Browne Towne

Lying about books is a skill

2009-05-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Tor.com provides this useful guide for lying about books that you've read. They concentrate on scifi books, so using this hopefully I can pretend that I've read any number of Ursula Le Guin books next time I hang out with Sam and this subject (inevitably) comes up.

"Rule #5: Remember Titus Alone:
Sometimes your only recourse is to out-lit-nerd your opponent, to bring up something they haven’t read. For this, there’s no better ammunition than the third book of the Gormenghast series. Why? Because no one has ever read it. Not even Mervyn Peake himself. He wrote it while drunk in the late 1950s and couldn’t remember a word. His editor supposedly cut big parts of it, but the truth is he just didn’t read it. They printed it anyway since there was a paper surplus that year. The person who wrote the wikipedia page is guessing."

Some updates: graduating, bowling, and confused

2009-05-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

Thought I would post some updates to the theme of some random photos I had on my phone (you should give this a try with your photos).

First, I'm finishing up my degree at the University of Washington in a couple weeks. This is an Information Management degree, which could put me on a couple different career paths. I'm still pretty open to what I will do (haven't gotten a job yet) but I know it will have something to do with information technology and business (not very descriptive, I know).

Second, I went bowling and managed to get a 140. Wtf is that, after all those times bowling before and barely getting a 100. Maybe this is something I should look into.

Finally, the Wallingford liquor store in Seattle is now a "Less Talk, More Monkey" (aka, Archie McPhee's?) store. Don't go there, unless you want to be confused and sober.

Well, those are my phone photos I've taken this week... what has everyone else been up to?

Ghoste Towne

2009-05-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

What the shit happened to everyone? Is everyone so busy with their school and careers that they neglect to post on Browne Towne? Whatever happened to Joe Kelly?

Gallup finds out what "gadgets" Americans are using

2008-11-20T00:29:00.000-08:00

In a pretty interesting poll, Gallup looked at what types of electronic devices are being used by different demographics in the United States. For example: 88% of respondents had a VCR, while only 83% had a DVD player.

What stood out was this quote:

A majority of Americans under age 50 say they have a video game system. This compares with just 18% of 50- to 64-year-olds and only 6% of those aged 65 and older.

"ONLY" six percent?? Who are these tens of thousands of seniors playing some Grand Theft Auto?

Mini-reactors!? that's awesome....!

2008-11-16T19:00:00.000-08:00

So apparently, a company called Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) is marketing small reactors (only 1.5 m across) that can power up to 20,000 homes at a cost of only $25 million. That's a steal. Anyway, they sound pretty confident their "Hyperion Power Modules" are fool proof. These power modules will be safe underground and guarded, according to their website. I'm sure someone will manage to screw something up somehow though.

Monty Python musical at Husky Stadium

2008-11-15T21:55:00.001-08:00

Interesting half-time show at my first (and probably only) UW football game.

Secret effort to make everyone buy a second G1?

2008-11-14T22:12:00.000-08:00

TechCrunch details an interesting new application available this week in the Google Android market. The "Punch-O-Meter" lets you do an air punch, while gripping your $200 (or $400) phone in your hand, and will tell you the acceleration of said punch. Sounds like it can only lead to fun times, though. Nintendo watch out, the Wii has a serious contender in the punch-o-meter.

"Sound Like Thunder"

2008-11-05T21:11:00.001-08:00

Just read a pretty sweet article on Nature.com, I guess some Chinese mad scientists have used a sheet of carbon nanotubes (CNT's) as a speaker. They've explained the sheet of CNT's produces sound the same way lightning produces thunder, by heating up the surrounding air, thereby, causing a change in pressure. The thermoacoustic effect these CNT's display apparently produces sound just as well as commercial speakers. Even more awesome, "The nanotube loudspeakers could be strechted to up to twice their original size without breaking and with little change to the intensity of the sound...". The applications these CNT loudspeakers could spawn in the future are mindboggling...can't wait.
Here's a video of an ipod connected to the CNT loudspeaker.
Enjoy the article and the video...

Singularity looms as CBS types with their mind

2008-11-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

CBS plugs themselves into some pre-singularity tech. Definitely worth a watch (look out for another appearance of the chimp who eats with a robot arm... watch out because some day he may crush humanity with that same arm).

Watch CBS Videos Online

Matt's old house

2008-10-28T19:29:00.001-07:00

Check out this pic of Matt's old house on 65th I took today. Its seen better days.

iPhone is actually location un-aware

2008-10-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

Check out this link at the O'Reilly Radar... The author is apparently displeased at the fact that iPhone applications can't poll for the location of the phone at any given time. The only time an app knows where the user is is when that app is open and being used. So if you want to be, I guess, notified that a friend is within a block radius, this is pretty much impossible (vice leaving the application open). This was one of the big reasons to get one of these types of phones, so now I'm pretty happy that I'm waiting for the G1 Android phone on October 20 (or maybe a different Android phone, now that the G1 is sold out for pre-orders).

Vice presidential debate tonight

2008-10-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

Was watching the vice presidential debate, and couldn't stop staring at the back of the stage where a mysterious black box hovered over the stage. I guess I've gotten to the point where any artificial, CGI-created, thing in TV or movies just really stands out (unless it's just done really well, then someone is paying the big bucks so no one knows the difference).

So, take a look:
What does it look like to you? For a while I thought maybe someone had written some racist slogan on the wall and no one had time to clean it off, so they just covered it up with a computer generated... black square. It turns out, based on this image from the heraldonline.com, that its some kind of a hole in the wall. All the conspiracy theories that were bubbling up, and it turns out, I'm guessing, to be a hole for cameras.

FBI swoops in to protect Guns N Roses

2008-08-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

Apparently someone put some songs from an upcoming album on their blog and, as reported here in the LA Times, the FBI arrested him. Probably not the slickest move to register your own domain name and upload pretty sought after songs on there.

"The site received so much traffic after the songs were posted that it crashed"

Guess he wasn't even that prepared.

Makes me wonder why people put their neck out to do this. Ignorance? I'm all for free music, but this just seemed not smart. Hopefully they won't dig through the server logs and start finding IP addresses, etc, and going after the downloaders.

Information Investigation: Seattle Bicycling

2008-07-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

I took the opportunity of having my Summer internship downtown to investigate what kind of information sources are available for bicycle commuters. After having commuted in via bus a couple times (and twice via car) and using the sources for that (like the metro site and Google Maps) I thought I'd try something new.

Basically the information available falls into these categories:

1) Official publications

If you're trying to bike from an out-lying neighborhood into the "downtown" area of Seattle, one of your first sourced might be the Seattle Dept of Transportation's website. There's definitely a lot of information on here, but a lot of it is hard to digest for someone who's never done much "urban bicycling." Half-useful was this low-resolution map of the bike lanes around the city. In a convenient 7MB file, they shoved so much information into such a terrible layout that you're pretty much guaranteed to be misled (especially considering the map-key to the multicolored streets is available in a separate file).

For the statistics lovers out there, the site offers such interesting facts as

"Ratio of street to bike trail in Seattle: 45:1"

Hey... good to know.

Another stand-out is this guide to the new Sharrows program (Sharrows being short for "shared lane pavement markings" apparently). A program to increase the number of lanes where both bicycles and cars can operate in an effort to make confusing road symbols even more dangerous, the guide offers such useful advice as

"Follow the rules of the road as if there were no sharrows"

2) Unofficial publications

A Google search for "help Seattle bicycling" turns up over 4 million hits. If you're looking for some info on biking in general there is a lot to be had. On the other hand, if you, like me, were looking for the essentials of biking into the city you've got a lot to sift through. I never did find anything useful beyond some anecdotal advice about how not to get hit by a car, etc.

For example, veloroutes.org offers a map with weather info and allows bikers to tag it with useful, location sensitive, advice

"denny way heading east - get ready to climb some steep shit, just about all the way up to 15th ave "

There are, though, some interesting tools like bikely.com's mapping tool. Using a Google mashup, you can map your bike route, and tag it with information. Then you can share it with other people, and view similar routes. Apparently there is even a GPS-generated bike map you can use. Check my route out here.

