Most religions have the occasional valid moral and philosophical viewpoint. The only problem is well…that they are religions.
And so they do not believe that their beliefs can stand the test of logic and argument, that they could be wrong and so they wrap it up in a God/Pantheon mythos. The “Insert Divine Being(s) here" told us this and so it has to be true. And if you do not agree, we will kill you to show you the error of your ways.”
Hell...Even I can come up with fairly valid edicts.
Here’s one right now. “You really should not hump the furniture.”
A perfectly reasonable and sensible edict. Humping the furniture can give you nasty splinters, or if it isn’t wood and is plastic or metal a nasty rash. (Because of the friction). And that worn spot on the couch may be hard to explain.
But do you think people will take this edict to heart? Will they look at it logically and rationally and evaluate the pros and cons.
No they fucking won’t. They will choose to believe that since they have been asked to refrain from humping the furniture, there must be something in the furniture humping sub-culture. Overnight this will explode into the mainstream. Furniture humpers will be everywhere. Peer pressure. Respectable professionals will visit the seedier parts of town for clandestine assignations with footstools of ill repute and questionable hygiene.
Society will break down.
I can try gently persuading people to see the error of their ways. I can draw fancy diagrams with arrows and bold text showing them why the edict is good. But they wont give a crap about my logic.
However, if I made up a story about a giant blancmange that came down from the skies, larger than your average blancmange, and said to me in a voice sweeter than Tiramisu:
“Hump not the furniture, for that is evil. And an abomination in my eyes. And it’s poopy. So stop. And if you continue to hump the furniture, you shall go to the lowest part of Insert Appropriate Stick Here, but if you refrain, you shall receive Insert Carrot Here.”
And people would then listen. They’d give me donations to fuel the War Against Furniture Humpers. Young idiots…devotees would hang on my every last word. They’d take down notes and sell books authored by me. And photographs of me grinning obnoxiously at the camera as I decapitate an Ottoman with loose morals.
And while I’m at it I’ll slip in a few edicts, one about people whose middle name ends with X being spawns of the Evil Sofa and another that all good devotees will sign their worldly possessions over to me.
So…Yeah. Don’t hump the furniture.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Bleh
The Da Vinci Code and its author are in the news. A lawsuit.
Frankly, I do not give damn about the lawsuit.
But I do dislike the book. Intensely.
And the book is bad. Atrociously bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Two dimensional clichés impersonating characters. A Distinguished American professor. An Exotic French babe. An eccentric English nobleman. All we need now is a Ninja and a cute puppy. And a spaceship. And aliens. And pirates. They would only improve the book.
(That would be a good plot...If the pirates made the professor, the babe and the nobleman walk the plank. And the aliens laid eggs in them which hatched and then the Ninja fought them! On the spaceship. While a tidal wave on Mars wiped out the alien colony.)
A wafer thin plot. The Da Vinci Stupidity. Not my off the cuff masterpiece.
And a supposedly “fast moving” story.
That’s what the author called it: “A fast moving thriller.”
It is not.
It is fast moving crap.
The Da Vinci Code is literary diarrhea.
Gah!
Frankly, I do not give damn about the lawsuit.
But I do dislike the book. Intensely.
And the book is bad. Atrociously bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.
Two dimensional clichés impersonating characters. A Distinguished American professor. An Exotic French babe. An eccentric English nobleman. All we need now is a Ninja and a cute puppy. And a spaceship. And aliens. And pirates. They would only improve the book.
(That would be a good plot...If the pirates made the professor, the babe and the nobleman walk the plank. And the aliens laid eggs in them which hatched and then the Ninja fought them! On the spaceship. While a tidal wave on Mars wiped out the alien colony.)
A wafer thin plot. The Da Vinci Stupidity. Not my off the cuff masterpiece.
And a supposedly “fast moving” story.
That’s what the author called it: “A fast moving thriller.”
It is not.
It is fast moving crap.
The Da Vinci Code is literary diarrhea.
Gah!
Monday, March 20, 2006
I see everything twice.
At a Wal-Mart standing around doing nothing. Hanging around waiting for a friend to finish shopping and plotting against correct sentence construction.
