Marilee @ 165:
I stand surprisingly corrected...but I have to ask, what possible purpose does it serve? I am certainly not the most "outdoors-y" person under the sun, but I've done my fair share of "outdoors-y" activities with very "outdoors-y" types...and no one has ever been able to either explain it's purpose or recount a practical use for it...
..and you have TWO no less! I stand intrigued. I always figured someone needed such a thing somewhere, as it was important enough to be included on your standard 1980's era SWK; but please tell me what it is used for, I feel very ignorant in "the ways of the awl".
(I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic, I am genuinely both curious and delighted that it has a practical use. I've wanted to know what earthly purpose it served for YEARS.)
Kathryn @ 133:
THIS is why I HOPE to someday get a door to door religion peddler. It won't be unique, but it will be fun.
The follow up is also a good time waiting to happen.
Sarah @ 105:
Personally, I'd have to say "War and Peace" is about the best novelization of Napoleonic-era life in Russia that I've ever read.
Andrew @ 55:
First, get one with a lanyard hook.
Second, I'd have to say that in my opinion (which counts for little if anything at all) the best knife is always the one that someone gives you...I had a Swiss Army Knife for about two decades based on it's status as "coolest gift I was given on my 11th birthday" and NOT on it's merits of practical usefulness.
After it broke from over sharpening and one-too-many tumbles down a rock wall after falling out of my pocket (no lanyard ring) I tried several alternatives.
For my personal taste, a leatherman tool with the needle-nose pliers in the fold up is the perfect multi-use tool. They make several that are durable, fit nicely in the hand, and have as few or as many "extras" as you need (but seriously, NO ONE needs an awl on their pocket knife).
For boating I'd get one with a nice serrated blade and a corrosion resistant finish. And a lanyard hook.
Trust me on the lanyard hook.
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I used to have ellipsis-itis...but now I seem to have developed hyper-hyphenation-disease...is there a reliable and effective cure someone could recommend?
Two things:
First, I realize most people dismiss it as mindless zombie horror move schlock, but I REALLY liked "28 Days Later." And if "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (which I enjoyed) is SF based on premise, then 28DL can't be far off the mark either. And it had logical zombies; come on, is there anything better?
Second, I'd really like to see a decent production of Clark's "The City and the Stars" (and yes, I do mean the newer version and not the prior "Against the Fall of Night" storyline). THAT would probably make my top 25 some day.
Also, for a list of the best SF, this is hideously short on great videogames. Regardless of what you think about the series as a whole (or even videogames as a form of entertainment), Final Fantasy VII was beautiful, epic and full of the kinds of SF moments that a whole generation will remember.
...And Buffy, B5 and Stargate are all missing from the list as well. I guess that was more than two things. Oh well.
Xopher #439: Even using your definition (which actually correlates to a common pejorative noun used in MMORPG games and makes me wonder which begat which), I STILL don't think that was the allusion she was looking for.
Even if he did have two "Twinkies" of his very own AND they were BOTH stuffed inside his grey slacks (still not entirely out of the realm of possibility) the rest of the conversation still plays out awkwardly. It does add a bit of subtext to the whole "take it up the Ho-Ho" line though...actually, maybe you're on to something...
Either way, the resulting visual aids using real Hostess baked goods violate many expressed and implied rules of decency and good taste.
Damn funny, but a violation none the less.
Xopher #439: Even using your definition (which actually correlates to a common pejorative noun used in MMORPG games and makes me wonder which begat which), I STILL don't think that was the allusion she was looking for.
Even if he did have two "Twinkies" of his very own AND they were BOTH stuffed inside his grey slacks (still not entirely out of the realm of possibility) the rest of the conversation still plays out awkwardly. It does add a bit of subtext to the whole "take it up the Ho-Ho" line though...actually, maybe you're on to something...
Either way, the resulting visual aids using real Hostess baked goods violate many expressed and implied rules of decency and good taste.
Damn funny, but a violation none the less.
ala #414: It's the "Rubenesque" horse that just SLAYS me for some reason. The ballet oriented hippos from Fantasia have nothing over on that horse when it comes to proportion, style and a clear and delicate grace. And it made me snort out loud, so maybe I'm just biased.
ala #360: I've now had a detailed discussion with a half-dozen people of varying levels of dirty-minded proclivity; and NONE of us think that using the plural twinkies instead of the more obvious (and singular) twinkie makes any sense.
A twinkie is a spongy tube with a creamy white filling. Having a twinkie is a rather obvious phallic allusion. Having more than one seems to imply vestigial genitalia.
While there's certainly a spot on someone's bookshelves somewhere for a "highbrow lit" exploration of the intersection of romantic attraction and abnormal sexual organs, based on the excerpt at hand I have to think that wasn't really the allusion she was going for.
I am tempted to illustrate all of this with a blog post and pictures (ala the "Helm's Deep in Candy" Particle) using actual Hostess baked goods...but I'm quite sure that once we get to the Twinkie vs. Ho-Ho visual I'd be breaking decency laws somewhere.
That somewhere might well be my own mind.
I was wondering what is the specific purpose of the two coke bottles around the neck?
I get the rest of it, but...just for the added fatigue?
WOW, do I hate re-reading a comment after I post it. Of all the forums on which to foist a brutally gormless sentence, this is the one I fear the most.
I long for a way to revise my poor sentence structure, but I'll settle for pointing out my errors:
A pickup truck, two too many uses of "as" in a single sentence, and my long running abuse of ellipsis...
