perfidy

Or at least kiss me goodbye.

It seems that the bird flu is killing nearly everyone that gets it now, according to an aggregate of links at boingboing. Oh, shit. Remember last winter when I was sick for nearly six months with the mystery respiratory illness, gravely ill for three of them? And the winter before that when I had the six-month cold? And the winter before that and the one before that when I got bronchitis and pneumonia?

Gentlemen, I can outwit zombies, commies, and roving hordes of postnuclear mutants, but I have a really terrible, terrible feeling that when the bird flu comes knocking, my number's up. Nice knowin' ya.

[wik]I mean, seriously. This Guardian piece quotes experts estimating an 8-million death floor and a likely 200 million death worst case if this thing figures out how to transmit human-to-human. Which they think it might be doing.

[alsø wik] The comment thingy wouldn't accept a hyperlink, so I'll put it here. Because I can.

As an added bonus, it looks as if that strain of Asian Birdy Flu everyone is worried about is resistant to the primary antiviral drug, tamiflu. Everyone is stockpiling that just in case, but it looks like that won't help for jack.

A strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus that may unleash the next global flu pandemic is showing resistance to Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that countries around the world are now stockpiling to fend off the looming threat.

Last night, while watching some random documentary, I heard the narrator say that of the 700 million privately owned guns in the world, 230 million are in the US. That is so cool.

In an AP news dispatch from about an hour ago, as I type this, I expected to get the straight poop in a story entitled "Nearly 2 Million Flee Hurricane Rita".

Much of the article contained information I had already gotten from my neighbors and friends in town, or on the non-stop local news coverage of the impending storm. But it also contained nuggets like this:

"This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Judie Anderson, who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in the Houston suburb of LaPorte. "They say we've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina. Well, you couldn't prove it by me."

As one who looked at the prospects for evacuation 48 hours ago and decided the best answer was not to do so, for a variety of defensible reasons, I'd hope my response to Ms. Judie Anderson doesn't come across as too harsh.

Boiled down to its essence, it goes like this: "I'd be shocked, ma'am, if I could prove anything by you, other than that one needn't have an IQ over 60 in order to be given a driver's license in TX, or to be interviewed by the Associated Press. You've clearly either lost your mind, never driven in Houston, or are incapable of comprehending the implications of the number 2,000,000. Oh, and blow me, you stupid twat."

She and her fellow complainants, who seem to think that, during emergencies, the local superhighways simply expand like water balloons to accept all of the additional flow in a way that they're somehow not capable of doing at any other time in Houston (like, say, during "rush hour"), are representatives of a special breed. That breed? The cadre of mentally and otherwise challenged whining bastards who expect "the government", whomever the hell that is, to simply make all problems, no matter how nasty and intractable, disappear from view.

Houston's officialdom has so far covered itself with glory in the process of preparing the city for what could be a catastrophic event, and while I understand the frustration of those who expected magic pixie dust to be available to free them from the shackles of reality and spirit them to safety (and, by extension, to ensure that hotels were both available and reserved for their use, I'd guess), I don't share that frustration and I wish that such folk would keep the irrefutable proof of their own idiocy to themselves. It's funny, in a cartoonish sort of way, but it's about as helpful as the ability to burp the names of the items in the periodic table of elements. Cute though immature at the beginning, really tiresome at all points thereafter.

As the always-eloquent Velociman put it (sorry, Maps!):

...only the foolish, the impudent, the fucking dumbasses are left.

But he left out one class of folk, the realists like me (although I'm also impudent). There's only so much you can do, and leaving the available road and hotel space to those who indisputably needed to evacuate (those from Galveston, South Houston, and East Houston down by Galveston Bay and the Ship Channel) seemed and seems a reasonable and realistic choice.

And if Rita up and slams my part of town, that'll just be a lot of tough shit, but it won't change the fact that I believe I've made the only logical choice. It sure seems to beat the hell out of a 24 to 36 hour drive from Houston to Dallas or points north, and the fact that drive takes so long has less than nothing to do with some failure of planning on the part of some nanny governmental agency, local or otherwise.

Oh, and for one of the other complainants in the story:

"I've been screaming in the car," said Abbie Huckleby, who was trapped on Interstate 45 with her husband and two children as they tried to get from the Houston suburb of Katy to Dallas, about 250 miles away. "It's not working. If I would have known it was this bad, I would have stayed at home and rode out the storm at home."

I'd suggest she should have had a look at the tee-vee to learn that she wasn't the only one leaving town. I'd then have suggested getting to a library if need be and using a computer. There's at least one way from Katy to Dallas that doesn't involve more than 3 miles of highway, dear, and it only adds 50 miles to the trip. But I suppose that's "the government's fault", too.

Welcome to the physical world, ladies.

