof would have to rest on the theist end, it is simple induction that God does not exist. As for souls, spirits, and other metaphysical constructs, we get a little grayer. God does not have to exist for people to have souls. I'm not saying I believe people have souls; far from it, however, I think it's harder to be definite on the issue.

Religion, as far as I'm concerned, has lost the most important thing that it ever possessed: aesthetic appeal. The most aesthetically appealing religions hail from the East. They have the most developed metaphysics, resting on a certain brand of logic. No western religion is based on logic, they are based on accepting texts as the word of God...this is silly. Eastern religions are (with few exceptions) based on the problem of human suffering, it's causes, and methods of eliminating it. This is neat. So most Eastern religions are humanistic. Whereas Western religions are theocentric, and oftentimes pretty much require an increase in human suffering.

Someday, I would like to start a religion, where men are capable of becoming gods (like Buddha, not like Mormons). The term 'god' would be much more loosely defined. Sex would be okay in my religion. Morality would be a lot more subjective. I think morality and religion are probably going to continue to be tightly intertwined, so it would probably be a good idea to make the rules very loose in my religion, so people could use logic to figure out the best path, rather than memorization of rules (how many Christians, or even Jews for that matter, actually follow all the rules laid down in Exodus and Leviticus). There would be no holy texts in my religion, because those things really muddle up the works, and people start worshipping the text, rather than doing what they're supposed to be doing: worshipping me.

I am Thankful for....um...I'm thinking...

2005-11-24T23:29:00.000-06:00

So there you are, sitting around the table, a feast of unimaginable proportions lay before you. The food is on your plate. Your glass is full of wine. Your stomach is rumbling, because you've been fasting all day waiting for this glorious moment. And then someone brings it up. You were hoping this moment wouldn't come. The question is asked, "What is everyone thankful for?" They go around the table. You're thankful that you weren't first, that's for sure...but what else? I mean, there are innumerable things you ought to be thankful for... for instance, you wouldn't be celebrating Thanksgiving if you didn't live in America, and being born here is kind of like winning the lottery in a sense. The vast majority of people are not born in America, and the largest portion of people in the world are very poor and do not get to eat turkeys in November, and don't have presidents who pardon one turkey for a photo op on said holiday. As a sidenote, I've always thought this was a stupid tradition...I mean, the Turkey has not commited any sort of crime (beyond being born a turkey sometime before Thanksgiving), and therefore has nothing to be pardoned for. But the president always saves one from the choppnig block (actually, he pardons two). So anyway, there you are, dreading your turn turn to talk about what you're thankful for.

Invariably your turn comes around; you complement the cook, whoever made the food, whether the bird is dry or not, mention a significant other or two out of obligation, and if you're lucky, you can manage to crack a joke or two and not sound like you've been forced into it. Then everyone says grace, an interminable thirty seconds, and then, finally you get to eat. You dig in, thankful mostly that all that traditional stuff is out of the way, and you can finally do what Thanksgiving was started for in the first place, stuffing your fat face until you can't eat anymore, because if you do, you'll just yack it all up and feel like crap for the rest of the night, or worst, your stomach will burst and you'll die a horrifyingly painful death as stomach acid leaches out into your abdomen, destroying all sorts of sensitive organs and tissue.

Turkeys are hideous birds. Take a moment to click on the pictures. They're awful.
The top picture may be meant to be somewhat touching...but let's face it, it's kind of disturbing. I mean, there's really nothing majestic about these birds except that something like eighty percent of thier body mass is edible and delicious (if prepared properly and not injected with an absurd amount of meat-rubberizing hormones). I'm thankful that I'm not a Turkey. I'm thankful that I'm not from Turkey, for that matter.

It's not that I hate the Thanksgiving. Far from it, tonight, I got completely smashed and ate enough food to feed a young boy in a chinese sweatshop for three weeks. It's just that sometimes holidays are not fun in the same way that they used to be when we were kids. When you're a kid, you have no responsibility beyond having a good time...but now, holidays can become very stressful, especially if you're having dinner with family that you "haven't seen in a while." It's like some P.R. meeting or some sort international summit. You're on your best behavior. You make peace with your uncle who's an abusive closet drunk. Everybody knows it, but it's a bigger sin to disrupt the false stability of the holiday than to point out what an incredible asshole that guy is. Okay, so most of this is an extreme hypothetical situation. This year the day was mostly pleasant. However, I have had some really bad ones (wait till I post on Xmas).

I am thankful that some people will read this and get a laugh.

God is great, God is good, Let us thank Him for this food.

2005-11-21T11:32:00.000-06:00

There's a long tradition of tyrants in this world. Some are smart, some stupid. Some are ugly, some are handsome. Some are more ruthless than others. But the one quality that they all possess, is a singular desire to maintain a status quo. To hold on to thier power.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Saddam Hussein did everything that he did. I mean, megalomania coupled with a certain degree of charisma can give someone the potential to do most anything in this world. Hussein was almost artistic in the way he subjugated the Iraqi people. I think it was Laurie Anderson who said that the only true avant-garde artists left in the world are terrorists, because they are the only people who can still manage to surprise us. Of course, that was true when Laurie Anderson said it, it may not be as true today. The terrorists of today are less and less able to shock anybody, save those who are victims. In fact, terrorist attacks are only becoming more banal and routine, particularly to those of us who merely read about them in the paper, or hear about them on BBC news.

