Yet another button.

Otay, took me way too long, but I think this new button is one of my best:



Dr. Hoffman being the discovering chemist of LSD. I posted a memorial bit here, written by Tim Lott (from the London Independent)... he put the LSD experience into words as well as anyone perhaps could.

Stamp Fun II

My buddy Jon gave me this old set of mint stamps, also from China.

China, Cat. #776-780.
Issued December 16, 1947, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Postal Administration.

Stamp Fun I

I've started using the Scott Stamp Catalog (the be-all end-all of philately inphormation) to identify some stamps, basically trying to figure out some unknown countries of origin here and there. I finally found the listing for this one:

People's Republic of China, Cat. #269.
135th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), German Socialist. Issued 12/15/1955. One of a pair of stamps issued that day, the other celebrating the 85th anniversary of the birth of Lenin (I ain't got that one yet, but ohhh, I will).



Stamps are kewl.

PSA: Head injuries and You

Friendly reminder:

Let's say someone next to you smacks their head on something hard. Your own head is turned at the time, so you don't see it happen, but you do hear a THUD and him exclaiming AAAAAAHHHH! Naturally, you say, "You alright?"

If the person says "no" or in my case today "no, not really" and then staggers off, and then later returns saying he might be a bit concussed, consider checking on him and make sure he's okay.

In my case today, I'm alright. I got a bit nauseous and have felt woozy, but after a half hour, during which I've checked myself and how I'm doing repeatedly, am confident that I'm fine.

But: when someone says they're not alright, and that they may be somewhat concussed, please actually do something about it. Jeez.

Summer Camp, 2008

Kathleen Engle, 16, from Fairfield, California, said she had looked into the Peace Corps and other options but decided on the military.

“I was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened and that’s when I decided the best thing I could do for my country was this,” she said, playing a video game called “America’s Army.”

“I guess it’s going to be hard to kill someone, but if that’s your job and that’s what our commander tells us we need to do, I’m going to do that in order to protect my country.”

Elite US Army Academy Lures Kids With Mud and Duty

Ick + Philately

It's so humid that I've worked up a sweat while fiddling with my stamp collection. Which is going swimmingly, btw, and which is also how I feel about sitting in this humidity. Ha!

I need more stock sheets, though; I don't use the little gummy flaps to hinge 'em into books, I use the ones with rows of plastic you snug them into. I've got tons of stamps sorted into the cute little glassine envelopes, with nowhere to go.

I just got in a bunch of stamps for really cheap (like $8) recently, which were awesome, because they came from a book gotten at an estate sale. Inheriting someone else's stamps is fun, and they might have some rarer ones. Online (ebay and stampwants are the biggest sites, I think) you can get all kinds of stuff, but most often the auctions/sales are for individual stamps or series, with their catalog numbers listed, etc. I like getting a mass of stamps and discovering different stuff. The other stamp purchase I made recently is for 1000 worldwide (this usually means no American or English stamps), and a pack of 25 stamps from Malawi and 50 from Mexico. I mostly got those because they were from the same vendor and were dirt cheap/postage-free. But I'm collecting Malawian stamps in particular, for nostalgic purposes: I spent a semester at Chancellor College in Malawi my junior year at Colby College.

Otherwise I've got stuff from just about every country around, including from some that aren't around anymore. I've got a ton of American and Russian stamps, though, the former out of an interest in my country's history, and the latter because they're kewl. Actually, I can list off a bunch of countries w/bitchin' stamp designs, so I'm still just grabbing any old stamps in general, although this (with the above exception) is being curtailed a fair bit for lack of funds.

I almost made it to an estate sale recently where the guy told me there'd be stamps, but it was too far away. Eh! I'll keep hunting. Estate sales are a gas, btw, and if you've never been to one, you should check it out. People go fucking nuts.

In Memoriam

The best news I've heard in a while:

A Fitting Memorial: The George W. Bush Sewage Plant

If you’ve attended an event or festival in San Francisco lately - or even just hung out at a city park - you’ve probably seen them.

Admittedly, they’re hard to miss. Someone in the group is usually toting a large American flag, and another is often carrying a boom box blaring patriotic music. Sometimes one of them dresses up as Uncle Sam.

They’re the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, but don’t let the serious name fool you. The group’s intentions are in the gutter: They want to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant come January, when the next president is sworn in.

(Click to read rest of article.)

Entertainment Recommendations

For your viewing pleasure:

I just finished tearing through the complete BBC series Life on Mars (2 seasons of 8 hour-long episodes each, 2006-07). Starring John Simm of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame, it's the story of a cop that gets hit by a car and sent into a coma, yet (at least in his mind) he finds himself as a cop newly assigned to his same department, but in 1973. It's a fucking incredible series and I can't recommend it enough. There's a new version of it now on American TV which apparently blows, and I doubt I'll be watching it.

This was a ton of viewing for me, right when I was also zipping through a recent Sci Fi channel mini-series called The Lost Room. About 5-6 hours running time in all, and it's a fantastic trip. Peter Krause stars, along with Sydney Pollack and Julienne Marguiles (sp?) as a cop that discovers a key at a crime scene. It turns out to fit any lock, but whatever door you're opening with it will open into a deserted motel room. Again, wicked recommended.

OMFG, I might just vote for McCain!

It's a McMiracle! (hey, CNN's word, not mine)

Here's a cheery story on CNN's site about a guy who lost 80 pounds in 6 months on "The McDonalds Diet." I shit you not. The interviewer happily went over his daily menu with him in detail, both of them describing what's in them, and clearly impressed by their deliciousness. The CNN "news" person even mentioned off-hand that one of the items included an option (grilled vs. ... whatever else), though the dieter didn't go that way.

Sometimes, our guy would or wouldn't take the mid-day snack of Apple Dippers, which the CNN lady described for the viewers that didn't know, as being slices of apple; probably only about half an apple.

Also on the topic of apples, apparently the Walnut Salad he sometimes had at dinner is just a little cup of fruit, which has grapes, walnuts, and again, apples.

The background image for the text on the screen was mostly abstract, but gave the feeling of a sunrise or sunset, a nice orange glow. Inserted into this was a somewhat opaque version of the McDonalds' M logo and the words 'I'm lovin.'

Our man hasn't been in contact with McDonalds, but if he gets any support from McDonalds, it's for the Wounded Warrior Project, a charity he's working with (I looked it up online, and it seems like a great charity). And we also know that our hero - and they displayed this info when introducing him - he's a VP of some company (it's all initials, no idea what it is or does), and that he never graduated from college.

So why'd he do it? Somehow, it all began with that Wounded Warrior Project. He told his wife he was going to finally lose a ton of weight, and because she didn't believe him, he decided to come up with the "craziest idea I could think of at that moment."

This... news item? is so far gone, and so surreal, that I'm not sure how to even begin. There was no explanation, btw, as to how or why McDonalds was somehow supporting this extremely troop-supportive charity he's involved with... the only link was that he engaged in this absurd diet. And that he's on CNN, which is apparently now sponsored by the letter M and the word lovin'.

I love that he's successful, and never graduated from college. And ate solely at McDonalds. Are you like him, at least in the categories of non-graduate, patriotic, and fat? Keep on it! He's a vice president! And he's on CNN!

Wait... I never graduated college, I'm fat, and I'm supportive of our troops! All I need now is to start eating at McD's and I'll be successful and maybe even famous!

BTW, he has no plans to continue eating the "McDiet." He'll be eating healthy meals at home, but says that if he backslides, he'll go back to "what works," as in, the McMiracle McDiet at McDonalds. This is McCNN reporting.

