Archive for January 2010

Well today was fun. I’m on day 5 of my cold, and feeling a tad better, but only a tad. But my friend is coming down with it, so I had to go out and walk all the way to the covered parking lot where his car is and get out the snow shovel, then walk all the way back — this is over snow and slush and some ice, down and then back up a hill — to my car, and dig it out. Fortunately the sun was out and it had warmed up to about 30 degrees from 0 this morning, and the snow was mostly of the light and fluffy variety, but that was still quite a workout. And when I got back not a half hour later the other manifestation of this virus or whatever it is hit me, and I spent a lot of time in the bathroom. But I think the worst of that has passed… Anyway, I broke down and made a brandy-and-soda, and am about to watch Killer Klowns From Outer Space. Well it was that or Cherry 2000 and I passed my threshold for enduring Melanie Griffith’s high-pitched breathy voice sometime back in the 80s.

Later: oh God, the Eighties. That’s all I can think of to say about that. Just… the Eighties.

Do not comment here using an email address you got at one of those “disposable” email address websites. Those go straight into Akismet’s spam queue, and no matter how coherent or on-topic the comment is I will delete it permanently just like I delete all the other spam. You must use a real, permanent email address. It can be a secondary one that you rarely use, but it has to be real.

It started snowing last night, it snowed all day, and it’s still snowing now, after the sun has gone down. Everything is so pretty and white and the snow looks so fluffy and inviting, but unfortunately I still have my damn cold so I can’t go outside. Grrr. Also, I am trying not to think of how I have to be at work early Monday to open the office and they even gave me my own key. I’m just going to think positive: “Of course they’ll have the roads cleared. Of course I won’t slip and slide all over the place. Of course I’ll be able to get my car out from under a pile of snow… at seven o’clock in the morning. And I will be over my cold!”

Grrrr.

Heddo dere. I hab a code! Or, translated from the Virusish, I have a cold! I’ve had it for three days now. I’m at the one-plugged-and-watering-nostril plus watering eye stage, my least favorite stage. And all I have is ibuprofen and antihistamines, so I’ve been taking those.

Anyway, I haven’t felt like posting because I’ve been feeling lousy.

I would give up my right to vote if it meant keeping morons like this woman out of the voting booth. It’s not the fact that she admits that she voted for Obama based on how good it would make her feel, it’s the way she still obviously has baby shit for brains, because she still thinks there isn’t anything wrong with this statement:

Before John McCain unwittingly picked a tabloid-magazine cover girl for his running mate, I was leaning toward going Republican this time around. I did the second time Bush was on the ballot and I very nearly did the first time, too. But as soon as Palin climbed out of her igloo and onto the national scene, well, there was no turning back for me.

Jill you ignorant slut, that “tabloid-magazine cover girl” was the governor of Alaska, a state, incidentally, where most people live in houses and apartment, just like they do here in the “real America.” Your family of “reds” (which, ho ho ho, now means the opposite of what it used to mean — though I wonder if Jill even knows what it used to mean to call someone a “red”) obviously didn’t box your ears enough as a child. I’d say this particular member of my sex really is only fit to be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen — except I’ll bet you like most “emancipated” females she’s probably a lousy cook.

There, I think I’ve covered all the politically incorrect bases. (Via Kathy Shaidle.)

It looks like Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is back in the news — in the New York Times, no less. And as many around the Blog-O-Verse have pointed out (and as he himself has realized) the article doesn’t exactly show him and his site in the greatest of lights.

Leaving that aside, one thing I have noticed: a lot of former LGF fans are now saying that they never thought of him as a “rightwinger.” That could be true, especially if you were aware of his site before 9/11, when it was mostly devoted to non-political web geekery and Mac stuff. But he sure did do a good imitation of one, as this old post from 2003 illustrates. (If he decides to delete the post because I’ve pointed it out — hi, LGF sniffer bot! — here are a couple of screen grabs.)

Anyway, some have asked why do people keep talking about this fellow when he’s become nothing more than a troll? Well, for one thing, there’s the train-wreck-full-of-naked-old-people truism: you don’t want to look, but you just have to. Another thing is that there have been other “prominent warbloggers” who have reversed some or all of their stances, political leanings, and/or attitudes in the period from 9/11/2001 until now (Andrew Sullivan is the one everyone uses as an example but some others that come to my mind are Damian Penny, who seems to have at least partially abandoned most of his “conservative” leanings lately, as demonstrated by this post from 2008; and John Cole at Balloon Juice, who flipped over to the “other side” some years ago, I can’t remember over exactly what) but none of them have gone so far into ripe, they’re-all-against-me paranoid behavior as the bike-riding “gentle giant” West coast jazz geek. The reason so many people have speculated “wildly” about why he did such an apparent about-face is not so much because of his current obsessions (for some reason he thinks Creationists are one of the greatest threats to mankind since the cholera) but are mostly due to his behavior against anyone who disagrees with him even a little bit. The banning of commenters is one thing — I have nothing against that, and in fact am firmly in favor of banning anyone from commenting on one’s own website for any reason whatsoever no matter how whimsical — but the blocking of others from even viewing his site, and the weird monitoring of what others say about him, and the bizarre anathematizing of people who have done things like comment on sites he disapproves of or gone to conferences where people he disapproves of also appeared (the banning of the entire planet of Earth from Charles’ website and “gated community” will commence any minute now) I believe is what they call “freaky.” In other words, pass the popcorn — this is going to be better than a mashup of American Idol meets Survivor vs. Predator.

