I need a new Tandy computer.

Even RadioShack CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business.

"There must be some sort of business model that enables this company to make money, but I'll be damned if I know what it is," Day said.

Gone gone oh form of ham...

Giga's got a ham cooking.

I may go down and curse it later.

I haven't quite decided yet.

Silly stupid humans.

And this is good why?

Do this and watch nature magnify problems elsewhere in response.

Silly stupid humans.

You are at about a 10 and I really need you maybe at a 4.

Dear Planet Fitness:

I like working out at your gym. Really. I do.

The goofiness about some of your policies doesn't bother me and is outweighed by the fact you are open very early.

However, could you please do me a favor?

Please de-gay the locker room music just a bit. You are at about a 10 and I really need you maybe at a 4.

Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive segueing into Erasure's Chains of Love is just a little to much at 6:15 in the morning.

Come to think of it. It is a little to much no matter what time of day it is!

Finally.

My old high school teaches Mandarin Chinese now?

Hell. Apparently The Cousin's high school had been teaching Mandarin for years until it got cut due to budget cutting measures.

All I have to say is it is about time French and German were displaced by more logical languages that may have future use.

Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic... that's the way to go in this new century of ours.

I'd call it ciociakythera !

I doubt this excites you as much as it does this non-professional anthropologist, but damn it is cool that the Antikythera Mechanishmis finally being decoded.

This is the stuff that really gets my panties moist.

You can have your football. You can have your NASCAR.

Give me patterns in history any day!

*boing*

At 7 I was looking for my wookie.

Damn!

99.9999999% of Homo sapiens sapiens are total slackers.

Sto lat, sto lat, niech zyje zyje nam.

Happy 2569th birthday to Siddartha Guatama!

Unfortunately, I don't know how to sing Sto Lat in the old language of the Kapilavastu area so I'll refrain.

Princess Chuck's truck got broken into and...

Ok. After seeing the scary shit lurking in Chuck's truck I realized there's a silly meme to be had here.

Please take a photo or photos of the shit in your car as-is. You know, the things that you should have cleaned out ages ago and really step over and move every day.

Post those pictures to your site and and comment on this post with a link.

Why?

Because.

Tomorrow's Friday.

And you have nothing better to do with your lame and boring ass life.

Continue reading "Princess Chuck's truck got broken into and..." »

Daikon kimchee is the proverbial bomb!

Siddartha, Jesus, Prometheus, and Susanowa were debating about what the perfect food should be.

The result: daikon kimchee!

Only something as wonderful as daikon kimchee could actually be magic!

Paving the way for Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus

Oh. In case you forgot.

Today is the Ides of March.

Yup!

2050 years ago today Gaius Julius Cæsar was assassinated in the Roman Senate.

This of course paved the way for a series of events that eventually transformed Gaius Julius Cæsar Octavianus into Augustus Cæsar and gave birth to the Pax Romana where the seeds of much of our current culture were sown.

At least Sue Ann Nivens isn't so bad.

While never having been medically diagnosed with mental illness,I am very confident that I suffer from some form or forms of mental illness and have had episodes that could possibly be deemed "crazy" and such.

It is the only rational way to explain events of my life over the past 2 decades.

I just had one of these "moments" that I cannot explain.

I'm sitting here working on a project and all of a sudden I have the realization that Gavin Macleod played a character actually called Murry Slaughter in the 70s in The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Murry F'n Slaughter.

What an awful name.

Why in the world did this horrible name and situation come into my head?

Only one answer: mental illness.

In honor of the Dancing Boy #3 I self-christen myself Nala 3.0.

Evebird made a comment yesterday about 2005 being the "year of the new Nala" and to some degree he's correct.

But in thinking about where I've been, what I am now, and where I'm going, I realized really that I'm pretty much in the beginning phase of Nala 3.0.

Yup. Definitely the third iteration of me over the course of the past 35 years.

Nala 1.0 pretty much existed from 1970 to 1992 or so.

Nala 2.0 was more or less 1992 to 2005 with a good chunk of that a crazed period of mental illness, the Dark Ages, and the recovery from those earlier periods that began in 1997 or so.

Nala 3.0 is definitely on now with a much different underlying attitude brewing in everything. Surprisingly, the smack in the face a few weeks back from Black Thursday has helped me to begin the process of figuring out what Nala 3.0 should be about.

I haven't talked about it much, only casually mentioning it to confidants and not even really bringing it up to Giga even.

But I think I have to finish grad school. I think I need, in some deep personal way, dig back into 1992 and pick up where I left off.

I haven't figured out how I'm going to do this at all. I have barely come to terms with the realization that this is what I must do.

If I had a TARDIS this would be so much easier.

Hopefully the All-Being Master of Time, Space, and Dimension will be on my side with this era of my life.

Been there. Done that.

Been there. Done that. Got the degrees to prove it.

Continue reading "Been there. Done that." »

And lo, Isaac wore the boxer briefs, and found them to hold his genitalia well.

Did you know that today is the 70th anniversary of the "jockey" brief?

Yup.

Now personally I abandoned the tighty whities in the 90s for boxer-briefs. I've never been a fan of just plain boxers due to the fact I could never get used to my massive practically god-like genitalia flopping all around down there.

Ok. That was probably too much information for 7:30 in the morning.

On second thought. That was probably too much information period.

But you should feel comfortable in knowing that combining boxer shorts and briefs into boxer briefs is not considered "abomination" in my life. I think there's even a passage or two in Deuteronomy about it. And 3000 year old text is always 100% accurate.

One wombat to rule them all and in their inbred genes bind them.

Need to know all 871 people (and their order) for succession to the British throne?

Well then... here it is!

Poor Princess Marie Louise of Schaumburg-Lippe down there at 871st. You don't have a chance in hell do you.

And Prince William, when he finally ascends the throne, will be the first British monarch descended from Charles II, as well as the first descended from Charles I since the death of Queen Anne in 1714.

Atta boy!

Great. Now we have to fight space monsters.

Spacecraft bringing comet dust back to Earth (CNN)

If all goes as planned, Stardust will release the 100-lb. capsule carrying the samples at 1 a.m. ET on Sunday.

So does that mean by Monday morning there will be space plagues and mutating monsters rampaging across the face of this planet?

I mean. You know it is going to happen.

I could call him Fotzsyzrk I suppose.

The last few days have been very weird for my mentally.

Two nights ago I had a very long dream (or so it seemed long) that I actually remembered upon waking. While not disturbing, the ramifications of this dream have left me with this strange gaping emotional void that I haven't been able to get my thoughts around.

In this dream I was in Glass City with my infant son.

My son was relatively blond compared to me, but I remember saying that he got his blond hair from his mother.

Now there wasn't any mother in the dream. She was completely absent and never once mentioned.

It was just me and my son named Krzysztof.

I remember having to correct family who would call him Christopher and I was constantly calling hi Krzyst (pronounced like Krischt sorta). I always wanted to name my second son Krzysztof so I found it funny that this name ended up in the dream as my only son's name.

What was strange was that towards the end, I remember being at my aunt's but my son not being there and then I had to go pick him up somewhere or something since the Cousin or someone was watching him. I don't really remember.

I awoke to this supremely dark disturbing emotional void that I haven't been able to shake the past few days.

Are my dreams telling me something that I need to seriously look at?