Starbuck says... "YOU MOTHERFRAKKER!!!"

Just watched the "mid-season finale" of Battlestar Galactica... all I can say is WOW. WOW WOW WOW FRAKKIN' WOW. WOW.

If you don't watch BG, you should. Even if you're not interested in science fiction, etc. It's just a brilliantly written, well-acted show. Easily the best sci fi show in years, and some would argue, ever.

Why? is a useless question at this point.

When I read this on CNN's front page just now:

Bomber hits as Iraqis celebrate soccer win
A bomber detonated her suicide vest Saturday in a marketplace in Diyala province, targeting soccer fans who had just watched the Iraqi national team win a big match against China, authorities told CNN.

without even thinking about it, I put my head in my hands and whimpered "Nooooooo...." My response struck me as perhaps melodramatic, but, there it was nonetheless.

It's odd and maybe interesting to me, that this stands out as being one of my most immediate reactions to any of the shitty news coming out from Iraq in a long time. It's like... people get to enjoy a simple pleasure during all of this chaos, this Hell, and then some poor, misguided person is so far gone as to think that doing this will mean something. Instead, it's a perfect example of how meaningless life, reason, reality, has become for some of these people. Senselessness makes sense, I guess. Fuck.

It mah kitteh!

In happy news: a pic of mine made it onto LOLcats' front page, woot! It's someone else's caption, but hey. Kittehs!

Radioactive Man

From Inter Press service, via Common Dreams (which everyone should always read):

‘Special Weapons’ Have a Fallout on Babies

FALLUJAH - Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.

The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after “special weaponry” was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.

In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far.

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

“We saw all the colours of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles,” Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two U.S. sieges of 2004 told IPS. “I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus.

"We" have actually been dropping depleted uranium bombs ever since the Gulf War, and not just during it, and during these past years. All through the 90s these munitions were being dumped in payloads by our forces. The worst of the effects had been felt in the Basra area, which was the main area of activity in the original war. Before this war even started, people there had been dealing with a massive increase in cancer, to a point where 40% of the population was plagued by it. Deformities in newborns were common.

Some people consider the "Gulf War syndrome" that so many of our military experienced was a result of the DU munitions used (in addition to such factors as post-traumatic stress disorder, which will make any condition worse). I'd be really interested to see a study regarding women that served on the ground in Basra back then, and if they experienced particular difficulties when giving birth, or if there were deformities in their children. And in general, the cancer rate for those that served in the area at that time.

Of course, the radiation issued from the remains of the munitions will never go away... it's there to stay. Just like freedom!

---

Ah! I just looked up DU on Wiki, and it actually addresses the lasting effects of DU on US military: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Gulf_War_syndrome_and_soldier_complaints

Kitteh!

So, a while ago I made up some lolcats using old kitteh photos, but I think lol-speak just doesn't come naturally to me. In any event, they used none of them, but if you go to my pet gallery you'll see all six of them. This may be more adorable if you knew the kittehs pictured.

The New Captain America is... Stephen Colbert!

When Captain America died, the only one that could have replaced him was his old pal, Bucky. But then, I considered Stephen Colbert, and realized that when they kill off Bucky, he should be able to step in to the winghead's uniform just fine.



This would have been more clever if I'd designed and posted it when Cap died. Hey, I'm slow.

(Apologies and love to the incredible artist Alex Ross for using/abusing his painting.)

And more buttons...

Button frenzy! See my Buttons Gallery for my collection, and larger images.

New Buttonses

Here's a flurry of new buttons I've made - see my buttons gallery for bigger images and more buttons. If you want one, let me know. I also take requests for new designs!

Dear big O

The following is a letter I've actually sent (in email and by POST, if you can imagine) to Obama's campaign.

To: Senator Barack Obama and/or his campaign staff

From: Phobrek Taz, Worcester, Massachusetts

Date: June 4^th, 2008

NOTES:

I’m not actually crazy about boldfacing text, but I do it here to highlight the more important notes. Basically, if something isn’t boldfaced, someone wishing to skip over all my blather can just ignore it. Even though my writing and thoughts are simply a treasure to behold.

I imagine Senator Obama won’t be reading this himself, so if whoever’s reading this could add my name or vote (so to speak) on your tallies of comments that people make in such letters, I’d appreciate it.

Dear Senator Obama,

Congratulations! I’ve been rooting for you, and desperately want you to become the next president of the United States. And thank you – to you and all the people involved – for running a campaign that has genuinely inspired and excited people, unlike any other in my lifetime (I’m 38).

You’ve been my clear favorite over Hillary Clinton, and while so many felt she should have conceded, I’m actually content that she stayed in it. Somehow, for once, voters in every state actually got to have a say in these primaries (I think the Michigan/Florida debacle was handled as well as was possible). I think that this should be a talking point:

I’m glad we saw this process through to the end. To many, this process may seem unfair… in its scheduling of all of our states - and territories - causing them to have more – or less – impact on the results; and for the earlier states being able to create a perceived trend, that may feel limiting to those that come later. In 2004, the latter TWENTY-SIX primaries became largely moot, as candidate Senator Kerry became the presumptive nominee just after “Super Tuesday,” March 2nd. But this year, every state counted, even after the controversy surrounding Michigan and Florida, because: Senator Hillary Clinton stayed in the race, despite the badgering of the media, and the pundits… and she gave the people in every state and every territory the opportunity to have their vote counted… to have it mean something.

The important ideas here are:

To get people to understand that you desire due equity for all, regardless of their candidate, location, even their party. Right now, being inclusive is vital. You want absolutely everyone on board your train.

To, likewise, reach out to the Hillary supporters in particular, in a way even congratulating them, and her, for having the strength of will to never give up, and to make the full primary process mean something. People (understandably) love it when you tell them that they did the right thing, resisting the media’s demands that they do otherwise.

The most important thing of all, in my opinion, is to reconcile w/Hillary and her supporters. One way to do this is to return her support: as everyone knows, she will now do her duty by supporting the Democratic candidate, but this doesn’t mean that it can’t go two ways. This talking point would be especially useful if you do not choose her as your running mate. Talking point:

I know that this is easier to say, now that this process is over, but while I know Senator Clinton will be supportive of myself and our party’s campaign for the presidency, that doesn’t mean that the support needn’t go both ways. Senator Clinton is (insert compliments here). Her interests, her perspectives, are clearly shared by half of those who voted in our primaries, and her (and our other candidates’) causes must also be supported, and adopted, and reflected as well as possible, in our campaign, and in our future administration. To not do so, would be to deny so many of our supporters a continued meaning to the votes that they have cast in these past few months. These voices must continue to be heard, and heeded, for to not do so would disempower, and disenfranchise, our own people.

This kind of talking point would be something to use when you announce your Veep. If it’s Hillary, you’d use it to lead up to your announcement; if you pick someone else, you’d make a point of saying this afterward. Not on that same day, but very soon afterward.

However, I actually think that you should choose to take on Hillary as the Veep. I didn’t think this for the longest time, because I felt like you shouldn’t have to, just because so many are suggesting it, and I personally believe that she’s been somewhat “co-opted” in her eight years since leaving the White House. A specific example is that she was such a champion of health care reform as First Lady, and then ended up having to succumb to the industry in order to get elected. She had to play ball. I don’t particularly blame her, as this is how government usually works. She could either play ball and get elected, or not get elected at all (not just because of this one example, but because of the overall, corrupt process).

