I’ve been incredibly busy lately and have been mostly blogging (along with several of my brilliant co-workers) on the Beaconfirewire. I’ll continue to sporadically update intensely boring personal news and such here. But the dry spells will likely continue.
This was a few months ago, but I hadn’t seen it until now. Really great performance.
California Totrilla, home of the mediocre burrito, great selection of hot sauces, and irritatingly upbeat service, is offering a free taco to anyone coming in on Nov. 7 with proof that they voted. So, not only do we get to unseat a shitload of total asshole Republicans, but we can get free food for doing so.
Here it is! My first good mash-up. I’ve been playing around with Acid Pro for a while now and put together a few different kinda-almost mashups. This one is the first that’s really come out well. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about mashups that turns me on. I guess part of it is that I’m a musician, temporarily without other musicians to play with. But then there’s the appeal of mashups themselves. More on that later. For now, enjoy Jay-z vs. AC/DC – The Girl’s Got Dirt.”
Nobody uses the word irony correctly. Hell, Alanis Morisette even wrote a song about it in which she used the word irony incorrectly throughout. Ok, there’s some arguement about that, but still.
So how ironic is it that President Bush – arguably the most ill-spoken public servant of all time – actually used the word correctly? When an open mic recently recorded a conversation between Bush and Tony Blair, Bush made headlines for using the word “shit” in reference to the current situation in Lebanon. What the flurry of blog and news posts about this event seem to have missed is perhaps the biggest news of all: Bush may not be as big a nincompoop as we all thought. And how scary is that?
Here’s what he said:
“See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.”
Yes, it is certainly ironic that it is Syria (sponsor of terrorism) that would be called on to reign in Heabollah. It is exactly ironic!
Personally, I find it scary that Bush may have been porposefully speaking like a complete numbskull just to keep us off guard; To keep us feeling that he’s not ad dangerous as he really is. When an accidental open mic catches Bush being this candid and clear-spoken, it just makes it that much clearer how obfuscated and scheming he really is.
Run to the hills.
I was in a band in the 80s (no, not that ’80s; the 1908s…like as in the decade?). As it turns out, the band was kind of cool. And now you can all hear it.
The male Lyrebird attracts mates by singing the most elaborate song he can design. The amazing part is in how the Lyrebird mimics other bird calls and other sounds. Sounds like chainsaws, car alarms, and camera shutters. Already posted on Digg and BoingBoing, but well worth spreading around.
I just finished A Feast for Crows the fourth book in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series. I liked the first few a lot, but this one really found me struggling to finish. It took me over a month to slog through its 684 pages of gore. I don’t think any of the previous took more than a week and didn’t leave me feeling quite as dirty. That it is half the book he found himself writing (other half due out next year) is truly frightening. It could have been longer?!?
A lot of what left me cold was the endless listing of names. Irrelavant names. Stupid names. The appendixes of Family Trees would be hilarious had we not actually been forced at sword point to trace all of them and more during my forced march the prose. Endless, and I mean endless passages outlining of lineages could take the shine off any book (Return of the King ring any bells?) but this book hasn’t much shine to begin with. It has a meanness instead.
The meanness in this book is intensely delivered and intensely felt. From the first book of the series, the author makes you like characters only to skewer, hang, grind, or open up in some other gruesome way. This continues through all the books, but it gets worse as you go. By the fourth, Martin had his bad guys (as if you could tell the difference between ‘bad’ and ‘good’ in this book) shoving testicles in dying men’s mouths (their own, or those of any goat that happens to be handy), raping all women, biting peoples faces off, hacking off limbs…you get the point.
The point is…there is no point. I repeat: I like this series in the beginning and I’m going to give the next book a shot if only for that but if this fucking pornographic murder-fest continues I’ll throw the damn book on the fire and be happily done with it. It’s disgusting and unneccesary. In know that life way back in this pretend history was tough. I know that people were lucky to live into their 40s. I got the fucking message, George. You didn’t have to rub my face in the entrails.
I used to recommend Song of Fire and Ice to folks who like fantasy free of elves, dwarves, and other cute creatures. I don’t recommend it any more. I think I’ll go curl up with one of my sleeping kids, breathe in the smell of their hair, and feel really fucking lucky that we don’t live in this damn book.
GayDays, the annual, unofficial gay-friendly week-long party at Walt Disney World, is underway now. The event is sponsored by the likes of Bud Light, and has drawn an estimated 140,000 attendees. (Thanks, BoingBoing!) Events Calendar from GayDayS.com
Gay Days at Disney World draws 140,000 participants Read More »
