More than two thousand years ago, Euclid taught us about triangles. Book 1 culminated with the famous Pythagoras Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2) as Proposition 47 and 48 respectively. er, whose four year old was it??
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.145 URL: DATE: 08/03/2004 15:42:06 PMit was my niece, more on all that later.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Vex EMAIL: pardueduran@yahoo.com IP: 67.123.70.140 URL: http://www.pardueduran.com/dailyvex.html DATE: 08/04/2004 04:27:38 AMDo you have that "west nile virus" there?
i just learned, during my recent vacation, which included many mosquitoes, that only the night-biting ones carry the virus.
just, FYI. ;)
It's interesting that Vex should say that, because Ashcroft is finding evidence that al Qaeda is running a pilot West Nile mosquito bioterrorism program in Austria.
There's no reason to be overly worried, because fewer than 50% of those exposed catch the disease, and fewer than 50% of those infected actually die. Staying inside under the covers all night is an effective precaution, but don't poke your nose out.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.160 URL: DATE: 08/04/2004 20:58:53 PMi hear intl. schmectron corp, the world's largest maker of mosquito netting, is a major contributor to the bush campaign.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: eeksypeeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@gmail.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com DATE: 08/05/2004 14:58:49 PMMeteors? Are they out tonight? I'm reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. If I also see meteors and fireflies tonight, I might explode. (Or maybe just be attacked by boars and owls.)
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: francis s. EMAIL: francis.strand@gmail.com IP: 193.15.61.253 URL: http://www.francisstrand.blogspot.com DATE: 08/05/2004 16:03:16 PMEeksy, I hope you didn't explode. Or maybe I hope you did.
And since you don't have comments on your site, Eeksy,I'll say it here, your post about the firefly lamps was, just, well, you so eaily make me gasp, what you write and how you write.
Um, wait, this is actually Mig's site, isn't it? Er, thanks, Miguel, for letting me use it for, extracurricular purposes...
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: gwen EMAIL: gwen@ofrenda.org IP: 66.159.228.105 URL: http://www.ofrenda.org/rawr DATE: 08/06/2004 00:09:33 AMOooh, I'd forgotten it was hurtling balls of ice time! we'll have to go out this weekend.
I've only seen fireflies once, in Central Park of all places. I'd like to live where they are, also where one or the other of the aurorae shows up, but I think that probably doesn't go with my tropical fantasy...
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: chris EMAIL: chris@nospam.com IP: 216.62.108.26 URL: http://www.javablack.com DATE: 08/06/2004 06:27:49 AMA younger child, say one that's just learning to walk with some confidence but has yet to understand the whole 'elevator gravity thing', is also a must-see. Picture a very small person squat-walking fairly quickly off an elevator as the doors open, arms stretched upwards and staring down at the ground with utter confusion on his face... hilarious, and yet beautiful.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.130 URL: DATE: 08/06/2004 06:28:25 AMeveryone should go read eeksy's post on fireflies. i had been thinking about quitting this blogging thing until i read that.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/06/2004 08:01:45 AMI've never seen fireflies in real life. At least I hadn't until I read that.
BTW, ylang ylang oil, mixed with equal parts water in a small spray bottle, makes a delightful mosquito repellent. Not quite as effective as Avon's Skin So Soft bath oil, but neither is it 'woodland fresh.' It's supposed to have a tranquilising effect on humans, and a slight aphrodesiacal influence (some say) as well. We're in the thick of dead crows here, murders of them in fact. My blonde mosquito-bait tendencies mean my bedroom always smells woodland fresh in summer. I guess I should make it my preferred scent.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/06/2004 08:04:23 AMDead crows, see, are the CDC's preferred bodies of evidence of the migration of the virus.
(looks up at crow tree, across the street)
(sprays shoulders)
What about blackbirds? We had a huge blackbird die-off here last year.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: eeksypeeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@gmail.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com DATE: 08/09/2004 08:23:00 AMThursday night is the peak for the Perseids? If the sky is clear, I'm going to be groggy Friday morning.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: eeksypeeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@gmail.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com DATE: 08/09/2004 08:27:05 AMWait! Wednesday night, not Thursday night.
"According to the best estimates, in 2004 the Earth is predicted to cut through the densest part of the Perseid stream sometime around 7 a.m. ET on Thursday, Aug. 12. Activity could be high for a few hours on either side of that time. The late-night hours of Wednesday, Aug. 11, on through the first light of dawn on the morning holds the promise of seeing a very fine Perseid display."
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ratty EMAIL: ratty@surreally.net IP: 4.26.76.39 URL: http://ratty.surreally.net DATE: 08/09/2004 11:32:27 AMi saw fireflies for the very first time this july, in gettysburg, there was a small field next to our hotel...
needless to say, i was thrilled :)
is MT the best blogging tool or is there something else out there that's simple to install, stable, free and doesn't take for fucking ever to delete comment spam?
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: is MT the best blogging tool or is there something else out there that's simple to install, stable, free and doesn't take for fucking ever to delete comment spam?... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David (TEFL Smiler) EMAIL: teflsmiler@mac.com IP: 213.237.27.237 URL: http://teflsmiler.typepad.com/weblog/ DATE: 08/09/2004 10:13:05 AMQuite a few people are raving about WordPress and Expression Engine.
WordPress examples: http://www.greynotebook.com/blog/ and http://www.rousette.org.uk/
Expression Engine example: http://blinger.org/
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/09/2004 10:47:24 AMthanks
David thanks for the plug, found this via my referrer logs.
I would recommend looking at the blog software breakdown for features of the various scripts. http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm
Expression Engline is great, but the price tag is a little hefty. If you are technically sound I would ecommend drupal as it is also very very powerful.
Hope you find what you are looking for.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: anne EMAIL: tuckova@gmail.com IP: 213.210.177.152 URL: http://www.tuckova.com DATE: 08/09/2004 11:31:16 AMWordPress as I have it set up requires approval of comments before posting them to the site. I don't think MT offered this option... It does mean paying more attention to comments (and the possibility that people will multi-post, if they don't see their comment go up when they hit refresh)... In any case, the spam seems to be a great deal less with WordPress (I used to delete several a day; I've gotten one spam in the two weeks since switching, so... that's an improvement!)
