Where The Gods Create

Take off your shoes, you uncircumcised heathen. You are about to tread on holy ground!

Writer’s Rooms

Hey, You Timid Wimps Who Wail About My Language!

Yeah, go read your god, Scott Adams, daddy of Dilbert, and see the words he’s using.

Now. Fuck. Off. Pussies.

YouTube: What Did She Eat?!!?

Nattliv – mensvärk (Extended Edition)

Looks to me like one of those damned live call-in game shows. Then… oops!

Attention Dennis Potter Fans: Romance & Cigarettes Is Out In New York City

This long-unreleased movie inspired by Dennis Potter’s “serials with songs” is available to see in New York City at Film Forum.

A podcast interview with John Turturro is available at the Film Forum link.

Romances & Cigarettes wikipedia entry

Romances & Cigarettes IMDb entry

Dennis Potter puppet head from only God Knows Where

Update: A variety of YouTube vids are also available.

Previously in this blog:
Warren Ellis Quotes Dennis Potter!
Sad Anniversary: The Death Of Dennis Potter, June 7, 1994
Some Dennis Potter Links
Today Is The Anniversary Of The Birth Of Dennis Potter
The Greatest TV. Ever.
Ew.

They Want To Erase Bukowski’s Bungalow

5124 De Longpre Ave

Charles Bukowski lived at 5124 De Longpre from 1963 to 1974. It was during this time that many pivotal events occured in his writing career, namely; the beginning of his partnership with Black Sparrow Press, the writing and publishing of his first novel Post Office, his first public poetry reading, and the “research” which would later become his novel Women. It was also during this period that Bukowski begain to attain notoriety as a writer, so much so that one neighbor describes his having to sneak out the back door to avoid admirers lingering in the courtyard. The apartment is one of the last vestiges of Bukowski’s Los Angeles – stark, honest, and sometimes beautiful. It’s one of the only places he describes in his books, so noteworthy for their evocative sense of place, that remain faithfull to the time.

Currently the bungalow apartments at 5124 De Longpre stand empty and boarded up, ensconced in a chain-link fence. The property has been listed on Craig’s List as ready for demolition. We are currently embarking on a campaign to have these apartments declared a historic-cultural landmark before the property is sold and demolished. It’s a race against time, but we feel that one of Los Angeles’s finest writers and native sons deserves to take his place in the pantheon of our city’s rich and fascinating history.

Bastards.

New MacBooks = Optical Drive Bye-Bye

How Come No One Noticed There Was No Mention of DVD in the New MacBook?

So when we got the news from Cleve and his source about the new laptops, the first thing we asked ourselves was how is Apple going to squeeze all of the laptop internals into such a thin Package? Battery optimization? Couldn’t hurt. Making the boot drive into NAND RAM? Possible but still very expensive. Motherboard optimization? Yeah sure but you can only save so much space doing that. Then it hit us: was the MacBook DVD going the way of the dodo?

Well, yeah, duh…!

Show me the outcry over lack of optical drives for UMPCs. There hasn’t been any.

No one laughed at the Foleo for not having an optical drive.

No one’s bitching that the Asus Eee lacks an optical drive.

Our perception of mobility has subtly changed. We no longer want everything a desktop computer offers. Does your notebook computer have a floppy drive? Why not?

I have a ton of CD-Rs. If I want to put something onto a machine that lacks an optical drive, I’d use my desktop PC to move it onto an SD card or onto a USB Flash drive. I can’t see wasting battery power on sorting through CD-Rs while out and about. And not having the extra weight of an optical drive is good too.

Plus, someday I intend to make my life easier by moving all the CD-Red stuff to a massive portable hard drive. That’d make everything faster to find and, if I’m really pressed for time, I can drag along the portable hard drive too. The point is, that extra weight is now optional.

Plus, I really think Apple is going to do something like this:

Yeah, you’ll iSync files back and forth from these smaller MacBooks to a Mac (and maybe even PC) desktop. Think of it as iTunes For Your Other Files.

