Friday, October 31, 2003

Jackass Filter.

One of the things about this blog that kind of annoys me is how constrained I feel when writing about school. I'm scrambling around for blog content and much of the time I deliberately ignore potentially good material from school because I really don't need that kind of stuff getting back to me. I find it hard to believe a teacher would ignore that I think he/she is an incompetent jackass. So I don't mention these things, or if I do mention them I make everything fairly vague. I hate pulling punches when certain people really need to be punched.
Heirloom Quality.

"Let me show you my collection of fecal tongs." [Link via Metafilter.]
Pure, Glittering Sanity.

The Tooth, the Whole Tooth and Nothing But The Tooth has an unfortunately "funny" title, but the author didn't, I don't think, intend his web site to be funny. He believes that a dentist implanted a miniature telephone in one of his teeth: "[...] It was likely placed to drive me crazy (sorry, still sane) in order to gloss over the theft of my only legal son and my inheritance - my grandfather's bank - the Bessie State Bank, and its holdings.[...]" [Link via The Presurfer.]

Thursday, October 30, 2003

Filler!

Yes, it's time to clean out the ol'search requests bin.

beautiful women using linux
There's gotta be at least one or two. (And, in a similar vein, since I'm not currently using Linux, it looks like I'm going to miss out on posing for the Linux Hunks calendar. So that means next year there will be no picture of me stretched out on a bearskin rug while I recompile my kernel.).

I pee more often had the urge to go badly
Google isn't a urologist.

cocaine real player audio speeches
If I could find a site with video clips in the RealPlayer format of coked-up people giving speeches, I might actually be persuaded to install RealPlayer. Maybe.

wanking in my office
Not in my office, thank you.

God that thing is stinky
Well, get it out of my office!

NAKED GIRLS SHOWING EVERY THING
First one showed me her holiday photos, then the contents of her purse, then her new shoes, then a telephone, then a carpet sample, then a...

fellatio diaries
Now this I would read.

damn hobos porn
Damn hobos.

+stereoscopic+penis
Since I've looked at stereoscopic pictures of nude women I really can't make fun of this, now can I?

awful plastic penis
Awful! Just awful!

erotica wife OR marriage "mongolia"
I suppose this is a step up from the porn of the Mongolian variety people usually come here looking for.

super-intelligent gophers
I hope these exist. I really do. Super-intelligent gophers would be a bright spot in my mostly tedious existence.

statistics about squirrels getting hit by cars
Sadly, the National Bureau of Squirrel Statistics was shut down in the mid 70's due to budget cuts.

pictures of girls chewing snuff
Suddenly, my little porn kinks don't sound quite so kinky.

free creepy doll email
If this exists, then I'm going to try and get volume22@creepydoll.com for this blog. But only if it's free.

photographica of vagina
It's not porn, it's photographica. Of vaginas.

'ventriloquist' and dummies and female
And weirdo and splinters and registered sex offender.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

What is it?

I'm sure Dtoy vs Byokal will be useful to someone, I just don't think I'm that someone. It sort of reminds me of the Soda Constructor, which is the most peculiar make-your-own-animated-stuff site I've ever seen. [Link via J-Walk.]
After Today, Nothing But Quiz Results.

This is just embarrassing. Once again, my head is devoid of potential blog content. It's almost as if last Thursday was my last gasp and it's all down hill from here. I haven't written a thing worth bothering with in almost a week. My best idea so far? I thought of a comic strip that would only be a description of a comic strip rather than something that was drawn. I'm serious. Really, I am. Perhaps I could be excused from ridicule for coming up with something so hopelessly moronic and/or pretentious if it was later revealed that my mind was being destroyed by syphilis or that I'd received a severe blow to the head sometime over the past few days. But, alas, I have no such excuses. Nope. I came up with the comic strip idea when I was hitting on all cylinders. And, even worse, when the idea first popped into my head yesterday, I thought it was a really good idea. But the absolute worst part of my comic strip idea is that I'm sure it's been done before; so not only was my idea stupid, it wasn't even original.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

The Busy Goof-Off.

I have to spend some quality time with programming homework that's due tomorrow, so I may not post anything else today. Why I didn't do this homework over the weekend when I had more than enough time, I'll never know. Maybe on a subconscious level I like being frantic and behind.
Your Tax Dollars At Work.

Yesterday I got a hit from someone inside the US House of Representatives. They came here after searching Yahoo for +"yosemite sam costume".

Monday, October 27, 2003

Sunday Afternoon Tedium.

