The news from Lake Spambegone

Posted on February 4, 2005 by Solonor

Grrr. It’s become my morning ritual to de-spam the blog. Kinda takes the fun out of blogging. Maybe I should take up a hobby that’s more enjoyable. Like stabbing my eyes with hot pokers.

In other news, it’s the birfday of old (and I do mean OLD) whatshername. So, if you think about it today, shoot her an e-mail she won’t read or make a snidely remark in your own blog regarding her whining about turning 28. It’s the least you can do. (And we’re all about doing the least you can do.)

In other other news, both kids are sick. You know what that means…wonton soup for supper! Hurrah!

In other other other news, Cableman is about to move on to greener pastures, leaving Sgt. Grump and me to lunch alone (with the occasional guest appearance of DeBuG). This is one of those “yay for you, sucks for me” moments. Now, I make this face… 🙁

In other^4 news, after hibernating for the month of January, I’m cranking up the studio for some new tunes. Trying to avoid cover songs this time and write all my own stuff. The two I wrote for Potpourri of Noise have generated the least amount of retching, so I am encouraged.

Posted in Life, the Universe and Everything | 7 Comments

Jay Allen is a god

Posted on February 2, 2005 by Solonor

Look in the extended entry (if you dare). It’s from my MT access log between 6:11 am and 2:03 pm, yesterday. MT-Blacklist, I want to have your babies.

Maybe I’m stupid, but can someone explain the economic incentive for some idiot to try to place a thousand links to something nobody wants on a blog nobody reads?

Continue reading →

Posted in Rants 'n' Whines | 7 Comments

If only they were all just toys…

Posted on February 2, 2005 by Solonor

This story about a captured soldier turning out to be an action figure is yesterday’s news (at least if you’re a blogger). But I don’t have anything else to say today, and I found this list from Ace of Spades to be hilarious (yes, I know I’m gonna have to renounce my membership in the vast liberal conspiracy for thinking something a right-winger said is funny).

Top Ten Other Terrorist Threats
10. “If the UN does not immediately withdraw support for the US occupation of Iraq, the Jihad Brotherhood will cut off one of Papa Smurf’s three fingers”

9. “We have captured Rainbow Brite, and we will hang her as an infidel at dawn”

8. “Al-Zarqawi is pleased to announce new reinforcements in his jihad– COBRA Commander and Megatron of the Decepticons (also, we may get that completely useless robot who can turn into a fuckin’ tape-recorder)”

7. “If the American infidels do not depart Iraq immediately, the streets will run black with the ink of a thousand Etch-a-Sketches”

6. “I swear to Allah, if you do not release our brave warriors held in captivity, by next week Garfield the cat will have a whole new reason to hate Mondays”

5. “You have no chance of defeating us in Iraq, in Afghanistan, or in high-stakes games of Hungry Hungry Hippos”

4. “We have Jarts and we’re not afraid to use them”

3. “If our demands are not met immediately, we will begin pestering your female soldiers with our great stockpiles of Mr. Microphones; they will not be able to sleep, for our constant utterances of Hey good-looking, be back to pick you up later!”

2. “Deliver Donald Rumsfeld to us as a war criminal for trial or we will take our collection of Muppets and pose them in the most insidiously-sexual of manners; verily, your children will weep bitter tears when they witness Elmo being sodomized by the deviant Gonzo and his pansexual chickens”

… and the Number One Other New Terrorist Announcement…

1. “A thousand explosive Chia Pets will thunder in the streets of Bagh… oh, fuck it, we’re a bunch of buffoonish wankers everybody knows it”

[ via Michele ]

Posted in Wouldya Lookit That! | 1 Comment

Ads that don’t suck

Posted on February 1, 2005 by Solonor

Driving home from work last night, I heard the Kinks “Picture Book” from one of my favorite quirky albums: The Village Green Preservation Society. I’ve been hearing part of the song in those HP digital photography ads, lately, so it was nice to hear someone play the whole thing.

As irked as I get when some mega-corporation latches onto a great song to sell its snake oil and poultices or its slave-labor-produced sneakers, it’s nice when one gets it right and finds a tune that not only compliments the ad but also deserves a little recognition in its own right (I’m thinking of Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” in the VW ads, for example.)

