As this blog was becoming a mental speed bump for writing out my inane and somewhat amusing thoughts, I decided to change things up a bit. This blog will remain for archival purposes, but I am now making a home over at the following URL:
See you there.
I would have to say that my caption would be as follow:
Dubya: “So, um, we can, um, kinda forget about all that bad stuff I said about a vote for dems is a vote for terrorists, right?”
Pelosi: “You are sooooooooo fucked. You have no idea how extremely fucked you are, little man. Smooches!”
heh
Yesterday, while trying to destroy yet another firewall (I love my job), I watched the latest “Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror" episode. Whilst watching the third skit, I couldn’t help be enamored with the song that they played during the intro. I quickly googled the lyrics and found that it was a song called “Gloomy Sunday”. I am not sure who here has heard this song, but, given the fact that I have found a home in all that is dark and depressing in this world, I immediately fell in love with it. For those of you who do not know about this song, here is a little bit of history that I found quite intriguing:
The fact that a man chose to quote the lyrics of a little-known song may not seem very strange. However, the fact that over the years, this song has been directly associated with the deaths of over 100 people is quite strange indeed.
Following the event described above, seventeen additional people took their own lives. In each case, “Gloomy Sunday” was closely connected with the circumstances surrounding the suicide.
Among those included are two people who shot themselves while listening to a gypsy band playing the tune. Several others drowned themselves in the Danube while clutching the sheet music of “Gloomy Sunday”. One gentleman reportedly walked out of a nightclub and blew his brains out after having requested the band to play “The Suicide Song”.
The adverse effect of “Gloomy Sunday” was becoming so great that the Budapest Police thought it best to ban the song. However, the suppression of “Gloomy Sunday” was not restricted to Budapest, nor was its seemingly evil effects. In Berlin, a young shopkeeper hung herself. Beneath her feet lay a copy of “Gloomy Sunday”.
In New York, a pretty typist gassed herself leaving a request that “Gloomy Sunday” should be played at her funeral.
Many claim that broken romances are the true causes of these suicides. However, this is debatable. For instance, one man jumped to his death from a seventh story window followed by the wailing strains of “Gloomy Sunday”. He was over 80 years old! In contrast to this, a 14 year old girl drowned herself while clutching a copy of “The Suicide Song”.
Perhaps the strongest of all was the case of an errand boy in Rome, who, having heard a beggar humming the tune, parked his cycle, walked over to the beggar, gave him all his money, and then sought his death in the waters beneath a nearby bridge.
As the death toll climbed, the B.B.C. felt it necesssary to suppress the song, and the U.S. network quickly followed suit. A French station even brought in psychic experts to study the effects of “Gloomy Sunday” but had no effect on the ever climbing death rate.
The composer, Rezső Seress, who in 1933 wrote “Gloomy Sunday”, was as bewildered as the rest of the world. Although he wrote the song on the breakup of his own romance, he never dreamed of the results which would follow. However, as fate would have it, not even Seress could escape the song’s strange effects.
At first he had a difficult time getting someone to publish the song. Quite frankly, no one would have anything to do with it. As one publisher stated, “It is not that the song is sad, there is a sort of terrible compelling despair about it. I don’t think it would do anyone any good to hear a song like that.”
However, time passed and Seress finally got his song published. Within the week “Gloomy Sunday” became a best seller, Seress contacted his ex-lover and made plans for a reunion. The next day the girl took her life through the use of poison. By her side was a piece of paper containing two words: “Gloomy Sunday”.
When questioned as to just what he had in mind when he wrote the song, Seress replied, “I stand in the midst of this deadly success as an accused man. This fatal fame hurts me. I cried all of the disappointments of my heart into this song, and it seems that others with feelings like mine have found their own hurt in it.”
As the months went by and the excitement died down, the B.B.C. agreed to release “Gloomy Sunday”, but only as an instrumental. This version was later made into a record. A London policemen heard this particular arrangement being repeatedly and endlessly played in a nearby apartment. He considered this to be worthy of investigation. Upon entering the apartment, he found an automatic phonograph playing and replaying the tune. Next to it was a woman, dead from an overdose of barbiturates. It was this incident which prompted the B.B.C. to reimpose its ban on the song. To this day it has not been lifted.
