The Sideways Post.

More migraines.  More work.  Less sleep.  It all ties in nicely.

Whining over.

I will get major Sith points for this….  heh heh heh…

I just happen to like these guy’s schtuff.

If you walked up to me tomorrow and said “If you give up your legs you can play like that” I’d run and get the axe.

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Tell me guys that you wouldn’t opt for the Wolverine Adamantium Claws, too.  A bit gory, might not be good for certain workplaces.

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Blotto… errrr… blotter.

My blotter is here.  I’m happy.  It is gorgeous.

I know this is going to sound silly but I’m going to post a picture of the real thing tomorrow – it’ll look a lot like this but without the lettering.  That ridiculous picture doesn’t do it a bit of justice and neither will the picture I take, either.

I do plan on having it framed.  It’ll go between my favorite professional documents in my office.  USPTO and NASA type stuff.

Pièce de résistance, Cheshire Le Mew

In such company it will look extremely ridiculous, like tube socks on a banty rooster, and I will probably be threatened with termination if I do not take it down.  And then it will become this big crossroads decision.

Do I want to take a stand, thereby being terminated, being unable to make payments on our mortgage, losing everything in the house to cover how far underwater we are, being forced to live in an ancient jeep, the wife and kids leaving me for a more successful model/parental unit (like a shoe salesman who sells steroids to high school jocks), me ending up on skid row, selling my body for cheap tawdry sex with movie starlets just to pay for my one-can-a-day gold paint habit?

Or do I want to keep my job?

I’ll get back to you on that.  Gonna sleep on it.

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Guesses?

Cruel Wife ordered this for me when I saw it on eBay.

Because the interwebs are just full of information it’s pointless to ask if you can tell me what it is, but the question is really is “Did you recognize it when you saw it?”

And no, I’m not asking if you recognize the Cheshire Cat…

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Thanks to veeshir’s post  – not that I read his blog, because we’re boycotting each other’s sites in a seriously hurtin’ way – I was told indirectly by this friend who knows this guy who has a barber who knows this guy’s girlfriend whose hairdresser knows this guy who knows this guy who knows this guy’s sister’s poodle’s hairdresser’s boyfriend who stumbled upon doubleplusundead, and so that is how I have this link.

So I followed links and drilled down to to http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/01/robert-farago/gun-grabbers-to-boycott-starbucks/ and found this useless idiot:

“Starbucks allowing guns to be carried in thousands of their stores significantly increases everyone’s risk of being a victim of gun violence,” says Elliot Fineman, CEO of the NGAC. “Open and conceal and carry are among the reasons there are 12,000 gun homicides each year in the U.S.  If we had England’s gun laws we would expect 375 gun homicides each year—97% less than we have. England’s gun laws are based on protecting public safety, ours on maximizing sales for the gun industry.”

Seriously?  It’s the open conceal and carry laws that lead to so many homicides?  Really?  And here I thought it was because of a bunch of lawless punks and felons.  Who knew that the vast majority of CCW holders are not the responsible adults we thought they were?

Starbuck’s coffee generally tastes to me as if they took a very old and dry worn-out boot, roasted the hell out of it until it was all burnt and crumbly, crushed it into powder, and then ran hot water through it until it gave up the remains of the ghost.  I don’t usually get their coffee unless I’m dying for a caffeine fix.  But by God, I’ll drink their crappy coffee even if only to show that I support their support of our rights.  Attaboy ‘Bucks.

Before anyone points out that they support Planned Parenthood, I already know it.  One thing at a time – give credit where it is due.

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So here’s a question for you:  If the judge orders that the government cannot use the information on your computer against you, why would he order that you decrypt the hard drive so everyone can see what is on it?

Am I missing something here?

The defendant, Ramona Fricosu, had unsuccessfully argued that being forced to do so would violate the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination, Wired reports.

“I conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer,” Colorado U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled Monday.

