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What if all the dead people suddenly came back as zombies but all they did was give everybody a little friendly smooch like "mwah!" and then they'd immediately go back to being dead and nothing else weird ever happened again

what if they didn't move besides stretching out their lips to kiss you, like you're just walking down the street and everyone around you is suddenly beset upon by rotten lip-snakes and then the second one of them smooches you on the cheek it just immediately snaps back all the way to its grave like a rubber band.

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TETRIS PLUS MINESWEEPER LOOKS HELLA STRESSFUL

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After the Adams County Sheriff's Office raided the home of Afroman and found nothing, Afroman turned footage of the raid into a music video. Now, the officers are suing over "emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation."

here's the video...

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Among Us - Atari 2400 by TheTeapotTanuki

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I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."

And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them."

And i was like, ohok and he continues.

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people."

And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.

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Yet, in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life's meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero.

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Germans can be awfully clever...

Through the history of mankind, this question has been asked: "Why are we here, and what makes us act as we do?" Religion after religion has been formed in a fruitless attempt to find some answer. The proton, neutron, and electron come closer to an answer to the question of life than any other offered. Science is broad, not narrow, as so many persons smugly believe. When I first fell in love with you, one electron hit another in my head, causing a chemical reaction, billions of electrons hitting billions of other electrons. These electrons flowed through a conductor, a nerve, all over the body, causing further reactions wherever they flowed, Valves opened and closed; new chemicals were pitted into my bloodstream. I put my arm around you, kissed you, told you I loved you. That one electron liked you better than anybody else.

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We just watched Beyoncé's Homecoming on Netflix - good lord how did Beyoncé mixing it up with HBCU Marching Bands and Drum Lines fly under my radar??

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Ugh, social distancing must be rough on a lot of 12-step programs and support groups... click to play
14 years ago I linked to zombie3, an extension of an original game/simulation by Kevan Davies. I retrieved and patched it so that it works in modern browsers.

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Does anyone else get endless FB ads for "Hero Wars"? It's weird - the animations all strongly imply it's a puzzle solving game (with rescue the princes in bondage themes) but it looks like the game itself is just a RPG-ish turn based combat thing. So odd.

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Watched the movie "Drive" (one of the ones on the 100-movies-you-must-see scratch off poster I got). I like this bit of trivia from it:

The Driver and Irene actually say very little to each other, primarily because Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan felt that their scenes should be more focused on the mood and refused to say many of the scripted lines. Mulligan summarized making the film as "staring longingly at Ryan Gosling for hours each day."

Apple - Welcome Home by Spike Jonze from HENRY on Vimeo.

Love this song, and a great video - the making of is why I'm posting it though.

Dolphins are said to sleep with only half of their brain at a time, keeping partially alert for predators. Many of us spend much of our lives in a similar state.

Capitalism good or ill is the river in which we sink or swim and stocks the supermarket.

via "The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History"- the essay, and its view of making art in a money based society, is said to be an influence on Matt Groening. (I also liked "Waiting for art talent scouts? There are no art talent scouts. Face it, no one will seek you out. No one gives a shit.") http://jpporchfest.org/ - JP Porchfest Registration opens today! I'm pleased with how my design for the frontpage worked out...
So Amazon has this thing we'll they'll donate X % to charity, IF you start your browsing at smile.amazon.com. Kind of like they're becoming their own affiliate. I'm trying to think of what they're up to-- probably they want people to start their searches at their site, rather than through Google, where, despite Amazon's strong "first result" presence, people might get exposed to other options.

Kind of sucks feeling manipulated like that.

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How to fall down stairs
Step 1
Step 6
Step 7,8,9,11

I love the UK English expression "having a bit of a lie-in" almost as much as I like having one. (just don't confuse it with "sleeping in")
(making the rounds)

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Stop Software Patents. Let them die. Copyright protection is enough.

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I often judge a work of art by how neccessary it is for that work to be in that medium.

Me too! Especially in video games, which is some of why I don't dig RPGs and strategy games. World map highlighting the countries not officially using the metric system:

via

From Wikipedia:

Only three nations out of 203 have not officially adopted the International System of Units as their primary or sole system of measurement: Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States of America.

I know some countries have the odd English measurement here and there, like UK folks sometimes talk in miles (I think) but still... just to sound like some old time 1970s crank, I think our failure to go Metric is representative of a kind of anti-intellectual, go-it-alone, old-style-Industry thinking that is gonna be our downfall.

