Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Hilarity Ensueth

On my iPod, I have a place where I can write notes to myself. A few months ago, after noticing that I rarely use it, I decided to fill the time that I spent on a bus heading to college by typing in random thoughts. Most of these thoughts are either merely random boring phrases, or are useful ideas for stories which I don't wish to disclose, but I have two of the more entertaining notes posted here.



The first note is:

Guy goes onto his run down shed and finds out that it has been taken over by a giant clump of grass.

Hilarity ensueth.

...with, as an afterthought:

Actually, the guy should have a philosophical conversation with the grass. That would be funny.



The second note simply says:



Apple farm.

Apples become sentient?

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Munchies

Aw, no good. You've got my munchies all milk-logged. I can't even call them 'munchies' anymore. They don't munch. They're sloppys. Do you want a sloppy? Yeah, me neither. Pass the milk.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A quote.

I think everyone should get cheese with their whine. Then maybe they would cheer up. Because, hey, cheese.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Knuckle Cracking

This year's Ig Nobel Award in Medicine went to Doctor Donald L. Unger, who cracked just the knuckles in his left hand for 60 years, keeping his right hand uncracked, in order to test the theory that knuckle cracking causes arthritis. He proved it false. 

http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N41/ignobels.html

Monday, December 21, 2009

abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz

Have a merry Noel.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

C-c-cold

Tonight, I felt a little sick, and so drove home from church before the evening service. I discovered once I got back home that I did not have my key to the house with me.

Now, on one occasion in the past, when the rest of my family locked me out of the house, I have managed to  brake into it. (... Yeah, that's right, I drove right towards it, and then put on the brakes as I smashed into the side of the house. >< Darn spelling mistakes... Anyway...) The most successful method is to climb from our second-story porch onto the roof, and walk along it to the third-story window, which is usually unlocked. Sadly, that window was not unlocked today.

So I ended up on the roof in the dark, having just come to the realization that I was trapped outside the house for the next two hours. Also, it was raining. And I was in my good Sunday clothes, which aren't the best for climbing up roofs in. And I mentioned I was sick, right? And... on the roof?

I managed to climb down, which coincidentally is a bit tougher than climbing up, and I had to sit in my car until my family got back. On the bright side, it was kinda spooky to sit in the car at night, so I had fun. And I read a lot of The Grapes of Wrath. But it did get increasingly colder in the car, and I don't have a whole lot of body fat to protect me in the first place. I appreciate being warm much better right. And I'm feeling less sick. Maybe I killed my virus.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Internet Libraries

Internet libraries are an excellent idea, and would be a large step toward solving the problem of illegal internet downloads.

Let's first look at the analog world. Here in real life, there are three options if someone wants to get a book, listen to music, or watch a movie. He must either 1) pay for it, either by buying at a store or watching in a theatre, 2) steal it, or 3) check it out from a library. All three options have their downside. Number one costs money, number two risks punishment and/or moral degeneration, and number three is temporary, takes longer, and sometimes doesn't work, if the book or dvd is rare.

Now, over on the online world, there are only two options if someone wants music, a movie, or a book. He must either 1) pay for it (through iTunes, Kindle, ect.) or 2) steal it. There is very little downside to stealing, as it is nearly impossible to be punished for it. Although some music companies have tried to sue people who have illegally downloaded music, their efforts haven't made a significant difference, since there are hundreds of millions of people, and they can only sue a handful. Depending on your point of view, some of the moral problems with stealing music online are diminished, too, since no one actually loses the music, you just make a copy.

But think about it. With libraries, the real world has presented an extra option, which everyone is satisfied with. Technically, authors everywhere should be complaining, since libraries only pay for a book once, but then lend it to hundreds of people, who all read it. The author only gets one royalty even though he is read hundreds of times. This is the same thing that happens online, where music is only bought once, but is then distributed to thousands of other people. But at libraries, nobody complains. Why? Because people are used to it, and everyone expects it. And also because authors know that the word-of-mouth will help them become more prolific.

So, since libraries work so well in the real world, I think it's high time that we got some electronic versions on the internet. People who don't want to steal, but also can't afford to buy everything they want would finally have another option. In addition, one of the problems with physical libraries would be solved; no wait time. There would still be a few downsides to it; the more rare things will probably still be hard to find, and I would recommend making the downloads temporary, in keeping with physical libraries.

And yes, before anyone mentions it, I do know that there are a few online libraries available. None of them have nearly as large a collection of books, and I don't know of any that offer movies and music.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Irish and Celtic Music

For those of you out there who like Celtic music, there's a free (and legal) source out there at the Web site: http://www.celticmusicpodcast.com/

There's 70+ hours of it by now, so you won't run out for a while. Most of it's even good, too. It's a pretty high quality podcast.

A Follow Up on "Irony Abounds"

Actually, I can't think of any jackalopes that I know that are majestic. Jackalopes are just not majestic.