That doesn’t jibe with this:

Blackburn ordered Fricosu to surrender an unencrypted hard drive by Feb. 21. The judge added that the government is precluded “from using Ms. Fricosu’s act of production of the unencrypted hard drive against her in any prosecution,” Wired reports.

Is “act of production” the key set of words here?  It reads like the government cannot use her production of the information as a confession but they can use whatever they found there as if it were turned up in an investigation.  Are we splitting legal hairs?

 

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Your own filth.

Before zipping on down to the original topic of the post, cbullitt over at SOYLENT GREEN has plugged a product for me! And I’m happy that he’s happy with it, too.

You should think of it as a congratulatory gift mug for his 1,000,000th blog hit a week or so ago.

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Aggie over at Hookers and Booze put up a little quiz that she got from elsewhere (I won’t list the tree of dispersal beyond that other than to say she got it from iOWT).  It’s not a new quiz but it is an interesting quiz.

I lie at top dead center and wobble to the right a hair on the censorship issue, mainly because I believe some types of speech are never defensible as “free speech”.  Calling for the injury of others, harassment, exploitation of kids, etc., are things I can’t condone and never will.

Mainly I believe most all laws should be kept local, but obviously there are some exceptions.  People are a whole lot more likely to keep BS to a minimum if they have to sink, swim, or wallow in their own filth.

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Speaking of spoilage and filth, here’s a handy little posting about the facts of spoilage and pathogen-plagued foodstuff.  Interesting stuff that I never knew.   Is it all true?  I don’t know.  It passes my first sniff test, though.

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Did I post this yet?  I cannot recall where it came from other than through a google surf session.  I think it is a lemur of some kind but it’s all saccharine-ly sweet and all.  Gotta be a lemur or some critter in that area of the genetic tree – lookit the eyes.

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Interesting day.

The Dude turned 40 today so Cruel Wife and I – along with four or five other couples – joined him and his wife celebrating his birthday.  It was some good food but by far was the appetizer – fried calamari.  It was perfect.  Not a hint of a rubber band within 3000 miles.   The jambalaya wasn’t sitting well with me and CW’s crab cakes and stuffed flounder were OK but I’ll be honest, the crab cakes weren’t crispy-cakey enough to be crab cakes.  Oh well, it was all fresh, however, and that counts for so very much.

Congratulations to SOYLENT GREEN for the one-millionth visitor!   WARNING, IT IS (not, not, not) NSFW – DON’T GO THERE ON COMPANY TIME.  Whups, neither is the graphic below, if you get right down to it.  I am making an exception here.  SOYLENT is well known for a few things, some of which are NSFW, some of which are science-ey, and other which are anti-AGW – specifically he likes to trash global warmalarmists who would love to trash anyone who gets in the way of their power grab.  I support him in that.

I do graphics for cbullitt sometimes and he said “Lemur, I’ve come close to 1 million times, and I need a graphic to make it pop.”   Well, he didn’t word it just like that but the idea was there.  So there’s the graphic I did for him, made up of a collage of other graphics I’ve done when he’s come up with an interesting notion.  This was a fun one because it just came to me how to do it – I was clueless for quite a few hours – and the ideas just gushed forth.

A million of anything is a lot...

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Seems to Go Together Like Eggnog and Red Bull.

Steampunk Sarah Palin.

I did all right with that concept until they mentioned pages and pages of pin-ups of Sarah Palin, at which point I got queasy and had to run for the Pepto-Bismol ™.

I like Sarah Palin, but I don’t want her for POTUS, and my brain-jury is still out to lunch on whether I like the idea of her in Steampunk.

h/t to The Dude for pointing this one out.

… by the way, eggnog and Red Bull mixed together tastes like ass.  Two things I love, blending together to make something that I had to strain to finish.  (I’m NOT wasting Red Bull, dammit)

No, I did not successfully quit R/B yet.

Yet.

 

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Steampunk Under Your Skin.

Inscrutable Half-Breed sent this link to me… steampunk tats.

I’m putting just one of the pictures below to tempt you to go to the link above and enjoy.  LOTS of cool ink there.  The one on the right… wow.