Hmmmm...

I wish I was up to fabulous.

I wish I was fabulous again.

There was the brief moment in 1992.

But that was a long time ago.

Yes. Worse photos exist.

Indeed I've been finding photos here and there that are far worse than the ones I posted a week or so ago.

Don't believe me?

Continue reading "Yes. Worse photos exist." »

The need more lasers on their robotic arms.

The Mars rovers continue to chug along. (CNET)

Kudos to the engineering team that developed Spirit and Opportunity.

The mission was supposed to last only 90 days, and most of the components were stress-tested for a lifetime of 270 days.

And Spirit has so far kept chugging along for over 684 now. That's damn impressive.

When humans, mostly for fear of profit loss, can't develop more fuel-efficient environmentally safer engines, it really is nice to know that we can send these small fairly simple robots out into hostile alien environments millions of miles away and they can far surpass any design expectations.

For every thousand times we fuck up we get one or two things right.

Let's just hope the Viking landers don't wake up and get pissed that some little rovers are on their turf. Big time shennanagins will ensue. I guarantee it.

There are borders I would never cross.

Some children conceived by a common IVF method could be carrying chunks of bacterial DNA in their chromosomes, finds a study in mice. (New Scientist)

Woohoo!!!

While I'm all for realistic and postive scientific exploration in all fields of human study I do have issues with augmented fertility improvement methods.

It comes from my basic acceptance that our genes manifest the totality of our physical reality for a reason and that nature reacts to those manifestations accordingly. Natural reproduction via coitus in Homo sapiens sapiens is the only way I feel children should be conceived.

If egg and sperm cannot meet and a viable embryo supported through natural means that have evolved over millions of years than there is a reason. This should not be tampered with or overcome by science. If a couple doesn't conceive after repeated attempts during highly fertile monthly times, it isn't because of magic, gods, some animal you failed to sacrifice, or necessarily any fault you have control over. There's a reason that you aren't having children and perhaps one or both of you shouldn't have children.

Personally, I would love to have children. For me it would be the fulfillment of many possible paths that go back through many generations.

But nature and nurture introduced certain undeniable mental instabilities that I cannot afford to pass onto any offspring. These could be genetic. They could be cultural. But the negative in my opinion far outweighs the positive here.

Would I adopt?

That's a hard one to answer. The genetic flaws would not be present but could I feel good about myself if I passed on negative cultural damage and baggage to a child? I don't know. I think about it quite a bit.

So what does any of this have to do bacterial DNA being introduced to human chromosomes?

Not much.

I just don't believe I've ever addressed the topic about my belief in normal coitus as the only means of human reproduction.

See. Now you know that.

And knowing is half the battle.

Moo.

The physics behind Giga's youthful past time.

And I'm not talking about any chicken choking here.

No. I do not care. Don't say to me "Go Bucks!" or else I will poop on you.

So today and tomorrow a couple of hundred thousand people around the country will dress up in their scarlett and grey costumes. They will wear necklaces of poisonous nuts from the Aesculus glabra tree. The males will paint and decorate their faces with red and grey make-up. Their females will not mock the males for "girling it up" because it involves throwing a ball.

They will binge consume alcohol. They will scream, pant hoot, yell, and vomit.

Many will leave trash everywhere in their wake.

If the ones in the Central Cowlands get mad, they will destroy things and create fires, all the while continuing their screaming, pant hooting, and vomitting.

They will do this under the guise of "team spirit" and other illusionary bullshit so as to fill the gaping holes in their empty lives.

And come the beginning of January, when their last excuse to doll themselves up is over with, they will wait to do this all over again in 9 months.

And the funny thing is, I'm the weird one because I'm an adult who collects a toyline.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

Did you also know that...

The original theme song to the Transformers was actually "Chuck Norris--more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris--robot in disguise," and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.

I so loves me some Anthropik.com.

Ultimately a change is inevitable when societal thresholds are reached. The degree and direction of this change are the only things in question.

And then Camilla hugged a crack baby and Charles high-fived a drunk tranny whore.

Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla wrapped up their visit to the United States by touring a homeless shelter, a place where they truly have absolutely no fucking idea how bad it is to exist in and live in.

I love when the the wealthy go slumming for a photo-op.

At least Princess Di seems to have some empathy for it. Sure. It was all photo-ops. You didn't see her slumming and sleeping in the homeless shelters did you?

I wish I had the balls right now.

I've been thinking.

Perhaps it is time to move after all.

But not just out of the house. Perhaps out of the state. Perhaps out of the country.

What really is keeping me here?

The Hoont? Giger? Things?

I find my thoughts coming back to not wanting to be in, nor be a part of, this culture anymore.

I'm sick of magic. I'm sick of the undead. I'm sick of living in the shadow and face of those whose lives amount to nothing more than blind adoration of fearing.

I don't think it'll matter to the real people.

So over the past week or so I've been reading the San Francisco Chronicle's Lethal Beauty series about the number of people who commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

There's this movement to erect a suicide barrier on the bridge and I guess I think it is all pretty much crazy talk. Of course, suicide and "crazy talk" probably go hand-in-hand with much of the public's perception of it all.

Yes. There are many people out there that feel that suicide is a valid option.

I speak from some experience since 13 years ago I was right there with them and know the thoughts intimately.

But by merely making something more of an obstacle doesn't mean that the person is going to not attempt suicide elsewhere.

Is it the City and the State's job to make sure that the suicidal don't act on their thoughts? Is it the taxpayer's responsibility to make sure that such things as bridges and cliffs and other high elevated areas are "protected" from the tiny minute percentage of the population that has issues to deal with and may (or may not) use a given location to end their life?

I just think the amount of time and money on such a thing as "barrier prevention" is wasted and it could be much better spent on those who are living without intent to commit suicide.

When it comes to ending one's life, I don't give a damn what psychologists and such think. There are three types of people who think about suicide: #1 the ones that go over the precipice and kill themselves, #2 the ones that dangle on the precipice but something pulls them back, and #3 the ones that use suicide for pure and simple attention because they have a lot of issues in general.

While there may be some basic so-called early warning signs, a person that will fall into #1 will fall into #1 and will kill themselves and will succeed. I have nothing wrong with this nor do I have pity on those that do. You have to understand me on this. Having been a #2 I understand the #1 types at a level that gives their acts a sense of honor and dignity that so many would think horrid but it isn't. There is no magic religious bullshit clouding my thoughts and emotions on the matter. It is a completely amoral act to me. You either commit suicide or you do not. Your reasons for doing so are your own really.

The number #2 group, and I believe there are many of us out there, were seconds away from being in the #1 group. But something either inside of us or external to us put us on different paths. Most of us don't talk about it because we find the means to cope with what lead us to almost become #1s and move on. I think that many of us still constantly teeter on that precipice but the shere fact we still live means that our little mental ghost worlds are strong enough to prevent us from going over.

The #2s in the world need to get together, openly talk about the moment we turned back, and then severely beat the shit out of the #3s. We should give them nightmares and pain that would make them wish they were the #1s. And the thing is that the #3s know this to be true. That is their ultimate failure. They are nothing more than charade. And deep down they know it and they know that the rest of the world knows it too.

What did any of this have to do with the Golden Gate Bridge?

