Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, . . .

Is this thing on?

[Name Redacted] I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

. . . but you're still the one pool where I'd happily drown.

D.A.T., R.I.P.

The great David A. Trampier has passed away.

Strangely enough, I'd spent much of the past week scouring the Internet for online examples of his artwork. (I'm sure anyone of a certain age who played AD&D has a few favorite Trampier drawings etched into the back of their minds.) I had no idea that, in the middle of my revived obsession with his work, he was departing the world.

He was a true artist. Thanks, Dave, for giving us a glimpse into your world. Farewell.

The first sentence must capture the reader's attention.

Paul Krugman knows how to write a good first sentence:

Regular readers know that I talk quite a lot about zombies, but also occasionally talk about cockroaches.

Or, in the words of Ferris Bueller, "'Ism's in my opinion are not good."

Nice bit from Charlie Stross in a post titled "Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire", (which is worth reading in its entirety.)

. . . I tend to take the stance that Libertarianism is like Leninism: a fascinating, internally consistent political theory with some good underlying points that, regrettably, makes prescriptions about how to run human society that can only work if we replace real messy human beings with frictionless spherical humanoids of uniform density (because it relies on simplifying assumptions about human behaviour which are unfortunately wrong).

At one p.m. . . . Central . . . Standard . . . Time.

The motorcade sped on.
 

Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome!

Mutant Cockroaches Learn to Avoid Sugar to Outsmart Traps

A question for Mr. Romney regarding his views on foreign policy.

WMYBSALC?

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing but blog about it.

On the way home from work today, I stopped at the supermarket to pick up a few groceries. While I was waiting to use one of the self-check-out machines, I witnessed a young woman at one of the machines shoplift a few items. And I just stood by and watched.

What she did was, after she had paid for her items and picked up her bag, she added a few additional, unpaid-for items to the bag. She did it very casually—no nervous looking about to see if anyone was watching. I'm sure she's done it before, and I'm sure she'll do it again. Maybe one day she'll get caught, maybe not.

Now if I had seen this same young woman pick someone's pocket, I'm sure I would have said something. Robbing an unsuspecting individual seems like a different sort of offense. But watching her steal from the store, I found myself wondering if it was really my place to inject myself into the situation. I mean, that's what they have security cameras and employees for, right? If their security isn't up to snuff, somebody will certainly be robbing them. And how do I know that she really didn't pay for those items?

Thusly I rationalized my non-interventionist policy.

p.s. Nobody knows who first said or wrote the thing about good men's inaction leading to the triumph of evil.

Titles that J.D. Salinger considered but ultimately rejected before settling on Catcher in the Rye:

• Pitcher in the Millet
• Shortstop in the Barley
• First Baseman in the Winter Wheat
• Utility Infielder in the Flax
• Third Base Coach in the Triticale
• Umpire in the Oats
• Bat Boy in the Amaranth

A partial list of things which, as a result of disinterest so profound it borders on the hostile, I hereby publicly express an unwillingness to give:

• a hoot
• a fig
• a dang
• a darn
• a damn
• a tinker's cuss
• a crap
• a good God damn
• a shit
• a rat's ass
• a fuck¹

1: neither the flying variety nor the more common flightless variety shall be given

Not a bad way to spend an evening.

I'm sitting alone in a dark room, with not a stitch of clothing on me, singing, playing the piano and sipping malt whiskey. At least, that's what I was doing before I decided to come share the experience with you, the Internet.

Just wondering . . .

My colleague the Giant Mutant Cockroach has made a stunning insight into Newt Gingrich's behavior.

What if Newt Gingrich is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand inter-dimensional slime leeches from Galaxy 12 can you begin to piece together his actions?

I believe that is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.

The German Pirate Party reads this blog!

Or great minds think alike. Or something like that.

My Junk: Let Me Show You It.

Frankly, I don't care if some TSA screener wants to feel me up or scan my body contours before I get on a plane. Not because I feel these procedures are in any way necessary or helpful in preventing acts of terrorism; on the contrary, I think these procedures are an enormous waste of time and money. It's just that I don't care. Grope and peep away. I can see how others might not feel the same way, and I sympathize, but personally I just don't give a shit. If they are going to touch my junk, though, I would hope they would at least have the common courtesy to provide a "happy ending."

I understand there's a movement brewing to protest these procedures by having people opt out en masse. I'd like to see the protest go the other way. Let's make the full body scanners irrelevant. What's the minimum amount of clothing you can wear in an airport without getting arrested for indecent exposure? I'd love to see a protest involving thousands of people of all ages and body types going through security wearing nothing but teeny bikinis and banana hammocks. If the TSA employees knew that going to work every day would involve seeing grandma in nothing but a thong and pasties and grandpa bedecked in a budgie smuggler, how long would it be before they went on strike?

Metasyntactic Constant

This post is a placeholder for the post that I would have written if I had something to say.

Encouraging Thought of the Day

It could be worse. In fact, it is likely that very soon it will be worse. But even when it does get worse, we will still be able to say that it could be even worse than that. And for that we should be grateful.

And one more, for bad measure.

An explorer from South Carolina
Who'd spent many years criss-crossing China
Said a woman he'd met
In the snows of Tibet
Really did have a sideways vagina.

Since I'm not doing anything useful with this blog . . .

A mathematician named Lex
Claimed he'd solved the equation of sex
And he found that the ratio
Of ass to fellatio
Was equal to y over x.

And he further explained with a shout
His solution for working it out:
“Your relationships past
Are subtracted at last,
And your exes will all cancel out.”

Christ, what an ash-hole.

Like volcanoes, certain bloggers have been known go through phases in which they lie dormant for extended periods of time, leading everyone to assume they're extinct, and then one day without warning they begin to spew forth huge quantities of smoke and noxious gasses from deep within their bowels.

Not necessarily saying that that's going to happen here. Just saying it's been known to happen.