The techgeek who set it up for me says WordPress is a lot easier to deal with... it also seems easier to me, which is saying a lot right there.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: ratty EMAIL: ratty@surreally.net IP: 4.26.76.39 URL: http://ratty.surreally.net DATE: 08/09/2004 11:36:09 AMmig, are you using mt-blacklist? my comment spam has dropped to almost nothing since i started using it.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Solonor EMAIL: solonor@solonor.com IP: 68.205.188.246 URL: http://solonor.com/blogger.html DATE: 08/09/2004 11:47:53 AMDitto what ratty said. That and shutting off comments on old posts. They like to hit the old ones, thinking that you won't notice (I guess).
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/09/2004 12:34:50 PMI use MT Blacklist and it's been stopping some of them, but a few made it through lately and left 3000+ comments (in older posts) that I'm still deleting. I have been taking the advice to close comments on older posts, but only in the last week, and that takes forever with MT, to go back and reset all that individually. Post-by-post.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Carrie EMAIL: indigohat@yadayadayahoo.com IP: 64.186.245.122 URL: http://www.ponderethereal.com/blog/wp DATE: 08/09/2004 18:59:19 PMWordpress! :) I switched from MT to wordpress a couple weeks back. I got 95 spam comments this weekend and only 3 went live. I added a word to my filter to catch those three so those wont happen again. MT doesnt have that. It took me seconds to delete all 95 without the public ever seeing them :)
Its super easy to install wordpress and import your MT entries and comments. Wordpress doesnt have a 'rebuild' either..so everything is live right away. I've found lots of stuff in wordpress that made me wonder why I ever used MT to begin with :)
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: novala EMAIL: sodazitron@gmx.net IP: 80.108.27.99 URL: http://sodazitron.blogger.de DATE: 08/09/2004 19:24:30 PMwww.antville.org
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Meike EMAIL: meike@starrysheep.com IP: 80.126.19.206 URL: http://starrysheep.com/weblog/ DATE: 08/11/2004 19:26:55 PMI switched from MT to Pivot (http://www.pivotlog.net) and I'm loving it so far!
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: wallaby EMAIL: wallaby@flerdle.net IP: 172.186.100.15 URL: http://www.flerdle.net/wallaby DATE: 08/12/2004 10:09:35 AMI like WordPress. The way things are set up right now are a little annoying, but I don't have time to change things (like putting comments in a little window). Blogspam is easy to deal with, as people have said.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Nathanial Mankey EMAIL: ishatofa@cs.com IP: 217.146.246.1 URL: http://groups.google.com/ DATE: 08/31/2004 22:22:59 PMGoggle Gropups might be usefull for it.
http://groups.google.com/
............
Nathanial Mankey
(ulonowea)
If same-sex marriages ever become legal in Washington State, I will be very tempted to marry my brother-in-law.
----- EXTENDED BODY:We shall aim at 9.00 for a departure time, said one of us.
Fine! Let's, said the other.
Listen: recall my formula for chaos? The chaos coefficient? Generally, this is how it works: the average chaos in your life is a function of the number of family members and pets in your household. Specifically, this is the formula:
However, with four relatives visiting, we had a chaos coefficient not of 2401 but of 214,358,881, so breakfast took longer than planned and we got to Vienna around lunchtime.
The kids (the kids, not my kids) were hungry and cranky as they had not eaten much breakfast to speak of so we went straight to an Asian restaurant, assuming correctly that service would be fast, food would be delicious and include vegetarian options for the vegetarians and pseudo-vegetarians in our party. Tables were moved to accomodate us. We ordered beverages and changed our orders repeatedly (Not tea, cola. Not cola, mineral water. But only if it's without gas ("with gas" and "without gas" although not correct English nor German had become popular with us by this time, since a waiter somewhere had said it to us in his quaint English and we all adopted it...) We ate and paid and left and the tables we had occupied looked as if a blind rugby team on crystal meth had had a mass seizure there.
We took a horse ride around Vienna after that. I highly recommend that to anyone visiting Vienna, take a Fiaker ride. Those are the horse-drawn carriages that convey you slowly through the streets while the driver points out things of interest. (The modifier "horse-drawn" is unnecessary, I guess, as there are no carriages drawn by anything else here, unless you count the pedicabs which are perhaps propelled by pedifiles (that reminds me, I had always envied an acquaintance of mine for an encounter she had with a foot-fetishist outside a hotel once - he glanced at her feet and told her correctly what shoe size she wore before inviting her somewhere; I went shoe-shopping last week and the sales lady did that to me: it was so nice, I nearly proposed to her. Maybe it's just me)). In Venice you take a gondola ride (also recommended) and in Vienna a Fiaker. It costs a bit, between €40 and €100 depending on how far you go, but it's worth it. Even if you live here. Anyway. The kids liked that.
Then we had icecream, or before, not sure, and there was much dripping and licking and getting sticky, in an entirely family-friendly G-rated way.
Then my wife had to go. Also my sister. They had some pressing engagement. We all walked them back to the cars because it looked a bit like rain and we needed the raincoats we'd packed. We all went down into the dark belly of the filthy parking garage and got our stuff and negotiated with the kids whether they would ride home with their mothers, in which case we would not see the House of Music we had come to see in the first place, or whether they would go with their fathers. And who would carry what and which toys would be brought and who would ride on whose shoulders.
My wife recommended we take the subway one stop so we wouldn't have to walk so far, and Gamma heard it. The mothers got ready to leave and we looked around for the kids, who had disappeared. We found them, got shoes on my niece who was barefoot and wearing a licensed Disney princessdressnightgown and nothing else except underwear. We found them, they had been playing behind some cars. Bye mom! Bye honey!
Back outside in the fresh air we walked through this little park where junkies hang out and where I saw a young woman giving some guy head in public once; the park was empty which simplified things since I hadn't been looking forward to explaining any of that to three kids between 4 and 7 (15-year old Beta, who could have helped us(with the kids, I mean, not with the explaining, at least I hope not), was away that day). We stood around gathering our thoughts, my brother-in-law and I. We would walk, because I didn't relish getting that flea circus ticketed and down the escalators and onto the right train. My niece and my daughter and my nephew went and played with this large advertising thing, a column three or four feet in diameter and ten or twelve feet tall covered with advertising posters; working together, three children could make it rotate on a vertical axis, it was discovered. I hoped they weren't unscrewing it and it would tip over and crush an unsuspecting passerby.
