The Continuing Saga of Captain Alias

It's OK. Some of my best friends are bigots.

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 22:11:54 GMT

You've heard of LOLCats and LOLBots. Now, welcome to the next level of the internet!

LOLBigots.com!

I got mail from Maddox

Mon, 14 May 2007 19:45:32 GMT

My email:

Maddox,

Ever since I read your book I've set my sights high and have been trying for the Impossible Firehose. I haven't made it yet.

Fuck you for inspiring such unachievable goals.

Bless you for giving me something to hope for.

-Pat

His reply:

I pinch off at least one per week.

maddox@xmission.com
http://maddox.xmission.com

What a guy.

A million voices suddenly silenced

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:06:43 GMT

Rome, HBO's excellent historical fiction-drama, has been canceled as of this latest episode, 2-10. Noooooooooooo! I knew it was being canceled but I didn't think it would be so soon. Now I know how all those computer programmers felt when the dot com boom ended. Sigh.

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 08:33:13 GMT

Baby Got Bible, courtesy of GodTube.com.

Good Christ.

CBS Turned Me Gay

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:13:18 GMT

Too much gayness in the superbowl halftime show

Summary - there were phallic overtones during the superbowl halftime show and someone is getting bent out of shape. Specifically, "[my son] hoped to be a quarterback and now he will turn out gay...Thanks CBS for turning my son GAY."

Watch the scene from the superbowl: here.

I find this kind of worldview just hilarious. Do these people really believe everyone is just an image away from turning homosexual?

"Honey I'm sorry but I was watching the superbowl earlier and before I thought a wife and kids was good for me but now I think cosmopolitans and fashion design is more my thing. I'll be at the Manhole if you need me."

I sure am glad gay marriage isn't straight up legal yet or else families everywhere would disintegrate as men everywhere divorced their wives, left their kids and descended into the delicious decadence that a life of homosexuality implies.

edit: Man I just watched what people were getting bent about. I just know the people that complained are the same people that don't believe in dinosaurs and think that carbon dating is God's way of sending scientists to hell. What a bunch of fucking idiots.

With Manifold Petals

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:20:00 GMT

The absolute height of my 'download everything aural' phase was 2000-2002. It was as though every constellation of my life aligned so as to maximize my music whoring. Soulseek was huge and easy to use, DRM & DMCA were still quiet, I was smoking a lot of pot, I wasn't spending time on school, and I had a lot of teen emotion to burn. Sounds like a recipe for expressing yourself through other people's art to me. During this ~2 year span I acquired a lot of tunes, which I culled, cropped, and regrew. I probably downloaded 500-600 gigs of tunes, but only kept the stuff I really loved. Since then my aural lust has been sated and my gaping maw has shut. My hard drive is no longer a bucket with a hole in it that requires constant refilling.

Recently I've been going through all my old tunes and listening to this stuff. It's been a while since I've heard a lot of it, and going through it has really sent me back through memory lane. Every song of this collection means something to me. Often it's something inane, but sometimes it's not. Looking at the totality of this digital rack of music it's easy for me to see a reflection of how I've grown up and where I've come from. Regardless of what I've been feeling, I've always been passionate about the music I listen to, so this collection is like distilled What I Used to Care About.

Rage Against the Machine from my angry highschool days, Smashing Pumpkins from melancholy breakups and the hope of future romance, Chemical Brothers and Prodigy for lacing up the boots, Herbie Hancock from all those solitary walks, Armin Van Buuren to incapsulate my first rave, Deep Purple from when I got my driver's license, Shpongle for the all the films I watched from behind closed eyelids... For me, this collection is a bloom with manifold petals.

T Martins.

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 04:16:54 GMT

I had the misfortune of trying a Tim Horton's breakfast sandwich a few days ago. I cannot describe how bad it was. I've been disappointed by fast food before, but this was the culinary equivalent of the scene in the Exorcist when the girl vomits pea soup all over herself. It was so bad it was soul searing. The egg, bun and cheese were one homogeneous mass of grease and cheap cooking oil pressed together into a sickly yellow brick. I've seen healthier looking things come out of a colostomy bag. Fuck you Timmy Ho's, you let me down. Way the hell down.

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 04:09:42 GMT

So a buddy of mine is an aspiring nerdcore rapper. I'm not talking about Hardmaster McDrizive, I'm talking about honest to god nerdcore rap.

Check it out: mad rhymin bitches, dawg, and some phat beats about Home Alone.

Funny shit.

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:35:17 GMT

A little bird told me that certain Caribbean sailors read this blog and are disappointed with my lack of updates. Bitch and ye shall receive.

There was a chance that I was going to be a TA this term but it doesn't look like it's going to pan out. This disappoints me because I was desparately looking forward to getting to yell at students for turning in bad lab reports.

"It takes an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters to write the works of Shakespeare. This," I exclaim as I slam my hand on a stack of reports, "Looks like it was more like a 5 monkey, 10 minute operation! What in the fuck!"

Next year, I suppose.

