Ray Bradbury said, ""

Partying Like Jim Morisson. Nowadays.

I've got me a cigar, a bag of animal crackers, many new unread books* and hot cocoa. Put them together and you've either got a lewd act illegal in 19 states, or, in our universe, a party so boring not even zombie Jim Morisson would crash.

It's funny how you can miss someone you haven't met yet.

*Darwin's Descent of Man, Martin Gardner's Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries?, Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts, Marvin Minsky's The Emotional Machine, and a gaggle of leering Tom Robbins books.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 31, 2007 18:27 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
books, life

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Anoia Would Be Proud

How many of the pop/fringe cultural references do you get?

500 Possible Conspiracies Going On, or the Inventory of Secret Government Warehouses

I don't know whether to be proud or afraid that I understand almost every reference. Or that none of my readers will get the title of this post.

I fear that we are entering a Kurzweilian singularity of inside jokes, the asymptote of which is a geekery for which we have no words to describe.

Hat tip: The Isiah

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 30, 2007 10:46 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor

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Enjoy Your Schadenfreude

[Yesterday, the boss sent the timecards to headquarters, having cooked the books unknown to me]

As I was leaving work today at the normal Saturday time of 11:00, the desk monkey warned, "you leave now and Chuckles says you're fired."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked, trying simultaneously to check the time and not strangle him.

"Jambalaya* already filled out the timecards from 7 to 1. You have to stay."

"It would have been nice," I said as I searched the room for a sharp object, "if someone had bothered to tell me that."

So I got back to work.

One o'clock rolls around.

Me: I'm leaving.

Chuckles: You gotta stay til the pile is done!

Me: I may be wrong and you may be a pedophile, but the timecards were cooked to say I punched out at 1. Do I look like a goddamn slave?

Chuckles: What?

Me: Do I look like Kunta Kinte, motherfucker?!

Chuckles: You'll get paid eventually.

Me: What happens if I get injured while I am officially clocked out?

Chuckles: Don't worry.

Me:[grinning while wielding a nicely blunt object] Let's try an experiment.

So I worked until after 3, without any protection against work-related injuries, in the vague hope that I'll get paid eventually.

Luckily, I had a Terry Pratchett book to prevent me from making a comfortable leather jacket out of my surrogate boss.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 29, 2007 16:50 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
life, scruffy work

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My Mind is...

"Tom, I stay awake at night pondering the mystery of your mind. Your self, the lumbering gearworks and steampipe monster under your mind" said my Dostoyevskian sadist ex-con bookworm coworker, today.

"That's kind of creepy."

"My brother told me that he could spar with you on a million topics, but only the question of your self would elude you. Your self knowledge is the meaty part of your inner thighs, the tenderest part to be whipped with a riding crop. Whip it."

"That's a little more creepy, but Creepy would have been even more disturbing. I didn't know I was a mysterious guy. I border on rather simpleminded."

"You are full of mysteries, Tom! Dark gulfs of enigma and shit."

"And your unholy fascination with pugs, you sick bastard!" my babbling coworker broke in with.

And so I proceeded to justify my epistomological structure with neurological analogies and references to Epicurus and Minsky and Descartes and curved manifolds and all kinds of wondrous ways to describe what are to me the simple and rather limited features of my mind. People wept and cried and tore their clothing, nuns flung panties at me, and so on and so forth.

And that's the last time I shall bother to explain the deep dark mechanical grumbles of my mind to men. Unless compensated in the form of expensive hamster-shat coffee, a morbidly obese pug, a slinky, a sepia-toned photo of a llama, the perfectly preserved corpse of Peter Lorre, and an acre of honest Virginia tobacco crop. I mean that.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 27, 2007 20:30 EST | Permalink | comments |
life, introspection

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W00T!

Go over to Roma's and congratulate her on 30 days' sobriety. Or else.

Don't make me throw angry kittens at you. She deserves a big squishy puliki.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 26, 2007 15:59 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
blogging

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Merry Christmas! Goodnight, and Good luck!

All my fellow Mo'timers who survived this far into Christmas, Congratulations! You've survived countless familial brawls, fire-hazard trees, small children wielding epilepsy-inducing electronics, piles of baked cholesterol and gallons of eggnog, drunken uncles exposing shocking opinions and/or themselves, cantankerous grandparents full of cheek-pinching, miles and miles of packing materials, tons of fruitcakes and the people giving presents consisting of stale cakes containing jellied fruit, and the inevitable centuries of small-talk, all with only 4 hours to go!

You can collect your prizes at the door on the left. Good night, and good luck!

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 25, 2007 20:23 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
humor

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Heh

Hat tip: Meg

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 23, 2007 17:37 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
music, cats, beauty

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Praise Teh Ceiling Cat!

LOLcat Bible

This almost gave me a stroke.

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.

4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.

5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1!

6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.

7 An Ceiling Cat doed the skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.

8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 22, 2007 17:09 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, cats, memery, discoveries

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Christmas Shopping For a Sadist Bookworm

I'm a bookworm and I follow the Golden Rule; therefore I only give people books as presents. Yes, I am a selfish bastard, and you're lucky if you don't get a book I've pre-dog-eared and pre-coffee-stained.