3) Word-of-mouth

It seems historically, no matter how much printed and organized information is available, one of the most turned-to sources for any type of information are peers. In my case, some of my co-workers at my internship regularly bike into work from a similar area, so I asked them a lot of questions about routes and strategy, and I got lots of good advice.

4) Experiential

Nothing can replace learning-by-doing, and I have to admit that after I took my first full-length trip today I felt a lot more comfortable with it. Having ridden the first half last weekend, I felt much better about that part today. The second half, though, being new and unfamiliar, proved to be more stressful and at times dangerous. When moving through traffic at relatively fast speeds, its important to already have knowledge of whats coming, so you can establish expectations.

A lot of the road signage are there to help riders who are unfamiliar with the area, but unfortunately you don't see most of them until you're already doing whatever its telling you not to (such as riding in a certain lane, taking the wrong turn, etc).

Conclusion:

The importance of word of mouth and experiential information will always be a hurdle for new bikers to start commuting into Seattle. If someone isn't lucky enough to have a peer-group with good advice, or the time to feel out the route, they probably will continue to commute in whatever way they've been.

Also... biking is hard.

2008-06-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Matt continues to dance his crazy heart out. He's my hero in some weird way (but, you know, think of the carbon footprint?... nah) He wraps this one up in good old Gasworks, too.

If you're unfamiliar, check out all his videos at http://www.wherethehellismatt.com

On stage

2008-06-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of where I sat throughout the Information School convocation ceremony. Right there on the stage I'm sort of in the middle of everyone's photos as they walked across to receive their diplomas (as seen here in someone else's photo...) Kind of awkward.

Nearly a DMCA take-down notice

2008-06-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

The other day I finally got pegged for distributing music illegally. In an interesting twist, though, it was on the independent short film that I uploaded to youtube a couple years ago.

Universal Music Group (UMG) apparently has realized that some music they own appears in the movie Serious Coffee... they probably have used some of the state-of-the-art video sniffing type software to figure this out. The email they sent me (which is, by the way, also copy-righted, as you can see here) interestingly states that UMG is generally OK with my use of their music, and has deigned to allow me to leave the video up. In exchange for this I must allow UMG to place some sort of advertisements on the sidebar of my video page (or, maybe, the video overlays that youtube does). I suppose its not much of a concession for 30 second clips of relatively unknown songs to appear in a video which has been viewed fewer than 300 times.

At least I can have the joy of thinking that maybe somebody over at Universal watched my video and was vaguelly intrigued. I do wish, though, that I was able to find some orginal music ala Matt's Roosevelt Way. Maybe some day. I would like to see some network where Indie-type musicians can license their music (in exchange for free-publicity) to the online-movie "industry." It would be a good leap forward for both, I think.

Healthiest Beer

2008-06-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

Was reading through Men's Health list of the 125 Healthiest Supermarket foods... when I got to the healthiest beer, though, it definitely wasn't what I suspected. Take a look

Frightening somewhat...

2008-06-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest party fad... give it a look:

Google Books vs University Libraries... fight!

2008-05-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Director of the University Library at Harvard, Robert Darnton, squares off against the travesty of Google Books, and how it promotes feeling-less empty books:

"It is important to get the feel of a book—the texture of its paper, the quality of its printing, the nature of its binding."

Meanwhile, as Google attempts to scan 15 or so MILLION books it simply isn't enough... as there are 500+ million books in the research libraries, and nearly 300k+ more a year. As though we should just give up and leave the 6 copies of his new favorite book to rot on the shelves... because digital books are guaranteed to be in an out-of-date format in a few years (and its so very difficult to change digital formats...)

"Once we believed that microfilm would solve the problem of preserving texts. Now we know better."

Chinese protests

2008-04-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

This past week, the Dalai Lama has been at the University of Washington, and there have been an interesting series of protests. Most notably, Chinese students who seem to be historically in-active in American politics, have shown up in big numbers to protest what they see as Anti-Chinese sentiment, and a mistreatment of the facts by Tibet and the American media. I was never really sure what this all meant...

There are a lot of issues under the surface here. China is one of the biggest, fastest growing, most prosperous countries in the world; but yet the US people seem to hold a certain stigma against the country as they reap the benefits with another hand. While we throw around phrases like "imperialists" and "human rights violators", the Chinese (government controlled media) does a pretty good job of stifling these stories. Meanwhile, the US has the same allegations against us (rightly so). Well, amidst all this, there are quite a few Chinese people in my class and they all seem really good on a personal level.

Point being, the NY Times put a pretty decent article about this up today, which shed some light on the issues. It still remains to be seen, though: is this just the process of disillusionment of Chinese expatriates with their gov't, or is this a valid rebuttal to US sentiment? (Some of the anti-Tibet arguments: the Daily Lami is a Nazi and China has put a lot of money into the infrastructure of Tibet) That last one reminds me of Iraq.... I think China and the US have a lot in common, so we should be better friends, no?

Helicopters make life better

2008-04-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

School getting you down? (it is me...) Well, this great song by Guided by Voices should cheer you up. Off their latest album, they're echoing what is by now common knowledge: life would be better if you could just take a helicopter everywhere...

Guided by Voiced - Everywhere with Helicopter

(I was honestly looking for a music video.... hoping for some excellent helicopter shots... someday I'm sure)

Monster cables about to tuck its overpriced tail between its legs

2008-04-15T16:35:00.001-07:00

Monster cable, the over priced over hyped, super litigious audio cable company has just been pwned by a small cable manufacturer Named Blue jeans cable. Monster sent off a cease and desist to Blue jeans in an attempt to force a lisencing agreement due to likely imaginary IP infringement claims. It turns out that the CEO of Blue jeans is an Ex lawyer with 19 years experience litigating cases large and small with an undeniable slant for truth, no matter the cost. Read his response to Monster here. Nothing like watching a massive company get slapped down by the little guy.

Daft Punk - Harder better faster stronger

2008-04-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

She dances for you...

It's 3am and Youtubes down...where are your movies?

2008-04-14T07:55:00.001-07:00

The quality people over at Lifehacker brings you Youtube fanatics in the crowd a way to download the new higher quality MP4 format that is being pilot tested by Google for their most popular videos. Lifehacker offers tips, scripts and snips of advice about grabbing the latest and the self made greatest. Don't let Youtubes maintenance cycle get you down ever again.

Technorati Tags: youtube

xkcd

2008-04-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

Everyone who doesn't read xkcd's webcomic needs to start. Today's is so hilariously meta-comic (I almost feel embarrassed using that term, but it is) that you need to take a look here.

Polite Dance Song

2008-04-10T19:05:00.001-07:00

I was looking for this song by The Bird and The Bee to show to someone (since its pretty decent... pretty catchy) and found the video... downright disturbing, definitely watch it to the end. The independent music industry seems to take the artistic-license to make some of the most out-there videos, the kind of stuff you'd never see on TV...

the passage of time....

2008-04-07T00:18:00.000-07:00

Just read an interesting series of posts at the Cosmic Variance blog titled "Incompatible Arrows". It talks about the various ways time may or may not flow making use of various books by various authors, all excellent, to explain several cases. Each example is followed by deeper discussion in the comments. All very interesting.

Incompatible Arrows I: Martin Amis
Incompatible Arrows II: Kurt Vonnegut
Incompatible Arrows III: Lewis Caroll
Incompatible Arrows IV: F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is a test....

2008-04-04T19:40:00.001-07:00

I'm testing out a new-ish extension for firefox called Scribefire that allows you to open a dialog box and post on the fly, instead of logging into your blogging software manually. So far so good. Once you set up your account it lets you add tags, images and other tasty menu items with hopefully few problems.Everything seems solid at the moment. Heres hoping it stays that way. I'll keep you updated as to the quailty as the days go by.

Technorati Tags: mozilla firefox software extensions

Random House!