So they did that for a while. They were hungry, they told us. We reminded them they had just eaten lunch, but then gave them snacks. We will walk, I said. But Gamma protested, Subway, she said. Her cousin joined her so, Okay, we said forcefully, subway.
Then my brother-in-law asked his daughter where she had gotten so dirty. Her pink princessdressnightgown was grey, and her leg was covered with soot to the knee and she likewise wore elbow-length gloves of black grime. Playing under the cars in the parking garage, she told him. Calmly he tried to rub some of it off, then gave up, a prince among fathers.
Somehow Gamma had managed to stay almost spotless, although she had been among the cars with her cousin.
The subway ride was uneventful except for the wino drinking wine out of a carton and yelling gutturally. He was standing right in front of us on the platform, so I moved us all a couple steps back, cause, you know, wine out of a carton?
From the station where we got out I found straight to the House of Music for the first time in my life.
Let me explain a little about the House of Music: it is for kids or anyone else who wants to learn about music in a fun manner. It is a zillion stories tall, or at least four, but the only toilets are in the fucking cellar.
Any parents among you know how the next part goes:
Obviously, not "handicapped signs", the signs for handicapped people, I mean. That icon of a person in a wheelchair, in blue and white, used to mark handicapped parking (parking for handicapped people) and so on. Meaning that people with wheelchairs can use these elevators, for example.
Or fathers in a hurry to get downstairs to the restrooms. We jumped in, loaded the kids, hit "E" for ground floor (in Austria, as in many parts of Europe, ground floor is "G" or whatever ("E" stands for "Erdgeschoss" which means "groundfloor" and the second floor is the first floor, etc.) and sped to the ground, got off, doors closed and hrm.
Where's my niece? Here's my brother-in-law, here's Gamma and her cousin and what's that hysterical screaming issuing faintly from the elevator as my brother-in-law stabs the buttons. Up, down, he's not being picky.
Door won't open, he said. We asked the ticket guy about that. You need this card, he said. We have a little girl stuck inside, we said.
Wow, imagine some handicapped person upstairs had called the elevator while we stood around scratching our heads just then.
But the guy was nice and ran over and let out my niece, who was red in the face and holding her crotch and screaming. We got the kids on the toilets (Gamma still didn't have to go, but I talked her into trying) and went back up and looked at all the cool stuff.
There's this room where you mess around with bits of sound and can hit things and make noises. Actually there are several rooms fitting that general description in different ways. I like them, they are cool. I walked around playing, checking on the kids occasionally. I noticed my brother-in-law sitting on the carpeted floor with his daughter, calmly feeding her pretzels from a plastic bag stashed among his gear. The whole chest part of his grey tee-shirt, from shoulder to shoulder, was soaked in water. He noticed me looking and held up a a bottle of mineral water. "With gas," he said, and fed her another pretzel. Marry me, I thought.
15 years old is probably time to start learning to explain things.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: WWCD? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/10/2004 12:21:56 PM ----- BODY:What would a conservative do? Why, with all that Bush and those around him have botched, are they still in control of public discourse? Democratic convention? Economy tanking? Environmental degradation? Civil liberties under attack? Here, have another vague warning instead.
Today, the metamorphosism public discourse domination award goes to those spotlighting Kerry's real military service while managing to avoid any discussion whatsoever of the complete evasion by our "War" "President" Bush of any combat service, and most likely his evasion of any real military service whatsoever.
Another thing: let's have a betting pool (void where prohibited by law) on what pre-election scary things are going to happen, and when; both warnings of scary things and actual scary things, as well as suspected scary things that may have happened, or may not have happened but were narrowly prevented, and scary things that have not happened yet but still might we just don't know when although we're working on it night and day.
And another thing: I want a campaign button-type-thing with a picture of the current "President" and "Vice-President" on it together with the slogan, "Go fuck yourself, who cares what you think."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: What would a conservative do? Why, with all that Bush and those around him have botched, are they still in control of public discourse? Democratic convention? Economy tanking? Environmental degradation? Civil liberties under attack? Here, have another vague warning instead.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Fireflies STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/10/2004 12:36:49 PM ----- BODY:All of us went to the mountains. My family, my sister's family. We stayed in these apartments we stay in when we go skiing. We went swimming and hiking. We had fun. Down the road from where we lived was a Gasthaus, this inn, where we had dinner sometimes. The first time, walking back in the dark after (a chaotic) dinner, we saw fireflies for the first time. My wife's family had seen them before, as my brother-in-law spent several years in Pennsylvania and they still visit relatives there. Later he told us stories about seeing thousands - the firefly is the Pennsylvania State Insect (what is the New Jersey State Insect, I wonder? What is your state insect?). All we saw that night were several dozens, but they were magical.
It was pitch dark and we were walking up this gravel road we knew from memory, a nice warm evening walking through the trees when we see all these little soft green stars. Some were stationary (the females) and some were hovering around, moving in slow lazy arcs (the males). If you want to know exactly which sort of stars they resembled most, go to the tenderloin and touch a Hell's Angel's bike (thanks Jessica) - fireflies are the stars you see when someone punches you in the head with a certain vigor.
That's what I think now, anyway, sitting here in my office in bright sunshine. At the time, we watched in silence as they moved, also silent. Just light, no buzzing. Just cool green bioluminescence employed to spread around that Photinus Pyralsis DNA.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: All of us went to the mountains. My family, my sister's family. We stayed in these apartments we stay in when we go skiing. We went swimming and hiking. We had fun. Down the road from where we lived was... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: anne EMAIL: tuckova@gmail.com IP: 213.210.177.152 URL: DATE: 08/10/2004 17:06:43 PMtenderloin with a capital T. Which stands for Trouble.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Tim EMAIL: mitdog1@yahoo.com IP: 192.88.212.48 URL: DATE: 08/10/2004 17:48:51 PMAs kids, we used to catch the fireflies and pinch off the glowing part of thier tails and smear them on our faces. Glow in the dark facepaint. It was cool then and gross now.
