Gism Butter

Tue, 31 Aug 2004

Celebrities

So, like, um... they're all better than us, remember? That's why we love to see them bent over in the corner of a Tenessee county jail taking spoon dips in round robin form from the other inmates. It makes us happy.

But there are celebrities amongst us who never do time in jail, and not because they have money, though they always have money. These people are call politicians. It's the schoolyard of popularity for the country, and when the teachers show up, the kids are always let go due to influential parents.

So, in New York, this very hour, the oldest, crustiest, and most sexually perverted of us all are standing in sweaty communion amongst the yammering heads of the Broadway mackeral snappers. I for one welcome our methuselah, dusty farting, wankel rotary engining overlords, and greet them by saying, "I am your friend, filthies!"

They're all rich, you can be sure. It is their position that affords them a seat at the sludgey trough of public money. I so want to nestle myself amongst them. They've turned the Web into a shopping network, sold my dreams to pay for weaping sores and a mustard plasters. I should join them.

Mon, 30 Aug 2004

This American Life

There is this absolutely fantabulous show on NPR called This American Life, and it's created in Chicago. The narrator, Ira Glass, is from Baltimore. I's an amazing program that delves into th realitites of America each week, yet does it in so subtle a way that it's almost shocking.

This show plays host to David Sedaris, who wrote Me Talk Pretty one Day. His oratory skills are also understanded yet surprisingly effective.

The pat few days have been kinda dull, but puprosefully so. Rather than describe the wildly rediculous assasinations and stealth declassifications V has been embarking upon, i think I'll recommend some more excellent web sites. Mom, pay attention here!

My father used to sell World Book Encyclopedias door to door. I have never been told the reason for this, as my father is the also the fellow who, evidently, came up with Be all that you can be as well as Who put 8 great tomatoes in that itty bitty can. But this is beside the point. The Wikipedia is a massive digital encyclopedia which can be edited and modified by anyone. This has the effect of producing informative entries on everything from quantum physics to the The Banana In My Ear sketch from Seasame Street. The Wikipedia has also been translated into numerous languages, including Esperanto.

Well, dad's staying just outside Mountain View, which is smack dab in the Sillicon Valley. That means we won't be doing Napa. I'm wracking my brains for activities or destinations in the valley. I know he just wants to spend time with me, but the valley's kinda dull unless you're into old computers....

Ah-hah! We shall go to the Computer History Museum! An excellent oportunitity to spend time together and talk, yet to be amused. And there's an In N Out Burger across the highway from it!

The Giants are out of town the whole weekend, so we won't be seeing Barry Bonds. I know he's Mr. baseball right now, but the A's are exciting, and they rule in general. We'll go see them instead.

Wed, 25 Aug 2004

Cover Story

Well, my story for the East Bay Express is done and printed. I've yet to hear much feedback, save the kind words from Sharon.

If you're really interested, you can read it here. I hope the Corys are not offended. I felt it was overall complementary of them. I can't say I'm a far of the cover art, but that's alright. Really this story was mostly a paycheck, rather than a labor of love.

We did not go to the baseball game tonight. Instead, we stayed in and ordered Chinese food. V's hopelessly depressed, and I felt she needed some serious butter time. So she snuggled up on the bed with Ali McButter, and I sat in the living room with Kyle playing Viewtiful Joe on GameCube. I seriously need more controllers so we can play Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee.

On Monday, the O's lost 3 to 4, though they put in a great show. Tejada got a standing O when he first came up to bat, a real tribute to the classiness of the A's fans. Three brits sat next to us and we gave them running commentary on the rules. V informed them of the various bizzare rituals Americans part in during a game, and they taught us somfootball songs to shout at anyone who struck out. The three blokes, Paul, Dominic, and another who's name eludes me at the moment, were shocked that the O's fans (and there were a few) were mixed in with the A's fans. In England, evidently, the segregate the fans because they'd beat eacch other up given the chance. Also, at football matches, no liquor is allowed, nor is any served for three hours prior to the games, due to riots.

Anyway, two of these guys were investment bankers, and one was a government employee. They were smashing chaps really, and we gave them a lift to BART after the game. As a thank you gift, they gave V the giant foam A's cowboy hat they'd purchased before the game.

