Go see The Forefathers

Got this notice in the mail. If you're in the Orlando area, I strongly encourage you to go check them out. Very worth it.

Join The Forefathers this Thursday for the Orlando Museum of Art's 1st Thursday event!

The Forefathers will be performing 3 45-minutes sets of their original World Music Fusion.

From 6 - 9 pm on the first Thursday of each month, OMA showcases a new theme with works by local artists, live music, cash bars serving wine, beer and soft drinks, and café offerings from area restaurants.

Plus, 1st Thursdays guests receive free entrance to the OMA’s exhibitions. Admission to 1st Thursdays is free for OMA members and $10 for non-members. Parking is free at Orlando Loch Haven Park and overflow parking is available at the Orlando Science Center's parking garage for $5 per vehicle.

Orlando Museum of Art
2416 North Mills Avenue
Orlando

407 896 4231

www.theforefathers.com

http://www.omart.org/events/1st-thursdays-5

Link: http://www.omart.org/events/1st-thursdays-5

I've got to stop working

I mean, look at what I'm missing by doing this whole "work" thing:

1,000+ unread items? SRSLY?!? Y'all gotta slow down with the posting!

Gettin' Dirty

Damn, am I sore! And dirty. Unfortunately, it's not from getting it on, but rather from diving into the garden. You may recall my confrontation a while back with my HOA. I must confess, I entered quite a depression after that. A great deal of time and energy had been invested in my garden. Well, spring is here, planting time is upon us and it's time to quit whining and start sticking it to the man. The rules say "no vegetable gardens". So what I figure is that if 51% of the plants in a given bed are not "vegetables", then it doesn't qualify as a "vegetable garden". That's a reasonable interpretation of the rules. And if not, fuck 'em. It's an interpretation I'd be willing to fight for.

The paper Watchmen

I found myself alone in a bookstore tonight after my dad bailed on me, which is totally cool since I completely forgot about him last week. After grabbing a couple of books to peruse I decided to flip through Watchmen. I hadn't read it yet nor had I seen the movie, but there was enough good buzz around it that I figured I'd give it a chance. 3.5 hours later, I finished it. After all the hype surrounding it, it had to be fabulous, right? Meh. I've read better.

* ducks from all the Watchmen fanboi's *

Right off the bat I was wondering which came first, Watchmen or The Incredibles. They both had a similar kind of premise, the whole forced-into-retirement angst of superheros. As expected, Watchmen was much grittier. No kids cartoon, this. My immediate disappointment was with the artwork. It was allright, about what I would expect from DC comics (bias alert: I've always been a Marvel fan). But nothing mindblowing. My previous experience with graphic novels have been with manga; my favorites so far have been the Ghost in the Shell books by Masamune Shirow. The art in Watchmen didn't stack up to those. I figured that the characters and writing would make up for it. They did, to some extent, but not enough to lift my overall impressions of the novel.

To me, the characters seemed fairly two-dimensional. You've got the psycho vigilante (Rorschach) who wouldn't be that out of place in a Virtue sqad in Iran or Saudi Arabia, the way he obsesses over people fornicating. There's the hot butt-kicking babe (Silk Spectre), rebelling against her mother, the previous generation's hot butt-kicking babe. I felt bad at first for the Comedian, but after all the flashbacks, I wasn't real sad that he bit it on the first page, the misogynistic, sociopathic fucker (blowing away your pregnant Vietnamese girlfriend because she pissed you off by calling you on your asshole-ishness doesn't exactly endear you to me). Dr. Manhattan was somewhat interesting, but struck way too many chords of Superman and, to some extent, Michael Smith in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, the way he was all detached and almost mystical (in a pseudo-scientific kind of way). Night Owl just seemed like a weenie. At least the second Night Owl got some pants and had some cool gadgets, but that Owlship just looked like a flying turd. With eyes. Ozymandeus was a complete caricature so it didn't surprise me in the least when he started monologuing his twisted plan to the heros who had come to stop him.

