Arcata, California is a special place

Me, JB, and two other people spent an afternoon in Arcata on a west coast voyage once. Our plan was to drive from LA to Vancouver, BC, but we only got as far north as Portland before we had to turn around.

We flew into the LBC, but things were easy for us because none of us were Snoop D-o-double-g. We did in fact go to the City of Compton, but we just went there to rent a car. There may or may not have been a bitch named Sadie. Unfortunately Dr. Dre didn't show up with any Tanqueray or fatass j's. Which brings me to Arcata. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say we chose Arcata as a stop on our journey because of its, um, reputation.

The reason I bring up Arcata tonight is because I have insomnia, and nothing entertains late at night like the Arcata Police Log. Sorry for the no paragraph breaks, but this is how it was published.

Tuesday, December 27 12:22 a.m. An I Street sculptor took a megadose of Xanax, with unhappy results. "Report of subject screaming for help. House broken into," reads the report. An ambulance was summoned and the victim taken to a Eureka mental health facility. The downer-drenched odyssey had begun two hours earlier, when, after chugging enough pills to becalm, if not sedate a small army, the artist formerly known as merely weird descended into pure hallucinatory madness which he described from the patient phone at the crazy house: After a brief post-ingestion lie-down, the man awoke to find his home surrounded by people in vintage headwear. "There were all these people looking in my windows, wearing Civil War-era hats," he said. One of the peepers was woman with a Dutch-boy hairdo, he said, and she was shaking what appeared to be a baby, or maybe a doll while another person taped the proceedings with a video camera. "Finally I decided that I'm gonna get up and close the door," the victim said. But on doing so, he found that his living room was littered with a large amount of human waste - enough to fill a wheelbarrow, he estimated - and broken glass from smashed bottles. Meanwhile, the surrounding crowd outside entertained itself by "hanging out and eating chips and throwing garbage in my front door." Disoriented because his furniture had been rearranged, the victim tried and failed to clamber into his wheelchair, and dragged himself down the hallway to his bedroom where he found two young men. One wore round, mirrored glasses and had a large bottle with a fuse hanging from it. Several half-gallon containers of some flammable liquid sat nearby, and the hallway was "soaked" with the fluid. "Hey, who are you in my house?" asked the resident, but the two men in his bedroom were mute. At some point in the resident managed to barricade his bedroom door with a "piece of metal," but the flammable liquid flowed under the door toward him, so he crawled back to the living room. "I'm pulling my body around," he said. "My feet are all torn up." Meanwhile, the crowd out front continued to munch potato chips and throw garbage in through the front door, and had somehow smashed the resident's cell phone, home phone and bed control. "I was really, really scared," said the victim. At this point, things took a somewhat bizarre turn with the appearance of scattered cocktail weenies littering the floor along with large marijuana buds which were "poisoned in some fashion." The victim tried to stay calm, but couldn't help thinking that "today's the day I die." As he lay among the cocktail weenies and poisoned pot, the victim decided he had nothing left to lose and confronted his tormentors. "I'm pointing at them, saying 'You want to go to jail for the rest of your lives?'" But this elicited little response. "They just grunted back," said the victim, who noted that the crowdmembers had changed into black, Nazi-style shirts. He started screaming, and eventually police appeared, called an ambulance and trundled the man off to the hospital. For days he clung to the gonzo narrative as a memory rather than a hallucination, but after a competency hearing, release and a return to routine, he came to understand that the whole thing - the civil war hats, the weenies, the toxic nugs - it was all a crazy, Xanax-induced dream. Now he's returned to sanity and routine, immersed in a project which involves gluing mussel shells to disfigured doll torsos.

That's an especially hilarious entry, but it's all pretty much like that.

"Wifely Expectations"

This is the most bizarre marriage contract I've ever seen. No, I haven't ever actually seen a marriage contract, but you know what I mean. Like the Smoking Gun blurb says, it's so strange you can't quote from it. You owe it to yourself to spend 5 minutes reading it and be thankful we have wonderful things like the internet to bring us these gems.

