This is my front page. All comments here are screened; if you don't have my email address, you can drop me a line here. If I know your email address, I'll reply by email -- if not, I'll reply to your comment, and then rescreen both your comment and my reply.
It's also got every tag I have -- this is because my current LJ style doesn't include a tag index. (At least half of my participation on LJ is on my Treo. I chose this style because it loads quickly and it's still readable on a small screen.)
I'd tell you more about myself, but that's what my profile -- and the rest of my journal -- are for.
And on that note, I present Scrooge Defended. It's either a perfect example of why the Libertarian point of view is complete bullshit, or a brilliant piece of satire intended to illustrate that the Libertarian point of view is complete bullshit. I suspect that if I hadn't known some armchair libtards, I'd likely know for sure -- as it is, I could go either way.
A long time ago, I posted this guide to classical music you already know, even if you think you don't. I'd meant to follow that up, even make a whole series of posts like that, but kept shoving it to back burner. Anyway, I'm just now getting back to it, and I need to raise the tone of my LJ since my past public post was links to really bad porn snippets, so here are excerpts from three operas I can probably guarantee you've heard.
First, one you've probably (hopefully!) known since you were six years old, at least in the United States: Overture, from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini. You're familiar with Bugs Bunny, aren't you? You've seen him and Elmer Fudd mix it up on the opera stage in a barber shop? This piece got beautifully mangled in that cartoon, and mangled considerably less beautifully in many cartoons since.
Next: Un bel dì vedremo (One beautiful day, we will see), from Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. With this one, it's possible that you've only heard the first couple of bars, but oh, what a first couple of bars! The whole song is worth hearing -- in fact, it swells as it goes on. If you have the patience, the whole damned opera is worth hearing, too.
Last, Vesti la giubba (Wear the costume), from Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. As with Un bel dì, this one has one especially famous line in it, and it's been heard everywhere. I remember an episode of one of the Batman cartoons in which Penguin attended this opera and sang along (horribly). This one line starts about 2:00 in.
Not safe for work, obviously. Most of the photos are of women, though there are some men scattered here and there, and even if one or the other doesn't float your particular boat, the photos have artistic merit as well. Oh, and the site's in French.
Discovered on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books: Apparently, there is an entire network on cable TV aimed right at the GLBT demographic. I only ever watch TV at work (or when visiting friends), and I'm only barely on the outermost edge of that demographic, so I doubt I'll ever see this network myself. Still, I'm glad it exists. Some of its programming scares the crap out of me, but I'm glad it exists.
Discovered on Jezebel: Two people started an advice column, but with a twist -- both of them are stoned out of their gourds. It's probably not any less useless than any other popular advice column, and it's a hell of a lot funnier.
Discovered on Fleshbot (NSFW): As happy as I am that there are people who think that red-haired men are teh hawt, I think this site (NSFW) is kinda creepy. It's flattering as hell (we're all insatiable well-hung sex gods, dontcha know), sorta, but the obsessive fetishizing tone makes me want to send them pictures of really ugly redheads and really poorly-hung redheads out of spite. (Okay, I'm being unfair. I don't necessarily know that The Donald has a really small one, but come on, if you're naming airplanes and giant skyscrapers after yourself, that's probably the way to bet.)
Discovered on Questionable Content: Being male, I doubt I'd be all that welcome at shops like this one, but I really hope they exist in real life. (The closest thing I've seen is Good Vibes.) I also hope that someone makes a Daft Punk Disco Dong soon, if for no other reason than "Daft Punk Disco Dong" is really fun to say.
Discovered on YouTube:This video is possibly the dorkiest thing I've seen this year. So why did I just watch it ten times in a row and laugh myself hoarse? "Quit it. Quit it. Quit it. Quit it. Quit it..."
Discovered all over the fuckin' place: A lot of gay-themed books have disappeared off Amazon's ranks and searches. Searching "homosexuality" on Amazon gets you lots of books about how you're a dirty sinful person who can change if you try hard enough, or how you must keep your child on the straight and narrow, lest TEH FAWRCES OV TEH EBIL EBIL GHEY place your child on the road straight to Hell. But all this is a glitch. Really. Really! (I'd love to comment on this, but I'm very much late to the party, so everything I'd care to say has already been said.)
So, diziara just sent me this. For those of you who don't want to click, it explains that a while back, an online comic made a joke about making a virus that would read your comments out loud whenever you tried to make a comment on YouTube. (For those of you blissfully unfamiliar, YouTube comments are bloodchillingly idiotic even by internet standards. The idea is that people who post these comments will realize, for the first time, how moronic they are.)
