Mood:  cheeky

Just throwing this out here... but has anyone ever considered giving a retroactive Nobel Peace Prize to the Benedictine Monks?

It might be sacriligeous to mention canonization, too, but still: some inventions are, undoubtedly, worthy of sainthood.

(and yes: I'm aware that it wasn't the monks who decided to blend the stuff with strong brandy to kill its wicked sweetness, but still: I can't argue for a multinational corporation to recieve the Nobel, can I?)

I shouldn't be arguing any of this at all, really...

...hmm. Oh, well: back to the snifter... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 12:32 AM MNT

Updated: Sunday, 9 December 2007 12:33 AM MNT

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Mood:  crushed out

THIS is too much!

Of all the shameless, blatant, condescending RIP-OFF con-games...

I don't know why Watterson hasn't friggin' sued, yet...

(...but IREM, please don't get any ideas...) 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:19 AM MNT

Updated: Friday, 7 December 2007 1:03 PM MNT

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Mood:  silly

…An eye all black and somber o'er a flightless, naked wing;

A caw for the unkindness, neither essence nor machine.

And He who made the tiger fierce, and He who bore the lamb:

Did God who cast the ocean blue so forge you in His hand?...

From the Collected Works of Leith Paltry (‘On a Hatchling’)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:54 AM MNT

Updated: Friday, 7 December 2007 1:03 PM MNT

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Mood:  lyrical

Recently took the old desktop PC into a guru shop (it's been a decorative paperweight for some time...)

The thing's salvagable, I think, but until then they gave me a gift: they copied the contents of the hard drive for me and provided me with the discs, gratis.

Nice customer service...

Anyway: there's not much of interest on there in general, except for a dusty little file on the desktop called, simply, "music"...

the quote marks are QUITE necessary, in this case...

Inside the folder are some of my very old Cakewalk compositions. Now, I AM a musical hobbyist... barely... and to date my favorite personal composition is the base line for the Dies Irae, which I do think is kinda nifty, and might bear some refinin' in the future (all these SHOULD open with your preferred music player BTW... if you so dare...)

Some of these are truly awful. Others are merely distasteful.

This one is, I think, the first song I've written (or the oldest survivor, whatever) The repetitiveness, lack of any discipline and manic piling-on of noisy 'variations' on the annoying central theme are all icing on the rancid cake...

This one's called "Sunrise". It isn't too bad, compared to everything else, I suppose, though it has its very apparent problems. I think that I'll make this the 'Current Tune' on the TYPERS website when I finally get the new chapter up. (I know, I know: why punish people, huh? Well, fortunately I'm a sociopath.

Next to the Dies Irae, this is the one that I REALLY want to develop someday. It's like a smattering of miniature symphonic movements, and is literally unfinished (it drops out abruptly after a few minutes...) I don't know what I was thinking when I churned it out, but I wish I could have more inspirational moments like that...

This is probably the most annoying trumpet march ever written (and it only contains, literally, a pair of trumpets, nothing more...) Ugh...

This one's called Thunder From Wuthering Heights and, regrettably, it isn't the 'good' version: a remixed symphonic arrangement (as opposed to the dull pipe organs seen here). The 'trills' line is unfinished and drops out half-way through the major-key section. I like this melody, at least (it's set to a very bad poem I wrote many years ago...) and it could be at least decent if I could sit down and fix it up...

but, since I'm disinclined at the moment, I will not. ;)

The reader's eardrums have my sincere sympathy. 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:34 AM MNT

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(NOTE: much of the sweetness of this day's comic relies on one's familiarity with Rat's character.  Just an FYI, since PBS doesn't seem to have a media-saturating level of circulation...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 3:13 PM MNT

Updated: Saturday, 1 December 2007 3:21 PM MNT

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Mood:  incredulous

What does one make of this? (scroll down to the 'Petition for Sainthood' section)

Interesting, if true...

Honestly: I'll never know how his holiness JPII managed to canonize more people during his tenure than EVERY OTHER POPE COMBINED, yet poor MQS still lacks any papal recognition of her sacrifice.

...Alright, yes: it'd be a political nightmare, especially now, to canonize a woman that (in the public's eye, at least) plotted to kill one of the most retroactively beloved of all English monarchs... 

The fact remains: Mary is a martyr, and whether she be a scapegoat for political schemers** or a genuine co-conspirator in said plot, the fact cannot be denied: she was executed in a time when religion and politics were one, and while her death was as much a political exercise as an act of religious persecution she was slaughtered on account of her faith, and on account of her persistence in practicing said faith.