Well. It is my favoritest bridge in the whole world. The Golden Gate itself is one of my favoritest areas in the world. It is in some incredible way a wonderful place to end one's life given that there are a helluva lot worse places. Hell, I want my own ashes to be thrown off the west side of the bridge out into the Pacific.

But putting up a barrier to stop someone from killing themselves by jumping off it isn't going to stop those people from killing themselves.

I'm sorry.

It may make you feel better and help you to live with those "poor folks" that will jump but it won't make much difference.

All the cool kids know it.

You bored too? Of course you are. You are reading naladahc.com.

So entertain yourself by learning how corn becomes corn syrup.

All the cool people know.

I have to go take a leak now before I head to a meeting.

We told everyone we had a Polish Lemonade Stand last night and they all looked at us with adoration.

Thanks to a worldy and beneficial San Franciscan I now know what a banana is. I had only heard the perjorative term "twinkie" previously so my negative vocabulary is now +1.

And I have once again fallen in love with UrbanDictionary.com.

I had forgotten about this site. What a great time waster.

I'm very happy that the Polish are well-represented here with such terms as: Polish Bike Ride, Polish Broadway Show, Polish Falcon, Polish sixpack, Polish twins, Polish thunderstorm, and my personal favorite Polish Lemonade Stand.

But I think Retardo Montalban could move up in the charts of my inner monologue pretty fast.

And vaginamite? Pure gold.

Laika (1954?-1957)

Take a moment today and think about Laika, the first living creature from this planet, thrust into space on board Sputnik II 48 years ago today.

She died after a few hours once in orbit.

The Soviets never quite admitted until rather recently (1998) that Laika died so quickly.

We should never ever forget the little things.

I still love the verb "to swab" for some reason.

Now this is pretty cool from a certain point of view.

But it does indeed open up vast social concerns for the use of donors.

Your own... personal... Lenticular Jesus...

I'm surprised I never posted photos of one of the greatest and rarest of Christian artifacts ever created.

It was passed down to me upon my busia's death in 1993 and is one of the most amazing pieces of magic ever given to humanity.

Continue reading "Your own... personal... Lenticular Jesus..." »

56 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 13% Dork

So I took this silly online Nerd? Geek? Dork? Test that Kelmeister sent out.

I scored the following:

Modern, Cool Nerd
56 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 13% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Screaming to run the Beetle of Love.

Inventor fuels car with dead cats (CNN)

Koch said around 20 dead cats added into the mix could help produce enough fuel to fill up a 50-liter (11 gallon) tank.

But the president of the German Society for the Protection of Animals, Wolfgang Apel, said using dead cats for fuel was illegal.

"There's no danger for cats and dogs in Germany because this practice is outlawed in Germany," Apel told Bild on Wednesday in a story entitled "Can you really make fuel out of cats?"

Eastern European women's vice grip!

Yes. They used to make Eastern European women very tough.

A battling 93-year-old Lithuanian woman has thwarted an attempted burglary by grasping one of the miscreants by the testicles so hard that the sobbing blagger required hospital treatment...

Popova attributes her grip of steel to years of milking goats. They breed their grannies tough out there in Lithuania, make no mistake.

They don't grow 'em like that anymore. Especially here in 'Merica.

Yes. This country actually sucks all the physical prowess out of the majority of women. Or so says me.

He's Robocop and has is working on a Ph.D.!

So I'm watching Rome: Engineering an Empire on the History Channel and actor Peter Weller kept popping up to talk about this or that topic.

I'm sitting there asking Giga why an actor best known to 'Mericans as Robocop and Buckaroo Bonzai, and Naked Lunch and my favorite crazy rat infestation flik Of Unknown Origin is speaking as an authority on Roman history and culture.

Well... and this is personally really cool... Weller actually holds a master's degree in Roman and Renaissance art and apparently is working towards his Ph.D.. You gotta understand, for Nala to see an actor actually working towards an advanced academic degree in ancient Meditteranean subject matter and holding a professorship at Syracuse University is just the most incredible thing.

In a country where we have a retarded unedumacated selected president and millions believe that invisible magic beings control morality and grant magic wishes we can also have a C-list actor (who I always liked) and this actor can be a university professor!!! There still is hope that the apocalypse will not destroy everything.

And if you have any interest in the subject matter, and you should because it makes you realize the cycle of "dark ages" humanity goes through, then I recommend Rome: Engineering an Empire. Catch it. It is pretty decent as it ties engineering directly into the rules of specific emperors.

Oh. And if you want softcore porn, I highly recommend HBO's slow but not-that-bad Rome. (NOTE: If you are Max Power you don't want to watch the cranial surgery from episode 2. Trust me. You don't.)

And just some Nala trivia but I'm still a fan of Kurtwood Smith's Clarance Boddicker. Man. What a total dick of a character. Love him!!!

A realization I am only now coming to.

I realized something today when thinking about the personal financial devestation that has occured to those who lived in southern Mississippi and Louisiana.

They are fucked in more ways because of the Republicans that even I thought possible.

The "new and improved bankruptcy" laws that were passed earlier this year will not make it possible for any of these people to ever recover from this event.

The small business owner. The IT worker. The blue collar worker. The service worker. Everybody is more than likely totally fucked.

They no longer have jobs but they no doubt have bills. Many of these people no longer have homes or possessions but they no doubt have mortgages and debts.

There's no way out. No way out at all.

How many of these people will be able to find and/or acquire the personal records to file bankruptcy? Will it even matter since the bankruptcy laws were changed to favor the whorish fucking scumbag creditors companies and corporations?

Oh this will be grand. This will be grand indeed.

Hundreds of thousands of people are fucked. Totally fucked.

I never realized how these fucking scumbag corporate whore tools really have been able to rewrite 'Merica based on their need for revenue and magic until now.

There was an amendment to bankruptcy rewriting that was to exempt people who lost everything due to natural disaster. Guess what? The fucking replicrat scumbag vermin vetoed that months ago.

Oh these people are more fucked in this country than I ever though possible.

The dead are actually better off.

But then again, the fucking republicrat scumbag vermin wouldn't have it any other way.

The smell of death is in the streets. There's water instead of blood though. When will the 'poksiclips happen wiping smirking fraudulent "leaders" and their vermin traitorous whores away into the footnotes of history?

A realization I am only now coming to.

I realized something today when thinking about the personal financial devestation that has occured to those who lived in southern Mississippi and Louisiana.

They are fucked in more ways because of the Republicans that even I thought possible.

The "new and improved bankruptcy" laws that were passed earlier this year will not make it possible for any of these people to ever recover from this event.

The small business owner. The IT worker. The blue collar worker. The service worker. Everybody is more than likely totally fucked.

They no longer have jobs but they no doubt have bills. Many of these people no longer have homes or possessions but they no doubt have mortgages and debts.

There's no way out. No way out at all.

How many of these people will be able to find and/or acquire the personal records to file bankruptcy? Will it even matter since the bankruptcy laws were changed to favor the whorish fucking scumbag creditors companies and corporations?

Oh this will be grand. This will be grand indeed.

Hundreds of thousands of people are fucked. Totally fucked.

I never realized how these fucking scumbag corporate whore tools really have been able to rewrite 'Merica based on their need for revenue and magic until now.

There was an amendment to bankruptcy rewriting that was to exempt people who lost everything due to natural disaster. Guess what? The fucking replicrat scumbag vermin vetoed that months ago.

