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Rolled Credits on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 hours. (Akira poster by ryzbl_)

Great game and the building of vehicles and contraptions is phenomenal. I love how the game embraced what people were making Breath of the Wild exploit videos about; like "moon jump" videos seeing how much altitude you could get (and frankly how well even the old engine dealt with that), or that hack to make Magnesis "flying" vehicles. Would love to see "making of" videos for this.

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Christians: Palms 139:13-18 talks about being knit together - a gradual process. And Numbers 5:11-31 provides instructions for abortion, if the parents weren't right.

I know the movement has leaned pretty heavily into "abortion is murder" but it's just not. Roe v Wade had a compromise built in with trimesters. In earlier centuries, "quickening", human-detectable motion in the womb was the standard. "Life begins at conception" is just a misthink of the both theology and science.

In this country, we respect individual choices and bodily autonomy - like thousands of lives would be saved if we made organ donation mandatory, but we don't, because the bodily autonomy of people is critical.

By hunting down Supreme Court nominees willing to perjure themselves in front of the Senate and say Roe v Wade was settled law when they were just chomping at the bit to throw it away (and also Republicans in the senate breaking the court, ironically for 9 months, and refusing to review perfectly qualified SCOTUS nominees) you got your group will to destroy half a century of legal tradition and look for precedents from times when blacks could be owned as property and women couldn't vote. But yours is a victory for politics, not for justice or mercy. via

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aagh im so pissed. my fucking parents sold my baby shoes befroe i even got a chance to wear them

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bats on swings for awesome science

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And birds worth fearing

"There's nothing in our lives that says we're supposed to be here forever," he says. He reminds me that his father had died unexpectedly when he was in college. "We expect we're going to get certain things in life, but we're never actually promised them. And I was given a chance to know that there will be an end coming at some point in time. I had the option to either be pissed off as I went toward that end or to say I'm going to enjoy this and embrace every minute that I can. There may come a point down the road that I get upset, but if I'm angry now I miss whatever time I have left."

I never got to know my Aunt Jean - said in some ways to be star of her family - who had ALS when pregnant with my cousin (also named Brian - odd synchronicity) and died not too long after. The ALS lifespan is measured in years instead of decades, but I think Wallach's point applies to everyone, even if they have hope of an order of magnitude more time to live.

If I had ALS, I'd imagine being kind of salty about all panicked resources being poured into COVID. As a society we're fortunate the former is uncommon, but that's a small consolation to the ones who it hits.

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There's another photo I found, this one in our senior yearbook, page 93. It's our fifth-grade class picture. I'm standing in the back, awkward in huge glasses. Brian's sitting in the front row, legs crisscrossed, face serene. I like this one because we're not quite fully formed. The long arc of our lives had not yet been fixed. And then I remember that there is no arc. Nothing's fixed. There's just a box, and what you fill it with.

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It's weird how some folks' Zoom headsets really sound like the mics used by the TV news helicopter traffic reporter. Especially the ones that even put the mic on a bendy stick right in front of the face.

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Breakdancing coming to the Olympics! Man, just watch the video on that page. I'm probably not the best watcher of top tier other forms of dancing or gymnastics, but nothing impresses me like this ... it's just inhuman, yet still cool...

Here is one of my favorite b-boy/breakdance bits from way back when:

He dealt in information, and the amount of information is proportional to its surprise.

Arun introduced me to the podcast "Clarkesworld Magazine" where Kate Baker reads short sci-fi stories published by the magazine. Ugh, Ticks. Reminds me why I hate nature.

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Beanbender's beer was nothing like the stuff in cans that my father drinks. It had a nutty taste, and it was cold and good. The guy at the bar was Ben Beanbender, the owner of the beer garden. He didn't ask us for identification or anything. He just filled mugs from a big barrel and handed them to us. I also got a baked potato. Ben Beanbender poked a hole in one end with his thumb, slapped in a hunk of butter, salted and peppered the potato, wrapped it in a napkin, and handed it to me. It was great! The potato was almost too hot to hold, and the salty butter dribbled onto my sleeve. It tasted just fantastic with the beer. The beer and the baked potato cost fifty cents. It's the best deal in Baconburg.

For some reason this passage, (set in a venue inside Tintown, Baconburg's hidden underground city) has stuck with me. (I remember Mo being obsessed with this book, and delighted we managed to scrape up a copy in the late 90s. It's a great YA read.)

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It used to be harder to scrape up books. This one is now a $3 Kindle book, but they must have lost the rights to the great cover art of the original...

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Trumps Lies, an interactive. Yeesh.

"What time is it?"
"You mean now?"

Marriage is so gay.

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And straight, for that matter!

Personally, I've found maturity an overrated quality except in wine, for both creative artists and lively people in general have much to gain from facing the world with the unsullied vision, flexible responses, and playful sensibilities of a child.