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Dear FedEx: how does "Direct Signature" morph to "relase authorized" aka "please leave in snow on porch and don't ring bell?" #fedexfail

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http://is.gd/ICHMZA - Microsoft Patent Antics. Patent #6,339,780 (2002) is ye olde loading animation... but OVER the window. GENIUS! Seriously, did "non-obvious" mean ANYTHING in 2002?

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Happiness is the consequence of personal effort...You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.

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Good games are productive. They're producing a higher quality of life.

--Kind of amazing project to make a movie about making video games. I'm pledging a couple of hundred, and urge anybody to put in as well - it's a great idea. (Click for a preview movie.)

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Someday You Will Be Nostalgic For Now.

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The iPhone Gmail web app is pretty sweet, but the load times are gruesome. Wonder if one of those standalone apps that are mostly just wrappers fix that?

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Hee, for reasons symbolic and utilitarian I'm making the Google Calendar that Amber and I share the default one on my iPhone.
--I have very little to add except I have always enjoyed the Tom Jones / Mousse T. song "Sexbomb", especially the "inside out"/reversed track bit.

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http://joshreads.com/?p=2364 - The Comic Curmudgeon on USA's "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" vs Canada's "peace, order and good government". Food for thought.

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My small apartment, after a bit of cleaning, proved good for entertaining and is nice and cozy. Now to just declutter...

• Popular Mechanics debunks 9/11 myths.
• Odd anecdote: when I was a wee lad I was eating too many grapes so my mom put the bowl on... a piano, I think it is, out of reach. She comes in later to find me clambering up over the piano to get the little treasures, and my all-innocent response to her fierce look: "gapes... I yike gapes". That's a bit of a family catchphrase to this day.
• Thoughts of a 90-something year old guy -- all the way back to when he was an 88-year old guy!

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Travelog of the Moment
Now reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This is actually a profoundly wonderful book, thanks for the suggestion Lex!

You know, I've taken almost 1,200 shots so far this trip. Yeesh!

Today was a bit of a repeat of last week, visiting the electronics store area Akihabra and meeting up with old college buddy Alex. Hmm. Felt a bit better this morning, not running a fever... my secret placebo was buying a humidifer for the bedroom.

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Link of the Moment
I have to admit I really dig that glass bottomed walkway over the Grand Canyon. Some folks will complain about spoiling up the natural beauty, but... it's a big canyon, and I think it's a lovely thing to have done.

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Minicomic of the Moment

--from Tom the Dancing Bug Super-Fun-Pak Comix...

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Link of the Moment
The current betting pool for the US Presidential race. I think it's telling that the wide gap between Hillary and Obama in the Democratic Candidates race is much smaller in the All Canidates pool. I wonder if that means that Giuliani beats Obama but loses to Hillary, or what I tend to think, which is that Hillary is more likely to win the nomination but has become such a rallying point for the rightwingers that she's less likely than Obama to win it all.

Hey does anyone have a Windows 98 CD about? I'm trying to get some old hardware up and about.

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Ramble of the Moment
Lately I've been thinking about how being an only child, along with living in some neighborhoods without many kids my own age, might have molded me, and what influence it might've had on my introverted streak.

I "moved around a lot as a kid", and it was always just me and my folks. From the ages of about 4-8 I lived in a little town called Salamanca, and as far as I can recall was mostly on my own in terms of freetime...I think before and after I had more friends contact, but after, it was generally having one or two close friends at a time.

Maybe though I have a kind of unrealistic vision of other folks' childhoods, running around in "Li'l Rascals" type groups, learning through experience about all kinds of social rituals that I'm still a newbie on. Maybe most people tend to have one or two close friends besides their usual schoolmates, and the tribalish neighborhood gang thing is the exception. On the other hand, a lot of people have siblings.

I can think of a few implications of this kind of background, though I can't always be sure about the nature vs. nurture aspects (as far as I can tell, a kind of "attention seeking introversion" runs through my family a bit.) For one thing, a lot of my pleasures are solitary (no, I'm not talking about that one)... I think in my current relationship with Ksenia, I feel more drawn to doing couple-compatible-things, like watching a video, even when I'd much rather work on my independent projects. It's not forced by her, it's not even quite because of guilt, but kind of a feeling of...I don't know, responsiblity, or what "should" be done. Not that I mind watching the videos or anything. Also I think sometimes she wants a kind of coupley snugglehood that just doesn't come instictively for me. I can undestand it but I don't grok it at all.

