one of the best pictures of our times.

Congratulations (again)!

(South Africa, Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Belgium (not found), Norway & Sweden?)

Modern Ninja Home as I vastly prefer it to its downmarket competitor Ninja Digest. I was reading about items around the house and how they are secretly planted for dastardly, insidious ninja shenanigans. Take the Ped Egg, for example. Why, it’s just a regular ol’ foot file, that lets you grind down your dead, unwanted foot flesh. That’s just what it appears to be, to your limited perception. To a ninja, it is a device that allows them to collect your DNA and hose down various crime scenes with your Watson and Crick sauce, implicating you in their silent and undetectable crimes! Ninjas- WTF?!

Pickle burps versus electronic Russian G-mail Spam?

Surprisingly, no contest. Alas, I do not work for Google.

Oh workwagon, let me take a break from you. Let me explore the wonder of the world of web logging, and cob loggers. I admit to being driven to distraction by the constant psephology coming from all angles, and have no wish to perform an idiot coup d’état declaring myself idiot strongman in charge of the idiots, while oddly only having the rank of major. Question, does the Libyan army have any generals? That would be a weird situation.

A couple of things, I was trying to come up with a fake Bad Religion song, but everything I tried was actually too good to sound even close. They are that terrible. Another thing is that I have a peefessional. It isn’t that terrible, but Iron Bladder was defeated tonight. There are only two films in this world where my instinctually awesome bladder management has been defeated. What’s that you ask? Well, it is the fact that I don’t normally need to ever do bladder management, it’s just that good. For example, I’ve only had to whiz on a plane once since I was 7, and the denominator is a relatively high n for trips≥several hours. It turns out 6 glasses of water during spicy thai food pre-movie followed by giant cherry coke are not well timed enough to be pre-emptively pre-empted by a pre-emptive strike. With commercials and previews, plus most of film, I likely made it 2.5 hours. Sigh. In a way, some would claim that stadium seating is a disadvantage over the sloped floors of older theaters, but my peefessional is not too bad, I just got up and used the washroom.

Oh, the first movie this was this. The second (tonight’s) film was the awesome this. The Nutter reviews it here, and I think I agree with most of the points. Shock of shocks, the comedic salad dressing of the kid and the ape, so atrocious and chundernuggety in the unwatchable cartoon completely came to life and was the MVP of the film.

As most of you don’t care, I used to write an almost weekly Poop Shoot around Friday. It was pretty meh, but could be fun at times, and I liked the buzz of self-righteousness I could get describing music that many of you haven’t heard. Then Brando would write his own Friday Random 11, and it would be better than my Poop Shoots in every respect. Brando is simply a better writer, funnier, and more interesting than I am. But with news that Brando is hanging up the Random 11 after his elegiac opus describing the 22 songs that are most significant to him, I feel that there is a place for the Poop Shoot once again. At minimum, I can keep Billy Pilgrim company and work towards fulfilling my MBO (minimal blogging obligation). If possible, I’ll try to link to sources for the songs, but am not counting on finding many:

1) The Walkmen - Lost in Boston: Well isn’t that title appropriate. I think it’s impossible to live in Boston without getting or feeling lost. This album is from A Hundred Miles Off, which was kind of a letdown for the most part. The song is all singing/strained screaming that is too high to feel comfortable and loud guitar. I guess it is just kind of inelegant. The lyrics make no sense to me, but that’s typical. 6/10

2) Supertramp - Rudy: I’m so glad this song is actually on my iPod. Although Blue Girl might be the only person honest enough to back me up on the awesomeness and non-lameness of Supertramp, I am not ashamed to expouse my love. Rudy is a musically complex song, developing in several movements (at least four). It has all the trademark piano chords, some wanky proggy exposition, and a very moving and relatable main character. We’ve all been on that train to nowhere. At over seven minutes, this song is perfection. 10/10

