the once and future pip

I need crap

2005-03-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

I mean stuff, send me your stuff. Junk. Trash. Whatever you do, don't send me crap.

Here's the deal: as a web designer, I spend 50% of every working day tweaking numbers so that things line up just.... right. Which means, when I dabble in arts on my own time, I want something I can slap glue on and stick to a wall.

And I need junk to do this.

I call my art "mixed media," because "collage" makes me sound like a 14-year-old girl with a can of mucilage and a copy of Vogue. Basically, mixed media means I do whatever unholy shit I want to a canvas, as long as I stick it in a frame afterwards.

It was all fun and games, of course, until someone offered me $700 for a piece that took me 30 minutes to create. Now, I'm thinking it might be worth the time to continue.

So... I need junk, and better junk than I have around here. European junk, for example, is great. By junk I mean flat junk - bits of posters, flyers that have been left out in the rain, neat leaves, old photographs, bits of sheet music, pages of old books - any little scrap of paper-ish material that is rare or unique in any way.

Torn scraps are great.

If you've got any such nonsense, don't throw it a way! Help a guy out, and let me know that you've got it, and what it is. I'll send you a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and you can mail it to me.

Please?

iWhack

2005-03-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

I have some ideas for add-ons to Apple's venerable iLife series. These contributions would help to diversify the Mac community, and bring greater functionality to new user demographics.

I present the first two titles in the iPip series....

iWhack

iWhack will revolutionize the way you view internet pornography. Manage your prodigious collection with iWhack's powerful and elegant set of organizational tools. Arrange your various MPEG, Quicktime, and Windows Media files by artist, genre, keywords, and your own quality rating.

Is Thursday night goat night? Why waste perfectly good time rummaging through your old clips, listening for the telltale bray? Create a "Goats" playlist, and you and your old sock are ready for a night of romance.

Getting ready for a big date? Want a quick way to relax? Use iWhack's "Quickie" feature to make the most of a hurried situation. iWhack will automatically choose the most effective clips (based on how long you've let them play in the past) and display them for you in the iWhack window.

iBlather

Instant messaging for the rest of you.

iBlather allows you to participate in audio, video, and text conferences with the only person you can really trust... yourself.

Because, after all, you never know if the person on the other end of your instant messenging client is really a CIA agent, trying to determine the weaknesses of your alumnium foil mind-shield.

And now, with iSight integration, you can see yourself in stunningly clear VGA video. Watch over your own shoulder for alien abductors while you explain your UFO theories to yourself. Record "in the event of my death" videos to email to your family, friends, and the media.

Leave the pills behind, and let iBlather integrate your clandestine missions with your online life.

Going to hell

2005-03-01T06:59:00.000-08:00

This is hardly worth posting, but what the hell; it's not like I'm wasting paper or something.

I finally broke down and took one of those online tests. Guess what? I'm going to hell.

The second level, to be exact.

Here's what the Dante's Inferno Test had to say:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!

You have come to a place mute of all light, where the wind bellows as the sea does in a tempest. This is the realm where the lustful spend eternity. Here, sinners are blown around endlessly by the unforgiving winds of unquenchable desire as punishment for their transgressions. The infernal hurricane that never rests hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them. You have betrayed reason at the behest of your appetite for pleasure, and so here you are doomed to remain. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy are two that share in your fate.

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Level Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers) Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) Low
Level 2 (Lustful) Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous) Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) Very Low
Level 7 (Violent) Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

"Very High" in lust. Low to moderate in everything else. Go figure.

Secret's out.

2005-02-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

Take a look. If you don't get the irony, then God help you.

I really have nothing more to say here, but the template modification puts a "Read more" link there whether I like it or not.

So now comes the uncomfortable silence where I try to say something to fill the space. It's like the blogging equivalent of the following conversation:

"Hey, I heard this funny story about a cat that ate a used condom."
"Yeah? Tell me."
"Actually, that was it. The cat ate the condom."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"So... nice weather, huh?"

You will give me paper towels...

2005-02-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

The lavatory at work just got one of these new-fangled paper towel dispensers with the electric eye. Y'know, the kind you wave your hand in front of to get your four-square-inch towel.

