From "Support The Troops" To. . .

. . . this:





Can we just make it official? Can we just say that those magnetic car ribbons have jumped the shark, so high and so far that they've reached escape velocity and are travelling far, far into outer space?

Damn It

Steve Gilliard has died.

People younger than me are not supposed to die, damn it.

People smarter than me are not supposed to die, damn it.

People who write better than me are not supposed to die, damn it.

People who are braver than me are not supposed to die, damn it.

Movies Remakes We'd Rather Not See

The George Lucas remake of "Zardoz"

Tears, Appropriate Times and Places For

This is not John Boehner.

(photo via Unqualified Offerings)

Snarkaption Nation #6

"Don't be sad, John. I would never have actually VOTED for a suckup like you, anyway."

Don't Go There!

I'm still stuck at home, recuperating from the hip bursitis mentioned several post below. (Considerable improvement since starting the cortisone, but I still get achy and twingy if I'm up on my feet too long, and the range of motion on that leg is still limited before it hurts. My doctor is sending me for several weeks of physical therapy, so I'll be off work for a while yet.)

I should be using the time at home for catching up on some lighter stuff, like sorting, filing and/or discarding the stacks and boxes of old papers that have piled up, or getting extra work done on my fiction writing. And I've done some of that. But I've also been spending more time on the Internet.

In particular, I took a look at a particular website, and have been finding myself sucked in, to the tune of several hours a day.

The site: Yahoo! Answers

Man, that sucker's addictive! It's a site where you can post questions you'd like answered, and post answers to others' questions. You earn points for answers, extra points if yours is the "Best Answer", etc. Get enough points, and you become a higher-level participant. (No extra perks, but it's the honor of the thing.)

There are multiple categories to post questions in, and -- with the millions of Yahoo! users to draw from -- there are thousands of questions posted daily.

It's not a strictly utilitarian site. Some of the questions are clearly posted as "social" questions, just to get some conversation going. ("What's your favorite movie?")

And... and there's a LOT of this going on at Yahoo! Answers... there are many, many teenagers obviously posting homework questions, looking for someone else to give them the answers. (There was one guy who posted "Write me a one-page book report, and I'll give it Best Answer! You'll earn ten points!" Oooooohhh, how tempting. The slapdowns in the replies were, to say the least, pretty strong.) (The guy's response to the slapdowns? "You guys are all queers!")

But there are legitimate questions in many areas, and I've been able to share information and my uppity pretentious advice with a number of people. I've identified several books and movies people couldn't remember titles for, shared cooking advice, and given feedback to several people asking for input on their writing.

Yahoo! Answers is a lot like popcorn, or potato chips. It's easy, it's fun, and you can't stop taking one more bite.

In fact, one question was "How much time do you spend on Yahoo! Answers each day?" And nobody had an answer of less than an hour (and a lot of 4-5 hours a day.)

I wonder if there are 12-step groups for Yahoo! Answers addicts? (Maybe I should post that question.)

Must... exercise... self-restraint. Must... do... important shit.

Don't go there.

Snarkaption Nation #5

"First I shredded the curtains, and no one stopped me.

Then I destroyed the sofa, and no one stopped me.

Until finally. . . but you've only yourselves to blame. Mraaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

(photo from AP)

Snarkaption Nation #4

The sad result of childhood "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots" addiction.

The Last Few Days...

... have been interesting.

Friday night ended up with a mentally disturbed guy threatening to flip out, a relationship ending in screams, and two people dead.

None of which had anything to do with me.

I've never watched the television program ER. But a night sitting in the waiting room at our nearby hospital's Emergency Room provided ample demonstration that an ER is a goldmine for dramatic situations: People under stress, people in pain, people in fear, people dying and people having to watch other people (family, friends) die.

One man had just had his wife die in a traffic accident. He almost made it outside before breaking down completely in long, extended, wordless howls of grief.

The night's other death was a child, with the ER nurses and doctor's scrambling as "Pediatric Code Blue" was announced on the intercom, a few moments before the ambulance arrived. A large Hispanic family arrived shortly after the ambulance, apprehension deep on their faces, and were escorted thru a door into the back room where the child had been taken; thru the door, I could see a minister arriving, Bible in hand. About a quarter of an hour later, the family came back out, moving slowly, some leaning on each other, most crying.