...ugh.
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On another note, my mother assures me that her father (the grandfather in question) used the word "dunsail" long before Star Trek ever aired.
It can't be directly from Star Trek, as my fiction-hating conservative grandfather used it once in reference to an "unnecessary" part of his pickup (the tail-gate to be specific).
As he would have had NO Star Trek frame of reference (as he loathed any TV but Jeopardy and Wheel-of-Fortune), and used it in a context as part of his everyday speech, I'm quite sure it predates any specific "Captain Kirk" evocation.
As for it's original source, I personally conjecture that it is some kind of old mariner phrase...big surprise there...
Why don't we declare war anymore? The answer has several factors at play.
First, there hasn't been another F.D.R. moment before congress. Bush came the closest after 9-11 but without a clear villain to blame...no president wants to make the speech that is almost as good as the "day that will live in infamy" speech.
Second, we haven't had a single, uber-evil enemy that you can look at, size up, and make a war bill over. The only enemies that are evil enough to make war with now are ideological; i.e. drugs, terror, hunger, poverty, etc. Abstracts make for nice war targets because the definition of winning (and more importantly losing) is as hazy and insubstantial as the target itself.
Third, and in my opinion the most important: international law and the United Nations Conventions (to which we are a signature nation) require that you fix what you break in a war. Such a huge responsibility loadstone doesn't exist for police actions, and U.N. Resolution enforcement engagements.
What president wants to start a war when all the money you were gonna spend on more bombs and guns and oil-deals and Halliburton catering contracts has to be used to actually fix roads and power plants and water treatment systems in a audit-able and open way? Where's the money-laundering...I mean fun...where's the fun in that?
Post-U.N. Ratification, any actual-honest-to-god-declared-voted-consented war became a legal definition with international law restrictions, neutral body oversight, and financial repercussions. Anything short of that is still essentially negotiable.
The executive branch prefers to maintain as much independent control as possible, so declaring war is counter-intuitive.
Oddly enough, in this country we still train our solders and military leaders in colleges of war. Real, honorable, legal war. And we keep electing executive branch representation that want anything but that.
We the people...
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Personally I blame the decreasing status of history in the american classroom over the last half century. We are doomed to repeat the history we ignore or simply can't understand, and the similarities between early twenty-first century America and the late-decline Roman Republic give me shivers.
I would like to take this moment to nominate "congresscritters" as the best new word to be born to the public at large on Making Light since "Disemvowel".
I have a new word, and I will use it with much vigor and smirking. Thank you, Claud Muncey.
BSD:
I'd agree with you if you did a search/replace for "serious" and put in "realistic".
Paul/Xopher:
I don't object to someone agreeing with me at the end, but I'm always suspicious of a "joke on me" when I can't understand how they get there.
But I think Xopher's baseball analogy is almost "Roberts-ian" in it's eloquence.
Xopher, that's the best suggestion I've heard in a LONG time. If that motion needs a second, I'm here for you...
...all in favor?
I have figured out my problem with this piece. He starts out his analysis sections with position statements I generally don't agree with and closes with conclusions that I generally do agree with.
The whiplash keeps leaving me with a sense that either I am misunderstanding his conclusions (because I don't follow his steps to get there); or I feel like I am missing some great joke of sarcasm at my expense.
Oddly enough, I suspect that his audience was uncomfortable with the speech for the exact opposite reasons. They probably loved his prefatory opinions, and hated his conclusions.
So, at the end of the day he probably made a few people think, even if he didn't change any minds overnight. For that alone he deserves a cookie.
I'm going to embarrass myself here with an admission: I have a hard time following him.
At first he seems to be bootlicking the elder shrub and all he stood for, and then he totally sacks jr. and his minions.
I agree with a lot of what he has to say at a first glance level, but I always find it hard to trust the evaluations of a guy who opens with statements I don't agree with. The elder Bush directly or indirectly created a large portion of the worst foreign policy problems we deal with today, and this guy clearly loves him...it makes me distrust his evaluation and analysis skills.
Which then shades my thinking for everything else he has to say. It makes parsing the criticisms very difficult for me.
In another comment thread a smart person pointed out that perhaps his praise of the elder Bush was just a tool to get past the audiences' own set of idea filters, and that makes sense, but I still have issues with his starting frame of reference.
Somehow I need to turn down the gain on my own idea filters and give it a second (or third read) I guess.
Murder? Probably not.
Negligent Homicide? You bet your ass.
Somewhere there is a lawyer who will litigate on behalf of a victim's family. Michael Brown my try to use the defense "I can't be held civilly liable for the performance of my federal duties"; but I want him to have to make that defense in court...
...In front of victims and their families...And TV cameras...And the world.
I want him to answer for his hubris, his gross malfeasance and his simple lack of human decency and compassion.
Then I want the guy who hired him to answer the same charges.
I don't want the rats to pack, I want them led out in handcuffs.
I agree with the sentiment from the Rove thread; if sexual impropriety is an impeachable offense, isn't knowingly aiding in the cover-up of a federal crime significantly worse?
Apparently felonious is the new conservative.
jh,
And that makes sense. I was merely using an opportunity to use the phrases link-karma and blog-buddhas in a sentence. Is commenting for self-amusement a legitimate use of internet electrons?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 8 |
| 2006 | 3 |
| 2005 | 36 |
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