It’s a pretty rare event. It may mark a moment of spiritual significance to some. Or it may summon Cthulhu. Or, most likely, it may be kind of neat to look at.
Therefore, to be safe, I plan to be asleep and to find pictures of it tomorrow. How ’bout you all?
I’ve been reading the John F. Kennedy/Ted Sorensen book Profiles in Courage. It’s a good read so far, though a little slow. Anyway though, what I wanted to mention here was that Kennedy/Sorensen quotes Congressman John Steven McGroarty as writing to a constituent in 1934:
“One of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains reforested and I have been in Congress two months and haven’t done it. Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell.”
Forgive me a bit of nostalgia–if you can be nostalgic for a time when you weren’t even alive–but it seems even insults were better in the old days.
*
I’m having various technology related problems that have been making it hard to blog tonight. Some humorist–Scott Adams, I think–once talked about the awful sensation that all the technology in your life has turned against you. That’s what has happened to me.
Anyway, my web-browser keeps crashing for no apparent reason; and then crashing again when it tries to display the error report message. And I need my web browser in order to fix my DVD player so I can play DVDs to figure out if my DVD burner is still broken.
I just hope the Amish can’t see me now.
*And no, my name isn’t Dave. Although, it is probably what a computer would call me, given how well everything else works.
“That amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth”–The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, by H.P. Lovecraft. 1927 [Emphasis mine]
“Two huge bubbles that emit gamma rays have been found billowing from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have announced.”–National Geographic, November 10 2010.
Then there’s also this matter to consider, which seems innocuous enough until you see the picture on this page.
From a 2005 New York Times article by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt:
“Why would an economist be embarrassed to be seen at the voting booth? Because voting exacts a cost – in time, effort, lost productivity – with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your ‘civic duty.’ As the economist Patricia Funk wrote in a recent paper, ‘A rational individual should abstain from voting.’ The odds that your vote will actually affect the outcome of a given election are very, very, very slim.”
Well, the hell with that stuff. Vote anyway. But it is true that voting is not the most effective way to make your voice heard. If only there were some means of freely distributing your political opinion to many people at once in order to influence them…
As a kid, I didn’t generally get that excited about dressing up in a costume for Halloween. To me what was (and is) great about Halloween is the atmosphere. The chills in the air, the longer hours of darkness each night, and the general feeling of melancholy is what I love about the season. I’d much rather walk around after dark in street clothes, looking for ghosts and such. Getting dressed up in an uncomfortable costume was just a nuisance to me.
But there was one costume I had that I always loved wearing. It consisted of:
I also had a plastic ax I would sometimes carry, but that was usually too cumbersome. And, of course, I couldn’t be bothered with such a thing as mere trick-or-treating when in this costume. In my twelve year-old mind, I was a spectral vision of terror; the embodiment of all the horror that has stalked humanity since the dawn of time; and as such, felt that it would be inappropriate to be seen asking for Snickers bars.
I realize now that I didn’t look terribly scary–anyone who saw me probably thought I’d had a mishap with an ink jar–but at the time I assumed that everyone was recoiling in terror at the sight of this sinister vision walking down the street.
In the meantime, here is another video I found for your enjoyment. (Although it might not be as funny if you haven’t ever seen The McLaughlin Group)
What really amazes me about this is how good those actors are. They’re so good that they’re able to do an excellent imitation of cheesy acting.
Tragically, I’m busy with stupid real-world stuff right now.
I’ll be back tomorrow, though. In the meantime, I recommend that you all read this post by thingy.
(Personally, I suspect all of these types of Republican candidates are the work of Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas.)
“‘The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Hail, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ”’Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags!””–Bertie Wooster, reprimanding Roderick Spode, in P. G. Wodehouse‘s The Code of the Woosters (1938)
I thought of this quote today while listening to a bit of Glenn Beck’s radio show. I can’t imagine why.
Anyway, it’s pretty funny to read, but it was absolutely hilarious when delivered by Hugh Laurie on the “Jeeves and Wooster” TV series.
And no, “bloomer” doesn’t mean what you think it means, in this case. It means “mistake”.