The young couple, the woman emotionally distraught, screaming "LEAVE ME! JUST FUCKING LEAVE ME! THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT!" at her boyfriend. (Husband?) Shortly after, they both left, without seeing a doctor.

And the young guy who had passed out at a dance, was cheerful and friendly most of the night, but became loud and belligerent after he'd seen the doctor, threatening to "flip out" if the ER staff didn't arrange a ride for him back to his halfway house. (Bipolar? Perhaps.)

What I Was Doing There

I'd woken up feeling yucky and out-of-sorts Friday morning, schlepped off to work anyway, and plodded thru the workday feeling bloated and slightly nauseated and wondering if I'd picked up a bug. Didn't think too much of it, other than wishing I'd stayed home, until late afternoon, when I realized that I had not taken a piss all day, in spite of drinking my usual -- fairly large -- amount of liquids.

Kidneys not working? That seemed a little more serious than just a bug, so after getting home from work, I hied off to the local Urgent Care facility. From my symptoms, the doctor there expected to find signs of a kidney infection, but the blood and urine samples (I was able to squeeze out a small sample; the doctor mentioning the word "catherization" was, ummm, motivating) came back negative. So he sent me off the the hospital ER for further, more extensive tests.

There, after more blood tests, an ultrasound, x-rays and eight hours of waiting (not a particular surprise; I wasn't having chest pains, wasn't bleeding, wasn't having problems breathing, could move all my fingers and toes, and wasn't on fire, so I knew I'd be pretty low on the triage list and would have been surprised if I'd been there less than four hours), I finally got into an actual examination room for a doctor to see me.

By this time, early Saturday morning, two things had happened: 1) I'd started feeling considerably less yucky than I had all day Friday, and 2) about five a.m., I was able to take a good long piss. So whatever the problem was, it appeared to have started to rectify itself. Which, since the doctor said all the tests had come up with nothing conclusive -- kidneys, gall bladder, pancreas, etc., all looked okay -- was a good thing. He wanted another blood test, to compare with the one from when I'd first arrived at the ER, so I ended up staying another few hours for that to be taken and processed.

I still wasn't feeling great, just not as bad, and having only had about an hour's worth of catnaps in the waiting room and examination room, I called work and took some sick leave for Saturday. Finally got home about ten a.m. and went to bed. (Hilde had stayed up all night waiting for me. Silly woman. I'd scared her.)

But Wait! There's More!

Sunday night, as I was preparing to take our Corgi, Madame Mim, around the block for her nightly walk, I noticed my left hip was starting to ache. Hadn't strained it, hadn't bumped it, wasn't sure why it was aching. It was worse by the time we got back to the house, and continued to grow worse as Hilde and I got ready to go to bed. Took several extra-strength Tylenol, and hoped it'd be better by morning.

Nope. Worse. Considerably worse. It wasn't just "aching", it hurt.

(I draw a distinction between "discomfort" and "pain": "Discomfort" is something you can focus away from, shove into the background, ignore by force of will and appropriate concentration on something else. "Pain" is a wet blanket over your brain, nails on the chalkboard, speaker feedback at high volume, a car alarm that you cannot stop, fogging your thoughts and throwing sand into your decision-making gears. This was pain.)

It hurt badly enough to call work and report in sick again, then call my doctor and get an afternoon appointment. (Thank you, whoever had just cancelled their own appointment at that time.)

Every Step An Adventure: Thoughts And Notes On Becoming A Crippled Old Fart:

By mid-day, trying to walk on that leg was a process of lurch and gasp, lurch and gasp, pause for a moment to catch breath, repeat until you reach a chair to sit in, or a bed to lie down on, or a wall to lean against.

When you're in pain, your "to-do" list shrinks dramatically, whether you want it to or not.

Even your "have-to-do" list shrinks dramatically.

When you're in pain, you realize just how much of your normal life was spent moving.

