Wednesday Wire, Back by Popular Demand!

. . .yeah, I'm know. I'm sorry.

Here's the real one. Be warned, though: it's even more NSFW than usual.

My Camera Can Do Things

My first official credit as a cinematographer!

Seriously, my sister Naomi has formed a new band with her friend Torie, called Pocket Knife. This is their second video, filmed by me outside a convinience store on the same block as our house. I thought I'd do my part in boosting views for the video and increasing Pocket Knife's profile even further by posting it on my blog. So, enjoy!

Well. . . this beats my Star Trek videos. . .

My sister Naomi has just sent me a very nice birthday present. I won't disclose what the present is; she knows what she did.

And I thank her, in front of my millions of readers.

And if you're reading, YOU should thank her too, in the comments.

Or at her blog, I Have to Return Some Video Tapes.

'Cause nothing says gratitude like strangers thanking you for reasons they don't fully understand.

Birthday Blogging

Reasons Why I Should Write a "Happy Birthday" Blog Entry for Naomi #1: It's Naomi's 22nd Birthday Today



. . . well, not really. Your actual, sixth birthday won't come until 2012, as I revealed two years ago. But we'll celebrate today to keep up appearances.

And celebrate we shall, with the greatest birthday present of them all: Star Trek jokes!



First, a few installments of Gazorra's "TNG edits" series:















Next, a few Star Trek "episodes in brief" from Tranchera, like "TNG edits" only a little less weird. The first is particularly fitting:














Some random trek humor. The first is a birthday message from Picard to Gene Roddenberry:











Incidentally, is it weird that I imagine Dr. Tomoe being played by Geroge Takei?

On "equivocation". . .

A couple of weeks ago Naomi sent me a link to WWII era Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Great stuff. They even do the "What's Opera Doc?" parody of Wagner's Die Walküre, a decade before "What's Opera Doc?"

My enjoyment was tempered, however, upon reading one of the comments left in response to the video. First, I'll point out an earlier comment:

All U people that think that Hitler is good are the most horrible people in the planet.He killed mora than 1000 jews and homosexuals.You people wouldnt like him too kill all the people of your religon so Shut the f**k up kwgitho

Bad grammar and incorrect statistics aside, I do agree with the sentiment. Fuck Hitler, and fuck his modern-day admirers.

The comment that irritated me so much was in response to the one above:

He killed millions of Jews and thousands of Christians. Let's not equivocate the small percentile of homosexuals, which is a lifestyle preference, and though unfortunate, pales against the tragedy and degree of the Nazi's religious persecution.

That said, I miss Looney Tunes.

Hoooo-boy.

Where do I begin?

Am I to take it that if there were only a few thousand Jews murdered by the Nazi's, then the Nazi's would somehow be less evil? Supposing that Hitler was utterly incompetent and allowed millions of Jews of escape from Europe-- does inability to perform evil acts make you less evil? Is the act of genocide somehow more tolerable if your killing off a small population rather than a large one? Would wiping out every Muslim or Catholic be more atrocious than wiping out every Jew just because there are a billion Muslims and Catholics and only millions of Jews?

Of course not.

As for that "lifestlye choice" comment (a common argument made by fundamentalist homophobes), many Nazis had a somewhat different view. From Wikipedia:

Nazi leaders such as Himmler viewed homosexuals as a separate people and ensured that Nazi doctors experimented on them in an effort to locate the hereditary weakness many party members believed caused homosexuality.

I was going to point out the absurdity of dismissing homosexuality as a "lifestyle choice" while crying bloody murder over religious persecution-- as though religion isn't a lifestyle choice-- but in this particular instance, I knew it didn't apply. To the Nazis, the Jews were inherently degenerate-- conversion or apostacy solved nothing.

Anti-gay bigotry: An official member of my lifetime "Fuck Thats".

On the Eve of Your Birthday. . .

This post is directed toward my sister, Naomi. But y'alls welcome to read it if you like.

Hi, Naomi. This is normally the post where I would post up stupid YouTube videos of idiots doing birthday raps. But today, I have a confession to make. It's a confession of a secret kept by the entire family, and they won't be happy that I told you, but goddamn it, I love you too much keep this from you any longer.

Here it goes. For the past twenty years you've been told that you were born on the late evening of February 28th, 1988. This is a lie; you were actually born a few minutes after midnight, February 29th. With the help of our doctor, who aided in falsifying your birth certificate, we faked your birthday to prevent you from having to face the stigma of being. . . a Leap Year Baby.

All your life, we've tried to convince you that you were bon on the twenty-eigth of February, going so far as to hold fake birthday parties and give fake birthday presents. Mom, Dad, the doctor, and me were the only ones to know about this. . . until now.

