FlamingText

Conditions of Living in the Modern World, Example XXVII

Hearing a persistent beeping sound and being unable to ascertain its origin.

]]> It could be trying to tell me "it is time to evacuate the building" or it could be saying "the printer requires more toner" or it could mean "somebody nearby has received a text message." I have no idea and no intention of investigating.

Smurfatar

"Day 30: They still view me as something of a village idiot, not just for my inability to adapt to this primitive life of running through trees, avoiding predators and gathering edible fruits, but for my continuing difficulties mastering their language. It is a language oddly dominated by one particular word, which occurs in so many variations as to seem, to an outsider, virtually meaningless. It has no English translation."

This Is What Comes Of Having A Subscription to Entertainment Weekly

The current Hollywood word to watch out for? Reboot. It actually creates a new increment of unoriginality beyond that already implied in "sequel" or even "remake."

I particularly enjoy the implications created by the word's origins. As somebody who does a fair amount of work on Windows computers I've come to think of re-booting as a bad thing; It's what you do when your machine fails to function properly. First you curse, then you hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete, then you cross your fingers and hope that when everything's up and running again five minutes from now, the catastrophic problem you just experienced will have magically fixed itself. This is more or less exactly how Hollywood PR flacks use the word. Replace the phrase "computer running Windows" with "Ang Lee's Hulk" and you'll see what I mean.

Q: What do Disney executives do with a dead horse?
A: Reboot it!

Response to my Spaniard friend regarding our respective health care systems

The U.S. health care system does one thing better than any other system in the world: make a profit. In every other regard it is a miserable failure but in this one arena it is unparalleled.

It's all about what you choose to prioritize.

Sounds of the City: The Car Who Cried Wolf

Curbside cries for solace ring out, echoing unheard through indifferent concrete canyons: "Strangers are touching me! Oh, won't somebody rush to my aid?"

"Jesus," you said, covering your ears as you turned to look without breaking stride. "I wish somebody would steal it."

Making A List, Checking It Twice Dept.

You know, we've all heard plenty about the happy, perky elves Santa's got working round the clock in his toy shop. But what of the plight of the be-sooted, emphysmic elves ceaselessly toiling in the perpetual darkness of Santa's coal mines? Will no-one shed a tear for the heartbreaking unseen collateral damage of the Naughty List?

牛逼

Oral Roberts, Famed Performance Artist, Dies at 91

Today marked the death of beloved performance artist Oral Roberts, best known for a 1986 prank in which he re-enacted the famous hostage-taking scene from the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles, casting God in the role of the "unseen kidnapper." His "Called Home" stunt was so wildly popular that he was able to raise more than 9 million dollars to continue his work in the entertainment field.

I Started My Day Off Hearing Two Separate Conspiracy Theories On The Internet.

In any instance where the facts are not known there will be speculation, and often that speculation will reflect the political biases of the speculators. But the presence of questionable alternative explanations does not render the Official Story true by default. In fact, the opposite might tend to be true: When the Official Story seems conspicuously incomplete, a large number of alternative explanations will tend to propagate, most of which will be wrong.

If a puppy is placed into a herd of one hundred cattle, one cannot transform the puppy into a cow simply by "rounding down to zero." Ergo, sometimes things must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Unknowable

Einstein pushed the button, closing the circuit and setting off the charge that sent Newton's clockwork universe exploding in a shower of sparks,

]]> fractured gears and uncoiled springs rolling across the carpet before coming to rest against a leather-bound first edition Origin of Species. But it would be years before the light from this explosion reached into the last darkened corners of the parlor, a sumptuously appointed nineteenth century drawing room where armchair intellectuals from good homes smoked their pipes and read aloud to each other passages from God's obituary. For a century and more it remained a treasured sanctuary for a new brand of false certainty, and if the new patented medicament left imbibers with duller dreams and flatter narratives than the old one had, well at least it offered the same benefit of a comfortable night's rest, free from nagging doubts.

But even though old Einstein himself may have shifted uncomfortably in his chair at Heisenberg's assurances that there was simply no way to peek into the oven at the cosmic soufflé without causing it to fall, still relative calm prevailed. Perhaps the Deep Thinkers, insomniacs all, knitted their brows and half-heartedly scribbled formulas in their notebooks, but they were always doing that. For the moment it seemed there was little danger of a new crowd of Young Turks arising who would kick down the door to the back room and catch God poised in mid-throw at a high-stakes crap game (rumors of his death having been greatly exaggerated.) And so harumphs were harumphed, pipes were puffed and the sleepers slumbered undisturbed.

But let's come down to it, shall we? Albert has assured me that there is no way to speak authoritatively of events in space-time without first stipulating an observation point, and so far I've just got the one. So it is from here that I must begin. And from this vantage, the question of where I go when I die seems entirely the wrong line of inquiry. Naturally I will remain exactly where I am, indeed where I have always been. No, the question is not where I go when I die, but where the universe goes when I die.

Make Your Own Headlines

Some of you may have been wondering how right-wing watchdogs like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the alcoholic uncle seated next to you at the Thanksgiving table manage to stay on top of all the terrible things that freedom-hating Democrats have slipped into their proposed health-care 'reform.' Surely the process of researching this terrifying piece of legislation must be an all-consuming one, requiring tireless hours of poring over obscure documents written in opaque legalese?

Well, if you can keep a secret, I'll tell you how they do it. They use the following Obamacare Scare-Story Generator™, and now you can too!

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You see? Ferreting out the truth doesn't require a journalism degree, just an open mind. Stay free!

Today's Overheard Conversational Snippet

"I can't talk -- I got arrested in my pajamas and flip-flops in November."

肚子提意见了

The above Chinese phrase cribbed from Erika. It means "I'm hungry," but literally it says "my stomach has a suggestion."