But maybe there's one man out there, who still has the balls to subject millions of people to his will and continue to come off as a pretty nice guy. Of course, you already know just who that might be. The question is, is his brand of terrorism less, equal, or more artistic than the al-qaeda's or the now defunct regime of Saddam Hussein. Did you know that President George Walker Bush is part of school of thought that truly believes that the "end of days," the second coming of Jesus Christ, can't happen until the Jews are all back in Isreal (or maybe it's that Isreal has to be completely under the political jurisdiction of the Jews, I can't remember exactly)? Regardless, it is interesting to note that this dictates a nice chunk of his foreign policy, particularly as pertains to the Gaza Strip. Okay, I have not done the actual research on this tidbit, but a history professor told me about it, and I tend to believe her.

So, lets examine: Osama bin Laden believes that Allah has charged him with expelling the infidels from the Middle East. Bush believes that God put him in office. Saddam told his people that they should believe that Allah put him in office (a subtle but important difference). I think the question remains, who is the most sane of these three men? I think it all comes down to what carries more of a burden of insanity: a god complex or megalomania. Hmm... Since it could be argued that a god complex is just a more severe form of megalomania, it is pretty evident that Saddam Hussein is probably the sanest person in this group of crazed psychoes who have somehow ended up in charge of decision making for large numbers of people. And now which ones are still in power? An interesting trend: the most insane people are tending to stay in power.

The lesson: If you want to stay in power, you had goddamn well better be bat shit crazy and have a god complex to boot.

An Interview With an Indian

2005-11-18T11:06:00.000-06:00

It is becoming increasingly prevalent in popular culture these days, to pretend to have different ethnicity than what you actually possess. I had a little sit-down interview with someone who has made an artform out of this practice. His name is Weetootwaag. Or just Twaag for short. He is probably of Scandinavian or Bulgarian descent, but is convinced that deep down inside, he is really a Scottish-Ojibwe. Let's see how the interview went.

Dr.K: Weetootwaag, or can I call you Twaag?

Twaag: Sure, whatever.

Dr. K: I understand...Twaag...that you claim to be the most knowledgeable person in the world of the Ojibwe language. How does it feel to be a Bulgarian with such a vast knowledge of a dying language?

Twaag: Um...I'm not Bulgarian....and I never made that claim.

Dr. K: Fascinating. And you are also a world famous bag piper, is that not correct?

Twaag: *laughs* I wouldn't exactly say world famous. But in some circles, yes, I am known to be fairly proficient on the Scottish Pipes

Dr. K: Amazing. Twaag... last of a dying breed... the only White Indian left in America who plays the Scottish Pipes. That's quite a tough legacy to hold true to, is it not?

Twaag: Um.. What are you getting at?

Dr. K: I am merely trying to establish for our readers that you are, in fact, the only White Bulgarian Scottish Indian left in America, and the spiritual battle, what can only be a losing battle, you must face on a day to day basis has laid a heavy burden on your soul...

Twaag: Um... Jesus, Doctor, when you put it that way... *sheds a single tear, a slight breeze flutters his long, flowing locks*... Umm...well, I guess I do what I can to keep the tradition alive. Bagpiping isn't exactly a dying art, but Ojibwe is and---

Dr. K: Absolutely astonishing, Twaag. I wonder, if you could tell our readers what it is that you've been keeping busy with these days?

Twaag: *somewhat annoyed* Well, I've been playing some piping gigs, I teach inner city African Americans the Ojibwe language, I guess I play D&D from time to time, and other than school, I guess I grab a beer at the bar now and then.

Dr. K: Really, interesting. And you drink a lot?

Twaag: *Shrugs* Sometimes, I guess. Oh man, *laughs* there was this party last week, I got so hammered *eyes glaze over in blissful remembrance of last drink.*

Dr. K: How long have you been binge drinking like this?

Twaag: Oh, I don't do it that often. A couple times a month or so.

Dr. K: So tragic. Twaag, your struggle with alcoholism has hampered your career goals as a White Scottish Indian, how has it affected your home life?

Twaag: I'm not an alcoholic.

Dr. K: My friend, you must not pretend that these problems don't exist. The first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Twaag: I'm not an alcoholic.

Dr. K: Twaag, I feel that we've really gotten close in these last few minutes, and I want you to know, that you can tell me anything...of course, that doesn't mean that I won't post it on the internet... just...let it out. Tell me what you've been dying to tell someone! What your heart has been screaming to admit to for so long!

Twaag: *Silently scowling*

Dr. K: About your alcohol problem...