I'm undecided about the whole Daylight Saving Time concept. On one hand it's a nice change, but on the other hand I hate having to adjust a bunch of clocks. And I especially hate adjusting a bunch of clocks only to have the power get knocked out for an hour and a half. Then, when the power comes back on, I get to reset the ones that aren't battery-powered again. What fun.

And what do you do on a Sunday afternoon after you've wasted all that time turning back all of those clocks and the power goes out? I sat in the dark trying to read by flashlight. Eventually I gave up and just lied down on the couch to take a nap. When the power came back on it scared the heck out of me.

Yes, this was the only thing in my life that's happened to me lately that I felt was worth writing about. What can I say? I lead an astonishing dull life.

Sunday, October 26, 2003

I Need Special Shoes.

This is probably one of the most shamelessly stupid images I've ever created, but, despite it's idiocy, I simply couldn't resist posting it at my already deeply stupid image blog.
It's Gotta Be The Vegemite.

A bunch of pictures of Australians lying on beds of nails. It's supposed to be educational. I think. [Link via Random Personal Picture Finder.]

Saturday, October 25, 2003

That's My Territory You're Marking.

I got a new satellite dish system installed yesterday. It's nice, but the guy who came and installed it had to use my bathroom. I hate it when people use my bathroom. Irrational? Well, I'll tell you what happened and then you can judge just how irrational I am. He took a dump in my toilet and then didn't flush it. He just closed the lid and left it. What the hell is wrong with people?
No, I Just Shop Here.

Yesterday I went to my local neighborhood thrift store to poke through the detritus. As I walked through the maze of furniture, this girl turns to me and said, "How much are... You do work here, don't you?" I know I can be a bit of a regular feature in this thrift store, but I didn't think I looked like an employee. Naturally, the rest of my day was ruined.

Friday, October 24, 2003

Never say, "Bite me!" again.

Tired of the same tired old insults? Well, why not try the Arabian Random Insult Generator? Here's my favorite example: "May 2,000 outrageously huge Santa Clauses carpet bomb Ontario with a payload of Bon Jovis while worshiping your under-appreciated July issue of Vintage Robot Porn Monthly." [Link via Metafilter.]
Why Can't We Have TV Shows Like These?

Take a look through this list of peculiar Japanese TV shows. Meanwhile on tiresome American TV, there's nothing on. I want to see Hotman, Goodbye Ants, and Wives of Dietmen. [Link via LYD.]
Can't sleep. Clown will eat me.

Make Koko the Clown. Frighten the children. (From the guy that brought you the now useless 104 Random Altavista Pictures.)

Thursday, October 23, 2003

Just like Buddy Holly.

I've been asked by Sara the spin the sad tale of my sole experience riding in an airplane. Yes, you read that right, my sole experience riding in airplane. It wasn't an airliner either, it was a single engine private plane. You know, the kind with a propeller. I suppose in this day and age never having ridden in an airliner makes me some kind of freak, but then there's plenty that makes me a freak.

It was the mid 80's and my family was on vacation down on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. If you're not familiar with the Outer Banks it's basically a long, eroding sand reef that stretches down the entire coast of North Carolina. People live on it. There's hotels built on it. And it's washing away at a distressing rate, but I digress.

The Outer Banks are probably best known as the place where the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane. From this same location my sister and I went up in a tour plane piloted by a guy who looked like a roadie for the Grateful Dead. I don't know if my parents got a good look at this scraggly-looking guy, but I suspect if they had they may not have let us go up.

Right after we took off he yelled over at me, "You let me know when you want me to loop it!" I think I just said something clever like, "Uhhh....OK." I didn't know if he was serious or not. But, out over the ocean, he put the plane into a mild dive and I felt the G-forces pulling the skin on my face back. I looked over at the pilot and he was looking back at me laughing. My sister was in the back seat oblivious, taking pictures out of the window.

It wasn't all terror. The Outer Banks are called the Graveyard of the Atlantic because of all the shipwrecks in the relatively shallow water. I had no idea you could see underwater shipwrecks from the air. There were two huge ones right in front of our hotel that you'd never have suspected were there unless you saw them from above.

The plane landed safely. I didn't cry, puke, or scream.

All in all it was one of the cooler experiences I've had on vacation, but it was also the last time I ever rode in a plane. I didn't plan it this way, it's just how it ended up. I planned on traveling the world, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Take all my fun away.

