More and more and less and less

The title just kinda popped into my head. I always get a general funk going during the holidays, for no real reason -- I have a really fucking great life. Many, many people don't, and so many other useless shitheads are actively trying to make sure that the rest of us get dragged down, or way too often just plain killed. It gets old, and I get tired, and I'm have a hard time being cheerful or funny. Woe is me. Enough of that. I want to lighten the mood.

This year with the right's War On Blahs® and War On Teh Poors™ going so well the War On Christmas© hasn't been in the news as much. But it's still going on! So, to remind us all, here's something I wrote last year, when I, y'know, actually wrote stuff instead of the other typical useless shit I post at this joint. Anyway, here's another (hopefully amusing) re-run, The War On Christmas: Battle Of The School Concert (originally posted, December 19, 2013):

It was a brisk, drizzle-filled night, as the troops marched toward the festively lit auditorium. The mood was generally light and upbeat, as the least religious place in the country did not expect the other side to put up much of a fight. Oh how we were wrong. So, so wrong.

It started innocently enough, with a packed house facing an undecorated stage filled with chairs for the band and a raised choir platform. A few of the troops glanced suspiciously at the decorated tree next to the sound board, but didn't think much of it. A generally optimistic platoon chatted lightly as some students took the stage.

Then, suddenly, we were under assault! Without even a chance to realize what was happening, the choir broke into "Oh Come All Ye Faithful." I watched veterans wince and writhe in agony, some barely able to hang onto their seats as the onslaught battered them. How was this happening? We knew no battle plan survives after the first shots are fired, but we were so unprepared for this. How could we be so naïve?

The strong among us fought back, glaring and grimacing menacingly at the stage until this first volley was past. Expecting our valiant troops to fire back with shouted boos and hisses, we hardened veterans were shocked to see our fellow soldiers applauding heartily! What is this treachery? Had we been infiltrated unknowingly by Christmas troops? It's like they knew our every move before we could react. This was going to be a bloodbath.

At this point the more experienced among us realized we must hold our ground as best we could and hope for a chance to retreat and regroup. This was a wholly unexpected attack from heretofore unknown quarters of the enemy, somehow secreted away in our former bastion of safety. Was everything we knew a lie? They had recruited our own kin against us! This must not, cannot, be allowed to succeed!

As the troops exchanged worried glances, the next assault began... But lo, what is this!? It's "Winter Wonderland"! Huzzah! All is not lost -- to arms! To arms!

Buoyed by this turn in the battle, we knew we still had a chance. Our children had not fully succumbed. The battle would go on... and on... and on...

After an hour and forty minutes of back-and-forth, the troops on both sides were bloody and bruised. Some had slumped in their seats, either dead or feigning so to avoid further agony. Overall the battle was almost even with many casualties on both sides, but we had the upper hand. Then the choir appeared alone, with hardbound books cradled gently in their outstretched hands. What is this? What fiendishness do they have planned now?

The grinning choir leader then announced... A LATIN MASS! But how... why... This just isn't possible. The dejected remaining troops were visibly taken aback, a stunned silence reigned, but we held firm. We couldn't let them beat us, not after making it this far.

Oh, were we not prepared for what followed. Endless indecipherable Latin, ebbing and flowing, rising to a hopeful crescendo of "Hallelujah, hallelujah" -- this certainly must be the end -- no, there are still more pages in that dastardly book of theirs. It went on... and on... and on...

...

And on... and on... until finally, after 20 long minutes of brutality, it was over. We sat stunned, shocked at this terrible savagery. Where could this have come from? Here, in our stronghold? It was inconceivable. How could they win here of all places? We were ruined.

And then, just as we prepared to gather the dead and retreat, defeated, the choir leader approached her microphone... What, is it not done? What horror can you further inflict on us, you MONSTER? We braced ourselves, we were surely all doomed... What is she preparing to say? Just get it over with!

"Have a nice night, happy holidays!"

Huzzah! The battle was long and many were lost. In the end, we managed the ultimate victory! Oh the joy, the relief!

