Mood:  blue

...Sticker-Shock ahoy...

Shane is going to Edinburgh in the, well, relatively near future (it's a bloody long ways-away, actually, but in the event of such trips I count the months on a daily basis... uh, you know what I mean...)

...forget it...)

Anyway my point is that someone with Scottish blood who can claim genuine kinship to a clan (mine's MacDougall, incidentally) is allowed to don those colors (no: not those colors: the other kind of colors... which, when you think about it are really kind of the same thing, but not exactly. At least the Scots were more manly about their turf-wars: Claymores beat tec-9's any day of the week).

Right: given that I'm a card-carrying Scotophile (which ain't too hard to figure out), there's something I've wanted to get my hands on for a long, long time that I think I have the confidence, emotional maturity  and physique to pull-off...

...I want a f**king kilt.

Now there's a fantastic and historic kiltmaker right on the Royal Mile that does amazing work; I've been by the shop dozens of times, their manniquins sporting incredible works of skirt-like art. Well: size me up and hem me a man-skirt!

Not so fast... LOOK AT THESE PRICES!!!! A full kilt set from these guys- jacket, tartan and minimal accessories- would set one back over 600 pounds (convert that to dollars, taking into account the fact that our currency is weaker than Abe Vigoda's cannoli dipped in lidocaine, and you can see a slight problem, here). I knew the damn things aren't cheap (especially ones of quality) but these f**kers charge over 100 pounds for the sporran.

...The sporran, for God's sake!

Eh: bottom line is that Shane ain't gonna be skirting this issue anytime soon. As it stands now I can barely afford the Sgian Dubh (and yes: I'd insist on getting that, too, 'cause if you wanna wear a kilt in the Continental United States and you aren't over the age of 70 you'd better be prepared to fight about it)

And I would fight about it, incidentally.

Buaidh no bàs, motherf**ker...

*(Not that there's anything wrong with that. It kinda keeps my ego in 'Czech'. Anyone?... No?... alright....)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:13 AM MNT

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Mood:  a-ok

Lookit this...

NASA says it's just a rock. Oh, those poor, deluded fools...

Actually, that thing kinda looks like another odd creature dredged from the annals of cryptozoology.

Although, in the case of our friendly (hopefully?) Martian friend, I guess the term is 'exozoology'.

Sounds cool, anyway... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:06 AM MNT

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Mood:  irritated

Part of my thing is, when I write, I love to make esoteric references and... well: what I guess would be called 'in-jokes'.

Part of what pisses me off is that a) most people won't pick 'em up and b) anyone who does will probably consider it corny and contrived.

I'm not ragging on anyone's intelligence when I say that obscure references go whizzing by: that's why they're obscure. But what annoys me is that, for me, these're the best parts of the description/dialogue/action and they are, effectively, invisible.

For example: in 'Filial Affection' I wanna reveal that Chenine's little nom-de-guerre she uses to keep Kensu Onizuka and others from  catching her real name is Camille Steen (in TGS she picks 'Camille' out of the blue, but no last name is mentioned: 'Steen' is new).

I don't think many people would get the Steen reference, you see (scroll down for 'alternate names')...

Actually, her alterego's first name is also a reference, too.

Of course, a story can't also just be a bunch of trivia shuttled between the lines, but it's my adamant opinion that these kinds of things really enrich a story, if only a little bit (and only to a point...) Honestly, I've got enough other stuff going on in the books action-wise to prop up a little playfulness between the lines.

...For example: in the next chapter Chenine gets her back broken in at least three places, paralyzing her from the neck down. Pretty f**king dramatic, don't you think?*

*(This is technically true, but if you think I'm gonna finish the story with my lead female character going around a-la-Stephen-Hawking, you'd be dead wrong...)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 3:20 AM MNT

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Mood:  down

The gray wolf has historically had a hard time dealing with human coexistence, especially in the contiguous United States, although recently (as in during the last 30 years) their numbers have risen through fedeal funding for reintroduction and conservational PR pushes.

In Alaska... well... their numbers have never dwindled and, in fact, those numbers seem to be rising unchecked... 

So enter this proposal.

...eegh...

I'm no idiot granola-eating "nature-loving" twit who wants to teach all animals to live on tofu and humans (see PETA for that platform). Nature is, in a word, brutal, and when balance is lost drastic efforts must be taken to restore it. I like hunting, I like extreme (responsible) forms of population control, and I don't even bat an eye when bleeding hearts go on about the clubbing of seals (The differences between shooting a deer and letting it bleed out and bashing a li'l critter's skull in are, as far as brutality goes, infinitesimal, so if I can eat venison, and I can, then I can stomach the more 'hands-on' side to hunting as well).

But I also like wolves. No: scratch that (no pun intended): I looove wolves. Obsessively. Passionately. They are, by a wide margin, my favorite animal: nature's perfect killing machine (short of humans), and nature's most sociable mammal (short of humans). What a dichotomy! It intrigues me.

I loooove wolves...

Of course, I also support measures like helicopter-based hunting of the critters as a form of population control, and what about ranchers and their livestock? Shoot the f**kers, if they pester ya'. No problem. Again: nature is brutal, and it abhorrs imbalance. A few dozen shot wolves is better than a generation of starving canids produced by overpopulation. 

But these are pups, for God's sake. At the end of the day this is like going to the kennel and slitting the throats of a bunch of puppies in their runs. Look, yes: they're all wild animals, technically no different from a charging cape buffalo, if you're on the wrong side of one, but at the same time these things're only 100,000 years removed from the Golden Retriever at your feet, so think about that, maybe...

At the end of the day (even though it makes little difference to the pup in the den) it's much more palatable to camp out in the woods and gun down the adults.