Wisconsen state insect is the Mosquito and they grow large enough to carry off small children.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: gordon EMAIL: gordondf@hotmail.com IP: 66.28.105.35 URL: DATE: 08/10/2004 19:29:51 PMIllinois' state animal might be those giant-assed spiders that build web villages on the surfaces of el station billboards. Do not lean on them while waiting for your train. Your little hitchiker can freak the crap out of anybody who ends up in the seat behind you.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jado EMAIL: jadopine@yahoo.com IP: 63.109.229.13 URL: DATE: 08/10/2004 22:19:12 PMNew Jersey state insect is the Green-Head Fly, which sounds fake but is actually a real insect. It makes its home at the coastline of New Jersey, where everyone goes for a nice beach vacation. And then it starts biting you, Painfully. The little bastards
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/13/2004 20:19:28 PMHere it's the dog-headed butterfly, which doesn't have a dog's head so much as a silhouette of a poodle face on its wings.
http://www.library.ca.gov/history/symbols/butterfly.jpg
I don't think you find them in the Tenderloin so much as Pacific Heights and the Castro.
my state insect is the honeybee.
i had no idea.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Winning friends STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/12/2004 07:47:13 AM ----- BODY:Not sure about the rest of me, but my skin made it through the generations from my original cave-dwelling, nocturnal Irish ancestors unchanged: pale as hell. In summer, I go from lily-white to burn straight to carcinoma, skipping the tanning phase entirely. So when I actually acquired a little color this summer vacation from all the time spent outside in all the wonderful weather we got, I was quite happy and even proud.
Which frame of mind resulted in this conversation when I returned to work and a plump and saucy young co-worker welcomed me back to work.
PASYCW: Weren't you on vacation?
Me: Yeah. [??]
PASYCW: But... I thought you'd go somewhere south or something.
Me: [??] Huh?
PASYCW: Cause your skin... you're not very brown. [Note: she is Asian, and therefore tans quite easily and deeply]
Me: Are you kidding? This is the brownest I've ever been. [Hold out arm, pointing out contrast between white sleeve and sort of tan arm]
PASYCW: [Raises eyebrows skeptically]
Me: BTW, I had a dream about you.
PASYCW: Really? What did I do?
Me: [Oops] Eh, nothing really.
PASYCW: How interesting. [Cute smile]
Me: I mean, not much was going on.
PASYCW: Uh huh.
Me: It was just, you had fat legs in the dream. [Elephantine, actually, in the dream.]
PASYCW: Really. [Looks down at her own legs]
Me: Heh! Only in the dream, heh. It was just a dream!
PASYCW: Fat legs.
Me: Just in the dream! You have really nice legs. Not fat.
PASYCW: Well, I'd better distribute these documents.
Me: Sexy legs. Not fat. Bye!
Should've told her about the "you were God" dream instead.
On the other hand, she did raise her eyebrows skeptically at your tan.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Karan EMAIL: karan@flummel.com IP: 24.18.52.52 URL: http://www.flummel.com/ee DATE: 08/12/2004 22:36:52 PMI guess your 'stop my mouth' button was still on vacation?
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: cj EMAIL: cjcbanane@aol.com IP: 205.188.116.76 URL: http://journals.aol.com/cjcbanane/Test/ DATE: 08/13/2004 00:54:40 AMDid you tell her you have a hedgehog?
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.141 URL: DATE: 08/13/2004 06:11:29 AMNever raise your eyebrows at my tan.
I'm going to try the god dream on people and see how that works.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Preparedness STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/12/2004 09:37:49 AM ----- BODY:Tourist helicopters and limousines.
Every time I watch people eat, or shop for food, I wonder how secure the chain of food production, processing, packaging and delivery is.
(How secure is the chain of ...? How secure the chain is of...? Whatever.)
I mean, ever read Fight Club?
----- EXCERPT: Tourist helicopters and limousines. Every time I watch people eat, or shop for food, I wonder how secure the chain of food production, processing, packaging and delivery is.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: j-a EMAIL: jeonga_kim@yahoo.co.uk IP: 202.71.195.230 URL: http://www.whatarewedoinghere.blogspot.com DATE: 08/16/2004 08:05:35 AMi'll tell you, it's not very secure. my friend got food poisoning from eating airline food. i didn't eat my food because it was 'experimental vegetarian' so i couldn't find the appetite, and now i am very very glad i didn't.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/16/2004 08:34:38 AMI've been skeptical of airline food ever since i peeled the saran wrap from my salad once and a gigantic centipede jumped out and said, "thank you for releasing me, master!" and offered to give me three wishes.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: anne EMAIL: tuckova@gmail.com IP: 213.210.177.152 URL: DATE: 08/30/2004 10:31:41 AMwhat did you wish for?
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/30/2004 12:10:02 PMi wished it would get out of my goddamned salad, and that the little kid two rows back would stop screaming...
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Bad news, good news STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/13/2004 07:39:26 AM ----- BODY:Paper trail? We don't need no steenking paper trail.
On the other hand, the OSCE is going to monitor the presidential elections in the US this November. It's so cool the way Bush is turning the US into a third world banana republic.
No idea whether this chart is genuine, or accurate, or whether a statistician would find it significant, but some other people think it shows that whenever Bush's approval ratings drop, another terror warning is issued, causing the approval rating to improve a little. Not sure if those little blips are statistically significant. What I find interesting is the fact that his approval rating is now down below what it was prior to 11 September 2001, which if you're into conspiracy theories, or just generally wacko, or cynical could lead you to conclude we're late for another major terrorist strike.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: No idea whether this chart is genuine, or accurate, or whether a statistician would find it significant, but some other people think it shows that whenever Bush's approval ratings drop, another terror warning is issued, causing the approval rating to... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: cj EMAIL: cjcbanane@aol.com IP: 64.12.116.76 URL: http://journals.aol.com/cjcbanane/Test/ DATE: 08/17/2004 00:12:55 AMWatch out... comments like that could get you struck. By the way - to anyone monitoring my posts... I love the government. I'm terribly happy with everything. I have no problems. All ok here!
