Chicken

Back when I was a corporate drone I was part of the Marketing Department. That meant that there were times that I had to take peoples ideas, no matter how complex or stupid and forge them into Powerpoint presentations.

I made a lot of those suckers. So when I saw this video I felt a bit of nostalgia. It is possibly one of the funniest things I've seen in months. Eventually ALL the concepts started sounding like this.

Something in my eye...

There are times that I am truly cynical. That I loose much of my faith in mankind. War, disease, hatred. It seems that there is a never ending supply of misery dispensed by my fellow howling monkeys.

Then I see something like this and I smile. And laugh. I remember that we sometimes aren't complete assholes. Sometimes we do nice things for people we don't even know.

Pioneers...

If you have a television you may have seen this Levi's commercial:

While I am not what one could call a devotee of poetry I knew this wasn't written by some agency hack. It's Walt Whitman and you can find it here. It's good stuff. Apparently Levi-Strauss has a kind of scavenger hunt associated with this add campaign. It led to $100,000. It would have been nice if they had told someone about this contest. Just throwing a website at us means little in this age of constant advertising bombardment.

But I'm okay with having gotten a great poem out of it.

Bonus- The other commercial in this series features the voice Walt Whitman reading his poem "America"from a wax cylinder. It's both sweet and haunting.

Catching up...

This short video gives an accurate (if oversimplified) history of what's been going on in Afghanistan since 2001. It's worth a watch. While the long term stability of Iraq is anyones guess they do have the advantage of having something to sell and some national infrastructure. Afghanistan on the other hand is simply brimming with misery, religious nuts on all sides and bumper crops of dope and opium.

Our military, while doing a fine job under very difficult circumstances, isn't the total answer. This place needs schools, moderate clerics and a secure border with Pakistan where the Taliban like to vacation before coming home and shooting shit up.

Pure Awesome...

I don't know who was responsible for this. But they are my hero. This isn't the product of some one being lazy. This took work and a lot of love. If you don't know the inspiration for this, you are likely under 30. And that's a shame.

Magnificent and stupid

You should view this amazing young man as he flourishes cards is ways that simply seem mystical.

The music for this piece way also quite pleasing to my ears and thanks to the Internets you can listen to the original piece here.

The modified version used in the video above is called Opéra from "Métropolitain" by DJ Emmanuel Santarromana.

The stupid part comes when you look up the music on iTunes. The full name of the piece is

"Vivaldi - Nisi Dominus - Cum dederit - Mingardo" but thanks to words being able to kill people the "Cum" is censored to "C*m".

Really?

I'm not trying to beat a dead horse...

Truly I am not. Especially since the horse really isn't dead here. Although Gitmo will likely be closed conditions at Bahgram Airbase in Afghanistan are said to be business as usual (i.e. brutal).

But it is very important to look at the faces of those we unlawfully detained and tortured. It's important to listen to these guys. It is important to learn from this mistake. I am all for getting terrorists. But somewhere along the line here we monumentally fucked up and picked up these guys. And we KEPT them. For YEARS. We also tortured them. Now, one could argue that our torture wasn't as bad as other countries torture. Perhaps so. But it's still torture. And of course, there are those who died while in our custody. Those who committed suicide when they lost all hope of ever being free.

One could argue that there are always innocent casualties in war. One might argue that the ends justified the means. That through this treatment, we managed to keep America safe. But most reports I have read seem to indicate that this isn't the case. Most seasoned interrogators have stated that torture is not effective. So why did we do it? Did we, as a nation, go mad? I think so. And in this blind rage, in this quest to punish we ignored the core of what makes this country truly great. As always, I appreciate your thoughts.

Shock the monkey...

Back in 1984 or so I picked up a cassette sitting on a table in the audio/video department at Bay High School. It belonged to a tech guy who worked part time for the school. It was marked "Peter Gabriel-Live". I popped it into a cheap cassette player, put on a pair of craptastic headphones and proceeded to have my mind absolutely blown.

