Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Organic food not healthier than "regular" food...?

 
"Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday."
 
Except that organics aren't filled with pesticides, insecticides or genetic mutations (though they do absorb the same amount of petrochemicals from the air as "regular" plants do).  And while the organic tomatoes that I eat in my organic salad along with my grass-finished organic beef might not be nutritionally superior... they sure do taste better.  So stuff it, you limey bastards.
 
 

Facebook "hide"

I love the "hide" feature on facebook. No, I don't want to hear any more about the tragedy that is being you. But, I understand that unfriending you can be awkward. So you're hided and I can check your wall whenever I'm curious. Awesome.

Flobots- Mayday!!!

One of the lines in this song caught my ear while I was listening to Pandora:
"We write our own ciderhouse rules"
Which I thought at first was really clever. But when I actually think about it (I know, right, someone actually listening to and thinking about song lyrics- who does that?) it makes no sense.
As I understand it, there are several levels to Irving's Ciderhouse Rules, but let's discuss two of them. First there's the set of rules posted in the cider house, the first of which is "no smoking" (among others) but as the workers are illiterate, and are currently smoking as the rule is being read, they all find it wildly hilarious. Then there's the subtext "rule." The main character is 100% against abortion until he finds out that his girl-friend is pregnant because she was raped by her father and agrees to do the procedure. The idea here being that we have rules that we abide by with great fervor until we're faced with a real situation in which we have to choose which rule is greater (i.e. no abortions vs. preventing offspring borne of incest). And there's also the "don't hook up with your best friend's girl" rule to weigh against "yeah, but we think the fiancee/friend is dead, and there aren't any other people within a 10 mile radius."
Back to the song- the lyric is basically an oxymoron. You can't set out to make rules that you know you're going to break. If you did you simply wouldn't make the rule in the first place OR you'd set up a list of exceptions that you include whenever you discuss the rule. But if you did THAT then it wouldn't be a cider house rule because the main character was full invested in not performing abortions as part of his ob/gyn work, he didn't have a list of exceptions. If he did then we'd know the incest event was going to happen and the story would lack the inner turmoil aspect (which is fairly unrealistic anyway, but we'll allow that some people do say "never" and mean it). Plus, if you make a rule like "no smoking' while you're smoking and intend to smoke (and allow others to smoke) then it's not really a rule, it's an attempt at being clever (whcih will fail).
In any event, I can't fathom how one could write his or her own cider house rules, because part of the way that system works is that the person holding onto the rule is unaware of some aspect of it (i.e. can't read the rule to know about it, or doesn't realize that there is an exception until the situation arises).

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

exits are two in the front, two over the wings...

My Wife: Just throw it away. ("it" being a paperboard container with a plastic fork inside. I was heading for the "compost" bin in our office building).  I'm tired of being an Earth steward... acutally I guess I'm a stewardess.
Me: So you serve the Earth little packs of peanuts and softdrinks?
Wife: Yeah but they're not free anymore, the Earth has to use its debit card.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Congrats Steve!

A buddy of mine, Steve (likely an alias) became a US citizen last week after, well, months (maybe a few weeks) of wrestling through red tape...tape that was red like the maple leaf on the flag of his beloved motherland.  In honor of his Americanization, I present McFrontalot:
 
Canadia
 
Listen up! I'm an American,
and I know just what to be scared of.
When I hear the word "foreign" I go
immediately down to the GroceryCo
for my anti-terrorism do-it-yourself
home kit that they got there up on the shelf.
With my stubbornly health, I can't get exploded;
haven't got wealth enough to devote it
in such large measure to picking up bits,
so I'd better be prepared on the terrorist tip!
And I do that there in the simplest way:
by carefully considering Canad-i-a
and deeming its shiftiness quotient high
(got a notion why and it's ocean sized)
and I'm mostly fine with you people, but watch it.
Canadia strikes me as unpatriotic.
 
Let me get this straight:
provinces, not states?
Who's your president? (nawww)
See, that's what I meant!
Post the border guard!
Prepare to bombard!
Countrymen, I say to ya:
Beware Canadia!
 
[Jesse Dangerously]
How'd we ever get so misconstrued?
I thought I heard 'em all, but this one's rude.
Listen, dude, don't ask for favours,
then speak ill of your next door neighbor.
From West Coast ravers to Northeast seal hunt, I'm shocked.
How am I supposed to feel, Frontalot?
Jeez, keep your guns and Glocks under locks and keys, please!
I'm stopped and freezed, cops are easily bought for cheap,
I know not to sleep when I walk the streets of
New York or Los Angeles, crime riddled cities:
a fine kettle of fish where you'll find little pity.
Every piddly bit of validity in me
exhibits lividity: you're an idiot indeed!
Consider me out; your beef doesn't concern me.
I'm cutting dead weight like a weekend at Bernie's.
 
