headcount

49 candymunchers.

Goe, counted.

Day Zero

nanowrimo starts tomorrow. trying to write another ghost story tonight, trick-or-treaters coming mostly in twos or threes.

Goe, would like some good news for a change.

Plague

Came to a television near me. Scarier than most of the horror films on this past week.

Goe, thankful for modern medicine.

Some Quotes

'Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?' But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved…

Memri

I think of those famous words of a Holocaust survivor. Asked what lesson he had drawn from the experience, he answered, "When someone tells you he wants to kill you, believe him."

Impromptus

Goe, believes them even if Bush doesn't.

SCOTUS

I'd like to point out that I'd accept if anyone wanted to nominate me =-]

Goe, without a law degree or a chance.

Fiction for Fun!

more stories are up.

Goe, needs to write some more.

The Sucking Bandwagon

People like to jump on bandwagons. There's probably some deep psychological reason for it, but I don't know what it is. Right now, over at Broken Toys, there's a lot of bashing of Jack Thompson. I haven't been following this closely because it's not the sort of thing I normally have any interest in. It would seem that Jack Thompson has had some not very nice things to say about computer games and the people who play them. While he goes a bit overboard, the heart of his position is that people will soak up information, behaviors, and viewpoints from games and project those into their real lives, and that children are being subjected to a variety of bad information, behaviors, and viewpoints via their computer games, and that the computer game writers bear responbility when it spills over into those children's real lives.

He's wrong in that parents bear the responsibility for any crossover between fictional worlds and the real world in their children's perceptions. Only a bad parent would let their kid play a game where they torture small furry animals or kebob kitties, just as only a bad parent would let their kid stay up all night watching (surfing?) porn, snuff films, or go to law school.

He's right when he says that the artificial realities we partake in everytime we enjoy a bit of fiction have an impact on how we interact in the real world. Sometimes the impact is negligible, sometimes it is tremendous. In 1990, over 120 billion dollars were spent to exploit this. It is the heart and soul of the advertising industry.

Scott's Bandwagon doesn't believe in advertising. Not just that it doesn't work despite thousands of studies (probably an average of one per product, service, or image marketed; they each have their own study to demonstrate that they reach their target audience successfully or generate a list of recommended improvements). Scott's fanbase believes advertising doesn't exist. That people are not being influenced to do things that they wouldn't normally do. That every concept, for better or worse, is entirely self-derived. They believe that they each live in a vaccuum. It would suck, if it were true.

Goe, doesn't live in any major appliance.

Odds and ends

Was helping someone with some home repairs when a piece of wood flew out of a wall (the wall was old and being flexed a little at the time, no malicious intent that I know of). It proved too tempting...


Goe, happy it didn't hit him in the head.

Discovering Stupidity.

I saw an ad for halloween costumes "used and previously owned". Then, on the Discovery Channel, there was an ad where a kid trying to learn about the elements, learned that "different elements are made of different atoms". Every person who was paid to review that ad before it aired should be bitchslapped.

Goe, glad that some people pay attention to details.

woot

it turns out that characters and plotting are not cheating in nanowrimo, as long as i don't start writing the story early.

so here goes some character names.

good guys
Selfless Sacrifice.
Snobby Elfwitch.
Uncanny Engineer.
Stupid Goon.
Idiot Goon.
Misunderstood Hero.
Omniscient Gadgeteer.
Dandy Fop.
Noreach Axemaster.
Ancient Advisor.
Feral Ninjababe.


bad guys
Evil Villain.
Reluctant Villain.
Incompetant Villain.

Goe, will figure out more later.

hehehe

Gotta beauty for you: Abimael Guzmán, the Shining Path leader in Peru, has denied that he is a terrorist. (Guzmán is standing trial in Lima.) According to the AP, “Guzmán, a 70-year-old former philosophy professor, said he was a leader of the Communist Party, not a terrorist.”

A reading of history will suggest that there is no great difference.

- Impromptus

Goe, hates commies

YES

Somebody gets it.

Goe, noting that with him and rachmeg, that's at least 3.

nanowrimo

been thinking about trying it.

Goe, thinks a lot.

stories

more everytime you turn around.

Goe, wishes he were a better writer.

Ebert & the skinny one

was flipping channels last night and caught their show. the skinny one didn't like the wererabbit. during the review of clooney's new film, the skinny one claimed that it was really about fox news bullying critics of the bush administration into silence. obviously if this is true they weren't doing a very good job because he was talking. and he forgot that MoveOn.org was created to bully critics of the Clinton administration into silence. they are neither silent nor were able to force anyone else into silence. the film in question is about edward r. murrow contribution to stopping the mccarthy hearings, leaving government employees free to support foreign genocidal dictatorships (mccarthy never investigated people who weren't government employees, and was pretty good at finding the communists thanks to actually having had a list of who they were. because clooney believes that if someone wants to kill you and your family and your friends and everyone you've met, they should be running a large government agency...

Goe, doesn't want to die.

Wererabbit

HILARIOUS!!!!

IT WAS SO FUNNY I CAN'T TURN OFF MY CAPS!!!!

GOE, HUMMING THE MUSIC.

HSX

I played the hollywood stock exchange a lot about 6 years ago, and now I check it every few months. am still in the low 4000's. since they give you 'interest', once your fortune is big enough, you dont even have to play to stay semi-competitive.

Goe, wishes more things were that easy.

Censorship

Euroweenies want censorship.

As long as the US runs the internet (which it created) then anybody can post whatever stupid thing pops into their head. Nobody else likes that because people might post something they disagree with.

Hoorah Free Speech before it's gone.

Goe, Hoorah!

Day 127

of the missing teen in Aruba, and generalissimo franco is still dead. a "political consultant" was on local news saying that the supreme court will soon be making decisions on states rights vs federalism. apparently knowing what federalism is is not a requirement of being a political consultant. why don't these people have any pride in their work? why do they think it's fine to do such a crappy job?

Goe, wants to smack them with a large partially rotten fish.

Wow

it turns out that Rumsfeld is an idiot. The army used to balance vehicles between firepower, speed/portability, and armor. Then, during the Clinton Administration, the Pentagon decided that they could have all three! Rumsfeld agreed and kept all the 'new' systems development that had all three while scrapping the 'older' designs that only had one or two. Turns out that the laws of phsyics trump Pentagon planning.

Reminds me that the lesson learned most when the military is testing vehicles or systems on one of the proving grounds is that water freezes at 32 degrees.

Goe, smarter than the pentagon.

M.I.T. loves genocide!

Instapundit linked a protest photo site. i poked around a bit, and found this (last picture and description). it seemed awfully wrong, but not beyong the capacity of the u.n. so i looked around some more, couldn't find any references to cambodia being kept out of the u.n., they were admitted with a bunch of other countries in 1955. so maybe the truth isn't there... but i did find something even better. a rebuttal of chomsky's support for murdering millions in the cause of 'social justice' or whatnot. the site is like a collection of all the stuff the museum of communism hasn't gotten around to putting up yet.

Goe, knows that most surviving khmer rouge leaders are still welcome the world over.