eclecticism

Some silly/fun astrology bits from #flickr tonight…

> djwudi: what’re you doing, underbunny?
> underbunny: …I’m reading from my favorite astrobooks, dj.
> djwudi: aah, okies
> platinum: UB, what was the title of that book again?
> underbunny: …the Secret Language of Birthdays, & then there’s the Secret Language of Relationships.
> underbunny: …gimme your birthday, dj!
> djwudi: May 3
> djwudi: ‘bout two weeks ‘til I hit 32
> djwudi: whee!
> platinum: Lord, May is that close? Wow!
> underbunny: …May 3, the Day of the Social Realist.
> underbunny: …strengths are insightful, clever & charming.
> underbunny: …weaknesses are demanding, procrastinating & head-headed.
> underbunny: …oops!
> underbunny: …hard-headed.
> djwudi: I am not stubborn!
> djwudi: dammit
> djwudi stomps his foot
> underbunny: …hehe.
> underbunny: …got someone to match with?
> djwudi laughs
> djwudi: Nov. 3
> djwudi: my g/f
> underbunny: …dj, you’re not going to like it.
> djwudi laughs
> underbunny: …May 3 & November 3.
> djwudi: that’s encouraging
> djwudi: gimme the bad news…
> underbunny: …k.
> underbunny: …it’s got a pretty title?
> underbunny: …Crusading Spirit.
> underbunny: …o wait!
> underbunny: …read the wrong one!
> underbunny: …which you’re not going to like either.
> djwudi laughs!
> djwudi: doomed!
> djwudi: doomed, I tell you!
> underbunny: …also pretty title.
> djwudi: star cross’d lovers, and all that
> underbunny: …Second Childhood.
> underbunny: …strengths are entertaining, youthful & relaxed.
> underbunny: …weaknesses are closed off, misdirected & stubborn.
> underbunny: …best for friendship.
> underbunny: …worst for love.
> djwudi: hmmmmmmm…
> djwudi: well, we seem to be doing well so far
> djwudi: I’ll just keep my fingers crossed

Admittedly, I don’t put much stock in astrology or such things, but I’ll freely admit that they’re fun to play with. I think Prairie and I are doing better than this book seems to expect, though…

“Home (Air ‘Around the Golf’ Remix)” by Depeche Mode from the album Remixes 81-04 (Limited Edition) (2004, 3:55).

> When the lines on your screen
> Make more lines in between
> That’s a moiré!

— mendel

“Junky’s Christmas, The” by Burroughs, William S./Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, The from the album Spare Ass Annie (1993, 15:53).

When I dropped into the #flickr channel today on lunch, the denizens were tossing around limericks for the various regulars. Cygnoir hadn’t been graced with one yet, so I managed to come up with the following:

> Cygnoir’s on a poetry kick
> but finding a rhyme for her nick
> isn’t easy to do
> so I hope when I’m through
> she’ll laugh ‘staid of aiming a kick!

Not bad for coming right off the top of my head.

This is so good.

> The War Prayer, by Mark Twain > > O Lord God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with pale forms of their patriotic dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst…for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives…. We ask it in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the source of all Love.

(via Terrance)

“Masters of War” by Dylan, Bob from the album Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The (1963, 4:34).

> …accusing a blogger of narcissism is like accusing your minister of piety, isn’t it?

— StupidSexyFlanders

> Valentine’s Day is like the opposite of Christmas. On Christmas we go to bed looking forward to exchanging gifts with the people we love. On Valentine’s Day we exchange gifts hoping to go to bed with the people we love.

