Thank you for not also stealing my gloves, my headphones, my book, my glasses, my house keys, my hands free kit, my ID, my umbrella, or any of the other stuff that was in my bag. And how on earth did you manage to steal my bag when it was right next to me? Also, why did you steal the passport photo I used as a name label if you didn't steal the bag? Did you just wimp out at the last second?
I really liked that coat. Bastard.
Hey, I managed a GoogleWhack!
(It was luddism exobiology; it will stop being a GoogleWhack as soon as Google indexes this.)
At least, if the country you're in is the USA, and you don't mightily fancy going off to get killed in Iraq. Yes folks, Bush is bringing back the draft. Cue "very special episodes" in every single teen drama, where one unpopular cast member gets drafted à la Happy Days.
"The closest parallel to the Iraq situation is the British in Northern Ireland, where you also had some people supporting the occupying army and some opposing them, and where the opponents were willing to resort to terror tactics," says Charles Peña, director of defense studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "There the British needed a ratio of 10 soldiers per 1,000 population to restore order, and at their height, it was 20 soldiers per 1,000 population. If you transfer that to Iraq, it would mean you'd need at least 240,000 troops and maybe as many as 480,000."The only reason you aren't hearing these kinds of numbers discussed by the White House and the Defense Department right now," Peña adds, "is that you couldn't come up with them without a return to the draft, and they don't want to talk about that."
Incidentally, if you're running a military operation, the last place you want to hear it compared to is Northern Ireland. Hey guys! 30 years! Still no peace! Good luck in Iraq though!
Meanwhile, Reason Online points out that since the US government has decided (incorrectly, and contrary to existing legal precedent) that the US Constitution does not apply in Guantanamo Bay, it cannot prosecute for treason the translator it has accused of spying there. Ah, sweet irony.
Boy Meets Boy is now in colour for a whole month of Foxman comics! Oh joy! More sexy gay asian anime-esque characters, please...
Just browsing old blogs I came across this post. Go on, answers on a postcard please. I can still remember vividly how important, how urgent it was that I work out the answers to that test, and how I could feel the answer on the tip of my tongue...
When I had him, I managed to convince myself I didn't want him, for reasons that seemed so huge at the time, and so insignificant afterwards. In the very act of accepting that I had convinced myself and not arguing, he proved I was wrong. Then I didn't have him, and continued to discover how wrong I was with every subsequent failure. We reconciled, and grew closer than ever before, finding new flaws in each other but seeing new beauty at every step closer. And then inevitably we tried again, and suddenly once again the flaws loomed large and the beauty was lost. And now we cycle away once again, and once again the flaws disappear and the beauty is all I can see.
I love him, but only at arm's length. I am the worst person in the world, and we are better off apart for that reason alone.
Are weblogs not journalism at all, but a bizarre one-sided sort of new social interaction? "Look, here I am, here's as much as you could ever want to know about me. Do you like me? Get in touch. Preferably have your own blog ready so I can work out the same things about you."
Which would mean my blog has entirely the wrong sorts of things in it.
A collection of little thoughts I noted down and was going to blog about, but haven't had time. I'm afraid you're going to have to think these ones through for yourselves...
More random post-Revolutions thoughts: Zion is over! ZION is over. Not the war. ZION is over. Then he changed the line, and said the war instead, and then people started cheering. Foreshadowing, no?
What the fuck happened to the sentinel who jumped through neo? Also, sentinels are the names of the angels who guard the gates of heaven.
How can smith control flesh? Where did he find those subroutines? There must be another Matrix.
Likewise, how can Neo control Smith unless both are software?
What is the golden matrix supposed to be? Binary?
The golden matrix looks a lot like how I visualize the code I'm writing. Are all coders visual, or is it peculiar to me?
Several times in the past few days, people I've been talking to have said things or expressed opinions that I would consider racist. When I pointed out that I thought their comments unfair, they tried to justify themselves, always beginning "it's not racist, it's just an observation" or whatever. So what's the definition of racist? Here's mine: say, for the purposes of example, that we're discussing something to do with black people. If a black person was in the room, would you say what you were about to say? Or would you rephrase it a little? If so, then your comment was probably racist, or amiguous enough to be offensive anyway. And just because I'm not black, or Jewish, or Pakistani, or Indian doesn't mean it doesn't offend me when you make unfair generalisations about those groups. And don't expect me not to "make an issue of it" just because there's nobody nearby who you think should be offended by it: by staying silent, I would be implicitly accepting your world-view, with which I disagree strongly, and I have no wish to bolster your ghastly assumptions.
