Mood:  a-ok

It's not so much the content of this story that intrigued me so much as the title:

'Burning Man loses its innocence'?

Innocence? 

Please.

What     is     so      'innocent'      about a multi-day drug 'n sex marathon in the middle of the desert in the first place, anyway?

(those back-to-back links contain four separate sources to describe, respectively, the death,  rape, assault, and hypocritical commercialism of this glowing annual tribute to 'freedom'...

One idiot performance artist's fire has ruined the 'innocence' of this beloved and 'harmless' festival?

No, no, no... I'm afraid I beg to differ; my links up there demonstrate (along with the overall reputation of this faux-hippie shindig in recent years) that the flame-wielder in question didn't start the 'fire' that destroyed this festival's presumed 'innocence'...

It's been burnin' since festival's been returnin', year after year after year...

(that's a fancy way of saying that the festival had about as much innocence to begin with as a Thalidomide baby has spare toes)

Wow... that was in surprisingly poor taste, even for me...

And now, since this post is now all but dedicated to 'that song': here's something you'll really like...

(hopefully that reference will help us forget that Thalidomide unpleasantness...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:43 PM ADT

Updated: Friday, 31 August 2007 5:20 PM ADT

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Mood:  not sure

Weep ye all with me...

I'm actually shocked that the poll says 3 out of 4 Americans read a book last year: they should probably reverse those numbers to adjust for the wankers who tried to look smart by claiming they had read a book (perhaps mistakenly thinking that a Chinese menu counts as a piece of translated literature...)

People don't read. That's not a shocker, especially considering the massive glut of information overload brought to us by the interweb et al...

(and yes, thank you for asking: it does concern me that the possible audience for my chosen line of creativity is shriveling up faster than a snowball in Joseph Stalin's hands...)

...think about that analogy for a second and you'll get it...

The worst part about today's fast-paced media and the entertainment industry is that they really look down on their audience (did you get that analogy yet, btw? ;). Most publishable books aren't afforded that luxury: the medium dictates narrative strength and creativity, and there's precious little time left to pander or condescend ('said the brilliant author to the callow reader').

...although Stephen King's last few books in the Dark Tower series prove that vanity and a lack of creative mojo aren't necessarily disqualifiers... but that's true only if your name is Stephen King, I suppose (please let me qualify that by saying that his earlier works are some of the finest, if not the finest, that American literature has to offer).

Anyway, Shane is currently reading McCarthy's novel The Road (despite it being a selection for Oprah's Book Club...*shudder*). Not a huge fan of Cormac's (but I love saying his first name): the guy's prose reads kinda like William Faulkner's would've if he had ever become fully literate...

...Faulknerites: don't hate the messenger, hate the truth...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 6:25 PM ADT

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Mood:  lazy

Don't drink and drive, and NEVER combine farm-work with alcohol...

however, if one did, would that they'd be coordinated enough to weave around the crops this erratically.

THAT'S better'n a crop circle, I'd say... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 7:21 PM ADT

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Mood:  down

While philosophers on Earth continue debating the meaning of life, we now have an example of the universe's overall vapidity: a billion-light-year-across valley of emptiness, of nothing.

Such a void is incomprehensibly large: light itself has only had about 13 chances to cross it in the history of... uh, history (depending on your stellar reckoning) and the sheer amount of emptiness out there (don't try re-reading that: you heard me) is staggering.

Reminds me a little of a Star Trek: Voyager episode, one of the few sci-fi stories to explore the psychological ramifications of traipsing through a ridiculously-large expanse of nothingness (although, presumably, the light of the cosmos does penetrate OUR gigantic emptiness out there, even to its isolated center, but that light's gotta be none-too-bright...)

...I always though that the Pale Blue Dot was cause enough for existential introspection, but the staggering vastness of this void simply boggles my noggin.

...I really feel like going to church, now...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:33 AM ADT

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Mood:  loud

Suppression of the tenants of liberal democracy continueth...

I don't know a thing about this Florida preacher in question, and he might be a real wacko himself (he calls the Prophet Mohammed a 'murdering pedophile', but he might also have some nutball views, too...)

Kidding! Remember, Mohammed only started espousing the 'death to infedels' line because his little religion was slow getting started. Murderer nothing: he was the world's first showman!  Suckers like Christ died on a cross to start their religions, and all he needed do was inflame passions...

I'm gonna stop before CAIR sends their goons after me, too...