The interview ended here. Wetootwaag is apparently one of those violent drunks, because he viciously attacked me and gave me a black eye. I do not begrudge him this, because he has a problem he is trying to get over, not to mention the fate of an entire race of people resting squarely on his rippling shoulders. I hope this little glimpse into the private life of a reclusive White Scottish Indian Alcoholic has made it easier to feel a little tolerance, and maybe even accept these obscure and often misunderstood people of a "trans-ethnic" sort.

Cynical Ramblings on Individual Virtue

2005-11-17T00:04:00.000-06:00

My friends, it has come to my attention, that there is a potential candidate, never before considered for an illustrious position in the fabled Pantheon of Coolness, home of such things as Pirates, Ninjas, Zombies, and Pirate-Ninja-Zombies. And I think that they might just get a shot at that spot that just opened up when Corporate Lawyers got kicked out. In case thier obvious coolness (and the above photo) has not clued you in, they are hobos, friends...hobos.

Why are hobos so cool you ask? Why should hobos have the open spot in the Pantheon of Coolness? I'm glad you asked. Hobos are solitary individuals. They are also completely self-serving, though not in exactly the same way as Pirates, Ninjas and Zombies. They are are not interested in booty (treasure), killing lots of people, or eating brains. But they are interested in not being tied down by "the man." These increasingly elusive creatures are known for a pondering, simple, philosophical kind of life.

There is no rush; there is no hurry. There is not bother...just existence. "Live like a dog," says the 20th century's true cynic. The punks and hippies are descended from hobos in a way. The hobo, to counterpoint, however, detatched completely. He never muddled about in politics, never dreamed that any such pretension would be anything but a degredation of the peace and solitude one can find by just being alone.

And so, I am going to hear arguments for and against admitting the hobo into the Pantheon of Coolness. Anyone who wishes it, is free to give their input on this matter. And the Good Doctor reserves the right, of course, to completely disregard any and perhaps all of those comments. And finally, the hobo just might get the unwanted recognition he truly deserves.

A Thing or Two About Bart

2005-11-15T18:02:00.000-06:00

I have this friend. Well...who can say what a friend is? His name is Black Bart. He is the pink pirate with the banjo. Standing in the foreground is some random bumpkin...most likely a sexual predator.

Anyway...what can I say about Black Bart? Well, for one thing, he's finally doing what America has been too lazy to do. He's invading China with no one to help but his sister and his girlfriend. He told me before he left, that they weren't supposed to drink the water. But if I know Bart (and I know Bart...very well), he will have built up a tolerance to it in a week flat. First, you gotta rub a little on your gums and see what happens. Then you take a little thimblefull, and slowly but surely, you will build up a tolerance. Then again, if not even the locals drink the water...I guess there's no point.

Black Bart is one of those enigmatic characters. Maybe not as wise as the Good Doctor, certainly not as good looking, but with a style and panache all his own. Did I mention that owns moon land? Yes, apparently you can do that. For a mere $150.00 you can own a plot in a neighborhood on the moon. You get a deed and everything. Some people said Bart was crazy. He would hear none of it. He said if he was ever in a court battle over it, he would rather be on the side that owned the moon land.

What else can you say about Black Bart? The nefarious "Pink Pirate of the Iron Range," has been rambunctioned into the annals of history by merely waggling a finger. He can heave a sigh, and women weep. He can laugh a laugh, and men will dance. He can strum a chord on his Banjo of the Lepton, and the whole world will quake in awe and wonderment! With a snap of his wrist, and a stroke of the brush, astonishing works of art are created. And you've gotta admit, he doesn't look half bad in pink.

Finite Rambunctions of a Lunatic Ego

2005-11-15T04:07:00.000-06:00

There has bee a lot of speculation over the last couple of weeks over just who, in fact, the Good Doctor is. Myself. It is so hard to quantify. You can't pin him down in a sentence or two. Many a graduate student, in an attempt to write a thesis on this very subject, has found himself in a padded room, limited to a diet of lukewarm chicken broth and vitamin supplements, and in a few rare cases, an innability to comprehend spoken language...sometimes for years at a time.

There is a versimilitude inherent in his whole ego. He is by turns, a Boddhisatva, a Guru of unparalleled wisdom, a dilettante of incredible candor, a god (or at least considered by many gods to be a "really good guy" and worthy of "coming round for tea on occaision"), and an expert marksman.

What is he a Doctor of, you ask? Well, in some ways, it's a self-proclaymed tytle. He will be the first to admit that. However, the responsibility that demanded him to be the Good Doctor, was thrust upon him. He did not take it up lightly, or with anything short of the most abject humylity. This was not a voluntary act. But when the need arose, and there certainly was a need, he showed his almost infinite compassion towards the world and took up the Stethescope of Ambiguity and the Caduceus of Bipartisan Politics, and looked the world straight in the eye, stared right the most obscure and malicious corners of the human soul, the blackest, most loathsome scabs precariously situated over the festering wounds in the human spirit, and here he did not quake, my friends! Here he stood fast! And raised his arms in triumph, for all to see! For all to rejoyce and say, "YES! This is what it means, to tame the beast within! To sow the seeds of healing in an impoverished collective human spirit!"