This day will live forever as one of the greatest battles in this long war. May our valiant troops around the world take heart and never give up. Stay strong warriors, stay strong!

Happy holidays indeed.

Holiday Re-runs

No, this post is not about that racist fuckhead Santa and his shithead reindeer all ganging up on the shiny-nosed Montgomery Ward's mascot. No, this is just lazy blogging.

There was an anniversary recently. You know the one. Nothing's changed in two years, and I don't have anything more to add than what I did two years ago so I'm just gonna point you all to that and get back to our regularly-scheduled shittyness.

Happy holidays, I hope you don't get shot.

Whataboutery Wednesday

whataboutery
noun
1. (of two communities in conflict) the practice of repeatedly blaming the other side and referring to events from the past

I have no idea why this word seems so relevant at this point in time. No idea at all. But I'm definitely gonna start using it more.

Here, have some music from a good Portland band:

You should buy the album.

Hey! White America...

And especially your "peace officers." Get your fucking shit together, you racist fuckwits. You deserve every bit of the backlash you're seeing, and that you don't understand that just underscores the massive problems with race this country still has.

Fuck you all.

(Disclaimer: I'm very, very white -- I hate that I have to be associated with the small(?) number of you racist shitheads in any way.)

Worth it

Moving sucks, but then you wake up to this view and you realize why you went through the whole crazy process.

We're Number One!

We're number one! We're number one!

1. Oregon
Standout stat: 6.3 craft breweries per 100,000
It should be noted that our entire editorial staff (except for Kryza, who lives in Portland and likes to tell people about it) was actively rooting against Big O in this ranking. It leads any booze-related national conversation on the strength of its unassailably dense beer scene, but OR's also third in wineries, fifth in distilleries, and 13th in bars per capita. Oh, did we mention craft beer and wine alone account for $4.6 billion in economic impact each year, and Oregonians drink 2.65 gallons of booze? Because it does, and they do. Basically, it's a big, boozy bully, and we wanted to take it down a peg or several. But the numbers don't lie -- The Beaver State is America's Booziest.

Suck it, you buncha sober losers. :-b

In a related study, extensive research has found that buying a new house and moving for the first time in eleventy-zillion years results in a dramatic increase in quantity of alcohol consumed. The study is ongoing, with an additional focus on examining any correlation between types of remodeling projects and choices of beverage.

Light(er) posting

I'm moving. There will be even fewer shitty posts than normal around here for a while. I know you're all terribly upset.

I guess I'll be nice awful and make sure you all know about the Cards Against Humanity's Holiday Bullshit for this year (hurry, less than 200,000 left, they'll go quick).

To tide you over until I post again, here is a mesmerizing picture of the McKenzie river I took a couple months ago:

(click to embigginate)

That is all, we now return you to your regularly scheduled blogoscape. See you on the flipside, if I survive.

High Stateciety

While the rest of you losers out there in the great wasteland known as 'Murka lick your wounds, here in Beervana, we remained (relatively) sane and easily re-elected our surprisingly-not-completely-useless Democrats, and legalized pot. Overwhelmingly, also, too: 703,275 to 579,188. Took us a few tries over the last couple cycles, but hey, I'll take it.

Fuck. Yeah.

So, come July (yeah, unfortunately it'll be a while before the law takes effect), I think I'll brew up an inaugural batch of Mary Jane Ale wherein I legally toss in a gram or two of legal pot along with the hops. I'd replace all the hops with pot, but hops are only $4 an ounce, and beer needs multiple ounces... You do the math.

I've been avoiding the news other than this, since when I glanced at it briefly all I saw was "OMG NEW REPUBLICAN MAN-DATE LET'S HEAR FROM CHRIS CHRISTIE ABOUT HOW AWESOME THIS ALL IS AND WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR 2016!!!!?!?!!!?!?!?" -- is there any other good news to glean from the otherwise shitty midterms out there in your necks of the woods?

Whoah, I almost forgot the obligatory soundtrack:

Opinions differ

There is dissension in the blogroll!

