Awright, trying this with the office computer, now. Shuffle! Type out first lines of the first 20 songs (skipping instrumentals)! Now it's your turn. If you think you know what the song is, leave a note in the comments*.

1. Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe

2. I stood on the roof, I stood toward dark

3. I'll take you with me, over the water

4. Well, you play that tarantello

5. Come all ye wild young people and listen to my song

6. Alison Gross that lives in yon tower

7. My love, she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence

8. Oh, take care of all of my children

9. And he looks down, down, down, down

10. I was riding on the Mayflower when I thought I spied some land

11. I wasn't thinking, my head was in the book

12. Well, I stumbled in the darkness, lost and alone

13. In my platforms, I hit the floor

14. I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the blood of the exploited working class

15. I'm going down to cow town, cows are friends to me

16. Make a hole with a gun perpendicular

17. Istanbul was Constantinople

18. You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzie

19. It's knocking off my diamond wig

20. Phone's off the hook, no one knows where we are, it's a long time since I drank champagne


*Please! Isn't it obvious that I desperately crave attention?!!!

Oh, Boy

Y'know, when I heard that they were going to make a movie out of The Spirit, I said to myself, "I wish they would make it just like Sin City, because that movie rocked, and the use of stark black and white with splashes of color didn't make my eyes hurt at all, and if Frank Miller is involved with the movie, that would be great, because The Spirit needs a little flavoring and artistic touches because what Will Eisner originally drew was so bland and dull."

Today, my prayers are answered.

And yes, the foregoing was a whole bunch of sarcasm.

Where the hell does Frank Miller get off "improving" The Spirit by making it look like his own baby?! And that opening voiceover... words fail me.

All Right, Another Meme

So I got kind of caught in the shotgun-blast of Mum's meme-tagging. Quoth She:

I tag anybody who reads here to confess your own mundanities.

Hah! I'll not let this challenge go unanswered! Prepare ye, to be bored out of your skull!

Favorite laundry detergent: I prefer Tide Free. No chemical smells or bleach.

Favorite item used for an unintended purpose: The Internet. I'm sure, when Al Gore funded the development of ARPANet, he didn't intend it to be 90% cat pics, 7% porn, and 3% slash fan fic, especially since Tipper was so concerned that our young folk might be exposed to harsh language on our rock'n'roll records.

Favorite way to buy music: With a gift card. Seriously, though, I rarely buy music anymore, not since the big CD store in downtown K-ville closed down. McKay's almost never has the specific album I'm looking for.

How clean is your car? I wouldn't recommend eating off it unless you like oak pollen. I'm not going to think too hard about what oak trees use that pollen for. I guess they're exempt from punishment for Onanism, though.

How clean is your apartment/house/room? Heh. I spend most of my time in the kitchen and the bathroom, because a) ants; and b) icky black slime that probably dissolves flesh or something.

How clean is your office? We pay someone to come in every Sunday and vacuum the carpets and take out the trash. If I ever stop posting on this blog, however, someone come and see if I'm not trapped under a collapsed pile of paperwork.

Favorite weekly free time: Saturday and Sunday mornings. After my early-morning walk, I've got several hours left to hog the PlayStation before Isabel gets up, or surf the web, or just scribble.

Is there a word, phrase, or gesture that is identifiably yours? Not... anymore. And I'm afraid the court order prevents me from discussing this subject any further than that.

Most effective medicine for one (or more) of your ailments: I'm high on life, baby!

A favorite thing you try to sell/push/encourage your friends to try: YouTube. I'm seriously emailing folk with videos all the time.

Favorite new (or new-to-you) thing: Avatar: The Last Airbender. Seriously fun, guys, even though it's rated 8+ and runs on Nick.

Yoink (Home Edition)

I am yoinking a music meme from Morgan, and for completeness I'll run down the guidelines here:

1. Shuffle your music player.
2. Go down the list and list out the first lines from the first 20 songs, excluding instrumentals.
3. See who can guess what.

For those who participate, there will be cake.