As a final note, “Gloomy Sunday” was introduced to the U.S. market in 1936. However, getting it recorded was no easy matter. Bob Allen and members of the Hal Kemp band were the first to record “Gloomy Sunday” in the U.S. They were noticeably affected while making the record. It took twenty-one takes to turn out a record good enough to publish. Few people who have ever listened to the melody and lyrics fail to confess that it has a horribly depressing effect.
Finally, it is not surprising to note that Rezső Seress, the composer of “Gloomy Sunday”, committed suicide in 1968.
Given, people say this is an urban legend, but it still is intriguing, nonetheless. For those of you who wish to hear the song, simply right-click and save as the following file:
Billie Holliday - Gloomy Sunday
I have to say, I just love the old feel to this haunting song. I hope you love it, too.
For the record, it has been far too long since it has rained. Rain is good for the soul. Now enough of this “Few Showers” bullshit. I want “Torrential Downpour”.
You know what is fun? Trying to convince Geeky that she should wear the Homer Simpson Mumu to her wedding.
I shit thee not when I say that it actually tastes like burning in my mouth right now. In addition to that, I have blue teeth. Now, you may wonder how the hell I have that combination going on in my mouth right now. Wonder no longer.
So, yesterday the wife and I are at BevMo looking for Yoohoo since she saw it on Scrubs and must have it now. Well, it would appear that California is lacking in certain essentials like Yoohoo, so the search has been frustrating at best. A friend of ours called yesterday to say that she found Yoohoo at the local BevMo. We went there after work only to find that the Yoohoo they do have is Yooohoolyuglyhowlonghasthatbeensittingontheshelf? So, that sucked, but on the plus side, they have tonnes of other interesting drinks from which to choose. I picked up a carbonated choco drink that sucked. I also picked up some black lemonade. Apparently they want to wear a hole in your stomach with that stuff. And then, I picked up the Blue Brainwash listed above.
So, here is what is interesting about the drink (and why you should always, ALWAYS read the full list of ingredients before cracking one open at the tip-top of the morning): It has jalapeño oil and capsicum in it.
Now, normally, I am cool with all things jalapeño. However, that is usually true when I know that there is going to be jalapeño in whatever it is that I am eating. When reading the label at the store, I saw that there was caffeine in it, but didn’t really read any further since the lower listed ingredients are usually just color additives anyway. Noooooot this stuff. Here is what it has in it:
Carbonated water, High fructose corn syrup, Citric Acid, CAFFEINE, Natural & Artificial flavors, Blue #1, Herbal Blend consisting of: American, Siberian and Korean Ginseng, African Capsicum, Buchu, Echinacea, Jalapeño Oil, Ginko Bilboa, Ginger, Gotu Kola, Kola Nut, Brazilian Guarana, Skullkap (MadDog Weed), clove, Damiana, Sage, Sodium Benzate to preserve taste.
Oh, did I mention it stained the bottle blue? I didn’t drink much of it since, while taking sips on the way to work, I kept saying, “This really is spicy...wtf?”. For the more daring people out there, you should try this. I, for one, am not feeling too daring this morning.
I just got back from seeing “The Covenant” with a friend of mine. Hrm, what can I say about this film. Horrible acting? Perhaps. Abercrombie and Bitch advertisement that barfed into reality? Closer. Cast of abs and pecks with a shitty story wrapped around them? That sound a bit more like it. Homo-erotic smack to the face? Oh, that is what it was. I thought I was just getting whipped with a wet towel. Movie based on a bet that people would not pay to see the biggest, most entertaining water balloon fight ever? DingDingDing!!!
This movie, although being especially bad, was fun to watch. Nowhere have I see such a horrible display of “Who cares if they can’t act. Just have them walk around in their underwear and people will go see the movie”. Of course, after reading about Renny Harlin’s hits and misses, I guess he was due for a flop like this. Funny thing is, though, it was the leader in the box office the first weekend it was out. What kind of shitty movies are in theaters right now that The Covenant is top in the box office? I digress. Should you see this movie? Most definitely. The caveat is that you should just walk in about twenty minutes from the end to see the.most.awesome.water.balloon.fight.ever. If you have seen the movie, you will know what I am talking about.