I'm with Drifty -- vote, then bitch later -- but I understand the "whatever, fuck it" mentality that pervades these mid-term shenanigans. We have some interesting shit going on in Beerville (legal marijuana, fuck yeah!) and some really nasty house races. Oh yeah, and piss-lover Art Robinson, always good for a laugh.

It's all a bit anticlimactic here since we vote by mail. "Election day" is a bit meaningless, other than it being the last day you can get your ballot in and the day the counting finishes up. But with luck, hopefully today we'll all get to listen to this in celebration after it's all counted up:

We'll see. Keep your fingers crossed.

Wimp-out Wednesday

I'm gonna be lazy and outsource today's blogging. Huge surprise, I know.

First, if you're not reading Jesus And Mo, you should be:

b) This is a pretty good McSweeney's column about guns. A tidbit:

Three years ago, my wife and I got concealed-carry firearms permits. A lot of people have asked why we did that. The answer is short: we did it because of a weekend column in the newspaper. Plus, we wanted to do something new, and we weren’t afraid of guns.

The official gun evangelist answer, on the other hand, is longer: “Why not a concealed carry? Are they trying to infringe upon your sacred Second Amendment right to Keep And Bear Arms, bestowed upon you and all of your Fellow Citizens by God Himself, as He directed our Founding Fathers to ensure Freedom from Tyranny for all Freedom-loving Patriots who need to defend Themselves and their Families from the Government and the Maniacs that lurk outside our homes across this Beloved Nation and—"

While that tirade continues, back to the short answer. It was summertime, and one night as my wife and I sat on the front porch reading our local newspaper (on our laptop screens because the “paper” only exists in binary code now) I caught one of those Things to Do This Weekend pieces that typically run in the Friday issue of any paper.

[...]

Read the whole, etc., blah.

Or not. What the fuck do I care?

I made this...

...for no particular reason.

Please feel free to use it, I'm sure it'll come in handy in various situations.

Updated: Originally a Ute Ooob but I fixxorated it and made it a really fucking big gif on Imgur for more versatility. Please note new zoomishness. You're welcome.

EVERYBODY PANIC!!!

Since I'm the world's laziest blogger, I'm just gonna take this comment I left over at Helmut's place and repurpose it here slightly edited.

---

[Ebola] is a nasty disease, but at this point it's just being used as a tool for panic. Hey, it keeps the rubes scared, so it's useful until the next shiny thing comes along. The CDC and the Texas hospital did some stupid shit, otherwise it would have been over as soon as it started.

Meanwhile, how many people have died of the regular ol' flu this year?¹ How many got vaccinated? How many have been gunned down?² Oh, no sorry, we don't talk about those things.

People are very, very bad at evaluating risk. Like, horrifically, comically bad.

The only thing I'd like to ever hear about ebola again is a report about who exactly is paying for all this expensive care. I can't imagine these poor folks getting flown around on special private ebola-jets are getting it for free, that'd just be unAmerican. We couldn't have that. I hope their surviving relatives are being billed [/snark].

---

Stay scared, America.

¹ More than 20 thousand people die every year in the US from the flu (get vaccinated, dumbasses).

² Approximately 32 thousand gun deaths a year. But let's not talk about that, because we may start wondering why there are so many fucking guns in this country. Oh look, a sportsball game is on!

Coincidence?

Is it simply coincidence that two of the worst days evar, Indigenous People Genocide Day and Monday The Thirteenth happen to occur on the same day? Hmm? HMMMMM!?!

Unpossible.

Wake up, sheeple.

TRAFFIC UPDATE: Evidently the previous stupid pun post got over 500 page views on Saturday alone, making it one of the most popular single pages on my site, ever. But there are no comments. At. All.

Who the fuck linked to me? There's no sign of it in the stats page. Must've been...

Can't we just...

...give peas a chance?

(And a collective groan is heard all 'round the blogoverse.)

