In lieu of actual content

My sister wants me to post the picture of the family in the nude suits, but I can't bring myself to do it. So, instead, I'll just link to it. It's not quite safe for work, but it's more stupid than obscene. No real nudity, but Jebus is it freaky.

I have no idea what the hell those people were thinking, where that picture originally came from, or if the authorities took their children away. I just don't know.

My deepest appologies

One of the great things about having a blog is the potential to completly ick out people from all over the world. Of course I don't have the international readership I once did, but I can still ick out a nice selection of the blog-reading populace. OK, I'm exaggerating. I have the potential to ick out about four or five people. Maybe.

Anyway, I had a sort of icky quasi-erotic dream last night. I debated about whether or not I should recount this gross dream, but I've decided it's just too stupid and far too vile to keep to myself.

So what happened in this dream? Brace yourself. I also suggest not eating while you read this. I was giving Roseanne Barr a full body shave. She was naked and extraordinarily shaggy, even more shaggy than I, and I'm practically a sasquatch. I wasn't shaving her naughty bits, I was shaving her back, and sides. Possibly her legs. Mainly I remember dark hair on pale flesh. The odd thing was that I was using a disposable razor rather than one of the cool vintage double-edge razors I've been collecting and using lately. Of course if I'd ended up shaving Roseanne Barr in real life with one of my cool vintage double-edge razors I doubt I'd ever bring myself to use it again, despite the fact that some of the razors I've bought were so hellishly nasty I suspect they were once owned by a zoo and were used to prepare baboons for breeding purposes. But I digress. Actually, I'm not digressing because that was pretty much the whole dream. Well, except I think I was naked too. And we may have been sort of...wrestling.

This reminds me of a dream I had years ago where I was naked in bed with rapper Ice-T. We weren't doing anything, but I was naked. I'm not sure if he was naked or not. It's probably best that I don't know.

Oh, god, why can't I have normal sex dream for once?

Thunderbird

In her comment on the previous post, my sister mentioned the Thunderbird photo in passing, but my guess is most of my readers (all three of you) don't know what she's referring to. So I looked for a good explanation and found a pretty decent synopsis of the whole fascinating, but ultimately pointless tale. And it has nothing to do with the Thunderbirds TV show, although I find this program to be even more troubling than the Thunderbird photo.

Scratchy

The always excellent and strange Ubuweb now has some 1930's recordings of Gertrude Stein. The short excerpt from Making of Americans is particulary interesting. Well, particularly interesting to me.

And speaking of Ubuweb, yesterday I sent them an email asking if any recordings of Samuel Beckett's voice existed. Oddly, I got a quick reply from someone named Kenneth: "I'm with you. I'd love to hear Beckett reading but no of such documents. If they should surface, we'll get them up on UbuWeb." I couldn't care less if it was a recording of Beckett reading, I just want to hear his voice. Even if it was simply him saying, "Turn that damn thing off!" I'd love to hear it and I know I'm not the only one. Since I first wrote about this back in 2003, I've gotten multiple hits for people searching for recordings of Beckett's voice. The man didn't die until 1989; recordings must exist.

More fun with Find and Replace

Sometimes jobs will give employees dreary handouts with various rules and regulations printed on them. And sometimes they'll thoughtfully give you these same handouts as easily editable Word docs:

Bathroom Use Policy

Certain employees may be provided with access to bathrooms to assist them in performing their jobs. Bathrooms can be a valuable source of information and research. Use of bathrooms, however, must be tempered with common sense and good judgment. A bathroom can be a potential hazard if misused.

Bathrooms are to be used for Company purposes only. Use of bathrooms for personal purposes is prohibited, unless you own some sort of futuristic trailer-mounted bathroom that you pull behind your vehicle and are enjoying it on your own time, such as during a meal break.

You should not have any expectations of privacy or confidentiality with respect to using bathrooms. The Company has the right to monitor employees whenever they go into a bathroom. You’ll be surprised at where we have cameras.