This presented me with a problem when I thought about buying a present for my ex-con Dostoyevskian sadist Romantic bookworm coworker. Yes, he's a guy capable of describing in painstaking detail a BDSM orgy, and then in the next breath expounding the virtues of trust and understanding in the pursuit of true love with references to the Brothers Karamozov. And in the next breath he's likely to either mother you, or recount that time he had to shiv a cell-mate.

So anyway, I wanted to buy him a Marquis De Sade book, having turned him on to the father of Sadism. Take a moment to consider the situation. You walk up to the counter of the bookstore, slap a hunk o' perversion on the counter, and ask for it to be rung up. What the hell is the clerk going to think of you? What if you also buy a copy of The Zen of Winnie The Pooh? What sick fetish will accrue to otherwise innocuous books? What sick fetish would I want to make the clerk think I have?

Having thought about it in great detail, I eventually also brought the entire supply of Tom Robbins books, a Verner Vinge book, Terry Pratchett's A Light Fantastic, and some other books meant for presents.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 22, 2007 16:34 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
books, life

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Merry Christmas!

This song always makes me smile, giggle, and wonder how the hell it ever managed to get on the radio. Guys, don't you feel a bit jealous of the fat man now?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 21, 2007 15:59 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
music, beauty

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I Am More Freakish Than I Thought

I discovered yesterday, while blowing my nose after a shower, that I can bullfrog out my neck as if Dizzy Gillespie had taken up residence in there. Yeah. I spent way too much time playing around and wondering how the hell it could do that. Do I have frickin' air bladders in my neck?!

This morning, I discovered that I could also suck all the air out of my neck and tauten the skin to the point where you could see in clear detail each blood vessel, muscle, and plane of my larynx. Holy G-d. This ability makes absolutely no sense to me, because you'd think my windpipe would be the only place in my neck containing air.

I never knew I could do such disgustingly awesome things with my neck.

Update: for those who want to try. Hold your nose shut and try to blow out of it. If that succeeds in giving you freakish neck superpowers, you'll easily figure out how to do it without hands, and how to reverse it. But then I will have to slay you, as there can be only one balloon-neck.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 20, 2007 17:20 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
life, introspection

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Gigglesnorting and Tacklesquishing For Lolzebub

There is nothing sexier than a woman who can whisper sweet newthings in your ear.

Tell me, O blogfellows, what are the strangest neologisms and interpersonal linguistics you have developed?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 18, 2007 16:54 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
humor, memery

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Pooklekufr Romance

I just got off the phone with an adorably intelligent if somewhat sniffly woman. She called, and we talked for about an hour and a half, during which time she convinced me of her wit and capacity for triple-entendres. She's sweet, cuddly-sounding, smart, and determined to convince me that she is not a pervert (although she failed in that last in a very cute way). And incredibly geekish, as she shows no shame in proclaiming herself a fan of Red Dwarf and Firefly. She impressed me with her ability to wait for her room-mate to cook chicken soup, resisting my advice to threaten the room-mate with phlegmy coughs until soup appears. To top it all off, I'm able to make her laugh.

After hanging up, I found myself grinning like a goddamn chromosomally-challenged celebrity.

Do me a favor and forget I ever said that. *Insert mean, callous, heartless, cynical comment here*

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 16, 2007 19:26 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
life, blog nocturne

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Pug CheChe Chic

Heh. WANT.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 15, 2007 09:13 EST | Permalink | comments |
discoveries

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Two Saturday Morning Conversations

Me: Someone should set up a way of recording the locations of hunters via gps and displaying it on real time. Cross-correlating it with Forrestry GIS information about deer population would let you see real-time where you're best able to bag a deer.

Creepy coworker:

Me: You could shoot more deer when you go hunting, Elmer.

Creepy:

Me: Did you really offer Craig a pair of chaps?

Creepy: [nods]

Me: It's just funny that you'd have a pair. I could imagine you going out in them, shocked that all the nice young sailors and cops and indians are buying you drinks. [mimicking his creepy gravelly voice] "Why, the men here are absolutely fabulous!"

Creepy: I use chaps when I mount a bull. You gotta have friction when you mount a bull or you slip and slide all over the place and get a horn rammed up your ass.

Me: Well, besides the creepy double entendre that is you, they just look goofy. Look at yourself in the mirror next time you wear them.

Creepy: What? I look at myself in my chaps all the time! I strut around in front of a mirror! [looks down at legs]

Me: [calls mom and tells her about the online dating site thing]

Mom: Make sure you meet in a public place!!1! Tell Isiah where you are! Don't leave your food unattended!!!1!one!

Me: I've clearly forgotten how things are in Sullivan County. First, I am not the one who has to worry about rape. Let that sink in a bit.

Mom: Women rape men all the time!

Me: [deep breath, creates diamond in clenched fist] Second, you make it sound as if I would have to convince a woman out of her plans to meet in a dark alley. "But Tom, I promise not to tell anyone which dark and promisingly isolated spot we're going to!" What are you, completely friggin' insane? Do you really believe that a woman would meet a stranger from online anywhere but a lighted, public place with ample bystanders (preferably armed) capable of pounding a pervert's face in?

Mom: But she might want to go to a secluded place and torture you!