Well, apparently, YouTube listened. They've added an audio preview button.
I may be far too easily amused, but OMFG, this is the best new feature ever! I'm not even going to post comments with it -- I'll just use it to make my computer say rude things and crack me up.
I stole this from caprine, who now owes me a new set of abdominal muscles, because I laughed so hard I've torn mine. Ow! Ow! Ow! And I still can't stop laughing!
For a while now, I've sorta half-hoped for a Girl Genius meets XXXenophile comic.
You must admit, Agatha is drop-dead gorgeous, and Gil looks really good naked. Foglio would have a lot to work with just with those two, to say nothing of the possibilities with Klaus/Lucrezia flashbacks, Jaegerslash, the wild and crazy games that DuPree no doubt likes to play... and who knows, Castle Heterodyne and Castle Wulfenbach might find each other irresistible! I have no idea how that would even work, but he's got a good imagination, I'm sure he could figure something out!
Now, Foglio's obviously an open-minded sort, or he'd never have drawn a porno comic like XXXenophile in the first place. Still, I never considered that he might actually make an adults-only edition of Girl Genius, except as an idle daydream.
Then I saw today's strip, and aside from being insane and bloodthirsty, the Castle has a taste for innuendo. "Magnificent Death Ray?" "Oversized machinery?"
Now you're just teasing us, you bastard. :)
(But seriously, I can't be the only one hoping for a Girl Genius/XXXenophile crossover, can I?)
Most people have relatively little education in Classical music. For a lot of us, our Classical education is limited to certain pieces that appear in movies, and Warner Brothers.
Hell, in my case, I love the stuff and my own exposure to it is far from complete. Aside from the names everyone knows (Mozart, Bach, Beethoven), I tend to specialize in 19th and 20th century Russians: Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, and so on. To be honest, I first got into Classical music because I'm first and foremost a metal-head, and most good metal draws on Classical music. If you want to write metal that isn't crap, Classical music is kinda required reading.
Then, I discovered that a famous composer once wrote a piece that caused a riot at its debut in Paris. Any idiot can start a riot at a metal show. Starting a riot at a ballet, in Paris, in 1913, takes genius. Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring did exactly that, and I fell in love the moment I heard it.
So, I'm going to raise the tone of my LJ, and inflict a little music on you. Don't worry, if my LJ becomes a little too high-brow, I'll post some George Carlin or something for contrast. Besides, you already know these songs. At worst, you just don't know the names yet.
First, an easy one: Fortune Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World), from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. This one has been used in a bunch of movies, and at least one ad for beer. Don't mind the visuals from 300; this is the only version I could find on YouTube that had both halves of the piece.
Next, Mars: Bringer of War, from The Planets by Gustav Holst. The people who score war documentaries tend to like this one a lot. Other than that, the soundtracks from Robotech and Star Wars don't exactly quote it, but they definitely show its influence.
Finally, The Flower Duet, from Lakmé by Léo Delibes. This one has also been used in a bunch of movies, and at least one major company has used it in its ad campaigns. The part you've almost surely heard starts at 1:22.
Today, I have a few British documentaries for you. The first couple, I found a month or two ago while I was looking at some of my favorite idiots on a forum and trying (successfully, this time) to persuade myself not to start trolling them. I didn't really want to post them without something to balance them... but I just found that special something!
(I should point out that none of these videos can properly be considered pornographic -- they are documentaries in every sense of the word. Still, don't watch them at work, unless your workplace is okay with lots of skin and naughty bits flopping around, to say nothing of wasting company time watching hour-long shows on the net.)
The first documentary is on penis size, and all those guys out there who want theirs to be bigger. It explores an astonishing range of things that guys will do to themselves, or arrange to have done to them at a high price, in the name of having a bigger penis. (Warning to the squeamish: Mister Mark and his blob make an appearance in this video, and at least one guy is shown going under the knife.)
The second documentary is also on penis size, this time from the perspective of that small handful of guys who do have it, and somehow don't think it's the greatest thing ever. It turns out that having thirteen and a half inches isn't all it's cracked up to be. Are you surprised? I'm surprised. Holy shucking fit, I'm surprised. OMFG, holy crapshit, I'm surprised. And so on.
The third documentary explores breast size, again from the perspective of those people who have it in abundance, and rather wish they didn't. Again, I can only claim to be surprised with a lot of sarcasm on the side. Big boobs can cause back problems? Nooo! Never would have guessed! Please, say it's not so!