You, however, have been more able to maintain your integrity, and you haven’t had nearly as much time to become tainted by this process either; and people know it. I’m sure it’s been tried, to push you into undesired directions, and I am sure that these influences will continue to try to manipulate you and everyone else in government, forevermore. It’s a sad part of the process. But you are our best hope of operating against that machine.

That said, lately I’ve come to believe that you actually should pick up Hillary as Veep. I’m very wary of both her and Bubba, but if they can be reined in, they could be very important in getting things done. They’ve got clout.

But much more importantly: in the end, even after you became the presumptive-presumptive-nominee, Hillary supporters were still coming out in droves, down to the very last primaries. That’s incredible. The upshot is: half of the party and its voters are passionate about getting her into the White House. Not a small chunk; not a third; HALF. They will not be easily appeased.

So many have said that if their candidate didn’t get the nomination, they’d either vote Republican, or not at all. This of course is bullshit, most of the time. When a candidate is still very much in the running, most supporters will make this silly ultimatum in an (ineffective) attempt at coercing others into switching sides. Regardless, they don’t want to say anything that suggests that their candidate will lose. If they don’t end up backing the Democratic candidate for the presidency, they’re either mentally disaffected, or are actually Republicans (same thing).

But in the end, there is only one vital thing that must happen: there must not be a Republican in the White House. That has got to be the primary goal; everything else is of secondary importance. Taking on Hillary as Veep is the one move that will give you a huge increase in your chances of winning. To not do this is to risk losing a lot of votes. Hillary truly does attract voters of specific demographics, different from yours, in large numbers. These people often seem like more conservative voters than you and your supporters (so I believe), and they really are the ones that might possibly end up voting for McCain. That cannot happen.

Besides appealing to the needed demographics, the Clintons (as a pair) do have their legacy. To some (myself included) that legacy isn’t necessarily very appealing, but everything is relative. The facts are: the Clinton Era came right before this tragic, devastating eight years of Bush tossing our country (and others) into the proverbial shitter. There is an attraction to returning to better times, to undoing these eight years, and the Clinton Era is connected to that for many people. Bush has driven every aspect of the United States into the ground, after inheriting what people see as being the (tainted but forgivable) Clinton legacy (whether they realize they see it as this or not). Taking on Hillary will give comfort to those that fared better (read: almost everyone) before this current administration took over, while you – at the helm – will still clearly signal a brand new day that will build off of a recognizable, perhaps even nostalgic, foundation.

Last, but important nonetheless, and also in the name of inclusion: so many people have remarked that this year’s field of candidates for the Democratic nomination has been a surprisingly excellent collection of people. While people have only been supporting you or Hillary for the last few weeks, there were others who received support and represent voters’ interests. Most people that support other candidates end up not voting for them, because the candidate’s status of “unelectable” means that they’re throwing their vote away. You are my choice of candidate, but my first choice would have been Dennis Kucinich, who has some notably different positions. Many people end up wishing their favorite candidate, or a particular platform plank, would be included in the plans and directives of the eventual nominee, and they are far greater than the number of votes reflected as the amount actually cast for these “unelectables.”

Based on this thinking, I think it would be wise to give real consideration to using one or more of these candidates in your administration, whether it be an appropriate cabinet position, or something else of a substantial nature. If you found that using a previous candidate was appropriate for one position or another, that would be another excellent move of inclusion. For instance, Bill Richardson would make an excellent Secretary of State, in my opinion. Besides exciting his supporters, such an appointment would also appeal to those who like him and his ideas, and his general demographic support, even though they ended up voting for and/or supporting some other candidate. I know many people that are big fans of both Richardson and Kucinich, who ended up voting for you over Hillary, even before it fell down to just the two of you.

Besides the appeal to various supporters, there plainly are some excellent people in that original field of candidates, that would be appropriate for positions even if they’d never been a part of the primaries. One other factor: people know these candidates. They’ve been all over TV, during their campaigns as well as the endless debates. The public likes being able to identify and understand the top people in the administration; I think that the public is developing an increasing recognition of the other major players, mostly meaning the main cabinet/advisors, UN ambassador, etc. Using such a person to occupy a space in your administration will increase inclusion (obviously, this has become my mantra), and show that their perspectives and causes are being sincerely represented for them at the highest levels. Obviously, there are other well-known players that would be popular and appreciated at various posts: an example that most easily comes to mind is the fantastic Richard Clarke, for instance.

I’ve only ever written a couple of letters to politicians – my senators, Kennedy and Kerry – but today, I have been so driven to write this letter, even knowing it will probably not make its way into the thinking of you or your campaign. But if it does, then this is the most important letter I’ve ever written. And I thank whomever for actually reading my long-winded notes.

Yours truly,

Phobrek Taz

Worcester, Massachusetts

Thou art a soiled condom, sir!

Slick Willie done apologized for calling some asshole reporter (actually, editor) a "scumbag." He's got to walk on eggshells to avoid screwing his wife... 's campaign, but man, show some balls. Do they all have to apologize anytime they say something that might make Grandma frown? For reference:

The article, by Vanity Fair magazine's national editor Todd Purdum, suggested that Bill Clinton's personality had changed since his 2004 heart bypass surgery and said that there were reports of Clinton "seeing a lot of women on the road." - CNN

If that indeed was the charge laid out by this guy, then sure, he's a fucking scumbag. I don't think people really equate the word with its original meaning (a used condom), do they? Maybe I'm wrong. If so, then yeah, apologize for the image, but my understanding is that it's just taken as a general insult these days. Am I wrong?

Meh. Meanwhile, reports are up and down on the idea of Hillary wanting the Veep position. I hope Obamarama resists the urge. After all, I've already decreed that he should take Dennis along for the ride. Kucinich 2016! Kucinich 2016! His wife will still be hot.

Quote of the Day

Regarding his very distant blood relationship to Barack Obama, our beloved Creepy Veep Dick Cheney said that the Cheney line on his father's side of the family dates to 1630's, and a Cheney family line on his mother's side dates to the 1650's.

Thus:

"So, I had Cheneys on both sides of the family — and we don't even live in West Virginia," Cheney cracked. After pausing for laughter from the crowd, Cheney added, "You can say those things when you're not running for re-election."

As the CNN item detailing this adds:

Afterward, West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd lashed out at Cheney for the "insult to all Americans." In a written statement, Byrd declared that Cheney showed "contempt and astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen" with the comments.

Sadly, that weird old Byrd just went into the hospital tonight. Damn. First Our (drunken) Man Ted, now the aged one (I had no idea he was 3rd in line to the presidency... can you fucking imagine?). If Kennedy has to retire, we're pretty safe (but not completely) with his replacement being a Democrat. But for Byrd in West Virginia?

On the Daily Show, they interviewed some random W Virginians on the day of their primary, asking why people weren't voting for Obama. Those made for some other great quotes (paraphrasing here): "I ain't votin' for no Muslim," and "his middle name's Hussein... I had enough'a Husseins."

Mind-boggling Article of the Day

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/02/9373/

60 Minutes: Pentagon’s Raygun Demonstrated on Mock Protesters

by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

The Pentagon has been developing a raygun which can harmlessly repel enemies by causing a burning sensation in the top layer of the skin. However, according to CBS’s 60 Minutes, the military is unwilling to actually trust this weapon enough to deploy it in Iraq.

“We are now stepping into the Buck Rogers scenario,” explained Colonel Kirk Hymes, who is in charge of testing the “Active Denial System” at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.

