A Wish List Item

Some days I want a sign. Big. Neon. Porable, that's important. Big enough to be impossible to miss, small enough I can hump it about. Bright, blood red letters, foot tall. Two lines. It will read:

"You Are Not Helping"

I will have it equiped with a switch so that it can be turned on and off at a moment's notice. I will turn it on every time someone wants to do something superflurous, or idiotic, or obstructive... all ostentiously to be help to me.

I cannot begin to number the times I must have needed that sign today.

Sort of Expected this

And... yeah.

Saw this coming.

Okay, so the schedual has been caught by the twin demons of procrastination and lethargy. Between them they have consumed it and spat out it's bones. On the other hand, I hear the things regenerate, so...

Anyhow. I need a topic. Um.

Yeah. Therein lies the problem. I have all sorts of ideas of what to type before I get here. They just evaporate once I am, you know, here.

It is why comedians sleep next to notebooks, and poets always carry a pen and a writing tablet. Just because you can put something down, doesn't mean you can manage it all of the time. It can be grueling, painful to try and sit and force inspiration. Or the easiest thing in the world. These are not mutually exclusive per human either - a person can experience both, sometimes in a fifteen minute period.

So, yeah. I have great ideas. Many topics. Unfortunatelly, then I got anywhere near my blog, and - poof, gone.

Except for the one on musing on theology, and I kinda think if anyone actually reads this thing that may get me stoned. So it is good that no one out there actually follows this.

Though, if I can't figure anything else tomorrow night, I might be risking it. Gotta raise that schedual from the dead somehow.

Fun With Language

I once had a Latin instructor who drummed it into my head that Latin is not code for English, and in fact, no language translates perfectly into any other. Therefore, translation between, say, English and Farsei, or German and Russian, isn't a 1:1 proposition. No matter how similar the languages are, there will be some nuance that can't be handled by simple conversion methods. It might be a construction of grammar, a twist of syntax, a shade of meaning, cultural connocation, or a multitude of factors all conspiring to make even the simplest of meaning difficult to divine across the bridge of differing language.

This is why machine translators can give you a general idea of what a sentence from another language might mean, but only a true fool would ever trust the exact translation to be spat out by one. Provided, of course, that the translation being spit out even sounds like language in the first place. Translation is an art; machines are notoriously poor artists

Which makes some things, like, say, this website so much fun.

I mean, what could be more amusing to do than take that old game of telephone - whispering a sentence to a circle and watching it mutate as it goes around the room - with the vulgarities of allowing machines to try and do translating. Translate one sentence, back and forth between languages, and wait until meaning breaks down. Sometimes spectacularly.

This is so much fun, in fact, I played around with it for a good while. For instance, a line from the HBO series 'The Pacific':
"Oh for god's sakes, coffee is the one thing we got to enjoy around here, and we'd just like a little quiet to enjoy it. Now, you either go kill Lieutenant Larkin, or shut the f--- up."

After ten translations, that sentence became:
"Oh, God, and coffee, everything here still use it. Now, you have to kill you or f--- Lieutenant Larkin."

After fifty-four translations:
"Oh, coffee is still available. Soldiers were killed in a day or kiss."

I mean, most of the noun specifics are still there. But the meaning between the nouns is worlds different.

Go on. Try it.

Little Rabbit Foo Foo

Little Rabbit Foo Foo,
Hoppin' through the forest
Scoopin' up the field mice
And boppin' them on the head

Down came the good fairy,
And she said:

"Little Rabbit Foo Foo,
I don't want to see you
Scoopin' up the field mice
And boppin' them on the head"

"I'll give you two more chances."

So the next day:
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Hoppin' through the forest
Scoopin' up the field mice
And pattin' them on the head.

Down came the evil fairy,
And she said:

"Little Rabbit Foo Foo,
I thought I had warned you
About scoopin' up the field mice
And pattin' them on the head."

"I'll give you two more chances.
Then I 'adjust' your attitude."

So the next day...
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Hoppin' through the forest
Scoopin' up the field mice
And boppin' them on the head

Down came the good fairy,
And she said:

"Little Rabbit Foo Foo
I'm disappointed in you
Scoopin' up the field mice
And boppin' them on the head"

"You have one more chance
After that I smite you."