Me: I don't want to imagine what your nightmares are like. Think about it. I would not want to meet up with a woman who didn't show up at the first meeting armed to the teeth, surrounded by no-necked Mafiosos and dobermans, with snipers tracking the spot between my eyes.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 15, 2007 06:06 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
humor, conversations

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May You Live in Interesting Times

It's not every day you get a large safety bonus from work, a sexy new genius-coffeemaker from a coworker, and the chance to watch two pregnant women attack the bus driver in the middle of a brawl.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 14, 2007 16:22 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
life

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Thanks to My Devious Married Friends

Yesterday I woke from a nap after work, and then spent close to seven (!) hours in conversation with a fascinating fellow bookworm. She and I talked of everything under the sun, from Ray Bradbury to the foolish stubborn hope that underlays a romantic's heart. With decidedly non-awkward detours into genetics, LOLcats, and cunnilingus.

This kind of conversation could only happen online. In tangible fact, we'd probably have mumbled hello at each other and stuck our noses back in our books. I'll post more later.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 14, 2007 04:52 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
life

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Return of the Son of the Bride of The Story Meme of the Damned

Roma, in her ineffable Hawaiian mystique, decided to retag me and her memetic ancestors. New rules apply: those infected must tag five other people.

I tag Juiitsu, Fidlmath, Mrghetos, Cooper's alter ego, and in a fit of utter perversion, Roma herself.

The story thus far:

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

My first idea was to put the applesauce in the microwave. Hey, I was still tired. Could I scoop some out and put whipped cream on it? No, too solid. Why was it so damn cold in here? I walked over to the thermostat and saw that the heat hadn't clicked on all night and the temperature had dropped substantially overnight. Now, tired and hungry, I opened the access panel on the heater. There's the problem: why was someone cooking a duck in here? (SamuraiFrog)

I bent down and scooped up the uncooked duck carcass. There was no way I was going to let it go to waste, especially considering I had applesauce on hand. I placed it in a roasting pot and went back to reset the heater. As I continued to wake up, I realized that my roommate had spent the night at his girlfriend's place and couldn't have put the duck there. "How the hell did it get there?" I wondered. Just then, an already odd situation became even stranger. The lifeless duck animated, flapped its featherless wings, and began to speak. (Some Guy)

I had a choice to make: do I go along with this impossibly reincarnated duck drama that's unfolding before me, or do I phone Dr. Leary and get my prescription changed? Feeling more comfortable believing the Chemical Dementia theory, I pressed Dr. L's speed dial button. That's when I noticed that the duck was wearing my watch. And he had a knife. And he was telling me to lie on the floor. (Cooper Green)

Pooklekufr: There are rare moments in a man's life when he understands, in the core of his soul, that there is a subtle order to the machinery of the world. This was not one of those moments, despite a feverish attempt to quickly ponder the meaning of life, the universe, and everthing. No, this was one of the vast majority of moments in a man's life when he is completely baffled and deeply terrified that the universe really does have a grudge against him.

"Can we talk over a pot of coffee and some breakfast?" I asked the duck, now settling the wristwatch more securely on his neck.

"Glubbergurglewurgle mmmph mmmmph. Hrmmph, wubbaflubba-"

"I can't hear you very well with that knife in your mouth."

The duck let the knife fall to the floor. In a show of good faith, I slowly put down the phone as well.

"I said I'm afraid not. The end, my fellow featherless biped, is nigh," the duck said in a curiously un-ducklike baritone brogue.

"Ah, a Scottish duck. I probably have some tea around here for-"

"I haven't the time. You and all humanity face a grave threat."

"Right. Can you hand me that mug over- oh, sorry. I'll get it myself."

Shortly I helped the duck onto a chair and helped myself to a proper breakfast while the duck began to explain.

"So one of your duck scientists, experimenting with Planck-scale quantum gravity, blew a hole in the quantum foam and caused a ripple in the multiversal wave function?" I asked at the soonest possible pause.

"That is essentially correct."

"And this ripple is producing a meshing of actual and alternative quantum states, such as a hitherto possible but very improbable Scottish talking duck appearing in my heater?"

"Yes. It is believed Dr. Donaldson's work has begun to unweave reality."

[Roma:]

I pondered this tidbit of interesting information regarding the Planck-scale quantum gravity experiment and then had an epiphany.

"Does Dr. Donaldson by chance wear a blue sailor suit that doesn't quite cover his abdomen, and does he suffer from a serious speech impediment?"

"Yes," replied the duck, whose Scottish brogue grew thicker in his excitement. "You are familiar with Dr. Donaldson?"

"Yes, he is quite famous for his antics," I replied. "His work with Disney is widely known. With your permission, shall I escort you to the living area in my home where I can show his work to you?"

"Oh yes, please," replied the Scottish Duck.

I picked up the duck and walked to the living room where I turned on the television and inserted a Disney dvd starring Donald Duck.

[Two Dogs:]

However, the player was not connected because I had been using my 52" plasma screen to watch downloaded 30 second clips of squirrels wearing battle armor. My captor was intrigued to say the least in my perverted viewing. We shared a connection.

As the sexual tension increased, the duck moved closer and closer to me. I noticed a growing bulge in the general vicinity of his....well, whatever you call a duck's groin.