2008-04-03T15:47:00.000-07:00

Just posting up this pretty cool feature the Random House, Inc. website offers for some of their books' webpages. Here's a demo:

You can preview a book just click on its face and you get a pop-up window.

Recession follow up

2008-03-29T13:09:00.001-07:00

In keeping with my earlier post about the economy... here is a forecast of the 2009 economic state, in video form:

CERN-mageddon

2008-03-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

How would you like to be sued for bringing about the impending doom of mankind? The poor fellows over at CERN have been, according to this link via Slashdot. CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which has been working up the nerve to collide particles for a few years now, has been put on hold due to claims that it will rip a hole into the space-time continuum.

Good luck, hope you've got a good lawyer.

A life in charts 'n' graphs...

2008-03-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

I firmly believe that as more of our lives deal in interactions with digital devices of whatever kind, and this results in excess recorded information, there will be unsuspected consequences. Specifically, once all this random and "unrelated" info is brought together for a person, it can make a great picture of who that person is. Nicholas Feltron's "Annual Report" is the sum of all the data he has collected about himself over the course of a year. Tying into my post about visualizing data from earlier this week, he has aggregated this info and put it down for the world to see in a collection of charts and graphs.

Most people have a tough time comprehending the overall trend of their lives. Its easy to worry about major catastrophes like plane crashes and murders, but the big killers such as over-eating and over-drinking can easily be ignored as they build up over time (check out this Schneier article on the Psychology of Security). If these were tracked for us (despite the privacy concerns... hopefully this would all be collected for our eyes only, not the insurance companies) and we could see how many calories we eat on an average day, or how many alcoholic beverages we drink, would this change our lifestyles? Similarly, we worry about major purchases like houses and cars while spending much more on evenings out and fast-food. It will some day be possible to collect all this information and let the individual "play" with it, in visual formats, to better understand it.

As a side-note, I bet this guy could get pretty annoying with some kind of notebook, marking down how many miles he traveled in a cab or how many photos he's taken on a given day.

...for Libraries

2008-03-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

As a little follow-up to the book organizer thing: I was eavesdropping on a conversation between some Library Science students at school and they were talking about Seattle Public Library's new "tag cloud" and "read-alikes." Further discussion proved that these were in fact drawn from LibraryThing's "For Libraries" service. This service sells recommendation services, reviews, and user-defined tags to libraries, to help them improve on-site search.

Take a look at this example of Crime and Punishment, down on the bottom of the page you can see what they were talking about.

Anyway, the issue arose that LibraryThing doesn't make it super clear to its users that they are farming out this info they've just uploaded. In fact, the user is paying a fee to be a part of the site, so they wondered if there should be a kick back involved? As someone who just cataloged their collection, I don't really object to it, since you're making the information public and hoping it will be used by putting it on the site.

What do you think?

Recession for college grads

2008-03-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

I saw a bit on CNN about how veterans have been having a tough time finding jobs post-military. The big run up was "it's not for the reason you think!" In the end, the reason they "uncovered" was that employers have developed a negative stigma against veterans because of all the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the news. It used to be if there were two equivalent applicants, and one of them was in the military, the military thing would be a sort of leg up on the other guy. Now its the other way, according to this CNN story, because the employer would "rather just not deal with all that."

I couldn't find the link on their site, but I did find this interesting story: you might think that because its a recession there are fewer jobs and hiring has cut way back. On the contrary, the recession has caused companies to scale back their higher-priced employees, forcing even more of the baby-boomer generation into retirement. These companies still need workers, and so they look to the recent college graduates as a sort of bottom-of-the-barrel deal. Sounds promising for those of us running through college (which will hopefully circumvent the first bit of this post). On the down side, though, if you look at the list of companies that are planning on hiring the most recent college grads this year? Walgreens, Enterprise Rent A Car, and Progressive Insurance. I have to wonder how many of these jobs are really terrible ones with no room for promotion? The sort of jobs that a high school grad would've been doing 15 years ago?

Finally, something else I noticed which is a nice trend. CNN.com has a link on their video section to "live video." This pops up a browser of the various live feeds that are going on at the moment. When I tuned in, there was a speech by Hiliary Clinton in NC, another by Bill Clinton in PA, and some trial going on. Also, you have the option of watching the live headlines. This is nice for people who might not have TV but would like to get a little bit of national news, especially when speeches or events are happening. Usually the major networks won't air the longer live news feeds. And, as I write this, another feed is added to watch a live gold course fire in Cleveland... don't mind if I do.

Data visualization

2008-03-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ever since I saw a guy named Jeff Heer come to UW and talk about some of the challenges of data visualization, I've kept my eye out for good examples. The problem being, not every piece of data can be thrown up in some kind of bar graph or pie chart and be instantly clear. The guy who came was one of the people who created the name visualizer. This is a fun thing that made the rounds on the net a while ago where you can compare how common different names are over different years. A fun example: type in Adolph and see the popularity magically declines in the '30s. Hm. Or note how girls names beginning in vowels saw a huge dip in popularity but a recent resurgence. Point being, what are new ways to look at old data to "tease out the meaning"?

This is what I was thinking about when I saw a recent visualization in the New York Times showing movies and their grosses. Its not quite as interactive as the first link, but you can scroll across 20 years. Here, you can see the evolution of the summer and Christmas box-office bulge. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer movies seem to make up significant portions of the bulges. Its an interesting way to see the data, and if more raw data were interactive and displayed intuitively, it would be a way to rally the "information-overload" of our age into meaningful info.

Deadly combination?

2008-03-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

If you combine some cheap pool and reasonably priced beers at Teddy's Tavern (where they don't seem to mind if you bring in some food)...

View Larger Map

...with some of the best burgers in Seattle at Primo Burger right across the street

View Larger Map

You're pretty much guaranteed a good time. Enough said.

(Really just wanted to try out the embedded Google Maps)

Money... Recessions

2008-03-24T23:02:00.000-07:00

So, we were talking about what to do if you have a small surplus of dollars. This has become especially difficult, given all the gloom and doom talk of recessions and everything. Lifehacker linked to a thread about what is the smartest thing to do with money given the uncertainty of the market. This got me thinking about the options that are available...

Our idea was that was should perhaps try to invest "fake" dollars into some stocks, mutual funds, or what have you, for a month and see who can take $1,000 (or maybe $10k) the furthest given any options. An important caveat, I think, would be to include fees for buying, selling, and maintaining an account with which ever online stock site we choose (I only know of etrade's rates, and they're not cheap when dealing with smaller volume trades). It seems like the best way to do this is to use either Google finance or Yahoo finance and create a "portfolio" and track it for a while. We would each have to tabulate separately the money that isn't currently represented by a stock, and the fees, etc, we have "spent." Is anyone up to this? I think it would be interesting.

Mesh WiFi Networks

2008-03-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

An interesting article in Slashdot today about a company trying to bring mesh wifi networks as an alternative to the regular bridge type. The link they give is about the company, Meraki, and their iffy business model. (Namely, they sent out some open hardware, and then locked it down, and charge people to use their "dashboard" software).

I've always been a big fan of the concept of a mesh network. This is where each wifi node piggy-backs the signal of all neighboring nodes. This is a great way to spread the Internet to a neighborhood without having to wire up a bunch of cabling, etc. A big limitation in cities is that only the telecoms have authority to string up any kind of land wiring between buildings, across private and public property. Anyway, some of the comments pointed to the Open-Mesh solution, which uses open source software and sells the hardware for pretty reasonable prices. It would be nice to get my hands on a few of these and try them out. Check them out here for $50.

Criminalize open WiFi users?

2008-03-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

An interesting article on ars technica about WiFi. There have been a couple court cases where people using another person's WiFi have been accused of "unauthorized access to a network." I really believe that using an open WiFi network isn't a criminal activity, but in Maryland they were trying to pass a specific law making it a criminal offense. Luckily it got shot down, but it may be the beginning of a pretty bad trend.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if it will become a sort of non-issue. WiFi hotspots will probably go the way of pay phones before long. The Internet will be so ubiquitous that there will be no reason to guard your little connection. Every phone, laptop, etc, will be hooked into satellites, towers, etc, for pretty cheap. I'm looking forward to it.