Over the public address system, an improbably cheerful female voice asked, “What’s new at Wal-Mart?” I assumed that that was a rhetorical question, and I was proven correct as she continued, with that disquieting zombie-like cheerfulness, to list out what, in fact, was new at Wal-Mart. And that annoyed me. Because I believed that the correct answer to that question is, “Who gives a flying fuck.” I’d like to hear that over the PA system. Really, I would. (If I had gotten around to reading my copy of 1984, I would have called it Orwellian, but I haven’t so I won’t. )
Now, a Wal-Mart Super center Sells everything. Guns, bicycles, televisions and fertilizer. And books. I'm um... mildly strange I dislike it if book shops even sell CD’s, so finding the book aisle next to the candy aisle grated upon my soul, (not that I have one, but apt imagery) to a degree nearly inexpressible. And well their selection was um…wanting would be a polite way of putting it.
Wanting? Now I’m being all snobbish. But in my defense, the shelf I was looking at had a nasty sign saying, “Hot new releases”, with a flame decal below it. To stress the hotness and the newness of the release. (Sidebar: Doesn’t hot new release sound like a description of an ejaculation?).
Where was I? Ah yes. Hot, new releases. Well the moron, (you know who you are) who had dragged me to here was still “consumering” away, and so with nothing else to do, I started to read the titles.
Barefoot Tigress.
The Wandering Princess.
The Last Mistress.
The Lonely Seductress.
I noticed a pattern here. Clearly these books were meant for a particular audience.
Snakes.
Notice the strong hissing sound with which all the titles end?
SSSSSSSSSS.
SSSS.
SSSSS.
SSss…
Who hisses? Snakes. They’re famous for that. And for their love of trashy paperbacks. They cannot wear shoes and so are naturally barefoot. The wander from place to place hissing and so engrossed are they in the hissing, that they miss stuff and so are perpetually last when the numbers are called out while playing Bingo. And um…the last title, well I hope they get it on and aren’t lonely anymore.
Well, that’s my interpretation of what the target audience for those books could be. Snakes. And other things that hiss. Like valves, and um… balloons with holes in them.
I love the letter “e”. Suffixing a word with an “e”, adds a dash of class to the word. So instead of a “Shop” you have a “Shoppe”. You can buy a gift at a shop, but at Shoppe you can buy a Gifte.
See, all fancy and shit.
However, using Shoppe instead of Shop, when Shoppe is preceded by the words Adult and Gift, does not help one little bit.
And neither does the Giant Neon Arrow (A phallic fertility symbol? Something Pagan or Druidic? ) beneath those aforementioned words.
And now I’m going to try to squeeze in a couple of chapters of The Last Wandering Lonely Barefoot Seamstresssssss.
Over the public address system, an improbably cheerful female voice asked, “What’s new at Wal-Mart?” I assumed that that was a rhetorical question, and I was proven correct as she continued, with that disquieting zombie-like cheerfulness, to list out what, in fact, was new at Wal-Mart. And that annoyed me. Because I believed that the correct answer to that question is, “Who gives a flying fuck.” I’d like to hear that over the PA system. Really, I would. (If I had gotten around to reading my copy of 1984, I would have called it Orwellian, but I haven’t so I won’t. )
Now, a Wal-Mart Super center Sells everything. Guns, bicycles, televisions and fertilizer. And books. I'm um... mildly strange I dislike it if book shops even sell CD’s, so finding the book aisle next to the candy aisle grated upon my soul, (not that I have one, but apt imagery) to a degree nearly inexpressible. And well their selection was um…wanting would be a polite way of putting it.
Wanting? Now I’m being all snobbish. But in my defense, the shelf I was looking at had a nasty sign saying, “Hot new releases”, with a flame decal below it. To stress the hotness and the newness of the release. (Sidebar: Doesn’t hot new release sound like a description of an ejaculation?).
Where was I? Ah yes. Hot, new releases. Well the moron, (you know who you are) who had dragged me to here was still “consumering” away, and so with nothing else to do, I started to read the titles.
Barefoot Tigress.
The Wandering Princess.
The Last Mistress.
The Lonely Seductress.
I noticed a pattern here. Clearly these books were meant for a particular audience.