The music was unlike anything I had ever heard before. It sure as hell wasn't Pink Floyd or pop music. It was something mesmerizing, haunting. From the first track (The Rhythm of the heat) to the desolate and sad "Biko". I listened to it over and over. One of the first CD's I ever owned was Peter Gabriel and when I got to hear his music on a semi-good system it blew my mind all over again.

You might know his more popular tunes Shock the Monkey, Salisbury Hill or Sledgehammer. But you owe it to yourself to listen to some of his other works. He did the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ and is a central part of Real World studios.

A while back he provided the source track to some of his songs and invited to people to remix them as they wished. The results were pretty cool. You can listed to a warped but very cool version of Shock the Monkey here:

Watch this...

Eating Elizabethan for a week. Absolutely awesome.

Listening to words

The recent gathering in Washington D.C. was quite impressive. Sure, it didn't actually have 2 million participants. That apparently was a lie. But there were a LOT of angry (mostly white) people loudly venting their disapproval of our government and our President.

Good for them. That is their right. They apparently had a lot to complain about. For the moment, I'd like to set aside some of these people. The abortion protesters have an actual point in that abortion is still legal. They have a position and a stated goal. The Jesus freaks, well, they believe that the bible should run the show. Obama is a Muslim. They also have a position. It's crazy. but they are led by the book their invisible sky wizard gave them. Arguing with them is fruitless. In the immortal words of Dr. House "If you could reason with religious people, there wouldn't be any religious people.".

Then there are those who oppose a whole host of things the government is doing. You can tell this by the 10 second flashes shown on the news and the sound bites of people yelling. But what are these people actually saying? What do they actually believe? A young man apparently went through the crowd and talked to some of these people. And the results are so cringe worthy as to be physically painful.

These people traveled great distances, made signs, got up early and marched to protest things they have no fucking clue about. Seriously. These are dumb people. Now, it is possible that there were some well spoken people with well reasoned objections to certain government bills or policies. But I have never seen them. Where are they? Where are the ones who aren't screaming about death panels and socialism?

When I attended a war protest a few years ago there were certainly a wide range of opinions about our government. From reformers to anti-globalists to outright anarchists. But if you stopped and talked to them you would hear about why they wanted the war in Iraq ended. They knew about the bad intel, the lies, the smokescreen of Al Qaeda the torture of prisoners, warrantless wiretapping. I'm sure a few of them wanted the president overthrown because he secretly was a pawn of the Trilateral commission or the Freemasons, but they still KNEW THINGS based on FACTS. And the interesting thing was the makeup of the protest crowd. Young and old, white and black, Christian and Muslim. They were concerned about a people and a war that didn't affect many of them directly. After all, they weren't being bombed or rounded up and sent to CIA black sites. But the screaming heads on TV these days seem only to care about two things. Themselves and "their" America. To listen to them you'd think that is a brown shirted Obama Youth and FEMA camps for dissidents ready to materialize ANY SECOND. That their guns are already being taken away and government money is being spent right this second on free abortions for gay married couples. All over a burning Bible.

These are scared, stupid, people. And I have no idea how to counteract this level of stupidity. How can you have a discussion with them?

A few give lip service to the idea of making the world a better place for "the children". Hey Cletus, if you wanted a better world you might have spent less time breeding and more time educating yourselves and your offspring.

pant*pant*pant

Ok, I'm gonna go over to cuteoverload.com now and lower my blood pressure...

Metal Pirates!

And now for your listening pleasure: Alestorm.

I'm not sure if these guys are god awful or awfully good. Post your opinion.



Listen to more here at Last.fm

I am not a number.. I am a free man!

It was many years ago that I first heard the original BBC show 'The Prisoner'. I say heard, not saw. My brother recorded them and played them for me when he visited. (No VCR, No tivo in those ancient times) It was a trippy show. Even more so when I actually got to see it. And the ending? Pure madness.

Now it's being redone. But from what I can see, it looks and FEELS just as whacked out (if not more so) than the original. Behold.