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Did you just read this post? Now click here.

Previously in this blog:
The Asus Eee Effect?
Is The Foleo Completely Dead Now?
Size-Off: Foleo Versus Powerbooks
Ed Colligan’s Worst Nightmare
The Palm Foleo Disaster: Part Two

America, Hijacked

‘The Big Con’

This must-read column opens with:

I have this problem. Whenever I try to explain what’s happening in American politics — I mean, what’s really happening — I wind up sounding a bit like an unhinged conspiracy theorist.

Thank God! I’m not the only one who feels as if things have come completely unhinged! This bit is wonderful:

But, of course, as someone my age could not have guessed, the parties of a generation ago bore only a faint resemblance to their modern versions. After World War II, the Republicans accepted the new role of government in American life ushered in by Franklin Roosevelt. The decades after the war saw a great American consensus. Democrats were a bit looser with the purse strings, Republicans a bit tighter, but their general vision of the country was the same. This vision was expressed by the Republican president Dwight Eisenhower just before his inauguration when he declared, “There is, in our affairs at home, a middle way between untrammeled freedom of the individual and the demands for the welfare of the whole nation. This way must avoid government by bureaucracy as carefully as it avoids neglect of the helpless.” This credo was the credo of the Republican Party my dad could identify with. He looked up to GOP moderates like Nelson Rockefeller and William Milliken, the long-time governor of our home state of Michigan-men born to privilege who used their power for the benefit of all, not just their own class.

Emphasis added by me.

And there’s A Beginning:

Dear United States of America,

Please turn off your television, stop playing world of warcraft and please get mad. While we were distracted a bunch of criminals of the lowest caliber have stolen our country.

By waving the flag of fear in our face they have in our name commited acts of attrocity. The America that our fathers, grandfathers and forefathers fought and died for is near death.

They will scream from their bully pulpit that this is not the case and that America is stronger than it ever was, but they are only concerned about making themselves rich at our expense. They will send our children to foreign lands to fight their oil wars and grow their war profits.

Go read this again and watch the video clip there.

And then re-read this too.