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The PatriotPost sent this out.  Too good not to share.  Complain how you wish about ITAR, but it serves a very real purpose.  Start combining the removal of ITAR [h/t to cmblake6] with turning NASA into our ‘muslim outreach’ and you’ve got a really nasty thing on your hands.

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Who Knew?

I have been working on a female counterpart to the Steam Sheathe graphic, and the current work is one of a steam and gear-driven corset.

Aggie Sith breathlessly suggests that this be made more than the sum of it’s parts – gears, piston, steel cables, and anchor points – yes, she wants lacy frilly stuff which as a man I know nothing of.  Men don’t notice frilly stuff – we notice what is in frilly stuff.

Let us be perfectly clear – there will be no bodice-ripping here.  Not with 1/8″ thick steel cables in a network across a woven mesh corset.

While on this journey I ran across a website which I shall not name until I go through it enough that I know that I’m not advocating something I think is too damn bizarre.

But one spot I did find on it has a Master-Class Pole Dancing Competition, which I link from YouTube for your amazement.

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You know, if a man called a meeting like this to talk about… say… the legal system skewed against the father in divorce courts, women would have screamed for his balls on a platter.  I am curious as to why the author  and the editor at Roll Call felt this was not a remarkable point to make.

Pelosi Calls All Female Democratic Members Into Meeting

By Jennifer Bendery
Roll Call Staff

March 16, 2010, 7:02 p.m.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking all female Democratic Members to attend a hastily called meeting Wednesday morning but isn’t saying what the meeting is about.

Pelosi’s office sent an e-mail out Tuesday evening requesting that all female Democrats come to the Members-only meeting at 10 a.m.

An aide to one Democratic Member said Pelosi’s office said the topic of the meeting was “to be determined.”

The meeting comes as Democratic leaders enter the final stretch of health care reform — and as they scramble to address fractures in their Caucus over abortion and immigration provisions in the bill.

Weren’t “good old boy” meetings fiercely and bitterly waged war against by feminists everywhere not too long ago?

Oh, but like minorities, it’s ok for us to have exceptions.

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The Art of Distraction

I don’t have anything to post tonight art-wise.  Plain tuckered out from today. I have something to post below this section but I’m still going to distract you with something far far better.

I am tickled to post a link to a piece of art that I’d pretty much kill to have.  I can’t pull a Yorl on this one because the piece costs more than I can afford but I’d Yorl it in a second if I could.

Homero Aguilar – Colombian artist (painter) – does great scenes that are surreal but not surreal.  They have a certain ethereal quality about them that catches the eye.  If you’ve never heard of him, you are in for a treat.

First time seeing this was funny because I was waiting for an eye exam (must’ve studied because I’ve got better than normal vision) and it caught my eye, so to speak.  This was on the wall and I sat and studied how many things were “not right” about it, or more accurately, warranted study.

Go check them all out... http://www.galleriasilecchia.com/Aguilar/oils3.html

There are a number of things that don’t seem to fit, and I’m pretty sure he intended it that way.  Even if he didn’t, the piece stands on it’s own easily and is all the more cool for it.

Serenity and Tilogia Zen are also fan-freakin’-tastic.

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Regarding Nuclear Options…  I was able to squeeze out an opinion of Democratic handling of Health Care “Reform”.

Speaking of health, computer health in C0ngress is not good – they claim that it is Matt Drudge that is infecting a number of their computers.  I think it has less to do with Drudge and much more to do with their penchant for seeking out fetish sites featuring midgets and/or tranny pr0n.

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Andy over at Steamboat McGoo’s (Aardvarks and Asshats) linked this, and it is beautiful.

http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/imageslego_20food_small.jpg

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Black Barbie dolls sell for less than White Barbie dolls?   How racist is that, huh?  Why should black kids get goods for a lower price?

Yes, I’m aware of the spin I put on it that is counter to the usual “everything that happens is probably done by whitey to get the brothers and sisters down” snap judgment.

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A Great Weekend.

