Silicon Valley Redneck

Now there's a disclaimer for ya!

Laughing Wolf has posted what appears to be a comprehensive and all-inclusive (or should that be all-exclusive?) disclaimer.

While I certainly admire LW's style, I personally favor short and simple disclaimers.  Back in my days of posting to Usenet from a company account, I used this one:
    The author is insane.  Any opinions are those of Great Cthulhu.

I gotta start cussin' more!

Mingle² - Online Dating

(Test via Orac.)

Well, of course it gets a G rating.  Shucks, I don't even call Rebo & Zooty: Asparagus! by its proper name.

Another reason this blog will not be a major motion picture anytime soon.

What's become of Liberal Ali?

Strange... I just checked Ali's blog (afreeiraqi; no link here), and it had been replaced by porn ads, and Ali had been replaced by "The Hun."

So, off the blogroll with it.  Looks like I should have saved his e-mail address while the blog was still up.

Update: Mister Ghost reports that Ali hung up his blog this summer.  Guess I missed the announcement... and he didn't keep the site alive & the archives up.

Welcome, dream puppets!

If you're visiting from Dream-Puppet Land, you've presumably just seen the post immediately below this one.  If you're seeing this, you must have clicked on a link!  Oh, no!  Welcome to the right wing!  Be sure to check out some of the right-wingers on my blogroll over there on the, er, right.  Even if some of them are Marxists.

Apparently "right-wing" has become a totally meaningless epithet, used for anyone who, for example, thinks that fifty miles of mountains might have more of an attenuating effect on a tsunami than would some unspecified symbolism and ritual.  (You did click on my link to the map of Southeast Asia, right?  Oh, sorry: that points at the CIA, and they've probably put some mind-control code in the PDF.  Besides, they obviously just changed the map to put that peninsula there, to provide an alternative explanation for Cambodia's salvation, and cover up the power of symbolism and ritual.  While they were at it, they broke into my house and changed my 1967 world atlas, too.  Sneaky CIA!)

Given an astrological explanation and a geological explanation, I'll take the geological explanation any day.  I can see geology.  I know how rocks work: they're big and heavy and get in the way of things like waves.

Of course, I could claim that I personally saved Wyoming from the tsunami, by projecting an electrogravitic field from my secret laboratory.  You might think this was nonsense, just because Wyoming doesn't have a coastline on the Indian Ocean.  But that would be right-wing thinking!  It's so judgmental!  If I tell you that a tsunami in the Indian Ocean was going to hit Wyoming, and that I stopped it using a technology that isn't supported by current physics (but that, if I the inspiration struck, I could expound upon at great length, possibly plagiarizing Heinlein along the way), you should believe me, not some lying map of the world put out by an evil megacorp!

Hmmm... y'know, I bet if I tuned the staples in my head just right, I could come up with a really good story about how I saved Wyoming.  On the other hand, I've got better things to do right now.  Non-fictional things.  Nasty, right-wingy, objective, engineering things, where I can tell if they're right or not, because if they're not right, they don't work, and no amount of salesmanship will persuade the customer otherwise.

Reality-based???

Clicking links from Instapundit this afternoon led to the Unabrewer, and thence to this bizarre claim that Cambodia, which is right next door to Thailand, was saved from the tsunami by the Royal Astrologer In Exile.
There's even a map, showing that, indeed, Cambodia is right next to Thailand.  A miracle!
Well...
Now take a look at a map that shows a little more context. Let's see, now.  Cambodia is just east of Thailand, check.  The tsunami started over by the northwest end of Sumatra, and hit Phuket and the west coast of Thailand, check.  Do we see anything here tha might explain how it missed Cambodia?  Like, maybe, the Malay Peninsula?
Guess those rituals must have relocated the earthquake to the Indian Ocean, when it was originally scheduled for the Gulf of Thailand?  Well, now the Indonesians, Indians, and Sri Lankans know who's to blame for putting the tsunami in their pond.

[Updated to correct typos... one caused by slouching, and one by my inability to type the word "astrologer."]

Three Things

This seems to be making the rounds lately; let's see if I can come up with some answers....

Three Names You Go By:
1. Eric.
2. Silicon Gulch Gumby.
3. Harcourt.

Three Things You Like About Yourself:
1. Ability to create stuff.
2. Perspective.
3. Sense of humor.

Three Things You Dislike About Yourself:
1. About 20 pounds of excess weight.
2. Social ineptitude.
3. Indecisiveness. No, procrastination. No, wait....

Three Parts of Your Heritage:
1. Viking.
2. Jewish.
3. Mutant.

Three Things That Scare You:
1. Spiders (except tarantulas; those are OK for some reason).
2. Telephones.
3. Zealots.

Three of Your Everyday Essentials:
1. Oxygen.
2. Food.
3. Internet access.

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. Glasses.
2. Mustache.
3. Handkerchief Socks.

Three of Your Favorite Bands/Artists (at the moment):
1. Echo's Children.
2. Leslie Fish.
3. Clam Chowder.

Three of Your Favorite Songs at Present:
1. Hope Eyrie.
2. “Evil” is a Four-Letter Word, Too.
3. Der Ring des Nibelungen (OK, so that's not technically “a song”).

Three New Things You Want to Try in the Next 12 Months:
1. Being part of a profitable small company.
2. Finding time to relax.
3. Inventing a new super-weapon.

Three Things You Want in a Relationship (love is a given):
1. Stability (in moderation).
2. Openness.
3. Equality.

Two Truths and a Lie:
1. I have a small scar just above my right knee.
2. I do not have 432 pounds of weapons-grade uranium in my garage.
3. This statement is one of the true ones.

Three Physical Things About the Opposite Sex That Appeal to You:
1. Moderately tidy overall appearance (neither sloppy nor over-packaged).
2. Long dark hair.
3. Bright eyes.

Three Things You Just Can't Do:
1. Deceive people (except when it's funny).
2. Levitate.
3. Think of the third item.

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1. Tinkering.
2. Costuming.
3. Playing with words and concepts.

Three Things You Want to do Really Badly Right Now:
Hmmm... I can think of things I want to do really well... but really badly? I'll pass on this one.

Three Places You Want to Go on Vacation:
1. The Pacific Northwest.
2. A tropical island somewhere.
3. Mars Barsoom.

Three Kids' Names:
1. Little Billy Goat Gruff
2. Big Billy Goat Gruff
3. Great Big Billy Goat Gruff

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die:
1. Finish building my army of giant robots, and take over the world.
2. Witness the heat death of the Universe.
3. Learn how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie-Roll center of a Tootsie-Pop.