OK - on the bright side, New Orleans should be spared too much more of the-rain-they-shorely-don't-need. On the other hand, Rita looks like she's coming straight up the poop-shute of my adopted hometown.

On the bright side in a parallel universe, the original thinking was that Houston would be on the "dirty side" of the hurricane, subject perhaps to a few tornadoes, but is no longer projected to be so situated. On the fourth hand, it looks like we'll be spared that indignity because the eye of this projected category 5 'cane is slated to go right over through Houston. Day-yam.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are several ideas for new t-shirts. These are complicated, front-and-back designs so pay attention:

Shirt Number One, Front:

Skateboarding is not a Crime

Shirt Number One, Back:

But it is fucking annoying

Shirt Number Two, Front:

Hurting you is the last thing I want to do

Shirt Number Two, Back:

But it is on the list

Shirt Number Three, Front:

I'm not staring at your tits

Shirt Number Two, Back:

But I glanced at them long enough that I could pick them out of a lineup

As I mentioned earlier, I had some doubts on the veracity of the geek test that geeklethal found and posted.

So, I found some other tests, and took them. Here are the results:

• The hundred question nerd test: I have 50.0% nerd in me
• The five hundred question nerd test: I have 61.2% nerd in me
• The Ludicrous Speed nerd test: 59.523809523809525% nerd blood flows through my veins
• The blessedly short nerd test: my score is 7, straddling the nerd/non-nerd border
• A geek test: I have 49% geek in me (though only 6% have more)
• The geek purity test: I have 30.2% geek in me
• An English geek test: I am 65% geek in me according to this wanker
• And finally, This geek/nerd/dork test which assigns you to one category. I am a nerd, a little bit of a geek, and not really a dork at all.

Weighting the five hundred question test double due to its length, my average nerd score is 58.9%.

I, too, took the test, and I, too, have a few "issues" about the construction of the test.

That said, and giving full effect to my relatively advanced age (which I think was used to scale my result down a bit), I arrived at this result:

I'm going to have my daughter take the test, and the dead scientists, extreme computer arcana, and periodic table will likely understate her result, but she's definitely nerdier than I, no matter the reported result.

For what it's worth, I scored pretty high on the test. I have some issues with the construction of the test, but will forego a full out analysis as that would be a bit geeky. I will note, however, that the test is a bit skewed by the emphasis on computer stuff. The fact that I work in the IT bidness had a dramatic effect on my score. That and my ability to recognize old, dead scientists and obscure chemical elements. A proper geek test would focus on mindsets as well as skillsets. And would include probing questions about geekly matters like Star Wars v. Star Trek, LoTR and velvet tiger art.

Yeah I know it's Monday. I had some work-related mandatory fun that required a shortened Friday last, so couldn't post. And besides, I like the alliteration

So you remember how awhile back there was this big competition betwixt the ministers, to see who was the biggest dork? And do you remember me not winning? I sure do.

Funny thing about that- we needn't have bothered. We all put alot into that contest, with the gnashing and the repressed memories and the off-the-cuff expository riffing. Alot of psychic effort, respectable writing, and non-working for about a week at our real jobs was the cost, and we all thought the exercise nominally worth it.

Coulda just taken the nerd quiz in like 5 minutes:

68% scored higher (more nerdy), and 32% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: Not nerdy, but definitely not hip.

Not nerdy, but not hip. But nerdy is mostly hip. And hip is always hip, 'cept for when a Big Shift comes and what was hip when time stopped for you in 1987 make you exceptionally nerdy now. But sort of by definition, hip must = hip.

So I'm perenially outside both camps. Where it's cold. And hurty.

No, really. From this nifty and cleverly named job predictor thingy I picked up from Rocket Jones I learned that I could, even should have been a Brain Surgeon. Sadly, when I enter my actual, full name rather than my admittedly goofy nom de net it tells me that my true vocation is Circus Freak. Playing around a bit, I confirmed my suspicions about my long detested middle name:

Walter, your ideal job is a Rear End of Panto Cow

I don't know exactly what a Panto Cow is, but it can't be good.

To avoid any potential shyness on the part of my coworkers, here is what they should be doing:

• Johno, your ideal job is a Office Gopher. Strangely, that is very similar to what he actually does. This thing is good!
• Patton, your ideal job is a teasmaid. I'm not sure what that is precisely, but it sounds vaguely gay.
• Geeklethal, your ideal job is a Dentist. I am sure what that is precisely, and it sounds vaguely gay.
• Ross, Your ideal job is a Professional Tramp. No doubt about it, a bit swish. And slutty, too. I wonder if they've nationalized tramps in Canada?

