Whoa, content on a Saturday?
Not much, really, but some good stuff nevertheless.
Archer is one funny lawyer, and is a satirical bastard to boot. He never submits anything to the carnival, but he should. This bit about the CheneyThing is a fine example of his wit.
And the great-great-grandaddy carnival is still going strong over at Siflay Hraka. You’ll find a fine sampling of posts at the anniversary edition of the Carnival of the Vanities.
The Ghost and Its KingBy Mark A. Rayner
Initially, I was gob-smacked. I just didn’t know what to do when The Ghost appeared.
Then again, I can’t use the datasphere, so how could I know how to react? I’m sure you have heard other people say they can’t use it, when really they have no excuse, except so-called moral ones: the neo-Luddites, the Resisters. But I was part of that other group. Yes, the ones you pity as much as you fear. I am non-eactive.
It’s not that I’m against the implants I need enter the datasphere; it’s that my body won’t accept them.
My doctor says that someday science will crack the problem, but I suspect it will never happen. There are so few of us that carry the gene, and those of us that do will make sure that we don’t pass it to our kids. I know I double-checked when Elena and I had Toby. He doesn’t carry it, so he will be normal.
Imagine that you never experienced the datasphere. As if reality was all there was to experience. Flat, boring, reality. So it was a shock, when the Ghost just walked through the door to my office at the university. A real shock.
He was tall, with wild, long hair, but he had a friendly face that looked vaguely familiar. I could almost place him, it was on the tip of my tongue… Anyway, I wasn’t frightened by him. More bemused. Yeah, I was definitely bemused. But then in my experience, long-haired characters can’t walk through solid objects. Oh, and he was wearing a suit of armor that added to the incongruity of it all.
He smiled at me broadly as he sat down in my reading chair, and said, “oh shit. I’ve forgotten my freakin’ armet.”
Originally published in Neometropolis, September 2004.
Photo, with thanks, by Wili Hybrid.
Welcome to the Carnival where snark is our art, and snide is our pride! This week has another fine collection of blogospheric satire:
Alejna writes a column of entertaining tips for American Hovel Magazine and this article on Preparing for Overnight Guests is quite useful.
Finally someone has come up with a Blogger Satisfaction Survey that reads like a Cosmo sex survey! Thank you Rich Minx.
Daniel Brenton has managed to get a transcript of The Mary Hart Interview with Jesus Christ. Somehow it was never aired.
On a related note, Damian G. has word that Paris Hilton found God; God relieved tests come back negative.
Yitzchak Goodman at Judeopundit takes us on a literary sidebar with the Gitmo Poetry Preview II.
Speaking of the Cheney Thing, the Rude Pundit has this list of six things the Office of the Vice President
We don’t think the Cheney Thing would make much of a Freegan Cato beatbox king.
Chris has been reading The Secret, and has run an Experiment with Intention-Manifestation Theory.
Madeleine Begun Kane’s bemusement comes through in her doggy doggerel: Yoga For What???.
Inspired by Judge Roy Pearson suing the pants off his drycleaner, Tim Abbott gets litigious in this posting about the Top Ten Lawsuits He’d Like to See Continue reading…
So you’re going to head down to the beach, catch some rays and zesty waves? Just be careful, because a gruesome fate awaits you there.
No, I’m not talking about beach zombies, sunburn or even another version of Jaws, but the lowly sandcastle. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, pretend fortresses constructed of sand are more dangerous than sharks. (In 1990: 16 deaths from sandcastles, and 12 from shark attack.)
It’s not the bailey that is the danger, but the moat. Most of the deaths resulted from people falling into the trench or hole they dug around their gritty citadels and being buried by sand. (And when I say “people” I actually mean boys between the ages of 3-21, who accounted for most of the fatalities.)
And the danger doesn’t end with collapsing sand holes. If you’re having a little of fun with your pail and spade on beaches around Lake Superior (US), then in addition to sand, your major material of construction is E. coli bacteria. The benign form of bacteria is no big deal, but they can also indicate that “harmful fecal microorganisms may also be present,” according to a CBS story about the Environmental Science and Technology report (link below).
Eeeewwww.
Harmful Fecal Microorganisms isn’t even a good name for a band.
