Kablammo!
Ancient light, rise and revive! Wall!
Grab-bag of hilarity! “Photo for
October 16, 2003Grab-bag of hilarity!
“Photo for illustration purposes only. Dog pictured is named Rumsfeld, not Adolf.“
Ugh, I should have gooooone to more classes this week. Good thing I’m an asshole.
Song of the Moment: «(I Don’t Wanna) Rock DJ» — Robbie Williams
Hey, anybody remember the ALCS
October 13, 2003Hey, anybody remember the ALCS game last saturday? I found a quote from this story quite poignant:
That replay of the Pedro Martinez-Don Zimmer affair is on TV more than “Law and Order” reruns.
Cuz, like, you know, there’s a hell of a lot of Law & Order reruns on the teevee. Anyway, is major league baseball jealous of the California recall? Is there some kind of competition for ‘Most Absolutely Ludicrous News Story of October’ that I wasn’t aware of?
In other news, I’d have left a comment on Lukas’ blog about how much I enjoyed seeing the beautiful piece of bastardliness that he linked to, but as it turns out I’m far too lazy to jump through the hoops required to post comments there. So I’ll just post comments here, instead, I guess.
Song of the Moment: «Erase/Rewind» — The Cardigans
Yay! Throat’s fine, now the
October 13, 2003Yay! Throat’s fine, now the illness has transmogrified itself into a head cold. Fucking awesome, what a blast. I mean, I like the fact that my throat stopped hurting, especially since I ran out of lozenges today, but there’s really few things in life I enjoy less than an incessantly drippy nose.
Also yay: despite being an incompetent clod, I made somebody’s day a little bit brighter. If only the advice I gave myself were as helpful and well-intentioned… Ah well, such is life.
Bittorrent’s at it again — Kashmir is a fucking awesome band. Too bad they’re only available to be shipped to the European Union. Dammit! If only I had plans to go to the European Union in the near future, then maybe I’d be able to pick up a copy of Zitilites.
Song of the Moment: «Surfing the Warm Industry» — Kashmir
Yay! Sore throat time! w00t.
October 11, 2003Yay! Sore throat time! w00t. Maybe a 45-minute shower would cure me, but I don’t know if I’m man enough to take on that challenge. We can’t all be such paragons of virtue.
I read an interesting essay on the web and what makes it work. Read it for yourself, it’s not long, but in the spirit of the essay, I’m now going to link to this guy whose blog I read occasionally. I disagree with him on just about everything, but I appreciate the effort he puts into his analysis, and that he sticks to his guns. Good for him, I says. Equal Time considerations make me feel like also linking to this blog and this one. Enjoy.
Song of the Moment: «Everyone Has to Eat» — Unbelievable Truth
Whoa. I’ve got a few
October 9, 2003Whoa. I’ve got a few thing to say, but first things first. Those first things being that eating 9 servings of Fritos™ brand corn-based snack-type foodstuffs in one sitting is NOT a good idea.
Know what’s fun? Lending a professor a copy of Playboy. (For an article, duh.)
Know what’s not fun? Writing a paper you really don’t want to write on a topic that fills you with nothing but ennui.
Looks like the Yanks and Bosox will have split the first 2 games, barring some kind of wacky miracle. Things could be worse.
Song of the Moment: «Imaginary Lines» — Badly Drawn Boy
Creativity. It’s a word that
October 6, 2003Creativity.
It’s a word that gets bandied about a lot. «Creative» gets a lot of play as well. Both words usually come up in the context of someone who creates, sure, but someone who creates something like a play or a novel or a painting or something. Scientists and engineers, on the other hand, are often dismissed as uncreative. Why is that?
Dictionary.com defines ‘creative’ as:
- Having the ability or power to create: Human beings are creative animals.
- Productive; creating.
- Characterized by originality and expressiveness; imaginative: creative writing
Perhaps it’s missing the point to examine a word’s definition to try to get a grip on perception and use of the word, but I’m going to do it anyway. To pick a contrived, nonrandom example, I’m going to compare hypothetical persons A and B, where person A is the author of several Harlequin romance novels and person B is a research physicist with many publications and a Ph.D. to his name.
Persons A and B are both published authors, so they clearly both fit definition 1 of ‘creative’.
Assuming persons A and B both continue to work in their respective fields, they’ll both continue to do what they did to meet definition 1′s criterion, and in doing so they’ll meet definition 2.