You put your weed in there

They put alot of weed in here. Check out the pics of the secret underground pot lair, complete with hydralic doors and a secret escape hatch. I'm a little disappointed there's no Batmobile, or at least an evil genius, but it's still pretty cool.

It makes the lockbox I hid under my bed in highschool seem kind of, oh I don't know, primitive.

Before and after model photoshopping

This isn't the one that's been around before. Go to Portfolio and Before and After.

It's good to see proof that the waifish models who look like heroin addicts in candid photos actually do look that way. It's not a surprise really. You can't snork down the amount of drugs they do and look normal. Get rid of the baggy eyes, smooth over all the moles and "cold sores" and they look, well, they look like models. It's not surprising but it's still interesting.

US cartoons about the Danish cartoons

They don't depict Muhammed in any of these, but they're still good.

Woke up this mornin', got yourself a gun

Well no, not really. I woke up this afternoon and got myself a gun.

Haha, that's not true either, though Washington does have liberal gun laws ("liberal" in the actual sense), so I could do that if I really wanted to. It's kind of funny to see a vegan deli next to a big sign that simply says "Guns".

Anyway, what I mean is I've been watching every Sopranos episode in preparation for the final season that starts in mid-March, from season one on up. Some of the DVDs aren't playing though. A friend of mine got the complete collection last time they were in China, so the quality isn't up to snuff. According to my friend they all play in their DVD player, so maybe it's my PS2. I could try playing them off my computer if I cared enough. I might do that if it turns out any season 5 DVDs won't play (the most recent season).

Even though I'm missing some episodes, this is still the way to watch any show like this. It's so much easier to keep it straight who everyone is and what they did.

And can I say anything bad about the opening song? What a perfect song to introduce this show. Sometimes I think I'm hitting "play epidode" just to hear it again.

Tidbit: the actress who plays Meadow is half Greek, half Cuban.

Confession time

When I was a kid me and JB used to make alot of prank calls (the United Cerebral Palsy Fund? That one got mentioned on the news once, that there were scammers collecting money for it). There's not alot to do in West Virginia, so in moments of sheer boredom I made a few on my own. It took until the ripe old age of around 10 before I figured out why ordering 4 large pizzas with extra anchovies to someone just got a call back from Dominos and angry parents.

Do you remember the old school Miracle Ear commercials? They would have some old guy not hearing shit in a restaurant and then it would break to a "newslady" "reporting" for the "Hearing Aid News" or something, who introduced the product. Then the old guy could hear.

Well, I used to call the 1-800 number and then whatever they said to me my response was, "Huh? What? Sorry, I can't hear you, you'll have to speak up." and so forth. I still laugh about that.

So I want you all to think real hard about your best prank calls and leave them in the comments. JB and RCR have to be remembering some I'm forgetting. Garlic was probably too distracted by the fast paced Indiana lifestyle to do such things.

Incidentally, RCR got me hooked on Aqua Teen Hunger Force and now I have to watch any new episode I see on. You shall pay for this, RCR. As soon as I stop giggling and being reminded of 10 year old boy humor, which should be sometime this side of 2025.

Llamas kick ass

Oh, this is too perfect. The Israeli special forces have decided that llamas are the ideal vehicle.

TEL AVIV — Israel's military has found the perfect vehicle for special operations forces — the llama.

After extensive tests, the uncomplaining work-horse animals were found to easily out-perform donkeys. What's more, they need refuelling only every other day.

Military sources said the Israel Army plans to use llamas for reconnaissance and combat missions in enemy territory, Middle East Newsline reported. They described the llama as ideal for special operations missions in Lebanon against the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah.

This is why I blog. To bring to you, dear reader, the important hard hitting stories of the day.

Closely related to the Llama

You wait and you wait for something like this to come along and then finally your prayers are answered. It's my sincere pleasure to introduce to you I love alpacas, for all your alpaca and alpaca related needs.

Muhammed Emoticons

Muhammad (((:~{>

Muhammad playing Little Orphan Annie
(((8~{>

Muhammad as a pirate
(((P~{>

Muhammad on a bad turban day
))):~{>

Muhammad with sand in his eye
(((;~{>

Muhammad wearing sunglasses
(((B~{>

Muhammad with a bomb in his turban
*-O(:~{>

Muhammad giving the raspberry.
(((:~{P>

Giving Muhammad the raspberry.
;-P


And here's some Muhammad sitcoms. My favorite is I Dream of Jihad.