Having never had the pleasure of being raped, by a duck, at knife point, while watching squirrel medieval fighting, I looked forward to checking this off of my Sexual Bingo Card.

He looked deeply into my eyes and said

"Stay back. You are now a mongoose."

"What? I distinctly recall there being a moment of sexual tension between us."

"I was startled when you began to assume the shape of my people's enemies, the Mustelidae."

I raised a not-hand and examined my new fingers. Each ended in a suade-soft pad tipped with a claw. A wiggle of my not-feet indicated I now had a couple more than I am accustomed to. Doing something I had long dreamt of since the first time I ever saw a weasel, I arched my back far enough to see my own ass. You cannot let an opportunity like that go just because the world is about to end.

"We must move quickly now. The universe is about to become extremely and uncomfortably weird," said the walrus next to me on the couch.

"I think it already has. What exactly are you planning on doing to stop this?" I asked through a new and exciting mouth full of sharp, pointy lion teeth.

"I am," the teddy bear paused to wiggle his arms, "going to collect one member of each intelligent species in this region of the known multiverse and place them in a quantum normality field."

"Just one?! You've never heard of Noah, have you."

"I do not know of this Noah. Perhaps you mean Our Prophet Charlton Heston, who-"

"I'm not going by myself. Find a woman too so our species doesn't die!" I yelled in Tagalog through a mouthful of krill.

"You don't understand. Your body contains trillions of cells. Each one harbors the human genetic blueprint. Our scientists will dissolve you into your component cells, induce genetic variation sufficient to ward off genetic abnormalities, and induce fertilization after activating the necessary cellular processes. You will be the father of trillions, to be spread throughout one of our back-up universes." The percolator said in one long whistle.

"Dissolve?!"

The elephant stared into space thoughtfully, as if it had lost its wallet somewhere. Finally it rubbed its forehead with its trunk and said, "Well, you won't be conscious when it happens."

"That doesn't matter!" I hissed as I sank my fangs into his neck.

[Juuitsu:]

The elephant that was the teddy bear that was the walrus that was the duck trumpeted his alarm. I felt my body shrink into itself as my fangs penetrated his thick skin. Sabre-toothed mouse. Huh. Who'd have thought? The elephant was, by now, terror-stricken in some unfathomable, unconscious, deep-brained way. He rampaged around the room, crushing everything in his panic, as my tiny mouse body whap-whapped against him and my ginormous fangs pinned me like some kind of ridiculous Cenozoic brooch to his throat.

With all of this excitement going on, I was almost relieved when the jar of applesauce literally exploded.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 12, 2007 16:34 EST | Permalink | comments (7) |
humor, memery

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Day Two of The Isiah's Devious Online Dating Scheme

I've already had two interesting and fun conversations with women who embody my feminine ideals of self-respect, intelligence, and sarcasm (update 3:26 a.m. I just spent the last 5 hours talking to an inhumanly sweet and intelligent woman who, I am sure, could kick Horatio Algers' ass).

But the simultaneity of online dating services disturbs me. It feels immoral to communicate with more than one woman at a time. Immoral in the way a man would be were he to bring a woman to a bar and then multi-task his flirtations. Now, the site The Isiah chose has a wise policy of instantly banning people who send sexual messages, and good pervert-filtering mechanisms, but it still feels wrong to strike up multiple conversations. It might just be my own quirk.

I find the ads more disturbing. The founder of the site tries very hard to remove the sleaze factor and provide women a pheromone-free atmosphere, yet demeaning ads for "sex personals" and "housewife personals" appear. Why the schizoid policy? A dating site ought to have as its most important criterion, the creation of a pervert-free environment. The most accurate statistical methods and pattern-matching algorithms cannot save a site that makes people uncomfortable.

One more gripe, directed at myself: Another personality assessment classified me as an "erotophobe," someone who is almost completely repulsed by casual sexuality devoid of love. This either makes me a freak or the last chivalrous man outside a nursing home. I suspect the difference is minute. While I act positively prudish and reluctant, other guys are fathering children like rabbits. Which trait do you think will spread more rapidly?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 10, 2007 22:43 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
life, introspection

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You Got Me, Online Dating Service

One of the personality evaluations pierced through my mean, callous, heartless exterior and called me "a hopeless romantic on the inside and a realist on the outside," and a mutant. Hell, I can live with that. But I'm not sure it's smart to let others know.

Update: It also confirmed that I am an introverted geek. My gut reaction? I wondered what kind of matching algorithm and statistical techniques they used.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 09, 2007 23:03 EST | Permalink | comments (5) |
life, introspection

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The Isiah and Shira the Terrible are conspiring to sign me up for a dating service; with the best intentions they are trying to pimp me out.

They lured me over with a promise of a turkey dinner, and then sprang their evil plan on me.

The Isiah: It came to me in a dream.

Me: For you guys to pimp me out?

The Isiah: Shira's womanly intuition agrees.

Me: This is all part of your plan to gloat over any good fortune I have, isn't it?

The Isiah: Yep. If you meet your future wife on one of these sites, I'll be able to call you up at 3 in the morning so you and she can convince those who doubt my genius.

Update: They created some outrageous lies on several sites, leading people to believe I am a kindhearted midget who likes long walks on the beach, etc. However, I did meet a sweet wise-ass who could bring herself to speak to a man over five feet tall. I expected their plan to backfire in a storm of sleaze, and instead found myself having a fun and witty conversation. That's life for you.