All three of these are interesting, even enlightening in a weird sort of way -- and surprisingly tasteful, at least insofar as the subject matter allows it. You never see Americans even showing documentaries like these, let along making them!
For those of you who didn't know, I keep an HTML cheatsheet up on my computer. Mostly, I use it for things I use regularly, like footnotes or the altered formatting I use for dream posts, or for putting the self-cleaning-anus in tiger(self-cleaning-anus)wolf or the extra-long vowel in faaaaabio. That way, instead of typing five lines of code for tigerwolf or four lines for fpb, I can just copy and paste.
Well, I've recently decided that someone on LJ needs to be addressed in future as shit_cauldron, by as many people as possible. You can find out why here¹. Since this is about four lines of code, I've added it to my cheatsheet.
If you have a cheatsheet of your own, I encourage you to borrow my code. And spread the word far and wide!
No, I'm not calling her a douchebag, faggot, baby-raper, dyke, fudge-packer, and/or mother-fucker. You've heard of TinyURL, haven't you? Well, this is a neat little toy called IndecentURL. It exists because even pictures of cute little kitties can be made hilarious with a URL that includes things like twat, lemon-party, mother-fucker, shit, asshole, slut, splooge-balls.
But mostly, I'm using this URL redirection so that her real name does not appear anywhere in my post, either in text or in source code. Yes, she has a real name. I won't use it. "Shit Cauldron" suits her much better.
I'm not generally fond of death metal, though there are a few death metal bands I love. I'm not really a fan of industrial, either, though again, there are a few bands I love. And I generally really dislike glam.
But mix the three together, and suddenly, I'm intrigued. I don't know if I'll actually buy anything by Deathstars, because I may be completely sick of them in a week -- the lyrics are a great big ball of wadded-up cliches, and the music is fairly predictable. But for now, I'm actually liking them a lot.
"Gallant eats a well-balanced breakfast to get the day off to a good start. Goofus skips breakfast because his friend Desperate always trades his Pop-Tarts for a blowjob."
"After football practice, Gallant showers carefully, so that he smells only of soap and his fragrant shampoo. Goofus, despite Gallant's having observed him wash particular body parts unusually thoroughly in the shower, continues to exude an intoxicating blend of sweat and testosterone."
"Gallant walks directly home from school. Goofus walks directly to Gallant's home from school."
"Gallant chokes back a cry as Goofus' lips engulf his boyhood. Goofus chokes on Gallant's mammoth dick."
"Gallant thoughtfully covers his teeth with his lips while giving oral sex. Goofus grunts at Gallant to "use [his] damn teeth, bitch!"
I just found a porn site on the internet. Yeah, I know. What a shock.
Well, this one has a twist that's either amusing or depressing: you navigate it by using the keys W, A, D, and S. Aside from spelling out the word "wads," these keys are all conveniently under the left hand, for the benefit of people who, well, have other more urgent uses for their right hand. Oh, and it also lets you navigate using the arrow keys, presumably so that left-handed people aren't left out.
(Stolen from Sensible Erection.)
Ow, my childhood!
Me Tarzan. You Jane. It's the foreplay that makes this one so much fun. "Yes, that's a navel. I have one too, just like yours!"
(Stolen from various friends who know I used to do adult web design, and will never let me live it down. Still, they sometimes send me the funniest shit, so I forgive them.)
Ow, my brain!
"Oh, no! My sink is clogged, and I'm a total airhead! Whatever shall I do? Oh, I know! I'll call a plumber, so that he can lay some pipe look at my pipes!" Except this one has a bizarre twist. The airhead in this one is a little more literally an airhead than usual, and the plumber is a man in a monkey suit.
(Stolen from a friendslocked post.)
A while back, I had this idea involving making a porno of the video game Donkey Kong. With every passing day, this idea seems less unlikely.
I thought of posting on the subject of that poor bastard who was lied to about a baby that turned out not to be his, and was then forced to pay child support for fifteen years, despite having had a vasectomy, but I decided against it. I've already seen it turn to a gigantic river of splooge in other LJ comms, complete with name-calling by people I know are capable of much better than that, and I decided that I want no fucking part of it.
So instead, I offer this video by the Bastard Fairies!
"All you Mormons who like cussing, you are going to Hell! All you preachers who like fucking, you are going to Hell! Little boys that choke the chicken, you are going to Hell! It's the nature of evolution: the dinosaurs went to Hell!"
I posted the song a while back, and it was merely funny. The video is much funnier.
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