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October 30, 1999
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In the tradition of Angel, Special Victims Unit and Joanie Loves Chachi, I've decided to spin-off my more blog-centric and me-centric material into a seperate sub-blog (I'm making up new words left and right!). If you're interested in the web-based adventures of this naturalized citizen of the Weblog Nation, then enjoy "Blog, Blog, Blog...". If you just want more middlebrow news, links, comments, humor and creative ceiling treatments, then read on.
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October 29, 1999
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Life-Off-Line Department
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Putting together my costume for the office Halloween party tomorrow.
The high concept: Computer Pirate.
I've got a pair of black-plastic rimmed nerdy glasses to be worn over a black eye patch...
Poofy shirt and pantaloons worn with a pocket protector full of pens and, of course, white socks...
My plastic sword is prominantly labelled "Anti-Virus Device"...
And instead of a parrot on my shoulder, I've got a penguin.
Wonder if it would be going too far if I had a jpeg leg?
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Murphology
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Let me assure the Brunching Shuttlecock named Sjoberg (note to myself: get the char number for that o-with-the-thingys-over-it), who just wants a metalaw to be associated with his name, that when I put my Murphy's Law Library up, his contributions will be promiantly featured. (thanx BradRealestate) I like making somebody's dream come true. Makes me feel like Richard Simmons. No, not really. Not at all. Strike that.
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The North Hollywood Reporter
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From somewhere in the hidden depths of the TimeWarner conglomerate, comes the news that the TNT channel will be making a four-hour mini-series based on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Only four hours? Sounds like the production's actually based on the Cliffs Notes. I just wonder... has Ted Turner ever actually read the book? Just asking.
Hooray for Hollyweb: Ask Jeeves is partnering with former big time agent and the-guy-Disney-paid-millions-to-STOP-working-for-them Michael Ovitz. That's gotta be the first time a butler got an agent since Sebastian Cabot on Family Affair.
And then there's the new partnership between Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard to do web-based entertinment. Let's see: The Canonical Shindler's List? OpieCam?
Why the partnership? I think they needed to pool all their assets to be able to buy the domain pop.com from a cybersquatter.
Also note, fifth paragraph of the press release, they're working with Lycos. And you thought Tripod's pop-up ads were bad NOW; just wait for the Jurrasic Park tie in.
And a writer for Reuters (say that three times fast) has an analysis of the Chicago Hope s-word incident. Nothing you didn't hear from me two weeks ago. Have I been plagiarized, or am I just getting too damn sensitive?
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Side Trip
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In the Cliffs Notes website, you can buy downloadable notes for 190 books. No Ayn Rand there, but one of the offerings is simply titled "Heinlein's Works". Scary.
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Topical Convergence
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Rumors are running rampant over some kind of alliance among several of the smaller web-zines, ranging from Feed to Suck (now there's combination of words I've never used before). But who needs a formal alliance when Winerland gives you salonherringwiredfool?
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I Have NOT been Slashdotted
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On October 23rd/24th I posted:
Jornbot found out from alt.internet.search-engines what Lycos fetches when you have it search for "InfoSeek": a page boasting all the features and benefits of Lycos' search and other services (at the bottom of the page, they do give you links to really search for "infoseek", or go directly to InfoSeek's home page, or just send Lycos a nasty e-mail). You get the same kind of page if you inquire "Excite" or "Yahoo".
I remember Mr.Roboto just posted one of his one-line entries referring to "Evil Lycos" and Infoseek; (his item has since expired, not a keeper) I did some research myself on Excite and Yahoo as well as the search engines that DIDN'T get blocked out.
Then, on October 27th, the beloved repository of all things nerdy and geeky, Slashdot posted this:
from the aint-that-harsh dept.
rockville writes "I found this from Robot Wisdom, then I tried it myself: when you search Lycos for Excite, Yahoo, or Infoseek, you get a pretty strange result " I guess I can understand the reasons behind doing that, but it still feels kinda wrong. What do you think?
Did I miss out on a little credit where credit is due?
Or am I getting a little overdue for a remedial life-getting?
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October 27, 1999
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Creepy political news department
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I'm gonna try to go fast through this, so we can get to the fun stuff...