Pain makes you taller, because anything on the floor is a lot further away.

Pain makes you shorter, because anything on a high shelf gets further away, too.

Steps that used to be a handy way to change elevation turn into an obstacles.

Putting on a pair of pants becomes very interesting. Shoes, even more so.

"30-Minute Meal" cookbooks become a good thing. Microwavable entrees even better. Pizza delivery is Nobel-Prize worthy.

The dog will not understand why you can't take her for a walk tonight.

Realizing you can write a blog post about it is not adequate recompense for the experience.

The Pros Poke & Prod

So I see my doctor Monday afternoon:

"Does it hurt when I move your leg this way?" "Aieee! Yes!" "How about this direction?" "Aieeee!" "And this?" "Aieeee! Yes! Yes! I confess! I took the Lindbergh baby!"

His preliminary diagnosis is bursitis of the hip, and refers me to an orthopedic specialist. Until I see the ortho doc on Wednesday, treatment is pain pills. (There are some unused Tylenol #2 pills in the medicine cabinet at home, so I strike up a friendship with a really nice guy named Cody Deane for a while.)

So I see the ortho doc, who takes x-rays and gives me an examination. ("Does it hurt when I--" "Aieeee!")

He shows me the x-rays and confirms my GP's diagnosis. On the x-rays, the left hip socket has a small nodule that shouldn't be there, which he tells me is a lump of calciifcation caused by the bursitis. It's located deeper into the socket than most such lumps occur, where he can't get at it with a long needle to give it a direct shot of cortisone. So his prescribed treatment is an oral course of cortisone pills, starting with a heavy dose on the first day and tapering off over a week's time.

Began the course of pills this morning. I am pleased -- nay, relieved -- nay, ecstatic -- to be able to say that the cortisone is already starting to give some relief. The hip is still sore, still tender, still doesn't have a full range of motion, but I'm lurching less now and enjoying it more. Walking on that leg is just a bother now, rather than an adventure. I should be able to go back to work sometime next week.

Let's wrap this up with an appropriate image:

Chester

(written 5/1--5/3/07)

Last Minute Note, and credit where due: The "Lindbergh baby" joke comes from one of Jim Varney's "Ernest" movies. Ummmm... so I'm told. Because, like, you know, a sauve, sophisticated guy like me would never admit to watching ERNEST GOES TO CAMP or ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS, or any of the other Ernest films. No. Not me. No, no, no, no.

J.M.W. Turner Is Painting Nebulae In The Afterlife

The Bug Nebula, from Astronomy Picture of the Day:



Which irresistibly brought to mind the works of J.M.W. Turner:

If Captain America Wasn't Dead, This Would Kill Him

This is just so, so wrong:

Captain America Arrested With Burrito In Pants

MELBOURNE, Fla. --
A Brevard County doctor dressed up in a Captain America outfit was arrested with a burrito in his tights. What he allegedly did at the police station got him into more trouble.

Doctor Raymond Adamcik, 54, would probably rather forget about the weekend when he was arrested on charges of battery, disorderly conduct, drug possession and trying to destroy evidence. It's not what you would expect from a doctor or Captain America.

The Palm Bay family physician was at On Tap bar as part of a pub-crawl with other medical professionals. It was a sort of costume party on a bus that would take them around from bar to bar.

Everything was fine until, witnesses said, Captain America started getting too forward with a burrito he kept tucked inside his blue tights, a burrito that ultimately landed him in jail.

It's certainly not the Captain America from the comic books. This one is accused of sinister deeds more fitting of a villain than a superhero.

On Saturday night, when a costume party full of medical professionals stopped at On Tap Cafe, police said Adamcik had a burrito stuffed below the waistband of his costume and was asking women if they want to touch it. When one refused, he allegedly took out the burrito and groped her.

The woman called police and, when they arrived, the officers wrote in their report "there were so many cartoon characters in the bar at the time, all Captain America's were asked to go outside for a possible identification."

The woman pointed out Adamcik and the burrito was found in his boot. He was taken to the police station. There, while in a holding cell, police said, he asked to use the bathroom and tried to flush a joint, also hidden in his blue tights, down the toilet.