Oh these people are more fucked in this country than I ever though possible.

The dead are actually better off.

But then again, the fucking republicrat scumbag vermin wouldn't have it any other way.

The smell of death is in the streets? There's water instead of blood though. When will the 'poksiclips happen wiping smirking fraudulent "leaders" and their vermin traitorous whores away into the footnotes of history?

In which I realize Carl Sagan had a significant impact on my life.

Steve-O posted a link to Adam Cadre's site and Cadre's entry on Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

While reading this entry I really was transported back a few decades to a time when I myself was formulating mindfulness and I never realized that I myself was substantially impacted by both the Cosmos book and PBS series.

In fact I wouldn't argue with the fact that my current viewpoints and overall general belief system of reality are in some ways resulted from my exposure to Carl Sagan when I was a child.

Cadre really nails an aspect of the series that I myself could have easily have written...

Sagan didn't have miracles to offer. Instead he had this.

You know that little yellow-brown speck of light up in the sky? Some people thought it was a campfire far away, some thought it a war god? It's a place. You can go there. We know this because we've been there. For thousands of years, and more likely tens of thousands, people knew of this speck of light; now we've sent landers, taken photographs, examined the rocks. You can go to Mars and pick up a rock. It's every bit as real a place as the one you're in right now. And that's just one world. There are others. Look up at the stars at night; most of them are surrounded by planets, worlds every bit as real as this one. And while you're looking at those stars, how about this? One of the brightest stars in the night sky is called Deneb. It's about 3200 light years away. That means that 3200 years ago, when the Trojan War was in full swing and Rameses II was pharaoh of Egypt, some photons escaped from Deneb's photosphere. Over the course of more than three thousand years, these photons traversed nineteen quadrillion miles of empty space and landed smack in the middle of a hole half a centimeter wide: your pupil. Or try the same experiment with the M31, the Andromeda Galaxy — three million light-years away. Look at it and realize: light that left the galaxy's constituent stars when humans had just established themselves as a species is completing a journey of three million years by landing in your eyes right now.

One more thing: not only is this kind of stuff is much more awe-inspiring than magic tricks by an invisible man in the sky, it also has the advantage of being true.

I guess I forget along the way of getting old that much of what I would come to believe is correct and real is very much because of the thinking that I had developed because of being exposed to the mere thought of an actual reality much greater than a magic one of non-touch, missing taste, and only "believing" instead of knowing.

While I can understand when Cadre says "As my worldview largely came from Cosmos, I suppose you could say that in that sense it is my Bible." I can't fully agree. Reality, history, and actually knowing are in themselves my "Bible" and I never thought about it that way before.

I think I need to go out and find reread Cosmos and find a copy of the PBS series on video or DVD. I think I may just need a bit of Sagan again.

I think I shall christen thee Pussy Rainmaker Katrina.

This shit better be gone by Thursday night.

I'm already sick of the Katrina and the Waves coverage and it totally blows my mind that hurricanes are national news.

Hurricanes are a force of nature.

There are geographic areas on this and other continents that experience greater effects because of their proximity to areas where hurricanes like to chill out.

This has always happened. It always will happen.

It isn't news and doesn't need to be the main topic of conversation in a news report for 50 minutes per hour.

I bet you could rerun the hurricane footage from any other hurricane and it would look exactly the same and the talking heads would be blabbing about exactly the same shit. The same footage of empty grocery store shelves could be played and the same "journalists" would be shown outside in raincoats almost getting knocked over by the winds and rain.

A few months back, when that last hurricane did its thing, the Daily Show did a whole take of this overly dramatized "news" that even they could rerun and it would be just as funny because the major networks tell the same story over and over again every hurricane.

Yeah. They suck. Yeah. They cause damage. Yeah. God hates the people that live in those areas and wants them dead.

But it isn't all that newsworthy.

The news items should be about why God hates the southern coastal peoples and why does He hate those that live in the Bible belt so much. Hurricanes and tornadoes are God's wrath against these people. Why is He such a predator on the old, trailer-living, southern folk.

I am bored. A few minutes until I can go home.

Can somebody please define "chronic homelessness" to me?

I'm sitting here throwing this United Way stuff into the recycle bin and there's this picture of a woman and it says "What if you could help Denise Cornett overcome chronic homelessness?" and I'm like "what the hell is chronic homelessness"?

As I see it you are either:

1. Homeowner (+ dependents) - You own a home and live in it.
2. Renter (+ dependents) - You rent a property that you do not own.
3. Homeless - You do not have a place to live and nobody who rents lets you live there.

Would chronic homelessness mean that you just never seem to find a home or be able to rent?

Does this mean someone in the viscious circle of no-address/no-bank account?

I'm not seeing how the word "chronic" works with the word "homelessness" here.

Now if it said "What if you could help Denise Cornett overcome chronic?" and I knew Denise had a problem with the foliage I'd be all "Sure. She needs to get off the chronic if she can't handle it." and stuff.

Now if it said "What if you could help Denise Cornett overcome homelessness?" at first I'd wonder "Is Denise Cornett tackling homelessness?" or does she herself "Not have a home." and stuff.

But I must be obvlivious to combining "chronic" and "homelessness".

Now combining "chronic" and "prostatitis"... hell... I'm with ya there!

Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!

Stop by for the zoo. Stay for the kielbasa.

I don't know why but I was taking a break and came across some marketing-speak on my hometown of Glass City and just about had to laugh. From Toledo.com...

And its proximity to Detroit, Cleveland and Columbus make it the perfect stopping off point for tourists on their way to other destinations.

I suppose at the core of my being that is pretty much how I even viewed Toledo considering that I don't reside there. In fact, in 2006 I will have lived in Cowtown as long as I originally lived in Toledo (18 years) so can I say I am from one city or the other?

I mean... when I think of Toledo I actually think of Lagrainka, the region where I grew up.

When I think of Cowtown I think of the Dark Ages of my life even though that was a long time ago.

S'funny. Why the hell am I not thinking of Cowtown as a "way to other destinations"? I should. I know this.

The corporate parasite is back.

Ugh! The corporate parasite that is called United Way is back trying to suck money from me like the vampiric disease it is.

I've just been handed the handy little envelope with the Cowtown-tailored materials, calendar of "events" planned here at work, and my personal favorite "group mind-think team" materials designed to guilt the individual into giving money.

I ask you. What other group has had such luck existing as a parasite leeching off of corporate guilt and greed?

None.

I so despise them and am so tempted to write "Fuck the United Way" on the pledge card.

What the hell did Jesus mean?

Jesus says: "Whoever will come to know father and mother, he will be called son of a whore."

Gospel of Thomas: 105

I've been exploring several translations of the Gospel of Thomas and while I do enjoy the difference in delivery than the narrative gospels sometimes I'm taken aback by the translations.

I do so hate the word "enriched".

And then I read...

If Americans stopped eating large quantities of fried chicken, sweetened breakfast cereal, cookies and snack chips, the financial health of many companies would suffer.

Our culture, at the root of its spirit, is essentially hollow and empty. And corporate culture will do everything possible to generate a revenue stream of what is essentially evil and abomination.

Just look at Coca-Cola and Pepsi, two companies that control so much because they have addicted much of the world population ot caffeinated-sugar water.

