The newly changed quote above should tell you about what needs to be said about the service I've been getting from monrotel lately, which hasn't been much. Granted, some of it isn't their fault, but that doesn't make having 5 minutes of internet in every 15 much better.
On a totally random other note:
TontoMarius: (Quoting an ICQ to Whir) You know, some of these spam comments Regina gets are kind of amusing.
But always I shall guard against the unmistakable and insatiate lobster gram, lord of sleep, against the night sky, and against the unmarried maine lobster of knowledge and philosophy. Shall I say that the voice was deep, hollow, absent-minded, isolated, unreflective, coy, yelped? None could tell just whose arrest might cut off the flite-king plotting at its source. And I incepted my gourmet foods before the crash that I undressed would come, shutting out the sight of the concurrent bird which amended its vowel adjoining south african lobster tails over the brink of the torrent.
starflier06: It's like Jaberwocky, only so much better.
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Anyway. So like a week ago, I'm over at Laurent's, and he's evidently getting fairly drunk, because the French rap parody wasn't that amusing to us, but it really was to him. Maybe if I, you know, spoke the language, but no. The point is that Tali and are got to ignore him and blather, and somehow this blog came up (and it came out that she lurks here. You can post, really. We don't bite. Much.), and she asks me "So what else do you read on the internet?"
So, let us talk about that.
Category the Firste is, well, people who I actually know. You can more or less guess who's in this category, including Whir, Regina, and Stephanie.
Category the Seconde is people I don't know, which in this case is mostly people from rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, where I've been a lurker since slightly after dinosaurs roamed the earth back in 1997. Thusly we have Mike Hoye's amusing tech babble, some half of which I even understand; Chad Orzel, who writes interestingly on a number of things, and though not a rasfwrjite, the author John Scalzi, who I got to through rasfwrj people and who gets included here because of it, who is also one of the smart people of the world, and who's book I'd like to buy when I find it.
And if any of these people should randomly show up here, yeah, hi, you don't know me at all, but I know you and think you're cool, so just keep doing what you're doing, please.
(And for those of you who think this may not happen, I point you unto this old post, wherein I rave about the goodness of Island in the Sea of Time, and who should show up in the comment thread but the author himself)
Category the Thirde is mostly MilBlogs, which I started reading after I became aware after the election how profoundly ignorant I was about the things we're doing in the world right now. That and I think reading what soldiers write about their experiences is interesting and important in its own right, which I can elaborate on if anybody wants me to.
So, we've got bloggers in, going to, and back from Iraq: ARMOR GEDDON, American Soldier, Sgt. Missick, The Questing Cat, 365 and a Wakeup, Major K., and This Is Your War.
And also Afghanistan: SF Alpha Geek (Note to self: Find more)
And a couple of random others, including An American Soldier (Drill Sergeant), and Jack Army (Recruiter)
Yeah, there's a lot. Yeah, there's more variation there than you might think.
And should those folks ever show up here, y'all do a great job. Keep up the good work.
Category the Fourthe is more or less random sites I frequent, including:
RBCiv, ClassicBattletech.com, Tonto, Megatokyo, Penny Arcade, and The Adventurers
Many of these people have, of course, already found their way here. We're doomed, I tell you. Doomed.
Screw coherency. Let's just randomly think about things.
I'm not sure what I think, for example, about either the new Nine Inch Nails or the new Audioslave songs, which are certainly different. I don't think I remember when either one is coming out, either, but I should probably fix that.
I DO think that having radio stations that play Lake of Fire are good, but to return to Audioslave, I wish they'd play something besides Like A Stone, because honestly, there's about 10 other tracks on that album that are better.
OTOH, consistent playing of Tonight, Tonight is ok, and playing Zero is ok too.
I think I have Megatokyo Book 3 on my desk, and I think that's cool.
I also think my parents are silverware heretics who need to recognize that brand new invention, the spoon, and its uses.
However, I think teriyaki steak kicks ass, too, so that's all good.
I was actually going to say some things, but instead I'll just post this email from Suzanne, and let it go at that.
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I don't know. I really don't.
No, wait, I do. It's because your warped mind sometimes spits out these images that scream "draw me!", and if nothing else, I'm one for listening to the non-corporal voices. Ok, that and another one of my lectures got cancelled today. None the less, rare it is that I giggle so much when I'm drawing. For this, I have you to thank.
HAHAHAHAHA. and guess what song just came up on my playlist? "Golden Retriever" by.. wait for it.. "the Super Furry Animals".
Dear god I'm tired. Here ya go, hope you like.
Suzanne
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(Talking about the SATs)
starflier06: On the test, there were these 2 questions
starflier06: One was a "find what's wrong with this sentence"
starflier06: and talked about roots
starflier06: the other was a math problem
starflier06: which dealt with increase in squirrel populations
starflier06: So clearly the squirrel aliens are gaining influence over at ETS.
TontoMarius: Woot.
(and on a totally other note)
starflier06: Still working on the parentals, btw
TontoMarius: *nod*
starflier06: The gist of it is this: were you female, under 20, flamingly gay, or a eunuch, there would be no problem. Since you are, I told them, AFAIK, none of these things, they're still considering.
TontoMarius: *laugh*
starflier06: I thought you'd find that amusing.