The value of Youtube

2008-03-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been following the news, there is an interesting situation happening where the press is blaming Barack Obama for some of the race-charged speeches his pastor has given. He's been attending this guy's church for something like 20 years, so I guess the question is whether or not these are the same things he believes.

The real interesting part, though, is how the Internet is coming to play in the story. As the Web began to spread, most people were proclaiming this as a new era of commentary and news sources. As though, with a billion blogs, you'll be able to get any side of the story that you want. Now there are some recent stats saying that most people are getting their news from fewer and fewer online sources, as the masses pass around the same snippets from AP, CNN, Reuters, or whatever. Well, I'd almost say that the best trend of the Internet isn't the greater number of sources, its the fewer sources. What people really need is a way to all see the same original set of facts (although these might not always be possible to agree on). But with the advent of Youtube, we've all got access to the same set of Original Documents. You can read any number of commentaries on the amazing speech Obama gave yesterday, but people are increasingly showing that the power of the Original Document can speak for itself. Nearly three million people watching this rather long video in only a few days is pretty amazing. This is the only way that Americans will experience a collective understanding, rather than a collective dumbing down:

Note, meanwhile, that instead of listening to me saying that Barack's pastor (Jeremiah Wright) is saying some stuff, now you can just as easily hear it for yourself:

The Internet... good stuff.

Science on Tap

2008-03-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

By the way, wanted to throw this out there. There is a regular thing called Science on Tap wherein you can go to a bar, in this case Third Place Pub, on the last Monday of the month and can hear a little talk by a scientist. Seems like an interesting thing, and the next one will be on the 31st. Anyone interested? For some more information, here is a Flickr photo set from one a few months ago.

Good reads... dot com?

2008-03-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

Aside from its insidious title, Goodreads, (which can, alternatively, be read as goo dreads) stands to become my favorite waste of time, and for my benefit, I hope it shall for you, too. Presumably, the site is for social-networking- however scuttled that motive appears beneath its exterior of bibliophilia. Indeed, the premise of the site is that the user catalog their personal library as a requisite to finding other users with similar tastes, ostensibly to befriend them and get book recommendations, (read "try to fuck them"). Goodreads is preposterous, of course, unless the user is earnest in their love of books, and utilizes the resources on the site to find other books which pique their curiosity or raise their ire, based on previous, shared interests. Lamentably, this site doesn't have the best tools for that function; however another site Librarything has a remarkable ability to match-up people with similar tastes and ailments or what-have-you. The exception to Librarything is that it limits the number of books which can be cataloged to 200, unless the user elects the $10 per annum subscription, which to any bibliophile reeks of extortion. Therefore, a better deal indeed, is the gratis membership to Goodreads, which is intuitively simple to command and plentiful in its recommendations, though not without effort. I have taken the liberty to post a few others, though I cannot vouch for them.
With exception to anobii, (Anobium Punctatum- book worm, get it?) the appellation of these sites is positively insipid! And this from the so-called literate segment of our society? Horse-cock!

http://www.shelfari.com/ http://www.anobii.com/ http://www.bookjetty.com/

2008-03-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Word on the street, Scrubs will be coming back on April 10th to wrap up their 7th and final season on NBC. Meanwhile, in somewhat more surprising news, ABC will possibly bring the show over for an 8th season. A pretty unusual move, but I'd like to see it. ABC has only the one good show with Lost, so they can use the boost. According to the National Ledger, shooting could start on Monday, and the show starting next Fall. Nice.

Seen here, the Janitor performing a short-living stand-up routine in 1984:

Double standard?

2008-03-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting case surfacing from Ryerson University. They have a long tradition of study groups helping each other with their Engineering related homework, but then when a student started a Facebook group to swap tips (and homework answers...) he got slammed and nearly expelled (147 counts of cheating for the 147 students who visited the group). CNN.com reports that the school has only given him a zero on the assignment in question, allowing him to still pass the class.

The point here is: are things that you do online of an inherently different nature? If you gamble online, or have an affair online, some act as though its of less consequence. If you post answers or trade TV shows online (compared to a study group, or giving someone a VHS tape) its a more severe offense? The next few years I'm sure we'll see a proliferation of these gray areas being pressed into the forefront. A technology can't fundamentally change the way we interact without forcing a shift in our comfort zones and cultural standards...

Sweater Day

2008-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Today is Mr. Roger's 80th birthday (or would've been if he were still alive). Apparently, to promote all around feelings of well-being, people are being asked to wear their favorite sweater (the video on their site clearly says it doesn't have to have a zipper like Mr. Roger's did, it just has to be important to you... thanks Mr. McFeeley, for your leeway).

If you're wondering why Mr. Rogers is more than a crazy old guy with toys, you should check out his Wikipedia entry. He was a tireless crusader for all things worthwhile, and he wasn't even a religious wing nut. I wish there were more people like him today. Need more convincing? Watch his 1969 testimony for the Senate, basically turning them around to continue funding PBS, which remains an institution to this day.

Finally, talk of sweaters can only remind me of the famous mid-90's "red-hooded sweatshirt." I was going to link to the original SNL version, but then I found this absurd time-capsule-esque clip from a 1996 HBO special. What were we thinking back then? Have a good first day of Spring.

The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back (Revised Edition)

2008-03-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

This got a lot of press at when it was compiled but I'm going to link to it here in the hopes that the message will spread. Fight, fight for your right to...not be screwed by mega international comglomerates. Or even local, meany-peeny good for nothings.

Robocop... Part one... Part deux

2008-03-19T16:35:00.000-07:00

Kill me. Kill me now.

I can't wait for the RFID future

2008-03-19T16:23:00.000-07:00

So another one from the lovely folks over at boingboing via their TV division (now with shitty verizon commercials). Xeni et al shows us how truly weak the security systems for the new radio frequency chips on passports and the "neat" touch and go credit cards is. I just love me some security theater.

Semicolon subway

2008-03-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Maybe every news article should be an introspective examination on the use of punctuation in mass transit? The New York Times surprisingly interesting story about the semicolon and its misuse.

How to look good...with extra trying

2008-03-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

So here are some beautiful resumes that help one stand out from the pack. I'm going to try one or two of these little gems for myself.Good luck to the rest of you and lets remember, if you are going out for the same job as me, I'll stab you in the face. Ya really.

Yee hah! The brand new american-made, tent cities! Where do I sign up!

2008-03-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new hoover-ville, 30's era depression slums people. Boingboing.net points us toward a BBC article about the new sub-prime shanty towns. So fun, so grand, so very sad.

A series... Of tubes?

2008-03-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

A fine little article about pneumatic tubes as people movers from the folk over at damninteresting.com, a haven of ridicoulus and fascinating stories. Give it a looksy.

Tesla... begins today

2008-03-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

Only 900 cars are being made... wish I could get my hands on one.

War is... cool?

2008-03-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

I must say, I'm a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks.
-GWB

More ads should be like this

2008-03-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Chester Cheetah has turned into a real dick. Thats what I like to see...

New NIN...

2008-03-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

A purely instrumental electronic album.

The Greatest Clock in the World!

2008-01-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

nuff said...

La Planete Sauvage!

2007-11-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

First saw this movie on a scene of the movie 'The Cell', Jennifer Lopez is laying in bed smoking a joint, anyway this movie is playing on her TV while she gets high. Ever since i saw it on 'The Cell' I wanted to see it, but later on forgot about it. Anyway I remembered about it last night and here it is. Pretty strange movie.

Ideas here... for free

2007-11-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

Pretty Unlikely But...
There have been nothing but awful movies out in theaters lately. Why is this? Is Hollywood running out of things from culture to pillage? Although I think it'd be nice if Hollywood stepped up and made some really nice original films, and I can honestly say I'm getting sick of comic book movies... I've always thought these six things ought to be movies. If anyone out there is interested, take these ideas and do it.