Update X 2: When they finally allowed me to see the profiles they created, I was alternately touched and horrified.

Me: That's dishonest! I really am an acerbic individual prone to bore people with useless trivia! Don't make me sound like a goddamn saint! And I only play my guitar in the privacy of my own home, and I don't "make sweet love to the A chord," and I don't play so much at that since my deafness made tones harder to hear.

The Isiah: Long lasting relationships are based on outright dishonesty. Right Shira? My little puppymonkey?[Begins playfully squishing his wife]

Me: Flesh merchants, both of you.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 09, 2007 15:35 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
life

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A Few Rather Controversial Opinion of Mine, 2

If you cannot spend at least half your Sunday lounging around in pijamas, with a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, you have too much inessential junk cluttering your life. Trust me, that stuff is not so important. If you are unable to remember the last time you had a chance to spend a Sunday lazing with books or playing games with a pet or child, that is a sign that you are in the wrong life. Quit. Move. Fall in love.

In every relationship there are wordless moments that have an almost mystical quality, moments that seem to upset the natural order in much the same way waking to Bigfoot making breakfast in your kitchen would. If you have not experienced one of these moments, you have never been in love. If you do not on a regular basis experience these moments, you have fallen out of love and nothing you do will change that.

I know the meaning of life. Three meanings, so far. Anyone who has not yet come across one of these answers, has obviously not tried hard enough.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 09, 2007 13:08 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
introspection

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Voiceover Guy Gets Fired and Trekkie White Rabbit

Fricking hilarious





Hat tip: The Isiah

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 09, 2007 00:57 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, discoveries

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The Grey Gods Return

With winter and the general predilection for old and rather cranky gods to gloat, my other blog Retired Gods has started up again.

I swear, unless you've seen Ba'al glued to the Weather Channel, screaming with delight at the mention of temperatures below 80* in the rest of the country, you've never seen happiness. But, were you in the room, you would also have seen Odin wearing nothing but a speedo and a fur hat. I still have nightmares about that and can no longer see a teddy bear without shuddering.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 08, 2007 10:44 EST | Permalink | comments |
blogging

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Two Wee Morning Mental Brain Farts

Eigenface algorithms represent human faces by means of "decomposing" their features according to a covariance matrix; the effect is similar to the way Fourier decomposition reproduces all wave functions in terms of a series of simpler trigonometric functions. In the same way Beethoveen's 9th may be decomposed into nothing but sines and cosines, your face is nothing but a superposition of elementary patterns.

I wonder if it is possible to merge these two principles together to create an algorithm for recognizing and generating music according to abstract patterns of harmony and melody. Imagine if you could assemble a database of thousands of songs and decompose them into eigensongs: basic components of melody, harmony, and tempo. You'd be able to identify Cream's "Strange Brew," correlate fundamental patterns in it with other songs (creating smart playlists), and perhaps even apply genetic heuristic algorithms to produce original compositions borrowing elements from it (rather than simply mimic its structure as current musical composition programs do).

More bizarre and much less benign than intelligent music software, is the psychometric potential. Suppose that semanticists got off their asses and made their field a real science. Were language subject to meaningful mathematical analysis, one could envision advertisements and political propaganda perfectly honed into tremendously powerful means of persuasion. Thankfully, Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 will not happen so long as the social sciences are content with navel-gazing and calling each other Nazis.

In a completely different musing, I have noticed a recent proliferation of classroom reading blogs. Apparently teachers are assigning the creation of blogs to their students in the hope that this will help them express ideas in the "stimulating atmosphere of the information superhighway." At least, I'd like to think the teachers are motivated by something more noble than their usual ignorant embrace of unverifiable and expensive fads.

These blogs do nothing of the kind. They abound with short posts, lacking all context (not even a link to, or in many cases the title of, the story ostensibly discussed), with no attempt at argument or persuasive reasoning, no evidence of research or even cursory contemplation, with little care toward spelling and grammar, and absolutely no thought toward an audience. They do not even reflect the opinions of classmates writing on the same topic. They are so obviously a mandatory make-work assignment that it is painful to read them, as students pump out a quota of lorem ipsum in time for the teacher to perfunctorily check. I feel pity for these poor guinea pigs. No one deserves to have an educational fad, dreamed up by the least qualified people in all of academia, deprive them of the joy of free inquiry.

These posts are an embarrassment to the blogosphere. What could have been an opportunity for teaching critical thinking, abstract thought, methods of argument, and the embrace of the internet's vast information resources, has become a meaningless exercise designed to enhance a teacher's status as an "innovative educator in touch with today's technology."

These ignorant jackasses are placing their students in the middle of the world's largest meeting hall and forcing them to mumble into their hands. Worse, a casual perusal of these blogs indicates that these students have never even been told that the meeting hall exists. They are oblivious to the existence of deeply held differences of opinion, the fact that people are capable of reaching different evaluations and still avoid being morally equivalent to Adolf Hitler, and the fact that the opinions their teachers thrust upon them are but an insignificant portion of our intellectual climate. They are tailor-made to be manipulated, and their inadequate education has been tailor-made to lead them directly into unproductive lives.