Joy

This upcoming Pennsic will mark my 10 year anniversary. I enjoyed my own wedding. I enjoyed having my family come and play with us a little while. I enjoyed creating my own service, not going into debt or having to rent a church/hall/limo, I loved having chicken wings and having Pennsic as our reception.

Weddings can be a source of joy, and I am all for anything that brings joy into the world. So with that in mind here is a great wedding procession/dance number.

I try to respect other beliefs, but sometimes I think its important to listen to some of the faithfuls actual words. So here they are:

Nothing happened today..

I was keen to see what was happening in Iran over the weekend, but I couldn't. Apparently the death of Michael Jackson was the ONLY goddamn thing worth covering for four days straight.

But I don't want to be disrespectful of the dead, so here a small bird moonwalking.

Oklahoma = Fun

I almost forgot that I shot this short bit of video while we hunkered down during the great dust storm that was the Norman Oklahoma show. We were assaulted by this piece of trash for literally 10 minutes. Then the wind kicked up again and blew it, and a small child, to god only knows where.

Soooooooo freakin cool - A windmill

Check out this video and then try this for yourself here.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

And now for something completely different...

Standard Operating Proceedure

The previous post "I'd give the Devil the benefit of law" generated some strong opinions about how we should treat 'the bad guys'.

I appreciate strong opinions. I have a few myself. Some of which were reinforced when I watched the film Standard Operating Procedure which dealt with Abu Gihraib. It was hard to watch at times. The matter was not a simple black and white case. We put 18-21 year old kids in charge of a prison. Kids who are trained to follow orders. Kids who were told what was being done was okay, even if the regs said it wasn't. After all, we're in a war, right? I'm not sure what excuse the older personnel had. They knew better.

It gave context and detail to the infamous photographs. It showed the mindset of some of these people. Their reasoning and rationale. And what was seen in the pictures was not the worst of it. It never is.

Is it okay to torture a suspect if you believe he is guilty of being an insurgent or a terrorist?
After all, we didn't hang them, or beat their feet with metal rods or shock their genitalia.
THAT'S torture. Saddam did that shit. We didn't (Although we sent people to countries that did it for us).

Lets talk about what our guys did.
Tying someone in one position naked for 5 hours naked isn't torture, is it?
Depriving someone of sleep for days isn't torture, is it?
Forcing prisoners to masturbate and simulate sex acts in front of women isn't torture is it?
Waterboarding and punching prisoners isn't torture, is it?
Keeping high profile detainees from the eyes of the Red Cross isn't illegal, is it?
Our guys just 'softened them up' for the pro's (CIA, FBI, DIA etc).

After all, these guys were the Bag Guys. Except the ones that weren't. And it seems that the vast majority of these people were just dumb SOB's. Drunks & thieves... oh yeah and most of the fighting age males in an area. Fathers and sons. We took them from their homes because they could POTENTIALLY join the insurgency, not because there was any suspicion they were.

Lock them all up and DO NOT let ANYONE out. That was the order. We did not deny them due process, we denied than ANY process. When they finally got out, I wonder how many of those average Iraqi's were willing to let bygones be bygones?
The end result of not following the rules and the law was an increased insurgency and a deep unifying hatred of Americans in that entire region.

Take a look at this list of Memo's. Look at the titles. Some of the details of these memo's are just now coming to light though we likely will never know the full details of them all. Look at the titles: Convention Against Torture has limited application in the U.S., Torture can be prosecuted only if there was 'specific intent' to harm Is this America at it's finest? Is this the beacon of freedom spoken in hymn and song? It this the best we could do? America has the brawn to do these things, but does it have the brains to do something better? To fight smarter?

I highly recommend you check this movie out through Netflix. It's thought provoking. Here's the trailer:

I would give the Devil the benefit of Law

In response to this McClatchy article about the Captain of the U.S.S. Cole saying "We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups,'' a spirited debate sprung up on FARK.com regarding whether we should give suspected terrorists the benefit of Habeus Corpus or other rights.