Well, there you have it. Three fags, a gopher and a brain surgeon. That's us in a nutshell.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to announce that today for the first time I benched over 200 pounds. Well, it was 210 pounds on a machine, since I don't have a regular spotter and I'm accident prone enough to kill myself good if I try to bench with freeweights, but still. Freeweights, I could probably do 200 for a rep or two, but I'm probably not going to try and find out any time soon, so let's call it the nice round psychologically significant 200 and have done with it.

This is especially gratifying considering that when I started lifting eighteen months ago I could bench about a third of that, so I think we can say that progress has been made.

I'm gonna be ri-ri-rrr-ri-ripped!

I was informed this week that Hooters has added a kid's menu to their line of offerings. Which is funny, you know, because Hooters has always had a kid's menu. Just mainly for infants.

I'm not especially a religious cat, and lean toward agnosticism at my most upbeat. But I am capable of respecting, and on a good day appreciating, the art that comes from spiritual expression.

I'm not sure how I ended up with this cross, because some of the questions assumed dogmatic knowledge on my part that I don't possess. But I knew the difference between "Ben Hur" and "The Passion of the Christ" so took a stab.

The one question that really threw me though was something about which material bests suits my personality... I thought about it, and couldn't decide betwixt marble or clay. I went with marble because it's cold.

I think I like my cross: simple, devoid of pretension (the object itself, I'm focusing on here), hand made, and just slightly weird:

You are St Brigid's Cross: St. Brigid is an Irish saint who hand-wove a cross out of rushes she found by the river. She made the cross while explaining the passion of our Lord to a pagan man. 

This is a public thank-you to the Buckethead Clan for the very generous (and thoughtful!!!) birfday present. However, Buckethead may wish to avoid contact with Mrs. Johno for a while: in her words, you are "so dead!"

Between that gift and the homebrewing kit I bought myself with the rest of my birthday loot, I'd say I'm going straight to hell. See you all there.

Working my way through Francis J. Bremer's John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father, I come by this tidbit:"[in the Massachusetts Bay colony,] [m]arriage was rejected as a sacrament and became a civil ceremony performed by local magistrates."

Fascinating. The effect of reading books like Bremer's is always to remind the reader that the history of religion is far less monolithic than one assumes at first glance. We talk about "The Puritans" and "Puritanical Morals" without understanding, or at least acknowledging, that there was no such single thing as "Puritianism." The congregations of Stour were not the congregations of Ely were not the congregations of Delft were not the congregations of Salem. Each group, indeed each Puritan, carried with them their own particular ideas of gospel. Though they agreed on major principals (e.g. predestination, the perfidy of Rome and ceremony, the depravity of the Arminian and Antinomian heresies, the primacy of scripture and the duty of good Christians to be living examples for the unconverted), they disagreed on a million minor points. They were protestants, after all!

I always have to chuckle at modern churches or religious groups who lay claim to the heritage of the Puritans. When you look closely you find funny things that subvert that aim. For example, the fact that opponents of gay marriage who object on religious grounds to that innovation frequently point to the unbroken primacy of Christian marriage under the auspices of church in Western society, (Christian nation, founded by Christians, God God God all the time forever amen etc. etc.) but in Massachusetts - the first and most serious religous experiment attempted by colonists on these shores - marriage was by law a civil ceremony divorced from the church even in 1630, a time when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was 100% Christian crusaders aiming to be a beacon of Godliness to the world and shunning from society those who fell short.

Which, by the way, I never would have suspected.

[wik] I would point out by the way to smarty pantses who would argue that civil society = religious society in the MBC that that simply wasn't true. Church leaders who became civil leaders were asked to resign one or the other posts.

[alsø wik] Am I the master of the run-on sentence with nested dependent clauses, or what? I frigging rule!!!

Over 2100 gods online! Your online source for divininty of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ethnicities. It's Godchecker.

Merely a taste of the divine tastiness you wil find at godchecker:

FAFNIR: He was the son of HREIDMAR the wizard, together with two brothers, OTR and REGIN. Shape changers all. When OTR was in otter form, LOKI, who fancied a nice bit of otter to go with his fish, killed him by mistake.

This was a big mistake since he turned up at HREIDMAR's house in the company of HONIR and ODIN bearing a strangely familiar otter skin. The wizard family thought LOKI was a rotter. Now LOKI, HONIR and ODIN were in deep trouble.

LOKI, using all his considerable cunning, suggested a hefty ransom fee to repay his debt. This was agreed and the other two Gods were taken hostage until his return. Knowing where ANDVARI the Dwarf King kept his treasure, LOKI forced the dwarf to hand it all over, even down to a special gold ring he'd just forged. ANDVARI just had time to curse the ring so it would bring doom to whoever owned it.

LOKI never got to own it - in fear of his life and those of his compatriots he took it straight to the wizards, who released the Gods after a quick gloat.

FAFNIR gloated the most and was so inflamed with greed he turned himself into a dragon and stole the hoard, hiding it in a mountain lair where he could carry on gloating. He killed his father and exiled his brother REGIN, who by chance ran into the hero SIGURD.