Forgotten Fabulousness Friday, again

An occasionally-recurring feature whereupon I reverse-sort my music library by number of plays and select a few gems (and not-so-gems) to annoy my readers with.

First up, There's No Fucking Rules Dude by !!! (yes, really, that's their name). I have absolutely no idea where I got this song. I think it came in a free sampler from someplace a zillion years ago or something:

Next we have some reggae from Yellowman's "Mister Yellowman" album -- Morning Ride. I have no idea how this got into my library, but it's not awful:

And now, for something completely different, we have a fairly recent song that I think I got as a free eMusic download or something. White Hinterland -- Baby:

Lastly, Liquid Tension Experiment, with Universal Mind a nice long and loud instrumental. I actually remember buying this CD, which is nice:

I hope at least some of it annoys the hell out of you.

Mimicry Monday

A day upon which I steal M. Bouffant's schtick and post a pretty picture of clouds in lieu of anything else vaguely interesting.

The sunset got prettier about half an hour later, but by then I was driving and couldn't stop for a better picture. It was great, you'll just have to trust me.

Terrible Technology Tuesday

Some of my vast readership may remember my post about the creepy running robot our good friends at DARPA were developing. Well, there's a new/different one from those scamps at MIT, and this one is actually able to run on its own, instead of being stuck tethered to a treadmill:

Oh, and this one is electric, so it's nice and quiet and stealthy.

So, yeah, there's that.

I, for one, do not welcome our soon-to-arrive, armed-and-armored robot cheetah overlords.

What year is it?

I may have had too much to drink, but I think I just saw the prez on the TV machine telling me we really need to bomb some brown people across the ocean. I thought we already tried that, but I must be misremembering things -- our beloved political/media class couldn't possibly be feeding us another line of shit, right?

Aw Yiss!

Motherfuckin' Beer Week!

That's pretty much my reaction. Gonna be a good week.

I Saw The News Today. Oh Boy.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Same shit getting worse by the minute, same stupid talking heads blabbering about it. I don't even know why I bother.

Thankless Thursday

[tap tap tap]... Is this thing on?

Oh, ok, good. [ahem]

I'm still alive. Here's some random shit:

This comic made me think of a certain electrician.

The world continues to fall apart, but you knew that.

Continuing the theme from that last post several eons ago, I seem to be managing to gather even more gems of spammy wisdom. Here are some excellent pieces of advice that come with lots of links to boner pills:

• The earliest recipe for fruit idiot dates to the mid seventeenth century.
• Approach them to trigger the fight, then duck back into the hallway. After a breakup, you are emotionally upset and your ex boyfriend is angry.
• Seems like the same paralysis is also happening at the local and state level.
• Lately, he has been pretty good with other dogs and such. This is ok if you know where your arrest warrant was issued but it's a whole different story if you aren't sure where the warrant might be.
• Many users have also said that this shampoo is less drying. Ιf you have an anal yeast infection you will also have redness and purple patches of small blisters.

There you have it -- from "fruit idiot" recipes, to dog's with arrest warrants, to anal infections. How can I top that? I might as well just outsource the whole blog to JanusNode at this point.

Carry on.

Wacky Wednesday

I get the weirdest spam:

(click to embiggle)

Notice there in the blue print that I have been selected to receive this amazing message because I have been "identified as an Expert in [my] area of activity." I'm so honored.

Also, too: I'm kinda curious to hear more about this Bizarro "Sollar System" they talk about, but not curious enough to expose my inbox to more weirdness than it already gets pounded with [heyo!].

Friendly Reminder Friday

Reason number twelve thousand one hundred and ninety three not to drink shitty beer: shitty marketing.

Also: No, putting a lime wedge in it to hide the skunk stench is not clever either, just buy decent beer in the first place.

Also, too: fuck your shitty "country" music. Fuck it right in the ear.

Belated Independence Day Filler

Things are crazy and looking to be that way for a while. Here, have a comic from Wondermark (alternately, how I honor independence by being dependent on others for content):

Woo, filler. Yay.