They can improve their aim that way, at least...

Aroooooooooooooooo.... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 7:35 PM MNT

Updated: Saturday, 19 January 2008 7:38 PM MNT

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Mood:  cheeky

Currently, astronomers and physicists estimate that about, oh, give or take 90-percent of the mass of the universe is made up of invisible, untouchable, undetectable fluff called 'dark matter'...

They've got a new 'map' of its distribution from the Hubble...

According to the theory, this stuff causes ALL of the errors currently seen in their updated theories of General and Special Relativity. It exists not because we can detect it (we can't) or see it (we can't) or touch it (we can't) or smell it (we can't)...

It exists because, when you do complicated calculations involving huge quantities of mass (ie: a galaxy, etc...) and velocity, the numbers always come out kinda wonky...

So, of course, the answer lies not in the incompleteness of our understanding of the universe, but because... well... over 90-percent of the universe is invisible and untouchable...

Right.

Of course, I don't have a PhD in astrophysics or anything, but that sounds an awful lot like saying that the reason a feather flutters in the wind is that a bunch of ghosts (all weighing several hundred pounds) are slapping at it with their hands... or bedsheets, or whatever have you...

My only point is that the concept of Dark Matter should be seen only as a placeholder, not a scapegoat, for the shortcomings in how we understand the ideas of gravity and spacetime (I'm not averse to the idea of its existence, just like I can accept the doctrine of ultimate quantum indeterminacy, but to hear someone go on about 'Dark Matter' I get the impression that they might as well be saying that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is pushing suns and galaxies around on his noodly appendage).

I suggest that the bean counters keep crunching the numbers until there's a more likely explanation available.

Until then, Scientific Progress accidentally bonks into an invisible, undetectable, unsmellable, unseeable wall of some kind... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 6:47 PM MNT

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Mood:  energetic

They grow up so fast these days...

Amazing? Incredible? Yeah: all of the above. Alot of this is indicative of a real trend over the past... I dunno, hundred-years or so (or more, I really don't know) wherein the age of puberty for girls seems to be dropping, sure and steady, while that of their male counterparts is somewhat more steady (though both are, apparently, indeed dropping...).

Of course, in this girl's case the phenotype is freakish, regardless of recent social trends. The thing to remember, of course, is that human maturation isn't a magical thing: we're all born with all the necessary chemicals and signal pathways to reach sexual maturity right out of the gate, it's just that normally we've got a regulatory system to stave off immediate development.

But that system is likely the most damn-complicated thing in the body, short of the brain itself, and it crosses paths with all the other systems, too. Problems always arise, don't they?

In fact, it should be noted that the world's youngest mother on record was a five-year-old Peruvian girl (ah, incest: it's a real bitch of a thing, huh?)

Still: it's kinda funny that the average age of puberty in the civilized world is still dropping like a stone even though modern age of consent laws dictate chastity for kids younger than 15 (etc...). Even a few hundred years ago such an idea would've been considered ludicrous to most people. As a society we're pushing back the age of sexual activity, but nature is (for whatever reason) working against us.

I'd just rather not see this precocious girl used as a decoy in the To Catch a Predator series anytime soon...

...or maybe I just wouldn't wanna see the kind of people that would show up at the house... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 6:03 PM MNT

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Mood:  d'oh

Put away the teloscopes and ear-plugs (you didn't need the plugs anyway...): it seems that asteroid 2007 WD5 will not be making its final (and I do mean final) approach towards the Red Planet after all.

Too bad. That would've been one hell of a show, indeed. Given Mars' proximity to Earth this deep impact would've rivaled Shoemaker-Levy in terms of bang for our telescopic buck.

But now, eh. The show is a no-show, and that's too bad. But this whole thing does remind us of the ultimate fragility of any planetary ecosystem (yeah: Mars doesn't have an 'ecosystem' to speak of, but go along with me, here). Hell, we've seen our share of near-misses over the year, and it could very well be that the next time we start talking about a probable impact event in a planetary body, the body in question will be blue, and covered in moss.

Somebody better get on to NASA about building that EPDN thing, pronto. 

(...does Epdin even work on asteroids?... hmmm: why not?)

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:39 PM MNT

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Mood:  don't ask

...*sigh*...

oh, alright, I suppose it's reasonable...

Hell, why not?

Might as well give the little harlots some time off now, since the strip-clubs/laundromats/car-washes/fast food establishments/etc they'll be working at when they graduate probably won't be so generous... I don't really care.

I'll bet politicians like Hillary Clinton care, though.

...but I think she's been stalking me: trying to steal a 'donation' for her coronation. Eh: probably just paranoia, right?

right?

*BAM* 

... ... ...

...maybe not?

(yes, yes: I try to lay off the politics. And, for the record: I'd be more sympathetic towards the little girlies' needs if any pregnant highschoolers were actually as witty or endearing as so often advertised...) 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:09 AM MNT

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For the record, my next chapter will not take several months to pen...

Seriously...

This one'll get done quickly, if for no other reason than it'll be wicked fun to write.

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 1:51 PM MNT

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Mood:  accident prone

If you've got anything to say or do that involves electronic communication, you'd better get it done real quick:

the sunspots are back.

Right, nothing to get too worked up about, but still: this lovely little eleven year cycle has the (possible) potential to (intermittently) affect your (dubious) ability to 'reach out and touch someone'...

Just don't touch him...

(that's suitable as widescreen wallpaper, too... I'm using it myself right now (a version without the splash-mark, anyway) and it doesn't slow my computer down... well, not too much...)

Maybe a little bit... 

Posted by shanekentknolltrey at 2:03 AM MNT

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