104 Random Altavista Pictures has been broken by the jackasses at Altavista. So now the site merely shows 104 random thumbnails with no links to the original sites. This blows big time. Suddenly a large degree of enjoyment has been sapped from the internet. Yes, there's the Google version, but that one always bored me. The Altavista one was almost guaranteed to produce results that were fascinating, deeply bizarre, and/or unbelievably obscene. I hope the guy that did the Altavista random page will find a workaround that doesn't annoy Altavista, or maybe he can use a different search engine like AlltheWeb.
Vacation extended further.

Things were supposed to get back to normal today, but after I got to school I found out the teacher was out of town. So I went back home. I haven't had a regular school day since last Wednesday.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Anticlimax.

Ever become obsessed with something for a long time, and when you finally get whatever it was you were obsessing over, it's very disappointing? My version of this obsession sputtered to a halt yesterday. For some reason several months ago I craved a honey-bun dipped in coffee. I can't remember if I'd ever eaten a honey-bun dipped in coffee, but suddenly it became to me the bright spot at the end of a long, dark tunnel. To most normal people, this obsession could be dealt with quite easily: buy a honey-bun and make some coffee. I tend not to do things the normal way. So, I waited and craved this concoction for several months until the right moment occurred. Yesterday was that moment.

After class I went to the vending machine and tried to get a honey-bun. The machine wanted exact change. I didn't have exact change. I left. There was a change machine nearby, but I didn't think of that until I was far away. I set off across campus to another building far away. I procured my honey-bun and made the long, long trek back to my car.

At home I prepared everything so that it was perfect: coffee warmed (not hot), honey-bun sectioned appropriately, correct utensils at hand, and enough paper towels wipe up any spills. At this point in the procedure, if the doorbell had rang and it was Britney Spears clad only in a raincoat saying, "Scott, I've come to be your love slave!" I would've said, "I'm not interested", closed the door, and returned to my honey-bun.

The first bite wasn't the orgasmic experience I expected. The second bite was dull, but cloyingly sweet. The coffee didn't improve the honey-bun and the honey-bun didn't do the coffee any favors either. I tried to make it work, but it just wasn't that good. The remains of the honey-bun ended up in plastic wrap for a later snack. I drank the rest of the now vaguely contaminated coffee, quite disappointed in the whole episode.
In, out, in, out, in, out, etc.

Tired of icky regular porn? Well, try Minimal Porn. It's porn distilled down to pure mechanics. Safe for work? Maybe. Maybe not. It has the word porn in it, but it's about as erotic as a diagram of a Wankel engine. [Link via The Cartoonist.]
One more day.

My semi-vacation was supposed to come to an unceremonious end today, but I found out the teacher for both of my Tuesday classes was sick and wouldn't be coming in. I don't want to revel in someone's illness, but I will. Yippee!

Monday, October 20, 2003

The prisoner.

Yesterday morning I was sitting at my computer (like I do 19 or so hours a day, it feels like) when I heard something fairly large (and alive) fall or jump into the sunken basement window a few feet away from where I was sitting. I've seen just about everything in this window: frogs, toads, lizards, salamanders, shrews, opossums, mice, rats, at least one rabbit, squirrels, etc. What I had this time was a white, long-haired lap dog of some sort. Great.

I went out to try and get the damn dog out of the hole without having it bite me. When I came to the window I could hear it growling. The window is less than three feet down and this dog was less than a foot tall. I quickly made friends with the dog and got it out of the window. Then it wouldn't leave.

At first the dog more or less ignored me, but it wouldn't go away. I assumed it lived around here somewhere, but I didn't have a clue where. It didn't have a tag. It didn't even have a collar.

Later when I came back home from an errand, the dog was sitting on the bench on the front porch waiting for me. I should of just ignored him/her/it (too much fur to tell) and went into the house, but instead I went and rubbed the dog's head. (I'm a sucker for animals, what can I say?) Then I made the even bigger mistake of letting the dog in the house briefly. He got really excited and ran around sniffing everything in sight. I caught him, put him outside in front of a bowl of water, and ran back to get in the house before the dog caught on. The dog chased me back to the house. I made it stay outside, but then it started scratching at the door. I went back downstairs, hoping the dog would leave.

Occasionally I would come back upstairs and look out of the windows to see if the dog was out there. It was. It just wouldn't leave. So I stayed in the rest of the day, held prisoner by a dog that probably weighed about seven pounds.

Sunday, October 19, 2003

New Template. Finally.

After months of wanting a new template and occasionally mentioning something about a new template, I finally got around to putting one up. It's not great, but at least it's not really ugly and/or graphics heavy.

I've been trying to find a compromise between how the template looks in IE and how it looks in Mozilla. I love Mozilla and use it all day everyday, but I know everybody and their grandma uses IE. I don't want a site that looks great in one browser and crappy in all others. Browser specific web pages drive me nuts.