The two bankers did not fit my mental image of investment bankers. They were actually rather loose and easy going, rather than the stiff, suit wearing Cleese and Chapman's I always envision when I hear the term Invesment Banker.

Last night we went to Ron's birthday party, a remarkably well attended affair. I met an intern at Wired Magazine, who informed me that the only intern she'd seen get hired on there had a PHD in molecular physics. She was on a six month tenure. What worried me is that I applied for that very internship. I didn't get it obviously. Sounds like real shit work over there. i don't know how that magazine stays relevent, esspecially with a two month lead time...

Mon, 23 Aug 2004

Maddox

There's this dude called Maddox who writes what I think are the best rants anywhere. You'll recognize him if you see him again. Here's Maddox writing about i, Robot, a movie I refused to see. I aspire to the hieghts of slander which he is able to attain, but doubt I shall ever reach them. A few months back, I was browsing through Bash dot org. I stumbled across this gem of a quote. It's the transcript of a chat between Maddox and some other folks on the Internet. Seriously, mom, go read it. It's quite apt.

You see folks, my mother reads this page every day, even when I don't update it. She will sypathyze with the unspoken mother who saw Maddox's site and burst into tears. I think it was probably the posting about him eating Spotted Owl Tacos that sent her over the edge. My love affair with a certain ex-boss is what keeps my mother awake at nights.

Anyway, my mother worries and stresses over everything she reads here. But let me just say that the Jesse Sartain thing is taken care of, and I doubt that we shall be hearing from him again. The page stays up. I never thought I would be happy with something Congress did, but the Communiations Decncy Act, which passed in 1996 and was changed by the Supreme Court in 1997, protects ISP's (which I am) from being responsible for the things their users write and post. Now, if the people on my site were posting copyrighted material, well, then I'd be in trouble. But they're not. They're just venting.

So, despite my brash nature, I am not the most offensive person on the Internet, mom, and I'm not gonna get sued into a dark burrow somewhere. It is my opinion that certain parties do not want the page in question going anywhere near a court room. I know you probably have many ulcers by now, thanks to me and my philandering youth, mom, but rest assured, you can take sollace in the idea that you are not alone. It was your generation's job to fuck shit up. It's my generation's job to be an asshole and write about it on the Intenet.

Oh, and by the way, mom, anything you may hear about my orchestrating the white slave trade in Delaware are LIES! DAMN FOOL LIES!

Sun, 22 Aug 2004

The Movies

V rented a bunch of movies today, and they were all bad. Like, awful bad. At least the final two were Ammityvilles, which we expected to be bad.

Kyle is back, wandering around the house for a week while Paul and Debbie go to Disneyland for thier aniversary. The Butter hates him. She hisses, shakes, and spit at anything that comes near when kyle is in the room. It's for this reason that we have begun shock treatments on the cursed beast.

This morning, to celebrate my new job, I took everyone to Carrara's Place, the elusive Saturn Dealership restaurant. Wait... It's a Dodge dealership now. And Carrara's is not open on Saturdays anymore, something we discovered abruptly yesterday.

Anyway, Jerry Brown was eating next to us, chowing down with someone he didn't seem to like very much. I jumped him outside and stuffed my wallet in his mouth. Then I covered his face in the butter I had snatched from the table. He protested profussely, but V had arrives by then, and she quickly subdued the dazed mayor.

In the end, I got him to agree to an interview before Wednesday. he'd never heard of Oakland magazine. I rectified that by beating him senseless with a copy just before we let him go naked and tied on the northern shores of Marin county. I doubt that he'll find a way of removing the radio collar we put on him. that should ensure that I can contact him when I need to.

I love technology

Mon, 16 Aug 2004

Job!

I got the job at Game Developer Magazine! I'm starting on September 1, and I'll be the head editor. I assume that in a few months they'll bump me up to editor in chief. The best part about this is that I'll be making only $2,000 less than when I was working for that egregeous cock sucker in Berkeley.

Sun, 15 Aug 2004

Relay And Such

Well, the Relay for Life was terrific. An absolute blast. It was like being in high school again: drisbee, box lunches, and all night movie fests. The folks in San Luis were really cool all around the block.