Cargo Cults

I remember studying these cults in a horrible Cultural Anthropology class I took in college (I needed it for a writing requirement). My contribution to the class was equating them with the what-was-then recent American cult who castrated themselves and drank poison, believing they would be picked up by an alien spacecraft traveling in the wake of a passing comet (Heaven's Gate?).

In the morning heat on a tropical island halfway across the world from the United States, several dark-skinned men—clad in what look to be U.S. Army uniforms—appear on a mound overlooking a bamboo-hut village. One reverently carries Old Glory, precisely folded to reveal only the stars. On the command of a bearded “drill sergeant,” the flag is raised on a pole hacked from a tall tree trunk. As the huge banner billows in the wind, hundreds of watching villagers clap and cheer.

Chief Isaac Wan, a slight, bearded man in a blue suit and ceremonial sash, leads the uniformed men down to open ground in the middle of the village. Some 40 barefoot "G.I.’s" suddenly emerge from behind the huts to more cheering, marching in perfect step and ranks of two past Chief Isaac. They tote bamboo “rifles” on their shoulders, the scarlet tips sharpened to represent bloody bayonets, and sport the letters “USA,” painted in red on their bare chests and backs.

This is February 15, John Frum Day, on the remote island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. On this holiest of days, devotees have descended on the village of Lamakara from all over the island to honor a ghostly American messiah, John Frum. “John promised he’ll bring planeloads and shiploads of cargo to us from America if we pray to him,” a village elder tells me as he salutes the Stars and Stripes. “Radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things.”

"Chief Isaac Wan says he talks regularly to John Frum, believed by followers to live in a sacred volcano."

It's a good read if you're into that sort of thing.

Retro harddrive pics

This history of harddrives is interesting, mostly for the old pics.

The IBM System 305, the world's first computer with a hard drive, debuted in 1956 and relied on the random access method of accounting and control (RAMAC) to store data. This is a side view. The entire device required 50 24-inch diameter platters coated with iron oxide paint mounted on a rotating spindle. It held 5MB, or about 1/100th of the amount in flash cards for cameras today.

And speaking of harddrives, researchers have developed a working prototype of a radical new design based on magnetism rather than transistor.

Because the chip has no wires, its device density and processing power may eventually be much higher than transistor-based devices. And it won't be nearly as power-hungry, which will translate to less heat emission and a cooler future for portable hardware like laptops.

Computers using the magnetic chips would boot up almost instantly. The magnetic chip's memory is nonvolatile, making it impervious to power interruptions, and it retains its data when the device is switched off.

Olympic hockey

It's my blog and I don't really care if none of you give a crap.

Down 2 to 1, the US women tied it up 3-3 to go into the 3rd and then broke out with a late 3rd period flurry to blast Finland 7-3. If you saw this period and didn't find it exciting then there's no hope for you. Since we ran the table in our division and Canada in theirs, we face an outmatched Sweden Friday in our semifinal match while Canada will destroy Finland in theirs. I still expect to see the US vs Canada in the gold medal match on Monday.

There's plenty of other hockey to be had in the meantime though! So you can just go ahead and turn that frown upside down, Mister! Now that women's hockey is wrapping up, men's hockey, or in layman's terms "real hockey", is starting. The US plays Latvia tomorrow at noon Seattle time. This will be worth some bragging rights between me and my old Chicago buddy, The Crazy Latvian. He has been informed that the honor of his people is at stake.

There are 6 games tomorrow, so there's tons of hockey to see. Kazakhstan has a team.

Right now there's women's curling going on in the background. The action is nonstop! Our curlers are pretty hot but ironically the sound is the best part. Sorry any Japanese people, but Japanese women emphatically screaming instructions to each other is funny. There, I said it.

I don't know the rules of curling, but it appears to be gigantic frozen shuffleboard. Eh. It may be less aesthetically pleasing than figure skating, but it's still more entertaining.