Being a member of an "invisible" minority, I know what it feels like to be the butt of one of those jokes that people make when they think it's okay, because there's nobody around who will be offended. And yes, offensive is relative, and there are very seldom any amish in the room. But there is a difference between risqué jokes and bigoted statements that aren't intended to be amusing: anybody can make a joke, but you shouldn't make statements unless you're prepared to stand by those statements in front of a large crowd of the group you are denigrating. Preferably, while said crowd is holding many sharp implements. Just to, you know, focus your mind.
So it's not Friday anymore. It was when I wrote this!
I have been storing up entries in advance of a major update at the back-end. That's been pushed back by a week due to other stuff I've been doing, so here are all this week's blog entries, all at once. Sorry!
From a recent letter to the editor in Tennessee:
The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians (INDUCTING A GAY BISHOP) are an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, and his wife Anne Boleyn, and his wife Jane Seymour, and his wife Anne of Cleves, and his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriages.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts* the supreme court has knocked over the first constitutional domino to striking down all the mini-DOMAs across the states. Today is, actually, a great day for that reason alone. Fuck you bigots, all. The world will just have to get used to the fact that who I spend the rest of my life with is none of their business, and they don't get to deny my husband rights just because they disapprove. And yes, I'll call him my husband, not my partner or my lover or my significant other, and you'll have to get used to that, too. There will be no pussyfooting around the issue of my husband's sex, and on the off-chance that I get married by a priest (maybe I'll marry a Catholic; wouldn't that be hilarious?), he will pronounce us Husband and Husband.
I dunno, I'm tired and hence emotional, but right now I feel like finding all the straight people in the world**, smacking them in the face and saying "HAW-haw", Nelson-style. I think this may be because being closeted at work is getting to me: I'm not secure enough in my job yet to rock the boat, and I'm unsure whether my boss is gay-friendly or not. Of course, since now I'm pretty sure everyone at work has noticed my blog, there's a chance they're reading this. So: if you're a work colleague of mine, and you read this, and being gay is no problem, mention to me at work that "the password is tomato". If being gay is a problem for you, the password is "lettuce", but you'd be better off keeping your intolerant mouth shut. I'm busy enough without having to deal with social throwbacks.
* Which reporters the world over are now having to learn how to spell, at gunpoint in some cases.
** When you live in as homo-centric a world as I do, this is actually surprisingly hard. All my friends are gay, apart from the fag-hags. The only straight people I know are at work and my family.***
*** Of course, one of my brothers is fastidiously tidy, the other spends the GDP of Nigeria on hair products, and both have spent heavily on kitchen appliances recently, so I'm no longer sure about either of them.
Seen today on my walk home (and blogged via mobile e-mail from my phone... working on that SMS gateway, folks...): a truck, swinging dangerously close to the corner on a turn -- I had to step back. On that corner, a heavily-leaning bollard wrapped in police tape. Sometimes the world is very easy to understand...
Meanwhile, I finished the site I was working on all weekend. Go, visit! And buy some truly expensive but really nice furniture (yeah, like anyone that rich reads my blog). But when I say all weekend, I mean all weekend, from 8pm Friday until 10pm Sunday, with about 10 hours of sleep total in all of that time. Nightmare. And who the fuck told me to make a design that involves so many bloody circles? I have never cut and pasted so much in my life. Nobody has. Or ever will again. It would have been easier to write a program using GD to do it for me, which is in fact what I will probably end up doing to allow future updates. But not tonight. No, tonight I will not be touching that site. I am never repeating last weekend... (or so I say).
In other unrelated thoughts (three at a time; I'm a man you see, we don't multitask well) Britney's new album is generally poor. Not actively bad, just... elevator music. No stand-out tracks. And the collaboration with Madonna was a mistake -- Madge is so clearly the better singer, it's embarrassing.
Oh, and the title is because people keep asking me about it. Yes, that's what happening in my love life. There's no room, with all the other stuff.