The Team Washington Deserves

I came up with a new name and logo for the current Washington's Racist Stereotype football team:

I think it fits.

Update: be sure to zoom for enhanced blood-drippy goodness.

Throwback Tuesday

Evidently all the things that were cool and hip and swingin' long ago in 2003 are back "in" again! Yay. Here, have an album released that year:

Here are a couple other things from that year. Nina Simone died:

So did Noel Redding:

So did Warren Zevon and Johnny Cash, and more.

And the Challenger Shuttle blew up on reentry.

And there was some war or something and a bunch of people in some country across the ocean might have died or been horribly maimed, but they don't count so whatevs.

Now I'm just gonna sit back and wait for the reanimated corpse of Robert Novak show up on my TV to out a CIA agent. Man, those were the days!

Friday Filler: Movie Plots

Bruce Schneier just concluded his seventh movie plot threat contest. Here's the start of the winner's plot:

The NSA, GCHQ et al actually don't have the ability to conduct the mass surveillance that we now believe they do. Edward Snowden was in fact groomed, without his knowledge, to become a whistleblower, and the leaked documents were elaborately falsified by the NSA and GCHQ.

...

This latest contest revolved around surveillance (Schneier is working with Snowden and St. Glenneth of Greenwald. Thankfully, Schneier does actually know what he's talking about and lacks the oh so delightful tendency to lie unabashedly). This latest one's OK, but not quite as funny as the second one from way back in 2007, which focused on the TSA. A simpler time:

...

"Maybe," said Wilkes, not ready to write it off as just a screener's error. The NTSB guys were always quick to find a bad decision, one human error, and explain the whole thing away. But Wilkes' job was to find the flaws in the systems, the procedures, the way to come up with prophylactic precautions. Maybe there was nothing more than a screener who didn't spot a grenade or a stick of dynamite, something so obvious that there was nothing to do but chalk up a hundred and eighty three dead lives to one madman and one very bad TSA employee.

But maybe not. That's when Wilkes spotted the first two of the butterflies. Bright yellow against the charred black of the burned wreckage, they seemed like the most incongruous things -- and as he thought this, another appeared.

...

Anyway, just some Friday Filler I guess. hadn't read his blog in a while, and didn't know if any of my vast, vast readership had seen it. So check it out, or not, whatever.

Congrats

To another useless Republican, Eric Cantor, for losing his primary fight against a Tea Party challenger. Your useless brand of craven indifference will be missed for all 30 seconds it takes for the next uselessly indifferent shitheel to take your spot.

Routine

noun

1. a customary or regular course of procedure.
2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity.
3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
4. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response.

So, I guess this bullshit is just the sad cost of living in 'Merka (fuck yeah!) these days, huh?

This is fucking insane and needs to stop.

Update: Here's the live dispatch audio from the police responding to the shooting:

Idaho, Technology Thursday edition

Tengrain and Bette Noir both posted different versions of what I was going to about the little town of Hailey, Idaho (I've actually been there), so I don't have to. Instead, I'll post another bit of sanity(!) from a state that is normally known more for its crazy:

A guy and his wife from Sandpoint, Idaho (I've been there too! Can't remember why...) have invented a solar smart road system and it's been getting great press and good funding from a crowdfunding drive. It looks like they're going to actually be able to go into production and do initial testing on sidewalks and parking lots.

Modular solar roadway "tiles" showing off snow melting ability.

Read the whole thing, etc., but in a nutshell it looks like they've actually thought of a lot of cool features, auto heating in winter to melt snow/ice, built in LEDs that can be configured in different ways (markers, arrows, warnings), channels underneath the road surface itself where fiber optics can run, and even a good way to provide charging stations for EVs.

Of course, since I'm a cynical bastard, this could all be a giant pie-in-the-sky boondoggle or scam, but I sure hope not.