The ending. *** SPOILER ALERT*** Hmmmm. It was definitely not a happily-ever-after kind of ending. Somehow the wholesale slaughter of half of New York psychically by an asploding giant space squid that wasn't really from space but was end result of a genetically engineered psychic's brain, in order to stop war and bring peace and love to all humanity just didn't do it for me. By then I was just wanting the end to come so I could put it down. It just didn't have the emotional impact that other massive destruction of millions of people did, like in Battlestar Galactica, for instance. And Night Owl's costume at that point just looked stupid. There was a hollowness to the whole ending that just grated on me. Perhaps that was the author's intent, perhaps there was some deeper level that just skimmed right over my head; I dunno.

It wasn't a bad novel. There were many moving parts to the story and deeper levels of meaning revealed through some of the inter-story stories. Overall, it was just meh. I'm not going to put this one up there in my list of top-whatever books to read. I was really hoping that this book was going to be some kind of epic masterpiece who's characters and dialog would be ingrained in the pop-culture geek center of my cerebrum, but, alas, it was not to be. I'll probably still go to see the movie. I think, for once, I might like the movie better than the book.

113th Carnival of the Godless is out

It's time again for your latest fixin' of godless goodness. The 113th Carnival of the Godless is being hosted by Daylight Atheism. Go take a peek.

Link: http://www.daylightatheism.org/2009/03/carnival-of-the-godless-113.html

Erin go bragh!

I can legitimately lay claim to this holiday. I'm at least 1/8 Irish. Or is that 1/16? I can't figure out this genetics stuff. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. I like Ireland. And I've actually been fortunate enough to have visited there. Not that I'm bragging, but it directly relates to this post and this holiday. What the hell am I babbling about? Let me try again...

In the spring of 2000 the Godess and I went on holiday to England and Ireland (and we spent the night in Wales, but does Wales really count?) As a result of a complete fluke of scheduling, we ended up driving across the width of Ireland, from Galway to Dublin, on St. Patrick's Day! This was way cool. We drove across the gorgeous contryside and through a number of small towns, many of which were decked out for the holiday. In one town, we even had to stop and wait for the parade to finish going through the one main road through the village. Not that we minded. The awesomeness of driving across Ireland on St. Patrick's Day elevated us above any petty frustrations at traffic delays.

So this holiday has a special place in my heart. Not only because of my imense Irish genetic heritage, but because we discovered that it is a real holiday. It's not some Hallmark bs holiday (although there are certainly elements of that) but a real celebration actually enjoyed in Ireland. Being a generic Anglo-Saxon mutt, it is sometimes difficult to find aspects of my cultural origins to be excited about, but this one is pretty cool.

So forget all that mythical garbage about snakes and saints, put on your green skivvies and hoist a drink for Ireland (and for me)!

That must be some shitty food

via The Goddess, who is always on the lookout for high-class content for my crappy blog ;-)

Link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/03/06/vo.china.toilet.restaurant.cnn?iref=videosearch

THE WORLD'S GOING TO END!!!!111!1ELEVENTYONE!1

Apparently we're all supposed to be trembling in our boots because delusional prophet theistard David Wilkerson thinks that bad stuff is about to happen. He's written an AN URGENT MESSAGE:

I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message to all on our mailing list, and to friends and to bishops we have met all over the world.

AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE - EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US.

For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires—such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.

There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting—including Times Square, New York City.

[The caps are all his. Seriously]

Oh noes! New York City is going to burn! And New Jersey! Wait, is destroying New Jersey a bad thing? Anyway, this whackaloon is spouting his doomsday premonitions like the archetypical loony standing on a street corner with a sandwich board raving about the coming destruction. This would be mildly amusing, perhaps even a little sad, except that people are believing him! This incredibly gullible reporter (and I use the term extremely loosely) for the World Nut Daily, Janet Porter, is telling the world to HEED WILKERSON'S MESSAGE! Because he's already gotten it right once before:

In the fall of 2001, Pastor David Wilkerson, of Times Square Church in New York City, was warned by God that a calamity was coming. For six weeks they felt an intense burden and enormous heaviness. A critical need for intercession was so profound that Pastor Wilkerson canceled everything on the church calendar – mission's conferences, youth events and every guest speaker.