I will confess that as I am not a Constitutional scholar, a lawyer or an expert in military law I am ill equipped to speak with any great authority. It is not any easy situation to rectify, made worse by the previous administration that simply had no strategy whatsoever and simply did "whatever was necessarily" to "keep us safe". But since we aren't operating in the shadows anymore we must take the bull by the horns.

There are criminals in Guantanamo. By various accounts 70 of the 270 are really bad guys. This is down from the over 600 who used to reside there. We let the rest of those people go because we really didn't have anything on them. With all the resources and the with the full and intimidating threats of the US of A pressed upon them we simply had nothing. I am sure they forgive us though.

Rumor, innuendo, suspicion. On that evidence we abducted people, held them in secret prisons, and tortured them.

On the flimsiest of connection to 9/11 and on dubious intel we waged a war on Iraq that has killed tens of thousands.

But we had to, you know, to keep us safe.

Look, thinking is hard. But maybe if we did it more we wouldn't be in this shit. I don't want to give any religious whack job with a desire to kill people a pass. But to ignore the law? To just go all Jack Bauer? Is that the answer? Will ignoring US law, international law and treaties work? Will that find and punish the guilty? George Bush thought so. He thought these men were evil.

But I would give the Devil himself the benefit of Law.

I offer this short clip from A man for All Seasons:

Whale Wars

If you've not heard of this show I urge you to seek it out. It's pretty cool. The 7 part show follows the Sea Sheppard's as they attempt to locate and disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica. In short, the Japanese can hunt down and perform "research" on a limited number of whales every year and then sell off the 'specimens' for a whacking profit. There are laws protecting the whales, but there is a grey area that no country seems willing to deal with. Unlike Greenpeace, the Sea Shepperd's believe in direct action/confrontation. Take a look at this trailer. You have to admit, it looks pretty badass.




But watching this group of seasoned veterans and mostly young volunteers is a little painful. They SO remind me of the kids I met down in New Orleans in the 9th ward. These were people who were driven. They were 100% dedicated. They were willing to risk life and limb for what they believe in. But they are also terribly unprepared for the task. Most of the volunteers have almost no training and as a result their very lives are at serious risk as they ply the Antarctic. Several people are injured as a result of stupid mistakes. Simple safety procedures are not followed resulting in near disaster.

They are also media whores. Which is important because they want to bring attention to their cause. They actually have two people board a Japanese ship, and then tell the press that they have been 'kidnapped'. They throw stink bombs and deploy prop fouler lines. All in the name of their cause. Which they are very dedicated to. They aren't taking pictures or writing letters. They are taking the fight to the enemy. They are brave and they are foolish and I hope they make a difference.

How do you say Trekker in German?

Found this neat video on youtube of a german Sci-Fi convention. I am impressed. Awesome costumes, lots of energy and lots of Jaggermeister. 

I don;t know if this is a typical con over there, but it looks like a lot of fun.

It's time...

After sitting back and watching as little men from little parties bark at each other I have decided that I cannot STAND anymore.

Therefore I have decided to throw my hat into the political arena. And by hat I mean a grenade.

President? BAH!! Steven Pack does not want your puny presidency! Steve Pack will be your

GOD-EMPEROR in '08

Think I'm mad?? Possibly. But click the link above to see how I am already spreading my message.

Things will be different under my all powerful administration. Very different.

A little of thisa... a little of thata

Not a whole lot to report at the moment. I downloaded the new iphone 2.0 firmware and some apps. My iphone is now more useful. Not as useful as my brothers NEW 3G iphone, but useful. I'll just have to live with my limitations.

The big purchase was a new laptop. I have agonized over this for about a year ever since my Sotec's dvd drive died. Boot times were around 8 minutes. It was old, it was slow, but it was light. The new hotness? A Gateway. It's very fast. But it's got Vista. There are really very few things I see as an improvement with Vista. Really. It's kind of pretty, but it's also a bit awkward usability wise. I'll keep it around and try to figure it out.

It's got good battery life. I watched a movie that I rented from a very cool machine called Red Box at the Geneva grocery store. The cool things? Only $1 a night and it's basically a robot. I rented Batman: Gotham Knight and was a little underwhelmed with the movie.