Hymes demonstrated the weapon by staging what CBS somewhat oddly called “a scenario soldiers might encounter in Iraq” — a handful of military volunteers, dressed as civilian protesters, who carried signs saying “peace not war” and threw objects at a small group of soldiers. A series of raygun blasts from half a mile away disrupted their chants and finally sent them running.

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisiton Sue Payton calls the Active Denial System a “huge game-changer” which “would save huge numbers of lives.” She told CBS, “It could be used to read someone’s mind, in effect. … If they continue to come at you, then you’re fairly sure … they’re probably a terrorist or an adversary who wants to do you harm.”

(skipping a paragraph)

However, the failure to deploy the weapon as planned has raised suspicions that the real intention is to use it for domestic crowd control.

In 2006, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne was quoted as saying that the device should be used first on Americans, because “if we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation. … If I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”

All together now:

WTF

Here's a brief article on the protection of uncontacted peoples: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/30/9303/

It begins:

These remarkable pictures of Envira Indians were taken by Brazilian government officials during several flights over a remote part of Brazil’s Acre state.

Painted a bright orange, two members of the tribe emerged from their huts to threaten the helicopter as it flew low over their small village.

Others could be seen in the background, apparently startled by the presence of the noisy machine in their skies.

“We did the over-flight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist,’ said Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles, an expert on “uncontacted” tribes, who works for the Brazilian government’s Indian affairs department.

“This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence.”

---

I agree that it's important to prove their existence. But I have to ask... if you fly a chopper over these people, are they not being contacted? It's the old notion that if you're trying only to observe a situation in a disconnected manner, you're still interacting with and affecting it. "Uncontacted" doesn't mean that the people have never been contacted whatsoever, but I'm just imagining these people racing out of their huts to find this terrifying monster swooping down upon them from the sky. They have probably encountered outsiders at some point in the past, but I think it's likely that such visitors would have been on foot to get to what must be rather remote areas. I'd love to know what effect such an event would have on these people, though. D'oh.

Have I mentioned that I hate Windows Vista? Let me tell you why: first, th-



[This post has been edited by Windows Vista.]

teh

This morning I woke up w/cum all over my face. DAMN YOU WINDOWS VISTA!!!

I dair U 2 nock this canddiateoff mi sholder LOLOLLOLL!!!1

Yay Hillary! Keep going, girl. By my calculations, if you beat Obama 60-40% in the last few primaries, you can almost beat him! You done did it before - in New York, Arkansas, and American Samoa - you can do it six more times! And then maybe the super'gates can drag you across the finish line. Especially if they have extra primaries in those three states... uhm, places. NM.

Is it my imagination, or do the pictures of Hillary in the past few days have her smiling in a way that opens her mouth to an inhuman extent? Nice tonsils, babe!

LSD

Dr. Hofmann has left the box for good this time... the inventor of LSD died last week, and this article makes an admirable attempt at explaining what he'd unleashed. Having done a lot of acid in my life, I think his take is as good an encapsulation as you'll see. It's otherwise kind of frustrating trying to relate the experience to someone who's never taken it.

Yawp.

Originally published in the (London) Independent:

A Tribute To Albert Hofmann: My LSD Trip Down Memory Lane
by Tim Lott

Dr Albert Hofmann, who died last week, was the inventor of LSD. But he was not merely a chemist. He was a revolutionary.

Hofmann changed the way a whole generation looked at the world. This is the sort of statement that is customarily made about thinkers and scientists of the stature of, say, Marx or Einstein. But it is more directly and vividly true of Hofmann than any of these otherwise much more formidable intellectual titans. Freud theorised about the existence of the unconscious, but LSD made it an experiential reality, as tangible as touching stone or seeing light.

Hofmann’s discovery is still widely misunderstood. But those who have known its glory - and its agony - will also know that no one really comes back from the altered state of consciousness that LSD induces quite the same person that they were before. Like no other experience imaginable, it rips to pieces your understanding of what it is to be alive.

When you return from the unimaginable shore to which LSD takes you, putting those pieces back together can be a lifelong task. It can make you mad. But it can also make you understand that your life is not what you thought it was - that it is bigger, richer and, above all, stranger.

This epiphany-in-a-pill is an idea that makes us deeply uncomfortable for a raft of reasons - the lack of spiritual or moral effort involved in attaining the experience, the impossibility of explaining its effects to non-users, and the moral panic over its distribution and use in the 1960s and 1970s.

Nowadays, LSD has been quietly consigned to the medicine cabinet of history. It is no longer fashionable, nor widely available, nor especially potent. It has lost ground to gentler drugs such as MDMA or more violent narcotics such a crack, crystal meth and heroin. But it is in a different category from all these mind-altering substances, and ill deserves its lumping into the category of “recreational drugs: bad/harmful/dangerous”.

This isn’t to say it isn’t bad, harmful or dangerous. LSD can certainly be all those things. But LSD - like its natural counterparts mescaline or peyote - is not quite in the same category as any other mind-altering narcotic. It is potentially, I think, the only truly creative drug - that is, a drug which enables the mind to shake off the shackles of habit and conditioning and arrive at the heart of - for want of a better word - the human soul.

And it is the only “recreational” drug that has a real element of intellectual and cultural respectability, with thinkers and writers such as Aldous Huxley, Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg all affirming its uses, while the remarkable phenomenon we call “the Sixties” would not have happened at all without this psychoactive shamanic medicine.

Before I continue, I should make it clear that I am not a habitual or long-term user of the drug. I have taken it twice - both times when I was 15 years old. On one occasion, it gave me an experience of bliss, lasting some 12 hours, that lay far beyond words or images to express. On the other, I was cast into the darkest reaches of hopelessness and terror. I ended up running down my street naked, and being locked up in a police cell. It is not an exaggeration to say that these experiences, to this day, are always with me.

This will sound like hyperbole to anyone who hasn’t experienced the drug, so I will make an effort to explain what it was like, knowing that such an effort must fail. I wrote about it in my memoir, The Scent of Dried Roses. Here are two brief extracts:

“The tower blocks shine like mirrors and the blue of the sky seems to have concentrated and leaked out into the air, so that everything is soaked in aquamarine. There is a deep relentless and secret whirr within me, a dynamo that has been switched on to full power for the first time. I am so full of delight I want to leave my skin and melt.”

Then later:

“The panic begins to turn to unalloyed terror as I feel my very sense of self beginning to collapse into the swelling chaos of everything else… I am negated. I have gone completely mad, although everything is unmistakable, intensely real.”

The key fact of these accounts is that, whether in terror or bliss, “I am not seeing things that are not there. I am seeing things that are there…. The sensible world is merely a construction of my brain, and the brain is simply a filter that keeps unmanageable, too large information out.” LSD does not merely distort reality - it removes a filter on reality. And that is why it is such a profound experience.

I cannot in all conscience evangelise, or recommend to my children that they take it. I have suffered mental health problems much of my life - I doubt this fact is entirely unconnected with those very intense teenage mental epiphanies. But I cannot help but be grateful to have seen what I have seen, which is plainly and simply a religious vision, an a priori proof that there is more to the world than a dead material universe.

My personal experience aside, it fuelled decades of cultural experiment and output, much of it bad, but some of it good. (After Sir Paul McCartney claimed that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” had nothing to do with LSD, I’m surprised the judge in his divorce case believed a word he uttered in court.) But the larger societal “effect” ‘ of LSD - be it in swirly-whirly graffiti, self-indulgent rock music, or tie-dye T-shirts - are a red herring, along with the appallingly dim-witted New Age movements it has left in its wake.

