Klyfix's Journal Thingy
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
klyfix's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Saturday, November 28th, 2009 | | 1:37 am |
Slurpasaur?
Okay, so I was taking a look at some stuff on an MST3K DVD; specifically a "Video Jukebox" featuring assorted musical bits from various episodes. One of the musical bits was "My Wild Irish Ireland" from their showing of Alien From L. A. which starred model Kathy Ireland, thus the song. That one sounded vaguely familiar but I wasn't sure if I'd seen it on MST3K or straight. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and from the description of the ending I remembered that I had in fact seen it on MST3K. I also noticed that there was a sort of sequel, Journey to the Center of the Earth. (not having much to do with the Verne story) and noticed in that article a link to a bit on "Slurpasaur." Slurpasaur? Turns out that " slurpasaur" is what you call one of those lizards (often with stuff stuck on them) that are used as dinosaurs in old bad SF movies. First used in a movie titled Brute Force directed by of all people D. W. Griffith. Generally not an impressive effect; I'm recalling the MST3K with King Dinosaur where when a character is calling a creature a T. Rex Crow observes "It's an iguana!" And thus I learn another bit of useless trivia. Yay!! | | Friday, November 27th, 2009 | | 11:23 pm |
Oh Goody, Christmas Music Season
I went out shopping and realized to my horror that since it is approaching Christmas we were now in Christmas Music Season. The store background music was "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" as sung by a young Michael Jackson. And we surely will be assaulted by a host of other annoying Christmas songs as we approach the twelve days of Christmas. So I figure we need something extreme... Because nothing says Christmas like Daleks. | | Thursday, November 26th, 2009 | | 5:15 pm |
| | Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | | 11:41 pm |
| | 2:24 am |
| | 2:16 am |
Japanese guy marries anime video game character...uhh, what?
See the bit here. Now, this is really an exercise in extreme geekery, and/or perhaps what the narrator describes as "performance art." Still, we live in weird times. Klyfix was reminded of the scene in Serenity where "Mr. Universe" marries a companion robot, but that was perhaps more serious. And geeky. But not real life. Yet. | | 2:04 am |
Alien Tech Copying
So I was watching the new V, which so far isn't blowing me away but is the only new this season broadcast show I'm watching other than (the much better IMHO) FlashForward. And there's a scene where one of the Visitors is receiving a message on a hand held device. And for the life of me it looks exactly like a hand held device from Earth: Final Conflict. The "global" from E:FC was compact and to use it you sort of pulled out the screen. Which, hmm, isn't that much more than modern tech but oh well... | | 1:27 am |
We're slow sometimes
Weird thing: I was looking at the box my DVD drive came in (quite a while ago) and noticed that it was a DVD burner. Didn't notice that before. Really, I didn't. I though that while it burned CDs it only played DVDs. Not sure what difference that makes, as my current All In Wonder card is only analog so I can't get anything out of the air and I'm mostly too lazy to hook up the stuff so I could record the signal from my VHS/DVD recorder that has a digital tuner. Granted that a DVD holds something like four times as much as a CD, but I don't do a whole lot of burning and have plenty of blank CDs if I need that. But maybe when I get a real income and get a digital tuner the DVD burner might be useful. And today I mailed off my taxes. Yes, my taxes that I should have taken care of back in April. Well, back then I had problems, and later I couldn't find my W-2 form. Finally got around to getting a replacement, downloaded the paper forms (can't efile after October 15th), printed them, filled them out, and mailed them. Didn't owe any money so I'm presumably not going to jail or anything. Did some shopping after dropping off my mail at the Brookline post office (no real good reason to do that, but felt like it) and shopped a bit at Trader Joe's.. I'm noticing that there are a number of things that are cheaper there than at the regular grocery store; there's more that's relatively cheap than just the famed " Two Buck Chuck" (which I don't buy as I don't drink alky bev). We're slow physically these days, also; can't run and have trouble trying to walk fast in order to, say, catch a trolley. And I'm finding that after sitting for more than maybe ten minutes I'm in some pain when I get up. I can walk farther than I used to, but I'm still tired. And mental function ain't really what it should be. Annoying, but not really sure if anything much can be done about it. And thus we have another installment of "Klyfix's Adventures," whee! | | Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | | 5:44 am |
Minority Religion and Leaders
I was flipping about the web as I often do and found something surprising. In the Wikipedia entry for the previous Prime Minister of Japan, Taro Aso, it's noted that he's Catholic and that seven Japanese Prime Ministers including the new PM have been Christians. This in a country that has almost no Christians. Now let's look at the US. All our Presidents have been at least nominally Christian. And those pretty much all Protestant; we've had a grand total of one Catholic President. When will we have another Catholic, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a pagan, or a proclaimed atheist? To be sure, we're talking rather different political systems with a Prime Minister not being voted on by the people as such while our President is, albeit indirectly (the Electoral College). I suppose that if we had a Parliamentary system it might well be easier for a Catholic or a non-Christian to head the government. On the other hand, we have a portion of our populace that seems to think that having somebody who isn't an Evangelical Protestant in power amounts to persecution of Christians. And we have people claiming that President Obama is actually a scary Muslim, although I suspect that for at least some of them they'd rather call him the "N word" but know that it's not acceptable in polite company. Oh well. Struck me funny, but I'm weird that way. | | Friday, November 20th, 2009 | | 6:26 pm |