Remember when I told you that Ken Starr's resignation didn't mean it's Camryn Mannheim Karyoke time? Well, Starr's successor, Robert Ray, used to work for Rudy Giuliani, who's running against Hillary for Senate.
Now, if Clinton is responsible for so many deaths, why are these people still standing? Or am I the only one who looks at the "Body Count", notes how many of them are friends, allies, advisors and bodyguards of the Clintons, and thinks: Doesn't it look more like the hit list for the Enemies of Bill? I'm no Clinton apologist: I can halfway believe the stoies that he's talking about how he's going to stay in power after his term expires, but that's probably just the deranged mutterings of his syphilitic psychosis. (And why are the people who published that story hiding behind a numeric URL? Who IS 216.46.238.34?!?)
But if one story is making your office's SgtMunch repeatedly say "I told you so", it's the true story behind the Belgrade Chinese Embassy bombing, a story ignored by most of the media, except for Ethel
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As long as we're getting paranoid, let's talk about The X-Files
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Looks like Yahoo's web target marketing has shot itself in the foot: When I checked out this story on the cancelled shows, the page's banner ad proclaimed: "Ryan Caulfield/Harsh Realm - Friday Nights on Fox - Always on Fox.com". Yeah, sure.
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So what do you think the chances are X-Filer Chris Carter will sign on to produce after this year when his OTHER show, Harsh Realm, was cancelled after only three weeks?
It took three full seasons before Fox gave up on Carter's previous Friday night attempt, Millenium, the troubled series with troubling themes, that made jarring changes in direction each season (in the process killing off the show's most likeable and/or interesting characters). After all that time, money and allegedly creative talent invested in the show, cancelling it a few months before the event of the show's title seemed to me one of the early signs that Fox execs were starting to lose it, and the instant failure and abandonment of its relacement confirmed that judgement.
Of course, this kind of show would have fervent fans on the web, including a couple who set out to produce a "virtual season" of episode scripts to continue the story of Millenium's main character, Frank Black, into the year 2000.
Then, less than a week after Salon ran the story on the "virtual season", Carter told the L.A. Times he was doing a VSE of X-Files to bring back Frank Black and finish his story (no word yet how close to New Year's the episode will air). Way to treat your fervent fans, Chris. Have you noticed YOUR bodyguards dying off lately?
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I do have something to add to Ethel the Blog's survey of James Bond parodies. There was another Jewish James Bond take-off besides Loxfinger and it was a comedy album: James Blonde, Secret Agent 006.95 (Marked Down From 007.00) The Man from T.A.N.T.E. with Dr. Nu? & Goldflaker by Marty Brill and Larry Foster, who also did a response to the classicFirst Family titled At Home with That Other Family (the Khruschevs). In my youth, I owned all three of those peices of vinyl. And I really appreciated him mentioning one of my personal all-time favorite movies: The President's Analyst. If I ever do a SERIOUS epinion, that's what I'll tell the world about.
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October 24 - 26, 1999
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I just posted a tongue-firmly-in-cheek response to a single line in JJ-Dynomite!-G's review of Cartoon Network, dissing one of my personal guilty pleasures. It's supposed to be an illustration of someone taking himself too seriously; I just wonder how many readers will take it too seriously. Well, here goes:
One Swell Foop presents: "Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Never Get Sucked Into Jet Engines", a defense of Cartoon Networks "I Am Weasel".
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Did 'ja notice, fellow epinionators, that epinions is part of the new Lycoshop site? (Inconspicuously placed in the site menu under Product Reviews) I went in to see if you really could access my eparodies, and whose face pops on the front page as featured reviewer? Hi, CHUQ!
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DISCLAIMER: Let me state unequivocably that One Swell Foop does NOT endorse, encourage or even tolerate violent acts made in the name of my personal opinions, BUT...
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Ever been at a gathering where so many illustrious, important and/or indispensible people had gathered that you think: "If somebody dropped a bomb on this room..." and shudder? Now think about the upcoming Deformed Party (oops, I mean Reform Party) Convention, with Pat Buchanan, Donald Trump, Jesse Ventura and Ross Perot in the same room, think of the bomb and try not to smile.
By the way, Reform Party is on my OXY2K list. Because I take into consideration words with multiple definitions, like Party, so are Communist Party and Republican Party, but if Georgedubbya wins the nomination, I may reconsider the last one.
