Category: Not-politics

Reality defeats the Weekly World News.

Give them credit that they went down swinging – but when the title “Chirac Bitten by Depressed Poodle” is literally true, there’s a limit to what you can work with. I’m pretty sure that they went with “history of domestic violence angle on Sumo’s” just to retire from the field with their honor still intact.

Hey, it happens.

So a bit of a debate among my political colleagues.

It’s the usual one about whether this list (The Top 10 Rap Songs White People Love) can even be remotely considered to be accurate, given that Cypress Hill is nowhere to be found on it. I’d argue that it’s really a list of “The Top 10 Rap Songs White People Shouldn’t Love, But Do,” – but I’ve gotten some resistance on that by the strict constructionists.  So it goes.

That being said, Rock Superstar still continues to charm:

Good advice, too.

Trying to lose an earworm again.

You know, given the entire concept of YouTube, you’d think that I could find a kickass version of Rising of the Moon. This is not really one of them, but it was the best that I could do:

Hint to aspiring bards: this isn’t a sad song.  This is a you’re-coming-out-swinging kind of song.  Yes, the Irish lost.  My ancestors had a habit of doing that against the English.  Deal with it.

Waitasecond: I think I know some of the people in the background.

Heh. And I was just looking for a good version of this song (this live version isn’t, quite).

PS: One free bardic tip. When you do an introduction or preface to a performance piece, take whatever time you’ve allotted to the introduction/preface and cut it in half.

Universal Truths with no real relevance: 01/21/200.

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

From Neal Stephenson book Snow Crash, which is good reading for anybody interested in the intersection of information technology, Sumerian / Babylonian mythology and the franchise system. Well, it’s good for everybody else, too.

Anyway. Universal truth, there – at least, it’s resonated with every guy I’ve ever shown it to – but there’s not really much you can do with the information, is there? Except wait for individual males to get past being 25, I suppose.

Looking for something to read? (Charles Stross)

(Today’s guy: Charles Stross)

If you’re the sort of person who thinks that mixing higher mathematics, spy fiction, and the Cthulhu Mythos is kind of cool… well, you’ve probably already read The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. On the other hand, if the idea’s never actually occurred to you before, or you’re just looking for a good couple of books, you should pick these two up.  Stross is a fun writer with a good eye for combining horror and science fiction; his alternate histories (the most developed being the Merchant Princes series; a couple of good ones can be found in his short story collection Toast) are likewise well-conceived.  The space opera that he’s done has not really reeled me in as much, but there’s nothing wrong with it; I’m just more of a E. E. “Doc” Smith type.