Updated to add: I forgot one other bit of tech news I saw today, Pixar will release their next version of their Renderman software for free, noncommercial use. As part of my past life involved lots of 3D modeling and rendering and such, it's just super cool that people will be able to learn and play with one of the flagship tools in the industry without shelling out the dough. I'm sure it'll be good in the end for Pixar, but it'll also be good for everybody interested in this kind of thing. If the righteous Substance McGravitas were still around, I bet he'd figure out a way to make a disgustingly high-def animated 3D goatse or something. Y'know, important stuff we really need!

Country

The Zombie, in a comment on the previous post mentioned a country singer coming to the Vancouver Folk Festival. While country isn't really one of my favorite things, I got to thinking about the "country" stuff I do like, and that had me looking through my music collection and stumbling on Eric Taylor (I may get a chance to see him soon). I'm not really sure if he's folk, or country, or singer/songwriter or maybe even more of a writer that happens to play what he writes. Anyway, I do like some stuff that might classify as some kind of "country" -- but absolutely nothing they play on the radio.

Here are a few songs, the first is a studio recording:

This second one is a live session from 2001 doing a Townes Van Zandt song -- the bearded guy is Steve Earle, the guy playing slide is another favorite of mine, Kelly Joe Phelps:

These next two are more recent, and have him doing a long but interesting intro to his "Hollywood Pocketknife" song that details how he wrote it. The "song" itself doesn't really start until about five minutes into the second video if you want to skip it:

And finally one last live song, recorded last fall and showing that he has a more upbeat side as well:

Someday I may actually get around to writing something rather than just posting a bunch of filler. Maybe.

Fuckit, it's Filler Friday!

Here, have one of my favorite covers of Pink Floyd's "Dogs":

For some reason I just love this version. It's still true to the original, but has its own personality. The whole "set 2" of the Live Frogs album is a cover of the "Animals" album, and I love it.

Also, too: As additional filler, I guess it's time to dust off this gun control rant of mine from a couple years ago. I guess I should just put that as a constantly available link in the blog template, since we're just gonna get more and more of these fucked up mass killings until we're all finally staring at each other at some massive standoff or something. Fuck.

Catchy

Alternate post title: Technology Thursday. Anyway, this is pretty neat:

Pretty cool that they've figured out how to "demonstrably program" the robot on how to catch stuff, and then once that's done, it'll do the calculations "on the fly" by itself.

And if robots aren't your thing, have some music instead. Here's what I'm listening to right now:

First track is pretty mellow. Second track is a pretty good remake of a song you'll recognize.

Coincidence?

Or did FSM (praise his noodly appendages!) arrange for a little display of solidarity in the sky now that Oregon finally entered the modern world yesterday?

Photo credit: Corvallis Gazette-Times

It's about damn time people!

Updated because I meant to add this random musical interlude also, too:

Maybe this election cycle we can also fully get our shit together and take care of that other thing that we used to be one of the leaders on:

Maybe.

For some reason...

...this song has been running through my head ever since I watched the morning news:

I can't possibly imagine why that would be.

Trey Gowdy Greedo

I've posted a comment at a couple places that the Teahadi's new Benghazinvestigator looks like Greedo from Star Wars and that Barry (and/or Hillary) should shoot first, just like Han Solo did. I couldn't resist making a hideous animation:

(click to enjoy it in it's full-sized hideousness)

Yes, the color and typeface surrounding the asshole in the first frame are both hideous, because Trey and the Teahadis deserve nothing better.

You're welcome.

Prediction (updated with video)

Maddow just teased a story from Oregon and the teaser contained Art Robinson. I predict the story is about Art wanting our urine, because that's what a mailer I got from Robinson over the weekend was about.

[Popcorn.gif]

UPDATE:

Here's the video: (go here if the embedding doesn't work)

Can you imagine if a Democratic candidate solicited people's urine for a study? The nutjob-wing of the Republican party (but I repeat myself) would flip right the fuck out. It'd be worse than eleventy-five Benghazis times nine U.N. Agenda 21s. Carnage!

There's an amusing article from a local rag about it here. They actually sent away for the kit.