Let’s just lose our minds to begin with, shall we, and mainline the Carnival of the Insanities.
And this new take on the MasterCard “priceless” campaign probably won’t get past the censors. [scroll down a bit to find the parody]
And then clear your head with The Carnival of the Godless, an excellent edition hosted by the Uncredible Hallq.
Afterwards, you can shake it a bit while you read some BAD History.
Through the LatticeBy Mark A. Rayner
Dr. Moses Alberts thought the lobby of the Tetragenics Global marketing division in downtown Metoronto was soulless. That was hardly the architect’s intention; its massive wrap-around windows enclosed the front half of the building to at least the fifth floor. But instead of being airy and spacious, it was oppressive.
Alberts was the chief neuromarketer for Tetragenics.
He grimaced in distaste as he walked by the massive statue sitting in the middle of the lobby. The only adornment in the sterile atrium, it showed a man and woman enjoying Tetragenics products such as the Duodenum Displacer. They looked toward the rising sun beyond the atrium, confident that their Tetra merchandise was making their future brighter. A misguided homage to Donatello, the sculpture instead looked like something out of the Soviet period in Russia, with the Tetra logo chiseled into the podium instead of the hammer and sickle.
Only two people in the enormous building could have told you who the hell Donatello was, Alberts thought as he skirted by the abomination. Him and his hated manager, Lillian Artemesia. Not that it would ever come up in conversation, because they didn’t converse, per se. They had more of a master-slave relationship.
He walked to the portal of his servitude; the black plassteel gate and Greeting Machine reflected his distinguished, but downcast visage. Though in his mid-forties, Alberts looked like a man just entering his thirties. Most people who could afford it looked as young. His sad eyes gazed from above a long, almost Roman nose that his Uncle Morty had made fun of when he was a kid, and he had a melancholy look that was incongruous with his youthful appearance.
He slipped his hand in the Greeting Machine, and waited for it to take its sample, test his blood and confirm his existence as a Tetragenics employee. (No doubt also recording the nature of any stimulants remaining in his system from the night before. Alberts would have told them it was the remains of several double scotches, but the device made such human confessions unnecessary.)
Read the rest of the story …>
From the Book of LibationsAnd in this time, there will be a shadowy group who terrorize a distant land filled with fragrant cheeses and even more fragrant people. And they shall be Craven, these men of evil intent, and they shall wear masks made of sheep’s cloth, though they own no ungulates.
Verily, they will be misguided followers of the Prophet Noah, and will grow grapes, and turn their juice into wine, and bottle it, and then market it at modest profit. And when middle men and usurious shopkeepers import inferior vintages from the remote sandy lands of Kalif and Far Australis prices will drop, and the Craven shall be wroth.
And they shall don their heads with the hair of sheep, and they shall threaten the Holy with Violence, and the distant land of fragrant cheeses and even more fragrant people will live in dread.
Yea, they shall have inexpensive wine, but there will be fear.
From the BBC: Wine Terrorism| Photo by dailydog
A useful resource showing the different kinds of beer glasses (not goggles) from which one may enjoy the perfect food.
Somebody was being naughty in the UK. Actually, they were being “irresponsible†according to the spokeswoman for the company fixing the sewer that exploded because of a pair of knickers.
And for more tales of unfortunate explosions, try the Storyblogging Carnival.
As if I wasn’t already freaked out about flying, a report from University of New South Wales, Australia says pilots are being poisoned by their planes.
According to the lead researcher, Susan Michaelis:
Compressed air is routinely drawn off engines and supplied to aircraft cabins. If the seal inside the engine is not secure, engine oil can leak into the cabin and contaminating air with toxic tricresyl phosphate (TCP).
What? Compressed air is drawn off the engines? What engineer thought that was a good idea?
Now, if instead of engine oil there was some other kind of oil, that design decision might make more sense. You know what I’m talkin’ about, the kind that induces a desire for Twinkies and Doritos at three in the morning.
Then the passengers might not be as stressed about their toxic pilots.
Wellington’s frank presentation of facts to staff (June 17, 1815) –> slide 3More Bonny Fun:
Napoleon Headsquisher
The Lost PowerPoints (Napoleonic Edition)
The Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815 [wiki]
Copies of Marvellous Hairy are available at the publisher's website direct or on Amazon.com