Strange, that an organization with such an innocuous name would have such a deviating mission: to subjugate American hearts and minds to the glory of Allah (I most assuredly will refer to him as Yaweh, Jehova, and even Adonai in addition to the standard 'Father The Almighty', but never Allah, despite what some cave-ins in the cloth wanna see brought about).

CAIR is not interested in 'relations', only in channeling cash through bogus charaties to aid and abet terrorists (sometimes) and anti-Western thugs (almost always) on a regular basis. That, and STIFLING open discourse  and criticism about their chosen faith (admittedly that Florida preacher was a little on the obnoxious side...). True 'relations' involve a give and take relationship, and CAIR has always only been interested in take, take, take...

They should call themselves CAIC (cake): 'Council on Americans-TO-Islam Conversion'.

 (EDIT: Hey, I didn't even know that this acronym for an organization actually exists! And it seems so appropriate, too!...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 12:12 PM ADT

Updated: Saturday, 25 August 2007 12:18 PM ADT

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Mood:  caffeinated

More mysteries of teh life, teh universe, and teh everything are unlocked today...

Why is coffee bitter?... 

I've always wondered how a naturally-occurring pharmacy-in-the-ground, laden with xanthines and bearing a brittle, earthy shell that's burned in an oven before being ground up and filtered directly into a cup of really hot water could be so bitter... 

I also wondered why things fall down, too... until I turned seven, or so...

Eh, to be fair: the study actually goes ultra-deep into not just WHY the stuff is bitter, but how it exactly becomes so (so its analogous to finding out why things really fall down, which I personally didn't understand until... well... never, actually...)

They think that this research will make dark roasts more smooth.

In the meantime, Scientific Progress goes running for the nearest percolator...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 4:11 PM ADT

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Mood:  don't ask

Don't you hate it when the friggin' neighborhood kids mess around on your lawn?...

Hey! Hey, you all! Yes, I'm talking to you, little punks...

sigh... the house isn't a home, really: it's a petting zoo, and it's mostly my fault...

The big boys come for their handouts, too, and some of 'em are stacked like tree roots! Unfortunately, it's seen as unsportsmanlike to peg a buck at two feet with a rifle while he's eating at your feet...

The neighbors wouldn't be pleased either, I suppose... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 12:06 AM ADT

Updated: Thursday, 23 August 2007 12:09 AM ADT

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Mood:  d'oh

Sweet baby Jesus: no!

Seriously, there is really no place for a woman like her on this program... (Janeane ain't utterly worthless as a human being, however... her Frog accent is really quite charming, and some performances heartwarming).

I find it quite humerous that pundits accuse little old ving quatre of being a far right-wing venture. That crappy sixth season aside, this show has been an OPPONENT of methods such as torture and heavy-handed civil liberties tramplings, if its critics would care to actually watch it (IE: torture most often is on the wrong person, or produces the wrong info, and the DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT on 24 (there has never been a Republican in office) always finds success in a centrist, rational course of action as opposed to his hawkish advisers' schemings.

Though I must say, I would look forward to seeing Jack slap miss Garofalo around a little...

kidding!

...yeah...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 5:02 PM ADT

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Mood:  a-ok

It's a young universe out there, all things considered, but already there are heavenly objects that are on their way out the door (the 'door' being oblivion, I suppose...)

Enter this peculiar li'l amigo: a withered shell o' a star that's out there all alone in the night. It doesn't have all the trappings of celestial fanfare about it that such a dead star typically has, nor anything at all to signify its previous brilliance...

The thing's not even in the galactic plane, anymore. It just continues drifting out into the dead of space: crusty, cold (comparatively) and solitary. 

"Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away..."

                        (...I wish I'd wrote that, but I didn't...) 

This depressing stellar mausoleum was discovered by accident, of course. The astronomers were really looking to witness some Gamma Ray Bursts (with decent eye protection, I hope...). No one would really use advanced stellar equiptment to find such a bitterly cold, energy-spent, lifeless, faded star in space, anyway...

There are plenty here on Earth for them to study...

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 9:58 PM ADT

Updated: Monday, 20 August 2007 9:58 PM ADT

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Mood:  mischievious

In a cradle, diapers, pull-ups or big kid pants, they can all get hitched in Arkansas.

Frankly, I'm shocked! I am stunned into abject speechlessness!...

Not by the fact that kiddies of any age can now marry anyone else in Arkansas, mind you, but by the fact that this wasn't already the law over there in the first place. 

...now, I don't wanna be considered Anti-Arkansas, but... well... yeah...

Nemo me impune lacessit, motherf***er, and don't mess with Texas.

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:13 PM ADT

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