Unbeknownst to Me

One of the things that annoyed me while doing my sojourn in the “Arts” part of liberal arts was the competition among grad students and professors to affect an otherworldly mien. Knowing nothing about the rest of the world was considered a badge of pride and proof of one’s commitment to your craft. It has long been this way, and C. P. Snow famously lamented the Two Worlds of academia, in which scientists had a basic understanding of the arts (they know who Shakespeare and Faulkner were, they know the difference between a novel and a short story) but liberal arts types would wear their ignorance of other matters on their sleeves (they may know who Einstein was, but are pretty fuzzy on Heisenberg–ha–and couldn’t tell an atom from a molecule if their life depended on it). They would look down on me for my interest in things outside music.

Another affectation was for mundane tasks to be beneath them. Much like dandied country gentlemen of 19th century England, skill at business was a lowering of social status while ruinous debt was a regrettable but understandable part of life. So, too, could professors not be bothered to learn to use a computer or know anything mechanical not directly connected to their art.

So it gives me a bit of shadenfreude to see three officials in the English Language Institute of the University of South Florida lose their steady paychecks because donation checks were carelessly stashed around the office. Checks dating back ten years. The ones that fund their salaries.

Or did, before they were fired.

The Best Blonde Joke Ever, according to Jason.

/me scratches blond-hair-covered head

I don’t get it.

“They think they can get it on MTV on Total Request Live, and if they don’t, it’s for political reasons, not because the song sucks.”

- Keith Oberman on “Bush was Right,” “music” to which he thoughtfully provided a video you should see (don’t pretend you don’t have iTunes and hence, Quicktime) (and if you don’t, well, you just suck. Accept it.)

Surely this will catapult me into the ranks of big time bloggers like that guy from flyover country, the gay Republican, or some political hack. My more commented-upon Canadian-themed post got quite a lot of hate comments from Canadians who failed to read the substance of the post (or, as I judge from the quality of the spelling and punctuation, may simply have been unable to read it). It then also drew quite a lot of counter-hate hate comments from Americans. Ever one to enjoy watching Canadians act in opposition to their self image, I just sat back and watched.

But when a couple of 14-year-olds (or their mental equivalents) began bashing one another the thing got tiresome. As long as they were bashing one another based on their country of residence, I didn’t much care. Then the (self-identified) American began simply just posting potty mouth words without a lot of point to them. Now I’m quite a fan of potty mouth words (fuck, shit, Jerry Seinfeld, crap, children, dickweed, and Canada, just to name a few)–I just require that they be in the service of something. So I just deleted those posts but left up the juvenile name-calling. That caused outrage, so I banned the commenter’s IP address. He came back and resumed the name-calling, and all was well.

Then the (again, self-described) Canuck failed to recognize that a spammer bent on selling him magic beans for his beanie-weenie had simply used a bot to post some innocuous bit of nonsense, and replied to it. I of course deleted the spam, causing much anguish on the Canuck’s part. I replied that as this is my private propertah, all will respect my authoritah, and I’ll delete whatever the fuck I want for whatever reason I want, or no reason at all. Generally I’m pretty liberal about what I’ll let pass, but sometimes I’m just feelin’ the need for delete.

This caused the American to launch into a paroxysm of abuse. So, of course I deleted it, since it had nothing to do with hating (or not hating) Canada. He returned, full of accusations of treason, etc., etc., and I deleted those. Eventually I got tired of the thing and just turned the comments off that post, since most of them even before the juveniles got involved had been fairly stupid anyway. Canadians seem to have a lot of time on their hands and get a wee bit defensive about being a real country (funny how real countries never feel the need to get defensive about their existence). This caused quite a pause, since neither of them seemed to know that a “blog” has “posts” of which their favorite was simply one among many.

So today, while I spent the day out in the warm sun enjoying nature’s plenitude, the American troll was in his dank cave manually spamming as many posts as he could (geez, write a bot like every other script kiddie). I returned to find them, and promptly deleted them. The Canadian troll managed to bang out a couple of insults between bouts of shivering, but as autocratic and random as I am, I elected to let them stay. I’m just kooky that way.

No doubt my American hater will come back with all sorts of things as soon as the public library opens again and he manages to rediscover how to work the automatic door. They’ll probably be deleted and that IP address banned. Since I have very low readership, I don’t mind banning most of SBC’s IP space. They’re pretty lame, anyway.