The Great Lakes Faire enters its third weekend and we're looking at rain again. Joy. Then I have a week to prep for Pennsic. Will I be ready? Unlikely.

77 Drummers

This the kind of thing I would love to help make happen. A collection of 77 drummers who came together to create one large musical instrument. There is no profit motive. There is no product tie in. There is no CD. There are no sponsors or celebrity talking heads. Just a cool idea. If you've ever played in a drum circle you know it can be a total blast.

Taking a deep breath...

Ok, I've calmed down after my previous rant. Watching this video helped. Then I went to this site which has all kinds of pics of microcars. Sweet!

The Ho-ho-horror

This has to be one of the best claymation parodies ever. It combines Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Apocalypse Now. Really. It is a warped bit of genius.





On a side note- Back in Jr. High this film was some kind of fixation for me. I remember my friends and I had a tape recording of it and we could recite most of the movie from memory.

Greatest Nativity Play EVAR!

No really. It's painful AND it's funny.

Who are we?

I found this short film to be the most poignant thing I have watched in quite a while. If only we would embrace its simple truths, things would be a lot less messed up on this little blue planet.

My Mornings

This video clearly illustrates the morning routine of our "pet" known as The Great Cat of Reh (or "Ray" for short). Thanks to Grisette for sending me this!

Happy Halloween

Monday morning chuckle

Wow, another weekend working in an oven at O-Ren. Checking the calender I see that it is FUCKING OCTOBER. What the hell gives? We should be shoveling snow out of the front of our booth by now. At least this weekend we kicked mighty ass. Any way, for your Monday morning pleasure I give you the List of the 9 Most Manly Names.

One name not on the list is Magnus Pyke. Don't recognize the name? It the old scientist looking guy who appears in Thomas Dolby's "She blinded me with science". He just happens to have been an actual scientist. That's pretty freakin' cool.

God I love the British

Not physically, of course. Their teeth scare me. But their sense of humor is just great and I enjoy fast paced work like this:


And if you like that, head over to fullyramblomatic.com for more of the same.

Not bad...

Sometimes cruising YouTube yields interesting results. Here is a gentleman who seems to have built how own Bag End (complete with a *twitch* round door)

Geeky

I was poking around youtube when I came across this. If you understand this bit, congratulations, you are a full blooded geek.

THE coolest car

I am not a car person. To me, a car serves a function, and form is something I usually don't care about. There are exceptions of course. The Delorean (time machine or otherwise) The spinner from Blade Runner, the Mach 5 and a few others. Sure.

But in general most cars, modern or classic, fail to get my heart running. I can apprciate them, but not crave them. This is not the case with Bugatti's Veyron. Watch this video and see for yourself.

I am well aware that the way they shot this sequence is half of what makes it so cool. This is a car show for gods sake! Yet it has the visuals of a movie. Outstanding.

A Gentlemans wager

After catching the latest Pirates movie was had dinner nearby. The discussion turned to the show 'Lost', which has gotten a contract for three more years. I do not believe that it will go that long and have made a gentleman's wager of dinner with my friend Ed over this.

It's not that I don't enjoy Lost. It's a pretty damn good show. But it does have one serious fault working against it. These writers have no clear idea of where they are going. There is no set arc or master story. Anyone who tells you there is, is wrong. Oh there may be some broad, nebulous idea thingy in the producers mind somewhere. But a solid plan? No. JMS had a pretty damn solid plan for B5 that made it a great Space Opera. Even the X-files eventually settled down to a central backstory. Lost? Not so much.

And how long can this show continue to pull shit out of its ass? How much weird shit can happen on this island? How long can these characters continue to do dumb things and never ask intelligent questions? I believe that the show can have a good ending. But three seasons worth? We will have to see. I suspect it will go the way of several other shows that had similar motifs. Anyone remember John Doe? Or the Running Man show (I thank that's what it was called). Great premises wasted.