For six weeks, there wasn't a sermon. Instead, there was intercession for our nation with weeping and repentance. They knew something was coming and that something was bad. And that something was soon. So they prayed. And prayed … and prayed.

Then Wilkerson felt God telling him something that seemed rather bizarre. He felt God telling him to make sandwiches – lots of sandwiches. What were they for? Who would eat them? That part wasn't clear, but his church did what they believed God was telling them anyway.

And on the 10th of September they stayed up all night making hundreds and hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. By morning they had about 2,000 sandwiches. At 8:46 a.m. the first plane hit the World Trade Center and Times Square Church was ready to feed and minister to rescue workers and victims of our nation's worst attack.

What an impressive display of god's power: to be aware of an attack on an innocent city by terrorists that would kill around 3,000 people, and he warns one loony preacher to make fucking sandwiches. Come on, is that the best you can do? Really?

So I have to check this out. I mean, something this retarded amazing, it's got to be all over the intertubes, right? Yup, this story is burning up the forums of the end-timers, rapture-watchers and other assorted and sundry evangelicals. What I was really looking for was confirmation of the sandwich story. Turns out, there isn't any. Wilkerson has nothing about it, the church has nothing about it. At least the usually gullible end-timers have been burned by prophesy enough to be at least a little bit skeptical. Paul Grabill, Lead Pastor of State College Assembly of God, State College, PA actually contacted the chuch for confirmation.

Update: I called Times Square Church (since there was nothing on the website). Everything in the World Net story is true, except the most sensational element--they did not make sandwiches before the fact; they made them after the fact. Rather than take down this post, I figured this clarification would be helpful to all. I'm still praying about what, if anything, I might say on Sunday. I had a stirring on Monday about it, and I'll probably go with my gut

Prophesy FAIL! There's a big difference between providing food for 9/11 workers after the attacks and claiming that you had foreknowledge of it and prepared ahead of time. Either Janet Porter is a fracking liar (which wouldn't surprise me, considering she writes for the WND) or else she's just passing on other lying shitheads' stories with out bothering to do the bare minimum of looking for even the slightest bit of confirmation. Either way, it makes for a big old JOURNALISM FAIL. But that really goes without saying. After all, we're talking about the WorldNutDaily.

Regulatin' Genes, yo

Yo homies. Gene regulation in the motherfucking house! Check it.



ht - PZ

Link: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/regulatin_genes_is_crucial_to.php

MUST READ!!! - Rick Mathes Story

Apparently Rick Mathes loves to brag about his pwning them muslims. This has been floating around the intertubes for a while, clogging up email inboxes, but this is the first time I have seen it. I couldn't resist taking a poke at it, even though I was forbidden to respond directly to the person who forwarded this garbage on.

I had to go look up this guy because, from the style of the opening of the email I thought I was reading Joseph Farah's crap writing, full of one sentence paragraphs with no contextual connection to the previous or next ones. Non-sequiters FTW! :-P This missive bears so much resemblance to the rants of various other wingnut hate groups that it's astounding to me that this was forwarded by someone whom I had thought had a modicum of intelligence and rationality. I should have know better.

There's not much preamble, they get right to the xenophobic racism almost right off the bat

Subject: Rick Mathes - His Story

This is a true story and the author, Rick Mathes, is a well-known leader in prison ministry.
The man who walks with God always gets to his destination.
If you have a pulse you have a purpose.

The Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion per capita in the United States, especially in the minority races!!!

Gotta watch them "minority races". They breed like rabbits. Good-fucking-grief. Let me give you a tip, theistards: if you want to be taken seriously, try to make the bigotry a little more subtle.

Anyway, you were saying?

Last month I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance. During the training session there was a presentation by three speakers representing the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths, who explained each of their beliefs.

I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say.
The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam, complete with a video.

Ahh, classic concern troll. Nothing like offering false praise for an opposing viewpoint in a lame attempt to make your coming piggishness seem "fair and balanced".

After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers.