People have been canonized for far, far, far, far, far less...

Interestingly, MQS was executed for treason despite the fact that she was not, in any way, shape, or form, a citizen and subject of the English crown. Her trial was admittedly a sham and a rush-job by certain political hacks in the Elizabethan court.

People have been canonzied for far, far, far, far, far less, indeed...

Well, without the corresponding 'Casket Letters' we'll never know how deeply she was involved in the Babington Plot (given the structure and secrecy of the overall scheme, though, I think it's ludicrous to believe that the conspirators would actually try to communicate with her at all, but the plot DID fail, so how smart were the guys, really?)

In any event, people would do well to "remember [that] the theatre of history is wider than the realm of England"

...and by a large margin, indeed. 

(** I'm reluctant to link to this article at all, given that at the moment it demonstrates a horrible Elizabethan bias (the writer seems to have taken their knowledge of history from that Cate Blanchett monstrosity rather than a textbook... oh, well, history is written by men that hang heroes, I suppose...) As my own views are biased I cannot in good conscience edit it to remedy this, but if the reader's view is neutral, and their knowledge of history astute, then by all means see to it...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:28 PM MNT

Updated: Saturday, 1 December 2007 1:49 PM MNT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Had a bit of an out-of-state adventure this past week, accounting for a complete dearth of updates. I'm sure everyone noticed and was extremely concerned...

right?...

*Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp*...

...ouch.

Anyway, to make up for it I'm craming the subjectmatter of a few day's worth of posts into this Friday edition (...and even an update on TYPERS, to whom it may concern)

SUBJECT TEH ONE:

"Peace" in the Valley... 

So much for that 'Religion of Peace' facade that the global Islamic community so cowers behind, eh? They want a woman dead for letting her class of MUSLIM tots name a teddy bear!

Now, the only question is this: did EVERY parent of EVERY child in that class also murder their child as soon as they came home from school? It was the kiddies' idea, after all, so they should also be brutally executed as well...

...don't put it past them.

 Now, yes: in perspective this is happening in Sudan, possibly the most vile and horrible place to live of any place on the planet (Sudan: come for the religious hatred, stay because you've died!)

...I stole that joke from The Onion... hopefully no one will notice... 

In the third world (and in most of the rest of the civilized world as well) the Muslim faith has not kept up with the rest of the planet: compared to Christianity, most (READ: MOST) branches of the Muslim faith are mired in the analogous 'Crusades' period- the most reprehensible and morally repugnant episode of the Christian faith... t'wern't our brightest hour, admittedly...

Years down the road, Muslims will regard THIS point in their faith as their nadir as well. And if not, then they'll instead be regarding it as the end of their controversial little religion, because if worldwide Muslims cannot turn away from the path of jihad and the imposition of muderous Sharia law on the world at large, they cannot co-exist with the rest of the modern world.

I root for them, to be honest, but one does wonder...

SUBJECT TEH TWO:

Futurama is back, to whom it may concern: this time in DVD format...

My opinion's mixed: the thing runs very long (about 88 minutes) and crams each and every bit character and main character into the mix. It's got a touching central storyline between Fry and Leela, but lacks the storytelling brilliance seen in such pivotal episodes as The Sting (my favorite episode,  next to Jurassic Bark...) and The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings. 

The ultimate plot twists are exceedlingly predictable, and though there's a montage of separate storylines going on beneath the main action the story lacks the tightness and direction of such a multifaceted storyline as seen in, say, 300 Big Boys.

Ultimately this is a return from long hiatus, though, and the world shouldn't be expected from such a thing (Family Guy's first few post-resurrection episodes weren't too great, either...)

The beast with a billion backs follows directly upon these events, so hopefully the crew'll get down to business with a more well-rounded and focused scope of narration...

...I can't believe that I'M criticizing someone on that point... 

SUBJECT TEH THREE:

Amtrack Sucks!

SUBJECT TEH FOUR:

Another step towards TYPERS' Pragma-Class Sensation Link?

Not quite, but it is kinda cool. Seriously: brain-computer interface is certainly no longer the realm of science-fiction. The brain is, after all, a giant, NOISY, predictable computer system (albeit biochemically run and operated) that gives off tons of 'sparks' all along one's body. This story explains that the big breakthrough in B-C-I (dig the acronyms, damnit!) won't be so much the power to harness thought input (we can damn well do that half-decently as it is, now) but rather a computer system with the raw processing power to keep up with and predict those thought processes...