Incidentally, the Castaways (that's our team) won the Team Spirit award, which was the biggest award they had that wasn't money related. We didn't raise the most money, but the tallies did not count the cash we earned at the actual event selling sandwiches, foot rubs, face painting, and raffle tickets. All that money went to the ACS.

The drive back was easy, and pickled with Lamborghinis and Ferraris. When we stopped at V's folks' house, Paul explained that V's mom was off at Pebble Beach coordinating a rich-bitch festival with the theme "Ferrari's." That explains why, when we went down on Thursday we saw at least 100 of the buggers going north on 101, and why on the way back we passed 100 various Itallian sports cars. Ferraris are always red. Lamboghinis are always disturbing bright colors.

Tonight we watched Adam's Rib and Don Jaun, the original version. Two girlie movies indeed, but both entertaining.

Wed, 11 Aug 2004

Mom

Dearest mother, I am still not receiving any of your emails. I can't imagine why they aren't getting through.

Therefore, it is with great honor and pride that I provide the following rant on email.

Everything about email, and I do mean EVERYTHING, about this Internet service is broken, stupid, annoying, non-functional, and useless. Email needs a reboot. Here's a suggestion for an implimentation of a new email system:

Everyone gets a name as an address. Think AOL screennames. PLAIN FUCKING TEXT FILES can be sent from one name to another freely, but the initial text file must be accepted. When an initial contact is made, the receiver automatically quarentines the file and the user can look it over. If its content is acceptable, then all future communications are sent directly through to the in-box.

To distribute all of this mail, multiple centralized servers should be used. Every major ISP and big-boy telecom should administrate these things. Maybe universities too. There is no reason for joe-six-pack to run a server. The database of names and addresses can be kept in a big-ol' database that's mirrored across these servers.

I dunno, it's not the answer, I know. But something has to happen, because email is severely broken. It's too complicated to adminiaster because SendMail junkies need jobs. Fuck email.

Anwyay, i'm off to San Louis Obispo for the next four days. We'll be doing the Relay For Life. I know it's late to ask, but this is a charity event, and donations are greatly appreciated. Just click on this link to send in a couple bucks for cancer research.

Oh, and I've got tickets to see the O's and A's. Twice. In the same week! Hurrah! Too bad the O's just SUCK this year.....

Sat, 07 Aug 2004

The Brown Nose

When I awakened this morning, my face was covered in cat vomit. Thin, liquid, brown with chunks, cat vomit. My first thought was to run to the shower, but instead, I decided to bury my face in the fat feline responsible. This was the right thing to do. She disliked the experience immensely, so much so that she actually moved three feet.

As a result, my nose was stained brown. I knew this would make me the object of numerous jokes and chides. The first came from the rats, who also have brown noses (though their brown is from poo). They watched me as I approached their cage, running back and forth, climbing all over each other to say it first.

Look! Dad's been interviewing for a job! said HanPan (the white one). Langston, slugged his brother, jealous of his missed opportunity, and the two descended into a fairly violent tussle, which ended when I poured some dorittos into their food bowl.

V came next, though she didn't notice my nose. She was tracking a colony of ants that had entered the den the p[revious evening. Her intentions were to follow them home and kill the whole family. BUt obviously, she was now taking out individual ants in an effort to practice her nano-ninjitsu. The mminiature throwing stars she was flicking at the carpet worried me, but she promised to pick them up when the carnage came to an end.

Jen just saw me and laughed, falling off the couch and swallowing her tongue. In a few moments, she passed out, thus saving me the trouble of enduring her nose-related chides.

But the last one to call me an asskisser was the worst. Mr. Fatty leapt upon me, after having hidden himself in the rafters. The most frightening part of his attack was when I saw the rafters as I fell to the ground. You see, we don't have rafters in our home, or at least, we didn't. Evidently, V and Mr. Fatty decided to install some last night. They both figured this would allow them to practice their martial arts and assasination techniques more thoughoughly. In all, I feel that this was a bad move, as we only have 3 inches of clearance between oour heads and these large wooden beams.