Snakes.
Notice the strong hissing sound with which all the titles end?
SSSSSSSSSS.
SSSS.
SSSSS.
SSss…
Who hisses? Snakes. They’re famous for that. And for their love of trashy paperbacks. They cannot wear shoes and so are naturally barefoot. The wander from place to place hissing and so engrossed are they in the hissing, that they miss stuff and so are perpetually last when the numbers are called out while playing Bingo. And um…the last title, well I hope they get it on and aren’t lonely anymore.
Well, that’s my interpretation of what the target audience for those books could be. Snakes. And other things that hiss. Like valves, and um… balloons with holes in them.
I love the letter “e”. Suffixing a word with an “e”, adds a dash of class to the word. So instead of a “Shop” you have a “Shoppe”. You can buy a gift at a shop, but at Shoppe you can buy a Gifte.
See, all fancy and shit.
However, using Shoppe instead of Shop, when Shoppe is preceded by the words Adult and Gift, does not help one little bit.
And neither does the Giant Neon Arrow (A phallic fertility symbol? Something Pagan or Druidic? ) beneath those aforementioned words.
And now I’m going to try to squeeze in a couple of chapters of The Last Wandering Lonely Barefoot Seamstresssssss.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Help Save Load
Chilli referred to an email in this post.
And since I’m feeling particularly lazy I’ve decided to post the contents of that email here. Now, the email is nearly two years old, so it may see a little dated to any “shudder” F1 fans. But what can I say, apart from “Go fuck yourself.”
From: Rajneesh S
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 1:44 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Ultimate Driving Machine
Michael Schumacher is the most dominant athlete in the world. The six-time Formula 1 champion has won all but one of the circuit's first nine races this year. He's also the world's highest-salaried athlete and the towering icon of the sport that claims to have the largest worldwide television audience. But his excellence goes beyond his on-track success and off-track popularity. Schumacher is nothing like Jackie Stewart, Mario Amoretti, and the other motorsport legends he's now surpassed. Schumacher may be a remarkable driver, but, more important, he's a venture capitalist in a flame-retardant red jumpsuit.
No, he is a joker in a flame retardant clown suit
The 35-year-old German is remarkable because he's managed to mold an entire sport in his image two separate times. Formula 1 once had the reputation as the sport of international playboys, its well-heeled drivers drinking champagne, puffing cigarettes, and chasing women in exotic destinations like Monte Carlo. Schumacher, though, is a caricature of the Teutonic robot—a legendary workout freak who became quicker, stronger, and fitter than the competition by outworking them in the weight room.
And working out is very important, because F1 cars have three ton steering wheels
While other F1 drivers were straining in the gym to catch up to Schumacher's physical standards, he changed the sport again. Schumacher's peers don't consider him the best driver in the sport—that honor goes to Giancarlo Fisichella. But what his fellow drivers don't understand is that virtuosity behind the wheel isn't the most important skill in Formula 1 these days. Schumacher has transformed F1 from a sport to a technology war. In doing so, he's attracted billions of dollars to feed his business, develop technologies to his specifications—and annihilate the competition.
Giancarlo Fishy fella? (That cracks me up even now!)
Michael and his brother Ralf, who also races on the circuit, grew up as gearheads. Schumacher learned about the technology of racing while working alongside his father, a small-town repairman for kiddie race cars called karts. When he joined the Ferrari team in 1996, Schumacher was ready to get his hands dirty. The Italian automaker spent $450 million crafting its race cars in 2003, mostly thanks to sponsorships from megacorporations like Marlboro and Vodafone*. But while Ferrari has always had a stake in F1, it wasn't very successful throughout the 1980s, a huge source of consternation for such a prestigious brand. When Schumacher signed on, he was able to ensure—partly because of Ferrari's name brand and partly because of its desperation—that he would have both the resources and the operational control he felt he needed to dominate.
Ooooh schumi is a dominatrix! (A male dominatrix, a dominator?).
If Ferrari were a football team, Schumacher would be the quarterback, the GM, and the coach. Though he didn't give his team the idea to greatly outspend its top rivals—around $100 million more than Williams and $150 million more than McLaren—he did teach them how to spend it wisely. Schumacher understood the crucial importance of building the team and technologies around him—if the best pit crew, technicians, and engineers in the world tailored his car to his strengths as a driver, then he couldn't lose.