And then the people knew. The Good Doctor was here to stay. He would fight their battles. He would warm their souls by the Snuggly Hearth of Ambiguous Certitude. "Sit by the fire," he says calmly. And there is nothing you can do, but curl up in a nice folding chair and listen as he imparts the True Wysdom that he alone possesses and can share. You feel comforted. There is a catharsis. It's small at first, but it grows within you over time, building slowly, rising to a tulmultuous, albeit mildly apprehensive, transfiguration of not only the dangerous bits of your mind, but very shallowest recesses of your soul.

And you start to feel better. You start to feel as though finally, after so many years of doubt and incongruity, you can finally settle down, relax, stopping worrying about all the piddling bits of basically pocket change problems, because the Good Doctor is here to take them upon himself.

A kind word, a friendly handshake, these are not the things that he offers. No, the Good Doctor offers a little of what he likes to call, The Ultimate Zen of Ambiguous Light. Let it illuminate your path forever.

When the Going Gets Wierd...

2005-11-14T01:29:00.000-06:00

I don't have to finish the quote. It's not that important. And it seems almost trite in these dire and unsettling times. What really was Hunter S Thompson's legacy? Did he even have one? Did he even mean to leave one? Does anyone even give a shit? All of these are valid questions, and I have no intention of answering any of them. So quit asking.

The problem with trying to "sum up" a person "in a nutshell" is that it is impossible. Especially for people as mult-faceted as HST and myself. Even the most trivial figure in history, the yeoman farmer who did nothing all his life, except plow the fields, fix the fence, and maybe birth a few calves, had, when you really look at it, a deeply philosophical life, that cannot be summed up in the way that I just have. And the real tragedy is, no one will ever, ever know the full extent of a person. Ever. I don't care if you're married to them for 70+ years. There's just no way to know a person's inner most self without being that person. You try to put it down on paper. You try to write some insignificant weblog about it. No one's going to read it, except a few people that you know who drop in once a week and make a comment or two. You can spill your deepest ponderings out onto this digital diary, and the most you'll ever get is a cursory glance through it from most people, and maybe a thorough read through by your closest friends. If it's interesting enough, you might have a better shot at it.

My guess is, that most people who write blogs, don't write the most interesting things about themselves, though. They write about the trivial and mundane activities that they go through from day to day. They don't write about what's really going on during those trivial events. Of course, one has to admit that there probably are a lot of people that are genuinely boring. But I'm not ready to admit that this is true of more than the smallest, most insignificant minority.

I have been disillusioned before.

When the going gets wierd, the wierd go out for ice cream.

When the going gets wierd, the wierd throw a barbecue, where all the women dress like Nancy Reagan, and the men wear bondage gear.

When the wierd gets going, there's no stopping it for all tea in France. It's only going to get wierder from here on out, and if you doubt me, remember that Pat Robertson is still a man of a certain amount of influence in this world. Fuck you Pat Robertson.

It's Evolution Baby

2005-11-11T13:48:00.000-06:00

Okay, I've been kind of silly in a lot of my posting up till this point. But I've just gotta lay it on the line, because this really, really pisses me off. I mean, it! This really pisses me off! I can't fucking stand it!

Okay, calm down. Some people are ignorant, that much is true. So let's educate them. Let me pose this question. What is better than not having eyes? The answer? Just about anything. It can be a handful of light sensitive cells. It could be literally anything. So when people ask, "How could something as complex as the eye evolve?" The best answer, the true answer, is very, very slowly. The eye didn't spring up overnight. It wasn't "created" in one sweep of a divine hand! That would be stupid.

These creationists also bitch up and down that the fossil record does not fit in with the theory of evolution. This is a stupid comment to make and is totally missing the point. The "theory of evolution," or as I like to call it, "natural selection," is a template that is placed over the fossil record. It is not a highly detailed calendar about what evolved when. It is a framework that can help us explain the fossil record (which is, by the way, almost prohibitively incomplete) as we see it. Natural selection is the ONLY thing that makes sense, given the data. And if you think for one second, that it doesn't occur, then consider that we induce it artificially in all sorts of animals, deciding who gets to breed with who: dogs, horses, sheep, cats, cows, etc, etc, etc. It's what we do. Natural selection differs from artificial selection in one primary respect: what determines selective pressures. In natural selection, it is nature.

I guess I could sit here all day and rant about this...but that would just make me angry. Read The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, and get the hell out of my face, you Bible thumping, sex-fearing, science-hating, God-pushing, asshats.

A Pirate's Life for Who?

2005-11-11T13:12:00.000-06:00

Is it just me, or are today's pirates kinda lame? Okay, so at least thier tactics aren't as bad as they could be, but come on! Where's the bravado? The showmanship? The....style? The pirates of yesteryear were gentlemen...at least the pirate captains were. They were educated, intelligent, masters of combat and tactics. They had a sense of style; they wore flambouyant clothes, appreciated the finer things in life.

