Thursday, April 28, 2005
I'm off to Poland this weekend with about a dozen friends, some of them Polish. We're planning on traveling out there with group tickets, staying a coupla days in Brezlbnvzcyzbvyz, living in reasonably-priced dwellings and and eating sumptuously reasonably-priced feasts and meeting pricelessly good folks.
I'll probably be back on Sunday and at any rate back in time to teach on Monday.
Incidentally, for those who remember Luke "Ancient" Mariner (I gave him that nickname), he'll be visiting on the weekend following Cinco de Mayo. So there will probably be a little party at my place over that weekend. Stay posted.
Posted by Daev @ 10:36 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
I don't like PIE: Cookies from Hell.
Posted by Daev @ 10:11 AM CST [Link]
This article says that a man has modified his truck to make it a wood-fueled truck.
Posted by Daev @ 09:55 AM CST [Link]
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
funny.
It is a little known fact that the Klingons aided the Confederacy during the war and would've been victorious had the Romulans not interfered and given the Union their cloaking device. I was assigned to be cameraman and security detail.
Posted by Daev @ 05:12 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
The Pope. The Pope. The Pope is on Fire.
We don't need no water let the ... um... can't fool me again.
---
Three pop-culture allusions, two lines. Damn, I'm good.
Posted by Daev @ 06:45 PM CST [Link]
Monday, April 18, 2005
As we slowly creep to the midnight hour, gentle readers, I might mention that on this night in 1775, Paul Revere and some others made their midnight ride. Wiki.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 08:06 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Translated a blurb for my buddy's new CD into English. Wanna see the first draft. [more]
Posted by Daev @ 11:19 AM CST [Link]
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Here's an article dealing with so-called "Cargo Cults" and how the "Johnson Cult" wasn't one at all.
... 'cult' members often try to gain access to Western cargo through magical means, by mimicking European ways. Anthropologist Conrad Kottak notes that: "having observed Europeans' reverent treatment of flags and flagpoles, cult members began to worship flagpoles, believing them to be sacred towers capable of transmitting messages between living and dead. Natives constructed airstrips in order to entice planes bearing canned goods, portable radios, clothing, wristwatches, and motorcycles. Near the airstrip they built effigies of towers, airplanes, and tin-can radios. They talked into these cans in a magical attempt to establish radio contact with the gods".
I love it.
Posted by Daev @ 07:30 PM CST [Link]
Painted directly onto the dollar bill. Very cool art from
Karmel Proost.
Posted by Daev @ 05:58 PM CST [Link]
I saw a most amazing band from New Jersey last night. Overfilled with three horns, accordian, percussion along rhythm section. Overdressed in sweaty suits and ties and garish party dresses, and over 30 as well. They rocked their asses off. World/Inferno Friendship Society.
Posted by Daev @ 01:00 PM CST [Link]
Friday, April 15, 2005
If you visited google today, you probably are aware that today is Da Vinci's birthday. His genius came back into conventional awareness by a popular book that blew the minds of a great many people who probably never heard of Robert Anton Wilson.
I might get around to reading the Da Vinci Codes one day, as I have heard it's a real barnburner; but I am not in a real hurry to do so after starting it's previous work, Angels and Demons. Yes, Codes is actually the second book of a series. Angels and Demons has to be the very worst book I have ever read -- with the possible exception of Harbou's Metropolis.
So if you like to cringe, be sure to check that one out.
Posted by Daev @ 01:22 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Those smartass kids at MIT submitted a randomly generated paper titled: Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy to The 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics and it got accepted.
They are scrapping together some money and plan to attend the conference to give a randomly computer generated talk. Those punks.
Posted by Daev @ 02:10 PM CST [Link]
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The Gods preserve us from this April 14th, Ruination Day. As remembered by a coupla precocious Nashville archivists: the sexy banjo-alto vocalist and songstress Gillian Welch and her preposition-and-article-filling-in henchman David Rawlings.
Ruination Day.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 09:17 PM CST [Link]
Although one of my courses -- Mi 6. DS -- was scrapped because only 2 had signed up by the deadline, I've heard from four others who also signed up afterwards yet had not gotten word that the course was cut? How many others are in the same boat, I wonder. Why, with just another six stragglers the course could possibly be reopened. Then we could ambush a small merchant ship and go a-plunderin' on the high seas.
Posted by Daev @ 05:56 PM CST [Link]
Hoo boy -- a calculator of fun.
Remember my mentioning Reverse Polish Notation today? Wiki sez...
So, (3 - 2) x 6 becomes:
6 (enter) 3 (enter) 2 - x
RPN is also a configurable option on the groovy freeware Calc98.