Dick (Cheney) jokes

The guy's a walking punchline now. There's speculation that he's such a liability for Bush that he may be replaced -- imagine how unpopular you have to be for that to be the case.

Either way, from the post linked above I found these jokes.

"Late Show with David Letterman," CBS:

_ "Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction: It's Dick Cheney."

_ "But here is the sad part - before the trip Donald Rumsfeld had denied the guy's request for body armor."

_ "We can't get Bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney."

_ "The guy who got gunned down, he is a Republican lawyer and a big Republican donor and fortunately the buck shot was deflected by wads of laundered cash. So he's fine. He took a little in the wallet."

__

"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," NBC:

_ "Although it is beautiful here in California, the weather back East has been atrocious. There was so much snow in Washington, D.C., Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fat guy thinking it was a polar bear.

_ "That's the big story over the weekend. ... Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fellow hunter, a 78-year-old lawyer. In fact, when people found out he shot a lawyer, his popularity is now at 92 percent."

_ "I think Cheney is starting to lose it. After he shot the guy he screamed, 'Anyone else want to call domestic wire tapping illegal?'"

_ "Dick Cheney is capitalizing on this for Valentine's Day. It's the new Dick Cheney cologne. It's called Duck!"

---

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Comedy Central:

_ "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt ... making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting veep since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, (was) shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird."

_ "Now, this story certainly has its humorous aspects. ... But it also raises a serious issue, one which I feel very strongly about. ... moms, dads, if you're watching right now, I can't emphasize this enough: Do not let your kids go on hunting trips with the vice president. I don't care what kind of lucrative contracts they're trying to land, or energy regulations they're trying to get lifted - it's just not worth it."

---

"Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," CBS:

_ "He is a lawyer and he got shot in the face. But he's a lawyer, he can use his other face. He'll be all right."

_ "You can understand why this lawyer fellow let his guard down, because if you're out hunting with a politician, you think, 'If I'm going to get it, it's going to be in the back.' "

_ "The big scandal apparently is that they didn't release the news for 18 hours. I don't think that's a scandal at all. I'm quite pleased about that. Finally there's a secret the vice president's office can keep."

"Apparently the reason they didn't release the information right away is they said we had to get the facts right. That's never stopped them in the past."

And this Daily Show clip is outrageously funny.


UPDATE: More jokes

Rob Corddry (Daily Show correspondent):

• The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.

Jimmy Kimmel:

• You know what they say, if Dick Cheney comes out of his hole and shoots an old man in the face, six more weeks of winter.
• But all kidding aside, and in fairness to Dick Cheney, every five years he has to shed innocent blood or he violates his deal with the devil.
• So in summary, the Vice President of the United States shot a 78-year-old man in the face. Congratulations Mister Vice President, you are now a Crip.
• It's part of the president's new Social Security plan. Once you hit 78, kablamo.

Room temperature tabletop nuclear fusion confirmed

Tabletop nuclear fusion device developed

The device, which uses two opposing crystals to generate a powerful electric field, could potentially lead to a portable, battery-operated neutron generator for a variety of applications ...

“Our study shows that ‘crystal fusion’ is a mature technology ...

The device is essentially a tabletop particle accelerator. At its heart are two opposing “pyroelectric” crystals that create a strong electric field when heated or cooled. The device is filled with deuterium gas — a more massive cousin of hydrogen with an extra neutron in its nucleus. The electric field rips electrons from the gas, creating deuterium ions and accelerating them into a deuterium target on one of the crystals. When the particles smash into the target, neutrons are emitted, which is the telltale sign that nuclear fusion has occurred ...

Cool.

Kilngon Recipes

Vegetarian Lasagna
SERVES 4-8

Invite a vegetarian over for tea. Politely inquire about his degenerate lifestyle in order to lull him into a false sense of security. When he lowers his guard, beat him to death with a sack of phone books.
...


Home-Style Gagh
SERVES 1-2

Find someone who has already prepared some home-style gagh. Kill him/her in honorable combat and take his/her gagh. Serve cold and enjoy.