1) Legend of Zelda

We've all (the unlucky ones amongst us) seen that old Super Mario movie with Bob Hoskins. I think that might've scared off the Hollywood money from videogames. What was wrong with it? Its terrible. It took a crazy atmosphere and innovative characters and twisted them to fit in the real world. Here is the right way to do it: make the movie absolutely true to the game. How is that possible? I couldn't tell you. I would think that using a clever combination of CGI and live sets and actors would do the trick. Legend of Zelda the movie would follow the story line of the game (which game? hard to say. It could take the overall legend and make one good story arc...). Its definitely a name people recognize...

2) House of Leaves

This is one creepy book written on a cinematic scale. The book makes use of a lot of pointless structure (tiny words, foot notes, etc) which could be done away with. This movie could be a documentary type structure, but that's unnecessary... For those that haven't read, this book is about a house with a door that is cracked open to reveal an endless tunnel. The people in the house begin trying to explore the tunnel, which seems to change and get bigger/smaller, etc. This book has lots of ins and outs, but the tunnel in the house is definitely some scary stuff.

3) Henderson the Rain King

Well, this book is a little older, but it would make a great basis for an off-beat comedy. The rich guy who has no place in the world decides to go to Africa to try to find himself. He ends up in a tiny village that doesn't know the outside world at all. He brings some dynamite and blows up some frogs, and becomes a sort of king. Its really great, and would make a good movie for an older comedy great (Steve Martin?)

4) Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

This amazing comic book would make a great movie. There, I said it, a comic book movie that I wouldn't mind going to see. The crazy dark atmosphere, if the filmmakers put it together true to the comic, would bring people in droves. Not many people have been exposed to this comic, but I imagine they would still be able to get into the story.

5) Invader Zim

Ever since this was canceled, but kept its fan base, I've been wishing for an Invader Zim movie. Will it happen? I doubt it.

6) Mystery Science Theater 3000

Was it already a movie that came out in theaters? Sure, but who remembers it. But here's a great new take on it: a movie about the entire back story. In the new movie there wouldn't be any scenes inside their little screening room. Does this take the premise and flip it on its head? Of course, and thats what I like about it. You could even make it a more extreme/intense type sci-fi movie that we see more of today (The Fountain, etc). Could Jimmy Fallon play Joel?

All Hallow's Eve

2007-10-31T23:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween everybody... maybe you got tricks, or maybe you got treats. By the way, does anyone know what happened to all the other people who are members of this thing? Guess they've all gone away. I took this picture up in Bothell, but it looks pretty creepy... (which is, I guess, appropriate for Bothell.)

my buddy's website...

2007-10-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

One of my friends just recently launched a website he's been working on. I guess its about posting pictures from anywhere with your phone to any website you embed the player. As such:

It posts pictures right away, works quite nicely. I'd say it's still in beta though, but still interesting and fits nicely with all those social networking sites. If anyone would like to sign up and try it out here's the website.

2007-10-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

It's time again to post one of magnificent poems to this exalted site, much lie a dutch elm tree spreading its delicious seeds... so here goes. This one is about an alien abduction, which is of course total bullshit but interesting to write about:

They came from above

A lone road no light but headlight,
Driving drifting into the night
Sheltered by pines and mountain heights
Alone with time

Riding gliding as only four wheels allow
Tank is full of the old dead of earth
Nowhere to be and no one to see
On Mr. Kerouac’s road again…

DAWN
DAWN
DAWN

Blinding light spinning bright
Silence is deafening
A disc,
The DISC, spins up high

Lifted floating weightless
Prone in the sky
A body in motion stays in motion
Goodnight light.

Naked nude defenseless
Whiteness dazzling overwhelming
A table never felt so soft

Men monsters beings of dream
Grey brown or white
Who can say?

Dangling machine,
Brother of octopus descends un-tethered…

It stabs
It burns
It flays

My flesh!
My heart!
My soul!
Goodnight light.

A lone road no light but headlight,
Driving drifting into the night
Sheltered by pines and mountain heights
Alone with time

copyright Sam Sch. 2007

Likewise

2007-10-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

So I've officially started grad school, and I thought I'd post a word or two about it. Here is the homepage for the program. It's called "information management" and it's meant to be a more general attempt at learning how to integrate and streamline a business' information systems, which usually include but aren't limited to IT.

This is all taking place on the UW campus, which is really a nice setting, especially after going to SCCC (which comes across more like a high school). The school apparently has something like 40,000 students, which rivals the population of my hometown.

So far I've gotten a chance to talk to nearly everyone in my program (there are only about 35 new students a year) and there's some interesting demographics. Over half of them are from out of the country, and class is split 50/50 by gender. Some pretty interesting people from all over.

My classes for the firs quarter are pretty diverse (and, I would add, expensive). They range from the human aspects of info mgmt, system design, and information security. We'll see how they go.

So im in college now...

2007-09-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

I decided to tap that sweet, sweet GI Bill and go to college. I'm currently at North Seattle Community because I'm lazy and at this point would rater be in 13 grade than have actual academic challenges to overcome. Add the fact that I don't particularly know what I want to get into(English? Robotics? Ray guns?) later in live and we have a winner. I have been having a good time however, especially in my English classes. I thought that it may be interesting(at least for future me) to post up some of

the poetry that I've been made to write. So here goes a number one. This one is free form and just done off of the top of my head:

The moment I was shot

Hot lead slam down, come down hum down ,
Light bright with foresight,
lava thread flow though, mind matter and the above below, numb for you, flash pop and streak lightning tasting blue wonder,
Sniff of death doom.
Atropos cuts snips snaps thread free, free at last to wander slow fast beyond, tunnel though the mind stew.
Meat potatoes carrots leaks, hot and cold and alone prone.
Velvet drapes, swirly snakes, lost adventure time to you.
Dreams anew, captured, lost and who who who….
Fast times creeping vines, life lived wild mild, forgive forget,
Angels form devils lament, cat’s dog’s forever fog, slipping sliding lost and hiding.
Shock awe, firefly meet seesaw,
Steers queers and automobiles.
Layer confection life lied lived lost
Smitten bitten frozen soul, kiss of life faded stole
Two coins for the boatman,
Endless dropping spinning sweetly
Forever tunnel light bright streetlight
One last taste to last

copyright Sam Sch. 2007

More to come.

P.S. The photo is a threadless tee submition.

Find books, movies, and music

2007-08-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Here is my new webpage, Staticnothing's Guide to Online Media where you can find links to pages that have all the free (legal) music, movies and books that I could find. Check it out.

Cosmo Kramer Goes Berserk!

2006-11-22T02:43:00.000-08:00

Recently, our quirky friend Michael Richards a.k.a. Cosmo Kramer from the sitcom 'Seinfeld' let his outrage rage out while doing stand up comedy. As this video shows, 'Kramer' loses it as someone in the audience heckles him, he then goes on to use racial epithets unapologetically through out his rant as the audience slowly begins to leave the show. Later, 'Kramer' appears on 'The Late Night Show with David Letterman' and apologizes for his behavior on stage. Now folks, it's only human to lose it every once in a while, so why not look at this man's face and ask ourselves the question 'Is this the face of a man I can stay mad at?'. He may not be 'Stand Up Comedy' funny but he's definitely 'Whoa man, this guy's flipping out!' funny.

STOP wasting your time!

2006-11-15T03:07:00.000-08:00

Jobs are for pussies and communists! And both these types of people either suck donkey dick or stomp on babies, and at times I'm sure they do both at the same time. Anyway, recently our good friend staticnothing (doug) brought my attention to an awesome blog/article blog, I think everyone should read this and spread it around a bit. Live the Life and be Free!

Interview process

2006-10-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Started my interviews today. The first one didn't go bad, but they seemed to stress trying to make sure I fit for the job and the job fits for me. In this case they (ATS) want me to go around to buildings fixing the control systems for their fans/ac/heating. I'd get a van for it, but not sure where I'd even put it. Are there other options? I'll probably get ahold of the job placement people and see what else they might have on the back burner, per se.