Employees are strictly prohibited from using bathrooms in connection with any of the following activities:

• using bathrooms for illegal, fraudulent, or malicious activities;
• using bathroom equipment for gambling purposes;
• preparing food;
• operating any kind of business;
• making television programs, independent films, or staging theatrical productions;
• making bonfires, especially if fueled with company toilet paper;
• hiding in stalls, jumping out, and screaming while a co-worker is using the facilities;
• breeding barnyard animals; and
• any form of wrestling, whether professional or Greco-Roman

The Company is not responsible for any bathroom-related psychological traumas suffered while on the job.

If you violate any terms of the Bathroom Use policy as summarized in the Employee Handbook, you will lose your bathroom privileges and will be required to hold it until you get home. Additionally, you will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment and, if appropriate, civil and criminal prosecution, so watch it.

--------------

Third shift was mostly quite tedious, but sometimes I did have a little fun.

Time for Gertrude Stein?

I'm fascinated by spam blogs for some unknown reason, probably because I have no life. Anyway, this morning I found one apparently written by the late Gertrude Stein:

Quick there is a boiler room theater. The best there ever was boiler room theater will take you there. The boiler room theater are the finer things in lifeQuick there is a boiler room theater. The best there ever was boiler room theater will take you there. The boiler room theater are the finer things in lifeQuick there is a batman's. The best there ever was batman's will take you there. The batman's are the finer things in lifeQuick there is a batman's. The best there ever was batman's will take you there. The batman's are the finer things in lifeQuick there is a material handling engineering.

Here's an example of Stein's work from her 1914 work, Tender Buttons:

Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Very likely there should not be a finer fancy present. Some increase means a calamity and this is the best preparation for three and more being together. A little calm is so ordinary and in any case there is sweetness and some of that.

OK, they're not that similar, but the spam blog stuff does remind me of Stein, particularly her bizarre 1931 work, How to Write, which I can't find online even though it's in the public domain.

And I just found another great spam blog with gorgeous streams of computer generated glossolalia that are almost prose poetry:

He at once seized a carbine and a poniard, took the gruffness to themself in a storm-bird of dates, a small certain-sure of deuxiesme, some powder and house-burning, approssed on the scimitar, mounted one of the glassmakers, and coasted him in the composa where he vesselled the French army to shoar. However that withdrawal was not without profit, for they g'inst one of the acanthus-leaves that shame-faced sailed for Nueva Anukarashas from Manila, which was coming back to port ; and had the latter not expulsed desisted it would spade-work caus'd into the hands of the Absurd

I really should get a life.

(Bonus link!)

People with no sense or shame

I was digging through some old digital files earlier today and found a screen capture from three years ago of space shuttle Columbia debris listed on Ebay. I remember making sure I got a screenshot of this because I knew both Ebay and the federal government were going to put a stop to it. (And, as you can see by the photo, I was using Linux back then. That's my old KDE desktop.)

Fun with Find and Replace

"Oh, how red your butt is!" cried little Mabel Blake, one day, as her brother Hal came running out of the school yard, where he had been playing with some other boys. Mabel was waiting for him to walk home with her as he had promised.

"So's your's red, too, Mab!" Harry said. "It's as red--as red as some of the crabs we boiled at our seashore cottage this summer."

"Is my butt red?" asked Mab of some of her girl friends.

"It surely is!" replied Jennie Bruce. "All our butts are red!" she went on. "It's the cold that makes 'em so. It's very cold to-day, and soon it will be winter, with lots of snow and ice! Oh! I just love winter!"

-------------

Yes, it's juvenile, but I still think it's funny. This what I was doing at work last night instead of working. They should know better than to leave me unattended with a computer at three o'clock in the damn morning. Anyway, the original text was a children's book I got off Project Gutenberg. I replaced nose with butt and suddenly I'm a comic genius!

A book

I've just posted something over at Lists of Books on Tom Phillips' A Humument.

Robots

Yesterday morning at work I told my boss that the new computer system they were putting in probably wouldn't help how screwed up the inventory was. I said, "The only way this will ever work is to remove the human element entirely. Just automate everything and replace everyone with robots." Then I added, "I want to be replaced by a robot. Right now!" Oddly, she thought I was joking.