"The officer observed him try to flush something into the toilet. He tried to flush it. The officer was able to reach inside and grab part of what he tried to flush," said Jill Frederiksen, Melbourne Police Department.

The doctor wasn't in when Eyewitness News went by and didn't return calls. He may now have to rely on a lawyer instead of his superpowers to get him out of the jam.

"This is definitely an unusual situation. We don't usually arrest people in costume," Frederiksen said.

No super powers got Adamcik out of jail. He needed $2,000 cash bail and then, once he got out of jail, he still stopped to pose for pictures on the way out. It is unclear right now whether the doctor could lose his medical license if he's convicted.

This is the sort of thing I tend to call "secular blasphemy". With great costumes come great responsibility; if you dress up as Captain America, then damn it, you need to act like Captain America.

He should have dressed up as, oh, maybe Lobo.

IPSTP Day: A Message From The Man In The Moon

I tend to press deadlines to the last moment (I got my taxes done in time last week, but it meant I went to work on three hours sleep), and posting something for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is no exception.

Without further ado:

A Message From The Man In The Moon

Luna's far side is covered
with boundless forests of trees,
immense and towering, tall.
Redolent with usefulness.

Wood, easily cut and shaped,
hardens to stonelike toughness.
Sweet fruit, zero calories,
antivenom to cancer.

I am chainsawing them all,
and burning the logs and limbs
to open the space required
to begin the strip-mining.

For fist-sized nuggets of gold,
head-sized flawless white diamonds,
boat-sized caches of amber.
And did I mention the oil?

Earthside's secret caverns
cloak shadowed lands and oceans,
brimming with fauna thought lost
in your own prehistory.

Sabertooth and giant sloth,
plesiosaur and T. Rex,
trilobites and armored worms,
and gasping mud-crawling fish.

The slaughterhouses open
the beginning of next month,
staffed with abducted children
wielding the keen-edged knives.

(Sixteen-hour shifts should leave
the kiddies worn and sexless.
But abortionists stand by,
if procreation proceeds.)

Hey, the topside slaves must eat
while they etch Nazca lines
of vilest pornography
on Tranquility's broad plain.

And by the way, one more thing
you all should probably know:
I am -- I am -- stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction.

If any of this upsets you,
if any of this angers you,
if any of this alarms you,
why don't you just come on up here

and stop me?


A list of other participants in IPST Day (plus a long list of additions in comments) can be found on Jo Walton's LJ site here. And still more listings at the International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Live Journal site. (Thanks to John Scalzi at Whatever for the links.)

A Few Links

Some links of interest:

LowerManhattanite opens a can of whup-ass on the Keyboard Commandos who think Virginia Tech students should have disarmed the man shooting bullets into them with their bare hands.

Via The Inferior 4, a moving message from Michael Bishop on viewing the body of his son Jamie (one of the VT shooting victims).

On a lighter note, Jennifer Crusie passes along the secret of The Glittery Hoo-Ha.

And over at Angel Station, Walter Jon Williams discusses various "Robins Hood" he has known. (Speaking of which, the first 13 episodes of the 1980's Robin of Sherwood tv series he mentions is now available on DVD; I recommend it very, very, very highly, even if it didn't catch Walter's interest.)

Snarkaption Nation #3

"Researchers announced today that with the

proper application of electroshock, drugs, and

waterboarding, even the most diehard Bush

supporter can be converted into a relatively

benign Chicago Bears fan."

The entire Chicago Tribune photo-series of Bears fans can be found here. Well worth a look.

This Is Just To Plausibly Deny

If you're going to commit parody, parodize the best:



This Is Just to Plausibly Deny
by William Karl Williams

I have deleted
the emails
that were in
the server

and which
you were probably
subpoenaing
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were dangerous
so sweet
and so cold

Topic I

Because there just hasn't been enough talk and discussion about Don Imus lately.

Background, if you've been living under a rock: Last week Imus, on his talk show, referred to the Rutgers University womens basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's". Much upset resulted. Once it was realized how much upset, Imus apologized, and his parent company suspended his show for two weeks.