I don't have it looking exactly the same in either browser, but I do have it looking decent in both. Right now it probably looks a little better in IE, which irritates me, but I'll have to live with it. Most of the credit goes to discovering the wonders of the Courier New font which displays a lot better in IE 5 than plain old Courier when blown up really big.

Despite my misgivings, I still think this template's ten times better than the ugly stock template I started with. (And I'm only referring to the template, not the blog I linked to which is actually kind of interesting.)

The best thing about this new template is I finally have permalinks. I'm not sure I've ever had them.

Saturday, October 18, 2003

It won't be long now.

I have further evidence of my mental disintegration. Yesterday I was driving home and saw what I thought for a second was a small penguin in the road. It was a squirrel.

Oddly, I wasn't that surprised to see a penguin standing in the middle of the road.

Friday, October 17, 2003

Codex Seraphinianus

I got a hit yesterday from someone searching Google for Codex Seraphinianus, possibly the most bizarre book ever published. I wrote a couple of sentences on the book several months ago, but I don't know why anyone would go through ten pages of search results to get to my pitiful two line mention. Anyway, I've compiled several excellent links on the Codex. The sites approach the book from many angles: scary math, labored explanation, and simply presenting some of the book's images. My initial post on the Codex was inspired by an entry at Giornale Nuovo, an excellent blog that deals with books, illustrations, art, and other subjects.

I don't own a copy of Codex Seraphinianus. The only time I ever saw it was when my sister came home from college for Thanksgiving and brought the copy from the school library. If you've never seen it, I can't really describe the strangeness of this book. Some of the links above have illustrations, but they only give a brief taste. I haven't seen the book since 1986, I think. One day I'll get a copy, but like most things in my life I'm going to have to wait for it.

My sister also hasn't seen the book since 1986. Not long after she returned the book it disappeared.

Thursday, October 16, 2003

It tastes like chicken.

I read something a few days ago over at Jodi's blog about a mysterious cut of meat called "seitan". I had no idea what kind of animal "seitan" comes from. An exotic bird of some sort? A gazelle-like creature? I couldn't even guess. So I looked it up at Google and found out it was a vegetarian meat substitute made from wheat gluten. I suddenly became obsessed with the stuff. I began reading recipes on how to make it and how to prepare it.

Today I actually attempted to make seitan. I got a little flour (the wrong kind, but it was all I had), mixed it with water, and began rinsing out the starch. It disintegrated leaving me with a bunch of slimy little bits, but kept on rinsing. When I got tired of rinsing, I strained it as best I could, glopped it onto a paper plate, made it into a little mound, lightly salted it, and tossed it into the microwave for about ten or twenty seconds.

I figured it'd taste like the astonishingly bland bread I'd made in the microwave a few times in the past. (I get bored easily, so I was experimenting.) It didn't. First, the consistency was strange. It was sort of like gooey rubber. Or glue. I tasted it and it didn't exactly taste like my previous microwave bread atrocities. I can't really describe the taste, not quite bread-like and vaguely meatish. It reminded me of chicken. Kinda.

If the semi-edible mass I made reminded me vaguely of chicken, then properly prepared seitan must actually taste good. So now I have to track some of the real stuff down.
Horrors!

A couple of months back I took a look into my archives and noted (with horror!) that my comments had disappeared. A little later, DG looked into it and found out that the counter at the bottom of the older entries only showed zero comments, but in fact the comments were still there. What a relief. Jump forward in time to last night. I poked through my archives and attempted to reread some old comments. There aren't any. I don't know how far back my comments go, but entries from January and earlier, as far as I can tell, have no comments. Haloscan's deleted them. Perhaps they're not deleted, but they're not there.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Marginally interesting.

Is it odd that I've never knowingly met another blogger?
Boring.

I wish I had more of an entry to offer you, but I don't; there's little happening in my life right now worth writing about. It's times like these when I wish I had some sort of program to generate Scott-like entries for this blog. I could turn on the Blogotron 3000, or whatever it'd be called, and let it do the entries while lie curled up in a fetal position whimpering to myself.

Day to day existence is so tiresome.
Spiff up your web page!

If you want more interesting people coming to your page, then why not add some spook words. In no time the CIA, FBI, etc. will be skulking around wondering what you're up to.

Or why not try a radical redesign courtesy of Crazy Sytes?

[Links via Presurfer.]

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Programming genius at work.

I've spent hours on some Visual Basic homework. I'm totally lost. My head feels like it's going to split open and deposit a smaller, more miserable and angry version of myself onto the floor. I used to like this subject, but now I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing.