If Ferrari were a football team.
Um. Couldn’t think of any crap for this. Oh got it.
If Ferrari were a football team Schumi would be the driver of the team bus.
In F1, the drivers may be stars, but the cars are king. Every team spends the offseason in wind tunnels and with feedback testing equipment, secretly crafting improved design elements. This season, Ferrari extended its technical lead by unveiling its "narrow waist" design, in which the back of the car is almost impossibly thin and low to the ground, diminishing the drag exerted on the car and giving the car greater stability in turns.
Fascinating. Simply fascinating I say.
Ferrari's design excellence allows Schumacher to methodically destroy his rivals. While simple maintenance and production costs eat huge chunks out of smaller teams' budgets—a season's worth of tires and gearboxes alone can cost well into the millions—Ferrari can perpetually fine-tune a suite of technologies so that its cars perform under the most extreme conditions of acceleration, braking, and turning. As a consequence, Schumacher's car almost never has significant technical problems, a huge advantage in a sport where the ultra-expensive cars often just stop working because of technical malfunctions. To keep up with Ferrari's superior machines, other drivers have to take risks. As such, they consistently make mistakes out of impatience, imprudence, or desperation—hitting walls or other cars or just spinning out uncontrollably. In this past weekend's U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, only half the cars that started were able to finish.
“Where the ultra-expensive cars often just stop working because of technical malfunctions. ” Get a Santro people.
So obvious is the role money plays in Schumacher's success that F1's governing body is taking steps to minimize the importance of cash. Formula 1 will soon ban certain electronic driving aids and will further regulate tire and engine use and testing, all in the hopes of keeping down costs so lower-class teams can compete.
Also, half the laps will be done in either bicycles or auto rickshaws. And the last lap will be run by the drivers in the nude while being chased by hungry dogs…or horny dogs.
Schumacher is a peculiar global sports icon. He can claim to be the greatest race car driver in history, and judging from the sea of Ferrari-red bedecked fans, his team is far and away the most popular on the circuit. But he's a distant champion, respected but not adored. When Schumacher turned in a subpar qualifying performance at the Grand Prix of Canada, the fans—including the Ferrari faithful—erupted in cheers and applause as driver after driver bested his lap time.
Can he be a global sports icon? F1 is not so much a sport as a mental disease. Call him a global mental disease icon. Incidentally nine out of ten people surveyed said that they find scrutiny of their toe nails growing, far more interesting than F1
Mostly, fans are desperate for someone, anyone, to give Schumacher a fight. While few events compare with an F1 race in terms of loud, macho, colorful spectacle, Schumacher has killed the suspense. There's a sense that something is badly wrong with Formula 1, but no fans or drivers really fault Schumacher or Ferrari. They just worked hard, played by the rules, and outsmarted the competition.
Actually fans are desperate for something, anything to make f1 less mind numbingly dull. A few events that compare with an F1 race in terms of a loud, macho, colorful spectacle are as follows
1. The aforementioned growing of toe nails
2. Measles
3. The icky stuff in a persons navel
4. The classic watching paint dry
5. Haircuts
6. Channel surfing
7. Competitive belching
8. Watching paint dry, extreme version
Two weekends ago at the Canadian Grand Prix, Renault's Jarno Trulli broke down on the very first lap because of suspension problems. Later that day, I saw Trulli at the Montreal airport, waiting in line with us race fans for a commercial flight to Newark. I asked if it was tough seeing Schumacher dominate a race that he had barely started. He just shook his head, demoralized. "Schumacher," he muttered.
Actually what he muttered was “Stop fucking bugging me asshole ." Right after that he proceeded to die from boredom. A common affliction among F1 drivers. Also a common affliction among us normal people who really dislike F1 and are subjected to long boring analysis of probably the most boring “sport” on earth, rivaled only by NASCAR.
And since I’m feeling particularly lazy I’ve decided to post the contents of that email here. Now, the email is nearly two years old, so it may see a little dated to any “shudder” F1 fans. But what can I say, apart from “Go fuck yourself.”