[Wordburglar]
Yo, Jesse, I think that dude Front's onto us.
Time to let those neutron bombs erupt,
then release Snake Men in the AM
to make people watch reruns of Amen.
"Say again?" No.
Halifax-Jupiter-Mexico:
we gotcha cornered like the edge of a room.
We got alien heads in a tomb.
"Eh?" Catch my drift like slipstream;
it's better on the top like whipped cream.
Y'all can have Pamela Lee,
R&D already cloned her family tree.
We got implants for your medulla lobes.
All we want to do is rule the globe
but for now, we'll let you make believe
that we don't put microchips in maple leaves.
 
You put in the effort to pick up our language,
though I do notice occasional manglage
of pronunciation. The letters O U
come out your mouth oooo. Don't know why but they do.
Plus somebody told me y'all are rich,
got foliage, rock oil in pitch.
But if you don't have our freedom, you hate it.
Gonna put you on the list to get liberated.
C'mon!
 
[wordburglar- spoken]
Yo Front man, come visit
We'll go to Tim Hortons
and, um, check out some beavers
we got loons, and blue money...
snow pants... and soup
 

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Mercury Head Dimes...

This story's been rattling around in my head for a while and I need to get it out. When I was a kid, probably about 12 or 13 I went to a camp with some friends from school. It might even have been a Scout camp, but seeing as how I was a Boy Scout for about 9 weeks (that's another story) I'm inclined to think it had something to do with an outing as part of the Church/school I went to...
Anyway. I walked into the cabin and the guys (with supervision from the parental chaperones) had started a fire in the wood stove. Then some genius put a dime on the top of the stove. I was like WTF? He said "some old dimes had mercury in them and they'll turn green when you heat 'em up. Ain't you never heard of Mercury Head dimes?!" in the kind of tone that is reserved for the intellectual elite of the tweenage set.
Not really having a leg to stand on in the argument (aside from thinking it was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard) I pretty much let it go.
Fast forward a number of years and I'm looking into "junk" silver. What should I run into? Mercury Head dimes- also called Winged Liberty dimes because what they're "supposed to be" is Lady Liberty's head with wings on it a la Mercury... but I ain't buying THAT story, either. To 99.99999999% of the population it was Mercury's head on the things because he was a Roman God of commerce (among other things). Might they turn green if heated? Maybe. The silver could oxidize green but in my experience silver turns really dull before it looks "wet" and then puddles. I could try it with some of the MHD's I have at home, but won't.
Ok, so why was I a Boy Scout for 9 weeks (thereabouts)? I signed up so I could be with my Boy Scout friends who worked at Camp Brinkley (I think that's what it's called). The idea was we'd set up the camp and then help the younger Cubbies with all sorts of fun activities like archery, fire making and stuff like that. Turns out it was a lot of aimless wandering with intermittent yelling about things that should have been done days ago but that no one told us (me) about. I fondly recall some axe throwing that was promptly heralded as "inappropriate behavior" but the adult staffers. There was not a lot of water, despite the 90+ degree weather. But there was a lot more yelling from the "leaders" who were the friends I previously mentioned followed by bitching by people who didn't want to work on boring stuff like moving and stripping logs. I bitched my fair share, but when I tried to do something like stripping logs (to mark trail boundaries, etc) I didn't need to be doing THAT right now, I needed to be doing some other thing with the rest of the camp. Most tasks probably only needed four people, at most, and might have been finished if five or six were involved (because then five people knew the best way to do whatever it was and everyone had to be right) but now we have a dozen chiefs. It was like a primer for engineering school. In addition to the constant labor disputes, the thing that tore it was that my footlocker was broken into and several of my CDs were stolen (this was 1992-ish). Stolen by Boy Scouts. Then my "friend" who lent me the footlocker I was using wasn't satisfied that I'd return it to his parents' house and made me unload all of my stuff into the back of my mom's car so he could watch over said footlocker. Not good times. Come to think of it, I think this was the same genius who was trying to get the mercury out of that dime...

Monday, July 13, 2009

no shit...

 
Just the headline is enough to make you say "duh" :Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds
What I want to know is where do I sign up for research funding for these kinds of obvious studies?  When Lawd? Whens gunn be mah turn?!*
*Um, blame Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck for that. See "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"

Thor...

Maybe I'll cross post at AlchemyForge...
I'm not a huge fan of these comic book crossovers. Sure, I've seen my fair share but let's be honest. The new Superman: sucked on ice. Spiderman 3: Sam Raimi needs to be chopped up with a chainsaw for that POS. Fantasic Four: Craptastic Bore (not original, but it's true). Hulk: Baaaad (Sorry Ed Norton, Pitt carried Fight Club). Ironman: ok, that was pretty damned good until the fight at the end. Batman... you shut up about Batman RIGHT NOW! He's a SAINT goddamnit- even if they did make him sound like the bastard offspring of a grizzly bear and Clint Eastwood.
So then I read there's going to be a movie about Thor. Jesus Christ... oh wait, he already has a musical. I'm completely nonplussed by the fact that Natalie Portman will be "acting" in it (you saw the franchise-killing 'Star Wars' prequels, right?) And I'm like WTFever... until I see that Kenneth "I committed career suicide by trying to ham it up in Shakespeare during the 90s- and I hope you missed 'Frankenstein'" Branagh is slated to direct. But, we're going to be seeing more of the man who spawned James T Kirk in the recent reboot as the God of Thunder himself...
Well, this shit might be worth $10 plus a $3-5 "IMAX" upcharge (see badasseswithmoustaches for more about that) plus some popcorms... We have to wait until at least 2011 for that and then I think 2013 has the Justice League movie.