The art, culture and film that arose out of LSD did not have much worth - Zabriskie Point? Disraeli Gears? Journey to Ixtlan? and so on - but the fact that people took the intellectual experience of the drug seriously does speak volumes. There were even TV documentaries - one chaired by Malcolm Muggeridge - on which philosophers and academics were given the drug and filmed on camera. They spoke very highly of their experiences. LSD, they asserted, didn’t simply damage people; it changed them in ways that went beyond “good” or “bad”. This is its unique claim within the pharmacological lexicon.

Such a thing happening today is unimaginable. We live now in a world where all illegal drugs are lumped together as social evils. This represents a narrowing of our imaginations, a closing of our collective minds. Albert Hofmann’s discovery remains, I believe, of the greatest significance; and there are few mature adults - particular ones whose minds are limited by the environment in which they habitually exist - who would not benefit greatly from its prescription.

Gordon Brown would be a prime contender, I think. His dour materialism would disappear overnight. Boris Johnson has clearly had some already slipped to him in a cup of tea some time or other. But apart from him, the entire Tory and Labour front benches could do with at least one medically administered shot of acid.

That something which bio-chemically can open and even heal the mind (in some ways Prozac does something analogous though very different) is so violently proscribed speaks volumes of our times, when imagination and the spiritual itself are virtually taboo. Albert Hofmann’s great experiment was thus a failure. But one day, I still believe, both its therapeutic and philosophical uses will be rediscovered.

And one other thing. Old Albert lived to 102. What does that tell you about the therapeutic properties of lysergic acid diethylamide?

Lair Update

So, a while ago I mentioned getting a new computer, and I've had it now for quite a while. But I also had made a deal with myself, that before I installed it, I MUST clean my room properly, for the first time in eight years. Seriously - eight years. Someone once said - and since then, many have repeated it - that the cleanliness or order of your home is reflective of your psyche. This could not be more true for me. Here's a "before picture" of a small part of my room:



People who have seen my place have said "Well, ha ha, as long as you know where everything is...." No, I would have no idea where anything was, that was a big part of the fucking problem! And yet, I've been unable to get the place clean and ordered for eight years. Such has been the state of my state.

Still, as Quentin Crisp once said:

There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.

Of course, I should give you an "after picture" of the same scene in my room, but it wouldn't look very impressive, particularly since it never got to be perfectly clean (though the rest of my room did), and it's now concealed by tons of cardboard boxes from my new computer (I've been keeping them ready in case I need to send anything back, which has come true for my speaker system).

But here's the new beast, at last:



The case reminds me of a Cylon. The case's model is the NZXT Zero Aluminum, which I must say: don't get. It was actually a replacement for my desired case, by ThermalTake, and I wish I'd waited for it (it was back-ordered, and the thing was taking so long already... d'oh). This rig is from www.CyberPowerpc.com btw, and while I can tell you they'll give you great bang for your buck, they take forever to do stuff, and their technical support is ABYSMAL.

Quote of the Duh

Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that her comments that the United States could “totally obliterate” Iran if it made a nuclear attack on Israel had been an attempt to return the United States to Cold War style deterrence.

Does this mean we get more wars-by-proxy and a new Red Scare too? Or I guess it would be a Brown Scare? And hey, a further buildup of arms, and supplying the same to all the pawns?

"Woot!" yelps the war industry, as it slaps on a "Hillary '08" button.

New Buttons (and buttons for sale, yawp)

As usual, it's been way too long - a month and a day - since last I posted. I've had my ups, downs, sides to sides, and wibbly-wobblies. But enough about me, here's the recent additions to my buttons designs. The actual buttons are only 1.25" diameter; I really do need to get the 2" machine.







The last one - Edgar Rice Burroughs - is the same color as/and is replacing my Asimov button, below. I'm gonna come up with a new design for the margins of my sci-fi heroes' buttons (Asimov, JG Ballard, Philip K, Heinlein, etc.). As if you care.

Anyway, I'm hoping to set up a more pro page for this, but as of now I'm selling these things for $1 (postage included) to anyone in the US, and uh, more I guess for anyone overseas. If you want anything, check my buttons photo album for designs, and email me at phobrek@gmail.com - w/a mailing address, etc. Note that my buttons are all only 1.25" in diameter.

Oh! A disclaimer: if anyone has any issue with copyright of any images used, please let me know at the same address, and I'll respond, and probably cease and desist. No biggie.

Quote of the Duh

From the article on a woman killed by a manta ray that leaped out of the water into a boat:

"It's just as freakish of an accident as I have heard," said Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "The chances of this occurring are so remote that most of us are completely astonished that this happened."

Operative words being "most of us." Meaning there was at least one guy that said "Well yeah, I coulda told you this was going to happen sooner or later...."

My two year old nephew Aalam is already a frickin' rock star.

Status: FU

Order timestamp: 3/2/2008 3:28:33 PM (PST)
Shipping method: Fedex Ground
Order total: $1,886.45
Status: Order received

Status: Order received
Status: Order received
Status: Order received
Status: Order received
Status: Order received

GAHHHH gimme my computer! Every time I check - like every 4 or 5 minutes - all I gets is "Order received." FOKK.

Edit/add... I just called 'em and learned it will be shipped out this Friday or at the latest, Monday. Grumble grumble okay.

Buttonses

While the bunch of my button designs can be viewed in my album, here's my newest ones. The actual buttons are only 1.25" btw, although in time I want to get a 2" button press as well.





While these are all fabulous writers of yore, I'm also going to make ones of plenty of other favorite figures, such as Einsten, Nikolai Tesla, Orson Welles, favorite (dead) musicians (often composers) that you won't otherwise see on a button, like Aram Khachaturian, Edward MacDowell, etc.

And I'm going to make different background designs... recycling the one I've been using gets old.

Quote of the Duh

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." - Geraldine Ferraro

Wow... I don't even need to try making a gag out of this one.

I forgot to add: my new niece is named Jameela Sophia Sulski. Niiice.

Buttonses

So, with the aid of my trusty button-maker I bought a couple months ago, I've been making... you guessed it! Buttons! I've made quite a few thus far, but here's my two favorites:





I've uploaded the other designs I've made at http://picasaweb.google.com/phobrek/Buttonses. Eventually I plan to sell such things (cheap), although I'll need to make (fairly) original designs so as to respect others' ownership of images, etc. (such as the Gygax painting here).

I'm working on a bunch of designs for favorite authors, like: Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert E. Howard, Isaac Asimov, JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis, Robert Heinlein, Philip K Dick, JG Ballard, etc.

He done ascended....

While this news below - fuck yeah! - dwarfs this completely, I imagine most readers of this blog (all three of you) know that E. Gary Gygax died yesterday. I'll have more to say on this great man in the near future, and I was surprised to see that I felt more about him than I thought I would.

It's odd... I wouldn't have been surprised if Gygax had actually died long ago, and I'd just never heard about it. I can't say that I'll "miss" him, since I never followed his life and doings, really. Instead, however, I've suddenly felt a great, thankful acknowledgment of what he had done, and how powerful he affected my life, as well as the lives of countless others. In terms of role-playing games, and so many games that in some way have an ancient, distant distant or relationship to them, his impact has been massive.

This is corny, but I'll say it anyway:

Gygax has found the Amulet of Yendor, and ascended to godhood.

I'm such a geek. And proud of it.

YEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAH!!!

WOOWOOWOOWOOWOOWOOWOOYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAH!!!