Why the hell didn't I learn to program when I was fifteen like every other dork with a Commodore 64?
How hard can it be?

Medical bills too high? Well, why not give Project Gastro's Self Surgery Kit a whirl?

Here's a few slightly more serious self surgery links:

24 year old woman yanks out a baby tooth that should have fallen out years ago. Warning: somewhat bloody photos.

Man snips off a piece of his foreskin with cuticle scissors. On purpose. Very detailed. Thankfully there's no photos.

Show Me Your Wounds doesn't have a whole lot to do with self surgery, but it's interesting nonetheless. There's photos, but I didn't really partake. Read the anectdotes instead.
Why tattoo removal is such a big business.

How to make a homemade tattoo.

And just for fun, Traumatic Tattoos and Abrasions. No pictures though.
Revenooers!

Instructions on how to make a small and relatively simple moonshine still.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Living in the past.

I noticed earlier today that my calendar was still on September. I've been on the wrong month for thirteen days. Maybe that's what's been wrong with me lately.
A solid week of near freedom.

There's been an unprecedented convergence of events that works out great for me. First, the teacher of today's afternoon class won't be at school. Second, tomorrow is a teacher work day, so no school on Tuesday. Wednesday is just a regular day. Bah. And third, on Thursday and Friday two of my teachers will be out of town. So I only have three classes this week. I only have to get up at 6:30 on Wednesday morning.

So what will I do with all of my rare free time? Catch up on my studies? Finally come up with a blog entry that isn't just a bunch of strange links no one wants to see? Goof off the whole time? I think you know the answer.

Sunday, October 12, 2003

Semi-literate.

Visual Speller will check the spelling of any web site. I ran Volume 22 through it and was horrified at the number of misspellings and typos that appeared on the front page. Blogger put a spell-check on their interface last month, but I rarely use it. I really need to rethink my decision. [Link via The Presurfer.]
Scary.

What the hell is this? I thought I had a high tolerance for scary Japanese cartoons, but I guess I don't. [Link via 104 Random Altavista Photos (not safe for work).]
Rodents.

One thing the internet doesn't need is more stupid sites devoted to someone's pet, but this site cracked me up--and it's not even remotely funny. Maybe gerbils (prairie dogs?) just amuse me. I don't know. [Link via 104 Random Altavista Photos (not safe for work).]
Peculiar.

Vaguely disquieting pictures of dolls. It's all in Japanese, so I don't I don't have a clue what it's all about. [Link via 104 Random Altavista Photos (not safe for work).]

Saturday, October 11, 2003

More found stuff.

I'm a sucker for collections of found material. The Found Slide Foundation is a collection of slides found on the streets. Or so they say. I've never found a slide on the street, sidewalk or ground. Several years ago I found a cache of cool 50's and 60's Technicolor slides while dumpster-diving on my final day working at the school for snooty rich girls, but that's another story. And not a particularly interesting one.
Bleep blop blorp.

Build your very own big, scary analog synthesizer. There's more links on the subject at Analog Synthesizers: Web resources for the do-it-yourselfer. And if you really want a challenge, why not turn that old dusty dot matrix printer in your closet into a synthesizer. Be sure to listen to the sound samples.

Friday, October 10, 2003

Email Route to Oblivion.

If any of you ever send me an email and you don't get a reply after several days, it's not because I'm a jerk who doesn't answer email. I rarely if ever get email related to this site, most of what's in my inbox is spam and viruses, and there's not much of those. So, consequently I check my email for this site about once a week.

Don't read this as a plea for email either. I like hardly ever getting email that relates to this site. On those rare occasions when I do get email from a reader, my first reaction is, "Oh, god... Now what?"
Adopt an Animal Mummy.

The American University in Cairo needs help to preserve the collection of animal mummies in the Cairo Museum, so The Animal Mummy Project was set up.

Somehow I don't see tons of people donating money to save mummified animals, although I hope they save the things from crumbling to dust.
A treasure trove of ancient weirdness.

Sacred Text Archive is an online collection of public domain books on religion, mysticism, occultism, and other related subjects. Besides the usual suspects (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc.) they have grimoires, esoterica, sacred sexuality, Zoroastrianism, Charles Fort's Book of the Damned, and who knows what else. The translations, because they're old versions that are now in the public domain, are often clunky; but, since it's all free, I wouldn't complain too much.
They keep them locked in cases for a reason.

Ventriloquist dolls give me the horrors. I think they may be worse than clowns. And now that I think about it, I don't think I could tollerate seeing a clown with a ventriloquist doll. Mine is a sad life. [Link via The Cartoonist.]