— Zefrank

(via Swirlee)

> Ladies and gentlemen, what you are observing here are magnified examples, or facsimiles, of human sperm. Generation after generation of these tiny creatures have sacrificed themselves in the persistent, often futile attempt to transport the basic male genetic code. But where’s this information coming from? > > They have no eyes. No ears. Yet some of them already know that they will be bald. Some of them know that they will have small, crooked teeth. Over half of them will end up as women. Four hundred million living creatures, all knowing precisely the same thing. Carbon copies of each other, in a kamikaze race against the clock. > > Now some of you may be surprised to learn that if a sperm were the size of a salmon, it would be swimming its seven inch journey at five hundred miles per hour. > > If a sperm were the size of a whale, however, it would be traveling at fifteen thousand miles per hour, or mach 20. > > Now imagine, if you will, four hundred million blind and desperate sperm whales departing from the Pacific coast of North America, swimming at fifteen thousand miles per hour, and arriving in Japanese coastal waters in just under forty-five minutes. > > How would they be received? > > Would they realize that they were carrying information? A message? > > Would there be room for so many millions? > > Would they know that they had been sent for a purpose?

— Laurie Andersen, ‘Mach 20’, off of United States Live

“Mach 20” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 2:47).

> At one time we had sex, drugs, and rock and roll, now all we have are STDs, antidepressants, and techno.

— nihilistjerk

“Cowgirl (Irish Pub In Kyoto)” by Underworld from the album Dirty Epic/Cowgirl (1994, 11:44).

> Something interesting (sorry if I’m repeating someone above): ‘nuclear’ is the adjectival form of ‘nucleus’, which comes from the Latin ‘nuculeus’, from ‘nucula’ the diminutive of ‘nux’, meaning ‘nut’. So the at some point the ‘u’ between the ‘c’ and ‘l’ was dropped (and at that point would have probably been considered a mispronunciation). > > My theory - it’s Bush’s comprehensive knowledge of and fluency in Latin that leads to his pronunciation.

— adamdegen

“Al-Salooq” by Ozric Tentacles from the album Arborescence (1994, 5:02).

From Samantha:

“What do you write about?”

This gives me pause. Do I give him the simple answer, or the complicated one? I’ve spent most of the last week by myself, pacing, waiting for things to happen. I’m impatient and, admittedly, a little grumpy. “I write about, um, memory.” “I don’t understand.” This doesn’t surprise me. “Well. You know how, when you have a memory, it’s really just a series of images that are vague, with a couple of points sticking out for reference? And then, when you try to put your memory in words, to tell it to someone, it comes out a little different than how you thought it looked in your head? What I do is, I try and find a way to make the words fit. I try to bring my life into focus. I bite my fingernails and try to tell people the contours of the jagged edges. You know. Like that.”

<

p>Sounds good to me — and, admittedly, it’s something I need to work on.

Maybe that’ll be a resolution for the upcoming year.

“People Everyday (Reprise)” by Arrested Development from the album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of… (1992, 4:56).

From Ogre:

Do goths swirl the other way below the equator?

(Well, I thought it was funny….)

“Cool Monsoon (Weather Storm)” by Mad Professor/Massive Attack from the album No Protection (1995, 7:10).

From Mickey:

Had a realization about what bugs me about an awful lot of horror with the “vanity kills” moral to it. Usually the girl (almost always a girl) is being harassed by her male significant other about how she’d look better if she lost a few pounds, had bigger tits, etc… She decides to do something stupid (not unlike a lot of girls in real life) and has horrible retribution visited upon her for her(?) sin of vanity.

Just once I’d like to see the psycho killer show up, hand the girl an entire Sara Lee cheesecake and say, “Eat up. I’ll go take care of the asshole for you.”

<

p> “Damned for All Time/Blood Money” by Brox, Victor/Head, Murray/Keith, Brian/Choir from the album Jesus Christ Superstar (1970, 5:08).

You know, back in 2000 a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we’d lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I’ll be damned if all those things didn’t come true.

— James Carville

(via Generik)

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

— Christopher Reeve (as found in this MeFi thread)

Just overheard on KEXP, during a momentary digression to talk about tonight’s presidential debate…

“You’ll be happy to know that the podiums are lucite, clear. So there won’t be anybody scratching their balls during this debate.”