So the next day:
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Hoppin' through the forest
Scoopin' up the field mice
And pattin' them on the head

Down came the evil fairy
And she said:

"Little Rabbit Foo Foo
I'm really gonna hurt you
If ever I again see you
Pattin' a field mouse on the head"

"This is your last chance.
Not kidding - remember what happened to your cousin, Little Bunny Foo Foo?"

It was at this point that Little Rabbit Foo Foo realized he was screwed.

So on the next day...
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Hoppin' through the forest
Scoopin' up the field mice
And alternately boppin' and pattin' them on the head.

Down came the good fairy
Down came the evil fairy
And they saw each other
And both said, "you".

They shook their heads,
And turned to Little Rabbit Foo Foo
And said:

"Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
I'm disappointed in you
I'm furious with you
Scoopin' up the field mice
Scoopin' up the field mice
And boppin' -
And pattin' -"

Then the good fairy said:
"Heck with it-"
And attacked the evil fairy.
Who was expecting that.

So that night...
Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Scampering through the forest
Scoopin' up the field mice
And getting out of the way

And the next day they threw a 'no more fairies' party.

Why I Suck During Basketball Tournaments

Friend: "Hush now. Watching exciting end-of-basketball-game scenario."

Me: "Oh. Right. Go team I don't know. Beat that other team that I also do not know. Rah. Rah."

Friend: "..."

This is why I don't get invited to gamenight parties.

How Do You Feel

(The following is fiction)

How do I feel?

I feel tired.

Sick and tired.

Thanks for asking.

Particularly tired.

Not that you care. You don't.

You should but you don't.

This is entirely the fault of your pigeons, you know. Everything. All these emergency vehicles and the lights and everything.

This is entirely the fault of your pigeons and that hideous, godawful crap you've been feeding them. The smell alone would kill weaker willed sorts and that isn't even getting into the inconstinence it inspires in them, with that floating grey stuff - seriously, what is that, it's more disturbing than that time you caught the rainstorm on fire over that resthome on Thanksgiving with all the little kids screaming and the ambulences and that one guy shouting the line about 'the humanity' like that ever helps - yeah, the grey things, those... anyway, they drifted out of the cage and they killed the cats, yes, both Fluffy and Leatherface, then they burned through the floor and into the Johnson's place and I don't know what Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and all their partially clothed friends were doing before that (but I wished they could have kept the volume down, I was watching vintage Golden Girls) but they started yelling through the melting floor about the smell and I said back that if I didn't complain about the noise then they couldn't complain about the smell or the melting ceiling, and they said "What melting ceiling?", then they said "Oh, THAT melting ceiling, then they started complaining about the melting ceiling - WHINERS - then the pigeons chewed out of their cage and that guy from next door started knocking on the door, and he called out that he wanted sugar, I have no idea what that is all about, the Johnsons were picking up volume about the their cursed ceiling - is it my fault they forgot to acid proof? - and your pets started eating your other pets - the pigeons eating the cats - only it turns out Fluffy either wasn't dead or he got better, because he suddenly wasn't all dead and boy that cat knows how to kill.

Fluffy killed two of the pigeons, which, I might add, were starting to look rather demonic, and the rest of them got respectful, but then those two bird corpses started burning this really eerie neon purple flame and went through the floor and whoo-boy the Johnsons didn't like that no they didn't in fact Mrs J said, "I'm going up there to give them a piece of my mind and I called down, "Hey, could you bring back up those pigeons?" and they said 'sure' and for a moment I was happy because I thought I was going to get your missing pigeons back, eldrich abominations and all, when the guy from next door kicked down our door, looked at me over the huge glowing hole the pigeons had made, said, "You need a doorbell", then went into the kitchen, wisely skirting Fluffy's continued deathmatch with the pigeon horde, and the guy upstairs started to hit the floor, raving something I couldn't hear, probably complaining about the noise, and the next door neighbor took out a measuring cup, opened the cabinet marked 'sundries', and started stealing our sugar, and I said to him, "For shame!", then the people downstairs in the Johnson's Place called up through the floor saying "Stephanie tried to get those pigeons, but she was subsumed in their flames," and I was like, this is why you should always do important things yourself and I just huffed and told them I would be down after Golden Girls to collect the birds and they said, "Oh no, it's turning Stephanie into some sort of Fell Horror, which will likely consume us all," and I said, "Fine, could you send it up when it gained sentience and mobility?" and they said 'sure', then Fluffy started transforming and somewhere about this time the apartment building caught fire - well, really, caught more fire, it having been burning a bit already - and the guy upstairs put in some loud war movie that always upsets his neighbors up there like he always does when he is trying to ignore the rest of us, and then Mrs Johnson burst in, all angry and dressed in a sheet or something, I can't really recall, and she said, "I must complain about - hey, did you know there is a minature black hole at the base of the stairs?", and I said yeah, and told her you'd reported it to the building manager last week, and she said that was bull and he should have fixed it by now and I agreed because, yeah, that just isn't safe, and it is hard enough carrying stuff up those stairs without it making everything weigh the same as a thousand suns, but then Mrs J started chewing me out over the melting ceiling, though I derailed her for a bit saying that it was a melting floor up here, then Fluffy, mid-transformation, finally pulled down a fifth pigeons, then wrapped them all around himself to make some sort of caccoon, and the guy from next door came out of the kitchen with all of our sugar in cups, took one look at Mrs. J and told her, "I love you," and she said, "No one ever told me that," and he said well he had and he stood by it - he was very noble for a sugar thief - and she said, "Well then I love you too," and he said, "Let's run off together!" and she said, "And bake!" and he said, "I've got the sugar!!" so off they went, good for them and mind the black hole.