Further commentary:

He’s already jumped on Ann Althouse with his characteristic restraint and aplomb.
Dennis the Peasant has some advice for Johnson’s associate on their new venture.
Patterico comments.

I may add more as I come across them but maybe not as I’m really tired of editing this thing. Wordpress, why have you become so bloated?

Okay, this, this is why–

Wait.

Look, the only thing preventing me from running around my apartment waving an ax right now is the fact that this isn’t my apartment but a friend’s apartment and me running around with an ax might upset him. I am nothing if not considerate. HOWEVER. I am feeling just a little bit like KILLING someone right now, because of shit like this:

ARGH

(Click for somewhat bigger and louder.)

And I had to read on a site I read sometimes that since I am on the “other side” from Obama supporters that means I am so because he is “the wrong skin color” and he doesn’t have an “American-sounding name.”

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…………

I can’t even. Really. I have had it. I am so sick of this. I mean — I can’t even think of anything to write about it. This is how it’s gonna be. You oppose anything Obama says or dare to make even the most mild criticism and you’re a racist. That’s it. Game over. Accept your destiny, you racist you! So fine. I’m a racist. I don’t like people of any skin color but mine. That means really pale people too without blemishes, acne, and freckles. If you don’t have old blemish scars, acne, zits, and freckles you are NOT MY KIND and possibly not a REAL AMERICAN and you have to have the last name of HARRIS or else you’re not AMERICAN and you are INFERIOR and efghjklkjkhjghdtrytukyuiyutydhfgfcvhbghjgftyruytuyiuoipo……

[Ummm. Hello there. Is this thing on? Oh -- I see. Thanks. Anyway-- this is Xena. You may have read something about me on the internet courtesy of the human who usually posts on this site. Yeah, that's my human. I'm the cat. I usually let her have her way, do what she wants, sit and stare at this stupid glowing thing and tap around on it, etc., because it seemed to keep her calm or at least in the same room in case I needed her for something important -- but now I see I should have chewed through the thing's tendons, or veins, or whatever that blue cord is that plugs into the back of it (she fiddles with it constantly so I think it must keep the glowing box alive). Anyway, the human has had some sort of... episode, and she may not be staring at this thing and tapping on it and whatever; in fact, when I pushed it towards her right now where she is curled up in the corner, she just whimpered and curled up into an even smaller ball. So anyway. At least I've figured out how to get the food out of the bag... Anyway, smell ya later! Not. You humans aren't exactly a bed of catnip, IYKWIMAITTYD.]

UPDAYTE: HA HA HA. THAT IS SO RAYCIST.

Argh! I hate not being interested in anything! Basically I feel like this about everything right now:

Meh

If you need me I’ll be over on Tumblr wasting time.

Update, February 1, 2010: The page has been removed. I told you I wasn’t sure about this social media thing. Someone whose Tumblr site I “follow” decided to load up porn on their site. You can’t see it on my own site, only I see it on my Tumblr “dashboard,” but I am still annoyed enough to be thinking about blocking them. It’s not that I have anything against pictures of naked people per se; I just don’t like to be ambushed with them. Also, the guy wasn’t my type; I have a very specific type and all others need to remain clothed in my presence.

I have added a page showing an embedded version of my Tumblr site. I’m not so sure about this “social website” thing. I mostly use Tumblr because it’s easy to use for purposes of linking to pictures of Doctor Who stuff without going through the whole download/upload/write a post here on so frivolous a subject. Also I like Tumblr’s posting interface, though the setup doesn’t really lend itself to long, thoughtful posts. But lately I’ve been unable to write long, thoughtful posts, so it works for me. But Spleenville is my main website, the one I actually pay money to keep on the internet, so I’ve got to get myself back to work, so to speak. Also, I got into it with several people when I broke through their warm, cuddly cloud of self-regard over Obamacare, so maybe I need to stay away from social media like Twitter and Tumblr and so on. But their interface, so quick and easy to use… unlike Wordpress which is getting to be kind of a pain. There is blogging software that people are writing that is Tumblr-like in its ease of use while resulting in a more blog-like website, but I had to remove about four thousand spams from the experimental blog I had set up with that, so it isn’t exactly the most secure. (It does have an anti-spam plugin that took a couple of clicks to set up but it wasn’t Akismet, but another one that I had to sign up for, but that was free. So there you go.)

I’m also thinking about changing the focus of my Asides category, which I have set up for a “side blog” (you can see it in the right side menu under “Asides”). I don’t know what I want to use it for yet though. Stay tuned.

Jim Treacher now lives a lot closer to me than he used to when I lived in Florida. Now he lives in Washington DC, which is only about three hours away from me here in western Virginia. Not that, you know, I plan to stalk him or anything like that. But it’s flattering that he moved to this area just to be near me.

What? Of course that’s why he moved! Oh, sure, he’s got some sort of “job” at some sort of new media website empire thing. Like that means anything.