Let the Eagle Fsck

Wait. I thought LOST was over.

ADD: The rimshot button just made my cat jump about six feet.

Allah is Great.

And she better do something about the weather.

@Benedick: Come closer, and I’ll fan you. Can you rig up a swamp cooler or something?

@JNOV: I’d put an A/C in my study but the wiring won’t take it. I spent about 3 hours last night watering the garden. As stated before, the well here is very good. The grass is shot in a few places but I’m keeping the rest of it going. And I type this and I think about Iraq with no power, water, or supermarkets stocked with Twinkies and think I should probably STFU. In my defense, we are about to be cursed with Spiderman: the Musictard. That’s going to blight NYC for the foreseeable future.

ADD: As recompense for losing the bats their place has been taken by Barn Swallows. We’ve never had them living here before. Maybe they have a thing about flying mammals. But there’s a bunch of them that hang out on the telephone lines (quaint!) jeering at the squirrels and hawking for bugs. They fly in under the porch and swoop up and down past the windows very gracefully. I still miss the bats, though. They’re almost all going to die here.

@Benedick: Spiderman: The Musictard makes Baby Jesus cry.

Seriously — I’m in almost the same boat. We do have window A/C in our bedrooms, BUT after last spring’s melt that flooded our apt, the living room built in A/C died. We’ve got a window unit in there, but it’s really not cooling us down and cooking is a nightmare. There’s nothing to do but lie back and think of England. Or go to the shore. I might head there today.

@Benedick: Okay. Now you’re going to make me cry.

@JNOV: It’s not pollution or anything, it’s a plague that infests the rookeries. They’re trying desperately to figure out how to protect them. But they are predicting at least a 95% die-off. I daresay they’ll come back but it’ll take a long time. No more bats in the house on summer nights entertaining the dogs.

I happened to be in a long-disused but well-maintained cattle barn some years ago around this time of year. It was one storey, very long and narrow with big doors open either end. When I went in it seemed there were thousands of swallows looping and diving and making a great cloud of wheeling birds filling the barn. I stood and watched for a long time. The only thing quite as magical I’ve seen since are the rare sightings of hummingbirds doing their mating dance. They make a great arc and swing like a pendulum. That and the Bald Eagles out by the reservoir.

Now I go to work. Stay cool. If you go to the shore say hi to the guidos.

We have an A/C in the bedroom. I’ll have to work there later.

@Benedick: ::sigh:: One of the most sad and beautiful things I’ve seen is sparrows playing while trapped in Wal-Mart.

The bees, the bats, the Gulf. Yeah. Maybe I’ll head to the shore while we still have one.

“Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”

“Klaatu Barada Nikto.”

when we’re trying to master embedding a WebView in a navigation-bar iPhone app so we can display styled text in the damn window…

I love it when you talk dirty.

@JNOV: There is Hot. And there is Geek Hot.

Otherwise. I see we’re back on topic. Whatever.

I like the lightning bolt on the shield the eagle is holding. Makes it all space-agey and shit. Electricity! How does it work?

@SanFranLefty: Apparently it works like this. Hint: Jeebus.

finally!
a sequel to Happiness Life During Wartime.

if you have not seen Happiness or for that matter his other movie Welcome to the Dollhouse you really really should.

Happiness is the best most disturbing and wonderful movie that will ever make you squirm in your seat.

So I assume the logo art was a bargain because the copyright ran out on the Netscape* logo? Oh shit, I just said the c word….quick Benedick, look over there, it’s Nojo frolicking with a doxie! Isn’t it precious?

During my recent tour o’ the San Juan Islands via kayak, we saw so many bald eagles that spotting them became pretty commonplace. But it was interesting to hear the guide talk about why he thought they’re a poor choice for a national symbol compared with other birds of prey, like hawks or falcons. Eagles are opportunists: they prefer to scavange carrion and steal prey rather than hunt. They also (look away, soft-hearted animal lovers!) peck out the eyes of seal pups on the beach, apparently. However, I think all these qualities make them a perfect fit as our national symbol.

*ADD: Okay, so it wasn’t Netscape’s logo I was thinking of after all. But that grid globe feels equally dated as early 90s, at least.

@Benedick: Check out the Gray Lady, profiling your favorite hawt closet-case Republican in Congress.

@Capt Howdy: I thought Welcome to the Dollhouse just amazing. Now I must find Happiness.

@SanFranLefty:

“Obviously, it was what I thought was a sporty outfit,” Mr. Schock said of his picnic attire. “It was probably a little too bright, in retrospect.”

No, of course! Perfectly normal wardrobe mistake for a st8 guy to make–of course you’re not gay! *eyeroll*

@Benedick, JNOV: As both a U2 and Spider-Man fan, I’m expecting the musical to be a piece of crap.

@Prommie:
Happiness is amazing. it is one of my favorite films ever. a large wonderful cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Camryn Manheim, Jon Lovitz, Louise Lasser and Molly Shannon as some of the most unhappy people you will ever meet.