The sincerity of Imus' apology is suspect. His career has been mostly built around being rude, insulting, in-your-face offensive.

But what made Imus famous wasn't that. It was something called "1,200 Hamburgers To Go." 1200HTG was a classic prank phone call Imus made from his radio show way back around 1970. At the time, there were numerous university and college student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, not always peaceful; in a number of instances, National Guard units were called out to preserve order on campuses (not always successfully; see Kent State).

One such NG unit was called out for such purpose in Imus' home city. Imus called a local MacDonald's burger joint, and pretended to be the National Guard commander, who explained to a hapless clerk that arrangements for feeding the NG members had fallen through, and that he needed to order twelve hundred hamburgers to go. An extended conversation later, roping the MacDonald's manager in, and the MacDonald's had agreed to provide the twelve hundred hamburgers.

"Okay," Imus said, "We'll need two of those with pickle and ketchup, no, make it three with pickle and ketchup, and---" At which point the MacDonald's manager finally realized he was being put on and hung up the phone.

It was funny. It was classic. And... it was benign. It didn't put anyone down, or belittle them, or insult them. It just played a joke, and a good joke. It got airplay everywhere, and repeatedly. It made a local radio host into Don Imus, National Celebrity.

Flash forward a few years, to 1978, when a fellow named Dave Klause was staying with Hilde and me for several months following the Phoenix Worldcon.

Dave was a big fan of 1200HTG, and somewhere he came across a tape of Don Imus performing as a standup comic at a private club. He brought it back to our place, and eagerly popped it into our tape player for a listen.

It was... ugly. Imus' performance was racist, vulgar, scatological, way way over the edge of acceptability. And none of it, none, was even the least bit funny. It was just ugly, and hateful, and... literally... disgusting. After listening to about ten minutes worth, Dave turned off the tape player, a shocked look on his face, and said "Uhh, I guess we won't listen to any more of that."

You see, when Imus is on the public airwaves, no matter how much you think he's rude or offensive, he's actually behaving himself.

Because the real Don Imus is the man who slipped and called a group of black women athletes "nappy-headed ho's", the real Dom Imus is the man we heard on that tape from 1978.

Imus has described himself as "an equal-opportunity bigot"; he hates everybody. I don't think that's a joke. I think Imus is a man deeply poisoned by hatred and anger and bigotry; he just (usually) keeps himself (barely) on the acceptable side of behavior. I think he is a deeply ugly, bone-ugly, soul-ugly individual.

I said above that 1200HTG is a "classic" piece of comedy. It is. I wish it had been the product of someone who deserved the credit.

[02/29/2012 -- A rude, petty, and irrelevant endnote removed.  My apologies, Dave.]

Snarkaption Nation #2

"What? What is it? Why are you all laughing? C'mon, guys, let me in on the joke."

Add your own caption in comments.

Easter...

... the one day of the year when tentacled monsters from outer space suck the brains out of your pet dog:

Original here.

Snarkaption Nation #1

Roxanne over at Rox Populi decided to close up shop there (she's now a contributor to Pandagon) a few months ago, which meant my favorite source of "Write Your Own Caption" contests dried up and blew away.

As the saying goes, when your supplier vanishes, you have to become a dealer yourself.

So I'm going to try posting occasional news photos here (I'll try for about weekly), with my own snarky, mean-tempered captions attached, along with an invitation for readers to contribute their own captions in comments. Like so:















"This is my personal suicide vest. Political suicide."



Add your own caption in comments.

Co-In-See-Deenk?

In the news recently has been the story of Matthew Dowd, political advisor to the White House, a VIP in the election campaigns of 2000 and 2004, who in an interview with the New York Times, announced his deep disaffection and disappointment with the Bush administration.

There was one section of the NYT article, written by Jim Rutenberg, that I particularly noted:

"In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. " [emphasis added]

Hmmm. Does this sound like what I think it sounds like?

That, in short, if you have children in the military, as long as you're a "loyal Bushie", they won't be sent to a combat zone? (Dowd's son joined the Army in late 2004, two-and-a-half years ago.)