The other thing implication, and this comes somewhat from those "birth order" books, is how being a bright beloved only child got me used to being both the center of attention as well as not having serious competition for most achievements. The unfortunate side effect of this is I usually try to avoid "contests" where I don't think I'm likely to "win"...like I've said before, I hate things that remind me I'm not the smartest and bestest guy in the city. I prefer the illusion that I would be crownable as God-King of the Universe, the Watchman of Wit, the Vishnu of Videogames, the Programmer Papa Smurf, the Crowned Champ of Creative Expression, if only I really set my mind to it. But I can't be bothered, so I'm just here at my station in life.

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Link of the Moment
Oh look, as if we only children didn't have enough already, our own website complete with a list of famous only children. (Yeesh, are we in that much of a minority?)

List of the Moment

1. The placebo effect
2. The horizon problem
3. Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
4. Belfast homeopathy results
5. Dark matter
6. Viking's methane
7. Tetraneutrons
8. The Pioneer anomaly
9. Dark energy
10. The Kuiper cliff
11. The Wow signal
12. Not-so-constant constants
13. Cold fusion

--via Bill, 13 Unexplained Things in Science. Of course what I like about science relative to religion is the attitude that A. We don't know everything B. The things that we don't know, we might be able to figure out. (And even then, very little is "known", just increasingly supported as the most likely explanation.) But I don't know, it doesn't seem like we'll really make progress on stuff like "why do bad things happen to good people, anyway?"

My current favorite theory about the universe, though not particularly well (or poorly) supported is the concept that maybe it's a closed loop. My layman understanding thinks that if it were, that when we're looking far far away we're actually seeing "ourselves" a long time ago, it would help explain a few of those odd results...maybe "The Horizon Problem", "Dark Energy". Or not.

I do suspect that someone is still going to do the inverse square law for Gravity what Einstein did for some of the other physics...effects that are difficult or impossible to see at "human" distances, but can come into play at interstellar ones.

Sick today, my throat feels like I tried gargling with a scouring pad, but I might be able to muster up some house cleaning before the party this weekend...

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Link of the Moment
Real Player sucks. I couldn't believe it didn't even have an option NOT to startup when I inserted an audio CD. Lists some alternatives, has some feedback from people at Real.

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Title of the Moment

F*** You and Your Pez Despenser: The Definitive Guide to the Infantile Consumerism of the 1990s

Heh, sorry yesterday was so mimimal...though really, doesn't MC Hammer say everything that needs to be said about current geopolitical situation?

Slight page redesign...I realized that I had totally removed any links to single day entries, so I added the "link" links above, though I'm not crazy about the placement so far. Any suggestions?

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Quote of the Moment

What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with.

"Funny Times" is a comic and humor newspaper out of Cleveland (after it, "Editorial Humor" was a big disappointment...) This quote sounds deep, and it sort of is, but it misses the idea that all the time we're comparing the universe to the way we think the whole enchillada SHOULD be. (And by that standard, it kind of sucks...)

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Toy of the Moment
This example of "the Oat-fueled Fury of Wilford Brimley" (press the "Smack Him" button--the "tasty way to do it" indeed!) is blatantly stolen from i-mockery.com's review of Wilford Brimley Battle, a "ROM-hack" of "River City Ransom" for the old NES. They have an entire page of Hacked Rom Reviews, where would be clever gamers modify the graphics and more rarely, the gameplay of older video games, usually into forms heavy on the phalluses, drugs, racism, or all three. Anyway, most of the reviews are worth a quick skim rather than a full read, but why someone would go through all the trouble of changing the graphics in the first place is an open question.

Aww man, my mouse is on the fritz. One of those wireless ones, so things weren't so bad even when left-handed Mo moved it to the other side...one Windows trick I learned a long time ago is to turn on "MouseKeys" in Accessibility Option Control Panel that turns the keypad into a lame mouse touchpad. You have to fiddle with the settings to get it at all usable (the defaults are too slow) but it's good to know about in a pinch.

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Cartoons of the Moment
Tales of Mere Existence are great little quicktime movies. The narrator talks over the drawing of a (non-animated) cartoon that also describes the scene. I could really identify with "Man" and "Procrastination". I think they're shot from behind some kind of semi-transparent paper, and then possibly mirror-imaged, but I'm not sure.

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Exchange of the Moment

> Those [feral kittens] were bouncing off the walls and
> around the room without touching the floor, and when I
> eventually managed to catch one it gave me 4" scratches.
> I'd guess they were less than 4 months old.

Yup. Kittens: self-propelled barbed wire in a dewy-eyed mohair sweater.

So here I am, sans job, but with decent prospects, a Good Résumé, more than a month of severance plus 2 weeks vacation pay, and some freelance work to tide me over.

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Quote of the Moment

In other words--and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxywide success is founded--their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.

(Hmm, sounds like some dotcoms I know.)