Update: There's a Metafilter thread on the creepiness of ventriloquist dummies.

Thursday, October 09, 2003

All the time in the world.

A site devoted entirely to creepy dolls? Cool. The bad part? It may very well be the slowest loading site in the entire history of the internet. I literally left the thing to load for ten minutes and when I came back it was still loading with no sign of finishing. Since I'm stuck on a dial-up connection, I stopped it and got on with my life. Feel free to try and load it yourself if you have a T1 line and a lot of time.
Swiveling dots.

The BML Walker is a moving (and adjustatble) representation of human walking styles (for lack of a better description). You can move sliders to make the figure more female or male, heavy or light, happy or sad, etc. The figure moving on screen is only represented by dots or by a stick figure, but it's remarkable how it suggests male and female walking styles. [Link via Metafilter.]
The rejects.

I made a bunch of CD covers for my imaginary band, but yesterday I only posted links to six of them. If you're really interested, here's links to three of the more interesting rejects. Imagine how bad the rest are.
A new record!

Yesterday I got a hit from someone who had done a search on everything about accounting,debit, credit and everything you should know about accounting, debit, credit, balance sheets, liabilites,t accounts and everything there is to know about accounting,trial balance, debit, credit, owner's equity. This is, by far, the longest search string I've ever seen. The sad part is my blog contains nothing at all that could've helped this person except for a few anti-accounting class rants.

My advice to this searcher would be to go to the book section of their local thrift store where inevitably there will be several fairly new (and completely unwanted) accounting textbooks that you can probably get for 50 cents or so. Have fun.

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

A sudden, inexplicable change in direction.

I've always wanted to be in a band, but I have the musical skills of mistreated circus chimp. I also have the social skills of a cinder block, but that's another story. So, rather than sitting at home wallowing in my own crapulence, I've decided to throw caution to the wind and start a band. Sort of. I really don't want to get bogged down with a bunch of other people and I have no patience for things like rehearsing, recording, writing songs, etc. It's all just so exhausting. So I've decided to bypass all of the usual stuff that ends up being the downfall of bands both great and mediocre. What I've done is, at punishing financial cost, get a design team to come up with the cover art of my band's first six albums:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

OK, it didn't cost me a cent to come up with this idiocy. I used a free program called n-Gen that randomly comes up with CD cover art, posters, etc. in five or six different styles. All I did was inter in the band name, album title, and select a style. It's limited, but interesting.

While searching Google for information on the program, I found some ridiculous ranting on a message board for professional designers. The first guy spews, "[...]This site will let non-designers whip up cliched design ingredients to create their own designs and bypass using a trained designer.[...]" A second designer responded with, "[...]They won't be around for long. As a friend of mine in Dallas says, 'Shame on them. Here's to their failure... the sooner, the better for all of us who are trying to maintain some semblance of dignity for our profession.'[...]" Later these two had experts come over to their houses and explain the jokes on the Tonight Show.

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Ugh day.

Well, I'm off to school. Tuesday is absolutely my least favorite day of the week. I have two interminable classes taught by the same impatient, unprepared asshat.
Interactive misery.

Pinhole Spy Camera is, I think, supposed to be informative. Educational? Maybe. But the site's actually just a lot of cool looking and extremely frustrating Flash animation. This web page apparently won "Best in Show" at the Interactive Design Competition put on by HOW magazine in 2002. Well it may have, but I didn't learn anything new or interesting about pinhole cameras, I couldn't get a lot of the "features" to work, and I left quite frustrated. But it looks really cool, so I guess that's all that matters.
[Sound of me scratching my head.]

Leave it to Belgians to come up with something like Link Dump. Lots and lots of links, none of which are described in any way at all. I think I'm in love. No, that's just gas. Nevermind. [Link via Metafilter.]
I'm both curious and disgusted.

A review of the horror that is pickled pork rinds. [Link via J-Walk.]

Monday, October 06, 2003

The agony of defeat.

I don't know what the problem is, but lately my feet have been killing me.

Humor me, I don't get out much.
Something else.

In Japan there's a Sid Vicious action figure. I'll wait for the Captain Beefheart with Kung-Fu Grip™, thank you. [Link via The Cartoonist.]

And speaking of Captain Beefheart, I just remembered that a few months ago (or was it last year?) I found a cool site devoted to him called The Captain Beefheart Radar Station.
Why didn't I think of that?