Funny, well, or scary
A majority of Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama. Well, at least according to one poll. Seems a bit, well, insane actually. But Conspiracy Theories have been part of American thought for some time, and it seems from my observations that folk on the Right are particularly vulnerable to taking some of these things seriously. It's funny on one level, but with all the Birther nonsense and claims that health care reform is fascist and occasional people talking about revolutions and secessions and what-not, well, it is a little disconcerting. One wonders how far this stuff will go. Entertaining post on it here. | | Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | | 7:42 pm |
More Klyfix Weird Searching: Shango?
Saturday evening I was looking at the Hullabaloo site for the regular movie reviews; I find them entertaining and have to appreciate that the reviewer (a person other than main poster Digby) included a non-Miyazaki anime film ( Paprika) in a yearly Top Ten list. And this time he reviewed the movie 2012; the one about the world ending in three years because of the Mayan calendar and never mind that the Maya (I gather) say, "Umm, no, that not it." And at the beginning he has some lines from a song titled " Day After Day (It's Slipping Away)" which was by a band called Shango. Shango? Never heard of them. So I looked them up. And was then surprised to see that one of the members of the group (and a co-writer of the song) was Stuart Margolin. You know him; Angel Martin on The Rockford Files. He was also in Future World, and was recently in (and directed) the series Tom Stone ( Stone Undercover in the US) which was kinda like Rockford Files with a Canadian accent, eh? But I never knew before about his musical career. Go figure. It strikes me that this is how the 21st Century is different from the last; I manage to find out about a song, a band, and more about an actor from the semi-comfort of my own dwelling in a relatively short time. Thirty years ago I'd have had to dig through piles of books and magazines and still wouldn't have found this stuff and probably wouldn't have bothered. This is probably a Good Thing. | | 4:41 am |
The Strange Searches I Do
So I'm looking through my Magic The Gathering cards and find a " Kemuri-Onna" card. It's from the Kamigawa (Japanese myth and legend inspired) cycle and I wondered what the original creature of legend was. So I go searching and don't find it in the Wikipedia. I try just " Kemuri" and get a Japanese ska-punk (Think The Mighty Mighty Bosstones kinda, I guess) band. Okay, so we go to Google. And find a zillion hits for it, but pretty much all for the Magic card (including one Japanese page) and none enlightening about the original spirit beyond maybe something on the Japanese page about "smoke woman" ("onna" seems to be "woman" from what I can see) and something elsewhere about "smoke" which implies to me that "kemuri" might be "smoke." Now, another card from the Kamigawa set was Yuki-Onna; her I could find, and I'd happened to have seen an Inu-Yasha ep featuring her. And I stumbled onto a creature called Futakuchi-Onna by way of the comic here. But Kemuri-Onna seems harder to find. My bet is that the name does mean "smoke woman" and it's either obscure or much more known by another name. Enlightenment is welcomed, of course. | | 3:55 am |
That's New
Got a spam email from, of all places, Vietnam. Judging by the username "invecon," it's an investment con. :) Subject line is in Vietnamese, but I don't read Vietnamese. Perhaps a bit refreshing to get a spam from somewhere other than Russia. (And of course after typing that I got a Russian spam, go figure.) Kind of amusing as I'm presently watching "The Ascent of Money" and a big part of the ep involves the rise of China and Chinese investment in and profiting off the US. Remember the good ol' days when they were all Commies? | | Friday, November 13th, 2009 | | 3:49 pm |
Another thing that amused me: TPM (Politics)
From this posting: "I'm so old I can remember when ritualized symbolic execution of public officials wasn't cool. " - Josh Marshall The extent to which some Republicans and conservative have gone utterly bug-nuts since Obama became President is really funny, except for the whole danger to the welfare and survival of the nation aspect. | | 3:50 am |
| | 3:21 am |
Does This Make Any Sense? (Politics)
See the post here. Supposedly it cost about half a million dollars to check out Sarah Palin for the VP slot, and because McCain and Palin didn't win, she got stuck with the bill. I know that back in Rapid City a zillion years ago some employment services charged to place you with a job, but this is a bit ridiculous, isn't it? I'm probably missing something here.... Update/addition: The McCain campaign people dispute Palin's account.Given that she's seemed a bit truth challenged in the past, that would not surprise me. And it will make no difference as to her popularity with the right wing; go figure. | | Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | | 11:17 pm |
Umm, Banning "Meep"?