If any of their teachers bother to read blogs, I have something to say to them. A child who has been rendered incapable of holding firmly held, reasoned beliefs, is crippled. You are destroying the minds of a generation and you will be held responsible for your actions.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 08, 2007 03:00 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
hateblogging, blog nocturne, geekery

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Tell Me a Story

Cooper Green tagged me with a particularly virulent Story Meme.

The rules: write a fragment of the viral story and tag at least one person to continue it.

I hereby tag Roma, Two Dogs and a Bean, Tom Lee, and Jackal. I also cough this meme in the general direction of anyone else who wants to take part in it. The viral story thus far:

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

My first idea was to put the applesauce in the microwave. Hey, I was still tired. Could I scoop some out and put whipped cream on it? No, too solid. Why was it so damn cold in here? I walked over to the thermostat and saw that the heat hadn't clicked on all night and the temperature had dropped substantially overnight. Now, tired and hungry, I opened the access panel on the heater. There's the problem: why was someone cooking a duck in here? (SamuraiFrog)

I bent down and scooped up the uncooked duck carcass. There was no way I was going to let it go to waste, especially considering I had applesauce on hand. I placed it in a roasting pot and went back to reset the heater. As I continued to wake up, I realized that my roommate had spent the night at his girlfriend's place and couldn't have put the duck there. "How the hell did it get there?" I wondered. Just then, an already odd situation became even stranger. The lifeless duck animated, flapped its featherless wings, and began to speak. (Some Guy)

I had a choice to make: do I go along with this impossibly reincarnated duck drama that's unfolding before me, or do I phone Dr. Leary and get my prescription changed? Feeling more comfortable believing the Chemical Dementia theory, I pressed Dr. L's speed dial button. That's when I noticed that the duck was wearing my watch. And he had a knife. And he was telling me to lie on the floor. (Cooper Green)

There are rare moments in a man's life when he understands, in the core of his soul, that there is a subtle order to the machinery of the world. This was not one of those moments, despite a feverish attempt to quickly ponder the meaning of life, the universe, and everthing. No, this was one of the vast majority of moments in a man's life when he is completely baffled and deeply terrified that the universe really does have a grudge against him.

"Can we talk over a pot of coffee and some breakfast?" I asked the duck, now settling the wristwatch more securely on his neck.

"Glubbergurglewurgle mmmph mmmmph. Hrmmph, wubbaflubba-"

"I can't hear you very well with that knife in your mouth."

The duck let the knife fall to the floor. In a show of good faith, I slowly put down the phone as well.

"I said I'm afraid not. The end, my fellow featherless biped, is nigh," the duck said in a curiously un-ducklike baritone brogue.

"Ah, a Scottish duck. I probably have some tea around here for-"

"I haven't the time. You and all humanity face a grave threat."

"Right. Can you hand me that mug over- oh, sorry. I'll get it myself."

Shortly I helped the duck onto a chair and helped myself to a proper breakfast while the duck began to explain.

"So one of your duck scientists, experimenting with Planck-scale quantum gravity, blew a hole in the quantum foam and caused a ripple in the multiversal wave function?" I asked at the soonest possible pause.

"That is essentially correct."

"And this ripple is producing a meshing of actual and alternative quantum states, such as a hitherto possible but very improbable Scottish talking duck appearing in my heater?"

"Yes. It is believed Dr. Donaldson's work has begun to unweave reality."

[Roma:]

I pondered this tidbit of interesting information regarding the Planck-scale quantum gravity experiment and then had an epiphany.

"Does Dr. Donaldson by chance wear a blue sailor suit that doesn't quite cover his abdomen, and does he suffer from a serious speech impediment?"

"Yes," replied the duck, whose Scottish brogue grew thicker in his excitement. "You are familiar with Dr. Donaldson?"

"Yes, he is quite famous for his antics," I replied. "His work with Disney is widely known. With your permission, shall I escort you to the living area in my home where I can show his work to you?"

"Oh yes, please," replied the Scottish Duck.

I picked up the duck and walked to the living room where I turned on the television and inserted a Disney dvd starring Donald Duck.

[Two Dogs:]

However, the player was not connected because I had been using my 52" plasma screen to watch downloaded 30 second clips of squirrels wearing battle armor. My captor was intrigued to say the least in my perverted viewing. We shared a connection.

As the sexual tension increased, the duck moved closer and closer to me. I noticed a growing bulge in the general vicinity of his....well, whatever you call a duck's groin.

Having never had the pleasure of being raped, by a duck, at knife point, while watching squirrel medieval fighting, I looked forward to checking this off of my Sexual Bingo Card.

He looked deeply into my eyes and said

...

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 07, 2007 04:44 EST | Permalink | comments (7) |
humor, memery

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A Few Of My Most Controversial Opinions in No Particular Order, 1

1. Alfred Hitchcock is the coolest man who ever lived. He was the real lizard king.

2. Thomas Edison was an elephant-zapping innumerate scoundrel.

3. Hayekian classical liberalism does not preclude joy at the thought of killing dictators.

4. Pornography built the internet to what it is now. Catblogging will henceforth provide the technological momentum.

5. Lennon killed the Beatles, using Yoko as a weapon.

6. Those most willing to violate Godwin's Law are those most useful to today's budding dictators.

7. Phil Collins is a hack.

8. Any sentence that begins with the words, "I think that," can be ignored.

9. Any religion that advocates belief over action, apocalypse over moral principles, a fauning relationship toward G-d rather than a respectful covenant, and a respect for dead for the mere fact of being dead, is immoral and disrespectful toward G-d. It is a beneficial side-effect of holding this opinion that it confuses the living hell out of priests and devout believers to be called immoral and disrespectful of G-d. Never give the moral high-ground to a man who believes a lifetime of evil deeds can be exculpated by a few words.