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Watching some Futbol. For everything Americans don't dig about it-- the scarcity of scoring, the flopping-- the lack of time-outs is pretty awesome. The game is 90 minutes, with the 15 minute halftime and then a few extra minutes at the end, free of baseballs and football's start and stop, no strategic timeouts, none of basketball's endless fouls to end a match, etc etc. And no time for commercials... probably to the sport's finances detriment in this country. Long-ish, thoughtful piece on The Obesity Era; the fact that it's increasing even in animals fed lab diets is greatly disturbing to me.

It's temping, then, to think every attempt at weight management is hopeless. Which is a little true, but not 100% true, and I think I'm able to have some success in the fight. Still it's humbling to know that simple "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" thinking is dead wrong.

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alewife bike cage under watchful eye of cardboard cop, new to the squad

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DOMA gets the smack down!
Remember folks, you saw it here (In OUR DAMN GREAT COMMONWEALTH) first...

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We sent DOMA and Prop 8 off to a farm where they can play with other outdated, fear-driven legislation. It is the worst farm.

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Whoa, back on the obesity thing: Holy crap, what if it's the CO2 counts?

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Wow. Texas Legislature CHANGES TIMESTAMPS and tries to rewrite the history of the Wendy's heroic filibuster...

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http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/bbj_research_alert/2012/06/outdoor-patio.html every outdoor patio area in Greater Boston.

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They don't think it be like it is, but it do.

I actually like this formation very much- standard English is lacking, tense-wise. Today we went up to New Hampshire for a belated Father's Day thing for Amber's folks. We went to Polly's Pancake Parlor.
--Think about getting a sticker or two made of good old alien bill

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iPhone wallpaper FTW http://www.madin.jp/diary/graphics/2010/pacwall.png

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EB after his 1 year old's birthday party.
Sand in wet denim chafes, he says.
--In Virginia and Maryland for a family reunion -- youtube-ish autopilot GO!

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I'm not being 100% facetious when I say: maybe Singapore has the right idea; people who put gum on the sidewalk should be beaten. For reals.

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Cushy recliners are almost ridiculously decadent. I think the ones with the built-in cupholders might be over the top. (-shades of Wall*E)

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Man, down here in Virginia I'm reminded how much I miss fireflies. They're serious earth magic. Cleveland had 'em too, Boston is too north. "Hey"

"Uh -- hey, what? You look like me but with square glasses."

"I am you, but around 7 years in the future. I want to give you advice."

"!!!"

"I know. It's probably not going to help."

"Why-? I mean like why me now? Do I have to prevent some huge terror thing?"

"Heh, not that I know of, but yeah, in part I remembered you're kind of freaked about that and that's why I chose this time, but you're good for at least seven years. Pretty soon they'll be some Anthrax powder in the mail or something but it's really isolated."

"Phew..."

"There's going to be some war, though."

"!!! Like, all-out war?"

"No. So here's the thing: we're going to move on Afghanistan, and that's going to seem like a bad idea to you, but given the Taliban and who actually did this 9-11 thing (are you calling it 9-11 yet?) it's probably a kind of worthwhile thing, and do-able. The problem is you're going to invade Iraq."

"Did they do it too?"

"Not really, Bush felt the need to get rid of Saddam, but it's going to be kind of a quagmire. But anyway, enough about me, let's talk about you."

"Who is also me."

"...right. Your three month old marriage is in trouble."

"WHAT? It seems great! Neither of us are 'strongly gendered typed' and we give each other plenty of space for our own projects--"

"Yeah, that's some of the problem. You guys are about to buy a house. Stop treating it as 'Mo's project', engage more, stop being just along for the ride. Mo's looking for collaborator in ways she's not going to put into words until it's too late."

"Then do I--"

"I don't know much more than that."

"What about my career and all that?"

"Well, your current safety job isn't, but if things go the same, you'll find a place that'll be a safe harbor for a while. Things will pick up again, maybe the'll drop off again, your current drifting, job-wise, seems ok for a while."

"So why did you come back to now? Why not to our teenage self? Or before and tell us (him? yourself?) to enjoy dad while he's still around?"

"Well, to be honest, I can't relate that well to myself that far back. But you feel like the same person, kind of, just less informed. I think we fear growth and personal change because that means we were wrong, and we hate being wrong."

"But I admit mistakes! It's-"

"Yeah but your ego is more fragile than you know, and you redefine things that make you look less than stellar as not important. Maybe work on that. But really, I got to thinking about this time as sort of a critical point after playing Nintendo 64's Pokemon Puzzle League with EB*. (Who should end up stressed but with a lovely wife and kid.) I remembered playing the same game with him as a de-stresser on 9-11, but realized that you could probably kick my at this game... he and I still play it but not as religiously as you do now..."

"Heh, you're getting weak old man..."

"Yeah, funny."