Klingon Fairy Tales are amusing as well:

"Mary Had a Little Lamb. It Was Delicious"

"The Hare Foolishly Lowers His Guard and Is Devastated by the Tortoise, Whose Prowess in Battle Attracts Many Desirable Mates"

The 2006 Winter Olympics

No one reads blogs on weekends. None of you are actually seeing this until Monday at work. Well anyway, the Olympics started today.

The opening ceremony was yesterday and boy what a ceremony it was. Some cheeseball sang Imagine and Yoko Ono pleaded for world peace. There were cows on skis, people crawling up ropes, strange Italian alphabetizing ... and all to a relentless soundtrack of 80's tunes.

Why they chose a repertoire of nothing but English language 80's songs I have no idea. It was bizarre, though I did find it funny that this huge international sporting event was inaugurated to The Village People.

I'm watching the USA/Switzerland women's hockey game right now. We look alot better. Canada is still the best, as it should be I suppose, but we'll give them a run for their money. I predict US vs. Canada in the gold medal match.

Our men's hockey team usually doesn't do as well because most of the good NHL players are from Canada and Russia. The Czechs are always good (they won the gold 8 years ago, but with the best goalie in the world it was hardly fair) and the nordic countries have good showings.

I think our best year ever was 1998 in Japan when our team got eliminated in the first round and then trashed their hotels (the same year the underdog Czechs took gold). Keepin' it classy, America. Keepin' it classy.

I always like to see the Czechs do well because they have a unique style of hockey (the fact that I went to Prague and loved it doesn't hurt). They rely on finesse rather than brutality. Of course we all love the violent nature of hockey, but it's admirable to see an entire team devoted to finesse. They're like the Wayne Gretzky of international hockey, ... except without all the glory and winning... oooor his smokin' hot wife who has just been indicted for gambling.

I, for one, am devastated by this tragedy. Impugning The Great One's honor is unacceptable. This is a disgrace. IS THERE NO JUSTICE?

But anyway, if you want to see finesse-style play in the NHL, it's the Pittsburgh Penguins. Maybe not so much anymore, but they used to get alot of their players from the Czech Rep. Of course there's a reason why the mostly Russian team, the Detroit Redwings, wins all the time and is known for being thugs (Vlad the Impaler has got to be the coolest nickname ever given to any sports figure ever).

Interesting tidbit, Mexico did not field a team at all.

GoogleFight

Here's a site where you can put in two search items and see which one returns the most results. I'm sure there's a good use for this, but I don't know what it is. "Michigan" beats "Ohio State" by roughly 300 million hits, a ratio of 2:1.

Steak and BJ Day

Since Valentine's Day is coming soon and it appears some commenters (not RCR) are still unaware of it's existence, let me introduce you to Steak and Blowjob Day. It's the male Valentine's Day and it's celebrated on March 14th.

Guys, make sure your gf's know about it and this is why you need to make Valentine's Day special for her. Dinner, candles, and some wildcard '"special" gift that shows her you care about her enough to make it should do it. A Hallmark card suffices for some couples, but it seems to me if you're considering marrying someone, you'd do something nicer. A friend of mine got engaged on Valentine's Day, for example. And you know what she wants later on, because we value it so much we created a holiday dedicated to it.

Ladies, there's nothing creative you have to do for S&BJ Day. The name pretty much says it all. Don't forget to make it "full service" either, the one he wants (if she doesn't know just tell her).

As for me, I'm probably going to go out and try to score with the lonely women who will be out too. Heh, heh! Well it's true.

What's up with fake referral logs?

I checked my referral logs today and this came up. Warning, it's a blog full of hot naked ladies, so don't go there unless you want to see that. Of course there's no link to Seattle Scribe there. WTF?

I'm not really complaining in this particular case, but I get alot of these occurrences. Most of them are to blogs written in Spanish or something. Is this a form of spamming? Why would a blog that isn't trying to sell anything do that?

UPDATE: Upon further, um, research, the linked site leads eventually to pay sites. But that doesn't explain why ones like this one keep showing up in my referral logs.

Whoa.... duuuuuude....

You know how there's always some stoner who remarks on how impressed he is by his hands? This must be what he saw.