I guess there's always Pizza Hut

Don't order the Sicialin. Please god no.

2006-10-10T00:42:00.000-07:00

So I'm working at pizza hut now as a manager trannie to pay the damn bills that have been piling up of late. Im looking for better jobs right now, but it isn't as easy as you would think. At least this irritatily gives me a less abstract reason to get a real job that pays more than 8 bucks an hour. I'm hoping ot have another job by the time the month is out. Now begins a carpet bombing campaign of Dresden-esk proportions to get that mythical occupation.

The song I just wrote as the words satans second cousin just popped into my head. Typo's intentional by the way. As is the contridition in the first two words of that last sentence.

Verse(1)
Satan's second cousin, now there was a standup guy,
Ran around small towns here about, unpinning his broken fly.
He scared the sodden womenfolk with his mighty girth;
it was a rolling, rocking pleasent time when he ran around the earth.

Chorus
Ohh, satan's second cousin, goddamn I miss him so,
He could whip his tail so far and fast he would lose you in the undertow.
Ohh, satans second cousin, he had hooves of cloven gold,
he would look you straight in the open eye and gobble up yea soul.
Ohh, Satan's second cousin, he could tell a mighty lie,
He could spit a loog in your mouth and tell you it was key-lime pie.

Verse(2)
I followed him from topeka kansas-land,to ancourage-alaska ace,
from alberta canada fairyland to Albert Schweitzer place.
I ran far and fast and stumbled down more than once or twice,
falling to one knee,
Damned if that bastard man didnt pee down on me.

Chorus

Verse(3)
He never met a woman he never screwed, with a corkscrew or a mike
He never melted a man he didnt like,
Although he once told a toddler to get off his bike then stole it from
the tike

Verse(4)
Fucking asshole demon man, he had me at jello,
I found a fallen angel man who couldn't turn down a show
He saw it all, horns a twain aglow
I really wish I haden't cut his throat over that pound of blow.

Copyright 2006 Sam Sch.

Needle in the hay ; The barn burns brighter than day ; frank will be missed

2006-09-19T03:49:00.000-07:00

At the prompting of that which is noise in the void, I am going to post my proud little puppy of a truck up here. I grabbed it from a strange man with a large dog in the little town/hamlet of woodenvillie, a land I recommend to all of you militia enthusiasts. The above pic is a kind shot in good lighting that I, as a profesional photographalater, am very proud of. Notice the tint the filter I placed over my brand new Nikun 65ILS. The hobo that sold me the camera told me to always use it when I want to really bring out the color of clear. I bought the truck for the market value. The largest and most glaring defect is a leak in the exhaust manifold, which I've found can apparently be repaired by a large wad of chewing gum or, and this according to Bob, my camera salesman/automotorgomachiner, golpher semen. Strange, but true. And this is the end. this is the end, my friend. Da Da Dah....

A complex notepad system

2006-08-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

I writing this becasue I have a few misc. story ideas bouncing around in my head and I hate writing this shit down in 8.5/11 in paper, which is all I have availble at the moment. It just struck me that posting this employes a technology at 2000 years younger than the previous one shunned. What spoiled little bitches we are.Without further ado, here comes the random
-a Johny Potseed, with sandals that drop seads as they wear out

-A baby mosh pit,

-Neo-luddites trying/succedding in bringing back carrier pigeions as a viable communication system in a major city

-coins/chips(micro or fish and) left on the eyes of the dead for the boatman

--Wifi hubs tethered on weather balloons(tie into pigeons'?)

-The space elavator

As for the life and all, I'm looking for work with moderate fervor. My resumes up on monster and I expected people to be knocking down the door. Poor little optomistic me. I'm on the edge of broke, at the point of considering asking my quasi-estranged dad for a loan. Not a place I want to be. It has been suprising hard to find something, but I haven't went to the extreme of the job placent agencies yet, which I will probally get to this week. I upgraded the monitor array again, so now im at 22in and 21 in, not factoring the 32in tv acros the room. Im very pleased. Set about cleaning my apartment for the in-a-month-or-two-move. Sadly, it is very entertaining. I think I am that straved for meaningful work. And that as they say is that.

The wonder. The joy. The Craigslist.

2006-07-16T00:36:00.000-07:00

Craigslist. A World of care free miscreants coming together to share the junk and the bounty of the world with each other. Two days ago I was rocking a dual monitor 15in and 17in system. Today, with the wild love of the craig, I hereby rock a 19in and 20in setup, free of charge. Joy O joy O joy. Along with the monitors I have seen an uprigt piano, an organ, a couple of jacuzzi's and all the free dirt one could ever desire. Mad props' go out to Dougy and the Izz-meister for the conveyances. Very rad. O mighty craigslist, a packrat's dream come true.

PRS-500 will be the next iPod (I hope.)

2006-07-05T13:49:00.001-07:00

The PRS-500 is going to be released pretty soon. I've been looking forward to this for over a year now, ever since I heard about it. Being the kind of guys who have bookshelves in our room full of old volumes that we might reread some day so we keep them around, I imagine this as a way to completely get rid of them. Think about before the iPod, before CDs even, remember when if you wanted to have more than 20 or 30 albums you had a big shelf full of records? (Well, I suppose no one really remembers that because it was appx 5,000 years ago.) Either way, when Sony's new Portable Reader System comes out it'll let anyone carry around all the books they want with them and read them on the go. You might say that ever since palms came out people have been able to do this, but I disagree. A palm pilot is designed for all sorts of crazyness, so its battery won't last very long if you're just reading a book (and of course reading a good book takes hours and hours).

This is where the new excellence is going to come in, using a technology that only makes use of the battery when the page is being turned, it allows you to load a page and leave it on there while you read it (or even leave it on there while you walk away and come back in a few hours). That means that you can turn "7,500 pages" with one battery charge. (The pixels are actually tiny beads that flip between their black or white sides when you load a page.) Either way, I think it's pretty genius. And when you combine this with Project Gutenberg putting out thousands of books in text format after they're copyrights have run out, you can legally read books for the rest of your life without having to pay a cent.

It's supposed to be available "late summer 2006" and it's price will be anywhere from $150 to $350. I couldn't find a real answer to that one. Look at the pics, give it a drool.

My fucking cousin wants to offer you a remarkable business optometrist

2006-06-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

All you have to do is join a little pyramid scheme called quixtar. Also known as Amway. This cunt rag son of bitch calls me up a few weeks ago and I blow it off as irrelevance. I'm not exactly close to my extended family. They are basicly people I know that I'm vaguely related to. So I'm not really looking to hang out or anything. Well, I get a new message today so I say fuck it, and call him back I'm talking to this guy I haven't seen in about 2 years and he tells me he has an internet business opputunity with a steady income. I ask what it is. He tells me he cant explain it over the phone and tells me there is a meeting up in Everett I'm invited to.I laugh it off, as I consider my Everett moratorium to still be in effect. So I ask him for a name to look it up and he tells me. and here I am. Two very informative websites later, thinking of hoping a bus to Everett just so I can beat this guys head in for preying on the weak family alliance I have to help him get out of the shit hole he dug for himself. And this guys a Mormon to boot. Nice Jesus action all around.

2006-06-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

There is some pretty big nonsense going on in this country when the Senate comes one vote away from passing an amendment to the constitution to ban flag "desecration" (which means, as we all know, flag burning.) After "fighting" for freedom the past six years (as they like to say, at least) it's pretty annoying that it has all proven to be worthless. I was happy to see Feingold (Wisconsin's Democratic Senator) step up and tell everyone there are better things to be debating right now then this. I hope he runs for President in '08. You know he'll get my vote. Here's the story on Reuter's website: Link

We're considering making some "veteran's for flag burning" t-shirts, or possibly just making some flag cigarettes to burn on the 4th of July. Maybe we'll go straight to the source and do some flag burning of our own. Who wants to get a group flag burning photo up?