Are there any other cool tunes that have been used in commercials without making you cringe?

Posted in Tunes | 8 Comments

Buh-bye Ads

Posted on January 31, 2005 by Solonor

Ahhhh… blissfully AdSense-free. I feel much better now.

The ads made a little over $50 for the Red Cross (not enough for Google to actually pay it out, but I’ll cover it, since the poor dears are obviously too low on cash to bother helping).

Posted in Yo! Listen Up! | Comments Off on Buh-bye Ads

Bigger than Elvis

Posted on January 29, 2005 by Solonor

After having run off enough CD’s to sink a ship, I keep finding people who want the damned thing. Either someone’s going around paying people to be nice to me, or the terrorists have already won. Either way, if you want a copy of A Potpourri of Noise, just send me your address, and I’ll put one on the next carrier pigeon.

Posted in Tunes | 8 Comments

Looking for a few good hobbits

Posted on January 29, 2005 by Solonor

For those of you joining our show already in progress, there is a website attached to this one where a bunch of dorks play computer baseball. Oh, but not content to just play computer baseball, these dorks decided to name all of their teams and players in the fashion of Tolkien’s Middle Earth (or, as it turns out, any fantasy realm really).

And what good would a league full of fantasy baseball players be if it didn’t have a bunch of subplots running in the background? Things like a a murder mystery with a hard-boiled detective on the case and alien bodies dredged from the Dead Marshes and fan riots?

Of course, they have to have a place to sit around and hurl insults at one another on a regular basis, too.

(What’s scary about this is that it is a global enterprise. There are dorks from Australia to Canada to the UK to the Netherlands involved in this thing, not to mention Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, New York and Washington.)

We, um, I mean they are currently at the end of the 2007 season. To further showcase their dorkitude, they named the playoff rounds the Fellowship Series (divisional series), Two Towers Series (conference finals), and Return of the King Series (league championship). The Mirkwood Marauders are playing the Grey Havens Stars.

If you’re a dork like us, I mean them, there are a couple of spots open for the upcoming season. Check out Solonor’s Groovy Computer Baseball League* and drop me an e-mail.

*The name is pure coincidence. I have nothing to do with dorkitude.

Posted in Baseball | 4 Comments

Scent of a Robot

Posted on January 28, 2005 by Solonor

MJ knows I’m a sucker for a robot video. This one from Pete Miser is purty cool. (Or “dope” as the kiddies say.*)

Scent of a Robot.mov

*Before you even start correcting my street slang, BITE ME!

Posted in Wouldya Lookit That! | 4 Comments

Lame Joke Friday

Posted on January 28, 2005 by Solonor

It’s Friday, and you know what that means… well? Don’t you?

Fine! You don’t wanna tell me what it means, then we’ll just sit around telling bad jokes all day. That’ll learn ya!

Two antennas meet on a roof, fall in love and get married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.

Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, “I’ve lost my electron.”
The other says, “Are you sure?”
The first replies, “Yes, I’m positive…”

A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, “I’ll serve you but don’t start anything.”

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: “Does this taste funny to you?”

An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

Deja Moo: The feeling that you’ve heard this bull before.

I went to the butcher’s the other day and bet him 50 bucks that he couldn’t reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, “No, the steaks are too high.”

A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, “Doctor, doctor, I can’t feel my legs!”
The doctor replied, “I know you can’t – I’ve cut off your arms!”

I went to a seafood disco last week and pulled a mussel.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

Two termites walk into a bar. One asks, “Is the bar tender here?”

[ via JustAGirl ]

Posted in Strangeness | 10 Comments

Not-so-silent Memorials

Posted on January 27, 2005 by Solonor

This is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. I don’t have much to offer today. Go read this: Reflections, Travel and Hell (sigmundcarlandalfred.blog-city.com).

There will be much written and said today throughout the blogosphere and in the media about the Wansee Conference, that gathering of evil people who decided, in a very clinical way, that a people were to be exterminated for no other reason than the fact they existed. There are many people today who will write about the Wansee Conference and offer up wise words and ideas of what that all meant. I will not be one one of them. Instead, I will talk about what I have seen, on my own, in my travels.

Posted in Wouldya Lookit That! | 2 Comments