Previously in this blog:
So, Did The World End?
The Shock Doctrine: Book And Short Video
Quote Of The Day: Nathan Singer
Quote Of The Day: Nathan Singer
Uh-Oh. Is Something Cooking?
It’s All About Noticing Things
September 21, 2007: The Next Wave Of Shit…
That Self-Alienated Bitch Ayn Rand Will Kill Us All
The Next Trend In Management-Labor Relations
Ted Nugent Knows The Value Of Our Leaders
Depression 2.0: Bank Run
Appeasement In Our Time
Bellylaugh Of The Day: Wikipedia Revisionist Edition
Welcome To Your Capitalist Future, Japan
Good News! The Worst Is Yet To Come!
Even When You Win You Can’t Win
Sudden Rope Death
You Can Trust Us. We Wear Suits.
Bellylaugh Of The Day: Accidental Edition
The Shadow Of Doomsday Appears…
Rightist Radio = Liecasting
More American Blood On The Hands Of Bush
Quote Of The Day: RoughlyDrafted
The Future Has Come Back To Haunt Us
Armageddon Catalysts
Daddy!
Go To Your Doom By Scorning Me And Trusting The Suits
Pay The Fekkin Taxes, You Eejits!!
Go Look. And Weep For Us All.
Quote Of The Day: John Scalzi
Who Are You Kidding, Billionaire Bloomberg?
On The Internet, Telling The Truth Becomes Imaginary
Fasten Your Seatbelts. Then Pray.
Homeland Security: Making Us Safer Or Just More Stupid?
Is Dubya Aiming To Be The New King George?
America: Collapse Watch
America: The Endgame
The Suits Will Bleed Anyone Dry! Especially You.
Another Egghead Out To Fuck Writers (And Other Creators) Out Of Their Just Rewards
They Protect Themselves. Not Us.
The In(sane)ternet
Quote Of The Day: The Rude Pundit
It Has To Be Said
Dear Mayor Billionaire Bloomberg And City Council Millionaires: Kiss My Ass, You Corporate Tool Motherfuckers!
We Should Have Been Dropping Fiber Into American Homes Instead Of Dropping Bombs In Iraq
More Police Abuse Of Power
Get Up On Your Hind Legs, American! (Part One)
Live Stupid, Die Stupid
Sing It, Wil Wheaton, Sing It Loud!
FCC: Fucking Corporate Collaborators
Abuse Of Power Still Lives In New York City
A Sad Tomorrow
No Bail? For Passing Out A Flyer? What The Fuck Is This?
Keep Watching The Skies!
Hey, Thanks Again, Republicans For Neutering Our Regulatory Agencies
The Day Will Come When The Suits Will Hang For Their Many Money-Grubbing Sins
When Your Child Dies, Remember To Thank Your Republican-Voting God For The Free Market!
More Re: The Tyranny
Tyranny In My Lifetime!
Compassionate Conservatism My Goddam Ass!
“I’m A Human Being, God Damn It! My Life Has Value!”
It’s Mourning In America
Everyone Knows What To Do About Everyone Else (Not That I’m Any Goddammed Exception!)
The Looting Of America Continues…
OK. This Just Freaks Me Out. It Better Freak You Out Too!
When Science And Reality Wave Bye-Bye To One Another…
Thank You. I’d Like To Kill Myself Now, Please.
What The 1960s Tide Of Liberalism Washed Up
The Answer Is Yes
When An Economy Crashes, Baby, There Are No Airbags!
Good! We Can Use A Dose Of Doom Around Here. If Only To Cheer Me Up.
May 2007: Boycott America Month?
Hey, Suits! Don’t Tread On Us!
Bravo, Rogers! Bravo!
And Then Google’s Stock Finally Thank You Jesus Crashes And Takes The Entire Global Economy Down The Toilet, Thank You Science!
Political Change? Prove it!
The Road to Great Depression 2.0

The Hot Xmas Toy: Now You’ve Been Warned

YouTube vids:

Roboco 1
Roboco 2
Roboco 3
Roboco 4

All in Japanese, so here’s something in English:

Tomy Roboco Robot Pet

And something else in English:

Rocobo Interactive Robotic Pet Matches Your Mood

Surrender now.

Reading: September 23 2007

Just Read:

Outrageous Fortune by Tim Scott
— A huge romp that loses track of all its threads towards the end and leaves an unsatisfying feeling that not everything has been wrapped up as neatly as the author thought. It’s also horribly mis-titled. His next book is to be called Love In The Time Of Fridges, so this one probably was going to be Don’t You Hate It When This Happens? but something must have gone awry in editing/marketing land. If you like Jasper Fforde‘s bizarre works, you’ll love this book. For most of the book, I kept thinking it was Fforde writing under a pseudonym. Apparently Tim Scott is a real person (who does not have a site or a blog!):

Tim Scott is not Jasper Fforde!

Today:
I have no idea yet. I have a few non-fiction books and several Palahniuk novels. I’ll have to see what captures my fancy…

Tomorrow:

Ammunition by Ken Bruen
— it’s Bruen! He always jumps the Endless Reading Queue. Here’s a quick YouTube video of him. He’s one of my writing gods and has been in the Blogroll since the start. I would have had this read already, but I didn’t get to the NYPL in time. It’s on hold there and now I have to wait until tomorrow. Just what I need: a reason to wake up tomorrow.

Abandoned:

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon
— bloody hell. This is a two-inch thick book that also weighs a ton. I just couldn’t keep lugging it around. I’ll have to return to it another time.

Enough!

The pupil bloodied and battered beyond recognition by teenage girls