10. Before Minkowski, the Theory of General Covariance was just a cool idea.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 06, 2007 18:42 EST | Permalink | comments (2) |
music, politics, religion, geekery, flamebait

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Woo Hoo! Books!

How the hell do I manage to pay my bills and avoid having to eat Fancy Feast? I'm actually getting deluged with credit card offers nowadays and have not once had to sell my body to desperate old ladies. Bibliophilia: addiction without the bothersome infected needles.

I got:

Robert Heinlein's For Us, The Living
Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism
Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy
Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker (Hey, that idiot was persuasive)
James Sanford's Great Freethinkers: Selected Quotations by Famous Skeptics and Nonconformists
Richard Feynman's QED
Richard Feynman's Perfectly Reasonable Deviations
Petto & Godfrey's Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism
Harlan Ellison's The Essential Ellison
Cynthia Kelly's The Manhattan Project

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 06, 2007 17:02 EST | Permalink | comments |
books

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You Are Not Virginia Woolf or Werner von Heisenberg

I now have a standing policy regarding idiots in bookstores. The next person who begins mindlessly reviewing books at me while I'm browsing the aisles, will be given a Gravity's Rainbow sized dent in the head. Infinite Jest sized if they are pontificating on the relevance Jane Austen has to the Ron Paul campaign. And an extra hearty smack in the face with a hardback for every iteration of the phrase, "it's like, you know..."

I am in a bookstore to squeal like a little girl and torture myself trying not empty my bank account. I am not there to hear a chromosomally-challenged attempt to impress me with, like, the social... importance, of, like, Rachel Carson. Man. I am not browsing the science section in order to hear about the deep connections between quantum mechanics and whatever New Age bullshit this poor bastard has inhaled along with his hallucinogens.

Now, I'm not willing to kill just anyone who tries to talk to me in a bookstore. But those who try and wish to survive, must make it clear to me within a matter of milliseconds that they are not about to waste precious moments of my life stumbling over a politically correct and obscenely profound way to say that they like Tom Robbins. That is a very good way of having one's heart ripped out of the chest.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 05, 2007 18:33 EST | Permalink | comments (4) |
books, life, hateblogging

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How To Tell If You Are A Fat Bastard, 1

In today's increasingly health-conscious society, advice such as "pinch an inch" no longer resonates with an increasingly gelatinous public. In an age of unisex mooseknuckles, such advice falls on deaf ears. In the interest of good physical hygiene, I hereby announce the first of three posts on How To Tell If You Are A Fat Bastard.

Decades ago, men relied on a simple test of physical fitness: the Penis Visibility Test. If you could see your penis directly, with or without sucking in your gut, you were healthy. This is how our fathers measured their health.

That was a simpler time, when gastric Adonises like Elvis actually had to leave the house in order to buy their daily 5,000 calories worth of pork-fried butter. In a world where deep-fried cheesecake is only a phone call away, this test has lost its relevance.

Our generation needs a new guide for a new, adventurously obese lifestyle, not barbarous relics of an age when man-bosoms were taboo. Take some time to test yourself:

1. Can you hide a hamster or similarly small rodent anywhere on your nude body? If so, can you successfully extricate it before it suffocates? How many at a time?

2. Were another man shown a picture of your chest, without context, would he be aroused? Would it later appear in an online forum?

3. Is the depth (in inches) of your belly button less than the number of your chins? Is their sum less than the number of restaurants on your speed dial?

4. Does the girth of your neck make you invulnerable to being strangled by no less than three people working together at it?

5. Guesstimate your surface area. How many kindergarteners would you have to skin in order to cover yourself? 150 lb. adults?

To be continued...

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 04, 2007 18:25 EST | Permalink | comments (3) |
humor, satire

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Quintessence of Monday

Monday night insomnia is, short of being mugged by junkie squirrels, one of the most annoying things that can happen to you on a monday.

You know that kind of insomnia where you restlessly clean, read a smattering of one book, hop to another two or ten, rearrange furniture, play a couple games of chess, stare at the ceiling and contemplate whether to make some coffee, stare at the coffeemaker and contemplate Kolmogorov's Equations, and then begin seriously to wonder why doctors don't just remove pinky toes when they remove tonsils and appendices?

I has it. Bad. Back and forth I'm wandering through the night, and increasingly my pinky toes seem to appear more and more like vestigial organs.

At least it's not Thursday.

