March 22, 2006
Quote of the Day
"Going to a bar is not an opportunity to go get drunk." -- TABC Capt. David Alexander, who, apparently, has never been to Zinnie's.
March 21, 2006
You will need: a microscopic black hole.
If you're like me, and I know I am, you're sick of this damned planet, with all of its air, water, food, sex, and nice views. Well it's about time you got off your ass and did something about it!
March 17, 2006
Honk If You Love Zygotes
WTF ?!!!
Operation Photo Op
Operation Swarmer, billed as the largest air assault since the beginning of the Iraq War, is in full effect in the desert northwest of Baghdad. It's been all over the news for a couple of days and has riled oil markets, raising the spot price by a dollar a barrel. But for an attack which was supposed to be a strike deep into the heart of the enemy resistance, it's been surprisingly uneventful, meeting no resistance. So why all the fuss? As the BBC reports, "the massive press coverage was not just the result of a semantic misunderstanding."
March 16, 2006
If the price is right...
You could have Vincent Gallo's mosaic table top, his Hopalong Cassidy bedspread, his Chris Squire Fish Out of Water 8-track (with excellent backstory), or his sperm (if you are a white woman, that is). All this and more in the miscellaneous section of VGMerchandise.com. If you collecting hobbies don't include personal memorabilia or genetic material, he is also selling his movie posters collection.
March 15, 2006
Quote of the Day
"I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think..."
-Alan Moore
March 13, 2006
A long while ago, in the observation of space...
Today marks the 225 Anniversary of the day Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, professional musician and amateur astronomer, using is homemade telescope, discovered the planet Georgium Sidus, which you and I know as Uranus, arguably the most poorly named planet of our solar system.. Besides the discovery of Uranus, Herschel's diligent observation and it's resulting catalog are his legacy.
Celebrate the legacy of observation tomorrow, by catching the subtle penumbral eclipse of the moon.
March 12, 2006
Can't make comments
I registered for a typekey account but it won't go through. I can't make any comments, does anybody know how to make it work, and can you read this post?
UPDATE: You should be able to now. See my comment on this post and email me if it does not work. -s
March 11, 2006
March 10, 2006
Quote of the Day, or, The Plan
"The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the, from a security standpoint, have the Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, laying out his plan for victory in Iraq.
March 06, 2006
Quote of the Day
"This one's for you, Walt."
-Thomas Kincade, allegedly said while urinating on a statue of Winnie the Pooh outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim in the late '90s.
The good people of boingboing point us to a couple of instances of Memphilter's favorite painter of syrupy, glowing cottages tucked into densely packed flora or nestled into thick banks of snow. The first is another L.A. Times article describing Kincade's alleged drunken antics, including heckling Sigfried and Roy. The other two links are to a couple of Something Awful photoshopping contests, in which killer whales, nuclear explosions, and velociraptors find their way into his serene settings.
All of this, though, does not change the mind of Karen de la Carriere, who still contends, "He is a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci or Monet. There is no one in our generation who can paint like that." Only one question remains: What does Joshua think about the recent allegations?
March 04, 2006
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
Christians are finally getting a high-caliber shoot-'em-up videogame of their own. The game revolves around New Yorkers who are "left behind" after the rapture. Players scour the streets for converts, training them into a work force to feed, shelter and join a paramilitary resistance against the growing forces of the Antichrist.
March 03, 2006
WHEREAS: zimzim urallala zimzim urallala zimzim zanzibar zimzalla zam
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Dennis 'Boog' Highberger, Mayor of the City of Lawrence, Kansas, do hereby proclaim the days of February 4, April 1, March 28, July 15, August 2, August 7, August 16, August 26, September 18, September 22, October 1, October 17, and October 26, 2006 as INTERNATIONAL DADAISM MONTH
And the good mayor did make the proclamation in a touching ceremony.
Meanwhile, in Space...
"...The sense of gloom and discouragement is widespread," says space scientist Berrian Moore about the scientific community's reaction to the new proposed NASA budget, which will cancel or postpone several smaller, Discovery-class unmanned science missions infavor of the manned return to the Moon and Mars. The first confirmed casualty is the DAWN mission, an ion-drive powered robot which was to explore two largest asteroids in the belt, 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta. Among those hanging by a thread or significantly delayed is the Terrestrial Planet Finder, which this blogger considers to be one of the most interesting and important space missions currently under development. Predictably, The Planetary Society is not pleased.
Jupiter appears to be growing a new red spot. Called "Red 2", the three-year-old feature is being closely observed in the hopes that it will help astronomers figure out what the hell is going on with the Great Red Spot, whose origin, inner workings, and chemistry remain a mystery even after extensive study by the Gallieo probe.
The popular theory that Saturn's moon Titan was covered with liquid methanes oceans is looking increasingly unlikely. The latest findings from the Huygens lander, combined with continued observations from the Cassini orbiter, suggest that cryovulcanism is the more likely culprit. Cryovolcanoes were first spotted in 1989 by Voyager 2 on Neptune's moon Triton, and the process is also the source of the Fountains of Enceladus.
Something new under the hood
I have finally updated the MovableType backend of Memphilter. Only a year late on that one. I am not quite finished, and I am trying to get TypeKey authentication to work on the comments to avoid the spam that we have all become so accustomerd to. This process may take me a few days to get done. Until then, your comments will be held until I approve them. Once I get authentication up, comments will post immediately if you have a TypeKey account and can authenticate that you really are, say, EL Destructo. TypeKey happens to be run by SixApart, which produces MT, but TypeKey authentication is being used more and more across a wide variety of particpatory websites as a way to prevent comment spam. So if you are a regular, go get a TypeKey account at once, and I'll have this thing up and running smoothly again (but without comment spam!) soon. A little more inside.
March 02, 2006
More fun with military animals
Not content with training armed, killer dolphins, the military is now adding to their stable of finned conscripts sharks with brain implants that act as spies.
March 01, 2006
The American Taliban
"Don't use the word 'gay' unless it's an acronym for 'Got Aids Yet'"
- Bob Dornan (Rep. R-CA)
More quotes here.
This camera photoshops on the fly
The digital photography revolution certainly make it easier to take and publish photos. Obviously, I am in the vast majority of people who feel this way. However, since my family went digital four years ago, I have been through one camera and we currently own two that are on the fritz. I suspect the reason for the failed cameras is not just the quality, but the fact that I always keep one camera in my vehicle and it is used much, much more than any other camera I have ever used.
Today, we took Eli out for a walk and one of our cameras went on the blink. It was still taking pictures, but they were these heavily abstracted, electronic Bacon-esque photos, that look downright creepy.
I posted a quick gallery of the photos for everyone to check out. Note how the sky turns purple in the first few and then all hell breaks loose.
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