A neat little story about a neat little font from a neat little neighborhood in a big-ass city.
Archive for June, 2004
From Bushido: The way of the armchair warrior
The warrior strengthens his resolve and that of his followers by chanting sutras, mantras, or other strings of words, such as weaponsofmassdestruction or linkstoalqaeda or bringingdemocracytotheworld. It is not important that these words bear any relation to reality or even that they have any definite meaning. All that matters is that they be chanted repeatedly and with great urgency.
Also
The scholar, astonished, asked the meaning of Nan-in’s action. “The mind is like this cup,” said Nan-in. “If you do not empty yourself, how can you expect to be filled?” The coffers of the state, too, are like the cup. If they are not frequently emptied, how can they be filled?
(Link via Real Life Rock Top 10)
For my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
Published June 29th, 2004 in Uncategorized. ClosedSomewhere in America:
“Hoo boy! That last presidential election sure was a close one. You realize we came a couple hundred votes from having a tree-hugging, cheese-eating, pot-smoking hippie in the White House? I mean, shit! All I can say is, it’s a damn good thing those Democrats are so fuckin’ crazy for abortions or they might have had enough votes to tip the scale!”
OK, so maybe that’s not a real quote, but it’s a pretty good summation of the argument being presented in this article from the Wall Street Journal. Basically, the author claims that since liberal Democrats have historically been more likely to have abortions than their Republican counterparts, they’ve robbed themselves of literally millions of cute, cuddly little future voters. Of course this “grim irony” is lost on liberals, debauched as they are in a sea of sex, drugs and social welfare programs. For some reason, I’m reminded of last week’s Onion interview with Mike Judge, in which he describes his latest film project:
The basic premise is that most science fiction shows the future as being more civilized or more intelligent, and that’s just not the way we’re headed. Like, if someone made a movie in the late ’50s about the year 2004, it probably wouldn’t have had The Maury Povich Show, and gangs, and whatever. So this starts out as a documentary about how the people who are reproducing the fastest are guys who are too lazy to put on a rubber, and lots of highly educated people are waiting until they’re 40 to have a kid, and then having one or none. It’s kind of a sleeper movie about how, 400 or 500 years from now, a guy who’s your average dumbass today is the smartest person in the world.
So yeah… Word up to the bright, shining future of state-controlled reproductive rights. It always works out so fucking great!
“Everyone should see Fahrenheit 9/11.” So says Richard Roeper. But they can’t, because the film is rated R. Which is in and of itself a little strange, since normally you can disembowel a pregnant woman with a rusty melon-baller in a movie and still get PG-13, provided we don’t get to see her nipple! (And let’s not forget that other R-rated warm’n'fuzzy family fun-fest from earlier this year that millions of unfortunate children were subjected to.) But anyway, I guess images of dead Iraqis and etc. could potentially be damaging (to the President), so the rating stands. Now here’s where things get really strange. Remember Roeper’s quote from before? Apparently, he’s not allowed to say things like that since by telling “everyone” to see the film, it could be inferred that he’s encouraging minors to break the law and see the film, regardless of it’s rating. Bullshit, right? I know… So anyway, what’s an irresponsible, unqualified, absentee parent to do? Complex question; Simple answer: The ‘R’ Card… Hooray for America!
Why is it that I can have such a clear picture in my head of the coffee drink I want to purchase, but translating it into English (or Starbucks-ese) is such a laborious process. I’m walking down the street thinking, Iced Latte. But then the Soy Milk lobby in my head starts to rally. Finally I give in to their arguments, but counter by demanding an extra shot of espresso to balance the soy taste (also, I’m sleepy). Fine, so we’re in agreement. Now wouldn’t a shot of vanilla in there make things perfect? Of course! But now I have to figure out how many shots of espresso normally go into a grande, so I can ask for an extra. I’m thinking 2. I’m right! So what do I ask for?
“A iced triple grande vanilla soy milk latte”
Argh! Why can’t I just go back there and make it myself?! =)
Question for the Senator Orrin “RIAA Bitch” Hatch, regarding his new legislation designed to target those who would “profit” from illegal filesharing: Does that include makers of such devices as the iPod? How about CD-R manufacturers? All computer manufacturers? Do you think we could take down the whole new-fangled industry, Senator? And go back to the good old days when people watched wholesome family films like “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?” and you could get an erection without the use of prescription drugs? And can we interpret the targets of this legislation to include the Record Companies themselves, as they most assuredly profit from the distribution of files over P2P networks, some of them even going so far as to use data from P2P networks to aid in marketing their products? Finally, would it be possible to sue you under this new legislation, as your campaign has taken in over $100,000 in contributions from the recording industry over the past 5 years?
I heard “in the news” that a german investment bank is advising it’s clients to stop, smell the flowers and, well… have sex! Not that this will come as any surprise to those of us in the USA where our multinational banking groups have been dishing out some good old chicken soup for the investor’s soul for years now! (Minus the sex part, of course!) Anyway, the whole thing is of course pretty insulting when you think about it, but such is marketing, I suppose. Anyway, since fair use of copyrighted material is still OK for purposes of parody (For now!) here in America, here’s a fictional conversation between Citigroup and it’s investors.
Remember how back in school they’d always tell you how alcohol “kills brain cells” and that “brain cells are the only type of cells that can’t reproduce?” Scary, right? (Corollary: Has anyone ever heard (maybe not in school, but…) that, “[Too much] Sex will make you stupid?”). So it turns out that basically all of these statements are waay wrong. Not only does the brain constantly add fresh neurons to it’s wrinkly old self, but sex can actually make it happen faster! Now none of this is to say that drinking (and other intoxicants) won’t eventually do “brain damage” and impair memory function, that shit is plainly obvious. All I’m saying is, that just because your case (”Just say No!”) is weak as hell, that is no reason to go around spouting pseudo-scientific BS to support it!!
I know a lot of people have problems with VICE magazine because it’s too cool for its own good, or homophobic, or perpetuates the various stereotypes it would claim to deconstruct, and a whole ass-load of other gripes, but surely no one would begrudge VICE a place somewhere in the top 50 magazines as rated by the Chicago Tribune, right?!? I mean, I love Men’s Health (Number 8!!) and everything too, but surely they could have dumped something like, oh I don’t know… Maybe “Wooden Boat” magazine to make room for the Big V? D’ya think? =P
ps. as always, my antinomian/nowords login is available should you want to actually read the list of 50 =)
This is just so stupid! Sure, maybe it will ease tensions, but aren’t they worried about all the teen pregnancy, and how much money “the terrorists” will be raking in from all the narcotics traffic? And, I mean, let’s be honest… How do they expect to turn a profit on the beer concessions? Dum-asses =P
(Via cruel.com)