Does anybody else ever feel like they're performing the Jedi Mind Trick on those things?

In honor of Smivey:

Electric-eye paper towel dispensers, you suck.

The Great Spambot Invasion

2005-02-22T13:55:00.000-08:00

If you’re reading this, I may already be dead. Pay attention: our very lives may be in danger. I have uncovered a plot by spambots to take over the world.

No, think about it: first they were just in email, right? Randomly emailing folk with made-up names, advertising viagra and mortgage refinancing. they’d slip their nasty little bot fingers into webpages and steal email addresses for their dirty little lists, but at least you could stop them with decent spam blockers.

But then…then they spread to chat rooms, telling people they were 18/f , asking people if they wanted to see naked pictures on their profile. Fourteen-year-old kids tried to cyber with them, only to find they needed to enter daddy’s credit card to get any further. I once witnessed an entire aol chat room filled with nothing but spambots, talking to each other. Most of it was garbage, but it may have been in code:

wellhung42: guess what!
1983virgin: that’s great. would you like to see my profile? http://profile.chatclient.com/1983virgin
moneyman: hey guys.
wellhung42: any guys who want the secret to prolonged erection, IM me!
1983virgin: really? that’s very sexy. i’m a lonely cheerleeder, sitting around in my underwear. look at my profile!
moneyman: i have a great business opportunity for you guys…

But then we learned to block them out (or got hobbies and migrated out of the chat rooms), and they had to evolve again…

Now they’ve spread to blogs. I just spent… well, five minutes, but still… perusing Blogger “blogs” that were really ads for casinos and pocket bikes (whatever the hell that is). If they keep evolving like this, it’s only a matter of time before they spread to the computers that control our defense grids and demand that we buy cialis or face our immediate extermination. I've seen War Games; I know the score.

Expect the unexpected

2005-02-21T11:05:00.000-08:00

"Unexpectedly?" To whom?

Microsoft Entourage for Mac quits "unexpectedly" ten to twelve times a day. It quits when you start emails. It quits when you read them. It quits when the fax machine down the hall beeps too loudly.

I'd have to be mentally deficient not to expect it.

Enlightenment at 4 a.m.

2005-02-20T04:15:00.000-08:00

Very tired but want to tell you about this amazing insight I just had cause I'm not sure I'll remember it in the morning. I believe that teh meaning we as a species have been looking for canvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Elton Octopus

2005-02-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

Doc Ock and Elton John. Coincidence? I think not.

Have you ever seen them in a room together? Not I.

Tsunami Relief

2005-02-16T08:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not very fond of actively promoting social awareness, so believe me when I say that this hurts me more than it hurts you.

But seriously. Donate something. Ten bucks. Five. Something. My aversion to Sally Struthers aside, the cost of a Big Mac could seriously provide some Sudanese kid with enough penicillin to kill a life-threatening wound infection.

That issue of Barely Legal you were planning on buying later (or maybe Grandmother's Milk, for all I know, you hypothetical pervert) could be a meal to three starving, newly homeless families somewhere in Indonesia.

It's easy to let the news reports and publicized body counts morph into abstract numbers in our head. Over 100,000 dead? We can't even visualize those kinds of numbers. But while we can snap off CNN when the reality gets a bit gritty for us, the tsunami victim's can't. That's their life.

So help them out a little. Please.

Action Against Hunger

American Red Cross

ARC via Amazon

American Jewish World Service

AmeriCares

Asia Foundation

BAPS Care International

CARE

Direct Relief International

Chain Letters to Cleo

2005-02-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

I hate chain letters. I hate them a lot. But when I kept receiving chain letters from the same person, I thought I’d give the whole thing a shot. Did I pass it on? No… but I wrote my own:

(i’ve added the haphazard > things for authenticity.)