@Benedick:

Wow, and I thought “Fuckin’ Magnets, How Do They Work” was retarded. The fundie version is so stoopid it’s actually painful – WTF does “the sun is the source of most electricity” MEAN?

On the other hand, the linked text seems *marginally* more useful for elementary-school level science. Well, at least until you get to sidebars like on this page and start pounding your head on the desk. WTF is Jeebus doing sticking his ass in a fucking circuit analysis section?

@flippin eck: Who the hell says “a sporty outfit” to describe their sartorial choices? I mean, besides a ghey man? Are str8 men even allowed to use the word “outfit”? I’ve never heard one use it.

@Capt Howdy: Happiness is pretty sensational.

@al2o3cr: WTF does “the sun is the source of most electricity” MEAN? It means…

The sun’ll come up,
Tomorrah! (spelling to rhyme, I didn’t write this shit, as the actor said when booed playing Hamlet)
Bet cher bottom dollar (there it is, OK we’re going with an A A start)
That Tommorah (oooooh! internal rhymes!!!! fancy!!!!)
There’ll be SUN. (we did not see that coming but it’s satisfying and moving us forward. drinks all around.)

Sorry got a bit carried away. What?

@redmanlaw: You do not want to start me off on Spiderman: The Musictard again. It’s still hotter than hell and I am not happy. If I want this weather I’ll move to Texas.

@SanFranLefty: Jesus! You suck a few cocks and next thing you know everyone says you’re gay!

@flippin eck: I’m surprised they didn’t choose the Blue Jay: they’re gaudy, noisy, and dumb, work in packs and annoy the hell out of all the other birds at the feeder.

@al2o3cr: “The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is turned into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.” They Might Be Giants are great, though Benedick may think I am speaking of the movie.

@Benedick: Be careful with the Annie hatin’, that’s where our RomeGirl got her start.

Attn: Stinque Legal Dept
Re: Greatest Moments in American Jurisprudence

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate court has ruled it is perfectly legal for a man to sit in his pickup truck outside a convenience store in the presence of a child and wave and insert into his mouth a long, cylindrical plastic sex toy commonly referred to as a dildo.

Reading this made me uncontrollably leap to my feet and belt out “God Bless America.” This one’s for the history books.

@SanFranLefty: Nor will you hear “sporty” used by a member of my team.

@Benedick: I must disagree about your characterization of blue jays. Here in Cal, blue jays and their cousins, Stellar’s jays, are smarter than most people. Try going camping and eating outside when they’re around. There used to be a pair of Stellar’s who hung around my backyard — they liked it when I’d work in the garden and throw tasty bugs out onto the lawn for them to eat. If I worked too slowly, they’d start yammering at me to hustle up. I miss them.

@Original Andrew: This would be more impressive if he had been using the dildo as a bong.

Mormon Theology: The sun derives its light from a planet named “Kolob.”

I’d get into the Moon Quakers and other stuff, but I’d just be happy If I Could Hie to Kolob.

@redmanlaw: I just want to know what drugs the producers were taking when they thought this was a good idea. I could use me some…

@JNOV:
The original Battlestar Galactica was based in large part on the Mormoni trek/theology.

Home of humanity er 12 colonies was Kobol… Get it?

As someone who watched more the original BSG than he wants to admit.

@Dodgerblue: The jays here like to raid the patio cat dish. I’m not sure whether Meow Mix is good for them, but hey, it’s their call.

@ManchuCandidate: Really? Hmmmm… I might have to rewatch it. Interesting.

And you know about The Hollow Earth right? Too lazy to get links, but some lost tribes are living there. Some dude was selling passage on a Russian icebreaker traveling to the North Pole to find the entrance, and the monorail, natch. (I am NOT making this up.)

@Dodgerblue: I’m fond of Bluejays and don’t mind feeding them. And I’m amused by their antics. Which is why I think they’d make an appropriate national bird. I better leave it there.

@SanFranLefty: I love Annie. Great first act. And nifty score.

@JNOV: That tune is something else. It will come to me. Awesome visuals. Made me long to hurl curses at them.

@Benedick:

I like any musical with actual Bolshevik terrorists in it. And played for laughs, yet!

Dammit, I couldn’t just Google the answer this time!

@maitri: It’s actually an MD5 hash of their mission statement.

And an MD5 hash is, um, how to explain this to civvies, a mathematical means to calculate a unique “signature” for a given string of characters. It’s in hexadecimal (base 16) so your “digits” are 0 through 9 and a through f.

@nojo:
a) My previous comment is actually a lame attempt at a joke as material often marked Top Seekrit Classified by the government is easily Googleable.
2) That’s not an MD5 hash. It’s the 128-bit WEP key to the Oval Office WiFi.
3) You’re pretty smart for a hamster. Would you like to come work in our bunker of code developers here in Top Seekrit Easily Googleable location?

@nojo: Alan Turing could have figured that out in 5 minutes.

@maitri: Skip the key, go for the brute-force crack. I’m guessing some variation of “kenya” will work.

@Dodgerblue: If he could manage to stay awake.

@Benedick: You’re absolutely right. Most Momo hymns are stolen modified.