Impact Gel insoles

I'm considering picking up the "bulk pack" of Impact Gel insoles. The Ironman insoles I bought suck on ice (they're probably the same stuff as Dr Scholl's, but the orange, hard rubber side pieces are coming off and it's only been like 10 days). Plus I have my work shoes, shop boots and hunting boots that could use some extra cushion.
So what to my wondering eyes doth appear? Idiots bent on a campaign to smear!
See, the most common "review" of impact gel that I've found consists of "They charged me $30 for the $20 insole set- ripoff!" or "I went for the buy one get one free and they charged me $40! How is that free?! RIPOFF!"
Um, no. See, if you read the not-so-fine print it clearly states you're paying $20 for the two insole pairs plus $9.95 shipping and handling. And on the second set offer you're paying the additional shipping. Mr Mays is CLEAR about what you're paying for (watch the commercial at the link I'll be inserting later or just google Impact Gel).
So let's see, 20+10 = 30 = not a ripoff. 20+10+10= 40= again, not a ripoff. But that's the problem with an overburdened educational system full of underachievers- people don't bother to read what's right in front of them.
Do these people also give bad reviews to Amazon sellers when they have to pay shipping?
I'll probably give them a try, if only because they're the same price as the high-end Dr Scholl's that I saw at the store when I bought the el cheapos that are currently making my feet feel funny.

Courtesy Flush

Big ups to whoever was in the men's room and gave the courtesy flush when I came in.  It's good to know they're not a myth perpetuated by Hollywood (I'm talkin' to you, Bigfoot).

Friday, July 10, 2009

Sudafed...

Or in particular pseudoephedrine. My nose is leaking like a fucking sieve over here and you know what might help? Sudafed. But you know what I can't seem to get anymore without a full body cavity search and a background check more rigorous that what's required to get fully automatic firearms? You guessed it.
So to every fucking junkie and scene kid who thinks bumpin a little crystal ain't gonna hurt 'em, I go news for you coos- my foot is dying to meet your taint.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

HR...

I understand that HR people can't run around being super friendly with people, because they don't want to give the impression that they're ever playing favorties.  But does that extend so far as to ignore me when we pass in the hall?  Replying in kind to a simple "morning" is too much?  For each of you? (I'm not just talking about one person here). I don't want to be your friend, I just expect that you'd play by the rules of our society.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Pandora (again)

Wow, WTF?  I tried to set up a Tom Waits station last year and it was a mess.  Why the hell would the B52s be on there? Oh because of strong male vocals.  Whatthehellever.
So I set up that Mansell and Kronos Quartet station and what do I get?  Back to back Tom and the Pogues.  It's turning out to be a very listenable station but I can't for the life of me figure out the reverse psychology needed to keep it from doing something like, I don't know, playing traditional Chanukkah songs in Yiddish.
Speaking of which, I think I figured out the Christmas songs on my nerdcore station- Jonathan Colton has that Chiron Beta Pi song about Christmas on an asteroid.  That's probably what fucked me up right there...

Monday, July 6, 2009

Pandora...

I have a love/hate relationship with Pandora (the online radio thingy at Pandora.com).  On the one hand it behaves much like how Patton Oswalt described TiVO- a retarded child who only wants to please you... but why the hell do I have rockabilly Christmas songs on my MC Frontalot station?  Oh, because they both feature strong male vocals... thanks Pandora.
On the other hand, I've discovered some fantastic music.  On my Mike Patton channel a band called Pop Will Eat Itself appeared early on with their single "Wise Up Sucker."  I gave it the thumbs up.  On my Massive Attack channel Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet appeared with selections from "Requiem for a Dream" including the leitmotif "Lux Aeterna" which you've probably heard used in dozens of movie trailers, including LotR The Two Towers (a remix titled "Requiem for a Tower" or some such). I gave it the tumbs up.  Today I decided that I need more of that creative music without the vocals, so I started a Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet station and come to find out that Clint Mansell was the lead guy behind Pop Will Eat Itself.  Holy shit.  Small world, I guess. 
 
I can't wait until I get the polka version of "Girl from Ipanema" on this station... you think I'm joking but my Mike Patton station had a jazz recording with some famous jazz vocalist doing their rendition of same.  It'll only be a minute before... holy shit, here's Tom Waits on the CM&KQ station.  Yeah, that polka version's got to be on deck...