> >> >>Grant Martin, 32, of Rochester, N.Y., received
> >> >>an email message from his younger sister, Gwendolin.
> >> >>Gwendolin had been epileptic since birth, and suffered
> >> >>from grand mal seizures that were incredibly
> >> >>painful and dangerous.
> >> >>
> >> >>The message said “Pass this along to twenty people in the next
> >> >>five minutes, and your wish will be granted.”
> >> >>
> >> >>Attached to the bottom of chain letter was a note from his
> >> >>sister: “Grant - I know you don’t believe in this
> >> >>stuff, but if you could find it in your heart to believe — just believe — this
> >> >>once, I know I can finally be
> >> >>free of this eplilepsy that has plagued me since birth. You’ve always
> >> >>been the best big brother..
> >> >>you’ve always looked out for me, and I know you’ll look out for me this time too.”
> >> >>
> >> >>Grant was so moved by the message that he immediately forwarded
> >> >>the chain letter to everyone he
> >> >>knew, and sent his sister a response, saying, “I believe.”
> >> >>
> >> >>He shut down his computer, smiled, and walked out the door.
> >> >>
> >> >>And was hit by a Greyhound bus.
> >> >>
> >> >>******************************************
> >> >>The moral is this: God hates chain letters.
> >> >>
> >> >>Send this to 1,200 of your closest friends in the next forty-
> >> >>seven seconds, or you will be anally violated by a
> >> >>mountain goat.
> >> >>

Superman: The Movie

2005-02-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

First of all, I understand that it’s fiction. And I’m willing to accept the notion of a space alien with the power to fly, see through stuff, and wear primary colors without looking stupid. But there were still some things in this movie that just can’t be reckoned with.

The plot goes like this: Marlon Brando and his wife have discovered that their home planet of Krypton (which is, apparently, an English-speaking planet) is going to blow up. Why? Who knows, but the fact that all the office buildings are made out of crystals might have something to do with it.

Brando attempts to convince a bunch of guys in foil jumpsuits to evacuate, but they threaten to squish him in a windowpane and launch him into space.

So… he makes a giant Christmas ornament for his son to escape Krypton in. Then he and his wife have a painfully expository conversation about the powers he will have on earth. Then they launch him into space, wrapped in a blanket of primary colors (although the only colors we’ve seen on Krypton so far have been silver, black, and clear - and clear’s not even a color), where he floats around for about three years.

His spaceship crash-lands on Earth. The big burnt ball nearly hits two old people in a truck, and a three-year-old climbs out. So naturally the old people adopt him, and use him as a human jack.

Skip 15 years or so. Pa Kent dies of a heart attack, after the Man of Steel challenges him to a race (Nice, Clark. What's next? Arm-wrestle grandma?), and Clark gives us the first hint of his obsessive Messiah complex ("…. all my powers, all the things I can do, and I couldn’t even save him…") and finds a green crystal in the storm cellar. So what does he do? Well, he does what any red-blooded 18-year-old would do with a green crystal: he walks to Antarctica with it.

Clark throws the green crystal in the water, and we find out how contractors work on Krypton; the green crystal becomes a big building, in which Marlon Brando’s floating head teaches Clark everything he needs to know about being a relocated Kryptonian. The instruction takes, apparently, 12 years; during this time, Clark’s weird blanket (which was shiny and metallic) becomes his super suit (which is now matte and elastic), and he wears the seal of his father (”S” for “Jor-El”).

So Clark pretends to be a geek and moves to Metropolis, where he gets a job as a guy who sits around in front of a typewriter and harrasses the reporters. He meets a homely, skinny reporter named Lois Lane and immediately falls in love with her. This is probably due to the fact that he is from a rural farming town and she looks like she could be related to him.

Eventually, she gets herself into some mortal danger, as people do around Clark. He’s kind of like Jessica from Murder She Wrote: everywhere she went, people died. Why did nobody ever investigate her? But I digress.

Clark immediately rips off his shirt, revealing that he has been wearing his ridiculous supersuit this entire time, as if it were some sort of thermal underwear. I get that part, but the cape - where has he been keeping the cape?

Then there’s a lot of him going around saving stuff. He stops a cat burgler and some bank robbers, saves the president’s plane, and returns a cat to its neglectful owner. Yay Superman.

Now we meet Lex Luthor, a nefarious real estate agent who lives in an abandoned train station with a retard and a blonde. Not very intimidating. Lex has a plan to launch nuclear missles, but we don’t know why yet (duh-nuhnuhnuh!).