Toe-tappin' Tuesday

One of my favorite local bluesy bands just released a new album. It's available here along with a couple sample tracks. Also available on emusic but I think buying directly from the label gets them more money (disclosure: I noticed it at emusic first, so I suck).

I shall resume my regularly-scheduled dearth of posting now.

The Adventures of Jeebus and Satin

Here we have a new "feature" whereupon I draw a shitty cartoon that seemed funnier in my head and then make you look at it.

Click to embiggen. Or not, whatever.

Finally

That was a long winter.

Wayback Wednesday II

This was one of my favorite games as a kid. Now I can play it any time I want!

Xevious

Sadly, it requires Flash. Controls are:

• Mouse click to start.
• Z key to fire
• X key to bomb
• Arrow keys to move

Tons moar old classics available here. Consider your day wasted.

You're welcome!

Things and Such and Weather and Whatnot

Hmm, a blog. Yeah, I guess I have one of those.

So... how 'bout that weather? Some of you folks are still experiencing winter I guess. While here in Beerville a month after Snowpocalypse II, Icelectric Slipperypoo it's finally 65°F, sunny, and the flowers are blooming. For those still suffering with cold, I made you a campfire:

Also, you didn't know you needed THE ELECTRO-PLASMIC HYDROCEPHALIC GENRE-FICTION GENERATOR 2000 but oh yes, you do. Yes. You. Do:

In a post-apocalyptic Antartica, a young flying message courier stumbles across a crazy old man which spurs him into conflict with forces that encourage conformity with the help of a bookish female scholar with mousy brown hair and her reference book, culminating in a philosophical argument punctuated by violence.

Your title is: "The Blackbots."

And:

In an alternate-history Victorian Britain, a young brooding loner stumbles across an encrypted data-feed which spurs him into conflict with humanity's selfish nature with the help of a sarcastic female techno-geek and her discomfort in formal wear, culminating in the invocation of a spell at the last possible moment.

Your title is: "The Neurophages."

I should submit these to Regenery.

Random geeky shit

As some of my vast readership knows I moderate over at Sadly, No!. About once a week somebody has trouble with linking or otherwise bolding/italicizing comments so I wrote this up as a comment over there. It was long enough for a post of its own (slightly tweaked for context) for posterity, so, here you go:

Here's what all that angle bracket shit you're using for linking/bold/italic/etc. means.

This is about HTML. Now I'm sure most of you have heard those letters before, and many will know what they mean, this isn't for you. Stop reading.

Really. Stop. Fine, it's your brain.

HTML stands for "HyperText Markup Language" which itself used SGML, the "Standard Generalized Markup Language" to define its concrete syntax.

Basically what that means is that's where the angle brackets (<>) that we use to mark the text for special consideration come from. Beyond that SGML is mostly just historical at this point and you should read the wackypedia if you care.

The markup that FYWP (and Google/blogspot, also, too, mostly) allows us to use in comments is a very small subset of HTML -- quoting, italics, bold, strikeout, etc. All of the markup we use has its corresponding tag. A "tag" is what marks the beginning and ending of "special" text -- stuff we want to make bold or turn into a link. Tags start with a left angle bracket (<) a.k.a. "less than" and are immediately followed by one or more characters. In the case of the link tag, it's "a" as in "anchor." That's what it was called back in the day as its main use was to "anchor" one part of a document to another so you could jump back-n-forth glossary/index style. Nobody gives a shit about that anymore.

After that opening bit some tags can be immediately closed with a closing right angle bracket (>) a.k.a. "greater than" (e.g. <i>) -- other tags (e.g. <a ) should be followed by one or more attributes. An attribute is just that, more stuff that describes the tag, and so affects the human-readable text inside the tag's opening and closing markers.

Links can have a few different attributes, but the one we really care about is "href."

The "href" attribute specifies the "hyperlink reference" that the anchor points to -- just a fancy name for what we know as a link, a.k.a. "URL" -- "uniform resource locator" (or "URI" -- "uniform resource identifier" more currently correct).