3) The Innocence Mission - Over The Rainbow: I can’t remember why I bought their CD of lullabie covers, but I’m glad I have it. It is impossible to listen to any version of this song without feeling a little misty and nostalgic. What strikes me most about this cover is how strong the Scottish accent is, and how the slow and stripped-down rendition beautifully captures all the spirit of the song. The singing is just exquisite and delicate. 8/10

Continue reading ‘The triumphant but still half-assed return of Friday Poop Shoot’

We don’t talk too much about the primaries etc. The reason is that polite company becomes impolite and people start weasel-ripping each others throats. The only personal upside to this is to make me feel better about myself relative to the clamoring internet masses, but that is only a relative feeling and due to my self-critical nature, being the Idiot King of the Idiot People doesn’t really wash because I can’t write home about it.

“Je suis mort. Ou est je suis??”

Now that I am older and wiser, I kind of appreciate the dog crap joke even more instead of less. I would talk about two hours wasted, but then again I am a cob blogger with a web based log.

Also, RE: battle rap, it was getting downright FILTHY so I had to scale it back. Didn’t want to crater the bad guys.

In re.

Re.

From John Barth, The Tidewater Tales, 1987, pp 37-8. (Ellipses indicate excised asides which make sense in the context of the novel but are not specifically relevant to the excerpt.)

Continue reading ‘For Kathleen’

I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, or again, or whatever recursion theorem is currently at work here: 3Bulls! and Republic of Dogs have once again consummated their love-hate relationship, and it is left to us to pick up the tissues, rearrange the furniture, and clear the broken glass and RSS feeds out of the hippo pool. This has led to the banning of mysterious contributor Captain Trollypants at RoD, and an injunction to not even discuss the aforementioned blog in other locales.

We are unsure as to how this would be enforced, but are confident that readers and bloggers alike will handle this in their customarily reserved and civil manner. This may be in violation of the Blogger Ethics Convention of 2005, Section III, Paragraph A, clause xvi, subclause (q) as relates to blogfeuds and unrestricted griping (non-profane). To wit:

Meh.

However, in accordance with ancient (c. 2000) tradition, blogroll-linking has been maintained, and the ceremonial exchange of Nova Scotian Fighting Slugs has taken place.

For the record, I should add that as ombudsmoose I do not have access to IP logs and other tools that might be useful in unmasking the alleged perpetrator. We also invite the Captain to give his/her/its/shorebird’s side of the story, and to make a case before a jury of commenters (or perhaps the collective noun would be “gallows” or maybe “schism”). The Mystery of the Trolling Pants shall no doubt remain a mystery for the ages, puzzled over by historians and researchers for untold minutes to come.

I should further add that I am writing this with complete editorial independence from the management, and that the now-retired CT, whoever he/she/it/narrative conceit may be, is bound to be annoyed, along with comrades Res and AG who are no doubt preparing the restraints even as I write this.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good beating, as John Yoo would say.

As in other recent cases of disagreement, we are confident that it is best for grievances to be aired and addressed, although in the case of the latter a note from the Mammalian Anti-Defamation League may appear soon.

Appeals and applications for loopholes may be submitted to the usual address, or left in comments below.

What follows is a response to fish’s contribution to the previous episode of fish vs shorebird file. As it turns out, it also functions as a response to Mandos’s most recent comments on that thread.

fish:

While the arguments and the words I use to describe the situation often sound like this is a secret cabal of 5 guys with cigars sitting in a smokey room making all the big decisions, this is not what I am trying to describe (I am sure my lazy language and argumentation is at the heart of this).

I’m not entirely happy with my own language on this topic either. There is an element of the Chomskyesque argument that can sound like conspiracy theory — sort of. It’s not, but I haven’t yet found quite the right conceptual approach to talk about it. I suppose in pointing it out in those terms, I’ve been hoping the resulting discussion might clarify things. Either that or I just get too entranced by my own rhetoric.

The next section is a really nitpicky reading of the rest of your description. There’s not much in it that I disagree with in a broad sense. Perhaps, my tweezing at it will reveal something about my approach.

Continue reading ‘fish vs shorebird file — part “It’s all the mammals’ fault”’