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: eeksypeeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@gmail.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com DATE: 08/17/2004 14:45:16 PMThe terrorist strike is underway. It's the attack on the US electorate led by the Republican Swift Boat Retirees for Bush, the Fox Network for Bush, the Warbloggers for Bush, the Gun Dealers for Bush, and so on. Their goal is to make just enough voters terrified of change that they will vote Bush back in for another round of US self-dismantlement.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kris Hasson-Jones EMAIL: snippy@pacifier.com IP: 198.107.1.253 URL: DATE: 08/17/2004 18:05:14 PMWow, eeksypeeksy, do you really think so little of the intellectual and analytical abilities of the electorate as that? That's quite an insult. All you're really doing, though, is showing how narrow your mind is. I'm a Democrat and I own a gun, I read the warbloggers, and I am perfectly capable of assessing the bias while picking out the facts, and then making up my own mind.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Big Time Patriot EMAIL: rant@bigtimepatriot.com IP: 24.19.23.173 URL: http://www.bigtimepatriot.com/default.asp?itemID=145 DATE: 08/18/2004 00:56:58 AMThere has been a lot of talk lately that the US made a mistake in revealing a Pakistani source of intelligence against Al Qaeda to justify the latest "terror alert". http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040810_725.html
Here is a bit from 'Bush Team on Defensive Over al-Qaeda Leak’ by Jim Lobe: ''By exposing the only deep mole we've ever had within al-Qaeda, it ruined the chance to capture dozens if not hundreds more,” a former Justice Department prosecutor, John Loftus, told Fox News on Saturday. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0810-01.htm
But of course these people are working under the idea that the Bush administration wants to WIN the war against terror. Winning the war against terror might be good for Bush in the short term (It would address that 'competent leadership' issue that Bush has), but NOT winning the war on terror can be a crutch for Republicans to prop up their sorry-ass platform for years to come. Don't think that people in this administration haven't caught on to that fact. And don't think (remember the Plame incident) that this administration isn't willing to put the needs of their party well above the needs of the nation.
http://www.bigtimepatriot.com/default.asp?itemID=145
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: aldahlia EMAIL: girl@aldahlia.net IP: 24.5.145.172 URL: http://www.aldahlia.net DATE: 08/23/2004 05:48:01 AMI thought that we were preparing for another stike the day before the election, and the true conspiracy theory was that they'll take Osama out of the underground cell they've been hiding him in for months and months in late October.
Or, maybe I've got my theories mixed...
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: shasta EMAIL: smetanove@hotmail.com IP: 205.127.246.45 URL: http://www.mizdos.com/shasta DATE: 09/01/2004 00:24:55 AM...and so it goes. bush getting dick in the whitehouse....in and out.....salmon pink alert....
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Talk STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/18/2004 07:44:55 AM ----- BODY:You were talking in your sleep.
You said, "oh no."
I touched your head and you stopped.
"Less often, it's her sleep that's broken by a scream, and my turn to move across her in a sweat of protectiveness. I am starkly awake, and she delivers to me through sleepy lips the cause of her outcry, 'A *very* large beetle,' she will say, as if she wouldn't have bothered me about a smaller one..."
-from Julian Barnes' "A History..."
When my sister and her family visited from Seattle, they had packed plenty of gear to distract their young children: plastic bags full of small, hard toys with sharp edges we are still finding, usually in the middle of the night with our bare feet; decks of various juvenile playing cards such as "Rat-A-Tat-Cat"; books after books; and a portable DVD player with a postcard-sized screen, "just for the flight."
I don't know if they were shocked at first by our relative lack of stuff, but they came to appreciate the simple life we represented to them. At least they said they did. Maybe they felt like Harrison Ford when that Amish chick saves him in "Witness".
They even made plans to get rid of their TV when they returned home. "We don't really watch it all that much anyway," they said.
I don't know if they've done that yet, but as soon as they left, we ran to the supermarket and bought a portable DVD player.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: When my sister and her family visited from Seattle, they had packed plenty of gear to distract their young children: plastic bags full of small, hard toys with sharp edges we are still finding, usually in the middle of the... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: eeksypeeksy EMAIL: eeksypeeksy@gmail.com IP: 192.55.37.194 URL: http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ DATE: 08/18/2004 16:43:24 PM"as they left, we ran to the supermarket and bought a portable DVD player."
That's how tribal traditions are lost.
Native: What's that?
Visitor: We call it "radio."
Native: Hmm...
And suddenly no one remembers how to do that dance their grandparents used to do.
We don't have television, but these damned PCs all come with DVD players, and there's a place that rents DVDs within walking distance. In fact, they give DVDs away with magazines here. (Do they do that everywhere? I've only ever lived here since DVDs came out.)
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.180 URL: DATE: 08/18/2004 18:18:24 PMwell we're safe cause we're signing up for a social dance class this fall.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: novala EMAIL: sodazitron@gmx.net IP: 80.108.27.99 URL: http://sodazitron.blogger.de DATE: 08/19/2004 06:52:49 AMWhat the h* is "social dance"? Homecoming-dance at the Red Cross?
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/19/2004 07:13:21 AMBallroom dancing. Waltz. Rhumba. *Tanzschule*.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: j-a EMAIL: jeonga_kim@yahoo.co.uk IP: 202.71.195.230 URL: http://www.whatarewedoinghere.blogspot.com DATE: 08/19/2004 10:16:40 AMyeah. hurrah for DVD players.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: zedzdead EMAIL: andy@zedzdead.net IP: 195.153.138.69 URL: http://www.zedzdead.net DATE: 08/19/2004 14:33:59 PMYou went to a Supermarket? Why didn't you go to the Hypermarket?
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Lili EMAIL: Abbeynoir@wi.rr.com IP: 24.167.227.156 URL: http://www.mizdos.com/lili/ DATE: 08/19/2004 16:14:15 PMdvds of your grandparents dancing is the answer of course.
in our world it is all about the small plastic blow up pools of liquid serenity...my teenager however lives to get one of those tiny dvd players.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: francis s. EMAIL: francis.strand@gmail.com IP: 213.89.61.12 URL: http://www.francisstrand.blogspot.com DATE: 08/20/2004 20:01:31 PMThey give out DVDs in magazines here, eeksy... the latest was Kill Bill Vol. 1 in some cheezy men's magazine.
And, um, I'm not telling how many DVDs we own. But then we're very good capitalist pigs, we are. We've got lots of stuff (even a few smallish plastic toys).
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/21/2004 17:46:44 PMWe only watch movies on our home theater system, with the rosewood boxed gold coned speakers and the widescreen HDTV. This works out about the same as not having a TV but having a portable DVD player, probably, as movie theaters aren't good enough any more, and regular TV (except for The Daily Show) doesn't cut it either. We promise your kids wouldn't be spoiled by it if you visited. Extra super (hyper) promise. C'mon.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/31/2004 16:00:59 PMI have only one true capitalist vice and it is Special Edition DVDs. If there is a regular edition and a Special Edition, even of a movie I've never wanted to see I somehow end up getting the SE.