I'm not saying that today's pirates aren't badass in thier way, but it really seems to me, that something was lost along the way. When it comes down to it, these guys just seem boring. If I was a pirate today, I would bring back the style! I would be a media whore! I would wear fancy (perhaps a bit effeminate?) clothes, I would rob from the rich and steal from the poor! I would bring pirateering to new heights of awesomeness, the likes of which the world has never seen, and cannot see except in thier most frightening nightmares!

Infantile Robot Zombies From the Outer Rim

2005-11-10T15:17:00.000-06:00

Men, keep your women and children at home; women, beware because your men might not be who you think they are, and your children are in very serious danger of being up past thier bedtime. The threat is confirmed, my friends. Robot Zombies. Yes, you heard me. Robot Zombies. The Zombie King, has found a newer and cheaper way to subvert humanity: mass manufacture of robotic zombies that steal children, seduce women, and emasculate men.

There is a genuine danger here, my friends. These robotic zombies are not only stronger, faster, and smarter than the shambling, partially limbless zombies of yesteryear, but they are becoming increasingly capable of emulating human personalities, making it easier to subvert our world governments and topple them to install puppet regimes, in an effort to tame the human population and use them for livestock, keeping the Zombie King and his undead legions supplied with fresh brains for thier hedonistic rituals.

But there is one hope. First, you need to destroy all the electronics in your house, because without a fresh supply of Delta waves from a television set, or radiation from your microwave, or an easily accessible outlet, these robotic zombies will have nothing to feed off of. We must willingly push ourselves back to the stone age; this will force the real zombie legions from thier hiding places in the mountian caves and eventually draw the Zombie King himself out of his palace high in the Himalayas where he can be slain once and for all...

Someday, the battle will be over. I just hope this message reaches you all in time.

They Might Be Giants

2005-11-10T00:29:00.000-06:00

You know what the coolest thing in the universe is? Of course you don't. That's why I'm going to tell you what it is, so you don't have to get all stressed out about it. You ready? The coolest thing in the universe (besides my ego) is black holes.

I mean, what could possibly be cooler than an object more massive than the entire solar system but smaller than a pinhead. Now you're asking, "But Doctor, how do you know for sure that Black Holes are the coolest things in the universe?" To which my first reply would be, "because I know better than you," but that's not very constructive. The honest response is, "Ahh, my young pupil, there is one thing that is orders of magnitude more cool than a Black Hole."

You wait with bated breath. Is it a Supernova? Good try, but not quite. Is it you, Doctor? Flattering, but I will not tolerate such distractions. Is it Pirates? Zombies? Ninjas? Reams and reams can be and have been written about the coolness of these things, but sadly no, they are not cooler than a Black Hole. So what is? My friends, the only thing that's cooler than a Black Hole is Two Black Holes Smashing Into Each Other!

See above photo and click here.

A little link post, for those that didn't see them somewhere else

2005-11-09T23:37:00.000-06:00

Okay, the world is a wierd place. We all know that. Some of us even learn to cope with it, perhaps even accept it, come to terms with it, transcend it, become one with it.

But sometimes's a few really wierd things pop up and you do a double take, you think about it for a while, you show it to your friends, or at least tell them about it, like a website dedicated to Christmas letters sent to Christopher Walken, for instance. Or a dog food commercial that isn't quite what it seems. Or my personal favorite, an article about a dead hooker.

These aren't the best examples of strangeness that anyone has ever seen, of course, but they're my favorites from today. And I give thanks to Almighty Bob for the opportunity to see this crazy shit.

Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods.

2005-11-09T14:15:00.000-06:00

It has been written that Socrates was a short, fat, bald man. Ugly, even. For a culture as obssessed with aesthetics as Athens, I can maybe see why his overly rational, questioning, i.e. not very externally beautiful way of speaking coupled with his physical ugliness did not much to endear him to the people who eventually sentenced him to death.

Of course, let's not forget that Scorates was still an old man when he drank the hemlock. It's not like he was a twenty-something rebel, or even a thirty-something so-called son of god and man. He was an old fart who enjoyed playing word games and messing with people's heads. And who lived on as the most recognizeable name in philosophy? Was it the people who made the old man drink the hemlock? Or was it the man who did the drinking?

I think that the Party in 1984 had the right idea when dealing with dissidents. Do not execute them. Do everything it takes to convince the dissident that he is wrong and that you are right and that he was foolish, perhaps even insane to hold his beliefs. And then you kill him, when he loves you the most. It destroys the possibility of a martyr.

By the way, the title of this article is not a quote from Socrates, it is Euthyphro speaking to Socrates on the subject of...well...piety. I think it's one of the funnier dialogues, if only because it solves absolutely nothing by the end.

There's nothing disgusting about the human body

2005-11-08T19:24:00.000-06:00

Do you think it's offensive to make fun of people who are less fortunate than you? Take the first family for instance. This is a little clipping from the The Onion. I laughed, you laughed, we all had a good laugh about it. But is right, to make fun of someone who is shitting blood? And furthermore, is right to make fun of a retard who is shitting blood? I mean... is the word 'retard' even a little too harsh?