So, without further ado, I proceed:

1. This is his lair, I smell the old fox around/He keeps himself to himself, he's staying close to the ground

2. I will survive, in my Mach 5, in my Mach 5, I will survive (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Morgan got this one: "Mach 5," The Presidents of the United States of America

3. Ex Tee Sea versus Adam Ant/Content versus form
Morgan got this one: "XTC versus Adam Ant," They Might Be Giants

4. You called me last night/On the telephone
Morgan got this one: "New York City," They Might Be Giants (although I think I heard they covered it).

5. The bells are ringing/The song they're singing/This song is bringing the people round
Morgan got this one: "The Bells," They Might Be Giants

6. I lost my lucky ball and chain/Now she's forty years gone
Morgan got this one, too: "Lucky Ball And Chain," They Might Be Giants. My home computer must love them as much as I do.

7. My whole family loves Three's Company/See the reruns constantly/They're on my Tee Vee
Morgan, again: "Syndicated, Incorporated," Weird Al Yankovich

8. We carried you in our arms on Independence Day/Now you throw us all aside and put us all away

9. Ooh my little hungry one, hungry one/Open up a package of my bologna
Morgan, again: "My Bologna," by Weird Al.

10. As I walked out one night in the mystic garden/The wounded flowers were dangling from the vine

11. Take time for your pleasure/And laugh with love/Take the hand of another/And sing with the wings of a dove

12. Man came to the door/I said for whom are you looking/He said your wife/I said she's busy in the kitchen cooking

13. Don't wanna be a Canadian idiot/Don't wanna be some beer-swilling hockey nut
Morgan, again: "Canadian Idiot," Weird Al

14. Lost john sitting on a railroad track/Somethin's outta whack

15. Show me the meaning of the world

16. Young Abdel Mahdi Shahmay was only eighteen years old

17. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee/They're throwing knives into the tree

18. Down at the shore there's a place where there's no one vacationing

19. Since I was a child, I tried to be what I am not/I lied and I've enjoyed it all my life
Morgan, one last time: "Big Hat, No Cattle," Randy Newman

20. By and by, I'm breathing a lover's sigh/Well I'm sitting on my watch so I can be on time


Well, that's it. Those are from my home computer, on which I have fewer mp3s. Perhaps I will do this again in a few weeks from my office computer, which has a larger selection.

And for those who have read this far: The cake is a lie. But here's a cat pic:

This Will Be Fun

That's a promo shot of Brendan Fraser in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

The Mummy and The Mummy Returns were both good rollicking fun that kill a couple of hours. While The Mummy 3 doesn't return to Egypt (a land that, for some reason, has always held a special place in my heart) and feature Imhotep, it does go to the Far East and features a Chinese mummy.

Wha-huh? I hear you say. The Ancient Chinese didn't practice mummification.

The Mummy was, yes, about a mummy, but Imhotep had been cursed prior to embalming. So in this one, there's an ancient curse on the Dragon Emperor that makes him an undead abomination thousands of years after his entombment. It's not the method of embalming that's important, it's the curse.

So, anyway, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is slated to open in early August, thereby capping off a nice summer full of big movies, including Indiana Jones, Batman, Star Trek, and Hellboy sequels.

ZOMG!!!

Click for larger, more heart-bursting image.

Nuts. Why'd It Have To Be Nuts?

A recent tie-in to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:



From Nodwick.com. Aaron Williams is a funny man.

A Couple Things From PZ Myers

First, on Michael Medved's column about how we dasn't elect no G-dless folk to the Pres'nency:

In the interests of being totally fair, I'd like all my American readers to know that it is right to resist the election of a wandering Geatish epic hero to the presidency, too: they tend to be violent, any time they're not at war they're morosely guzzling mead, they don't speak the language of Congress, there is actually a constitutional restriction against foreign-born nationals, and, well, they're all dead. See? It's a little harsh to tell someone famous in the sagas of skalds that they don't get to be president, but at least I can give a list of decent reasons.

He makes me laugh, quite often, actually.

And this he also had on his site, which (I must admit) didn't leave me scratching my head very much:



It was nominated for best short animated film in 2003.

Whoa.

Just now, there was a blast of wind so strong that it knocked a pane of glass out of the second story of the warehouse/storefront katty-kornered across the intersection from the office.