My DVD collection was over 250 titles last time I checked, not including TV show boxed sets.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Coincidence STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/19/2004 07:35:37 AM ----- BODY:Wow, cool. It'd be like a cool Tom Clancy novel if it didn't involve real life. Another site in the same vein is "Hell, Yes, They Knew: The Bush Administration's Involvement in the September 11 Terrorist Attacksz" by Black Max http://www.iraqtimeline.com/theyknew.html
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Big Time Patriot EMAIL: rant@bigtimepatriot.com IP: 24.19.23.173 URL: DATE: 08/20/2004 02:41:40 AMDarn, I meant to post this earlier one to the item below titled "coincidence"... It's a conspiracy I tell you!!(just kidding) d-oh
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: The virtue of idleness STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/20/2004 13:15:30 PM ----- BODY:Here is one book I shall be getting when it comes out.
Maybe I should write one of these myself.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: Here is one book I shall be getting when it comes out. Maybe I should write one of these myself.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Tip 2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/20/2004 13:49:33 PM ----- BODY:Now you know what to do at a diplomatic reception if you are an invited guest. But what if you're working there as the video twat?
----- EXTENDED BODY:someone was wearing lizard skin miniskirts at a diplomatic reception???
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: adam EMAIL: a_reitsma@yahoo.com IP: 202.5.6.33 URL: DATE: 08/23/2004 04:48:20 AMi could be wrong, but i think he was merely referring to the size of the mini-skirt, not the shape.
but i may need some visuals to clarify, all the same.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/23/2004 07:08:03 AMSize, print and fit.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: anne EMAIL: tuckova@gmail.com IP: 213.210.177.152 URL: DATE: 08/30/2004 10:21:57 AMTip 2 through receptions,
By the garden of the willow tree
Come tip 2 through receptions with mig
Knee deep in rum drinks we'll stray
We'll keep dead batteries away
And if I film you in your short skirt, made of rattlesnake,
Will you pardon me?
And tip 2 through diplomats, with mig?
I drive something over to the in-laws, cake or something. When I want to leave, my car won't start. My father-in-law, who is a retired mechanic, comes and looks at it. He says, It's a diesel - you have to wait until all the lights turn off before you try to start it. I know this, and it is my habit, but I say nothing. He tries, and it starts and I drive home.
This is a literary technique known as "foreshadowing" that God overuses in my opinion.
There is a get-together at work, goodbye party for someone so I drive into Vienna that evening although it is a Saturday and I normally like to spend my weekends at home. My car dies on a bridge. Luckily there is an emergency lane and I coast into it and turn on the hazard lights. It feels unfair, not to be among those zooming past thinking, "poor sucker, stuck on a bridge."
I call the auto club on my cell phone and they take my information (car model and color (blue Fiat Doblo) year (three or 4 years old I guess) and license number (I forget, something with something-something, and I'm not getting out onto a busy bridge to check) and say they'd send someone right away, arrival time 1 hour and 15 minutes. Maximum. I hang up and try starting again (waiting carefully for all dashboard lights to go off) and it starts and I drive off and call the auto club on my way and cancel, but warn them I might be calling back later, who knows.
I leave the party tennish and make it to the freeway where the car promptly dies again. This is how it died: lalala, everything okay, cruising along, suddenly: engine light on, power abruptly from 100% to 0%, power steering goes away. I park on the shoulder, on the emergency lane, turn on blinkers and wait. Play a few songs on the tin whistle, carefully watching the rear-view mirror for cars about to crash into me and trigger the airbag, which would send the tin whistle clean through my Medulla Oblongata.
Car starts a few minutes later and I'm on my way.
Then it dies again, right after I leave the freeway for the Schnellstrasse, which is the same as a freeway only called a Schnellstrasse. This time I sing a song. Car starts after a couple tries. It's eleven at night. I drive off and car dies again after a kilometer.
This time, it doesn't start again and the battery is nearly dead. I give up and call the auto club. "My car died on the road," I say.
"Fiat Doblo?" the dispatcher says.
"That's right," I say.
"You were on that bridge today too?"
"Uh huh." Hour and fifteen minutes, he says. Maximum.
Okay. I play a couple more songs on the tin whistle. I remember I have a reflective warning triangle in the back. I put on my reflective emergency vest and start trying to assemble the reflective warning triangle when, suddenly, out of nowhere, fucking blue lights flashing all over the place.
I am really happy to have the company. I walk over towards his car, but not in any threatening way, stopping before I get too close cause I couldn't remember whether Austrian police like you to get out of the car (I think they do) or prefer you to wait inside, like US police do. But I was already outside the car putting together my reflective triangle thing, so I think it would be okay.
He gets out and comes over to me. I smile in a friendly, but not too broad ( which could have been seen as crazy, threatening) way and shake-his-fucking-hand. "Hi," I say. He asks and I explain what the problem is. "Definitely the last Fiat I ever buy," I say.
He speaks a very strong Austrian dialect and I have to ask him to repeat himself a few times, because dialect does not go well with foreign language, and tinnitus and repressed panic at 11.30 pm. Our conversation goes like this: "Lalalaa."
"Excuse me?"
"I said, you broke down on the freeway a couple minutes ago, right? Another cop drove past you."
"Yeah."
He asks to see my license and registration. I show him the license, but can't find the registration in my wallet. "It's inside the car somewhere," I say. He doesn't insist on seeing that, which is good because after he leaves again (telling me to be careful, drivers get hit on this stretch all the time, a couple "got nailed just a few days ago..." and pointing out a slightly wider emergency-pull-over spot thirty meters ahead) I check and can't find it.
An empty freeway is a quiet thing when you're standing there all by yourself in the middle of the night imagining monsters in the wind-rustled cornfield to the rhythmic backup from your hazard lights. And pushing a stalled Fiat Doblo thirty meters up a slight incline is good exercise.
I take a piss. It is great to stand there and piss on the freeway. I stand by my car in my reflective vest and play a few tunes on the tin whistle. That is when I notice the lights.
Heavy cloud-cover and a circle of white lights up in or just under the clouds, revolving counter-clockwise. First thing I think of are fairies. Some cars come, I put my whistle back into my pocket so no one will think I have a gun and send the cops back a second time. When I am alone again, I take another piss and then play more tunes. Back come the lights. Fairies attracted by old Irish tunes.
The corn rustles and I wonder how big a monster could hide in there before you noticed it.