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DISCLAIMER: Let me state unequivocably that One Swell Foop does NOT personally reccommend lying as a method to overcome injustice, BUT...
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Here's a survey that says 58 percent of doctors would lie to HMOs to keep them from denying treatment they consider lifesaving. And my response is ONLY FIFTY-EIGHT PERCENT?!? If a doctor truly believes in his oath to "do no harm", then he should be lying to HMOs on a regular basis!
P.S.: Example of web-based target marketing making me feel like the bulls-eye's on MY chest...
Banner ad atop the YahooNews page with this story is for the "Keep Big Government Out of Your Medicine Cabinet" campaign mounted by a legal-drug-cartel - excuse me, pharmaceutical industry group trying to push a medicare drug program that gives them the biggest profits. Talk about medical lying! Their URL is a strong arguement for "truth-in-domain-names" legislation: bettermedicare.org (I refuse to link directly link to them).
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DISCLAIMER: Let me state unequivocably that One Swell Foop is NOT a qualified investment advisor and takes no responsibility for anyone taking his advice, BUT...
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Microsoft and Intel are joining the Dow Jones Industrial Index. It's the first time Dow Jones will include non-NYSE stocks, and considering how mutual funds and 401Ks are chasing the stocks on the indexes, you can expect a big run-up on the chosen stocks (also Home Depot and SBC), and precipitous drops for the stocks they're replacing: Sears, Chevron, Goodyear and Union Carbide. If you or anyone close to owns these stocks, sell them now and avoid the rush!!! Over the last couple years, the stock market has become more and more of a two-tiered affair, with indexed stocks doing a lot better than the market at large. This move can only intensify that trend. Not good news for the common guy working for a non-Dow component company. But, then, all MY money is tied up in debt...
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DISCLAIMER: Let me state unequivocably that One Swell Foop did NOT see the TV event in question, BUT...
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Apparently, there was a ceremony before a World Series game honoring what "the players of the Century" or something like that, and a sportscaster for NBC who interviewed Pete Rose pointed out that Ol' Charlie Hustle himself is still officially banned from baseball for life. Now, the ceremony's sponsor, MasterCard, has issued a press release demanding an apology. I don't know about journalistic integrity (we're talking about a SPORTScaster here), but if I were in his position, I'd apologize to MasterCard. As I said, all MY money's tied up in debt.
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Feeing a little rant-ish today, aren't we?
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October 20 - 23, 1999
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Well, you asked for it... I was working on a couple of ideas with more complexity and texture, when this idea hit me like a cathode ray out of a tube: NBC: The "Law & Order" Network
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Don't Mention That Name Around Here
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Jornbot found out from alt.internet.search-engines what Lycos fetches when you have it search for "InfoSeek": a page boasting all the features and benefits of Lycos' search and other services (at the bottom of the page, they do give you links to really search for "infoseek", or go directly to InfoSeek's home page, or just send Lycos a nasty e-mail). You get the same kind of page if you inquire "Excite" or "Yahoo", but not for Google or Snap or AltaVista (with or without a space). In fact, the search results page for "AltaVista" has a link to the competitor's home page up near the top. And, of course, if you search for Lycos-owned "HotBot", you go directly to HotBot's homepage. So much for "search engine impartiality"...
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Yes, I admit it. My 8 by 10 Glossary is based on Variety's Slanguage Dictionary. I know that it's awfully NachoDorito, filled with UGOTOs and, all in all, a poor excuse for an SDR. But we all need to be aware that the same people taking credit for forcing "deejay" and "sitcom" into our vocabulary are now calling the Internet the "infopike". You have been warned.
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Count Floyd says "Oooh, scary!"
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In October of 1999, a weblogger disappeared while researching the best Blair Witch Project parodies to correspond with the release of the movie on video.
A year later, this HTML page was found.
Okay, it only feels like a year.
Mixed Media: Blair Witch + ? = Funny
The Blair Warner Project, you know, the rotten rich girl on Facts of Life? Includes Tootie's Journal (as it must).
The Bewitched Project, or the real story behind Dick York's disappearance.
And what connection could there possibly be between Blair Witch and the Family Circus? Ask the Brunching Shuttlecocks...