The curse was now working overtime. SIGURD ambushed and killed FAFNIR, taking the treasure and pocketing the ring to use for a planned engagement to BRYNHILD. Untimely ends followed shortly.

Mythology with an edge, the sacred cut with sarcasm. It's crazy, it's wacky, it's Godchecker.

Interesting. Notice the four-way tie for second bewtwixt crow, bear, eagle, and fox. Absent from the possibilities are both rats and capybaras. And their nipples.

Which animal totem best suits you?
created with QuizFarm.com

James Doohan is dead at the ripe old age of 85. We of course all know him as "Scotty" from Star Trek, but did you also know that he lost a middle finger storming the beach on D-Day? Wonder how that happened.

I tell you now something which could endanger my life, should the wrong entities take umbrage. Fans of James Doohan and his work; rest easy. He'll be back. Thanks to his co-status as war hero and science fiction screen actor, his name is near the top of a very select list of personages who, upon decease, will find the standing quantum probability waves that define their being transplanted into one of several models of giant space robot. Doohan is not slated to be a fighting space robot; he is to be one of the ambassadors. And as such, he is both more dangerous, and to be more trusted, than his fighting counterparts. Perhaps we can turn him. Perhaps the heart of old Scotty could still beat (metaphorically speaking) inside the titanium-alloy shell that will soon house his essence. Perhaps he could be made to fight on the side of... humans?... in the war that is to come.

Or should I just lay off for a while from eating the stuff in my fridge that's growing blue-green fuzz?

Ebonics, recognized as a distinct language by Oakland officials in the '90s, is getting new life in San Bernardino. Educators there are recommending that Ebonics be present in its schools' curricula.

District officials are aiming down two paths: one includes Ebonics in supplemental reading guides; the other treats Ebonics speakers as ESL students. The attitude is that either can only improve those students' academic showing. Judging by the stats in the article, it certainly can't do worse for them.

Not quite willing to roll up my sleeves and wade into a thick, charged discussion of the racial politics and societal chasms afoot in a decision like that, I'd rather go to Gizoogle and imagine the Norton Anthology for OGs. Will Gizoogle continue to be for funnies, or get a new career a serious study guide?

"The bustin' of tha third day dawned fizzle n fresh...Ho, ho! fizzy all yo furthest bounds, pizzy ye now in, ye bold billows of mah whole foregone life, n top this one piled comba of mah death n shit! Towards thee I rizzoll, tizzle pimpin' but unconquer'n whale; ta tha last I grapple wit thee; frizzom hell's heart I stab at thee; fo` hate's sakes I spiznit mah last breath at thee if you gots a paper stack. Sizzay all coffins n all hearses ta one common pool! n since neitha can be mine, let me thizzay tow ta pieces, while stizzill chas'n thee, though tied ta thee, thou damned whale so you betta run and grab yo glock! Thizzay I give up tha spear!"

And while we're at it:

To be, or not ta be- that is tha question:
Whetha 'tis nobla in tha mind ta motherfucka
The chillin' n arrows of outrageous fortune
Or ta takes arms against a sea of troubles,
And by mackin' end tizzle. To die- ta sleep-
No more; n by a sleep ta say we end
The heartache, n tha thousand natural shocks
Tizzle flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummizzles
Devoutly ta be wish'd. To dizzy ta sleep.
To sleep- perchance ta dream: ay, there's tha rub!
For in tizzy sleep of death whiznat dreams may come
Wizzy we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Mizzay give us pause. There's tha respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear tha whips n scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, tha proud man's contumizzles
The pangs of despis'd love, tha law's delay,
The insolence of office, n tha spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
Wizzle he himself might his quietus makes
Wit a bizzle bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt n sweat bitch a weary life,
But thizzat tha dread of sum-m sum-m afta death-
The undiscova'd country, from whose bourn
No brotha returns- puzzles tha wizzill,
And makes us ratha bear those ills we have
Than fly ta otha thizzat we know not of?
Thus conscience does makes cowards of us all,
And thus tha native hue of resolizzles
Is sicklied o'er wit tha pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of bootylicious pizzy n moment
Wit this regard they currents turn awry
And lose tha nizzle of action.- Siznoft you now!
The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all mah sins rememb'red.

Over at Naked Villainy, I see that the Maximum Leader has been sorted. He is a Ravenclaw. I, however, am:

Even though I prefer black,
I'm a Gryffindor!

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of book six of the Chronicles of Harry Potter tomorrow, obstreperous papist interference bedamned. Hopefully it will arrive early, so that I can read it while the wifey is off doing her hillbilly twangy music up in Harper's Ferry.

Which, by the way, would have been a much better location for our nation's capital than the malarial swamp they actually picked.