Naomi, you would be twenty today. On the eve of your birthday, February 29th, I think it is time for you to know. . .

YOU'RE FIVE!!!

My Story

Naomi said:

Blog more you swine!

So I will.

I haven't posted in a while, partly because Christmas, partly because I'm still a little embarrassed about LOLWorf, and partly because I've spent the last month and a half roughly writing a short story. So, now that I'm getting back into the groove of school, I thought I'd put my time to its most productive possible use: showing you an excerpt of said short story.

Naomi, my mom, and Josh Sandu have all seen early drafts of the story. However, the excerpt below is something totally new, so hopefully they'll enjoy it as much as you will!

. . . :|

Just read it. And ignore the fact that one of the characters is named Josh. It means nothing.


Excerpt from "Achilles":

Josh. She met him at Pandora's Box a month before. It was a June the 16th party(the owner was of Irish descent, and considered himself a literature aficionado) but she didn't know this. She just knew that it was a party. A few people dressed in old black suits and dresses, and a couple of people went up onto the bar's small front stage, carrying thick tattered tomes with ugly covers from which they recited lines like "loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood." But like Megan, most were there just to be there, for fun, and would have been there no matter whose day it was.

But Josh?

"Vain patience to heap and hoard," he said. "Time would surely scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside plundered passed-- uh, passing on. Sorry. Uh, their eyes knew years-- knew the years wandering and patient knew the dishonours of the flesh."

He would glance up from his book every moment or so, trying to catch brief sight of the tall limping girl at the bar.

"Who has not? Stephen said. Whaddaya mean? Deasy asked. He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell sideways open uncertainty-- uh, uncertainly. Fuck. Uh. . ."

Few noticed him fumble, and those who did didn't care to react.

"Is the old isdom-- uh, wisdom. . . Is this old wisdom? He want to hear from me." And with dramatic pause, he came to the part he had been waiting to speak.

"History," Josh said, "is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake."

He finished his set quickly and unceremoniously, stepping down and going toward the bar and its limping girl, Megan.

"The rusty boot," he said.

Megan turned to Josh, who was looking at her foot.

"What?" she said.

"I said, the rusty boot. It's okay. Don't worry about it."

"Were you just up there?"

"Yeah. I'm Josh."

"Megan."

She shook his hand. Her friends had left her sitting at the bar, and though wary, she welcomed his company.

"I never caught what everyone was reading," Megan said.

"This," Josh said, holding up his book. "Ulysses. Best book ever written. It all takes place on the sixteenth of June, so every year people get together to celebrate it."

"Do you go to university?"

"Yeah."

"English major?"

"No. Business."

They continued to talk. No-one bothered to go offstage after Josh's recital, and even those in costume had partly disrobed, abandoning the act. Megan had eaten earlier that evening, but she was getting hungry again, so the two ordered meals and took a seat at a nearby table.

"So you're a runner?" Josh said.

"Yeah. Well, track and field in general."

"My brother was into sports. Competing, I mean. I hope you don't mind me asking , but was it a sports injury that gave you than limp?"

"Oh, this? No. Well, not really. It was a javelin, actually. I was at a practice, this was in spring, and a javelin flew right into my heel. It severed the tendon, and I had to get surgery to fix it."

"So it was a sports injury."

"No. If someone from the other team threw it, it would be a sports injury. This was just bad luck."

"Look, Megan, you're at a Bloomsday party. This is the wrong place to be arguing semantics," he said with a chuckle.

Their food arrived at the table. Megan ordered fried, and Josh ordered vegetarian lasagna. They were finished quickly, and just as quickly ordered drinks to wash the taste out of their mouths. They talked about insignificant things, long enough for Megan's friends to return and wish her goodnight, and for Josh's friends to return and join the two. During her conversation about being a runner, she was reminded of something she thought would be a good story. She had been running since before she could remember. Her mother had told her that when she, Megan, was little, she had no fear of going anywhere on those little legs, which her mother called Megan's "Arnold Schwartzenegger Legs." That was the story. She wanted to tell it to Josh, but didn't. She didn't tell it anyone, partly because she didn't remember until the wrong moments, but also because she never felt it appropriate to do so. As the night wore on and he talked with his friends, she felt a dull sort of regret over not telling him, and waited for another chance.

"You know it was based of a Greek legend, right?" Josh said. "The Odyssey, right? But where's the odyssey here? Where's the adventure? Like, what I mean is, you know, every adventure, every adventure was exotic, every adventure, like, it was a new land with something wondrous, something you've never seen. Like magic, gods, whirlpools, you know, monsters. Right? But here's this book with a guy buying a fucking. . . bar of soap, right?"

