mahna mahna :: mahna mahblog

Thursday, 27 May 2004

It's kinda creepy when a site you last visited on a lazy Tuesday afternoon at work more than three years ago suddenly e-mails you out of the blue.

Matthew,
                                                                                
We haven't seen you in a while...
our records show that you last signed in to Tickle,
formerly known as Emode, on February 13, 2001.

more...

posted to /tech at 01:27 :: 0 responses

Wednesday, 26 May 2004

Just Another Day

In the space of about three hours today, one person described me as "such a gentle person" and another referred to me as "sensitive and thoughtful." These kind words left me filled with an almost boundless joy.

My day ended in confrontation with a person who finds me to be none of these things. The joy is gone, and I am left with a head buzzing with thoughts and anxieties that will not fade. John Lennon is telling me turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream but sadly, I cannot find the peace within that would help me to heed his advice.

posted to /life at 21:37 :: 0 responses

Friday, 21 May 2004

"Help Is On the Way!"

Slashdot alerted me to the fact that George Lucas's amazing first film, THX 1138, is finally going to be released on DVD come September. Four days prior, it will hit the big screens in selected cities, and thank the lord, the city I work in has been selected. Unfortunately, the excellent trailer for this release shows that Lucas has done his usual thing and added a whole bunch of CGI imagery, and even entirely new shots. I hope he hasn't screwed things up, but in case he has, I'm glad I have my bootleg disc of the original version of the film.

The official site is kinda confusing to navigate, but is a lot of fun experience-wise if you're familiar with the film.

posted to /art/cinema at 11:07 :: 1 response

Tuesday, 18 May 2004

I Was Hoping For "Spiritually Creamy"

According to Beliefnet's 25-question "What's Your Spiritual Type?" quiz, I am a Spiritual Straddler, with "one foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality." Sounds about right, actually. (Now where did I put my zafu?)

[spotted at J-Walk Blog]

posted to /misc at 12:53 :: 3 responses

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

A blog I would have loved when I was a boy: "the world's first interactive T. rex dig"! I hope this finds its way into classrooms. (I wonder how many teachers are that wired.)

[spotted at jwz]

posted to /misc at 00:40 :: 0 responses

Monday, 17 May 2004

"It's About Freedom."

When building this site, I chose Blosxom to power this blog, in part because it is Free Software. I also evaluated Movable Type, because I was told that it was Open Source. It turned out that wasn't true — despite the source code being available.

If that last sentence made you blink (and you want to know more), alphablogger Mark Pilgrim has a great post you should read.

posted to /tech at 21:59 :: 0 responses

Thursday, 13 May 2004

Bugged

This is the strangest Classic Beetle I have ever seen.

posted to /misc at 14:13 :: 4 responses

"We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."

That's just one of the lovely ideas in Kurt Vonnegut's latest short, angry, pessimistic little screed that does a fine job of taking stock of the world we suddenly find ourselves in, although I'm not sure I agree with the idea that "all great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being."

posted to /misc at 14:07 :: 1 response

Wednesday, 12 May 2004

Images. Information. Anyone. Anywhere. Instantly. Always.

This short blog post by tech guru Clay Shirky makes me think about where cameraphones and the Internet are taking us. Part of me laughs gleefully. Part of me dreams about writing a book about it in twenty years titled The Slow Revolution.* Part of me feels scared.

(Tell me this is not some amazing new form of distributed journalism. History books almost writing themselves.)

[*Hands off that title, bitch! Sucka's mine!]

posted to /tech at 01:46 :: 0 responses

Tuesday, 11 May 2004

Having No Regard

One American beheaded in Iraq. My heart goes out to his poor family. But the righteous indignation pouring out of Washington is just nauseating. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan remarked that this act proves that our enemies "have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women, and children." Let's recap: We've been in Iraq for a little more than a year now. We've lost less than seven hundred souls thus far. But we've slaughtered some ten thousand. If the Red Cross is correct that up to 90 percent of the prisoners we've taken in Iraq are innocent, it isn't outlandish to think that our mighty military machine has made hamburger of thousands of guiltless individuals who were just doing their best to get along in a rough part of the world. Sure, "that's war for you." True enough. But let's not stand up and take the high ground here, Mr. McClellan. That's all I'm saying.

posted to /news at 16:30 :: 0 responses

Monday, 10 May 2004

Grey Earworms

For a couple of days now, Bill Murray has been singing his sad, soulful version of Roxy Music's "More Than This" in my head:

I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowin'
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they're blowin'
As free as the wind
Hopefully learnin'
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turnin'
More than this
You know there's nothing
More than this
Tell me one thing
More than this
There's nothing

more...

posted to /life at 18:05 :: 4 responses

This Plan Sucks

The British government has come up with a strategy for curbing teenage pregnancy that sounds promising but strikes me as unlikely to ever have traction on our puritanical shores.

[spotted at Fark]

posted to /news at 15:15 :: 1 response

Friday, 07 May 2004

The Last to Know

"...The best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world." — President George W. Bush, 9/22/2003, explaining why he doesn't pay much attention to the press.

"I failed to recognize how important it was to elevate a matter of such gravity to the highest levels, including the president and the members of Congress. " — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 5/7/2004, explaining why he did not inform the president of the unfolding torture scandal in Iraq.

"Yeah, the first time I saw — heard about pictures [of Americans torturing Iraqis] was on TV." — President George W. Bush, on Arab network al-Hurra, 5/5/2004.