From: Rajneesh S
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 1:44 PM
To:
Subject: Re: The Ultimate Driving Machine
Michael Schumacher is the most dominant athlete in the world. The six-time Formula 1 champion has won all but one of the circuit's first nine races this year. He's also the world's highest-salaried athlete and the towering icon of the sport that claims to have the largest worldwide television audience. But his excellence goes beyond his on-track success and off-track popularity. Schumacher is nothing like Jackie Stewart, Mario Amoretti, and the other motorsport legends he's now surpassed. Schumacher may be a remarkable driver, but, more important, he's a venture capitalist in a flame-retardant red jumpsuit.
No, he is a joker in a flame retardant clown suit
The 35-year-old German is remarkable because he's managed to mold an entire sport in his image two separate times. Formula 1 once had the reputation as the sport of international playboys, its well-heeled drivers drinking champagne, puffing cigarettes, and chasing women in exotic destinations like Monte Carlo. Schumacher, though, is a caricature of the Teutonic robot—a legendary workout freak who became quicker, stronger, and fitter than the competition by outworking them in the weight room.
And working out is very important, because F1 cars have three ton steering wheels
While other F1 drivers were straining in the gym to catch up to Schumacher's physical standards, he changed the sport again. Schumacher's peers don't consider him the best driver in the sport—that honor goes to Giancarlo Fisichella. But what his fellow drivers don't understand is that virtuosity behind the wheel isn't the most important skill in Formula 1 these days. Schumacher has transformed F1 from a sport to a technology war. In doing so, he's attracted billions of dollars to feed his business, develop technologies to his specifications—and annihilate the competition.
Giancarlo Fishy fella? (That cracks me up even now!)
Michael and his brother Ralf, who also races on the circuit, grew up as gearheads. Schumacher learned about the technology of racing while working alongside his father, a small-town repairman for kiddie race cars called karts. When he joined the Ferrari team in 1996, Schumacher was ready to get his hands dirty. The Italian automaker spent $450 million crafting its race cars in 2003, mostly thanks to sponsorships from megacorporations like Marlboro and Vodafone*. But while Ferrari has always had a stake in F1, it wasn't very successful throughout the 1980s, a huge source of consternation for such a prestigious brand. When Schumacher signed on, he was able to ensure—partly because of Ferrari's name brand and partly because of its desperation—that he would have both the resources and the operational control he felt he needed to dominate.
Ooooh schumi is a dominatrix! (A male dominatrix, a dominator?).
If Ferrari were a football team, Schumacher would be the quarterback, the GM, and the coach. Though he didn't give his team the idea to greatly outspend its top rivals—around $100 million more than Williams and $150 million more than McLaren—he did teach them how to spend it wisely. Schumacher understood the crucial importance of building the team and technologies around him—if the best pit crew, technicians, and engineers in the world tailored his car to his strengths as a driver, then he couldn't lose.
If Ferrari were a football team.
Um. Couldn’t think of any crap for this. Oh got it.
If Ferrari were a football team Schumi would be the driver of the team bus.
In F1, the drivers may be stars, but the cars are king. Every team spends the offseason in wind tunnels and with feedback testing equipment, secretly crafting improved design elements. This season, Ferrari extended its technical lead by unveiling its "narrow waist" design, in which the back of the car is almost impossibly thin and low to the ground, diminishing the drag exerted on the car and giving the car greater stability in turns.
Fascinating. Simply fascinating I say.
Ferrari's design excellence allows Schumacher to methodically destroy his rivals. While simple maintenance and production costs eat huge chunks out of smaller teams' budgets—a season's worth of tires and gearboxes alone can cost well into the millions—Ferrari can perpetually fine-tune a suite of technologies so that its cars perform under the most extreme conditions of acceleration, braking, and turning. As a consequence, Schumacher's car almost never has significant technical problems, a huge advantage in a sport where the ultra-expensive cars often just stop working because of technical malfunctions. To keep up with Ferrari's superior machines, other drivers have to take risks. As such, they consistently make mistakes out of impatience, imprudence, or desperation—hitting walls or other cars or just spinning out uncontrollably. In this past weekend's U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, only half the cars that started were able to finish.