Of course, there are more than one Blair Witch/Oz crossovers...The Wicked Witch Project is more basic - text, pictures and non-sequiturs. The Oz Witch Project features a nine-minute quicktime movie that my McGuyver 5000 computer couldn't run.
Asking the question: Is the Blair Witch one of the Barenaked Ladies? Hear for yourself (in MP3, of course) in the song parody One Witch.
And, for all you web-heads out there who love the Dancing Hamster, it's The Blair Dance Page. You have been warned.
The Linda Blair Connection
Many Blair Witch parodies have invoked the name of the Exorcist star, but only one actually hired her to do the film: The Blair Bitch Project (requires Quicktime).
And a special award for political bombast goes to: The Linda Tripp Meets Linda Blair Project.
Home Movies
In Real Video, The Walt Witch Project's filmakers get lost in "the Happiest Place on Earth".
Dishonable mentions (no video, lots of punnage):
Blair Wichita
Blair Sandwich
and the unfilmed script to Blair Kitsch
And in case you haven't noticed, those crazy folks at Cartoon Network are consciously deconstructing the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons they show: from
Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which rapidly evolved from its "cartoon character as talk show host" premise to something far weirder, to placing the Yogi Bear franchise into the shaky hands of Ren & Stimpy's John K., to the pieces they're interjecting into a Scooby Doo marathon this weekend, titled The Scooby Doo Project (Quicktime).
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One more thing: After I had started compiling these parody links, I encountered the following comment from I-Am-Not-A-Camera: Somebody should build a site that does nothing but collect parody sites. A parody portal, perhaps. Hmmmmmmm... Stay tuned.
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No really, just one more thing: Speaking of parodies, according to the Looka-Loo, Weird Al Yankovic is 40 today (10/23/99), and he's got fans as fanatical as the artists he parodies. Just try to answer any of the questions in the fan-made You Don't Know Al.
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This is the last "one more thing", I promise: What could be scarier than a Blair Witch parody? The Blair Witch team has a TV series deal. Working title: "Fearsum". I just love mathematical horror stories...
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A few currently relevant Oxymorons...
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from my upcoming OXY2K list (which you should get to see before the next episode of NYPD Blue)...
epeterme's former motto: affirmative cynicism
popular culture and junk mail which are both part of the name of one of my new fave blogs
The Insignificance of Statistical Significance Testing (thanx BlindLemonYellow)
and, of course legal ethics
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And an oxymoronic picture and caption in the L.A.Times this week: A picture of the late '60s charicature sculpture of the very psychedelic-looking Beatles by Gerald Scarfe, with a caption that said "The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum...". Now I know about Nixon and Elvis, but Reagan and the Beatles? Actually, the strange picture and caption were promoting the Reagan Library hosting the exhibition "Faces of Time: Seventy-Five Years of Time Magazine Cover Portraits", and the 3-D Beatle gonzo art was done for Time. Still, I'm surprised the Reagan Library is collaborating with one of the leading "liberal media". If politics make strange bedfellows, so can history.
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I guess we have to call this a VSE
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I must note the passing of writer, humorist, satirist, actor, radio personality and American original Jean Shepherd, at the age of 78. His most visible contribution was the story behind A Christmas Story, probably the best Christmas movie made to date, and source of the "Double Dog Dare" and "You'll put your eye out". (If you think these quotes predate the 1983 movie, you're right; Shepherd's tales were in print
 long before they made it to the screen. In fact, one reason you may not have heard about Jean Shepherd was because so much of his creative output went out over the radio. This site can tell you more about "Shep" than I can.
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October 18, 1999
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What's the Blog Idea?
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As you may have noticed, I like the concatenated version of the tern weblog "blog", and dislike the overhyped overuse of i- and e- prefixes. So, why not start referring to everything blog-related in words starting with B...
Instead of links, we can use blinks.
Instead of lists, we'll make blists.
Comments can be divided into brants and braves.
Of course, we already have blurbs and blockquotes and breaks and blacklists (uh, no, forget that one...).
I'm sure I have the support of Brad and Bump and Bird and Bifurcated and the guy who does Bleats
and all the Barretts, but not the iBoy.
So, bleap onto the b-bandwagon! Get on the bleading edge! Don't b-be the blast one on your block!
B there or B square!
Oh, boy... I just had a flashback to high school... Did I just write that? I can't believe... Ohhhh...