MLIA



''Last night some friends and I went to Toys R Us at midnight with about a thousand other eager Black Friday shoppers. Except we weren't there to shop. We were dressed as Spartans, and we walked up and down the line, and shouted out a speech encouraging our fellow warriors to stay strong and take heart in the upcoming battle for their children's happiness. MLIA''


I am SO doing that next year. 


Seriously.

Irony Abounds

I just tried to go to the blog of a friend of mine, but I got a page about the link being broken. The blog title starts with "Problematic".

Irony is a boundin' over the hills like a majestic jackalope.

I always thought that irony would look like a jackalope when it abounds. I think this came from watching that Pixar short about a jackalope called "Boundin'". I didn't really like that short much, though... I think that the one about a magic act that just came out with WALL-E is much better.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Me Online #3

#THREE: goulash


Last year I was bored so I tricked a music website into thinking that I was a band.


http://www.mp3.com/artist/goulash/summary/

I basically became an artist on the website by finding the one sub-sub-sub genre that requires the least talent and hard work ("lo-fi indy alternative anti-folk music", in case anyone's wondering) and then (badly) recorded myself saying very weird poems in a sing-song manner.

Now the website thinks I'm a professional artist. ... yeah. I also fooled PureVolume.com, a slightly more prestigious music site, with the help of my account on mp3.com, and gained an account there. Last.fm is a little harder, so I haven't bothered to get onto it.



This is the last in this series of posts, so if you guys were getting bored with hearing of my exploits, fear not. You're safe, or at least until I do something else significant on the internet.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Labels

I have added an option to let viewers see the sundry labels that I have used on my posts. They're really weird and random, so I thought I'd share the fun.

Let's play a game...

Quick! Think of the next thing in the sequence!


Pirates

Haunted Mansion

Lost Island of the Dinosaurs and Cavemen

Moon Journy

~?~

Merry Christmas

I'm thinking of completing those tags that I have as a Christmas present for you all.... What do you think? Too soon? Maybe I should wait until Easter.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Bartitsu: the Steampunk Martial Art

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/mamatas_12_09/

Apparently, there is a type of martial art that modifies jujutsu to incorporate the walking canes carried by gentlemen of the Victorian era.

An except from the article explains it well:

"Bartitsu was the brainchild of Edward Barton-Wright, an English engineer who, while in Japan, was taken with a demonstration of jujutsu—itself almost a catch-all term for systems of Japanese grappling with a dash of striking. He quickly took up the art himself. After learning a smattering of judo (sport-oriented grappling) as well, he returned to England and soon set about making himself a public expert on matters of self-defense for the urban upper classes. Barton-Wright's earliest public demonstrations and publications displayed simple jujutsu skills, but soon he expanded his system. Adding boxing, savate (French kickboxing), canne de combat, and a smattering of Western wrestling styles to the Eastern arts, Barton-Wright unveiled bartitsu to the world in 1898.
One could call bartitsu the first modern mixed-martial art and it was certainly one of the first self-conscious attempts to mix Western and Eastern self-defense techniques. Barton-Wright recognized that fights have various ranges. The cane—and no gentlemen ever went without a walking stick of some sort—extends one's reach and lets a fellow defeat an opponent without dirtying his hands or coat. At a closer range the fist and foot come into play, and jujutsu and wrestling are necessary to deal with one's opponent’s boxing skills."

That's right, it's a real live martial art perfect for steampunk stories. I'll certainly have to incorporate it into mine...

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty












They're all from Unrelated Captions.


I like 'em.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

11

I just noticed that according to my calendar, over in the right-hand column, I have 11 posts during the months of November and October. I also have 1 post each for August, September, and December.

Which struck me as oddly entertaining.

.

..

...

Well, you don't have to look so unimpressed. Gosh.




(Sadly, this post will make 2 for December, but I can always do another 9 after this one...)

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Youtubers...

...are some of the stupidest people on the internet. It's like all the intelligent people know to stay away from posting on the videos. Instead, the only two types left are the stupid people who think that they're smart and the people who was just plain stupid. And three fourths of the time, they're simply insulting each other.

Now, one of the phrases that the ones who think they're smart are fond of repeating whenever the stupider ones complain about a video is, "If you don't like it, you don't have to watch it."

On the surface, this seems like an intelligent statement. But think about it some more. If that advice were followed, all the videos on Youtube would have glowing recommendations, regardless of how good they were. Telling people to leave when they don't like something doesn't actually make sense. People should be able to give their opinion, regardless of whether it said opinion fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.

So that's my rant on Youtube posters.

...

Actually, let me keep going. They have a collective intellect only rivaled only by garden tools. Their IQs are the same as the room temperature. On a cold day. There are enough idiots on Youtube to supply several billion villages. If you gave them a penny for their thoughts, you'd get change. Most of them have minds like a steel trap: rusty and illegal in 37 states. If you put one of their brains on the edge of a razor blade, it would be like putting a BB on a four-lane highway. They would all lose a debate with a doorknob, and you can tell by watching them arguing, since that's about how smart they are.

And I'm allowed to insult them because I do it in funny ways. >nod<

Don't worry, I'll try to make my next post a little less negative and condemning.