Then it dawns on me: Circular lights, breakdown, abandoned road at night. It's the fucking mother ship. I raise my arms in supplication. "Take me with you!" I say out loud. "I can leave the whistles here if you want. Just take me."
Cars come and the lights go away. I drink my emergency can of Red Bull and eat my emergency ration of a granola bar.
Listen: it was the perfect time for a treat.
I could have hung out there all night, except it was getting a little cold. But it was nice in a way. Then the auto club guy showed up and started my car and told me what to have the mechanic look for on Monday (fuel filter) and followed me back into town but the car didn't die anymore and he even called me after I got home (around 12.30 at night) to make sure I'd made it home okay. And I hadn't even tipped him.
The next day, I found the registration papers in the secret hiding place in the glove compartment.
----- EXCERPT: Alien 1: What do you mean, which one? That one there, standing on the shoulder next to the car with the hazard lights going. Alien 2: So? Alien 1: He's saying something. What's he saying? Alien 2: What? Alien 1:... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: novala EMAIL: sodazitron@gmx.net IP: 80.108.27.99 URL: http://sodazitron.blogger.de DATE: 08/23/2004 16:15:06 PMFor such occasions I am having a pebble-shaped Okarina in my car. I am close to a soloist's career.
Is anybody able to remember Austrians licence-plates in an emergency-situation?? I couldn't - as long as it's not W-EIRD0 or S-TUPID7
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.184 URL: DATE: 08/23/2004 20:20:44 PMI've been considering paying extra for one I could remember, like TU-MADRE.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: novala EMAIL: sodazitron@gmx.net IP: 80.108.27.99 URL: http://sodazitron.blogger.de DATE: 08/23/2004 20:41:18 PMTU-BORG would have been nice, too. But maybe more for Danes. Or TU-TTLN - which they might not hand out in such a catholic country ...
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: scotty the body EMAIL: scotty@halfass.com IP: 208.61.32.79 URL: http://halfass.com DATE: 08/24/2004 12:28:10 PM"This is a literary technique known as "foreshadowing" that God overuses in my opinion."
This made me laugh out loud in my office, which, in turn, revealed to my nosey coworkers that I was, in fact, reading blogs instead of saving the world with technology.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: paul EMAIL: rant@industrialfreedom.net IP: 24.19.23.173 URL: DATE: 08/24/2004 18:05:44 PMMy daughter was reading a book on "worst case scenarios" and they mention that if you are confronted by aliens, DON'T think about anal probes or alien abductions. If the aliens are telepathic they may think that's what you WANT to happen. Something to keep in mind (Oh wait, STOP thinking about anal probes!!)
Just a little useful advice :-)
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/26/2004 17:17:00 PMhttp://www.peacedividend.com/tunes/cartrouble.mp3
I bet that would sound great on a tin whistle. And it might even help to unjinx things, next time. A little Adam Ant can be a powerful thing.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Karan EMAIL: karan@flummel.com IP: 24.18.52.52 URL: http://www.flummel.com/ee DATE: 08/27/2004 02:52:21 AMI am exactly 6 days behind in reading my favorite blogs which when using a per entry count means that I have had over 2 million to read....and by far, this is my favorite one of all.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Repost? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/23/2004 13:14:35 PM ----- BODY:The metamorphosis, by franz kafka.
[Thanks to Joeri]
More than two thousand years ago, Euclid taught us about triangles. Book 1 culminated with the famous Pythagoras Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2) as Proposition 47 and 48 respectively.
If you have a triangle and know the length of one side and two of the angles, you can calculate the length of the other side or something like that. Someone, I forget who, used this geometry to calculate the distance of the sun from the earth. Like that was going to be of any practical use to anyone two thousand years ago.
What a gig. I mean, they came remarkably close, but who's going to call you on it if you're off by a hundred million miles? It's not like the Greeks had a space program.
I was going to encourage my daughter to study economics, because you know, they have the ceteris paribus loophole. "All other things remaining equal." Someone yells at you, "I wanted to know what would happen if prices rose and you told me employment would fall!!!" and an economist can always say, "No, you wanted to know what would happen if, ceteris paribus, prices rose. But unfortunately a hurricane struck Montana during the period under consideration, and all that reconstruction work boosted employment."
But my daughter is even smarter, and is considering studying meteorology. Archeology wouldn't be bad either: "These primitive carvings were obviously used in some form of religious ritual...".
You know what I heard? All those prehistoric chipped-stone tools? They weren't using the big leftover rocks, they were using the razor-sharp chips, for cutting.
Anyway, triangles.
I almost got hit by a bus yesterday: I'm walking along the crosswalk, "B" in the diagram. The bus driving along "A" slows down for me, but the driver's line of sight is going off to one side, "C" to a pretty woman in a red Mazda coming out of the parking garage. Confident he will stop, I continue calmly on, only to leap out of the way at the last possible moment when it becomes obvious he is not, actually, going to stop; my motion catches his attention and he slams on the brakes.
That happened in the morning, and my day was such that I didn't recall it again until last night, when I'd arrived home and the kids were in bed. I told my wife about it. "Would you have been killed?" she asked. "Only if I'd fallen to the ground and gotten caught beneath the tires. Or said something so outrageous that the driver jumped out of his bus and beat me to death." He was going just fast enough to knock me on my ass, I suppose. But no harm done. He shrugged like, Hey, shit happens dude. I gave him a dirty look. A very dirty look, as if to say, That was so uncool.
----- EXCERPT: More than two thousand years ago, Euclid taught us about triangles. Book 1 culminated with the famous Pythagoras Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2) as Proposition 47 and 48 respectively.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: adam EMAIL: a_reitsma@yahoo.com IP: 202.5.6.32 URL: DATE: 08/26/2004 04:51:33 AM"If you have a triangle and know the length of one side and two of the angles, you can calculate the length of the other side or something like that."
now that is using trigonometry, not pythagoras theorem. Pythagoras theorem only applies to right angled triangles.
This has been a community service announcement, courtesy of your local maths geek.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 80.122.106.26 URL: DATE: 08/26/2004 08:51:32 AMThanks, Adam. All I can remember from math in school is a girl named Lorelei who wore halter tops and dated older boys.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/26/2004 15:48:33 PMDon't get me started on lithic tools. Guh. Feed me too much sloe gin (please! ha. ha!) and I will barf up more useless knoweldge about core tools and flakes and flint knapping and hafting and tying and don't forget the mortars dug right into the ground, those are pretty cool, but mostly I could tell you how this one volcanic plume in Napa supplied most of the obsidian artifacts (esp. beads) you find from here to upstate NY. Trade and migration routes, trackable by soil science. Hoohah.