Ok, I’ll get the whine out of the way first.

Pain-wise it was a terrible weekend.  Bad.

Enough said.

The first good part of the weekend was hanging with my daughter today.  I was working on a piece of vine for stationary.  GirlHead, who is seven and already shows all the signs of being a very good artist someday, came up and said “You need to change that color.”  So I started asking her what she’d do next.  Pretty soon what had been a simple ivy vine without leaves was tweaked and leaves added and color changed…  here’s the upper left corner of the stationary where she took the flow of the design, and where I’m keeping it.

She had it looking better than I did…

The second good part of the weekend was that my friend (the uber-smart PhD lady) came out and took me and Cruel Wife to sushi lunch yesterday.  Yes, I was bummed that her significant other could not come, as she is back home still recovering from a very serious condition but on the mend.  It would have been way cool but there will be other trips.  They are two of the best scientists to work for – period.  You say to them “Gee, I really don’t know that I’d do it that way.”  Normally a PhD would say “Eh.  Do it anyway.”  But no, they’ll ask why you feel that way and listen.  They might decide to do it their original way anyway, but as often as not will say “Let’s give that a try instead.”  I’m not used to PhD’s that value an engineer’s gut feelings.

Anyways…

So we had a huge sushi lunch.  I had a Godaiko roll – it had salmon and tuna (hamachi) which are two of my favorites.  Cruel Wife got a sushi lunch – a spread of multiple things including the ubiquitous California roll and another nigiri-style dish with eel (unagi).  Sushi-Q got both maki and nigiri sushi and I cannot for the life of me remember what they were.  They were all fantastic and we shared them around.  The kids were at home with the sitter and so we spent an hour and a half just tasting, savoring, and pausing to enjoy the food.  If one is going to ingest high levels of mercury, one should enjoy it.

While we ate, we talked about work (which is what geeks do), motorcycles, California, and whatever came to mind.

After, we stopped off at work and showed Cruel Wife the project that has been consuming my life and will for a while yet.

Then we went home and got ready for dinner.  Sushi-Q left work after several hours and drove out to our house and we hung out again.  I pulled the smoked pork off the smoker – it had gone for 15 hours, just sweating it out in applewood smoke and steam.  I made some couscous and some rice and there was corn on the cob, too.

We talked and drank tea and discussed archaeology, food, dogs, remodeling, and even the pitfalls of camping and in lieu wiping one’s hindquarters with poison ivy accidentally (and how that takes months to heal from).

It was just a pleasure talking about whatever came to mind and it felt strange to not have your guest’s eyes glaze over and roll back in his/her head when something gets real geeky and technical.  The kids loved having company, too.  And the dog, Zoe-pup, was eating the attention up big-time.

First weekend in a long time where I felt like I had a weekend.  I didn’t know you could hurt like hell and still have a good time, it’s been so long.

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Hoyer and Pelosi get closer to see if it is Reid's farts that smell so rancid or just the man himself...

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My Materialism.

In response to Enas Yorl’s orgy of materialism – where he decided to blame me for his own sad actions, I might add; That is if I weren’t fully capable of taking the high road but I actually am and hence won’t add said commentary- I’ve decided to post things that I’d like to have and probably will have once I’ve saved some money.

Note:  I probably made no sense to begin with and then dug a deeper hole by embellishing the above paragraph, making it an unreadable mess.  Grammatically it is as if a seagull barfed three days worth of garbage on a white car hood.

Note #2:  Just giving you a hard time, Enas.

I love Japanese art and architecture.  Both pieces below are from ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige (also known as Andō Hiroshige or Ichiyūsai Hiroshige)

Clear Weather After Snow at Kameyama - by Utagawa Hiroshige

What I find so appealing about Japanese art, in particular ukiyo-e, is the great range of detail using simple and well-placed lines, using woodcuts similar to intaglio multi-color print processes. (similar but different)

Eagle Flying over the Fukagama District - One Hundred Famous Views of Edo #107 - by Utagawa Hiroshige

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Cruel Wife, on the other hand, appears to want glow-in-the-dark fur for articles of clothing – or so I can only infer given that she sent me this link.