I first knew of it when I heard glass shatter. I looked out the window, and I realize that there's a lot of white shards scattered across Main Street. Then I look up and one of the white-painted windows in the warehouse is busted. I can see some sort of wooden structure behind it, that was maybe shifted by the wind and actually caused the damage.

The odd thing is, in order to get scattered across Main Street, the glass had to move laterally a good twenty yards, across the one-way street right next to the warehouse and across the corner of the grass lawn in front of the Methodist church that is directly across Main Street from us.

So, now there's glass all across the road. Is this a 911 situation? Someone could blow a tire. Is that even possible? There are cars driving across it and all that's happening is it's getting smushed into smaller fragments.

At least it wasn't something in our building, and no one got hurt.

And Now for Something Completely Different

see more crazy cat pics

Because the tone's not light enough around here.

And this's one only Morgan is likely to get:


see more crazy cat pics

Burying the Lede, Skewing the Story

Via Feminist Gamers, I learn that some maladjusted abuser has beaten his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter to death.

I wish that hadn't happened.

But I also wish that the media were framing it differently.

Right now, the story is "Man beats toddler to death WITH VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER." This allows everyone to ignore the real problems and go after violence in video games ... again.

The actual story is "MAN BEATS TODDLER TO DEATH with video game controller." If he hadn't had a video game system at hand, he'd have found something else to use, like a hammer, or the telephone, or even just his fists. The controller was just close at hand.

So the media is ignoring the tough questions, like why was he beating a two-year-old? and why didn't the mother do anything?, which might at least open up a discussion on what makes a person abusive and how abusive people control those around them. Instead, we get misleading questions like why do video games make people violent? and how can we protect our children from violent video games?, which all have the presupposition that this horrible incident is all the fault of Sony, Microsoft, and/or Nintendo.

Because, let's face it, this man would have beaten that toddler even if there were no video games around. Domestic violence has existed for centuries, and it will exist for centuries more unless we get some education out there. Asking disingenuous questions, as the media will no doubt quickly begin to do, is not education; it's distraction and derailment of the conversation. I might even go so far as to say that it enables abusers because it blames something else and lets abusers off the hook.

We Get Visitors

So we just had a visit from a couple of young women shilling for Check Into Cash in the office. They dropped off a handful of flyers that have some smiling, handsome handyman whose precise profession is hard to determine, and a handful of cheap pens with their logo on 'em. They promised us $20 cash for every person we send down there.

So, we're gonna rake in that cash real fast. Watch us refer people. Any day now, we're gonna start.

But that doesn't top the visitor we had the other day.

I've already told you about the Christian missionary from the Phillipines who tried to solicit donations from me some months ago.

Well, now we've had another missionary, this one from much closer to home. She came in with an armful of books hoping to get me to cough up a buck or two to fund their school/mission/thing, in exchange for which I would get FABULOUS PRIZES including (but not limited to):

1. A Health Food Cook Book (It's healthy! For your soul! See? It's got Christ in it!)

2. A Children's Book (Look mommy! Pastel Jesus is drawing the eyes back on that beggar so he can see again!)

3. A Propaganda Vehicle (Jesus watches over our troops and gives them victory on the battlefield!)

That last one had a blurb about "The Terrorist behind the Terrorists!" I shit you not. Wonder who that could be.



Seriously, it was a military fluff piece mixed with blatant Christian proselytizing.

How. Could I ever. Possibly. Resist.

So I sent this poor young girl, who was only trying to help me Savior the Flavor, away with no cash because I simply don't carry much these days, and damned if I'm going to dip into the (very) petty cash just to get her out of the office.

I even refused her offer to say a quick prayer with me.

I'm a bad boy.

The Horror!

see more crazy cat pics

Run for the hills! We are DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM'D!!!

(Rising Tones) You Got The Thing!

see more crazy cat pics

For context, I direct you to Wikipedia.

Also? This is raving paranoia captured in a book. "How Nintendo ... Enslaved Your Children"?! I wish I were making this up.

Oh No, Not Again

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) You are a light and humorous person. No one can help but to smile to your wit. Now if only the improbability drive would stop turning you into weird stuff. Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) 94% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 75% Moya (Farscape) 75% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69% SG-1 (Stargate) 56% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 56% Serenity (Firefly) 50% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 44% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 38% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 31% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 31%

What, no Doctor Who? They put that Kevin Sorbo ego-train Andromeda on there, and they didn't add Doctor Who? Or Red Dwarf?