I hate to say it, but I rarely if ever read anyone's blog archives. Occasionally there's exceptions, but mostly I only read the new stuff unless there's something I need to really need to know. Yesterday I had a look at a blog and I had to read all of it. I read the whole damn thing. OK, it's just old clip art with wacky captions, but still, I read it all. And, it may well be the only Live Journal blog I have any interest in reading. [Link via Dear God Damn Diary.]
A new self-indulgence to annoy you with.

I posted this crude panorama over at my ridiculous image blog last week, but it was really small and wanted to put up the full size version in all it's primative glory. It's actually kind of fun to take photos I don't hate.
Animal, vegetable, or mineral?

Yesterday I was out in the backyard and heard this weird bird noise. I can't describe it. Duckish? No. It was kind of screechy, but deeper and raspier. I walked toward the sound and stood under the tree where I heard it the loudest, wondering what kind of strange fowl was going show itself. And what kind of bird was it? It was a squirrel. And while I stood there looking up at it less than ten feet away, it looked down at me and kept screeching and chirping away. The arrogant bastard!

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I'm going to break from my usual nonsense for a moment. Sara over at Corn Smut has pointed out that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And, following her lead, I've put a button on my sidebar that links to a site that deals with fighting breast cancer. I chose The Breast Cancer Site, where you can click a button and various companies will donate money toward free mammograms. It'd be a good daily habit to get into.
More repressed memories.

Retro Crush has a selection of truly scary Halloween costumes from the 70's and 80's. I remember some of these mind-boggling things, although I never had any of them. My parents never bought my sister and I costumes because, for reasons I still can't fathom, the costumes had be something that could be used as pajamas after Halloween. So if my sister wanted to be Bugs Bunny, my mother would buy her a cheap generic cartoon rabbit mask and Bugs Bunny pajamas. My Yosemite Sam costume wasn't much better. Memory is a cruel bastard! [Link via LYD.]
Headache collection.

Yesterday I found out about a large directory of over one-hundred 19th/early 20th century strereoscopic photos. It's part of the University of Minnesota's IMAGES (Image Metadata Aggregation for Enhanced Searching) database thingamajig (which I'll be digging through for the next month or so). [Link via The Celler.]
It's just wrong, I tell you!

Happy Tree Friends is a flash cartoon series that's totally adorable and completely, hopelessly degenerate. It's no Homestar Runner, but it's definately worth a look if you go in for this sort of thing. Although, it'll go a lot smoother if you have a broadband connection. I don't have a broadband connection. Pity me. [Link via Scaryduck.]

Saturday, October 04, 2003

More proof the world's populated by freaks.

Ever wish there was a web page where people were allowed to post any picture they wanted for the whole world to see? No? Me neither. But someone made it anyway and it's called UPLOADit: Random Picture Gallery Experiment. Naturally, since a large portion of the world's population are perverts, much of the material isn't safe for work. [Link via J-Walk.]

My own personal favorite random image site is 104 Random Altavista Pictures (not safe for work), which chooses random images using Altavista. I find it endlessly fascinating, but I don't have much of a life.
Oh, how charming and creepy.

What does a German with too much time on his/her hands do? Well, at least one of them makes Miniaturpuppen, peculiar dolls that I assume are for display purposes only. Nothing too extraordinary, but the drunk and the naked lady are worth a look. [Link via 104 Random Altavista Pictures.]
Cartoons, cartoons, and more cartoons.

Toonarific Cartoon Archive. [Link via 104 Random Altavista Pictures.]
It's educational and disgusting.

The Virtual Autopsy. [Link via Letters from the Idiot.]
Yawn.

I drove my rattle-trap car across town yesterday, leaking engine coolant the whole way, and bought a new mouse. It ended up being a couple of dollars cheaper than the two button mouse I saw on Thursday. Exciting, no? No.

Friday, October 03, 2003

Solar viewing thingy.

Yesterday I built a pinhole projector. I used a six foot long cardboard tube that I got several years ago when I worked in a textile warehouse. The projector worked just fine (although the solar image was nothing spectacular), but it's very awkward to hold. Naturally, after messing around with it for a few minutes I started thinking ways to attach a camera to it. Maybe I can attach an SLR directly to the tube.
EastEnders outrage from around the web.

There's a new petition with over 7,800 signatures (more than twice the amount of the previous petition). (But, in comparison, the petition for Futurama I signed last year had over 130,000 signatures and the show still got cancelled.) Sign it anyway, please.

A site devoted to British royalty (a subject I have no interest in whatsoever) called Everything Royal has declared war on BBC Amerika [maybe if I misspell it their damn ads won't appear at the top of my blog again]. Kind of makes my rant from last Sunday seem watered-down.

