Itchy and toasty

Oh yeah, check out this shit, that's R-15 bitches.

One more small step on the road to non-homelessness.

Miscellaneous news

• I always like a good satirical hoax, especially a good satirical art hoax. While one understands the insulted reactions of the EU member countries (and Bulgaria probably has good cause), the larger points about fractiousness and long-held grudges and stereotypes and suspicions within the EU are things that they will need to address sooner rather than later. And of course it will come down, these things always do, Cerny almost certainly counted on that: To my mind, this is a conceptual performative piece, not an installation.
• Hopety? It's a little silly, but my juvenile fascination with impressive machines gets rekindled when I hear about the new presidential limo. Also I really like bad puns, sorry.
• It's been a sad week for science fiction screen icons: Patrick McGoohan, creator and star of The Prisoner, died Tuesday, and Ricardo Montalban, whom everyone knows as Mr. Roarke but who to geeks of all ages will forever be Khan Noonien Singh (KHAN!), died Wednesday. Until some enterprising mashup geek puts together a YouTube clip of Number 6 escaping from Fantasy Island, please accept this tribute to one of Montalban's other famous performances:

Ain't nobody's business but the Turks

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Investment opportunity

Hey, cute lil' shrieking fella currently in my profile pic: Things are tough, guy, but in a financial abattoir like this there is nowhere to go but up! To prove it: Björk to the rescue!

Seriously investing in Iceland actually seems like a decent idea and Björk's fund sounds pretty good. Plus, having Björk even tangentially attached to my retirement? So, so awesome.

Resolved:

In comment to a previous post, Kristin said:

the factors are the best, but i need to know what resolutions are / aren't accomplished?

Are resolutions like birthday wishes, which won't come true if you tell what they are? I'd hate to get screwed over by whatever genie is in charge of these things.

The negative resolutions:

• DON'T smoke 1.0
• DON'T eat like a four-year-old 0.7
• DON'T waste money 0.2

The positive resolutions:

• DO go to the gym regularly 0.0 but you see the SRSC office has been closed so
• DO make specific progress on the house weekly 0.1
• DO do something creative daily 0.2

The other resolutions, not enumerated, but all variations on Stop being crazy: Total ?

The fractional scores might not make sense, but they're my best intuition of how I'm doing. So I am somewhere north of 2 at the moment.

And those are cool factors for 2009, I know, right? I hope that won't hurt the crazy score too much.

Paul Wellstone is avenged

Congratulations Senator Franken. All that remain for Coleman are impossible legal Hail Marys (unless the MNSC decides that Bush v. Gore set precedent that Democratic votes simply don't count, in which case, fuck it, I'm driving a truckload of fertilizer through Norm's front door. I hate him so much).

EDIT: And this is why I hate that fucking fucker.

2 Jan 2009 by the numbers

Resolutions proclaimed: 8

Resolutions accomplished: .75

2009 factors: 41 * 7 * 7

Number of days until Obama can send in the fumigators: 18

Number of days until the mothership returns to Chichen Itza: 1449

More numbers as I get more bored....