Tuesday, October 26, 2004

All Hail the Cow and Cheese


The new Wisconsin quarter kicks ass.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Unfinished Novel #2

Beginning when I was very young, my brother made a number of attempts to kill me.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Match Data I

About this time last year I was working on an article for an edited collection which was gonna be called Online Matchmaking: Rhetorical and Social Perspectives or something similar to that. The piece took the self-descriptions people wrote about themselves for their profiles and ran 'em through a little Bakhtinian stuff. Well, the book project never happened, and I recently gave some thought to updating the article, but realized pretty quick that the best thing about the piece was the raw data -- so I'll just post some of it. All guaranteed genuine. Taken from match.com and Dating Faces between 12/02 and 10/03.

Starting with the really frightening ones:

The Bay Area. What a cesspool of whiners and politically correct independent film junky female whackjobs milking their cushy tech industry jobs and waiting for menopause while the Napa wine ages........Their idea of the perfect man is some death row inmate victimized by the 'white power structure' but still in touch with his feelings after only 16 homicides. Gag me already. Hey. I'm a right wing Savage Nation listener originally from East Coast white working class stock just looking to land a chick who knows how to put on lipstick and still connects with her own kind. Probably a delusion but what's the internet for anyway if not quantum delusion. Now I don't want to get off on a rant here but if you spend anytime at all wishing you had a guy who was comfortable hanging out with you in Victoria Secrets then zap me an email pronto before your biological clock goes haywire. Oh yeah, I do have a really successful career that allows me to shoot off at the mouth.

I love men. I love to eat too,although a man must take care of his body and look great at all times. Im very picky about that. If you dont look good, then just keep walking. Dont bother wasting my time with sorry looking balding,overweight men, its just not what Im looking for. Take care of yourself for crying out loud, your men!I am not impressed by a man who carries a huge ego around, matching the chip on his shoulder. If you are educated, good for you, but if you throw big words around all day like fries on the dollar menu at McDonalds, go pound sand! Boys who think they are so smart, I have found to be lacking "ALOT" in the bedroom to say the least...one minute man....Truly remarkable how much time those "smart" lads must spend taking matters into their ownhands due to their...personal issues. Now dont get me wrong, I am not a wicked woman,I just know what I want and I intend to get it. I enjoy long rides in the car, going for icecream, eating out, trips to Atlantic City on the bus. I love to gamble but will not use my own money, Im not that stupid. Im looking for someone who can handle a woman who puts her needs ahead of everyone elses. Thats what it takes to make a happy woman, and a happy woman can surely make a MAN HAPPY. If you think you are up to this, and arent the jealous type, Im quite a find.

born of Viking and Old English descent (norman/Celtic), a conquerer, imperialist by breed, like my father, and my fathers father..and his father before him.. I strive to further the might and soveriegn rule of the horde, to bring glory and honour to the mighty clanners, for to dominate and to desecrate is our way.. our birthright! so has it been for thousands of years since the dawn of the ancients, and so let it be written!(so let it be done) Ogden, meaning direct descendant and first blood of odin/Oden, ruler of the nordic gods..Naturally our people invaded England in the 1300's , as did we many lands of many a nation. by the 1500's ours had melded and assimilated into the old english and irish way, becoming nobles in the ancient territories of knottingham and manchestire. there we have wielded the blade and sought to continue the barbaric ways of our lore for thousands of years.. a legacy of brutality and pain!

I would consider myself as a passive-aggressive.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

The Shickshinny Knights

Went through Shickshinny this morning, which is conveniently located well within the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (aka Susquehanna Nuke Plant) ten-mile emergency planning zone (in terms of this map, I live right about where the start button on your taskbar is), home of the Shickshinny Opera House and HQ of the Shickshinny Knights of Malta (aka The American Grand Priory of The Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta).

The Knights were a sort of supersecret rightwing schismatic Knights of Columbus, dedicated to the impeachment of Earl Warren, among other things. The Catholic Church didn't like 'em much, and they included Eastern Orthodox (a lot of the Knights, and of the population of Shickshinny in general, were White Russians), Old Catholics, High Episcopalians, etc. They say that after Napoleon took Malta, some of the knights bailed out to St. Petersburg to become the Czar's personal honor guard. And from there, circuitously, to Luzerne County, PA.

Members included Col. Philip J. Corso, one of the central US figures in Operation Paperclip, British Admiral Sir Barry Domville, who was imprisoned in WWII for pro-Nazi activities, and General Charles Willoughby (real name: Adolf Tscheppe Weidenbach), once McArthur's intelligence chief; the big guy apparently called Willoughby "my little fascist."

One of their heroes was Michael Goliniewsky, a Polish intelligence officer who had defected to the United States, and earned the everlasting affection of the Knights by claiming that the CIA had been penetrated by the KGB at a high level. Goliniewsky then decided he was actually Crown Prince Alexi, the rightful hemophiliac heir of Nicholas II. Really.

Anyhow, little trails run off from the Knights into the JFK assassination, Nazi gold, Roswell, and miscellaneous other mayhem. And nobody's ever done a book about 'em, as far as I know. Where's Robert Anton Wilson when you need him?

Friday, October 15, 2004

Yipes, Chapter 47

Does the conjunction of this story and this one on Boing Boing bother anybody but me?

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

TV Producers Exempt from Darwinism, Part 1

Fox is using a very long, incredibly moronic extended reference to Star Wars to introduce the Red Sox-Yankees game.
Also, they're not even trying to hide anymore the fact that Reality TV is all about humiliating your neighbors for your edification and delight. The ads for "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss" refers directly to something like "Watch these Ivy League MBAs get humiliated!"

Friday, October 08, 2004

Th' Infinitely Long Tail

As a member of about ten thousand niche markets and as a good Bakhtinian, I hope to hell this is true .... And this.

Friday, October 01, 2004

A Spy in the Library of Babel

Somebody's got to've said this before, but ain't it cool to be a rhetorician in a time when Borges's story is coming true?