The Death of Treo

2006-06-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering about the cryptic nonsense, Israel apparently broke his phone by jumping drunkenly into a pool. Luckily someone was on hand to take a snapshot. Look how happy he looks! He won't be so pleased when he sobers up and realizes how absurd it all was... Poor Treo, you will be missed...

Flamin' Hot Cheetos?!!?!

2006-06-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

The latest and greatest craze these days, apparently, are these flamin' hot Cheetos. Who knew, really? Here is the original source of this information... definitely worth a read is this article from NPR. But the Grand Marshall is this sound bite from NPR, its just hilarious. Rosco dug it up himself, but knowing him he won't post nothin'.

The theory behind this nonsense is that the spicy-ness is so X-treme that it sends you into a drug-like haze, especially if you're younger and your body more... I don't know... fragile? Or stupid? Can a body be stupid?

Even the artsy goth kids are getting into the act, posting about it in their precious "pity me and look at my artsy pictures" myspace blogs.

But the real victims in this tragedy, of course, are the poor inner-city kids. Who's going to tell them about the scourge of the Cheetos? They know not what they do, and we need to get out some pamphlets or something.

Get on that.

Ode to my phone!

2006-06-24T00:32:00.000-07:00

It was a glorious day,
the day I gazed upon you
I remember taking you into the palm of my hand,
as a father would his child
(maybe not really his palm but you get the point)

Your screen was lit with joy,
My eyes inert with love,
my fingers frolicking across your keyboard
like a hippo on a riverbed
(hippo's frolic, I've seen it)

But days grew darker and darker,
and the skies churned louder and louder,
and lightning struck closer each day
as we made our way across the land

Then came that dreadful day,
the skies were glutted with darkness
as if the bowels of hell had whelmed
from where they belonged.

Then in the blink of an eye,
a blinding flame split the skies
and struck us down into a pool of forgetfullness;
surely this abyss you would not survive.
(This really did happen.)

As I came to I faced the sky,
it was a ghostly pale blue
with whispers of heavenly trees
which had no color, only peace.

Time wasn't long till I turned my head,
and peace turned to terror as I realized,
that next to myself there lay someone dead,
an empty shell of a once dear friend.

Treo come back!

Fuckin' A

2006-06-23T04:36:00.000-07:00

I'm reading this anthony bourdane book roscoe lent me and all his talk of swashbucking god-men cooks has got me all revved up about all of the horrible navy shit I , and of course, ya'll went though. I'm here alone at 4am, takling to myself about all the bullshit that happened in those horrible years. This visious, violent monolougue is running in head. Now, I'm wired and pissed. I got shit to do today and now I know I'm not going to be sleeping at all because of this repressed self hate from those years bubbling up. I just want to go outside and shake random people, scream at them for being alive. I want to break my fist agaisnt these shitty apartment walls. Shitty, soul crushing hate machine navy. Fuckin' A.FTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTNFTN

An update long in coming...

2006-06-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted about my life in a while so I thought it would be a good idea to do so. Let us start with the basics. I'm using linux at the moment, largly becasue I caused windows to shit itself while, guess what, playing with linux. There isnt anyway to get windows back without dropping a benny on the software, as they didnt include a windows cd with the system i bought. Cheap ass bastards. If anyone wants to send me a copy of windows, let me know. My IM at the moment is bilkybadass on aol and fenix527 on yahoo.

Anyway, besides the hellish learning curve with this piece of shit, I have applied ot the art institute of seattle's cooking program. It looks like Ill be going this summer,starting july 11th for about a year at a rough cost of 15,000. I'd be happy to go though and tell any of ya'll what this has involved, but as I'm not completely done yet it will be something of a crap shoot. I look foward to learning how to cook, but I doubt I'll pursue it as job path. I'm more interested in looking into moleculaur gastrony, which is a food science based on desinging food conbo's on molecualr compisiton vice old school wisdom. WHite choclate and pinecones work well together apparently. Anyone wanna get some white choclate and lysol and let me know?ANyhow,I think learning to cook will also be a useful skill to have, so Im basiclly at the fuck it, I'll go stage in my education. I'm thinking I'll do this shit for a while, and then head onto the UofW for a looksy into there cybernetics or distributing computing program. or something. We'll see in a year or so.

I have succeded in my desire to stay unemployed for the past year, and am so far only in about 2 grand of debt, half of which is due to the navy. Fuckers. THe time has come however where after I get my school hours straight I'll likely get a part time job somewhere. Any Ideas or tips from you guys who are actually employed would be cool. And Matt, I heard about you ghetting dogged by gammon. I'm more than willing to help you find him and cut out his throat. With a wooden spoon, preferably. Fucker still owes my 15 bucks and a cartoon of smokes 5 years later. Time to collect, one way or another.

I'm still looking to write some short speculative ficiton, as my previous post shows. I dont have anymore offerings right now but I got some shit brewing in the back of my mind. I want to write something about neo-luddites bring pigeons back as an email replacement somehow. Or just about the madness of the group in trying. Maybe Ill blow that story up in the previous post. Blah.

I have nothing else at the moment, so Im outty 5000.

P.S. Somebody call Spink and add him to this thing. I think he's worthy.

Update: I've found some copies of windows on the pirate bay, so i'm going to give that a shot. A shot in the dark to be sure.

A short, short story

2006-06-15T03:34:00.000-07:00

This is a short short story I wrote today for absoulutly no reason. I wrote it in 2nd person for some reason. I still don't know why. Scotty and I dumpstered a working Snes a week ago and Ive been playing super mario world non-stop.Updates about my life and times will come sortly. For now, here is the story:

This, my friends, is the story of how one mans madness changed the world as we knew it.

His name was Walter Stone and he was an oddball. As a youth his obsession with Super Mario World was of such magnitude that he was committed for a sort time to Bellvue mental hospital to help curb his urge to play. As he sat in group with his friend's Napoleon and Mr. Lincoln, he would ponder the wonder that was Mario. The most tenacious of plumbers, stranded in a psychotropic world of mushrooms and turtles, dinosaurs and fire flowers... a man among men. A man of little words and overwhelming action. Sitting there in group, Walter came to a conclusion. He would dedicate his life to bringing Mario's world into his own.

Bellvue was easy. Just a little white lie here and there and he was free. Walter devoted himself to the study of chemistry and genetics, shunning all other pursuits. His parents were overjoyed at his sudden interest in school, thinking he was finally on the right track. Little did they know how right they were.

The years past with relative calm. A few minor wars and a few minor presidents. Walter , now Dr Stone, waged his battle forward, making ever so small strides in the right direction. He worked a non-eventful job at Phizer, hoarding the little money he had to spend on his true interests in his garage lab. This lab was the only outright example of his madness. The walls were printed with massive blowups of Mario's head, ala Warhol's Campbell soup can. The tabletops were littered with life size paper-mache sculptures of princess bell and that often neglected brother of Mario , Luigi. These totems only helped to further his obsessive drive. He developed a Shitakie mushroom triggered a genetic irregularity in mice which caused them to grow hideously large. Sadly, the giganticness also caused a mad rage and a dramatically shortened life span. Walter had no choice but to suspend that line of research. That battle lost, he moved on. Fire flowers were out of the question, as all of the concoctions he mixed simply killed the mice he applied them to. Oddly, his most promising line of research was also the most distasteful to him. That of the balloon power up, that most disappointing offering.

It was a late night in the garage. The windows were pattering with a violent rain. Stone was dissecting one of his mushroom failures when he came open an interesting abnormality with the mouse's stomach. The stomach was unusually mailable, capable of being stretched fifteen times more than the normal level. It was also amazingly strong, which Walter discovered by stretching out the stomach on a nearby trash can and drumming out the Mario bros intro song. His mad twittering was the first echo of his genius to sound out into the world he changed so completely.