There's a new EastEnders forum that I didn't find out about until last Sunday, a day too late.

Monday BBC Amerika had an online chat thing with the head of programming where he explained why EastEnders had to be cancelled even though it pained them to do it. Most everyone, I hope, saw this ploy as nothing more than an attempt at damage control. I had a class during this time so I only caught the last five minutes of it. The transcript can be read here.

If you have no interest in EastEnders, I thank you for your patience. And now I'll return you back to our regular programming about failed quests, strange porn, 3-D photos, robots, etc.
Scroll mouse in a haystack.

Since my faith in my car's been shaken, I didn't really want to take it all the way across town to the office supply store or, even worse, the dreaded Wal-Mart to get a new scroll mouse. I decided to check the school bookstore first. They don't carry them, but the ever helpful store manager offered to order one for me. He was dead serious. I declined. So after I hiked back to my car, I headed to the crummy office supply store which is a lot closer than the big, really cool office supply store. I roamed up and down the aisles until I found their mice selection. They had two button mice. For $14.95. I felt like screaming, "What the hell is this? Is it 1997 again?" But instead I just left.

A two button mouse? Who buys two-button mice anymore? I didn't even think they still made them. It's probably six or seven year old unsold stock.
Crystal radio stuff.

To go with the razorblade radio site I linked to yesterday, here's Gollum´s Crystal Receiver World. [Link via The Cartoonist.]

Thursday, October 02, 2003

Razorblade radio.

Build a razorblade radio, an actual AM radio receiver made out of assorted bits of junk that requires no battery to run. It's kind of like a crystal radio.
Micrometeorites.

Micrometeorites are tiny meteorites that constantly bombard Earth. While tons of this material falls to Earth every year, collecting it can be a bit complicated.

I've actually collected some of them using a different, slightly simpler method. I wrapped a strong magnet in clean plastic wrap and ran it over the ground in an area with no vegetation. After carefully removing the plastic from the magnet without losing the material stuck to it, I looked at the specks under a microscope and saw a few of the pitted spheres described in the links above. I have no life.
I'm a scrollin' fool.

I wore out the scroll-wheel mechanism on my mouse. I've never done this before, but it's not surprising it happened because the main bodily movement I make at my PC is rolling the scroll-wheel with my right index finger. I scroll constantly and rapidly. To have scrolling suddenly taken away is like having someone steal your crack stash and all the dealers are out of town. OK, it's not like that at all, but it's really annoying.
Some filler while my brain rests.

I've got a backlog of stupid search requests.

cannibalism porn
In these movies when someone screams out, "Eat me!" in the throes of passion, it means something completly different than what it means in all the regular porn you've seen.

mongolian hairdo
I really don't know.

funny fetal position images
Fetuses are a rich vein of humor to mine.

tree pichers
The internet is a valuable educational tool.

bums hobos porno
Sure, why not. Bums and hobos need to make porn too.

pert english bottoms
I'd probably get a lot more traffic if I had pert English bottoms on my blog. Hell, then I could charge money.

what trees smell like sewage
I live near a sewage treatment facility, so on some days when the wind shifts, everything smells like sewage.

photos of half human half chimp
I wish I had access to a half human half chimp or two. Just think of the porno I could make.

WHAT PORNOGRAPHY DO KOREAN MEN LIKE
I'm not Korean, so I can't presume to speak for an entire nation and ethnic group, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Korean men probably like the kind of porno with naked people having sex.

"hillbilly living" + pictures
OK, I may be a working class guy who grew up in the rural South with family members who've made moonshine in the past, but still I kind of resent being number 1 for this search.

korean translation wanna die
Does this mean that you want the Korean equivelent of "wanna die"? Or maybe you've been translating Korean all day and you want to die? More information, please. No, never mind, I don't care.

the teacher touched my nipple
I know the fantasy sounds all erotic and everything, but the reality is gross and more than a little creepy. Believe me, I've been there.

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

This is marketing?

I excoriated BBC America on Sunday and now their damn text ads are at the top of my blog. The way these ads probably work, I could devote an entire blog to how much I hate BBC America and the ads at the top of the page would still be for their stupid merchandise.
King of the Morons, part II.

This afternoon I'm going to have to give a short speech I'm not at all prepared for, so I'm going to go prepare instead of sitting here in front of my PC wracking my brains for somekind of blog content to post.
Ponderings...

Why don't porn sites use Flash animation?
King of the Morons.

Here's a pretty good idea of how I would do an armed robbery. [Link via Presurfer.]