But in the bleakness of our disintegrating culture, there are surprising instances of attempts to undue decades of damage.

I have even felt guilty because I found this cheaper supposedly multi-grain bread that only has 40 calories a slice which allow me to at least have a low calorie sandwich or toast. The 80 calorie a slice Vogel's Multi-Grain that I've fallen in love with is so much better that I'm going back to it after I kill this other loaf. This cheaper bread is crappy and loses its calories by being more processed. It is a give and take. Grrr...

The are so many other Vogel's bread products I need to try. There's nothing like eating good rough bread that feels natural and not so processed and inhuman. (The only time Wonder Bread should be eaten is with polish ham and miracle whip and only rarely as a treat.)

What I find funny, and the extreme problem of the whole low carb craze shit, it the fact that humanity doesn't realize it is the artificialness and processed nature of modern 'Merican food that is the problem and not the fact that it is food from grains.

Our entire human culture owes its existence to the transition from basic horticulture to agriculture. All society owes life to agriculture.

We are there and we are staying.

Will the liberals and democrats of the US of 'Merica please stop questioning why there is no "exit strategy" from Iraq and painting the issue like it was the accidental fault of the current administration.

There never was an exit strategy because there never was a plan to exit Iraq.

Don't you people get this simple fact? Are you that easily fooled?

August 9, 1945

Sixty years ago today was second and the last time an atomic weapon was used in war against a city in a soveriegn nation.

I don't expect it will actually be the last. Especially in my lifetime.

Lessons in living.

These are the lessons in reality I can impart to you:

1. Belief in magic and the undead leads to illusions.
2. Overcoming fear will allow you to overcome magic and the undead and the illusions will be dispelled.
3. There are huge differences between $3.00 paint brushes and $12 paint brushes.
4. There is no such thing as one coat.
5. No matter what you do to prepare for it the paint will inevitably run when using a brush.
6. If you mess up, remember that millions of previous people have fucked up doing the very same thing. However, they probably didn't mess up in such a unique way.
7. Hasbro likes to use way too many colors.
8. If you feel you are a doy you are probably highly likely a doy and you will repeat your doyness constantly.

No. Coffee and cream is NOT your problem.

Ok. So I've hit my 2nd major goal in terms of weight loss. Of course I'd like to be at my 3rd goal by the end of the month but that is a pipe dream at the moment.

But I'm slowly making progress. "Slow" being the key word here. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm going to bring this up because I found it amazingly funny and because I'm allowed to talk about it and make fun of him due to the size of my own fat ass.

So the drive-thru line at the White Castle was insane this morning. Don't know why. It just was. I mean, it isn't exactly like the smell of White Castle is appealing at 6:30am but man oh man people obviously love their sliders.

So I parked and went in hoping to get my cup of coffee faster.

In front of me is a guy about my height (6'2") but he is like 370 lbs or so. He had at least 100 lbs on me and even at my worst he had be beat over and over.

So he places his order for 3 or 4 slider breakfast sandwiches and the WC guy says "Do you want coffee with that?" and he replies... and get this... "No. I have to watch the cream. I had some kidney stone problems because of the coffee and cream... blah blah blah."

Excuse me?

First off the amount of information you he had to share in regards to being asked if he wanted coffee or not is way to fucking much information.

And my god man... at 370 or so pounds a little coffee and cream is the fucking least of your worries. Those damn slider breakfast sandwiches are going to do you in before the coffee and cream.

And to top it off... he asked for 9 packs of mayonaisse for the sandwiches!!! 9 packs!!! That is 3 packs per sandwich!!!

Now I could easily look like a total fucking hypocrite here because when I order a club sandwich I usually ask for a side of mayo too. And on the rare occassion that I eat french fries any more I may have a little mayo for them too. But I usually get a small plastic bowl that probably is equivalent to 2-3 of those packets. And that is for my whole meal! I rarely ask for more. I just like the way a mayo makes a good club sandwich even better.

But this guy puts that same amount on each sandwich!!!

And the coffee and cream is his problem?!?!?!?!

Perhaps since I've been trying to practice a sense of Buddhist mindfulness in my daily life now and especially am trying to apply this awareness to my daily habits I've begun to notice these details about other people too.

It is just insane.

To be almost 400 lbs and actually comment that some minor coffee and cream is your problem while you are consuming some of the greasiest sandwiches in the world and slathering them with tons of mayo is just obscene. Dare I say it... it approaches abomination.

Man. Our culture is really fucked.

Thank *insert magical deity of your choice* that I'm at least trying to reduce the amount of fuckupedness in my own life.

Who stole the Kishka?

You know you should be scared of modern technology and the internet when kishka has a Wikipedia entry.

However, the entry does not inform the read exactly who stole the kishka. This is most unsettling.

Brings a whole new meaning to water sports.

The still-suit is one of the most important items one can find on pre-God Emperor of Dune Arrakis.

On a desert planet where water is one of the most precious commodities for survial the still-suit is literally life.

Nice to see Nasa getting around to making the tech work.

It is better not to love, if loving only means hating others.

Swami Vivekanandawrote wrote...

If you want to be religious, enter not the gate of any organised religion. They do a hundred times more evil than good, because they stop the growth of each one's individual development.... Religion is only between you and your God, and no third person must come between you. Think what these organised religions have done! What Nepoleon was more terrible than those religious persecutions? If you and I organise, we begin to hate every person . It is better not to love, if loving only means hating others. That is no love. That is hell! If loving your own people means hating everybody else, it is the quintessence of selfishness and brutality, and the effect is that it will make you brutes.

28,000 year old dildo found, but the lube was a bit stale.

As someone who started in the depths and trenches of university anthropology and archaeology courses and got lost along the way and am now in a pointless IT job I just want to let you know that I would love to have been the guy to have discovered a 28,000 year old dildo!

The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone.

Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.

"In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints," explained Professor Nicholas Conard...

Man. Putting "Discoverer of 28,000 year old dildo" on your Curriculum Vitae is like da bomb!

And there still aren't flying cars either!

How is it that as a species we have the intelligence and technological capability to send a probe into space 268 million miles away and hit a 14km comet target but we can't seem to create a decent 2-way speaker/microphone system for use in a fast food restaurant so they can understand my simple "large coffee with cream" order?

All it will cost is our illusion of dominion.

Humans are quite clearly the products of evolution, like every other organism on this planet. Each of us is heir to a genetic heritage stretching back to the dawn of life a billion years ago. We are not gods or kings enthroned by a despotic, short-sighted deity, separated from our domain by the insulation of superiority. We are not damned to an icy tower under the burden of rulership, cut off from all life. We are part of this world, through and through. In a very real sense, everything that lives are siblings to one another, all descended from that first self-propogating protein. We are bound to one another in mutual dependence in complex networks and feedback systems, a system screaming with life. We are not apart from this. We can partake fully in what it means to live--and all it will cost is our illusion of dominion.

"...and all it will cost is our illusion of dominion..."

Damn! That sure is pretty.

I'd merely change it to "...and all it will cost is our illusion of dominion (or a natural predator hungering for Homo sapiens sapiens flesh).

These are a few of my most missed things.

I'm not much for the meme thing but I liked the general list of this meme I saw over at LDH's site.

So here's my half-ass attempt to follow the thread by listing the 5 things from my childhood that I miss the most.