And:
Remember when you were thirteen and you and your geeky friends tried to spell obscene words upside-down with a calculator? I sure has hell did it at least. And this guy seems to have never outgrown it. Boobless indeed.
Posted by Daev @ 05:07 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
It was once said in the time of homesteaders and sharecroppers that in the hardest of times musicians did the best. Now, I'm no Leadbelly, but I've actually tried to support myself solely by music in the past--both times when Europe was dipping into recession. All I can say from the experience is that we all go down together--to paraphrase Billy Joel and also an 80's Paul Mcartney song with animated frogs as well.
But when prominent musicians go down, critics sharpen up their fickle fangs and thin the herd with ravenous succinctness.
However, when a carnivour or scavenger devours it's prey, it's gone, baby. In the newer school of journalism, the fang-ed ones have also learned to chew the cud.
That would be what I refer to as "list journalism", a phenomenon that always was there yet has come most presently into the public eye front-and-center in the last two or three years. The ten greatest books ever ever. The fifty greatest recorded drumsolos. The thousand coolest things a singer said during a guitar solo. The 12 sexiest holy relics.
That brings me to my point: even my favorite film and music critics, the lads and lasses at the Onion AV Club have fallen yet again prey to this wanker trend. Exibit G: a list of yesterday's tomorrows--a short list of promising and paradigm-shifting music acts who didn't shift any paradigm to speak of. Additional cynical information on how the survivors try to regroup and cash in on their long faded fame also available. That last bit is was sours the compassionate into crassness and really pisses me off.
Anyhoo, for any of my students who try to sludge through those critiques yet find them impassible, be consoled. I have one hell of a time making heads or tails through most of the stuff written in the Sax.
Posted by Daev @ 08:05 PM CST [Link]
This afternoon, 'round two, as I was waiting for the tram out in front of my house, I heard a terrifying loud screech fill the air. I knew the sound and was not too terribly surprised to see two fighter jets overhead. They came in from the north northwest and made a beautiful lazy bank right heading south southwest.
They flew quite low, I would guess less than 200 meters--let's say 300 to play it safe. Low enough that I could see they had stuff stuck under the wings--either fuel tanks or weaponry. I could see that they were single fuselage, non-swingwing types, but no indication as to whom these two jets belonged.
I'm only mentioning this because in all my years in Dresden I have never ever seen or heard of a warplane flying over this city these days. I wonder who they were, where they were going and why. It better have been for a damn good reason, too. I hope I never see a warplane flying over my city again, and certainly not this city.
Posted by Daev @ 05:44 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, April 10, 2005
A classroom favorite of mine -- and though my students act like they hate it, they really love it -- the infamous Wordgame of Death, also known ashangman.
Posted by Daev @ 04:18 PM CST [Link]
At long last English classes are gearing back up at TU-D. Must go in tomorrow to get my lists and stuff before my first class.
Posted by Daev @ 03:04 PM CST [Link]
Friday, April 8, 2005
Totally cool totally cool!
ear is a site with lots of pictures of super special hearing devices to detect oncoming planes. These photos come from the thirties, or then again maybe not.
I've never heard of this technology before but I dreamt of it when I made the Toast of the Century cartoon. So apply a grain of salt if you are not sure. But it's still so damn cool!
I have got to find on of these contraptions to complete my collection of underground silos and old aircraft carriers!
Posted by Daev @ 10:47 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Well Gee-willikers. I just got an email from a former student from a few years ago. Turns out, he snuck in a digicam and recorded class on the first day. Apparently, this has been going around the internet for some time, so you might have already seen it (blush)...
Gosh, I can't help but laugh myself! Just to think how much I've learned since that day five years ago. One thing is for sure: I've come unto my own, and I sure as gosharooty don't work blue anymore!
You can view that whacky video
here.
Posted by Daev @ 09:57 PM CST [Link]
Monday, April 4, 2005
Our good friends at the Fortean Times have a nice article about Kaspar Hauser, that creepy lad who wandered onto the scene in Nuremberg in 1828, well dressed and well fed, yet feral, and who sparked many a lost-heir theories only to get himself inexplicably murdered.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 09:39 PM CST [Link]
See, this is what happens when you don't pay enough attention to the local news.
Archeologists in Saxony have found what may be the oldest pornographic statue in the world. story
Of course, seeing as it is Saxony, that would be bornograwich. Nüü?
Posted by Daev @ 07:58 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, April 3, 2005
I spent a few hours with Ron and some other superfriends hanging out with a good buddy who just got back from the hospital. He or she had to have an operation to have one of his or her testicles removed after the doctors found a malignant tumor attached to it.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 07:49 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, April 2, 2005
On this day the pope kicked the bucket.
Posted by Daev @ 07:16 PM CST [Link]