"So what's new in technology?"

"Oh, not much. Focus on your Java, that's your bread and butter. There's a new round of game consoles, Nintendo's doing some cool stuff. WiFi is a lot easier and cheaper. Apple makes phone version of the iPod, looks like a Star Trek: Next Generation slab, that finally actually is better than your beloved Palm, which isn't going to get much better than it is now."

"Heh, oh well. Not too exciting then? Guess it's just seven years. But wait a minute... doesn't coming back to tell me this risk negating your existence? Like you're telling me stuff so it leads to a different future of me?"



"...Oops. Damn, wish he had least given me some lottery numbers."

*of course I'd have to use EB's "real" name, my past self thinks of EB as "Electronics Boutique"

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Saw Josh, visiting home from Japan the other day. He mentioned I missed a scary fun but harmless earthquake the day after I left. Yesterday I went wikipediaing on the concept of sinecure after seeing it in a Saki short story. My favorite has to be the British office of "Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds", used as a legal excuse for resigning from Parliament. It's just such a grand English name.

Man... how do I get me one of them sinecures?

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Video Gamery of the Moment
Pac-Man skeleton, conceived by Le Gentil Garçon in collaboration with François Escuilié, palaeontologist, from the comparative observation of human and various predatory animal skulls. More photos on this collection of works, under 2004. (via bb)

Evil B. has taken a strong liking to a new Pac-Man variant, Pac-Man Championship Edition, currently only available as a download on Xbox 360's Live service. Pac Penny Arcade had high praise for it, as did dessgeega. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani was on the team for it, and it shows. At first blush it looks like a slightly sexed-up version of good old Pac-Man, but widescreen (heh, sort of reminds me of the terrible 2600 version's layout.) There are some cool subtle lighting effects and a good soundtrack. The gameplay is still eating dots, but rather than having to clear a full board, you clear a small set and eat an item, and then more dots appear on the other side of the maze. The action never lets up... even when Pac-Man dies, he re-appears in the same location in a few moments, but the whole game is capped to be a five minute experience.

It didn't really grab me by the hindbrain, but it got Evil B, with his superior old school Pac-Man mojo and desire to tackle specific challenges. (They allow you to chain powerpellets, so that you get incresed multipliers for 8, 12, or 16 ghosts, rather than than just the 4 in the original.) It took me a while to realize that entire halves of the board were being redrawn, not just repopulated with pellets. (Some of the extra modes really throw in some interesting explorations what you can do with a Pac-Man maze, from something like a grid to long straight lines like subway tunnels.)

(Sorry, must be a slow news day...)

So I think we've all heard of stuff like the "Feels Like" forecast, what happens when a day "feels like" a different day. The way the family gathered for the funeral Saturday made that day feel like a Sunday. Which seems like it should be great, because you think "man, I'm making out like a bandit! I still have a full day to go!" but it's Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, or maybe even Mugging and Beating and then Robbing Peter and Taking His Shoes to Pay Paul. The Sunday after that never feels like "bonus time" it should, instead it feels like Saturday, and the work week looms like icebergs before the Titanic. You can never work in enough cool stuff that day to avoid the "man, I don't have much time" feeling.

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Bad Song of the Moment
Making the rounds a few weeks ago, the Mets' new theme song is truly, truly awful, what happens when white guys discover "this rap thing". While I can appreciate the sentiment behind "Our Team, Our Time", appropriate for a team that's often had to struggle from the shadow of the Evil Empire, the song itself is... whooo. Reviled by fans, that's for certain.

1983 called, it wants its synth orchestra hit back.

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Google Wildcard of the Moment
"X called, wants its Y back"... Or should that be 2002 called, it wants its joke structure back?

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Advertisement of the Moment

--Back cover dentist advertisement from the back of local Russian television listings. That's, like, the sexiest dental ad I've seen.

• Read "The DaVinci Code". It mentions the Merovingian line, said to be Christ's bloodline and the founders of Paris, or something. It was kind of cool to use that name for a character in the Matrix movies.
• Slate on Why Strict Churches are Strong and King Tut = Boy George?
• 11 Steps to a Better Brain. I sometimes feel my mental capacities are diminishing, though I guess there's some chance its just relatively harmless changes; or possibly my self-monitoring is actually improving, so I'm more aware of my own limitations.
• My backlog said "RANT - HOW THE HELL DO PEOPLE MAKE INFORMED CAREER CHANGE DECISIONS?" Seriously...sometimes I think I should try a radically different career, but I have no idea how to find out how to ask the right questions about what that should be.
• Kittenwar! Head to Head battles of cuteness. Better than the usual "Am I ??? Or Not" interface.
• PostSecret -- amazing, amazing stuff, people write their secrets on anonymous postcards and send them in.
• For a brief time there I was getting into what Star Wars fandom head to say... there's a cool article on trying to explain away all the inconsistencies and goofs (I remember reading this stuff in Star Trek books back in the day.) THere's the "opaque window" point of view, which says in effect, what we see in the movies "really happened" but the movies and books aren't quite perfect viewscreens into those events. Perhaps the ultimate in this whole effort is trying to shoehorn the obscure but pleasant "Yoda's Stories" puzzle game Yoda Stories into the main Star Wars storyline.
• Hmmm...Slate things that a "Consciometer" could radically change the prolife/prochoice debate. Maybe not though, if it turns out an embryo really doesn't develop 'til later, because people who believe in souls wont say that consciousness is the same thing.