I've been getting weird looks around the engineering buildings for carrying around a dogeared copy of Virgil's Aeneid. It may be over 2000 years old, but that doesn't make it any less badass. Selected quotes: "If I cannot change the will of heaven, I shall release hell!" "Aeneas then spun a javelin at Pharus, who was boasting loudly but doing no deeds, and planted it in his shouting mouth." At one point in the story a whole paragraph is devoted to the description of a Trojan hero throwing a spear through someone's head. I mean, wow. Rumour has it that Caesar Augustus helped publicize the work as one part of his massive propaganda campaign related to restoring the old morales of the Roman people to his freshly minted empire. Fascinating stuff, no matter how you look at it.

At risk of being woefully behind the times, I've gotta through my meagre weight behind the HBO show The Wire. I'm sure I'm just one more whisper in the cacophony that is the blogosphere, but this show may be the second coming of the Messiah, so forgive me for restating its case.

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 20:01:26 GMT

Sinfest.

The Opposite Side of Bizarre

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 05:36:36 GMT

I read the Tucker Max Message Board. At the best of times this is a den of sin and horror, but today takes the cake. A 16 year old kid comes on and posts this:

Subject: Ask a cripple

Body: Ever wanted to ask a handicapped person something but you didn't want to offend them? Now is your chance! Ask me ANYTHING! I will answer 100% honestly.

Of course, the TMMB is full of jackals and fuckups, so this thread went south quick. The first few questions were pretty tame - people asking about political correctness, dealing with people who park in handicap spots, and some stuff about his lifestyle. Then it was revealed that because he has no motor control, he's never had an orgasm and is sexually frustrated. From there, it was only a short leap to 'Which one of the women on this board wants to sleep with this kid?' Unfortunately, him being 16 means that there's age of consent issues which could in theory get Tucker Max charged with Assessory to Statutory Rape if he set something up.

One of the hypotheticals put to the kid:

Would you rather:
Have a 9 hour and 16 min. tag-team sex marathon with Kate Beckinsale and Scarlett Johansson, but die immediately afterwards,
or...

Get a nationally televised hand job from Dustin Diamond resulting in a 23 roper orgasm. Afterwards, you are cured of MD and live a normal life expectancy.

Read the whole thing here on the TMMB.

A Bunch of Solid Links

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 21:01:26 GMT

Colbert Interviewing Eleanor Norton - The funniest Colbert bit I've ever seen.

Colbert getting banned from Wikipedia because of posting something like this

The most eloquent case for Net Neutrality I've heard so far - A music video starring the Peter Pan guy, the Tron guy, and the Gem Sweater lady. As well as a couple asian guys that I don't recognize offhand. Awesome.

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:40:05 GMT

Great article on the future of the oil industry and how interconnected it is

25 of the greatest Calvin and Hobbes strips of all time

Wow

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:36:05 GMT

A Beastly Bombing - A Terrible Tale of Terrorists Tamed by the Tangles of True Love

An opretta in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan about terrorism. I can't make this stuff up.

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 20:51:54 GMT

In some relationships you may have a gnawing feeling that the other person has gained control of the dynamic, yet you find it hard to pinpoint how or when this occurred. All that can be said for certain is that you feel unable to move the other person, to influence the course of the relationship. Everything you do only seems to feed the power of the controller. The reason for this is that the other person has adopted subtle, insidious forms of control that are easily disguised and yet all the more effective for being unconscious and passive. Such types exert control by being depressed, overly anxious, overburdened with work -- they are the victims of constant injustice. They cannoy help their situation. They demand attention, and if you fail to provide it, they make you feel guilty. They are elusive and impossible to fight because they make it appear at each turn that they are not at all looking for control. They are more willful than you, but better at disguising it. In truth, you are the one who feels helpless and confused by their guerilla-like tactics.

To alter the dynamic, you must first recognize that there is far less helplessness in their behavior than they let on. Second, these people need to feel that everything takes place on their terms; threaten that desire and they fight back in underhanded ways. You must never inadvertently feed their rebelliousness by arguing, complaining, trying to push them in a direction. This makes them feel more under attack, more like a victim, and encourages passive revenge. Instead, move within their system of control. Be sympathetic to their plight, but make it seem that whatever they do, they are actually co-operating with your own desires. That will put them off balance; if they rebel now, they are playing into your hands. The dynamic will subtly shift, and you will have room to insinuate change. Similarly, if the other person wields a fundamental weakness as a weapon (the heart-attack tactic), make that threat impossible to use against you by taking it further, to the point of parody or painfulness. The only way to beat passive opponents is to outdo them in subtle control.

-Robert Greene
The 33 Strategies of War (2006)

Craziness

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:32:49 GMT

Valve just released a trailer for their upcoming nonlinear puzzle FPS, Portal. I know I said puzzle FPS, but don't run away yet. It actually looks pretty badass and innovative. Check out a trailer - here (direct download).

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:23:19 GMT

Also, this is a great PBF

Blast from the Past

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:14:05 GMT

I just got that email forward about Bill Gates giving away his fortune to anyone who forwards this email. This time though, it's for real, because someone SAW IT ON THE NEWS. What a momentous occasion. That reminds me of this one time in 1995 when I was 12. I got this very same email, and you know what happened? I didn't believe it because I'm not fucking retarded.