• I honestly miss baby-sitting The Cousin during the summer months. This was a relatively care-free time of my teen years during the 80s and The Cousin filled that empty siblingless void that is in soul.
• I miss my grandparents and great-grandparents. Not a day goes by where I don't think of all six of them in some capacity. I was lucky enough to have had 2 great-grandparents and all 4 of my grandparents alive when I was born. I have memories of them all.
• My innocence before I felt like the weight of the world and the future of humanity was on my shoulders. Yes. I feel as if I'm adrift in a reality that I cannot control or affect while the chaos around me threatens to consume us all.
• My childhood friend Dean Egnace. I haven't seen him since we were about 13 or so but inevitably, since were were geek kids, I wonder what kind of geek teen/adult he became. Hell. He may have degeeked even. He moved out of Lagrainka and we were at different schools by that time but I still think of our friendship fondly. Rat Patrol forever!!!
• My Micronauts. I really really really wish I still had them.

Sto lat Tenzin Gyatso!

Birthday greetings and a hearty "sto lat" go out to 14th Dalai Lama who turns 70 today.

Tenzin Gyatso... one of 5 people in existence that Nala would actually bow down to.

Me and the Pickett not down in the school yard.

I was just thinking. Am I correct in thinking that this is just about The Pickett's and my 10 year anniversary of meeting. It was definitely summer of 1995 since I started at Kinko's West Broad in June of that year.

I think it is our 10 Year Anniversary.

Honestly, my mind isn't what it used to be. I can't remember when Max Power moved out of the House of Love II and The Pickett moved in but it had to be the general time frame of mid 1995 to autumn.

Let this be lesson to you kids.

If you are going to have a Dark Ages during your 20's do it sober. You tend to lose memory of things that should be plainly evident.

And then Jesus turned Lik-A-Maid into Kool-Aid.

Today I've been reading about the non-canon Infancy Gospel of Thomas [via] written in the 2nd Century CE that if left in the canon would have been so cool.

The text describes the life of Jesus after the age of about 5, and is heavily filled with fanciful supernatural events. One of the episodes involves Jesus making clay birds, which he then proceeds to bring to life, an act also attributed to Jesus in the Qur'an, thus indicating the text may have had substantial influence on tradition. In another, a child disperses water that Jesus has collected, so Jesus makes the child's body wither into a corpse, and another child is killed by Jesus when he accidentally bumps into him.

Obviously such behaviour annoyed Joseph and Mary's neighbours, so they complain, but are struck blind by Jesus. Jesus then starts receiving lessons, but arrogantly tries to teach the teacher instead, upsetting the teacher who suspects supernatural origins. Jesus is amused by this suspicion, which he confirms, and revokes all his earlier cruelty.

Man the New Testament apocrypha rock! I've read the extant versions of some and they should be required reading to help put everything about Christianity into a true historical context.

Early Christianity, much like the early periods of everything that has ever existed, exhibits so much creativity and variation before power was consolidated in the "Church" and papacy. And it helps to remember that the Bible as it exists now is the result of a helluva lot of editing by human males.

What's in a name? Everything.

Sometimes my mind goes all over the place.

Today it has gone into the realms of my ethnicity and has also wandered into the realm of what I'd like to name my children should I ever find the means to have them.

My second son would most likely be named Krzysztof. While I am not a major fan of the name in English I love the structure of the letters in Polish and the diminutive Krzysz works for me. Probably Krzysztof Fryderyk for a full name. I'm also a fan of Zachariasz, Kamil, Lukasz, Nicodem, and Seweryn for boys names too.

There aren't a whole lot of feminine names in Polish that I'm thrilled with. But Aleksy or Aleksandra might work.

Yes. My sons (and probably daughters too) would also learn that very important phrase "fuck you" as well since they no doubt would be saying it a lot to their youthful peers who would make fun of their names.

And no doubt they'd be saying it to me for naming them this way.

So be it.

Ulica Obi-Wana Kenobiego

In Grabowiec there is now Ulica Obi-Wana Kenobiego.

But is the street named more in honor of the fictional character as portrayed by Alec Guiness or by Ewan McGregor.

Only us Poles know for sure.

And we're not telling.

What happened to living within one's means?

It is very sad to realize that this country is way past its zenith and is spiralling downward.

It happens to every thing. Everything that has a beginning has an end. Country-wise, we only have to look to our parent Great Britain for the lessons that we ourselves should collectively learn. Illusions won't change this. Jesus isn't going to change this. And we ourselves aren't going to change this. The process is not based in magic nor is human endeavor responsible for it.

I can't help thinking that while the crash and burn is inevitable, certain cultural changes could occur to make it less violent and painful. Unfortunately, marketing and corporations have a vested interest in raping everything prior to the great collapse as if they were immune and will survive unscathed.

Is it possible to actively eradicate the American addiction to consumer goods before it is too late?

The fucked up concept of entitlement that marketing has created in this country is the core of what will be a painful lesson for us.

When the poorest people living off the State have the means to purchase widescreen HD tvs and have cable and satellite service something is wrong with the fabric of reality.

There will always be poor and there will always be non-poor.

And living within one's means is something that this country finds appalling and is ultimately deadly to us collectively.

Now I'm not going to define "the poor" or the "the rich" but I'm going to say if you do not have the means to generate adequate income for food and housing then you shouldn't have the things that once were considered "luxuries" 30 years ago.

Am I wrong to think that a massive economic depression could actually be a good thing for this country as a whole?

Yeah. There'd be horrors that few that are living can really remember but when all is said and done would the people that come out the other side be better off?

I look back at my grandparents, all Great Depression survivors, and all of them raised children, owned homes, and lived within the means that they created. None of them had luxuries like multiple-cars and a television in every fucking room yet they what they had they actually owned. The did not use credit to create the illusion that they had more than they did.

I see this country collapsing. I see this collapse inevitable yet there's a part of my compassion that does not believe the lie that it will not happen. It will happen. But the effect can be reduced.

But is something that is decaying worth even that effort?

I wonder.

Whatever becomes of a semi-legend?

Frequent commenter and former Nala roommate Max Power writes...

What ever became of your other alter ego, 'Ben Dover'? He disappeared in the middle of the dark ages.

Anyway, the mask barely had eye slits, nostril, and a mouth but it was easy to stick your toungue through the little hole.

Now I first met Max Power after a long night of clubbing at a super shitty cheap 24 hours dive restaurant called TeeJaye's in Grandview. It was about 2:30 in the morning and I believe it was late autumn/early winter, probably around 1993. Honestly... I barely remember that time period. But anyway, he was with some guy I knew and I sat with them.

For some reason, probably because of alcohol or drugs, I put on this mask and introduced myself as "Ben Dover". Of course, those in the know would remember the Ben Dover, Victor Hugo line from Fletch Lives. Others would not. Suffice to say, I had spent the earlier part of the evening intoxicated and wearing my Ben Dover persona at this club called The Garage and now it reappeared while eating breakfast at TeeJayes.

Now I don't know how but the Ben Dover mask appeared in Toledo, OH in my father's "office" which is was my former bedroom.

I have no idea how it got 172 miles away. I don't know why it went 172 miles away.

Perhaps it isn't even my mask but my father has an alternate Ben Dover personality.