Here comes the pwnage!

When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked:
'Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that most Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world and, that by killing an infidel, (which is a command to all Muslims) they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?'

There was no disagreement with my statements and, without hesitation, he replied, 'Non-believers!'

I responded, 'So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can have a place in heaven. Is that correct?'

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just been caught with his hand in he cookie jar.'

He sheepishly replied, 'Yes.'

Ooooh, you nailed him! Look at that imam squirm!

I then stated, 'Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Dr. Stanley ordering all Protestants to do the same in order to guarantee them a place in heaven!'

The Imam was speechless!

I continued, 'I also have a problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me!

Lemme just stop you right there. WTF? Seriously? You can't imagine religious leaders ordering the death and persecution of those of other faiths? You've never heard of the Catholic pogroms against the Jews or the Crusades or the hundreds of other atrocities committed in the name of your god? I suppose the violence in Northern Ireland between the catholics and the protestants didn't really exist? Bullshit. Nothing like a good pair of sunglasses with UV A/B protection and patented Christian Reality Blok^TM filters to reinforce your particular brand of superstitious magic. I gotta try me some. Oh, darn. They only come in two sizes: stupid and stupider.

Let me ask you a question: Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and He wants you to be there with me?'

Um, boy, tough choice. I'm gonna have to go with... neither, since the artificial choice you offer is between two equally imaginary entities that are both equally as devoid of any merit or respect given the long histories of their followers' violence, intolerance, misogyny, bigotry and generally taking advantage of people in order to impose human-based power structures for their own selfish aims, while all the while giving lip service to a made-up being who's motivations and wishes can be conveniently manipulated and changed to allow for the particular crime against humanity that it's leaders are perpetrating at any given moment.

The rest is some more racist bullshit about how the muslims are taking over and how we all need to do something about it, preferably by forwarding on this pile of excrement on to more blathering idiots who can't look beyond their own narrow ideologies or racist impulses.

You know what the best part of this story is? It's made up. It didn't happen the way that Mathes said. He invented dialog and reactions that witnesses said didn't happen.

The arrogance of xians about the superiority of their invisible sky-daddy over everyone else's invisible sky-daddies is truly astounding.

This totally gave me a stiffy...

... and I don't care who knows it.

I. want. this. system.

24 256GB SSDs RAID
6TB storage
Custom 800Mhz FBDIMM RAM (4GB)
2 quad core QX9775 processors

2GB/second data transfer!!!!11!!1!!eleventyone!!1!
Opens MS Office (ALL of MS Office) in 0.5 seconds

*drools all over keyboard*

My first thought after watching this: I want to see Linux on this motherfucker!

I love you, Geekologie

Link: http://www.geekologie.com/2009/03/what_ifyou_raided_24_ssds_toge.php

Preventing disease

I don't think I'd call this a FAIL, seems like good advice to me ;-)

Courtesy of FAILBlog.org

Catching up with the CyberLizard

Sometimes real life totally gets in the way of my intartube life. What a mean bastard. I think it's jealous. Anyway, lest any of y'all are thinking of dumping my feed out of your Google Reader due to my lack of activity, here's a little hint of what's coming:

• Stories and pics from MegaCon (and how much I really, really, really want to go to Dragon*Con)!
• Catchups on blog memes (sorry Perky, I'm getting to it)!
• Deep and insightful thoughts about the state of the world!
• Mockery of ^^^ (no one makes fun of me better than me)!
• In-depth analysis of the war on stupidity!
• Why there are no gods, religion sux and scientology is a fracking cult (just to piss people off)!
  
• Weird and twisted shit that no one in their right mind would want to know about but I think is really funny!

So stick around. I'll be staying up late trying to get everything done, so you know that the writing will be top-notch and the logic impeccable!

What am I in line for again?

Oh yeah, the Battlestar Galactica panel, where the original Starbuck sits at a table with the new Dr. Baltar (among others). Presumably they will shoot the shit about acting and sci-fi and stuff. I'm hoping for a knock-down drag-out between the old and the new shows. Of course we all know the new series kicks ass.