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Today's birthdays of people/things even older than Wendell, from Fix Express: ex-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeaux is 80, Senator Jesse Helms is 78, the BBC is 77, Chuck Berry is 73.
Now let me get this straight: A five-year age difference between Jesse Helms and Chuck Berry? (Must be five net-years.)
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Funny Linguists
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from Murphy's Law Library
The Law of Language
Something is ALWAYS lost in the translation...
Editor's Addendum
...from English to English
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I've discovered another "One Swell Foop" out there on the web. It's the title of a section in the art/graphics/comics gallery The Black Egg Theatre billed as An abstract journey thru the English language. More precisely, a collection of graphic images based on mangled English translations from Japanese like "The elevator is fixed for the next day. During that time we regret you will be unbearable."
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Speaking of translation, I still like AltaVista's Babelfish. I like that it is even being made available by a dot-com and not a dot-gov or dot-edu, that in a World Wide Web that is still dominated by us Ugly Americans, somebody made translation an important part of their web marketing strategy (Alta Vista has a marketing strategy?). I remain foolishly hopeful that AV will continue to support the improvement and expansion of the Babelfish service (Wouldn't you have liked to have a Serbian web translater last summer?)
But that doesn't mean I can't also appreciate The Dialectizer, which semi-translates into such choices as Redneck (One Sfine Foop), Swedish Chef (Oon-a Svel Fuup) and Pig Latin (Oneyay Ellsway Oopfay).
Or the CGI script device for repeatedly re-translating a document or web page until it reaches the consistancy of verbal tapioca. Unfortunately, the device I call the Babelfish Spawner had to be taken down, because it gotten too popular and had overstressed its host server.
But the thing I most appreciate about Babelfish is its name. Rather than doing some tie-in to AtaVista or the sofware designer Systran, they named it after the absurd plot device in Douglas Adams' silly-sci-fi classic  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where you could understand alien languages by putting a small fish in your ear.
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Net Knees
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Now THIS made me laugh. I've been playing with the ad-supported free ISP service NetZero, which promises the advertisers who fill the always-on banner "patent-pending profiling technology which allows advertisers to target their message to NetZero subscribers by demographic, geographic and psychographic data."
I'd like to know the demographic, geographic or psychographic reasons they targeted me for an ad for knee pads. You can buy anything on the web!
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October 15, 1999
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Soap film at 11...
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A couple days of warm weather has caused the air conditioning in my office to go into overdirve... even after the heat wave has passed. So, as I put on my sweater to ENTER the building, the Indian Summer has turned into a Pakistani Chill.
Pakistan's Mushareff is now the most powerful General next to Electric
Hey, Mushie! (You don't mind if I call you Mushie, do you?) If you're planning on resuming nuke tests, I've got the addresses of some Senators' homes where you can test 'em...
Doctors Without Borders win Nobel Peace Prize
Doctors Without Borders... What a concept! In Los Angeles, you can't get a good doctor to cross the border from Orange County!
(alt joke for weblog insiders) Not to be confused with the HMO where Cam works, which is Borders Without Doctors.
You can stick a fork in him (in fact, I'd reccommended it), he's done!
The Indefensible Coucil, the Isn't-That-Special Prosecutor, Kenneth "Starr-Chamber" Starr is quitting.
The bad news, his office is NOT shutting down, and if some of the things I've heard are true about some of the worst offenses being initiated by his underlings (who are now all taking a step up the ladder) then it's not time for the Camryn Mannheim Karyoke.
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Live, from Just Outside the Entertainment Center of World,
It's the North Hollywood Report!
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I think of it as a cry for help... or more accurately a cry for more ratings. Yes, I did hear Mark Harmon utterthe "s-word" on Chicago Hope, and offer the following observations.
They didn't get the controversy hype they obviously wanted. Variety's site and TV Guide's ignored it completely, whileE! Online used the occasion to include all of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can't Say on TV in their story. But the big E! got the story wrong: this was definately not the first of the seven words to make it onto a broadcast network. A lot of broadcasters have been making judicious use of the "p-word" for years (usually past tense - or is that pissed tense?). And the Ultimate TV site didn't put it in their news menu until CBS's top radio star, Coward Stern, jumped onto the hypewagon.