Josh laughed at his own words. His friend joined him.

"So where's the adventure? he said, and then with a deep, sudden seriousness in his voice, "Style. Style! That's the key. You can't have adventure in Dublin, I mean that's why he left!You can;t do it. You have to internalize the adventure. That's what it's all about. Stream of consciousness, the adventure within. The sexual adventure, man, everything. And he always does it in a different way, a new island. That's what the adventure really was, you know, that's all you could have."

"Tell that to Hemingway," one of his friends said, to which everyone chuckled.

Josh had an angular face which he always wore with a subtle half-smirk. As the night went on, Megan found his smirk more and more appealing, and when the bar fianlly closed she still wanted to be with him. So, after all of Josh's friends said their goodbyes, she was still beside him, limping along as he walked out the door.

"Well, Megan," Josh said once they were both outside, "it was a pleasure."

"You're not saying goodbye, are you? Leaving me all alone on cold Pandora avenue?"

He looked toward a streetsign.

"So that's why they named it Pandora's Box. I never put that together."

She laughed at Josh, and they both went along the sidewalk, south from Pandora Avenue toward the ocean but still far enough from it not to see it. He noticed Megan's limp again.

"Javelin, huh?" he asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." he said.

"Should you be walking?"

"Hasn't hurt me so far."

"Well, your limp begs to differ."

"It was a lot worse before," she said. "Don't worry, I'm a big girl."

Josh heart beat a little faster after hearing that. He pretended not to know why.

"You know, I can take you home, if you really are worried about being alone. You should see my ride. It's the lasted, imported, German bus pass."

Megan chuckled at that. Josh was pleased.

"But seriously," he said. "Just say the word."

"No. I'm not going home. Not yet."

"Why not?"

She realized she missed another opportunity to tell the Arnold Schwartzenegger Legs story again. It didn't worry her as much this time. She would find her opportunity. She start with that and maybe begin a whole list of stories with a running theme, like how she ran circles around the bored kids forced to attend her mother funeral when she was six years old, or how is was more of the same when her father remarried two years later, and maybe then she'd tell him about the ruckus she raised in the halls of Royal Jubilee while her sister, Helen, was being born.

"I don't live on my own," she said. "My dad lives with me, and he's been kind of unbearable recently."

Maybe its not a genetic thing, she thought, about the running. After all, Helen's mother had no relation to Megan whatsoever, and she ran all the way to Ontario, with Helen right behind her.

"He's going, I mean, we're both going through a rough time right now. My stepmon left him a couple of months ago with my half-sister. Took her to, uh, London. Yeah, London, Ontario. I always wanna say Paris, but it's London."

Josh slowly came to a halt. Megan didn't really notice this as she was talking.

"He's sick too. Diabetic. He's been diabetic since before I was born, but it's gotten worse. he's just. . . well, anyway."

She finally notice that she wasn;t limping anymore.

"End of the line," Josh said, pointing to the apratment building nearby.

"You live here?" Megan said. "That's convinient."

"Well, I guess I'll just. . ." he paused long enough so as not to give himself away. "Do you want to come in?"

It had been since the night before, when she walked out on her father engulfed in one of his moods, that she had been out of her house. The idea of rest sent a wave of warm fatique through her, as if in preparation. She knew what was coming, of course, she wasn't stupid. But she didn't mind it. She figured it was about time.

"Yes. I'd like that," she said.

With that, she followed him into the building.

And you, Peter, she thought with the corn thawing under her ankle, wouldn't you like to know what Josh did to me?

-----------

So there you are! It still needs work, and in its final form this part of the story will certainly be very different, but its a start. I think the biggest change that needs to be made is when Josh is talking Ulysses to his friends. I'll either scrap that or heavily modify it. But there will be little changes all over as well.

It'll probably be a long time before its ready to be published. If you're interested, I'll let everyone know how its progressing.

To Quote Naomi. . .

Fuck Fox News.

They are kinda pricks.

$100,000,000

In response to my last post, Naomi said:

hahahahahah wow. As if that isn't bad enough, their reunion tour is supposed to gross over $100 000 000.

$100,000,000. Really? Well then. . .

But methinks this is all part of a plan:

Just replace "Get the warhead" with "Launch a Spice Girls concert" and you get the idea.

Am I Gonna Be the One Who Brings Blogging Back?

No, I'm asking.

By Popular Demand. . .

Ladies and gentlemen, the American President:

Courtesy of Ed Brayton.