But once when Giger and I were up there we saw it.

Personally, I'd rather see a reappearance of The Bubble Man over Ben Dover but I'm now old, decrepit, bitter, and jaded so he'd probably be "The Old Bitter Jaded Wants To Kill You Bubble Man".

Hell... he'd probably be Ben "The Fuck" Dover now too.

The core of this story is that Max Power and I met this very night many many many moons ago.

And the sad thing is I really haven't come all that far since.

Why I am called Naladahc.

Visitor and frequent commenter Frowny McBeard asks...

...why is the name of this page Chad Alan backwards?

In many ways he and I are exact opposites. I'm tall. He's short. I'm dark haired. He's blondish. I have dark brown eyes. He does not. I'm weak. He's strong. And so forth.

Well I wrote down once that since I'm opposite of him that must mean I'm a Nala Dahc instead of a Chad Alan, though only his mother and I probably ever call him that.

And hence, during the early days of IRC before the world wide web and many many many moons ago at the beginning of the Dark Ages of my life I found it appropriate to create an online persona and what more unique name could I come up with but Naladahc.

So around 1995 Naladahc burst forth on IRC, variuys BBS systems, Compuserve, AOHELL, and elsewhere. (Note: I used a previous online name that sounds so stupid and unoriginal now I won't even mention it. However bonus points to those would would remember it.)

And then, when it came time to give up the free websites that I was using for my personal site (for I blogged before there was a word coined for it) I bought my own domain, my own hosting space, and you are now sharing in the 122nd design of what is now Naladahc.com.

I don't recall ever getting high off dittos.

Creative Pro has a great article "Heavy Metal Madness: Making Copies from Carbon to Kinkos" that made me realize that kids today are missing out on the strangest phenomenon of my school youth: The Ditto Machine!

Those of you probably born before 1980 may have some memory of school tests and other copies supplied to you as "dittos".

There's no possible way you could forget the chemical smell they gave off when you sniffed the paper. The ink was almost always purple-blueish and the copies were cool to the touch as the chemicals evaporated.

Kids today. They can't even enjoy "dittos".

How messed up we truly are.

*sigh*

We humans are so often a pathetic lot.

The Pope, Pioneer X, and Uranus?

Psst... Max?

I thought you'd want to know that Pioneer X essentially left the solar system 22 years ago today by passing the orbit of Neptune, which at the time was the the most distant plant due to Pluto's whack'd out and highly eccentric orbit.

Of course, Pope John Paul II wasn't available for comment. He's too busy prepping for his miracles he has to perform to be beatified and canonized.

... Watch as he turns the Polish language into Italian...

The origin of the term "hill billy"

I try to learn something new every day. Today I learned something that I thought I'd share with you. I suspect this is very accurate too.

In 1690, the Protestant King William of Orange won the Battle of the Boyne. Supporters of King William became known as "Billy Boys".

Various Scots-Irish immigrants made their way to the British Colonies and settled in areas of Appalachia.

Occupying British soldiers referred to them as "hill billies".

Geez. Go figure.

Human Events Online, a conservative weekly, asked several conservative scholars and public policy leaders to compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Here are of course some of the gems they picked:

• Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels' Communist Manifesto
• Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
• John Dewey's Democracy and Education
• Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

and some other ones...

• Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species and Descent of Man
• Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa
• Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed

I noticed that the Old and New Testaments aren't on there. Certainly there's threats a plenty to the established wealthy white male in there even though they aren't 19th and 20th century works harmful though they may be.

Oh. Waitaminute. That's where you justify your whoring, pillaging, and raping in the eyes of Yahweh because Yahweh only loves white people.

Nevermind.

How do you say in English?

What's a the word in English that means "something that is barely acceptable/tolerable and just above shitty"???

There has to be one!

Example: This coffee from the machine of the 5th floor is fill in the blank.

Girls Still Poop Too

Girls Still Poop Too.

The horror. The horror.

You want to be scared by something?

Watch this?

It is a Windows Media File guaranteed to disturb you and make you realize that there is no such thing as an unchanging reality and that horrors lurk amongst us.

Also safe for work too!!!

And here's something scary too!!! And duh... $760,000 for a 1000 square foot 2 bedroom house is kinda sorta your problem Mayor Newsom. Doy!!!

Whores? You be the judge.

Johnson & Johnson says drug extends intercourse, reduces premature ejaculation, analyst calls it an 'utter joke.' (CNN)

The drug-making giant announced on Monday that dapoxetine hydrochloride, a treatment for premature ejaculation, showed promising results in late-stage testing... Participants timed their results using stop watches, and those taking dapoxetine reported a three to four-fold increase in their performance time.

Or can I?

However, an analyst who covers the company but did not want to be named said that dapoxetine is an antidepressant with a side effect causing erectile dysfunction. The analyst accused Johnson & Johnson of turning the side effect into a cure for premature ejaculation.

"The fact that they are selling this as a cure for premature ejaculation is an utter joke," said the analyst. "One of the problems it's causing is that some people can't reach orgasm. So they're turning the side effect into a drug."

Bear Stearns analysts project that if dapoxetine enters the market in early 2006, it will total $160 million in sales that year and will hit $500 million in sales in 2007, according to a report released on May 20.

The spice must flow?

The spice must flow?

Bil Keane is God.

Indeed...

I liked the way Keane explored the Waco, Tx incident with the riveting novel. The book explores how a typical family, the Family Circus family, get involved with cults. We also see how David Koresh uses Daddy as a top officer in his strange dealings with the FBI and ATF. Bizzar sexual situations are also explored here. On the day the Feds storm the compound, we fortunately see our favorite family escape the fire and head back to their normal lives--that of being Amway salespeople on the west coast.

Immediately, the reader is taken aback by Keane's denial of the Holocaust. Truly, Bil's ignorance over the tragedy had no effect on his wit, for this collection is MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME. Bil crafts his characters the way a master craftsman crafts his crafts. I was floored (LITERALLY!!!) when I read the panel with Billy smacking his hot Mom with the caption "I said NOW!" The character 'NOW' is used here quite well, since he was on the dish hot Mom was serving. Seeing Billy eating his imaginary friend was quite disturbing at first, but, as the pages turned, I grew increasingly endeared to the tortured souls. They represented the self-destruction of all of our childhoods, and in the end, that is what this collection is about. Getting over being a stupid little kid. Bil Keane is God.

It was going to happen sooner or later.

Extremely life altering major changes afoot on the Nala-Giga front.

Can't go into it right now.

Will hopefully explain more later.

The real reason I left Glass City!

Ok. It is time to admit it.

Here's the real reason I left Toledo, OH all those many years ago for the Central Cowlands.

Yes. It was a premonition that the Toledo Blade would do something like this 17 years in the future.

And even then I couldn't escape geekdom. Look at me now!!! Arghhhhh!!!

Continue reading "The real reason I left Glass City!" »

I'm... thinking it's a sign...

My health is pretty bad these days.

Continue reading "I'm... thinking it's a sign..." »

Ok can I puke now?

Warning: Eating kimchee for lunch and then having a bottle of chocolate milk is not advised.

The burps are not something to be experienced.

That is all.

While I find it funny, it really isn't.

Children Allegedly Make Sex Tape (Cowtown 10)

Five different Springfield kids have been arrested, accused of taping themselves having sex.