As of this morning, I gots a niece!!! Anita, wife of my brother Peter, just popped. I'm so psyched! FUCK YEAH! YEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAH!!!

L33t

So, uh, it's been over a month and a half since I last posted, although there was a good reason, which I'll get into later (I mean, in the next day or so, not in another month, etc.).

But I'm too excited not to share this awesome news. Thanks to a loan from my godlike brother John, we just ordered me a new computer. The obsolete machine I've been using for the last 8+ years is a (refurbished, even) Dell Dimension 4550 and an even older monitor. Since then, I've come to hate Dell for their craptacular outsourced customer service (whereas it was excellent in my first years w/them) and have recently learned more about their inferior parts (although I guess they make top-notch laptops).

So after much research, I'm now getting the following!



CyberPower Infinity 8800 Pro SE

• CPU: (Quad-Core) Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache 64-bit
• CASE: Thermaltake Bach VX Mid-Tower 420W Case with Side Window
• FAN: Thermaltake MaxOrb Enthusiast CPU Cooling Fan (Slient & Overclock Proof w/ Highest Efficiency Cooling)
• MOTHERBOARD: (QX9650 Support) Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
• MEMORY: 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory
• VIDEO: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express
• HDD: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
• HDD2: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
• CD: 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
• CD2: 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
• MONITOR: ViewSonic VX2235WM ClearMotiv 22" TFT Active Matrix LCD Display (5MS) 1680x1050
• NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
• POWERSUPPLY: Xion SuperNova 800 Watts Power Supplies Quad SLI Ready
• SOUND: Creative Labs SB Audigy SE
• SPEAKERS: Creative Labs Inspire P7800 7.1 Surround Subwoofer Speaker System (BLACK COLOR)
• OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition)
• FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR)
• MOUSE: Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse (BLACK COLOR)
• SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS 24/7 LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
• FREE ACCESSORY: CYBERPOWER WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM BONUS Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini STM900803OTA3E1-RK 80GB 5400 RPM External Hard Drive
• FREEBIE_VC2: FREE! Poker Set
• FREEBIE_CU1: FREE! CyberPower Multi-Purpose Carrying Briefcase ($19.99 Value)
• FREEBIE_CU2: FREE! Cyberpower Unleash The Power T-Shirt/Rag

Woot. It should arrive in about a week.

"I'm so excited I could plotz!" - Hawkeye, MASH

Stamps. WTF else, bitch?

So, my stamps from stamps.com came... they is teh best!



My next will be this design I just done made. Years and years ago there was a pretty prolific petition going on to get the USPS to issue a stamp commemorating HP Lovecraft. It never happened, so, take that, postal bitches!

Quote of the Day

In the "you just can't make this shit up" department:

"You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government. And you cannot stand up a modern, confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms."
- G W Bush

Housemate Wanted!

Hey all, one of my roomies is moving out at the end of this month. He needed to be closer to school... WTF. An hour+ each way is no big deal! Traitor.

Anyway, we need a housemate. If you or someone you know wants a place in a vegetarian household in Worcester, Massachusetts, send 'em my way. Hell, if you simply know someone in the Worcester area, tell them to pass this "must-see" offer along to all their friends.

The blurb follows:



Wanted: Housemate (Vegetarian only!)

When: February 1st, 2008

Where: Avalon Place, 6 blocks in from Elm Park & Highland St.
Very central, w/in walking distance to everything

What: Large 1st floor apt: 4 bedrooms, 2 large common rooms, kitchen
Big attractive house built in the 1830s

Who: We 3 housemates are ages 28 to a YOUNG (I’ll have you know) 40

Price: $385/month includes heat; internet/electricity is cheap.

Niceties:
- The room up for grabs is particularly nifty
- Use of free laundry machines
- Lots of storage space available
- Pets OK. Pets are great!

Call Phobrek at 508-755-8732, or email phobrek@gmail.com!

Location: if you’re not familiar with this area, know that:
- The stretch of nearby Highland St. has decent restaurants, bars, cafe, and many fun shops, making it one of Worcester’s few lively, popular areas.
- A supermarket is w/in walking distance near the lovely Elm Park, and across the park is (appropriately) Park Ave., with more restaurants, shops, and fun.
- Highland Street goes downtown and becomes Route 9, giving quick highway access; Park Ave is a main street which crosses the city: when you’re getting to places in or out of Worcester, this is an ideal location.

John loves Barack

I just watched CNN's clip of John Kerry stumping in South Carolina for Barack Obama, giving his endorsement in an emphatic and lively manner. If only the dumbass had had this kind of fire four years ago! Once Obama took the stage and thanked Kerry, he went on to espouse the former candidate's virtues, and so again I had to wonder, what if someone stumped for him in that dramatic, charismatic way Obama has about him? Obama defended Kerry better than he had when he was running back in '04. Well, I guess anyone defending Kerry back then would have done a better job, seeing as how the weakling just rolled over and died, not even trying to de-bunk the blatant smear attacks against him.

I honestly have no real preference at this point, when it comes to Hillary, Obama, and Edwards. I just want one of them to run and beat whatever sacrificial turkey the GOP offers us; any of them will be a big step forward. And once in there, I want whoever it is to appoint the mighty mouse DK (Dennis Kucinich) to a cabinet position. Get this fantastic guy into a place where he can do some good, because he's brilliant and would be great for the country. And this way we can also keep his wife in the spotlight (cough... okay, I mentioned DK, so by law I have to make note of his hot wife).

Abolish the Electoral College!

Supposedly, this month, Senator Dianne Feinstein is to lead the charge against abolishing the electoral college. In the past, what attempts have been made seem to have gotten nowhere fast. And, sadly, evolving our antiquated method of electing the "leader of the free world" has never been an issue of public interest. Which is rather ridiculous, seeing as how Gore won the general election in 2000, but lost the college's tally (although of course, had all things been fair, he'd have won Florida, etc.). I just have this slight feeling in my gut that things might have gone differently these past seven years had Gore been at the helm. Call me crazy.

I'll be resurrecting and revising my old article "Inequality of votes in presidential elections under the Electoral College system" soon enough and posting my plea anew soon enough. How to get it read, well, that's always a problem.

In Air America's first days, I actually got to talk to Al Franken for a bit regarding the (then-) upcoming 2004 election. I took the position that none of the existing problems (let alone the unjust EC system) would be fixed by that November; somehow he thought to the contrary. All I can say is... IN YOUR FACE, FRANKEN! And while I love Feinstein and hope for the best, I just can't imagine her getting the support she needs. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd definitely be happy if we could at least first address the torrent of inadequacies and "dirty tricks" abounding in our previous federal elections.

All yr liberties belongz 2 us

Just finished watching a great British documentary from late last year called Taking Liberties. Definitely worth watching, regardless of what country you're watching it from. And of course, lots of the last years of Britain's descent into madness is tied at the hips with ours here in the U.S.

A favorite part was Riz MC's video for The Post-9/11 Blues. Riz was actually one of the actors in the re-enactment segments in another great flick, Road to Guantanamo Bay. Ironically, he was recently detained shortly after attending a film festival featuring it, and thus was subjected to detention, abuse, threats, etc.

Anyway, check out the video and song; it kicks arse. And definitely catch Taking Liberties and Road to Guantanamo.