Mortality of the Moment
What people die of, across all the nations. Betcha didn't know Luxembourg leads the world in death by Hydrocephalus, or Poland by Sunburn... (page crashes firefox and mozilla browsers, or so they tell me.)

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Politics of the Moment
GeorgeWBush.com has a new video ad that's SO muddled...at first I thought they were comparing Kerry, Gore, et al. to Hitler, but no, they're trying to say that the left is a bunch of wild-eyed radicals who are saying Bush is like Hiter...this Metafilter conversation talks about how bizarre and unclear a message it is. ("Fark meets Godwin to create the season's most most apt and potent catchphrase: 'Hitlerity ensues.'")

Say what you will about Bush, he's the president strictly thanks to the rounding error we call the Electoral College. In a direct count of votes, even the Florida mess wouldn't have mattered one iota.

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Passage of the Moment

Selfridge [the department store magnate] was an interesting fellow who provides a salutary moral lesson for us all. An American, he devoted his productive years to building Selfridges into Europe's finest shopping emporium, in the process turing Oxford Street into London's main shopping venue. He led a life of stern rectitude, early bedtime and tireless work. He drank lots of milk and never fooled around. But in 1918 his wife died and the sudden release from marital bounds rather went to his head. He took up with a pair of Hungarian-American cuties known in music-hall circles as the Dolly Sisters, and fell into rakish ways. With a Dolly on each arm, he took to roaming the casinos of Europe, gambling and losing lavlishly. He dined out every night, invested foolish sums in racehorses and motorcars, bought Highcliffe Castle and laid plans to build a 250-room estate at Hengistbury Head near by. In ten years he raced through $8 million, lost control of Selfridges, lost his castle and London home, his racehorses and his Rolls-Royces, and eventually ended up living alone in a small flat in Putney and travelling by bus. He died penniless and virtually forgotten on 8 May 1947. But of course he had had the inestimable pleasure of bonking twin sisters, which is the main thing.

The book is an American ex-pat about to return to the USA and making one last 7-week tour of the British isles on his own - a good read I'd recommend, laugh-out-loud in many parts. Soon after relating that story he talks about the British love of small pleasures, and how its made his own life richer, and how he knew when he was becoming one of them:

I remember finding myself in damp clothes in a cold café on a dreary seaside promenade and being presented with a cup of tea and a teacake and going 'Ooh, lovely!', and I knew then that the process had started.

Something about that "Ooh loveley!" attitude is sticking in my head. Movie Dialog of the Moment

"You know I've been hearing about 'the one' for I dunno, like twenty years and...I guess I thought it'd be a guy..."
"Right, I know, I know, but look I don't even believe that anymore, I don't believe there's just one person, I think there are like-seven."

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News of the Moment
Cool, the Surpreme Court decided a gay sex ban was an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. Good.

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Website of the Moment
WreckedExotics.com, for all your car crash photo needs...specializing in fancy cars, so you can have joy in the suffering of people who have more money than you. Guess this is like a pornsite for the people in the movie Crash. Link of the Moment
The online comic Cat and Girl is literate and lowbrow at the same time. If you're in a hurry, just check out Girl Plays Games and The Picture of Cat

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Quote of the Moment

They say that one day through virtual reality a man will be able to stimulate making love to any woman he wants through his television set. You know, folks, the day an unemployed ironwork can lie in his Barca Lounger with a Foster's in one hand and a channel-flicker in the other and fuck Claudia Schiffer for $19.95, it's going to make crack look like Sanka.

A traffic light tree. Reminds me of amusing Selena with tales of the AutoBaum, where the Autos grow. Unfortunately she knew as little English as I did German, but a doodle got the idea across.
--Image from ZZZ online

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President Junior Rant of the Moment
Wired had an article Just Say No to College Aid. The Bush administration sees fit to enforce the guideline that non-answers to questions about past drug use count as "Yes"es and therefore render the answerer ineligible for federal scholarships and grant funding. By these standards, Bush is A DRUG USER. So a kid can't some cash for school, but he can be the damn president? Yeesh.

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Quote of the Moment

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

You know, I don't know if it's because it's a lame quote or because I mostly know nice people, but I don't know too many people who are rude to the waiter.