But I’m so glad I have a hater. Clearly, I’m coming up in the world.

So here’s Serenity in 2000 words or less. And yes, Joss Whedon is my master. Whedon, you magnificent bastard, I saw your movie! Again! Hi-larious. Lots of spoilers. But if you haven’t seen the movie by now, don’t worry, because I’m going to kill you.

HT: This guy

So you may whine that there’s been little good at the theater this year. The blockbusters barely demolished a mailbox, let alone a block. That is about to change. Why?

Because you are going to see Serenity, and you will love it. How do I know? I know you’ll love it because I’ve seen an advance screening. I know you will go and see it, because otherwise I will come to your house and kill you.

Now, I realize you may be saying, “Sandy, threats are not really an effective form of behavior modification, not to mention illegal.” And I grant you that, though I note that silly parody is generally given broad protections. But threats work. After all, Al Quaeda managed to make Spain leave Iraq by just blowing up a mere handful of people and threatening more. They managed to force a theocratic government on the US and removed most Constitutional freedoms from Americans just by threatening more acts of violence.

You may also be saying, “Sandy, more people will not see Serenity than you can kill, even if you were a hyper-efficient killing machine like Killdozer, who was so rad and cool and awesome in that one movie.” That is why I will immediately devote my life to two goals: achieving immortality and bringing back people from the dead.

Why? I will achieve immortality so I have an infinite amount of time in which to kill everybody who didn’t see Serenity. “Ah,” you object (rather ineffectually), “we’ll die of natural causes before you can kill us.” That is why I will learn how to bring back the dead: so I can kill you. Even dying won’t save you from being killed.

So you’ve been warned. Serenity is the coolest thing ever, and seeing it will make you forget how much you hate George Lucas. And it will prevent you from being brought back to life just to be killed again, so you’ve got that going for you.

And deep down, isn’t that what we all want? To not be brought back to life just to be killed because we didn’t see a movie we should have seen anyway?

Judith Miller is indeed getting a cheap (for her, not for the taxpayers) “vacation” to the DC area, in what comes suspiciously close to a judicial attack on the First Amendment, and is certainly an example of the horrid perversion the Grand Jury provision in the Constitution (like the Commerce Clause or Public Use) has become.

But that doesn’t make the confluence of RSS ads any less darkly humorous.

Here’s a post immediately following the Raich decision by Fafnir, of Fafblog, demonstrating just how stupid Yglesias was to claim it would “make it harder to regulate giant corporations”.

“Insolent pot!” says Giblets. “Be more vendible!”

“Giblets why are you yellin at that pot plant?” says me.

“Giblets is trying to turn it into commerce,” says Giblets. “But buying and selling it is too much work. He wants it to be commerce NOOOOOWWW!”

“Silly Giblets, everything is commerce!” says me. “Let’s step into this maaaagical schoolbus and we will learn all about Our World Of Commerce!”

The comments, also, are worth reading:

You may be actually sitting on your front stoop basking in the gloriously warm rays of the sun. But is that really any different than exchanging money for goods and services at a tanning salon? No! The sun is a communist that undermines the tanning salon economy, and you, likewise are a communist.

This is one entry too funny by itself for spamusement to take on.

They could make it more believable by at least claiming that “hot t3acherz wil bee all over u!”

So you think that smart people are the ones filling the queues for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith?

Au contraire, mon frere.

Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol.

A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it.

OK. Let’s count the stupidity, shall we?

1. They were over 14, as my brother points out. Seriously. Get over it.
2. They were filming themselves without access to editing software that could have safely put it in later. This usually leads to stupidity and, as such, is considered evidence of stupidity itself.
3. They were dueling with glass tubes.
4. Let me re-emphasize: they were making sword play with glass tubes.
5. They decided, hey, let’s hold something fragile in my hand and bash it together, but that’s not stupid enough. I know, gasoline always makes for more stupid, and it’s all glowy!
6. Especially when you SET A FLAMMABLE SUBSTANCE ON FIRE IN A CONTAINED SPACE.

Sadly, they will probably live. Here we had a male and a female that needed to be taken out of the gene pool, all ready to do it and capture the act on film.

Fortunately, being the type who film themselves as Star Wars characters post-puberty, they will never reproduce.