The sex tape was discovered just two days ago when detectives say one of the teens involved showed it to her little brother. He told his mother and she went to the sheriff.

The four girls and one boy, who range in age from 12 to 17, include one sixth grader, three high school sophomores and a senior.

The tape is marked "porno" on the side and Lieutenant Russel Garman says it is a true description.

The important lesson for life here is that you should 1) never videotape or photograph anything that would remotely incriminate you in something that you don't want known, and 2) it probably isn't wise to put a written label on the tape with "porno" on it. Hell, in college if it was a tape like that I put a red dot sticker on it. Everyone in the dorms who wanted to borrow them asked for the "red dots". It was also easy to know which tapes were mine too. Most people never questioned why tapes had the red dots so they were on the down low.

Kids these days.

They are just so dumb.

Well, that or they are being raised by atheist liberal democrat parents. So they are going straight to the fiery pits of hell anyway so it shouldn't matter then.

I saw her in the mold on my shower curtain too.

Ok people. I understand you are desperate. I understand you can't find meaning in your lives so you seek if from outside instead of inside.

You are easily malleable and believe anything or or you make up things to find substance in your life. This is common and part of your illusion.

But c'mon people!

A steady stream of the faithful and the curious, many carrying flowers and candles, have flocked to an expressway underpass for a view of a yellow and white stain on a concrete wall that some believe is an image of the Virgin Mary...

“We believe it’s a miracle,” said Elbia Tello, 42. “We have faith, and we can see her face.”

I remember in Toledo when this happened back in 1989 and Mary was hanging out on a garage door in Lagrainka and in 1986 when Jesus decided to make a cameo appearance on an oil tank in Findlay, OH.

They get around don't they?

I mean you never exactly see the main man appear do you? It is typically Mary. Of course the man would make a woman do all the running around appearing in stains, bread mold, feces, or the like.

I wonder how hard it would be to collate data between the people who see Mary appearing in stains and those that see UFOs?

Hell. I'm going to put forth a new term... ISMA... or Identified Stationary Mary Appearances.

Nah... he doesn't have any balls.

And then I read...

The decision came after Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, shocked his fellow Republicans by saying he wanted more time to study the charges against John Bolton...

Not that I care really. He was a balls lame guv'na and what has he done for me lately as a Senator?

Exactly!

Balls!

And so the wheel turns. Turns along the road to apocalypse.

I suppose congratulations are due to the worshippers of Cathol. Your backwards patriarchal masters have wasted no time and elected Joseph Ratzinger as grand magic showman.

May the numerous ideological problems facing your church hasten its demise.

And parents? Lock up your boys. If you thought the church was going to do anything about priests fucking boys you can pretty much forget about it now. Karol didn't do anything about it and his right hand man isn't going do anything either.

And women? You have never really mattered much anyway. Keep birthing and baptizing them babies. That is your job.

And so the wheel turns. Turns along the road to the Great Struggle. It is so close you can almost grab it and hug it and say "Hey. I've been waiting for you! Here's some chamomile iced tea!"

Trust no person, place, or thing.

And now just another reminder. Do not trust anyone about anything on television. Hell. Might as well make it everywhere too since American journalism can no longer be trusted.

Everybody has an agenda on everything.

Everyone is guilty until proven innocent, though the layers of illusion on innocence are mixed in with vast amounts of bullshit as well.

The best knowledge you can carry deep inside you is that practically every person is a whore in someway. Whoring is part and parcel to information now and you must constantly be aware of this.

But my Transformer reviews? Yeah. You can trust them. I mean the figure can be pretty shitty (and I'll say so) and I still waste money on it.

(However, even I would probably whore for Takara if they offered me one of each items created. See? You have to be wary of everyone.)

Did someone ask Paul Simon to comment?

Can somebody that isn't retarded or clinically insane tell me why this is news?

Why does this deserve any form of media coverage at all?

These are the kinds of things that indicate the complete and utter vapidness of the fabric of our culture.

Unitarian Universalism... is that like the Super Happy Fun Gay Church?

I found some slightly better "spirituality" quizzes that are almost fun. This was my response to the thinness of the one I did the other day.

Continue reading "Unitarian Universalism... is that like the Super Happy Fun Gay Church?" »

And this was not a surprise.

So over at Vincenzo's daddy's Yahoo blog I found one of these Which religion is the right one for you? web quiz things.

Of course I love how any one remotely educated about religions other than their indoctrinated one would be able to figure out which questions would lead you to a given "brand" of belief system.

No surprises for me.

Of course I find it ultimately ironic that the results lean me towards "Satanism". That name is completely offending to my sensibilities because it is too steeped in Christianity and one would need to believe and have faith in the Christian diety to also believe in his theological adversarial equivalent? A much better name is needed (even though my few, if any, dealings with supposed "Satanists" lead me to believe that Satan has very little to do with it and that these poor folk were just self-delusional.)

And paganism? What the fuck? Perhaps this test maker is dealing with definitions that are not classical.

I'd like to see a 100 question quiz developed by theologians and well versed individuals. This one is just too simple.

But in the end I suppose the fact that I am so non-Abrahamic tradition wouldn't change at all. S'funny how the bottom ones that this quiz ranks me as "least" are the ones where fear is used the most to control the a given populace.

Scratch that. It isn't funny at all.

Give us a couple of centuries, we'll still fuck up.

I've been giving some thought to evolutionary events and those so-called "big ones" that tend to have happened every so many millions of years.

There was the super successful extinction event around 65 million years ago that ended the Cretaceous period. Then there's that African weather event of 6 million years ago that caused hominids to change and go to the grasslands.

The only real constant in reality is change.

And that got me onto fresh ideas along a new train of thought.

Now I'm a firm believer in the fact that without a natural predator, Homo sapiens sapiens will essentially wipe itself out. I see signs all around me that this is happening in both biology, society, and elswhere.

Without this natural predator to "thin the herd" Homo sapiens sapiens grows like a cancer across the face of the planet, unchecked, and continues to consume pretty much everything that it finds.

But what if the uncontrolled growth of the species is in effect part of the extinction event itself? Instead of it coming from the outside of biology (meteor, weather, etc.) it is in fact nature, through over population of the dominant species, pushing the limits of the biosphere and causing a certain threshold to be crossed that will begin mass extinctions and the eventual rejuventation of the planet.

Nature doesn't care if species live or die. Nature has seen it all so many times that it probably could be viewed as an endless rerun of The Beverly Hillbillies. There goes Granny hiding the jug. Well doggy. Jethro wants a career. There goes Granny hiding the jug. Well doggy. Jethro wants a career.There goes Granny hiding the jug. Well doggy. Jethro wants a career.There goes Granny hiding the jug. Well doggy. Jethro wants a career. And that's just the way it goes.

I guess I've been of the mind that the extinction event would be an outside force and of course that is missing the point of the reality of over population.

The extinction event is very much around us now. We are on the upwards slope of a bell curve. It probably won't happen within the next 15 generations or so but the effects will increase as the peak is approached.

We are our own predator.

How utterly appropo.

A simple meal turns into social Stratego.

The New York Times recently had a fantastic article on "man dates", defined as "...two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman."
event analysis and there's nothing more rewarding than analyzing male Homo sapiens sapiens behavior (often regardless of straight or gay inclination).

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