But it certainly did conceal the Ninja-like frog. He slapped me around and repeatedly informed me that I was an ass kissing suck-up sycophant. And then he demanded that I feed him a cricket.

Keep an eye on the Jennifer page for images of her tongue piercing. I am still incapable of comprehending why anyone would want this proceedure done.

Fri, 06 Aug 2004

Holy Living Fuck

Oh my great fucking balls of unbelievable, incomprehendable, unimaginable fuck. I didn't get the job. I-fucking-magine that. Wow, I'm so fucking surprised. Fuck the entire universe.

I fully intend to spend this weekend drunk.

Thu, 05 Aug 2004

Musically Delicious

There's a few things rumbling around in the old head today, and they're likely going to come out here in this very rant.

There's a few small truths I've discovered about blogging and web design by looking at the stats and so forth from my lovely, and very likely rooted, web server. Leif set it up for me, and I'm sure he dreads coming over to my house because I am perpetually asking him to do this or that with it. Really, I should learn to do all this shit myself, but sometimes, it's just easier to ask him because he always knows.

One of these little truths is that people usually don't enjoy lots of links being thrown at them. I often wonder if domain squatters actually get any clickthrough. They offer up every possible link to commercial sites that they can find, in the hopes of being paid $.01 a click... and clog up DNS with their worthless sites.

Another truth I've found is that you draw more flies with vinegar than with honey. No one wants to read sob stories online. They would much rather read something that either makes them angry or pisses them off. Case in point: I get no comments or remarks reguarding this blog unless I personally insult someone in it. I am beginning to wonder if I should simply slander every imaginable person in the blogosphere in the hopes of them coming here and reading my shlock.

Truth in the third is that people like pretty pictures. As do I. Esspecially when those pictures are of baby animals.

Another, final, truth is that the Linux community, while rabid and fanatical, should not be allowed out of its collective house without a good washing up first. I went to LinuxWorld today, and there were some exceptionally foul odors to enjoy there. Also, there were not enough free things. And not enough CD's of actual Linux distros. That pissed me off to no end. I wander around for almost three hours, and all I have to show for it is a copy of Fedora Core 2 and a Mandrake 10 CD. I know, I know, Debian and Gentoo are Internet distributions. But I still want them on disc, just in case. Oh, and there were a lot of machines playing Quake III, which made me weap for the state of gaming on Linux. Oh, Wine, when shall though save us?

posted at: 09:21 | path: | 114 Comments

Wed, 04 Aug 2004

Of Gods and Myths

Our gods and religious texts are our modern myths, and man, they are so lame compared to the myths other societies have. I'm sick of a god who's all about forgiveness, love, and the number three. I want mischevious gods who take on human form and play pranks on unsuspecting humans. I want sexy lady gods who fall in love with guys with mullets, and bring about great chaos and war in the ensuing clash between heaven and Earth.

But instead, we get a guy who managed to feed a bunch of hanger's-ons. In ancient times, men received mandates, sacred armors, relics, powerful magiks, and all manner of radical ephemera from tatoos to secret hand shakes. But Christians settle for a dude who gave a bunch of people a free lunch. I think they sold themselves out cheaply.

Where's my golden apple?

Grim and Mandy

This morning I awoke and drove V to work. Then I returned home and piled my tunk full of all the laundry I could find. Then, I drove north to Vallejo to take advantage of the free laundry facilities in the house Jennifer is watching over.

The houseis a typically suburban fare with a birds-eye view of the local aircraft carrier. There's also a faint smell of polluted mire, thanks to the San Francisco Bay's dead status. I've been doing laundry all afternoon, and finishing up some stories and such. I turned in the rock climbing story yesterday. hopefully it goes over well. I'm proud of it, anyway...

Laundry will not get done in time. I think I'll get through about 3/4 of it. At 3, we are leaving to pick up V in Oakland, then driving to SF to get Jennifer's tongue pierced. Then I'll be driving her back north to the house and picking up the remainder of the laundry. All told, I'll probably not get back home till about 10 or 11.

This house has cable, though, and Cartoon Network has been showing the adventures of Billy and Mandy, or the adventures of Grim and Mandy, all day. It's a seriously twisted show, and there is no small modicum of skin eating.