More Conservapedia

I was going to write a blog in defence of Miyuu Sawai, but I thought I'd save that for later (and get you wondering just who the hell Miyuu Sawai is) and instead continue, as promised, with my coverage of Conservapedia.

Since Miyuu Sawai is an actress (honest, she is!) and since conservatives just hate those "Celebrity Activists", those "Limosine Liberals", those "George Clooneys", I thought I'd look up entries on a few prominent A-list lefites:

George Clooney: Nothing
Susan Sarandon: Nichts
Tim Robbins: Nada
Barbara Streisand: Nope
Robert Altman: Empty
Jennifer Aniston: Vacant
Ed Asner: Blank
Alec Baldwin: Gone
Joy Behar: Nothing (but then, I've heard nothing of her either)
Harry Belafonte: The Invisible Man (oooooh! burn!)
Sandra Bernhardt: Nothing
Geroge Carlin, Cher, David Clennon, John Cusack, Ani DeFranco, Dixie Chicks, Jane Fonda. . . : And I finally got tired of looking.

The list of names above, apart from the first few that I drew from the top of my head, were taken from the website Celiberal, a right-wing website dedicated to

present[ing] all those Hollywood celebrity liberals (hence, celiberal) that have nothing better to do than complain about America, our President, and the brave men and women defending our way of life.

The names above are all certified Godless Hollywood commies, and yet Con'pedia has nothing on 'em.

I wonder what would happen if. . .

Arnold Schwartzenegger: Nothing. Dammit!

What kind of a conservative biased encyclopedia is this? Man, I'm almost desperate enough to try. . .

Miyuu Sawai: Nothing.

Crap. Well, Hollywood liberals were a dead end. But what about one of the philosophical fathers of Liberalism, John Locke:

Englishman John Locke (1632-1704) was the leading political philosopher during the Enlightenment, whose ideas helped the American colonists form a new government. Locke described society as a contract between individuals called the "social contract", and held that the formation of collectives by individuals was the only way to ensure economic prosperity (see his Second Treatise on Government). Locke’s view helped lay the foundation for the constitutional government that we use in the United States, though unfortunately the Founding Fathers do not appear to have read chapter IV of the Second Treatise. Locke had built on the prior work of Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

Chapter IV, by the way, was about slavery, particularly about slavery being the bad.

Speaking of the bad, this blog entry has not been nearly as entertaining as I had hoped it would be. If you want to curse me for wasting your time, feel free. At least I'm updating my blog, Nay. Prick.

ASS!

How on earth could I have missed this?

Incidentally, the Penning Trap is a device that uses a constant electric field and a constant magnetic field to store a charged particle. It's inventor, Hans Georg Dehmelt, snagged the Nobel prize for it in 1989.

Oh, and by way Nay, posting videos on blogs is so easy even Max Weinberg could do it. Prick.

Happy New Year, Naomi

Hey Nay, remember that birthday rap I sang to you when you when you turned like five or six? Well. . .

You see? You see? That's how far ahead of the curve I am! And I did invent dipping fries in ketchup, dammit!

Anyway, happy birthday, Nay. You have become a man. And to celebrate your becoming legal drinking age, I've posted one last video for you to watch while getting drunk off your ass for the "first" time. Enjoy!

Oh. . . that brings back memories.

Is this why he called the second Terminator "Judgement Day?"

He did say he was "King of the World," and now he's gonna prove it. . . or at the very least, get rid of his biggest competitor:

In a new documentary, Producer [James]Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Here's the link.

I, too, think this shit played out with The DaVinci Code, and even when the novel was at the height of it popularity, this all seemed to me like nothing more than a faddish bout of pretend atheism. This irritates, since I am an atheist, and as such continue to wonder why people are still shocked when someone starts questioning official biblical history, especially considering that modern religious skepticism arguably began with Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus back in 1670.

I can't help but picture good little Christians picking up a copy of DaVinci at Coles, palms sweaty, heart pounding, hands shaking, thinking to themselves "I'm so dirty!"

But I digress. . .

It's a funny combination, with pretty strong comedy potential-- hell, I've already made two puns in the past five minutes. It doesn't look like anyone has taken advantage of the parody potential yet, so for now I'll just post this remarkably prescient Mad TV sketch:

Yes, Nay, it's a video. And yes, Nay, the Terminator sounds like Kermit the Frog. At least I can spell. Prick.

An interesting comment

Got an interesting comment from Naomi on my last post:

This is a blog, not a 'lets post videos we find mildly entertaining" log.


FUCK YOU FOR BEING A SPELL CHECK JEREMY. THATS RIGHT. PRICK.

Naomi, all I have to say to that is. . . It's Spellchecker, Nay. Spellchecker.

You're welcome.