Definition 3, however, is the sticky wicket; definition 3 is where the simultaneous requirements of originality and expressiveness come in. Person A’s ‘creative’ output expresses just how hunky Fabio looks, and person B’s ‘creative’ output expresses the theoretical basis for his research, his experimental procedures, and what conclusions if any he draws from them; we’ll call both people ‘expressive’. Originality, however, is a different matter entirely. Person A and the rest of the Harlequin romance authors (and TV producers, and movie scriptwriters, and recording artists, and other such ‘creative types’) have no imperative for originality; banal, uninspired, derivative works seem to be produced all the time. Person B, on the other hand, is required to be original. In fact, every person with a doctorate is required to have been original. It’s possible to have a career as an author without a single original expression, but it’s not possible to have a career as a scientist without a single original contribution.
Song of the Moment: «Melatonin» — Radiohead
Well, on Friday, the Eesti
October 6, 2003Well, on Friday, the Eesti Maja, in between feeding me 6 or 7 pints of Saku, regaled me with the quite enjoyable live music of Blind. Then, in the morning, I had a Blind CD on my desk, and an email in my inbox from Amazon. This email alleged that I was shortly to be the proud owner of a copy of Blind’s best-of CD. How I loathe one-click ordering… Thank god Amazon ‘Marketplace’ had a guy selling the CD for $2.49 + shipping.
And then the Red Sox won. Go Sox! What a hilarious game. I love seeing a guy get tagged out at home well after he forgot to step on the bag! Bowling over the catcher is all well and good, but it’s only half the job.
And then I went on an optional Sound & Space class field trip to the Staten Island Ferry. Don’t ask. Anyway, it was still a nice breather and a nice day to be out.
And then the Red Sox won again. Go Sox!
I want a telephone spider, like Dr. Weird had on ATHF tonight.
Songs of the Moment:
- «Old Bloody Orange» — Hawksley Workman
- «Playing in a Rock’N'Roll Band» — Blind
- «Schreit den Namen meiner Mutter» — Tomte
From the making-nerds-look-extra-creepy department: Next
October 3, 2003From the making-nerds-look-extra-creepy department: Next time you make fun of Aaliyah and her starring role in Queen of the Damned, please don’t mock her in front of the kind of idiot who will kill you for insulting Akasha. The kind of idiot I’m referring to is also the kind of idiot who will vow to kill again and sign his name in blood on letters to himself. By the way, after this idiot kills you for making fun of a fictional character portrayed by a dead actress, he’ll drink your blood and hide your corpse.
The smacktard who does all this will laugh at the 25-year prison sentence he has to look forward to, claiming that he’s immortal and vampiric and crap, from having drunk your blood. However, seeing as daylight appears to have had no deleterious effects on him, it’s you who will have the last laugh. Assuming you’re capable of laughing while in a pine box in the ground, that is. Also, assuming that you find your killer’s death amusing for some reason.
From the in-other-news department, those of you who want to see some pictures from this year’s Scanfest can just mosey over to pildid.net’s coverage.
Song of the Moment: «Lost On Yer Merry Way» — Grandaddy
So there I was, having
October 1, 2003So there I was, having just finished reading Bertrand Russell‘s «Why I Am Not A Christian» when, as was my wont, I decided to read this week’s issue of The Onion. (If you’re looking for some kind of logical progression there, don’t bother.)
Anyway, after reading the «In the News», «STATshot», «News In Brief», and «What Do You Think?» sections (and the horoscopes), I clicked my way over to the «Infographic». What greeted me there was, as promised, an infographic about the NYSE, but there was also the more sinister presence of this picture, in a box conveniently labeled ‘advertisement’. Go on, look at it the picture. I mean it, I’m not going to continue until you do look at it.
Well, now that you’ve looked at this picture, perhaps you can justify its existence. If so, please enlighten me.
Why in the name of all that is holy is the History Channel airing a show called “Extreme History“… starring Roger freaking Daltrey. What committee came up with the idea to take the story of Lewis & Clark, call it ‘extreme’, and sign on a former lead singer as the host? What demographic are they trying to appeal to? Baby boomers are the ones who give a rat’s ass about band members of The Who, but they’re not the type of person to go apeshit in their enthusiasm for the word ‘extreme‘, and I doubt anybody really cares about Lewis & Clark (which is a real tragedy).
I have nothing against Roger Daltrey, or the History Channel for that matter, but this show just seems remarkably ill-planned. I think the History Channel has entirely given up on attracting female viewership, as most of their shows are about the history of stabbings or prostitution or jet fighters or something, and this new show just looks like another half-hearted attempt at getting more guys to watch the channel. Calling it ‘extreme’ just makes it seem like they’re trying to stay ‘hip’ and ‘with it’ and ‘relevant’ and ‘poppin’ fresh’, which, when combined with a rock star from the 1960′s seems almost comically mismatched. Daltrey looks so miserable in that picture, dressed up like Crocodile Dundee, that I really feel sorry for the guy. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.
Song of the Moment: «Behind Blue Eyes» — The Who
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