I'm glad you weren't smushed like a, um, bug.
You know, if you opened the collar of your shirt another button or two, or maybe wore a blue sequin-y number with slits up to the hips, people would totally stop for you.
Jessica is sooo right about that sequin top stuff. Not only would I stop for such a pedestrian (and I try to make a point not to stop for pedestrians anymore since leaving Vermont- I digress), but I would stop a good 20 yards away from that pedestrian... for personal safety reasons of course. I know danger when I see it. Seeing it can be a problem usually. But if it's wearing a blue sequin top, there's no way it could be missed.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: Holding the bag STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/26/2004 07:40:33 AM ----- BODY:Begin with a guided meditation (you are wearing comfortable, loose clothing and are in a dimly-lit room, right?):
Or this: Two white-haired white men in black suits sitting in a row boat out in the middle of a lake in the middle of Vienna one sunny evening. The one rowing is me. The one not rowing is a painter I met at the reception. He has a phobia of the water, and this is his first row boat ride. "It's okay," I had told him, "I'm in a rowing club."
I don't know which is nicer: facing down a phobia and surviving it, or helping someone else do it. (Thank God we didn't fall in).
I remember this when I make a little speech later that evening toasting the bride and groom: my friend the bride did me a great favor by giving me an opportunity to survive a public-speaking episode; but if she feels anything like the way I did out in the row boat, I also gave her a gift by letting her help me like that.
Here's a tip on speaking at weddings, by the way: it is unlike other public speaking in several ways.
The wedding itself was interesting as well. It was a civil ceremony, and being a punctual person I was the second one there and struck up a conversation with the bridesmaid, another American, who was the first person there. At some point it was decided that since my car was in the shop, I would be the chauffeur and drive the couple to the reception from the wedding. I made them promise to give me directions, as I don't know my way around Vienna.
After the wedding, I find myself standing in the hallway holding the bride's purse, hence the title of this post. There are two things a guy can do when he finds himself holding a woman's purse: feel emasculated, or not, or wear it around his neck like my uncle used to do to embarrass his wife when she'd give him her purse. I chose to feel like a chauffeur holding the bag for the bride, no big deal. Some things you can ask God about, like, "why, God, do my tomatoes die?" and some things, like why you often find yourself holding a purse for a woman, you don't ask about. Plus you can't expect a lot of sympathy from women on this topic. Also, it's not really a big deal unless it's like your wife giving you her purse to hold in front of your friends. And even then, if you're securely rooted in your masculinity, as I am, it shouldn't be a big deal.
Where was I? Friend's wedding. I had fun. I got over my shyness. People were interesting. Alpha picked me up at the train station although it was late at night when I got home.
----- EXCERPT: Begin with a guided meditation (you are wearing comfortable, loose clothing and are in a dimly-lit room, right?): Imagine a young woman. Imagine she is leggy and beautiful. Imagine she is Chinese. Imagine her hair done up for a wedding... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: j-a EMAIL: jeonga_kim@yahoo.co.uk IP: 202.71.195.230 URL: http://www.whatarewedoinghere.blogspot.com DATE: 08/26/2004 09:02:27 AMyou're right about the purse thing - don't expect women to give you sympathy about it. i'd definitely be happier to feel sorry for your dead tomatoes.
sounds like you had a good time although i wouldn't have taken you for a shy person.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jessica EMAIL: jessica@peacedividend.com IP: 66.117.128.123 URL: http://www.peacedividend.com DATE: 08/26/2004 15:42:32 PM"I wanted to put her in a box and saw her in half."
Thats so hot.
My husband says that carrying a woman's purse means just one thing: at least you're getting laid. Too bad, so sad, you sorry suckers who never carry a woman's purse.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: novala EMAIL: sodazitron@gmx.net IP: 80.108.27.99 URL: http://sodazitron.blogger.de DATE: 08/26/2004 19:28:08 PMWhat did God answer?
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: mig EMAIL: mig@metamorphosism.com IP: 195.170.73.168 URL: DATE: 08/28/2004 08:19:23 AMActually, I was calling out more to aliens, or fairies. But I did hear a faint cosmic snicker. Not sure if that counts.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: novala EMAIL: sodazitron@gmx.net IP: 80.108.27.99 URL: http://sodazitron.blogger.de DATE: 08/29/2004 18:27:39 PMThey made fun of my tomatos.
----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: D EMAIL: dave@acerbia.com IP: 160.79.240.162 URL: http://www.acerbia.com DATE: 08/31/2004 15:27:17 PMI agree with Jess, right now that sounds utterly filthy you dirty old man.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: The Tinkerbell Hilton Diaries STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2004 08:37:56 AM ----- BODY:"a mere bitch hasn't had a ride this good since Marie Antoinette before the butler let the mob in."
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: "a mere bitch hasn't had a ride this good since Marie Antoinette before the butler let the mob in."... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: More recommended reading STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/27/2004 08:54:13 AM ----- BODY:I'm only fucking saying,
bullets do not ping or spark.
and
and
Try this, Francis: look at old people and see the children they once were.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: I'm only fucking saying, bullets do not ping or spark. and On turning 41 and Try this, Francis: look at old people and see the children they once were.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: francis s. EMAIL: francis.strand@gmail.com IP: 213.89.61.12 URL: http://www.francisstrand.blogspot.com DATE: 08/28/2004 14:33:10 PMI've been doing that, too, Mig. Strange.
----- -------- AUTHOR: Mig TITLE: $0.05, $0.10 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 2 CONVERT BREAKS: __default__ PRIMARY CATEGORY: CATEGORY: DATE: 08/31/2004 08:24:28 AM ----- BODY:It was raining on my way to work this morning, so the windshield wipers decided not to work.
----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- EXCERPT: It was raining on my way to work this morning, so the windshield wipers decided not to work.... ----- KEYWORDS: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: shasta EMAIL: smetanove@hotmail.com IP: 205.127.246.45 URL: http://www.mizdos.com/shasta DATE: 09/01/2004 00:23:09 AMthis pretty much encapsulates everything completely.
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