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It Buuuuuuuurnnnnnsssss.

Update 2:  I get in to see the pain doc tomorrow.  Perhaps they can fix this new rash of neck-induced headaches.  Boy I hope so.

Update:  Oh Canada… that’s a laundry list of bad things, and it surely sucks to be you.  Sometimes though….

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Looks like the RF ablation thing they did 7 months ago on my neck is pretty much worn off in the c3-c4 region, or somewhere in all that yucky muscle/nerve/bone place.

The most spectacular headaches arise from the most exquisite neck pain.   Last night I was up till quite late even with painkillers and a sleeping pill.

But I did get some artwork ready for review at an art show – dare I hope for selling it?

Anyway, I digress… So, they are – hopefully, as crazy as this sounds – going to burn them pesky lil’ nerves out again.

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I said a short while ago that I didn’t respect a culture that allows men to cower and hide from return fire while behind the skirts of their women and from behind their children.

After several days of sporadic and inconsistent battles with Taliban fighters, Marines commanders say coalition troops came under heavy fire late Wednesday afternoon by insurgents who appear to be trying to regroup. In an effort to create hostility between coalition troops and local Afghans, insurgents are also reportedly using civilians as human shields – deliberately trying to force coalition troops to fire upon non-combatants.  – source:  Fox News

You can’t get much more chickensh*t than that.

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Even though he couldn’t lead anyone out of a paper bag, he’s sure good at trying to face hard facts:

“There are those, let’s face it, across the aisle who have tried to score political points by attacking what we did, even as many of them show up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects in their districts,” Obama said.

So “Let’s face it”, America! Obama says “Stimulus saved us from depression.”  I don’t know anyone who believes him unless they want to actually be deceived but hey, there’s a latin phrase that puts it out there:  Mundus vult decipi. The world wants to be deceived.

Can’t figure out what the hell is going through his head.   I’m still feeling pretty depressed and will until he leaves office.  Stimulus only made that worse.

Did you ever see a lame-ass try so hard to look tough? He's like a guy that wears LL Bean stuff and polo shirts to a game of paintball.

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Attributed to David Ringham, IN, over at Fox News.

http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/opinion/2010/02/17/photo-op-politicians-pooches-westminster?slide=1

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When is Art No Longer?

As I said, I’ve been feeling artsy again.  A friend of mine who goes by the name Fossilips is a pretty good photographer – really good.  She manages to catch images of this squirrel outside of her place that she suspects drinks tequila and smokes cigarettes.  So I took one of her images and… viola.

Damned if the little bugger doesn’t drink tequila.  I’ll catch him smoking cigarettes next.

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I’ve been artistically jump-started lately.  As I’ve been wandering around deviantART and ConceptArt (and many many seedy places and great places, too) I’ve run across this theme now and then:

Some Guy Whose Name is Omitted Here says:

December 18, 2008 at 12:04 pm

those are all really fantastic, but i can’t help but feel saddened that we are in a sense automating our creative processes. it makes you wonder to an even greater extent, if art you see was forged out of hard work and love, or simply ‘photoshopped’ =/

I’m pretty sure someone said the same stupid thing when film was first being used, too.  It was probably said when the first artist to use mass-produced bullwhips took a photo of himself with it stuffed up his arse, rather than make his own bullwhip from a cow he grew from a calf born after mounting and impregnating the mother cow himself.

Think, people.  Think.

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Fox News called today.  It was a poll.  They asked Cruel Wife some questions and asked her about her feelings towards the health care reform issue.  She told the lady, who was shocked and surprised that someone had the intelligence to say “On what basis, constitutionally, does Congress believe they are authorized to do this?”

Natch, Cruel Wife said that she listened to Yours Very Truly, and agrees with the Glorious Lemur King’s feelings on the matter 100%.  Which is good since the Lemur King is a verifiable genius.

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