“Where the ultra-expensive cars often just stop working because of technical malfunctions. ” Get a Santro people.
So obvious is the role money plays in Schumacher's success that F1's governing body is taking steps to minimize the importance of cash. Formula 1 will soon ban certain electronic driving aids and will further regulate tire and engine use and testing, all in the hopes of keeping down costs so lower-class teams can compete.
Also, half the laps will be done in either bicycles or auto rickshaws. And the last lap will be run by the drivers in the nude while being chased by hungry dogs…or horny dogs.
Schumacher is a peculiar global sports icon. He can claim to be the greatest race car driver in history, and judging from the sea of Ferrari-red bedecked fans, his team is far and away the most popular on the circuit. But he's a distant champion, respected but not adored. When Schumacher turned in a subpar qualifying performance at the Grand Prix of Canada, the fans—including the Ferrari faithful—erupted in cheers and applause as driver after driver bested his lap time.
Can he be a global sports icon? F1 is not so much a sport as a mental disease. Call him a global mental disease icon. Incidentally nine out of ten people surveyed said that they find scrutiny of their toe nails growing, far more interesting than F1
Mostly, fans are desperate for someone, anyone, to give Schumacher a fight. While few events compare with an F1 race in terms of loud, macho, colorful spectacle, Schumacher has killed the suspense. There's a sense that something is badly wrong with Formula 1, but no fans or drivers really fault Schumacher or Ferrari. They just worked hard, played by the rules, and outsmarted the competition.
Actually fans are desperate for something, anything to make f1 less mind numbingly dull. A few events that compare with an F1 race in terms of a loud, macho, colorful spectacle are as follows
1. The aforementioned growing of toe nails
2. Measles
3. The icky stuff in a persons navel
4. The classic watching paint dry
5. Haircuts
6. Channel surfing
7. Competitive belching
8. Watching paint dry, extreme version
Two weekends ago at the Canadian Grand Prix, Renault's Jarno Trulli broke down on the very first lap because of suspension problems. Later that day, I saw Trulli at the Montreal airport, waiting in line with us race fans for a commercial flight to Newark. I asked if it was tough seeing Schumacher dominate a race that he had barely started. He just shook his head, demoralized. "Schumacher," he muttered.
Actually what he muttered was “Stop fucking bugging me asshole ." Right after that he proceeded to die from boredom. A common affliction among F1 drivers. Also a common affliction among us normal people who really dislike F1 and are subjected to long boring analysis of probably the most boring “sport” on earth, rivaled only by NASCAR.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Snippets...
- “So are you people stressed? I’ve noticed a flurry of activity.”
- “If by stressed you mean fucked and by people you mean Rajneesh, and by activity you mean Rajneesh getting fucked, then I’d have to say yes.”
- “If by stressed you mean fucked and by people you mean Rajneesh, and by activity you mean Rajneesh getting fucked, then I’d have to say yes.”
Monday, March 06, 2006
With deepest regrets...
So is an atheist who was born Hindu an Omophobe?
I'm sorry. It needed to be said.
Now, a little advice. When you are talking to an attractive woman when you are really interested in, and who actually finds you funny, you should sometimes resist the urge to go for the perfect retort. No matter how perfect that retort is.
You might be telling her about how you internally categorize people into friends, colleagues, buttheads, you know, stuff like that. And if she asks you what you have categorized her as, the appropriate segue is, “Someone I’d like to take out to dinner sometime”. (Smooth-ish eh?)
You do not say, “I have you categorized as miscellaneous.”
Well, that’s one bridge burnt.
I'm sorry. It needed to be said.
Now, a little advice. When you are talking to an attractive woman when you are really interested in, and who actually finds you funny, you should sometimes resist the urge to go for the perfect retort. No matter how perfect that retort is.
You might be telling her about how you internally categorize people into friends, colleagues, buttheads, you know, stuff like that. And if she asks you what you have categorized her as, the appropriate segue is, “Someone I’d like to take out to dinner sometime”. (Smooth-ish eh?)
You do not say, “I have you categorized as miscellaneous.”
Well, that’s one bridge burnt.
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