I see dead people's stamps

In the last three days I've been much the philately geek. Bidding tiny amounts for interesting stuff on eBay (I'm a total cheapskate, which is necessary because of my barren bank account), and getting a couple fun things in the mail. One package I got was an old, unopened bag of "mission stamps." Also called "charity stamps," I learned that these are bunches of stamps that are gathered by and/or for religious groups (hence the term mission) which are then sold to stamp addicts for charity. How odd... I can't imagine it turning much of a profit. But, the benefit to a stamp collector is that these are grab bags which are supposedly unsorted and unpicked by anyone, meaning you might get some rare stuff amongst the many commons. But at this point I'm not really capable of telling one from the other, since my DVD stamp guide hasn't arrived in the mail yet. This company Scott has a corner on the stamps market, and they release new catalogs every year, which feature not only a price guide for the stamps, but pictures of every fucking stamp ever. They're six massive phone book sized tomes per year, costing like $300. Crazy. The DVD I found was substantially cheaper.

But I've figured that the best way to get more interesting, older stamps would be to grab other people's collections... those of dead people. I've been looking for a while to see if any estate sales were in the area (yard sales are pretty rare in the winter), and last week I found one. It was on Friday and my friend Dave (also a hunter of bargains) got there about quarter to nine in the morning. It was a riot. People started lining up in the cold (well, we didn't, but most did) waiting for the doors to open, and at exactly 9 AM, in rushed about two dozen people, in the space of a minute. When we got in, it was like vultures ripping away at the previous owner's carcass! I immediately looked at the table of ephemera (my word of the week, meaning anything that's printed that isn't a book or magazine, basically), but only found a couple of old envelopes with stamps on them. In the end, I bought those and a small stack of neat looking (unused) envelopes for $2, and Dave got a big pot for $1. I'm sure we could have found this or that if we searched through everything, but meh! Screw it. But now I'm keeping my eye out for similar sales.

I should also give out a general plea here... if you get stamps from other countries occasionally, feel free to save and send 'em to me! I'm still trying to figure out what kind I really want to collect. For now I'm just getting a general mass of the things together (I should really get a stamp book), but eventually I'll pick a couple things in particular. I think I'd like to get a lot of French stamps (they actually put art reproductions on their stamps), and if there are many, stamps depicting mythological material, and legends, folklore, etc.

And to combine the two... well, these aren't French stamps, but it's a French painter, and his paintings have made it onto some commemorative stamps, which I've now ordered. It's my all-time favorite artist, William-Adolphe Bouguereau!

What... have I done...!

And this is only the beginning....

You've got mail!

So I finally got off my ass and installed the scanner I bought, like, a year ago. The thing that finally motivated me was this crazy service that lets you make real postage stamps with your own image on them! My first thought was to make baby Aalam stamps and then send some mail to Anita (the adorable guy's mum) using them. I'll scan in the stamped package once I get 'em.

OMFG

For years and years, I've looked online (eBay and other sites) whenever I remembered to, trying to find a copy of a poster I had when I was a teenager. Today, I found it:



I can't believe it... a brand-new copy of this obscure 80's work of art! Needless to say, I'm buying it. Then, to top things off, I found that the dealer had the other masterpiece from my teenage kid's bedroom:



I'm in heaven.

Woot.

I've got a huge fokking grin on my face. The mail just came, with three packages for me (you've gotta love getting presents from yourself in the mail). I've recently become financially solvent - all caught up on rent, bills, and other money I owed my brother (who owns "my" house). I even had money left over, so what did I do? Of course, I went on a shopping spree, virtual style.

So uh, if you read my recent post (Philately Fetish), you'll know I was considering following up on my nostalgia for stamp collecting. Well, I done jumped in with both feet. These three packages are full of stamps - the 500 common ones with duplicates, etc., for like $5 or less each - including ones from the company that I absently cheated as a kid! I thought the name Kenmore Stamp Co. sounded familiar. They've sent me little packets of stamps on approval... they're adorable. I'll send most of them back (they not meeting my approval, I guess) but some are too cheap to pass up (well, for the stamps that I actually like the look of)... they range from $0.50 to $3.50. I'll be returning the Princess Diana set, unless they're cheap, in which case I might buy them just so I can deface them as a piece of art or something. I've never liked her or found her to be at all interesting (like most if not all royals), and the massive cult that seems to adore her baffles me completely.

Anyway. Big drum grin on my face. I think I'm gonna like this. And of course... woops! Two of the little buggers just flitted out and under my bed before I managed to stuff them all back into a package for safekeeeping....

I got the idea to make this on account of me being in the mood on the right quadrant. I get this way when I'm tired, which probably has something to do with me waking up at 4AM today. I figured I'd cut people off before they endanger themselves or our friendship. Hopefully I can face the spinner I made toward the top of the ring increasingly more often.... And now, I'm going back to bed, and every time one of the little brats upstairs (at my friends' home daycare center) screams and squeals, I'll growl and mutter angrily, but no-one will see and hear me do it.

Best of 2007 Lists: Flicks

2007 (The List)
I used to make a “best of” list at the end of every year, and I’m resurrecting that tradition this morning. Not because I think you care, but I like making lists, and remembering good things. And if my list points you to wonderful things that you didn’t know were so dandy, that makes me happy. So let’s begin.


The List, Part I: Films, 2007
If may seem like I go and see a lot of movies, but I actually barely ever hit the cinema. I almost always pirate stuff. I wish going to a movie theater still gave the experience of “seeing it on the big screen, as it was meant to be seen,” but every time I see a flick at local megaplex Worcester Showcase North, it’s out of focus, partly off the screen, hindered by warbly sound, or all of the above. And it doesn’t matter if you complain multiple times. Even if they do correct it, by then we’re a fair way into the film and I’m too pissed off to enjoy it. That said:

30 Days of Night - I generally don’t like horror movies, because most of them are just bad movies with some gore on top. But I loved this film, its premise, the sense of (vampire) culture they give in the briefest suggestions.



300 - Simply outstanding. I was never a fan of Frank Miller’s original graphic novel, but I love the story itself, and this film captures it magnificently, frame by painted frame.
An Inconvenient Truth - Brilliant, from its message, to how it’s presented, in a simple and honest fashion. Gore & the filmmakers managed to make a film that is genuinely non-partisan (most things that are labeled “non-partisan” aren’t). It’s hard to make a successful call for action in our apathetic society, but this film managed to do it.



Crank - OK, this came out late last year, but I had to include it. The idea of this film was to make a non-stop, crazed over-the-top, frenzied action thriller, and it succeeds in (sometimes literally) leaps and bounds, each individual second. If you want a clever adrenaline rush like never before (well, in a film), you must see Crank. Oh, and it stars one of my male crushes, Jason Statham.

No End in Sight – The best of the scads of documentaries about the War on Iraq that I’ve seen, interviewing all the right professionals in the business (I choose this word pointedly) that once held positions in the Pentagon and similar large buildings. Voices of experience, speaking intelligently and without melodrama, in a documentary that is the same… unlike certain other films (coughMICHAELMOOREcough).

Spider-Man 3 – I was set up for a disappointment, based on early reviews, and so I was very happily surprised to see that this film was genuinely good, and capped off the (thus far) trilogy in a very smart way. Tobey Maguire and James DeFranco again delivered, Topher Grace did as well as he could, and Willem DeFoe again improves his performance over his original large role from Spider-Man 1. Thomas Haden Church (and the writing of a favorite character of mine, Sandman) did well, although my favorite villains of the series will remain DeFranco and Alfred Molina (Dr. Octopus). I really dislike Kirsten Dunst (and how Mary Jane is written in these films), but the other bit part regulars are still excellent supporters (J.K. Simmons in particular). My biggest beef was the handling of the origin of Venom. Bringing alien life into the picture (though this was the “original” origin of the alien symbiote) was distracting, and jumped the shark a bit… such is the otherwise splendid grounding to reality (well, plausibility) of this series, as far as comic book movies go. I really wish they’d adopted Venom’s (and the symbiote’s) origin from the outstanding Ultimate Spider-Man series, which involves Peter Parker’s discovery of his dead father’s life work. Much more interesting and character-driven.