But now there was a firefight upstairs for real - guess the gang members up there were sick of the war movies, then the sprinklers went off because, hey, building increasingly on fire, and the TV shorted out, which really pissed me off since now I'll never see how that episode of Golden Girls ends, and that sprinkler water was gross and cold and it made the floor collapse, and it made the walls unstable and a window broke and the rest of the pigeons escaped - more power to them and I fear for the world - but there I was, suddenly in the Johnson's appartment and I asked where Mr. Johnson was, and they said he stepped out and they asked where his wife was and I said run off with the sugar thief, and they all said 'ooooo...' and one guy said, "I knew it!", but then an explosion rocked the building and the gas mains went and those explosions where bigger and there was fire everywhere and the walls shook and pieces of masonry started falling and I started to feel really sick - I think it was the water from the sprinklers but it could have been the Johnsons' dog (I'm allergic you know) - and I had to ask the Johnsons' guests why they were all dressed like it was Ancient Greece with sheets 'n things, but I never got an answer because the Fell Horror Stephanie awoke, who rose with a terrible banishee wail, seized two of the guests and offered us the sadistic choice of which she would destroy to consecrate her creation when the gang warfare, small arms fire, and explosives above all collapsed our old ceiling and everyone two floors up was suddenly falling to join us in the Johnsons' apartment, which was starting to feel a bit cramped, and you know, for a Fell Horror, Stephanie was rather pretty with ample... ahem, and also there were feathers, but she told us she was shy about that, and you could hardly notice that she was surely the doom of us all with the full on urban warfare or the remains of the melted ceiling and pigeon ... stuff left by your weird birds all over the place, also the confusion and running about but still the building manager burst in yelling at all of us in a really rude way, and you know I was still pissed that it was so hard to get hot water and the laundry room only had the one working drier and he never closed the minature black hole, so I suggested to everyone that we sacrifice him to Stephanie to seal the deal on her being a Fell Horror and the suggestion was very popular, so she consumed him and drank of his soul, which was fun to watch, and after she'd destroyed him and released her two hostages there was much rejoicing.

So we were all happy, despite the burning, exploding, falling apart building and all being trapped together and I having missed the end of Golden Girls, and the Johnsons' guests gave me and several of the gang members honorary togas and gowns and I finally got to meet the war buff from the apartment above us - did you know he carries a .50 caliber magnum and thinks we are all out to get him, and he might have to 'get us first'? What a character! - but then we had to run when the burning broken building started collapsing, and the Johnsons' apartment was no longer safe, and dagnabbit, that micro-black hole was heading towards an implosive event which would be relatively survivable for everyone who wasn't in the building, but would probably be less survivable for anyone inside, and as things started to fall in towards the stairwell everyone was panicking, and I barely remembered to grab Fluffy's cat caccoon, but thankfully we ran into Mr. J - or sorta, something weird had happened and he and his dog had merged into a half human / half canine thing and when we asked he just said it had been a really weird night - and thankfully he knew a way out that only required two key cards, a few logic puzzles, and some minor combat with the undead, which, since we had the gang members and our upstairs neighbor, really wasn't a problem, and we got out at least sixteen seconds before a completely arbitary guess of when the building would fall into the hole would occur (it was some guest from the party who did the time limit, and he was off. Took another twenty minutes for the building to crumple into some odd implosive ball), and it turns out almost everyone got out, except the building manager, and the Johnsons ran into each other at the emergency cordon that the Fire Department had put up, and they agreed to an amicable divorce, with her getting all baking supplies and a new husband and him keeping the dog, and the guests all went home, and the gang members offically made the war buff their new leader and I think they are taking over the block, and I am applying for emergency housing, but the main thing is I still feel like crap, and I am pretty sure it was the sprinkler water the more I think about it, and you missed ALL of this because you couldn't be bothered to leave work at a reasonable time, and I am tired from all the running and answering questions to the firemen and the police and the animal control people (by the way, all those warnings on TV about watching the skies and be afraid and curfew? Your pigeons, again) and it comes down to this:

I am leaving you.

For Stephanie.

She's a wonderful person for a Fell Horror, and she's there when I need her.

Oh, and we're taking Fluffy.

That's how I feel.

Lifetime Horror Films?

Okay, let's get this out in the open: I do not like Lifetime. The television network, not, you know, anything else associated with lifetimes. It is shallow and melodramatic and asinine. It takes things that might actually be interesting then loads them with so much crap and badly written angst and glaringly obvious subtext that they might as well situate a harridan in the room with their viewers, so that she can literally beat people over the head while screaming plot points. You know they want to. Then they'll do a Lifetime Movie(TM) about how she's a poor disadvanged dear whom we should weep for because her children were raised by goats, her husband truly loved her but had to get a tummy tuck due to peer pressure and some other things which were EMOTIONAL and TEARJERKING, and most of the men were total jerks, so she is entirely justified in making you suffer with her, because that one doctor maybe perhaps well possibly was rude (le gaspe) and she accused him of worse though we'll never have proof and no one believed her but she was so brave and-!

Sorry. I digress.

Where was I?

Oh. Lifetime Movies. They blow. They blow chunks.

If men made movies like this - okay, men do. See any of the Disaster/Epic/Whatever Movies or anything staring Pauly Shore or early Adam Sandler. But we know they are shallow, venal things with no redeeming features. Say that about Lifetime Movies, and you'll find a pack of ladies with knives out for your flesh, screaming.

Of course, I wouldn't care. Normally I can avoid Lifetime like the plague it is. But recently it wrested Project Runway away from Bravo, and anyone who wants to watch Project Runway has to do it on Lifetime. Cue the suffering.

(As an aside, I have no idea why the hell I like Project Runway. It's about a host of things I couldn't care in the least about, featuring a number of people who perform roles in society I will never need to interact with or worry about. Yet I do. And I like some of those folks. Though I have no idea why. Though frankly, fair often I think the judges see a completely different outfit than me.)

So, while watching Project Runway on one of the worst networks on television (There are at least six which make Lifetime look like quality entertainment) I must suffer through their advertisements. Which includes the veiled threats, I mean, commercials for their Movies.

One thing that keeps me from sleeping at night? There is a Lifetime Movie Network. The blood chills.

But the one that takes the cake is one that apparently is getting an encore showing - 'The Pregnancy Pact'. It's about high school girls getting pregnant. If you are muttering uh-oh, I ain't done yet. They are marketing it like it is a bloody horror film. Complete with ominous music, moderately threatening announcer guy saying, "What could drive these teens to all get pregnant together?' (Somewhere, Larry Flynt's head snaps to attention, and there is a low 'hmmmm?') It has flash editing, dark colors when they are discussing plans, and as many dark overtones as is possible in a film about kids doing stupid things. Except most films about teenagers being dumber than usual have a negative body count, and presumably this one won't unless they are really misadvertising. This is a movie about teenage sex. Bad, but really, not enough to get the slow dance slasher music.

More, the word 'pact' and the fact the girls are apparently planing this means they have a dump truck more foresight and preparation for this than most girls in real life who, you know, listen to Nike's sloagan (Just Do It!~). Yes, a group of girls - apparently high school age, from the ads - going out and boinking until they are pregnant? Really dumb. Only Lifetime would think to market it as the next Silence of the Lambs.

I'm sorry. This isn't really cohesive. I just had to let out - somewhere - how moronic I found the whole thing.

Bravo, I don't care what you have to do. Take a page from Lifetime Movies and mug their network in a back alley. Whatever. Just get Project Runway back. I am sick of this.