In TYPERS, that setup happens to be the 'Pragma'-class computer server system, although eventually (within, probably, the first part of the third book) that system's gonna get replaced with the Storge-Class Sensations Link (I won't link that word with Wikipedia: do it yourself if you want, but I'm almost ashamed of the predictable and obvious connotations therein...)

..however, for THAT system to work at 100-percent, one needs to get a hard metal implant called a coccygeal extension drilled into their... well... you know...

SUBJECT TEH FIVE:

...speaking of pains in the ass: Legend of the Novanjo WILL be ready relatively soon. I'm still polishing up the draft...

And now: I'm gonna warm myself by the fire. 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:02 PM MNT

Updated: Friday, 30 November 2007 2:42 PM MNT

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Mood:  chatty

I have a bone to pick with part of this Wikipedia entry...

The most prevalent view in science and the training arts says that your average dog views its human as 'part of the social pack'. That is to say: your average non-feral member of Canis Lupus Familiaris  thinks that its owner is another dog (albeit a very, very, very special one...)

I've always had problems when people talk about dogs as if the canids think of themselves as simple pack-mates in an average wolf-pack (ie: a human family). Given what I've seen in well-familiarized pooches (emphasis on well-familiarized...) I think dogs have a slightly different thought process in regards to their human housemates...

First off: dogs are smart. REALLY smart. Your average canine is easily amongst the most intelligent animals on the planet (that's not just a dog-owner's gushing: they NEED intelligence to maintain the complex social network they live by. I say dogs're smarter than cats not because I hate cats- far from it- but because cat ancestors're lone hunters who don't NEED the increased frontal lobe action that a pack-setup requrires). Dolphins're probably smarter; elephants're probably smarter; many other primates're probably smarter than dogs, but that's about it.

Again, the prevailing wisdom says that dogs see humans as a simple member of the pack and, if properly trained, they see humans as the alphas- or the most 'badass' members...

The thing is, not all humans BEHAVE as such. When I was five years old my family had a pair of gigantic Norwegian Elkhounds  who worshipped the ground my father walked on; but they also venerated the ground I... well, stumbled upon: I'd abuse those poor pooches to no end: tugging ears, running tricycle wheels over their tails and all other manner of mischief. Now, assuming dogs see humans as mere packmates, I should be disciplined for all those transgressions according to pack-law (ie: little puppies get a nipping, or even a biting, for all such serious infractions).  Not only would they never even consider biting me, but I can attest that they'd have ripped the balls off of any stranger who ever tried to touch me. If I got hurt and fell into a crying fit, they were the first to swarm me and whimper in sympathy.

 Flash forward: when I take my mutt to the dogpark she gets social with all the other dogs as usual, with all scratching and sniffing included, but like the other dogs there she does NOT go sniffing at and scratching at all the other HUMAN owners: she treats these bipedal creatures with a completely different attitude altogether.

My point is that dogs fit themselves into human households with a pack-like mentality, but they probably think of the humans around them with a very, very, very different mindset than other animals.

Ironically, I think it was Stephen King that got it right with Cujo: (sociliazed) dogs don't consider humans to be 'other dogs' (to say so actually BELITTLES the intelligence of the species) but rather as something else; quasi-divine beings, altogether separate from their own antics (as the owner of two dogs and a cat, I believe this wholeheartedly...)

Thousands of years ago, dogs learned to WORK with humans, and not so long after that they learned to LIVE with them, too. That does not mean- by a long shot- that they SEE them as comparable kin at all.

Dogs're smart enough to know better, I'd think. 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 6:10 PM MNT

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Mood:  celebratory

Happy turkey day to all, especially anyone who may currently be incommunicado with their loved ones, etc...

And happy... uh, whatever, to the UK-ers, etc... out there. A word of advice: you guys should really consider switching out Boxing Day for this holiday. As one who stands to gain two or more pounds today alone, I can attest that it's well worth it (you guys could gain some 'sympathy weight' in co-celebration of the first stirrings of this crazy li'l experiment of yours that got founded across the pond!)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:01 PM MNT

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Mood:  accident prone

Pretty excellent play quality, there, but I gotta say that I prefer to use the NO CHASER (it's almost like cheating when one uses the Last Dancer... or the Curtain Call... or the Grand Finale)...

...and, ironically, I never play as the Platonic Love or the Platinum Heart (if there were a Chaste Gazer in the game, I might consider it...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 12:15 AM MNT

Updated: Wednesday, 21 November 2007 12:18 AM MNT

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