Now that I've seen the show, I see the line was more relevent to the actual story than the official CBS explanation indicated, but if they'd told more they would have spoiled the ending.
Of course, it aired during the same timeslot as Fox's less-than-popular new series Action, which got most of its attention for using a bunch of profanities, all bleeped... and was pre-empted this week for Baseball.
CBS seems to be upping the ante for creative freedom for superstar producers, particularly telling the other two nets David E. Kelley does shows for: " Top This!" So, when do you think we'll hear the "f-word" out of Ally McBeal?
Legally, I think Chicago Hope is more likely to be sued for copyright from the producers of Forrest Gump than get in trouble with the FCC.
So, I think I'm going to change my official euphemism from Charliebrill to Chicagohope.
At least, now we know what the S in CBS stands for...
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Band in Boston
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You'll find all of Carlin's TV Words and a few of his Oxymorons in The Canonical List of Weird Band Names (thanx Robot Wisdom), plus puns, double-and-triple-entendres, insults and literary references galore! It's a blist that I am truly envious of (If I had done it, I would have tried to add info to every listing about if the band is currently performing or has released a CD or MP3s, and what area it's from... That's why my OXY2K and Murphy's Law Library are taking so long to get ready...)
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Competition is What Makes Our System Great!
That, and Unnecessary Consumption
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First there were Motivational Posters, then De-motivational Posters, and now the evil genius of Chris Condon brings us The Seven Deadly Motivational Posters (thanx Lake Effect). If this is too much irony for you, check out James Lileks' Institute of Good Cheer's Ad Archive (which, apparently, I like more than the author does).
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October 13, 1999
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Wanna work for a Weblogger?
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Congratulations to Peter Merholz, blogger of peterme on getting a dream job with epinions, a new site that offers an alternative to the affiliate programs (the web-based equivalent to commission sales. Yeeeesh!). And he's looking for a team to work for him (details under the Oct. 12th dateline). Now, if I just re-edit my kiss-up piece from the other day and substitute Peter for Cam...
Not all bloggers have such dream jobs, like Dan Hartung of Lake Effect, who suffered a case of Tech Murphology: Because of the different ways Microsoft and Novell convert long filenames into old-system-friendly eight-dot-threes, if you mix their software, a command to the system to delete one file or directory might delete a different one with a similar name. And, in his case, wipe out his whole server! That's his story (under the Oct. 11th dateline) and he's sticking with it.
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Speaking of Web Media: Wired News has exposed the scandal of Ugly URLs. I learned lots about ugly URLs when I got behind the frames of my first free-site-server.
And Salon (Can you believe it? Weblogging for ten days and this is my FIRST Salon link!) has the story of a strange journalistic encounter between the self-proclaimed geek journalists at Slashdot and the - what can I call it - Military-Industrial-Complex-tradepaper? - Jane's Intelligence Review. The most interesting quote from the article is:
They are helping journalists get the story right, which is a far cry from exerting censorship.
It depends on what you consider "getting the story right".
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October 11, 1999
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NBC has lied to us about Saturday Night Live!!!
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I'm not talking about the "Live From New York" which is a total lie if you live on the West Coast, I'm talking about the recent 25th Anniversary Special, which seemed like rather questionable scheduling, considering the first SNL aired on October 11, 1975, that's TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY.
The first show (which I watched on a tiny portable TV in a college radio studio where I was "hanging out" - it was 1975, after all) was a variety show in ways that no show on commercial TV had been before.
From the episode guide at Saturday Net:
The Opening - Michael O'Donoghue teaches immigrant John Belushi English by repeating nonsense sentences about wolverines, then has heart attack which Belushi also mimics.
Andy Kaufman's surreal performance of the Mighty Mouse theme song (The re-creation of that scene in a commercial for the upcoming Man on the Moon was the best moment on the 25th Phoney-versary Show)
Janis Ian sings the 1970's high-school nerd's anthem At Seventeen.
The unveiling of the first ugly Muppets, leading the way for Yoda and Farscape's Rygel.
A Film by Albert Brooks - He did five of these in the first eight weeks of the show; nowadays you have to wait years between them.
The first commercial parodies, including one ridiculing the new "twin-blade" razors with an absurd triple-bladed razor.