Update: Never listen to a Best of Cream compilation album for over 8 insomniac hours, unless you enjoy having all the songs merge into one brain-looping impression of vast harmonies that will take days to get out of your mind. That cd needs Mr. Roboto or Dr. Funkenstein somewhere right in the middle, to alleviate the pressure of perfection. Or a droll intermission in the middle of White Room.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 04, 2007 00:25 EST | Permalink | comments |
humor, life, blog nocturne

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Somewhat Late Night Mental Brain Musing

Given just a time machine and a laser pointer, I am confident I could take over all of Medieval Europe. I'd first amuse myself by seeing how many peasants I could make chase the dot into wells, and then graduate to coordinating mobs chasing the dot in an ourobourus around a somewhat large courtyard until they fell dead. I'd turn survivors into a loyal army by shining the dot at my outstretched palm, convincing them I was Jesus returned. Then I'd hop on the the back of the nearest peasant, shine the dot a few feet away, and thereby gain an efficient mode of transportation into the next town or until he fell dead of exhaustion. I'd dazzle the eyes of anyone approaching me who looked like they had plague. To acquire food, I'd simply have to aim the dot at the item and wiggle a line into existence between it and my hand.

Within a month it is certain I would make Charlemagne and Alexander the Great look like bumbling fools.

If you were intent on conquering Medieval Europe, what rather mundane item would you take back for the job?

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 03, 2007 22:30 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
humor, blog nocturne

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I Expect You To Die, Mr. Winter...

I should make a tradition. The first really nasty day of winter, I'm going make a quarter-hogshead of coffee and curl up to watch MST3K movies until I either snort coffee out my nose or run out of wise-ass.

Maybe I'll add more elements to the tradition over the years until by middle age, this day will require a sacrifice of hundreds of virgins, the mummified corpse of Ed Wood, a troop of whacked-out rhesus monkeys, the musical stylings of Zamfir (Master of the Pan-flute), and fireworks. I'd better start setting up my monkey traps soon.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 03, 2007 18:11 EST | Permalink | comments |
life, blog nocturne

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Hendrix Would Club You Over the Head With That

On Amazon, Guitar Hero controllers are selling for over $200. People are buying ersatz Fenders meticulously rigged to hide a half-dozen color-coded buttons; a grown-up version of popular babies' toys. What is wrong with people that they'd buy a toy guitar, when for that same amount they could get a real, albeit cheap, guitar and make actual music? Is it that hard for this generation to spend the minimum time requisite to learning Stairway to Heaven or the three chords of punk rock, and make music with someone? What's next, a videogame simulating dating in which the goal is to jam buttons until a seduction indicator turns red? G-d help me, I think I just gave Nintendo an idea.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 02, 2007 21:52 EST | Permalink | comments |
hateblogging, blog nocturne

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A Moment of Introspection

I was unable to talk clearly or resolve spoken words well until about 12 or so, due to congenital auditory nerve damage. Most of my early memories are of being shuttled to and from audiologist/neurologist offices, seemingly always on rainy days, trying to determine whether the problem was limited to the nerve or indicated brain damage.

So, up until grade 6 or so, I was shunted into Special Ed, a land where nobody expects abstract thought or bowel control. I was surrounded by adults who had absolutely no expectations of improvement, and peers who proved them right.

I came to rely on my ability to teach myself, having no other means of education. For instance, for three grades the sole mathematics instruction was the same xeroxed sheet of multiplication problems which I was to solve every morning (my mental arithmatic is still stunted to this day). I remember once, in fourth grade, sneaking a copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest mysteriously left in a classroom, and seeing very clearly the nature of the hell I was in. I was trapped in a bottomless pit by people all too willing to allow the system to chew me up and spit out a useless shell. The social worker mentality is somewhat less forgiving of escapees than Communist nations; I had the good intentions of an entire institution working against me.

I fought. I practiced reading aloud, reducing my stuttering and slurring. I became silent and learned to concentrate as much on my hearing as possible. I devoured every book I could find, from classics to my mother's New Age garbage. What I lacked in meaningful formal education and social interactions, I made up in books. Dumas' Abbe Faria was my role model.

I became a smart-ass among the mentally crippled and my fellow students. I fought my way out of that hell and into the mainstream. Occasionally over the years I would encounter one of those students in their own attempt at integration; in their eyes you could tell it was too late for them.

Now imagine returning to civilization after a lengthy exile into the Land of the Subnormal. I entered mainstream with a stigma, among class-mates who had known each other for years, as an unknown quantity.

I had developed an intense dislike of unjustified praise. Being praised for something intelligent means nothing if the same praise is levied toward a class-mate who went for a day without scribbling swastikas on his face. I cultivated the enigma, letting only enough intelligence show to advance me into advanced science courses and keep one step ahead of my teachers. My motto was, only show 25% of your potential and you'll still be ahead of the game. I was content to withdraw in class with a book and make the teacher quickly fear calling on me. This kept me unburdened to continue studying on my own.

This caused a paradox I still haven't solved: on the one hand, I had a fierce urge to distinguish myself intellectually, a remnant of when my survival depended on it, while on the other hand I had an equally fierce urge to hide anything that might cause spurious praise, of equal necessity given the poor quality of formal education available. I wanted to appear smarter than other people but only if they didn't notice it.

To this day, I cringe when someone praises my intelligence, but I persist in rubbing part of it in others' faces. I much rather prefer being underestimated and unnoticed, but I am not averse to baffling statements.

There is something to be said for being lucky.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at December 02, 2007 19:20 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
blog nocturne, introspection

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