Two weekends ago, the wife and I were forging our way through the thronging masses at the local Costco. A man walking in front of me had on a black shirt with quite the remarkable and elaborate design on it. As I bumped a few more Asian people out of the way (because really, this Costco must have super secret deals for them as the ratio of Asian to Cracka is 5,000:1), I was able to make it within seeing distance (all of 5 feet because yes, I am already blind as a bat...did I mention that I am also hard of hearing?) of this man’s shirt. Here is what I saw:
Now, being that I love my espresso in the mornings (in addition to free lunches, free vending machines and free pop, we also get full use of the espresso machine at work, too), I saw this shirt and about sharted. Yes, I was pulled in by the gimmick, but I dearly love a cup of coffee that purports to be able to raise the dead. Well, not having too fine of a view, I had to bump a few more people out of the way (think human bumper cars). Unfortunately, getting the cart wheel stuck in some ladie’s hair proved to be a tricky predicament and the guy had wandered off before I could find out if indeed this was a real coffee. Upon freeing the cart wheel, I did a quick cart run (you know, when you put one foot on the back rail and push off and go careening down through the frozen section saying, “HEEEEEEY YOOOOOOOOOU GUUUUUUUUUUUUYS!!!!") down the aisles and, just as I was getting out of the frozen section, damn near ran the guy over. Long story short, I was finally able to see the front of the shirt that told me the following:
With that, I pulled off the clump of hair that was clogging the front left wheel and we checked out. As soon as we got home (and unpacked all of our purchases from the mighty Costco), I popped open my laptop and went to the site. PRAISE DOG!!! It was a real site that sold real coffee. In fact, they even used to sell that poop berry coffee...you know...Kopi Luwack. So, I peruse there selections, drooling with the anticipation of break-neck stong coffee, finally finding the blend that was printed on the gentleman’s shirt: Dead Man’s Reach. Given, with names like “Resurrection Blend”, “Three Peckered Goat” and “Wicked Wolf”, I certainly had a hard time deciding which to choose. However, I went with the strongest that they had to provide and one that, again, purported to raise the dead.
Now, this company is already cool in my book for having cool coffees (and they have an establishment in Tumwater, WA (Tumwater kinda sucks, but it is in my home state so I have some pride there)), but they far surpassed my already booming opinion of them when they had the ground beans to me three days later. Now, that might not be too interesting, but they will only roast when someone orders something. So, they take the beans, roast them and ship them out so you can have them three days later...that just fucking rules.
At this point, I bet you are wondering, “But Sir Henry, what about the fucking coffee?”. You asked, I shall abide. The coffee was as brilliant as I had hoped it would be. I took the 14oz bag with me to work and cut it open right before making an espresso. The smell of the coffee is enough to make you cream your pants. The finished product, however, is utterly amazing. It was actually a bit on the creamy side, something of which I haven’t ever really encountered with coffee before. In addition, whatever sleep I still had in the corners of my eyes was shot out like crusty bullets when I took the first sip. If you love stong coffee like I do, then you will absolutely want to have an affair with this coffee. Now, should I have had two espressos that morning? The shaking of the body told me that one was probably enough. Keep that in mind when you are still in smitten mode and want to spend all your time with the coffee.
Not really sure why I write here anymore. I am pretty sure that barely anyone reads my blog, anyway. But, in spite of that, here is more rubbish for you to not read. heh.
My art has had a number of views, but no other interest of which to speak. Seeing as I am my own worst critic, I have to wonder if people have any interest in the lot of it (I know one person does and she is getting a painting that is currently in progress). Then again, it could be sticker shock, but I stand firm on the fact that if someone loves a piece of art, the price doesn’t matter. I know that is how I approached art when I would buy pieces in a gallery. I decided to get it out there even more by selling over at yessy. We’ll see if anyone has any interest there. Seriously, though, if you have any comments, critiques, questions, etc., go ahead and drop me a line.