And your host, George Carlin, without any of his Seven Words You Can't Say on TV, but with his classic comparison between Baseball and Football, and an introduction to Oxymorons.
Jumbo shrimp... JUMBO shrimp! The two words are mutually exclusive, like Military Intelligence!
In the twenty-FOUR years since then, I've been collecting Oxymorons, and in the next few weeks, will unveil on this site the largest list ever seen on the Internet. How big? I call my list The OXY2K. Stay tuned.
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The Lost CamWorld
In redesigning his weblog, Cam dropped his Miscellaneous directory from the front page menu. Among the contents is a list of 800 of the Most Commonly Chosen Passwords.
When I found a word I use as PART of some of my passwords on the list, I made some changes. Still, I have to wonder about the seriousness of a list that includes anthropogenic,
imbroglio,
lamination
and zimmerman as "common" words.
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October 8, 1999
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Tonight, on the USA Internetwork...
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Now that we have established dot com as the most ubiquitous, omnipresent, overused, overworked, sick-and-tired-of-it, oh-no-not-again suffix of the Net Age, it's time to choose an equivalent prefix. And there are only two serious contenders, and they are both single letters: So, ladies and gentlemen, geeks and freaks, let the battle begin, LET'S GET READY TO RUM-BALLL!!! It's time for...
It's imac going up against Emacs.
ebay head to head with ICANN.
iboy versus eatonweb (webloggers inside joke).
epinions toe to toe with iwon.
Who will prevail? Who will survive? WHO CARES?!?
Whew. Glad I got THAT out of my system.
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October 6, 1999
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But first, these headlines...
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from Murphy's Law Library
The Lego Law of Business
Mergermania is like Legomania, just more plastic.
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MCI plus Sprint equals WorldCom
They're not keeping either company's name... sigh... Well, if there's any good news about it, with 2 of the 3 big long-distance companies merging, the number of annoying dinnertime solicitation calls may drop 33%!
Houston Out-Bribes ...er... Out-Bids L.A. for NFL Expansion Team
Los Angeles without an NFL team is kind of like... well, at lot like when we had the Rams and Raiders.
Oregon School Shooting Survivor Killed in Hunting Accident
It's true, kids don't learn ANYTHING in school these days! (Yes, I know it's tragic, but still, doesn't it sound like a Darwin Awards nominee?
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And, from that bastion of journalistic standards, the Press-Release-regurgitating Ultimate TV site...
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MTV doing special on Hackers
This makes it official: Geeks are cool!
That's the way, that's the way to do it, become a hacker on the MTV
Or is it just another way to hype Weird Al's It's All About the Pentiums? Hate the video, but love the lyric... (and the WeirdAl/Intel logos are a hoot!)
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
Sign #37 of the Coming Apocalypse:
WCW steals top talent from WWF again - THE HEAD WRITER!
Highlight of Dobie Gillis marathon is young Warren Beatty as Milton Arbitage running for student body president
If you wait long enough, life WILL imitate art. Then again, Sheila Kuehl, who chased Dobie around for four seasons, is now a California State Legislator. The 2000 elections need less Cybil Sheppard and Arnold Schwartzenegger and more Zelda and Gopher from Love Boat.
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September 30, 1999
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Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Deathday to...
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In a way it's kind of fun to have a movie named after my birthday, September 30, 1955. But, ontheotherhand, the movie's about the day James Dean died, which is a downer, and it stars John-Boy, which is also a downer, and now I can't lie about my age, (He's 44? And doing a weblog at that age?!?) and people who believe in reincarnation treat me funny (I assure them I started breathing about 12 hours before JD stopped), and everybody else expects me to be have some serious interest in James Dean...
Well maybe a little... Here's some spiritualist goofball telling us how the Rebel Without a Cause turned his life around after he died (link from saturn).
I know he kind of set the standard for dead teen idols (Do you realize how much work Jim Morrison had to do to even compete?), but my favorite recent quote about Dean came from a John Scalzi Whatever rant about ads for The Gap: "Well, I thought, so what if James Dean wore Khakis. After his car accident James Dean also wore an engine block."
No chance of reincarnation with me.
Maybe I should lie about my age after all... tell them I was born November 23, 1963.
BTW, if you want to know if any teen idols (or aging character actors) died on the day YOU were born, the Internet Movie Data Base has it here.
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