Walter spend the next 7 years isolating his method of giganticness to extend only to the stomach. Upon achieving a success rate of ninety-nine percent he took the final pivotal step. He injected himself. His body was overcome with a violent madness, the overwhelming taste of blue filling his mouth. He collapsed to the floor, twitching with the best of them. Fourteen hours later, he awoke with a ravenous hunger. Shaking uncontrollable, he stumbled into his kitchen. Nuking a breakfast burrito he ate with out reserve. It was to no avail. The hunger was immense. Dispensing with cooking, he ate the entire package of frozen burritos. Sated for the moment, he sat down on his couch for a refreshing thousandth run though Forest Illusions number one. Thats when it happened. His stomach distended, giving him a grotesque appearance. And then, and then, he started to float. To float! To float! Grasping his way to the door via chairs and the hat rack, he opened the door and went soaring into the wide open world, laughing uproariously all he while.

And that my friends, is how Dr. Walter Stone killed the car and saved the world from the that beast of all beast, petroleum. Now if you will excuse me gentleman, I have to go get a burrito from that truck over there. I have a dental appointment I don't want to miss.

2006-06-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

Today is my final day "in." This is my last view of the ship as I left it in Japan two weeks ago. The 3 hour drive to pick up my paperwork is going to be worth it to finally say that I'm done. It definitely leaves me with a sense of new beginnings. I have to try to think of the reasons I joined and ask myself if it was worth it. Questions like that are doomed to lead to regret, which I always try to avoid. Instead I'm going to be glad that, unlike so many people, I've made it all the way through to the bitter end. At least I can say I stuck with it, right? I saw quite a few things and I learned even more things (not all of them good...). But in the end I believe not much has really changed from 6 years ago. I guess only time will tell.

I'll be staying in Seattle and trying to sort out as much as I can. I'm working on a lot of things at once: finding an apartment, writing a resume, writing a book, trying to put together a short still, etc. I've got plenty to fall back on, and I hope that everyone keep in touch via browne towne at least.

Chirp..."Where you at!"

2006-06-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

This is what brownetowne's been up to since re-organization in THE REAL WORLD! Well, this and the Beer Olympics...we're thinking of adding DDR to the Beer Olympics? Check this out for opinions.

Dance-oo video on youTube

Yea-Haa!

2006-04-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

Gasoline has just passed $3.00 dollars/gallon. Yip-yip! I'm so excited I just bludgeond my dick open with a meat press. By the way Izzy, yo car is still teh rox3r. Why you had a raw fish rotting in the back is beyond me though. Don't worry, I took care of it. I fried it up with extra virgin olive oil and went to town. Cheesy.

Pandora's Box......of Kittie Porn?

2006-03-15T18:09:00.000-08:00

What the fuck do you do with a box full of kittie porn? Fuck it, it's for sale, who wants it?

Out To Sea... Out To Lunch

2006-03-10T00:51:00.000-08:00

Well, we're out again, on the Pacific Ocean. It's not very hard work this time out, but it's definitely a departure from the good times in Seattle. This is my last time here, and I'll be flown off at some point in the last half. Still trying to figure out if I'll be staying in Washington or not. I'll at least be there for a few weeks, the way things are going.

Here's where I'll be sitting for the next few months, on the good old CVN-72.

I'll definitely not be in college for the fall, but possibly I will for the spring term or next year. If that fails, I can always get a job. First of all I'll be able to fall back on that same unemployment that people have been enjoying for a while.
Well, that's the update from here.

Toxic H =Tasty

2006-02-10T04:52:00.000-08:00

I likey I likey

In other news, Im thinking about trying to write some short speculative fiction stories. My current ideas include musical insturments as weapons focusing on circuit bending, the infamous brown note as a preliminary finding and evolution into crowd control and cybernetic ear implants to conteract the effects. The story is dated somewhere nearby in time 2020-50. I'm looking for weird instrument ideas. Also trying to do something with the possibilities of harnessing plant photsynthesis directly for energy production and the possibility of ad space engineered into plant life. The two stories dont have to interact, but a novel way to do so would be entertaining.

P.s. The above are copyrighted by me as of now, bitches.

I'm slipping under

2006-02-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

For those of you who want to hear a sweet song (Bilky, I'm looking in your direction) download Local H's version of Britney Spears' hit Toxic. If you like the original you'll like this one even better, and if you don't like the original you'll love this one.

Boris Artzybasheff

2006-02-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of this amazing artist boing boing was talking about a couple of days ago. He's very much dead, hanging out with the Big E if there is any justice in the universe

I could be fucking

2006-02-06T02:27:00.000-08:00

I got one for ya all: a website with some cool ass toys and models at deep discount.Here's a shot of a simpsons lava lamp: http://www.entertainmentearth.com/hitlist.asp?theme=Simpsons

Celebrity sighting!

2006-02-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

I just had the mixed pleasure of seeing Greg bear, a noted sci-fi writer, in the local Half priced boks. Ive read a couple of his books and found them swaying between gripping and lackluster. Still, closest Ive come to a limited Celebrity in my days. This is one for the diary. *Hearts*

Fucking communists.

2006-02-05T17:03:00.000-08:00

All of the below, and ref's still cant call a game. Fucking robbing the shit out of the seahawks. Nuetralized a seahawk touchdown and then ok'ed a bullshit steelers one? you gotta be kidding me. What a crock of shit the calling has been in this game. Even Maddon and that other guy are blown away by this bullshit. Im not drunk enough to be this pissed. Going to get going on that right now. And yea, The above has nothing to do with anything, but its still pissing me off.

P.S. Fuckers 21/10 steelers.

Do quims still quiver?

2006-02-05T05:21:00.000-08:00

Update, eh? Okay... I am probably finally going to get a job at a satellite installation company. I'm talking DirectTV. Glorious. Oh well, at least I'll be doing something. I feel like kind of a lump just sitting around playing games all day. Not that I gained a newfound respect for work, I just want money. I haven't bought a new cd since I got out, and I'm starting to feel the pinch. No video games either. Time for this guy to start getting paid.
I'm of course out of the loop that the rest of you guys are in. You all party and drink together, and I don't have any idea what's up. So is there anything interesting to tell? My wife told me that Doug is dating again. There's no reason why she should have known this and not I. So give me the scoop, assholes. Is the sky still blue? Is water still wet? Do quims still quiver?

2006-02-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

Sam's right, updates need to happen. Here are some recent things that have been doing down, for the sake of "the record."
1) The ship has cancelled all terminal leave while we're on deployment. Doesn't it seem like while you're 9000 miles from home that's the time you need terminal leave the most? How are we expected to fly back and immediatly have jobs/homes lined up after being gone for more than 5 months? Blech, the Navy is no good.
2)Colleges have as much if not more red tape than the military I've been trying to call people and do applications for various places, but all of them seem pretty disinterested. I mean, I thought they were businesses too? Good luck Sam on getting your chef-fery going. You'd have better luck buying a book and some supplies. Just have to find a way to make the Nav pay for it
3)Izzy had surgery I know he won't update it himself, but not Izzy has gotten the same lasik i had and we're both enjoying the benefits. Except his include codine right now...
4)Pre-deployment enjoyment We're all drinking and everything getting ready to go out. We won't all be there, but at least we can all party now, right?

Wolverines!

2006-02-03T01:34:00.000-08:00

Job or no job, you bastards set the drink down and put out a general update on this damn thing. Im running out of unemployment and looking into going to a local chef'ery college, to sate my long held dream of doing blow off of the marinated haunchs of a lamb in a walkin freezer. Get to posting you bastards.

No Walker pics today. Damn cease and desist letter

Bush plays a game

2006-01-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

Funny shit if you remember the old text based games. Think Zork. Nerd up, yo.

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/001561.html

Get this Thang!

2006-01-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

Best god damned game I've played in a long time. Fallout 2. Free for the download to the crafty and Illict among us.

Ride the Snake!

2006-01-18T16:05:00.000-08:00

Fuck ya! Chuck Norris is the hero! All others are reduced to zero! Delta force willl kill your horse!! Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris Ho! http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/10/chuck_norris_respond.html

P.S.Read the top 30. I shat myself some

Here's a taste
Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer.

Attention: All

2006-01-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

Unemployment tips abound in the comments.