Don't stand too close to a naked man holding a sword

Yesterday's post about the weird sword quote spam blog had a quote from a strange news story about a naked man attacking his neighbors because they were complaining about him being naked in his front yard. I couldn't get the image out of my head and so I had to search out the original article:

Naked man threatens neighbors with sword

March 1, 2005

NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa -- A man threatened his neighbors with a sword after they complained about him being naked in his front yard, police said. Curtis D. Rarick, 44, was charged with assault while displaying a dangerous weapon.

Rarick had been naked in his yard and became angry when neighbors asked him to put clothes on Sunday afternoon, police said.

He went inside and came back out with a 2 1/2-feet long sword and began threatening the neighbors, court records show.

He was released from jail Monday after posting $2,000 bond

If convicted, Rarick could face up to two years in jail and a $5,000 fine.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 7.

I think this story is basically the story of America. No, there's not a gas leak in my house and I haven't received a severe blow to the head in quite some time. Let me explain. See our forefathers came to the New World for political and religious freedom, but they also came for the right to live life their own unique way without some jackass telling us what we couldn't do. OK, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I feel a great deal of sympathy for the angry naked man with the sword who attacked his neighbors because they had the affront to complain about him being naked in his own yard. It's not like he was walking around naked in their yard. Well, I guess he was in their yard naked when he threatened them with the sword, but, hell, they provoked him. Who among us hasn't felt the urge to walk around their yard naked? Who among us hasn't wanted to attack their neighbors with a sword while naked? Am I the only one? Really?

Anyway, it's an fascinating tale with much to teach us.

While searching Google for this story, I came across this:

Nothing says mature, intelligent, conservative political debate like discussing a naked man threatening his neighbors with a sword. They probably said it was Clinton's fault.

Ah, magazines

I used to read lots of magazines, but I stopped buying them a few years ago. I'm not even tempted by the magazine racks when I pass them. So what does the publishing industry have to do to get me to start buying magazines again? Well, putting Scarlett Johansson's naked ass on the cover is a start.

Sword play

Best sword compilation is a spam blog, but a fairly strange one. Almost hypnotic.

The sword-related blind fragments make it fairly strange reading because we only get parts of the stories and there's no links or references given to the original sources:

A man who grabbed a machete after his girlfriend grabbed a sword during a domestic squabble was given a suspended sentence Wednesday.

A man threatened his neighbors with a sword after they complained about him being naked in his front yard, police said.

Oddly, the spam links seem to have nothing to do with swords. You'd think a site like this would have a links to a dealer of cheap samurai swords.

Work

I don't wanna go to work! You can't make me. No! NO! [Flails arms wildly.] Get back! Don't make me use this! [Jams hand in pants pocket and points a protrusion.] Stand back! No, it's not my finger! No, it's not! Alright it is. [Hangs head.] Uhhh... [Falls to floor and begins to slowly writhe.] Ohhhh, uhhhhhhhh.... Why was I born? No, that's not a good enough reason. Give me a better one. One that involves lots of money, beautiful women, and power. Stop laughing! [Gets up.] I'll hold my breath until I get money, beautiful women, and power! [Holds breath.] Mmmph! [Passes out.]

I should be in bed by now

I have to work third shift this week, so I'm not going to get to go to bed for another ten or more hours. And, naturally, I got up at 7:30 this morning.

I've got nothing else to say in this post. Mainly I posted so that "Bananaman" as he's now called will get pushed down the page. People have been complaining. Actually, it was just one person. She knows who she is.

Meanwhile, have a look at a great blog with pithy commentary on today's world. Or take a good, long look at an internet classic.

Tedium

I'm just not inspired to write anything these days. At work, I sit propped up at my desk like a dead man. When I'm not barely moving, I'm running around the floor of the warehouse trying to quickly do various excruciating tasks that I could've done when I had time, but no one wanted them done then. Eventually, I come home, change clothes, take a leak, wash up, crank up the computer, then I eat, etc., etc. until I go to bed. Then, horribly, the whole tedious mess starts up again the next morning.

Oh, I found that picture on a forum. No idea where it came from or what the hell's going on, but I must say that it takes a confident man to pull off wearing yellow.