Shower thoughts

I was listening to NPR in the shower when I heard a blurb about some place switching to an "all male" voting system.

It's about damn time, I started saying to myself, when I realized they meant an "all mail" voting system.

You asked for it, you got it

Extreme knitting

My favorite is the pink unicorn spearing the teddybear to death.

Seattle has a bad reputation/pool talk

Just look at this insulting Super Bowl pic. Seattle's image needs help.

This reminds me of a question I wanted to put to you guys. Is it ok to use the bridge in pool? I was playing a game against some dudes at D&H (Dexter and Hayes, the local bar which apparently is the central site of all my social interaction). This guy kept using the bridge and I made fun of him for playing by "Seattle rules". I was told this was normal.

Now I don't know about you guys, but in my mind using the bridge while playing pool is akin to purchasing an entire outfit to match your new purse. I barely won the game (I'm not very good) but I kept thinking "what a pansy!" the entire time.

Since we don't want to do away with the one-foot-on-the-floor rule, only if you simply physically cannot reach the shot should you be allowed to use the bridge. And I want to see you try behind the back first. I want to see you lean way over the table and give it a good effort (especially if you're a woman). None of that using the bridge all the time just to get a better shot. Use it to get a shot at all.

You weren't doing anything anyway

Another Yeti game.

The first post on a new blog always feels fresh

Like a glass of lukewarm corner gas station bourbon and stale cigarettes. Ahh! That hits the spot.

This really isn't much of a change of course, using the same template and all, but it did require a bit of behind the scenes tinkering to make the transition easy. It's all part of my tireless efforts to bring to you, dear reader, a seamless string of inconsistent diatribes. Now go fishslap that monkey and be done with it!

I also finally got around to fixing the sidebar links. Welcome to Neckfro, whatever the fuck that means (I really hope it's not the mental image I have right now). Neckfro is a college buddy of JB's who I've met a couple times off and on since college. We ate mushrooms once in college and again on the 2000 New Years. I don't remember much from that night except my old Chicago roommate taking the largest chug of Jagermeister I've ever seen, I mean like several mouthfuls, and RCR doing a mini-cheerleading thing in honor of "time moving on" which still causes giggles. RCR and JB were there of course, so this story is really kind of pointless since all 3 people who read this blog were there.

The only other person who may stop by here is this crazy Australian guy I'm going to just call T for now who I met at the bar (he swears he's from Manchester, but you know how them Brits lie, I mean Aussies). T likes to sit at the booth by the door and read books on Friday nights. At least he gets out folks. We're going to work him up to accepting free beer any week now. He sports an interesting black jacket. It's what you would expect a goth Sherlock Holmes to wear.

So now that I've alienated you all, and procrastinated from work for quite awhile, I think maybe I'll go get something done. Nnnnn... in a minute. It's heady days here at world headquarters. Especially for me the CTO (I promoted myself from Chief Engineer because I can).

I went to my friend Bob's house for the SuperBowl. Yes, we lost. That sucks. Bob isn't his real name, but he's a tall black guy with dreads, so he's getting referenced to Bob Marley. He's another person I met at the bar (the bar across the street features prominently in my life). He couldn't leave home because he has an 8 year old daughter. She was pretty cool I guess, as cool as an 8 year old can be anyway. She found it extremely funny that I could burp on command so of course I did so, copiously. I thought she was going to pee her pants. Yes, I'm reduced to burping for 8 year olds for an ego boost.

Bachelor cooking report: I just polished off my last can of ravioli, so I'm only 6 cans of tuna and 8 Cup -o- Noodles away from starving. ( ... if only I could lift my arm and speak, I could order a pizza ... no, [cough, cough] no fresh tomatoes, substitute roasted garlic ...) I made nachos the other day with cut up chunks of Spam which I had sautéed in olive oil and garlic (seriously). I'm out of hotdogs, but I have some hot italian sausages that I'll probably slice up and put in some spaghetti. Looking at the remnants of the case of Mac and Cheese makes me a little nauseous, but eventually hunger will override that. Normally I wouldn't condone snacking on croutons, but since I have no lettuce it's fine.

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