First of all, I am typically against making fun of retards. Especially the ones with rectal bleeding. However, for some reason, this seems more reasonable. I mean, it is true, is it not, that we only elected her husband to be our president because we felt sorry for the poor monkey boy bastard, right? I mean, it couldn't have been because the majority of Americans believed him to be the best man for the job, that would be ludicrous.

I think I am going to prescribe a little therapy. Go out, this week sometime, and make fun of a retard. and see if it really makes you feel better about yourself. And then, depending on the result, I think we can make an educated decision about whether or not The Onion was out of line.

There's a method, a strategy, if you will, to my madness

2005-11-07T18:15:00.000-06:00

Many of my faithful readers have been asking, nay, begging, for a little behind the scenes look at my methodolygies when writing an important article, upon which the fate of Western civilization rests. Some have asked, "Isn't that a lot of pressure?" To which I reassuringly state, "It totally is! But don't worry, I won't rest until every Tym, Dyck, and Henryetta, has thier daily dose of the Good Doctor!"

And so here you are, a little inside peek at what goes on when I'm writing one of my earth shattering reports about the "fundamental conditions upon which man is allowed to exist!" As you can see, I go through extensive and exhausting revisionary procedures to make sure that every article is tailor made for it's target audience, YOU!

I hurt, my friends. If an article isn't perfect, I will beat myself up for literally seconds, until the problem can be corrected. And if it isn't perfect after that...I publysh it anyway. Because that's what it takes to be the best. That's what it takes, my friends. You may think that this genyus just comes naturally, but no! It is dredged up from the deepest darkest parts of my soul, so that you can enjoy and maybe make yourselves better people in the long run. It is a constant battle between sanyty and revelation, between glorious triumph and bitter defeat, between abject faylure and transcendent perfection!!!!

I hope this little look into the inner workings of the Doctor has brought you some peace. It has really allowed me to share a lyttle piece of myself with you. Just know, faithful readers, that I will always be here, ready with a friendly word, a picture of a naked Greco-Roman deity, or a bit of advice for times of trouble. For whenever there is injustice in the world, I will be there; whenever there is turmoil, I will be there; whenever there is a loaded bong, I will be there; whenever there is a dinner special at the local Chinese restaurant, I will definitley be there...with chopsticks. This is my solemn pledge.

Jesus is just alright with me.

2005-11-06T01:29:00.000-06:00

This is proof that you can sell anying and I mean anything in action figure form. At this science museum where I once worked, they had Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein in glorious plastic replicas. Franklin came with a kite and a key, and Einstein had a little piece of chalk. That's kind of cool, you know? I mean, you could finally settle that age old question of who would win in a fight: Al or Ben. But Jesus and Moses brought to life in thier stereotypical images in cheap thermoplastic for all the children to have hours of fun with. I mean, do these really go with all your other toys? Most of my toys were He-man and Transformers and GI-Joe. Jesus didn't stand a chance against any of those guys. Oh sure, he was the son of God and all, but he was a pacifist. He would "turn the other cheek" when Skeletor brought his smack down upon the savior. And Moses? He was old! I'm surprised those Isrealites didn't tip him off his high horse for spoiling thier good time. Bring back the golden calf! These rules suck! Adultery rules!

Anyway, I saw these in a store in London. What really gets me, is the context. It was a crappy little toy store somewhere in London, I forget where. But take a close look at the picture. Look at all the shitty merchandise around the two iconic semi-deified dead guys. I mean, what the hell? This is what the liberator of the Jews and fucking Messiah are reduced to?

I came very, very close to purchasing at least the Jesus one. Then again, the Moses toy has accessories: a staff and a big stone tablet. I'm pretty sure the odds are stacked against Jesus when Moses lays the almighty smack down by cracking him over the head with the ten commandments, "Thou shalt feel my wrath, bitch!" This would be the ultimate duke-it-out between the wrathful God and the loving God. "Turning the other cheek, J-man? Well, don't mind if I do!" CRACK! and while Jesus is unconscious, a pool of blood spreading out from his gaping head wound, Moses claims Mary Magdalene for himself. To the victor goes the spoils!

That's enough blasphemy for one day.

The Fundamentals of proper penile care.

2005-11-05T16:57:00.000-06:00

I never, ever want to lose my penis. There I said it, and I'm sure there's not a guy or girl out there that will begrudge this one simple wish. No matter what happens, when I die, I want to still have my penis.

As a corrollary wish, if ever someone makes a statue of me (and the likelyhood of this is high), and it's a nude statue (again, highly likely, given my Adonis-like physique), I want for my statue's penis to be made of something that's a little more resistant to cracking than marble. I mean...this is Apollo, for Chrissake! If he can't keep his penis through the ages, what hope is there for my statue? Unless! The newest space-age alloys are employed to make sure that if every other piece of my statue gets obliterated in a nuclear holocaust, at least my penis will make it out intact, with not a scratch.

They Just lie there and They die there

2005-11-05T16:49:00.000-06:00

The Mona Lisa was painted on a piece of wood, in case you didn't know. It's also warping and the world's top scientists have been working round the clock for centuries to stop it from getting worse. I mean... if we lose the Mona Lisa (and when I say 'we' I mean the HUMAN RACE), what will we have to live for?