So to put that all together, we add a space after our "<a" then add our attribute and its contents. The attribute name must be followed by an equals sign (=), that's the separator that tells the parser that this attribute contains a value and isn't just an on/off flag, and that should be followed by a quote character (single or double, doesn't matter) to delineate the actual start of the attribute's contents, the URL.

A URL can be a very complicated thing, so I'll just describe the most basic use, pointing to a simple file/resource on a web server. Such a link needs to start with "http://" because that tells us we want the "HypterText Transport Protocol" and not something else, like FTP ("File Transfer Protocol") or something. There are other protocols, but you don't care about those (or any of this, really. Why are you still reading?) After the dual slashes (again used as delimiters and also required -- just one doesn't cut it) we have the name of the internet server (domain name) e.g. "www.google.com". Yes, of course you could use the server's IP address instead of its domain name, why couldn't you? Do you really want me to get into IPV4 notation too? IPV6? You monster!

Ahem.

The name (yes, or address) is followed by another delimiting slash. And then you get to the actual stuff you want to look at on that particular server -- the path that points to the file and/or actual resource you're looking for, (e.g. "/the/internet/is/a/silly/place.html"). There are lots and lots of things that can be contained in that string, but since most of you wankers are just copying and pasting them from somewhere, you don't care.

Anyhoo, the URL is then followed by the closing quote character -- of course it has to match the opening character -- symmetry! -- and the closing right angle bracket >

All that just gets us our opening tag. See, it's easy when you don't think about it!

To recap, what we have so far:

<a href="http://a.server.name/the/internet/is/a/silly/place.html">

After the opening tag, you put whatever you want to actually be displayed to be clicked on, typically:

PENIS

That's the "contents" of the tag. The human-readable shit that we're meant to see. Get it? We have like, these magic pairs of less-than/greater-than doohickys with things in them that tell the computer what to do, and we put human readable shit in-between pairs of these other pairs. We good so far? No? Tough, you shouldn't even be reading this anyway.

Now... wait for it... we need to close the tag. Guess what that is? Yep more brackets and slashes and shit. Closing tags don't get attributes, so at least we have that going for us. In our example, it's simple -- we need to start the tag with our left angle bracket (<), then tell the parser that this is going to be a closing tag by putting yet another slash (/) in there. Then that needs to be followed by the corresponding type of tag we're closing -- it's an "a" for "anchor" remember? -- and then we close the closing tag (yes, what of it?) with that final, delightful, right angle bracket (>). That combination should look like this if you've forgotten already: </a>

That's it, we have a link, it should look like this:

<a href="http://a.server.name/the/internet/is/a/silly/place.html">PENIS</a>

Now, to really blow your minds, we can nest that shit to combine it all together. You can figure that part out, the key is symmetry and matching the opening and closing pairs.

If you read this far, guess what you get?

Yep, it's a PENIS:

Stop

The sign says it all: this can stop anytime now.  Please.

Gourmet

This is what happens when your wife goes out with her friends and you get to make ridiculous food for yourself:

Frito Pie.

That's Fritos®, a can of chili, Tillamook® cheddar, and pickled jalapeños.

And yes, that's a paper plate.  It just seemed... appropriate,  somehow.

Fucking. Delicious.

Hoppy New Year, Belated Edition

Now that this new year is almost a week old and my very relaxing, almost-entirely-away-from -the-internets vacation is over I've discovered I should probably have an even longer break. I'm short on vacation time, have 17 metric shit-tonnes of work to do my "real" job, and a whole bunch of new brewery equipment (Conical! 1+ barrel per batch! Glycol cooling! Digital control! Shiny shiny!) is taking up the rest of my free time. I think I'm gonna just have to let this little mostly-unread corner of the intarwebs languish a bit for a while.

I'll be around, likely occasionally dropping ill-conceived drunken comments at the usual haunts, and continuing to delete idiotic troll comments over at Sadly, No! There will probably be some hideous photoshopped monstrosity that yearns to be created that brings me back sooner than I should be. Otherwise, drop a comment on this post if you have some silliness that won't wait.

Later, taters.