The painful part is that I got this forward from a fellow engineering alumni. I mean, come on people!

Books, among other things

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:57:53 GMT

Mirrormask (2005) - Labyrinth meets dreamworld meets today's CGI/animatronics technology. Great visuals. Feels like Neil Gaiman is trying to tell humanity something that our mortal minds just can't comprehend.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - Fun, but not as good as the first one. I mean, come on, a pirate movie with no gold? What kind of cruel alternate dimension is this? Instead the focus is on Jack Sparrow Goes to Hogworts, or alternatively, Wizards of the Caribbean.

I've been reading a lot of George P. Pelecanos lately, specifically Hard Revolution, King Suckerman, Hell to Pay, Shame the Devil, and Soul Circus in the last few weeks. They're all basically the same, gritty modern crime stories that take place in Washington DC from the MLK assassination in 69 right down to modern day. The underlying psychology and reasons behind crime is always a main theme, whether it's poverty, glory, or plain craziness. He's a good writer and keeps his stories moving despite frequent injections of characters that soapbox his views. Of the 5 listed above, King Suckerman was my favourite.

World Cup Fever

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:11:57 GMT

This 1 second animated gif is the only World Cup soccer I've watched this year, but I can unequivocally say that it is the best replay of the tournament.

Tunes

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:56:27 GMT

A couple good albums I've been listening to lately:

Pendulum - Hold Your Colour (2005): Great DnB. Ranges from badass like Dieselboy to tripped out like Photek in a way that's neither. Definitely one of the more innovative dnb guys out there in my opinion. Torrent, courtesy of torrentspy.com: here

Gotan Project - Lunatico (2006): Tango meets triphop meets acid jazz. An interesting intersection between world beat and electronica. Torrent: here.

Lit Review

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 23:50:47 GMT

This post brought to you by the grass in front of Koerner library.

Eric Garcia - Anonymous Rex (2000): This is a tongue in cheek story about a velociraptor detective in a world where dinosaurs walk among humans in disguise, a secret society that lives under our noses, if you will. It's pretty funny and entertaining because of the dino angle, but by the end of the book after the novelty of dinosaur PIs has worn off, the story is a little threadbare. Garcia puts out some great turns of phrase, but by and large his repetoire is played out by the 3 quarter mark. Still, a fun read. Good popcorn lit for the summer.

Douglas Coupland - Polaroids From the Dead (1997): This is a set of short stories/essays by Vancouver's very own about his travels with the Grateful Dead. It reads like a blog, with snippets of people and attitudes throughout the later years of the Dead's tours. The printing I had also had 2 other 'books' in it along with Polaroids, one a series of writings on locations (including a couple about Vancouver), and another all about Brentwood California, the place where OJ may or may not have killed his woman, and where Marilyn Monroe is buried. For these second two parts, it's very clear that postmodernism is in vogue at the time of his writing. Expect a lot of $5 words and phrases like "denarration of the populace".

On a tangential topic, I think Coupland's style of short clipped paragraphs lends itself well to explorinng postmodern themes, because that way the writer is saved the trouble of following their arguments to their logical end - that is, admitting that PoMo is a bunch of jargon based garbage that isn't worth reading unless you're trying to pick up the barrista while you order a drink with more commas and clauses than a Poe sentence. When you're only writing 50 words on a topic it's far easier to sound deep without blowing your cover. Hence the popularity of the blog (present company notwithstanding, of course).

George Pelecanos - Hard Revolution (2005): A story of crime and criminals from both sides of the racial line is used to discuss racial tensions in the late 60s, culminating with MLK's assassination and the DC riots. A little slow to start, but it certainly has something to say. Similar to the movie Crash, in that the moral of the story is that racism is complicated. There's the black and white cops, the black and white thugs, and the black and white families that are just trying to get by. I wouldn't say it's groundbreaking, but certainly worth reading if you like the true crime genre. I'm going to pick up a couple more by Pelecanos and see what else he has to say.

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:40:42 GMT

Awesome link of the month - A whole bunch of links to full episodes of cartoons on YouTube

For real, check this out. Huge amounts of Animaniacs, the old Xmen cartoon, Undergrads, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Aqua Teens, Superman, Samurai Pizza Cats, Ironman, Futurama, Chunk Norris Karate Kommandos (I can't make this shit up), and tons more.

Thwarting the Weather Gods

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:38:46 GMT

These pictures from this weekend speak for themselves.

I like that he made the girl in the skirt go first.

Snow people are good targets.

Yes, he is riding a laundry basket.

"So how did you lose your ability to breed?"

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:25:55 GMT

Is there anything manlier than beef jerky chaingunning an anthromorphic group of vegetables, including a baby bell pepper? I doubt it. This weekend I finally had the pleasure of perusing Maddox's tome of all things awesome, the Alphabet of Manliness. For any fans of his wondering whether it's as good as his website, I will answer your question with a question. Does Chuck Norris shit lightning bolts? The answer to both queries is a thundering yes.