Everything that we love and cherish in the world hinges on THIS PAINTING surviving for the next generation to crowd into a small room and take one shitty, badly framed, unsteady picture and take it home and put it up on the internet on thier stupid blog for all the world to say, "wow, That guy saw the Mona Lisa, he must be cultured."

Yes, yes I am.

Precarious Underpinnings of a Fragile Pedantic Worldview

2005-11-05T16:30:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't noticed, there are no pictures of me on this blog. And there never will be. But here's one of my girlfriend. She has a dog and four cats. Behind her in the picture is a coffin. It didn't really look very comfortable. I'm hoping mine is much nicer.
As for the expression on her face...well...I'm not sure what that's all about. It was taken like a year and a half ago. Who can say? Our thought processes of that day are lost to the fickle nature of the human memory core. All we have now of that fateful day at the British Museum is a few images. Perfectly accurate as far as that goes, but lacking context and solidity....not to mention, sounds and smells.
Of course, there's no use crying over lost memories. That would be stupid.

Bread with Olive Oil and Vinegar

2005-11-05T00:01:00.000-06:00

By the way, all of these pictures are ones that I took. Just so you know. Anyway, this is the Venus de Milo. I think it's interesting, that she's really not that hot. I mean, her body is smoking gorgeous. She's athletic, has solid, well defined abs (without being an American Gladiator, which is important), pert, handful-sized breasts. But look at her face. Snooty is not quite the right word. Maybe bored. Maybe she's thinking, "I'm may be missing my arms, but hey, you know, I'm a goddess and I can probably just grow new ones. I just don't want to, so what are you going to do about it?"
Nah, that's probably not it either. I'm sure she had her arms at one point in time and her expression hasn't changed at least since just before she lost them. Anyway, the bottom line is, her face is not what we could call, "Marylin Monroe perfect," you know? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure if she was flesh and blood, the godliness of her would probably overwhelm what minor physical flaws she has....I'm just saying....

When We Get Back, I'll Drop a Line

2005-11-04T23:47:00.000-06:00

It would have been nice to have taken a picture from farther away so that you can really get a good idea of how crowded this cemetary is. And here is this grave, tucked away behind some other graves. If the name on that headstone wasn't what it was, not a single person would ever, ever go near it. You have to leave the path, walk around a much larger headstone for some guy that you've never heard of, and there it is, hiding. It's somewhere near the south central area of the largest cemetery in Paris.
I like the Doors. They had a certain panache that is not duplicatable. I don't want to get too metaphysical, Morrison did so much of that, that I don't need to translate it into this free blog journal thing. But I will say that there are very few people who have the sort of presence that Morisson had. Some lose it over time (Jimmy Page and Robert Plant), and some manage to hang onto it in some form or another (Roy Harper, et al), but the ones who become truly famous, are the ones who DIE while they are totally soaked in it.

Look where I live!

2005-11-04T23:38:00.000-06:00

My girlfriend named this cat Nero. It's kind of funny. Admit it. I am listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor.

In Rome, the cats run the show. I have a grainy video clip of me trying to pet this cat. It didn't react at first; it was very intent on its grooming. It did meow hoarsely at me after a moment or two though, and I recoiled slightly, not wanting to get bitten. Who knows what diseases it may or may not have? It promptly went back to its grooming.

No human gets to live at the colliseum. These cats do, though. Orderlies go by every now and again, and clean up thier excrement. I am fairly certain they make a healthy living on mice. And no doubt tourists feed them as well. There is no doubt in my mind that Nero is still alive and well and living in the Colliseum, testily meowing at overly sensitive American tourists. This makes me happy.

Sticks and Stones

2005-11-04T23:19:00.000-06:00

This is the Rosetta Stone. For all of you uneducated savages who have never heard if it, it is a large (very large) tablet with a set of decrees printed in two langauages, Egyptian and Greek. This pretty little artifact alone is what allowed smart people to translate the Egyptian written language. For a complete text of the stone, click here.

I kind of like the idea of a hieroglyphic language. Or at least a sophisticated ideogram type language like Japanaese and such. Then a word is a letter. When I write the letter 'k,' it means absolutely nothing unless it has context. But a hieroglyph by itself has meaning. As does a Japanese character. I understand that they have a phonetic alphabet as well, though it too is very pretty to look at, I'm sure.

I think it's interesting that in China, they used to draw out single ideograms on a single sheet of paper and it was an artform. Oh, yeah, Caligraphy. That's the ticket. Such a symple art with symple concept. But so much meaning.

If I had a calligraphy picture on my wall, it would have to be the word for "stone," because I'm kind of like stone. Hard and enduring, but given enough time, I can be worn down and softened up. It takes me a while to make friends sometimes...

I'll "Bust" you up!