We cut back and forth for a while: Superman, Lex, Superman, Lex, ad tedium. The only remarkable moment in this exchange is a scene in which Superman takes Lois flying - and she repays him by assaulting us with terrible mental poetry: "I don't know who you are... just a friend from another star." No, really. I couldn't make this stuff up. Apparently, it takes a multi-million dollar production team to do that.

Lex gets the retard and the blonde to sneak onto the nuclear missles - while they're in transit - and change coordinates. Apparently, the U.S. military transports nuclear missles on clearly marked trucks with the missles sticking up for everyone to see. They also transport said missles with a convoy of 5 or 6 guys, all of which are really easily distracted.

Oh yeah, and Lex figures out the kryptonite angle, by a stretch of logic that escapes me. The yellow sun makes him strong, so rocks must make him weak. No, wait, the gravitational pull makes him strong, so kittens must make him... fuck, I give up.

This having been done, Lex calls Superman to his abandoned train station using an ultra-high frequency. Why he assumes that Superman can hear this, I don't know, but he's right. He tries to shoot him, burn him, freeze him, and eventually talk him to death, but to no avail. So instead, in the tradition of all the best Bond movies, he explains his plan to him before attempting to kill him.

Luthor goes to great length to explain why he has decided to nuke California: he's bought a lot of shit land in Nevada that will become very valuable beachfront property when everthing west of the San Andreas Fault Line sinks into the ocean. He has visual aids and everything. It really is an A+ report.

Then he drops another bomb (pun intended): there's another nuke on its way to New Jersey. Why? I don't know. Maybe because the retard screwed it up earlier, and maybe it's plan B. Whatever.

Meanwhile the U.S. military has launched the nukes, and are freaking out about where they're going. Apparently, when launching nuclear missles over American airspace, they neglect to double-check the coordinates.

Back at the batcave, Lex has slipped Supes a kryptonite necklace, and Supes is trying to break the chain, but can't. Of course, the chain is perfectly large enough to pull over his head, but he tries to break it instead. Well, you can't blame him for being weak-minded: he's a farmboy. Luthor's blonde lets him out, so that he can save her mother in New Jersey.

So Supes goes after the NJ nuke. Can't quite catch it, can't quite catch it.... got it. He can't, however, get to California in time to stop that nuke. All hell breaks loose, and Superman goes about the task of trying to single-handedly keep western California attached to the continent. Nobody seems to be worried about fallout, as long as the busfull of school children are okay.

Meanwhile, Lois gets buried alive in the fault line. Superman finds her skinny wrist sticking up out of the dirt, and lets out a superyell. He then preceeds to turn the earth - and thus time(?) - backwards by flying around the earth at a speed of two to three revolutions per second! He can circle the entire earth in half a second, but he couldn't catch two missles only 2000 miles apart in several minutes?

Well, whatever. He saved the day and made room for a sequel, and that's all that really mattered.

I'm going to take a nap now.

Just a love machine

2005-02-14T06:52:00.000-08:00

You remember this, right?

When we were kids, we used to buy the big 24-pack of Valentine’s day cards (or rather, our mothers used to buy them for us), and we’d pass them out at random to everyone in the class.

You know the ones I’m talking about. They came perforated, four to a sheet, in a variety of cartoons; Peanuts was a staple, but there was also Pound Puppies, etc. Sometimes you’d even find G.I. Joe, but your mother wouldn’t let you buy that one because it was too cool and Valentine’s day isn’t cool.

And then your teacher would make you give them out to everyone. Everyone. Which was a weird time, because while you didn’t really want to give them to the opposite sex, if you were a guy (and I was. Still am, come to that.) you sensed there was something even weirder about giving them to other guys*.

And in this manner, you’d learn about love: that it’s traded in little slips of paper.

I wonder what would happen we tried this as adults? Just walk onto the street and start handing out My Little Pony valentine cards to random people?

Try it; let me know how that comes out.

*Unless, of course, you were gay. In which case, I imagine V-Day was really awkward.