(long pause) “Did you just say what I think you did?” “Yup.” “I don’t know if you can say that!” “Oops! I hope the boss wasn’t listening.” “We crossed a line. I didn’t know there were any left.”

<

p>— Cheryl and John

Incidentally, they’re in the midst of their pledge drive. If you don’t listen to KEXP yet (and you don’t even have to live in Seattle, thanks to the miracle of streaming audio), you should…and if you do, toss ‘em a few dollars. I just did.

I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.

What’s really weird is the speaker and the context of that particular quote.

(via Atrios)

“Leech” by Eve 6 from the album Eve 6 (1998, 3:58).

From an IM conversation between Prairie and I tonight…

Prairie: (has a sudden mental image of a cat fight in a porn store that really makes her laugh)

Me: (laughs) now _that_ could be entertaining Prairie: all the things to reach for to hit the other girl with… Me: (laughs) now there’s a fight scene that needs to be made! Prairie: haha—two girls whopping each other with dildos… it’s been made, but they call it S&M porn… Me: somehow, I could see Quentin Tarantino having a _blast_ putting that fight in one of his films Prairie: oooh—no kidding! that would work great in one of his movies! Me: if only I had his e-mail address… Prairie: “Dear Mr. Tarrantino, Could you please put a scene in your next movie where two women fight in a porn store, preferably with lots of dildos lying about, and ending when one strangles the other with a feather boa after shoving a thong into her mouth so she can’t scream? Thanks.”

<

p>Then, later, after discussing how she was staying up later than usual (benefits to summer vacation time when one lives on a school year schedule)…

Prairie: haha—yeah, I do tend to stay up a little later when in Seattle — but when I’m at home it takes a conversation about brutally beating another woman with a blow-up doll to keep me up this late

I am such a sucker for someone with a good dark sense of humor.

iTunes: “So Happy Birthday” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 6:23).

The rich have the right to buy more homes than anyone else. They have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more gizmos than anyone else, more clothes and vacations than anyone else. But they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else.

— Bill Moyers, “The Fight of our Lives”

iTunes: “Satellite” by Pigface from the album Preaching to the Perverted (1992, 4:11).

Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

<

p>— Kurt Vonnegut

(via Kottke)

iTunes: “Blue” by LaTour from the album Big Hard Disk Vol. 1 (1992, 7:33).

Today would be a good day for an earthquake. Or at least, it would fit into my schedule nicely.

— Your Local Goddess

iTunes: “Discotheque (DM Deep Extended Club)” by U2 from the album Discotheque (1997, 10:06).

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

— Strictly Ballroom

iTunes: “Mickey (Killa Klub Dub)” by Basil, Toni from the album Mickey (1999, 6:04).

I’d rather be shot than vote for Bush at gunpoint. After all, I can recover from a gunshot wound in, say, a couple months. Voting for Bush, well, that takes four years.

— Phil, via IM tonight

He never asked me to ‘pull his finger’ in bed…

CURTIS You made a controversial movie about Catholicism, “Dogma.” What did you think about “The Passion of the Christ”?

SMITH I haven’t seen it yet. I think it’s funny, though, that people bring it up and ask me, “What do you think of the controversy?” I’m like, “What controversy?” The dude made a movie about Jesus in a country that’s largely Christian — a very traditional movie — and it’s made over $200 million in two weeks. There ain’t no controversy, people. That’s a hit. They took one or two Jewish leaders in the beginning and said, “This may be construed as anti-Semitic,” and then spun it into a must-see movie for hard-core Christians. You’ve got to go see it if you love Jesus. I wish to God I had thought to do that when I was making “Dogma.”

<

p>From a recent New York Times article promoting Jersey Girl.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

(Or…)

Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.

(found on How to write unmaintainable code, which is a thing of beauty in itself — even as a non-programmer I was catching enough to literally laugh out loud.)