I've said on some occasions (I think) that there are people who are looking for reasons to be offended. And it appears that the principal of Danvers High is amongst them. For reasons not made clear, the school declared that any student who says "meep" or wears clothing with "meep" on it will be suspended. Oh, and the Danvers police are supposed to watch for this. Really. Now, the Wikipedia only gives two language related bits in relation to that; one being what the ghouls say in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Beaker the Muppet's whole vocabulary. The story on WBZ (channel 4 in Boston) says it's what the Road Runner says, but that's actually "Beep beep"; in the comic book that was his name. So a relatively meaningless word somehow became a sufficient threat to order in Danvers Massachusetts that students need to be suspended for saying it, and the police need to note it. Hmm. Or maybe it's actually jealousy of the attention neighboring Salem gets, so they figured doing something rather stupid would get them noticed. The story did apparently go international (okay, it's Canada, but still) after all. Oh well. It's one thing to punish disruptive kids, but rather another to suspend kids just for using a nonsense word not noted for usually having a vulgar meaning, yes? | | 5:35 pm |
Health Concerns and Holy Water and High Tech
BBC story here. Basically, concerns about H1N1 have led to discontinuing the use of traditional open holy water fonts, and an Italian entrepreneur has come up with a motion activated holy water dispenser. My horrid thought upon seeing the story on the BBC World News was something to the effect of "How are people going to fill their super-soakers so they can fight vampires?" Holy water isn't part of the flavors of Christianity in my background, but I do see the problem and the logic of the solution. Still, well... | | Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | | 8:46 pm |
Bombs for Power
Now this was a surprise, although perhaps it shouldn't have been. About ten percent of America's electricity comes from nuclear energy powered by material from retired nuclear weapons, and a big chunk of that from Russian warheads. Perhaps there was something of a "peace benefit"; after all, the US and Russia now have something like a fourth of the weapons we had at the peak of the Cold War and using the material for fuel makes sense. I'd bet this makes some people uncomfortable, but then again nuclear power makes some people unnerved no matter what. | | Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | | 11:52 pm |
Twenty Years After History Changed, Kinda
It's been around twenty years since the Berlin Wall came down, the various Communist states of central Europe started on the road to becoming Democracies, and the Soviet Union was on the road to dissolution. The end of the Cold War. Yeah, so are we all happy now? See the video here, from around back then. Goodness, isn't there a whole lot of optimism? "Watching the world wake up from history." Sounds good, doesn't it? There was talk of " The End of History.." It was more like waking up to history. The Cold War put some old animosities in stasis because of the broader conflict. No more Cold War, and Yugoslavia goes into civil war, Somalia dissolves into chaos, Zaire goes back to being the Congo and into perpetual civil war. Conflicts pop up in the old boundaries of the Soviet Union. Communism as a threat is replaced (mostly) by Islamic terrorism. And the US still spends billions upon billions on the military, but now it's more than the rest of the world combined. On the plus side, well... We aren't sitting and waiting for somebody to drop the Big One and do in our civilization. Europe is much freer than it was, and so is South America, and Taiwan and South Korea, for that matter. China and Vietnam are now cheap labor markets, not really threats. Those are good things, sure. But does the future look anywhere near as bright as it did back in 1989 or so? We may not have World War III, but we may have a global climate catastrophe. We might see civilization collapse from internal rot, from the rich becoming too rich and the rest of society deciding that crashing the system makes more sense than maintaining an order that is for the benefit of the few. We may see civilization go splat because it needs frontiers, to go beyond our home dirtball, and we're not really working in that direction. And that makes for Installment Two of Klyfix's Bummer. |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
klyfix's journal