Come to think of it, I've got more quibbles from a purely sci-fi nerd standpoint about this quiz, but I won't bore you.

Yes, I love the old Heart of Gold crew, but I gotta say that picture up there is just as amusing. I love Ford (on the left) busting out the towel-ninja moves, and the citrus-powered thinking cap atop Zaphod's noggin (on the right).

Also, "You don't scare me. I'm British. I know how to queue!" is a wonderful line.

Hanx, Ma!

Because It's Friday

And it's almost time to crack open that beer:


see more crazy cat pics

And also

Beer!

So I get up this morning and step through the shower, perform the rest of my ablutions with more than my normal vigor, and get out the door about 15 minutes early, planning to grab breakfast on the road, because we've got a big meeting between a couple of our clients and some other lawyers at the office today.

My drive in to work is uneventful. I stop to get one of those pint bottles of milk and some cereal at a convenience store (one in the chain of gas stations labelled "Git-N-Go" that're pretty numerous here in the Tennessee Valley) and, as I roll into the office, I notice several things.

First, the boss's car isn't in the parking lot. There is another car, one I don't recognize, parked near the telephone pole in the middle of the lot.

Second, the office isn't open. I can tell because the flag isn't flying. The boss is not one to let the authoritarian right and the war hawks have the flag all to themselves, and he always puts it out on a nice, sunny day like this.

Third, there are two people standing next to the door into the office.

Crap. Someone's dropped the ball somewhere, and I have to make sure that it wasn't me.

All right. So I get out of the car, leaving my breakfast in the passenger seat, and approach the two people next to our door. Yep, it's the other lawyer and the court reporter, both of whom drove up here from Nashville yesterday for this meeting.

Okay, all's not lost. It's not 9 o'clock yet. So I let them into the office, and plug all the lamps in (they have to plug in, one of them doesn't even have a switch) and then I go call the boss.

"You mean the meeting's at nine? I thought it was at ten! I'm on my way. Put 'em in the upstairs conference room. Where are our clients?"

So I unlock the conference room and try to call the motel where our clients are staying.

"I'm very sorry, sir, there's no one by that name staying here. He just called me to say that he's in front of your office right now, but he can't get in."

Seriously, that's what the guy who answered the phone said. They don't have our guests as clients, but incidentally, they can't get into our building.

So I go down to the parking lot. Good, the boss's car is here, but there's no new car. Our clients are probably on the other side of the building, parked on the street. It's back through the building for me. The boss is in here somewhere, but I don't see him.

I do see our clients as soon as I unlock the streetside door. Both of them are over 80, and I usher them indoors to meet the boss coming out of the downstairs conference room. He gets them seated in there, and I head upstairs to make coffee.

The coffee's percolating along nicely when I discover that our non-dairy creamers have become obstinate lumps in the bottoms of their bottles. So they'll have to make do with sugar and sugar substitute. Fortunately, everyone eventually takes their industrial-strength coffee black (seriously, I think the boss got some ultra-mega-jumbo strength coffee that makes, like, 100 cups or something on one filter pack) except me, and I manage to sneak out and get my breakfast so's I can put some milk in my coffee.

So, a bad start to a day that is rapidly shaping up much better than it used to be.

Still, my robot brain needs beer.

Some Wonderful News

Antibiotic-resistant staph infections are of great concern for me, having barely survived two bouts with S. aureous in the past. The good news is, it's been 9 years since my last outbreak, and my particular strain was still vulnerable to some heavy-duty chemicals.

But now, in Scotland, they're developing bacteriophage viruses implanted in nylon and other materials, for use after surgery. The idea is the viruses eat the resistant bacteria you can pick up in hospitals, thus reducing the risk and/or severity of infection.

This doesn't mean much for me, but if it prevents more deaths, that's a wonderful thing. I only wish I were a multi-billionaire so I could bankroll their research....

But anyway, I do hope they manage to get a bacteriophage virus that can be relied upon not to infect the surgery patients itsownself. That would just suck.