In other news, the new Iron Maiden album is pretty stellar. Then again, I am a classic metal head and was all sorts of crazy about the Maiden when I was younger. I guess that still lives strong within me.
Being able to download pdf versions of your favorite comics is teh rule. Not only do I not need to worry about whether or not I am creasing the spine or marring the overall physical rating of the comic, but I can read one after another and not have to go through the ordeal of putting them back in their bags for safe keeping. Currently reading: Ultimate X-Men and the Wolvering Origin series.
That’s all.
*hears crickets*
With a baby on the way and a few bills to pay off, I decided to finally list some of my paintings that I have been “shit or get off the pot” about for the past few years. You see, when you create something, it can easily become a part of you. Once you decide you want to sell a part of you, you don’t take it lightly. That and you wonder how much to charge for said pieces of you. That and art is such a subjective thing, anyway. One person will say that something isn’t art or isn’t worth the money that the price tag entails and then another will see the world in something you have done. My hope is that people will see the world and not see anything at all. That being said, you can see those paintings I have for sale over at a place that Ms. Pants blogged about a while back:
If you have any interest or even want me to paint something for you, just let me know. I would be happy to break out my paint supplies that have been ignored for far too long.
In a departure from my recent affinity for all things dissent, I ask for help from the geek community in resolving a problem that I currently have. Given, I know not whether any geeks read my site, but if you do, please feel free to put forth your assertions and opinions regarding this matter. Here is the scenario:
In testing a particular product for work, I came across a requirement to detect ssh over icmp. That said, I installed ptunnel on my laptop and another host in the lab. From there I set the latter host as the proxy with a destination of a web server on the internet and my laptop as the client. With everything set up and listening, I ssh’d to the web server via localhost:
There is some limitations however, the functionality of web browsers is limited due to having to make several connections to different places for a single page. The HTML will not indicate it should be passed through localhost. In HTTP 1.1 the Host header must be passed, most clients will pass the host of whatever domain they are currently connecting to, so you will have requests for host: localhost, which most probably wont exist on the web servers configuration and will just be rejected.
However, I read in a comment on digg the following in response:
He mentions in the article that it’s not currently possible to tunnel web traffic through this system. Now, perhaps I’m missing something obvious, but if ssh works, couldn’t you just add something like ‘-L 80:localhost:80’ to the ssh arguments to set up port forwarding? Sure, it’s a bit of a hack, what with a tunnel through a tunnel and all that, but it seems like it ought to work just fine....
Again, I tried the latter, but to no avail. I find that tunneling over icmp is pretty damned cool since it is a subversion for a number of things (ie. firewall policies, hotspots that charge you monnnay, etc), but I would want to see it tunnel http properly so that I can say it it the bomb diggity. I could also try tunneling over DNS, but for all intended purposes right now, I simply want to get this part working.
There is the scenario. If you are a geek in the know about how this might work (you could just be really savvy with SSH params) and think you could help me brainstorm this, let me know. I think it is a good test.
Since finding my political voice, I have had to try hard not to succumb to reading every bit of anti-Bush sentiment on the web. It is when you rely solely on one point of view that you have lost your ability to see the whole picture. Although I have nary a nice thing to say about your president and your government (I know that I do not deserver a government like that which is in place today), I normally try to illustrate my distate for them by using examples of just how asinine they really are. I try to cite directly that which illustrates my point. And so, when I first found the Lew Rockwell site, I was naturally cautious to not cite everything possible since it had so many interesting points to make. Instead, I simply read and digested. I then read and digested other articles from other sites. I read through the president’s press briefings. I tried as best I could to see every side. Only then could I really make any educated assertion. Through all of that reading and digesting, I found that there were reasons I was drawn to the Lew Rockwell site. I found that there were words and sentiments that stated what I thought and felt. Instead of feeling like I was one voice, now I feel like there are more voices like mine. My hope is that more voices are heard and that more people find this contageous and compelling. And for those of you who need that extra nudge, I urge you to head on over to the Lew Rockwell site and read the article, Hitlerian Totalitarianism on the Home Front by Karen De Coster. In said article, there are too many things to cite, but the one in particular, the one that I feel surmises how narrow-sighted and blind most of the United States (at least the portion who still is in full support of the president and government without question), the one that shows us that we need not fear any longer, but pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and start thinking for ourselves again:
The other day, I got a response from a reader regarding my recent piece criticizing Thomas Sowell for his support of war and state. All this reader could do to defend Total State was to recite lethargic, half-baked clichés that I see on SUV bumpers every day. One thing he said was, “Freedom comes to people because other people died for it. Pure and simple. Without their sacrifice, we would not know what the words freedom and liberty mean.”