While pontificating on Lost I somehow blurted out that Lost isn't that original. It's basically The Prisoner with a warmer climate. Never saw the show? Don't worry, it first ran in the 60's on BBC. But the parallels are freaky:

Lost: People wake up to find themselves on mysterious island
Prisoner: Spy wakes up to find himself on mysterious island

Lost: Island inhabited by Black Smoke, that can kill
Prisoner: Island guarded by Rover, a mysterious device that can kill

Lost: Others controlled by no. 2 who answers to unseen no 1
prisoner: Island controlled by no. 2 who answers to unseen no 1

Lost: Main characters have secrets they don't want revealed
Prisoner: Main character has secret he doesn't want revealed

Lost: Areas of the island are under video surveillance
Prisoner: Areas of the island are under video surveillance

Lost: Other try to get characters to join them
Prisoner: No 2 tried to get No 6 to join him

Lost: Dead people occasionally show up alive.
Prisoner: Dead people occasionally show up alive.

One could go on and on.

Very very cool

Anyone here remember the early days of the web browser, or windows 95? Remember how they tried to make "Virtual" malls and "Virtual" desktops? But most of these ideas pretty much sucked. The computer doesn't match up well to real world motifs. Sometimes you need a long list of information. And the graphics power to pull this sort of thing off simply didn't exist.

But I just saw a pretty slick website and set of videos for something called 'Surface' from Microsoft. Some of the things shown in the demo have been played with before in various tech demos available on youtube, but this is the first I have seen a system that takes the desktop metaphor and makes it work. Put your camera on the table, and pictures fall out, grab some and send them to your phone or email them by dragging them with your finger. Browse a restaurants menu and divide the check visually. You pay by placing your card on the table. It recognizes it! The usability here is pretty slick. Date of arrival is Winter 2007 but what does that mean? All kinds of hardware will need to be developed to take advantage of this kind of coolness. But I don't care. This is the future, shiny and full of touch displays that I want.

More gooder...

Remember that blasphemous video "PG-13 300"? Well there's something even gooder now. Flight 300

I really give it to these guys. A lot of work went into this.

Oddly Hypnotic

This is a small Japanese dancing toy that will dance to any beat you play for it. Honestly, it dances far better than I ever did. In a real word bar situation, it could probably pick up chicks to. Chicks dig cute.

This is CAKE TOWN!!!

This had GOT to be the funniest thing I have seen in a while. (I know, I keep saying that). I present to you "300-The PG version"



My wife literally called it 'blasphemy'.

Funniest video EVAR

If you're not familiar with the British show Top Gear you are really missing something. Alas, I can;t get it here but thanks to youtube some of the best of it is available to all.

Amazing

If you haven't seen this ad yet, do it now. Yes, its for a shoe. But that doesn't matter because its really just a very short but very powerful movie.





I listened to hundreds of hours of Opera back when I was a butler and can identify quite a lot of it. But actual operas are really quite long and often boring. I'm sure they were the Lord of the Rings extended edition DVD's of their time. I'll take an aria here and an overture there but not an entire opera. That doesn't mean that this music isn't simply amazing, and when joined with these visuals the results are no less emotional than a full length movie. I actually wept when I saw this commercial. The story is told without words as they are unnecessary. Everything is there. You understand the emotions, motivations and pain of every face on the screen.

Nike has a history of making some kick ass commercials, such as the Demon Smiting Nike ad some years ago. Yes, it's as ad, but that doesn't mean it ain't art. If you doubt me, go check out the BMW short film series 'The Hire'. (sadly, only available on youtube instead of high quality video) They were actually better than several films that came out the same year. After one particularly aweful film I forced my friends to watch these films and they agreed that the films were better than what we had just seen (check out Powderkeg, its the best).

p.s. The song is Lacrimosa from Mozarts Requiem

Sheer Joy

You should go and view this short called "The Grandfather of Soul". I'm not going to tell you anything about it. It's short and very sweet. Pass the link on to your friends.

It's a filthy lie!

This following video is NOT of me. At no time have I ever attempted to affix coke cans to my head. This I swear. This is not me.