Other notables include:

Bourne Ultimatum - There aren’t many decent “action thrillers” in which I care about the protagonist or his story, but this is definitely one of them, and the fact that they’ve maintained this level of quality for an entire trilogy is mighty swell.

Harry Potter #284 – Or whichever number this one was in the series. I know these films leave out a lot from the books (which I’ve not read, and never will), and I usually think that that’s a good idea (although Sin City was incredibly true to Frank Miller’s source material, and was f’ing brilliant). A film is not a book, and except for Sin City, it’s simply non-transferable. Although actually, the film version of 300 draws directly from many frames of Miller’s book to great effect. He has a genuinely cinematic style in his comics/graphic novels, and must have served as excellent storyboards for the two adaptations mentioned.

I Am Legend – A decent pop-film all around, and I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic stuff.

Knocked Up – Like Superbad, this springs from the stable of and his Freaks & Geeks alumni & friends. Good fun, though not as entertaining as the other film.

Live Free or Die Hard – Still has the (acceptable) cheese factor of the franchise, but is probably the best sequel. There’s a great geek cameo, too.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 – Like Spider-Man 3, I was surprised at just how good this film was; it’s a great example of a “popcorn movie” that gives “a rollicking-good time.”

The Protector – Another solid film from newcomer muay thai/parkour genius Tony Ja. Better than his first outing (The Warrior, which I still think is a decent film); there’s something truly groundbreaking in this film actually: in the middle of the film is an incredible slugfest of Ja vs. over a hundred assailants, all in one scene, with masterful choreography (of which the single, roving camera is an real part). It lasts almost five minutes… mind-blowing.

Ratatouille – another decent offering from Pixar, though not their best (which would be The Invisibles).

Resident Evil: Extinction – Definitely a guilty pleasure. This third film is much better than the second, although its ending sets up a possibly cringe-inducing premise for the fourth flick.

Sicko – Moore again needs to remove his melodramatic self from the film, which he did so well in Fahrenheit 9/11 (a truly great film). While Sicko is a good film and covers a vital topic, it was plodding compared to F9/11. It’s a shame that it so quickly vanished from theaters.

Smokin’ Aces – another fun pop-film, this with some truly great, wild characters.

Superbad – Again from the Freaks & Geeks alumni as well as bringing the adorkable Michael Cera aboard from the brilliant Arrested Development. Much better than Knocked Up.

TMNT – A new, CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flick that doesn’t serve as any particular sequel to the previous films, but doesn’t tediously re-hash their origin. This film was dumped from the theaters quickly, but is worth watching when you’re bored.

Transformers – Yet another good popcorn film; brought the classic icons successfully to the big screen, which is an achievement in itself, as well as pure fun.

War – A decent actioner, featuring two of my very favorites, Jet Li and Jason Statham. The gag of the film is a bit of a stretch (this film can be spoiled is you know it ahead of time), but it’s still much more interesting that the usual fare. Oh, and it stars two of my male crushes, Jet Li and Jason Statham.

So there we go. If you think that this was long and tedious, just you wait: I’ve got tons more reviews and recommendations and other lists…

Go me.

I just got off my ass and did the small amount of snow-shoveling required outside my house. It's basically my job, being the landlord and all, but due to my ever-present lack of energy, I usually fail on this front. Of course, it only being two inches of snow helped. And I have to admit, part of me was motivated by ensuring our mail carrier had an easy time with our path and stairs... I'm expecting a slew of packages (gifts for me, Woot) this week. Huzzah for conspicuous consumption.

Drugs

I take a lot of drugs… legal ones, that is; I used to engage in the illegal sort, in my early 20s, mostly, and I look back on that period of exploration fondly. But now, I take a lot of drugs, via prescription, for my medical/mental condition. The list (as I’m of a list-making mood this morning) these days is:

Cymbalta – antidepressant
Lamictal – balances my (barely-bipolar) mood swings
Androgel – not ingested, lest I want to die – a testosterone-enhancing gel
Doxepin – sleep-regulation
Adderall – legal speed

This also, until recently, included Bromocriptine, a drug usually given to people with Parkinson’s, which impedes the tumor in my pituitary gland’s stifling of natural testosterone production. We (my endocrinologist and I) have taken me off of it recently, to see if my years of taking this (heavy on the nasty side-effects) drug has indefinitely suppressed the tumor. I’m doing my usual schedule of blood tests over the next year, followed by an MRI, to see how this is going.

Anyway: I will address drug #5 this morning, the Adderall. It’s 4:30 AM as I write this, and it is partly to blame. Mind you, it’s a great drug to aid my otherwise zombie-like level of energy, it being a pretty straight-up amphetamine. Speed was never my thing during my drug years, but I need it now. For the past two weeks, however, I was without the stuff. Previous to that was just the first month that I’d started taking this drug, and that period was an elation, it giving me the energy to actually do things. I started cleaning my pig-sty of a room for the first time in eight years. Imagine how bizarre that sounds, and then apply it to eight years of 365 days. It’s been said that the cleanliness of one’s home speaks greatly of one’s emotional and psychological health, and I agree with that: I’ve been living in this state for about 3,000 days.

Like other speedy drugs (Ritalin, for instance, which was my motivating drug in recent months), Adderall is a tightly-controlled substance, requiring a new scrip every month. Unfortunately, my pharmaceutical company doesn’t deal well with our (my psychiatrist’s and my) attempts at dutifully submitting forms for pre-approval for controlled substances, and so I was off my speed for the past two+ weeks. It made a huge difference, but now I’m finally back on the stuff.

As I’ve been painfully short on go these recent days, when I finally got the new scrip filled, I popped one immediately upon getting the pills, though it was about 4PM (two days ago), and they’re supposed to be taken in the morning. Then I went over to my buddy Todd’s house to watch the big game (Pats vs. Giants), but omitted the standard beer/drinky-drinky from my diet, since I’m still dealing with post-cold effects (phlegm, anyone?). So instead I drank something I never drink: Dr. Pepper. Over the course of the night, like, 1.5 liters of the stuff. I finally went to sleep at 4AM that night.

For the rest of that day (yesterday), I was hung over from my binge, though I still managed to be somewhat productive (I installed me a new, digital thermostat… now I have to figure out how to program the fucking thing). But, here I am, writing this at 5AM, and I’m about to take another hit of speed. Still, even feeling hung over, this is miles better than not having the stuff in me.

Which brings me to a happy memory.

During Saturday morning cartoons (the classic 80s era), they used to actually run PSAs, and my favorite one was the following. Everybody sing along!

This is serious (serious)
We could make you delirious (delirious)
You should have a healthy fear of us (fear of us)
Too much of us is dangerous (no, no, no, nooooo!)
Doctors tell the pharmacy (pharmacy)
Types of pills that you will need (you will need)
And he knows the harm that we can be (we can be!)
If we're not taken carefully (no, no, no, nooooo!)
We're not candy (believe us!)
Even though we look so fine and dandy
When you're sick we come in handy
But, we're not candy (ooooh, no!)