2005-11-04T23:12:00.000-06:00

So Scary! "Raaaaaawr! Me Karl Marx! I will eat your children!...uh...just as soon as I can get my jaw moving again."
I've always thought that fear of communism and cannibalism are two of the funniest things in the world. First of all, being afraid of communism is very strange because the people who are afraid of it, are not afraid of capitalism. This doesn't make sense. And people who are afraid of cannibalism are are wasting a very useful food supply! Or at least a lucrative source of organs for harvesting, which is a kind of cannibalism if you look at it in a certain way.

If someone was cooking and it smelled just absolutely wonderful, and then put a plate in front of me and told me it was human flesh, I would probably at the very least, taste it, it as long as they didn't tell me where they got it. If it was good, I would probably eat the rest of it, and then decide whether or not to pursue cannibalism in a more serious sense.

Don't Worry Karl, the Happy Days will come again!

2005-11-04T23:04:00.000-06:00

Look at this thing. It's very big. It's huge. It's made of marble and bronze. And it's somewhere in England. It's not like Communism was a bad idea, as such. It was just a woefully unprepared for the tendencies of man and his happy go lucky attitude towards his own freedom. I'm not here to make any judgements on this issue. I just think it's going to become my personal goal to be famous enough to have a grave that big.

The Trappings of Living a Double Life

2005-11-04T21:05:00.000-06:00

The first thing you have to remember when picking up a new identity (a secret identity) is that it is secret. You can't tell your friends. This is the biggest problem for so many people who want to pick up an alter ego. No matter how much you want to you can't tell your friends. It is a purpose defeating act! I reapeat, don't tell anyone!

The worst person you can tell is your significant other, my friends! He or she is the most likely person to rat you out. I mean, at first, it will be okay, they will feel honored to be in on this little secret, well, not so little. I mean, a second identity is pretty big. But if you were, say to break up with that significant other (no matter how much you're in love, it's always a possibility), they will use your alter ego against you and probably at a time that isn't very useful for whatever plans your other self is trying to accomplish. And let's not forget, there is the possibility that your other identity is going to want to get a girlfriend, or even get married. And this can't happen if your girlfriend or wife knows that you even have a secret identity.

So remember, rule number one: Your new identiy can have NO contact with your old life. It defeats the purpose!

Okay, now, that we have that established, you might be thinking about what sort of person your alter ego is. Well, it's up to you, but I would suggest trying out a totally different persona. If you're they shy quiet type in your primary life, go for the bold, brash and perhaps misguided type for your new secondary life. Next, name your alter ego. Go ahead. He or she will need a name. Here, you want to avoid the obvious pitfalls of generic names. Use names like John, Bob, or Matt very sparingly. Your new ego needs a name that will stick out. I mean, let's face it, if you're going through the trouble of starting a new identity, it probably wouldn't do to be a lame one. But then, you've gotta be careful about being too stupid about the name; avoid things like: Zaphina, Nick Danger, or Igor Petrovski (if you're obviously not Slavic). This part is particularly easy if you're making an alter ego because you have super powers and are thinking of taking up a life of crime or planning on being a super hero. Just come up with a name that's in line with your super powers. Check the internet and make sure that no two-bit Marvel superhero doesn't already have your name.

Your ego is going to need a backstory. He needs an origin. Parent's names, birthday, be familiar with his or her zodiac sign, favorite foods, likes, dislikes, aunts, uncles, grandparents. I mean, it's convenient if he was an orphan, but there aren't very many orphans who don't know at least a few of thier foster parents' names, you know? You can make this up on the fly, but if you're not very good at that sort of thing, then you're going to want to sit down and spend some time fleshing out his origins.

Next, official stuff: If you can get him or her a social security number and birth certificate, that's ideal, but most people simply don't have access to these sorts of things. For the most part, this stuff isn't really that necessary. Let's face it, if you're a superhero, people are going to know that you have another identity. And for the most part, alter egos are shed from time to time and will fade out of existence, once you go back to your primary life. Oh, and that reminds me, if your alter ego is going to be somewhat permanent, then you're going to want to make sure that he or she doesn't get too famous. If you haven't figured out why, then imagine this scenario: Your real life wife is watching T.V. at home and sees a movie preview as you walk into the room. Only the new action hero in the movie looks a lot like you. She turns around and says, "Wow, this new action hero, Din Weasel looks a lot like you honey...wait a minute....Hey! I thought you were visiting your mother with cancer! You were filming a movie and making millions of dollars! How come we live in this shitty trailer! What the fuck is going on here!" You can probably smooth that one over with a diamond ring and a new house (you can afford it), but now your alter ego is compromised. And that is very nearly a case of breaking rule number one!

Most people create alter egos for fun and enjoyment and sometimes to further other goals, like getting a novel published or some such thing. Superheroes and villains have the most obvious uses for them, but the average Joe could use one from time to time as well. Just remember these few simple tips and you'll be on your way to leading the double life in no time flat!

Hookers are people too

2005-11-03T12:15:00.000-06:00

I'd like to kick everything off with a little poem I call, "Hookers are People Too."

All those hookers are people too
They just want money to hang out with you
is that so bad?
it's not so sad!
As long as they don't have syphillis too