Of course, no cliché is final without a “pure and simple” at the end. But what the heck does that mean? Needless to say, the underpinnings of liberty are not death and sacrifice. Nobody ever cares to explain the meaning of these numskulled remarks that are meant to sound as sweet as a granny’s lullaby, but in black-and-white they don’t mean a thing. Such clichés are nothing more than a jumble of words meant to convey total confusion through the perversion of clarity.
Freedom doesn’t “come to me” because some guy in a foxhole thought he’d roll up a little freedom in a paper airplane and fling it my way. I know exactly what freedom and liberty mean, and it doesn’t take aggressive wars and the spread of empire – in the name of passing on the good life, democracy – to define two words. To interpret words takes a brain. Critical thinking. Effort. Knowledge is the key that unlocks the lies and immunizes against indoctrination. Knowledge takes time and work. Clichés take 5 seconds to read off a bumper sticker or pull up off of Google.
The reader also grossly misused the Thomas Jefferson quote that refers to fertilizing the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants. He used it to defend the current war when Jefferson clearly meant to throw off a tyrannical government when it has oppressed the human spirit and stood in the way of the pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness. And surely, waging war and inciting domestic terror do exactly that.
How many times do we get emails telling us that we are “Unpatriotic” for questioning the president and government? And how many times do we get death threats and unintelligible hate mail for speaking our minds about what we deserve from that same president and government? As she stated, it takes 5 seconds to threaten someone and call them names. It take a person with intelligence to see when he/she is being mistreated/misguided and stand up to state that he/she simply will not put up with it any longer. I applaud anyone who takes the stand against a totalitarian government. I applaud anyone who takes the time to question something because he/she things it is intrinsicly wrong. I applaud the strong and determined for wanting his/her freedom back.
Remember this:
If we do not help to educate our friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family – via encouraging independent and critical thinking – we will see a fascist state that will far surpass the Hitlerian totalitarian system or Stalinist regime. We may not be starved and locked behind a fence, but the masses will be stripped of all self-sufficiency, freedom of choice, mental stamina, skepticism, and the ability to discern between what is morally right or wrong. Arming the people with knowledge, however, is our best defense against a creeping totalitarianism that will otherwise go unimpeded. The depravity of an absolute state domestically and perpetual wars internationally must not go unexposed. We must end the wars against mankind in order to win the battle for freedom.
- Karen De Coster
This weekend the wife and I are heading to the Scottish Highland Games in Pleasanton. We heard about it from the lady behind the counter at the local British store. I asked her how one would prepare haggis and then asked if anyone has ever deep fried haggis. She said that she doesn’t like it that way, but that I can get deep fried haggis at the games this weekend. Well, guess who is going to be trying deep fried haggis this weekend? That’s right...the wife. Heh, actually, I will, as she will probably hurl at the thought of it. So, if you are someone who lurks either of our sites and is going to the games, be sure to not sneak up on us as I have a habit of head butting people who sneak up on me. Instead, simply say hi and we will have a haggis eating contest. See you there!
One thing that I forgot to add to my previous post about all things annoying is that Effexor pretty much takes your metabolism and turns it into the equivalent of the “Ding Fries Are Done!” guy at Burger King. I swear, I could do cardio for three hours a day, 8 days a week and would still not lose a single pound. In fact, I have been gaining weight since working out. How frustrating is that? Given, I am not at the “Hey Hey Hey” stage, but I am getting close to the weight I was when I moved here almost 6 years ago. Here’s to hoping that my metabolism snaps out of it and returns to normal.
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