From the author of an upcoming book on Bad Santas:
While sorting through old photographs at my mother's house one Christmas, I came across a photograph that was to haunt me for years. It was a photo taken at a mall of my brother Michael sitting on the lap of Santa Claus. Innocent enough - loads of people have pictures of themselves or thier children sitting on Santa's lap...it's a tradition to see Santa every year, tell him what you'd like for Christmas,and get a candy cane. What struck a chord with me about this picture was the Santa himself. Slouched into the chair, one arm clumsily draped around my brother, much in the same way barflys casually hug thier fellow brethren before falling to the floor in a stupor. I looked closer...thick black body hair sprouted from every opening of the ill fitting Santa suit, the too-short trouses- revealing fish white, strangely pocked legs. This Santa boasted one enormous black eyebrow, an 5 o'clock shadow (needless the say the beard was falling off) and the dull gleam of narcotics in the one eye that wasn't drooping and looking far past the camera. This was GREAT! I then turned my attention to my brother who I now realised was not merely smiling on command for the camera but rather was grimacing, rigid in fear on his hobo Santa's lap, fists clenched, eyes silently pleading. Oh how I laughed.
I love Christmas. Oh, wait, no. I mean I hate Christmas. We spend a quarter of the year preparing at vast expense for a single day of the year that we all convinced ourselves everybody else enjoys and looks forward to with magical delight, when in truth it's just another day -- no worse, really, but no better either. The food is offset by the cooking and cleaning, and don't get me started about the presents. The only people who enjoy Christmas are very small children, and that's only because of raw, naked greed: children love getting stuff, just like the rest of us. Only unlike the rest of us, children have no idea of what they don't have: they get everything they want, and more, on Christmas day, so no wonder they love Christmas. I did too, when I was little. The rest of us are pissed off, but pretend we aren't and rationalize the fact that we didn't get what we want, or get for others what they wanted, because "it's the thought that counts", a cliché always trotted out in the vicinity of poor quality presents. Fuck that. It's the present that counts; if you don't think about me the rest of the year, what are you my friend for? The present shows what you think of me. And if I think you're worth a £3.95 "novelty" gift then that's not a good sign for me*.
And also don't give me that bullshit about it being Christ's birthday and a holy holiday and a religious celebration. Christmas officially stopped being a religious holiday with the release of the first Christmas-themed porn DVD, and its credentials had been in doubt for a long time before that, what with all the muslims, hindus, buddhists and satanists getting in on the act for decades now. Christmas is all about the money: getting it, and not spending too much of it. Did you get a net gain at Christmas, financially, including things like "free" food consumed and time spent doing things with people you loathe? Then you win. Otherwise you lose. It's really that simple.
On the other hand, I love Christmas, if only because it's the full-on campest holiday ever devised. The whole world suddenly has my taste in interior design: eclectic, but shiny and bright and colourful. My taste in interior design but not, unfortunately, my taste in music. Oh lord, save me from Christmas music! It's dreadful! Dozens upon dozens of awful, cheerful, meaningless tinkly tunes covered royalty-free by legions of poor singers and "adapted" (read: bastardized) into every genre available**. Ordinarily, the rest of the year, nobody would sit through such drivel. But it's Christmas! Suddenly our taste-glands are suspended! It doesn't matter if it's shit if it's Christmassy shit, and I would make a joke that people would buy real dogshit if you gift-wrapped it but somebody already did that and made millions, off people who didn't catch on that joke was on them.
And finally, there's those who say Christmas is all about family. Well, bullshit to that too. I love my family. You know when I see my family most? That's August (when my parents visit the UK) and Christmas (when we go back to Trinidad and see them). And the only reason I look forward to Christmas more is because I spend Christmas somewhere warm and sunny instead of somewhere cold and wet. The family thing is just the "thought that counts" thing wrapped up differently: I love my family all the time; why would my love-rating suddenly go up a couple notches for a few days in December? The reason I like Christmas is because I see my family, but if I saw them all together on some other day then I would probably love that day instead.
So, merry Christmas to you too. You poor deluded fool.
* Some exceptions made for friends who have no money and/or novelty gifts that have some relevance, like the mini disco-lights set I received for my birthday, which, I wish to make it clear, I was exactly as delighted to receive as it appeared.
** Although punk covers of Christmas carols generally kick ass. "Twelve days of Christmas" sounds much cooler when it's "five... noooooose... riiiiiiiings..... [crashing guitars]".
I would insert a cliche here like "he'll be missed" but the thing is, he won't really. I'd forgotten about him on an everyday basis for years until I saw this article, and by tomorrow it will have slipped my mind again. And I guess that only makes it seem sadder and more pointless.
God, that's such a depressing thought. Somebody pass the prozac.
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