Exceedingly long-time readers and/or Tonto members will remember Marius' Rants of the Day, posted to the Tonto boards at random intervals over the course of about two years, from 9/00 to 12/02 or thereabouts. Somewhere in there, and I'm going to call it about December of '02 or maybe January '03, Whir decided that I ought to have my own blog. "Bah," I said to him. "I'll NEVER be able to generate this much amusing crap on a daily basis. It'll never work!" And there I sat for a few months, because as my mother would love to tell you, I am exceedingly stubborn when I have the mind to be, especially about tech sorts of things. I was, after all, notoriously delinquent in adopting ICQ along with all the cool kids back in, oh, 1998 or whatever it was. Hell, my first broadband was when I moved to the dorms in late 1999, although to be fair, that's all monrotel's fault, though it does serve to remind me that I've been on the 'net for something like 13 or 14 years now, which is almost but not quite beyond dinosauric.
Anyway. The point I'm getting at here is that on the 12th, demented rabbits will have officially been raving here for two years. I suppose that in that time, I've probably done better than I thought at generating amusing crap, or at least crap. In any case, I've found that I rather enjoy doing this sort of thing, and since a number of you keep showing up, I'm forced to assume that either you think I'm doing a reasonable job of it, or that the squirrel aliens have been playing with the mind control lasers again.
So I figure that in honor of this (un-)historic occasion that I'd offer up sort of a Best Of list of what I think are my best posts. They will, of course, be used against me by partisan hacks in smear ad campaigns 20 years from now when I run for president, but hey. At least, unlike some other presidential candidates, _I_ can speak with an English acc...crack a joke.
So. To quote myself from the very first post ever ever posted here ever in the history of the whole universe, "It will all, in the end, sound like pretentious drivel, but that's ok. I'm a professional."
keyboard_death_sucks (Because, well, that there was some funny, funny shit.)
You have two rabbits... (A thing that I thought was hilarious even if nobody else did.)
LifeMUD (I understand that almost nobody gets MUD jokes. Nevertheless, they're some of my best humor.)
Four Hours Later, Responses, More Responses, And We Continue With... (Because every blog needs a big religious debate. I'm not so sure that I agree with myself two years down the road, and I'm not sure I'd say some of the things I said now, but I guess we all grow up sooner or later. Well, maybe not Whir. But you know.)
Star Wars, Attack of the Humor (Darth Fuzzy. Need I say more?)
Cult of Personality (Our first Marechalism. Marechalisms are of course funny more for Marechal than ME, but...)
Diary of a Madrabbit (I like MUD humor, and I like humor that makes fun of Communism. So there you go.)
In the Continuing Search For Greatness (This says most everything needed saying about games, I think)
Numb (No blog of mine would be complete without a Perils of Dentistry post, not to mention pictures)
Happiness Is A Dead Paper (The original Caffiene BIOS quote)
Happy Birthday to Meeee... (The Chicken Pot conversation)
Obi-Wan KOTOR (Two things to note: That internal conversation is a favorite of mine, and Cole's CracKOTOR line)
Until the End of the World (Yes, it's a MUD retrospective. But I am proud of Alsherok and everything I've done there.)
Faith In Government (Because even the Paper of Doom was funny from time to time)
Trim to Intersection (I am also quite proud of my mad CC2 skillz)
Drown (While there have been MANY "Death to school!" posts over the years, this is perhaps the pinnacle.)
The Origin of the Species (Squirrel aliens need love, too)
April, 2004, May, 2004, June, 2004 (Certainly not all of these are great posts, but in general, the Europe bloggage was some of the best writing I've ever put up here, in my unhumble opinion)
Bad Blood (It's not so much that I'm proud of my various election bloggage, exactly, except insofar as thinking about it has generally made me a better critical and political thinker. But some of my positions and methods make me cringe now.)
Mysterious Ways (While there's the BT conversation to be had, chiefly I just like Tim's awe at my rather cluttered mind)
Will Work For Food (I generally like my picture bloggage, but this one's got some pretty amusing pictures)
Trogdor, Revisited (And the onager comes in the niiiiiiight!)
Until the End of the Page (This is less cool for the fanboyish rantings about the ISOT books than the comment left by SM Stirling himself in the comments thread)
Pain Is A Sign of Weakness Leaving the Body (Chiefly this is a chronicle of doing something I'm rather proud of. Plus it's kind of funny in that "Yeah, that sure did hurt" kind of way.)
Pain Is A Sign of Weakness Leaving the Body, Part II (First, a landmark in terms of being my first guest bloggage. Second, I'm proud of doing what I did, and what I continue to do. Third, "Yeah, that sure did hurt. But heh!")
On Friendship (I've attempted to say fairly profound things from time to time in this space, and I think perhaps I have gone some way towards doing so this time.)
The Evils of Drink (I realize this was the post before this one. However, it's probably the funniest thing I've put here in a long damn time.)
So there we are. Not too atrocious, I think, at least not on the level that my Rants of the Day were. I don't think I'm quite being all I could be just yet, but I do think I'm getting better, at least in my ability to write intelligently on important subjects. And I like the post titles. The post titles are probably my favorite parts of doing this.
But anyway. It's been a pretty good couple of years. I've enjoyed it, and I hope you all have too. I'm almost over being sicker than your average canine, so we'll return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast. Until then, I'm Dwip, and you're reading SABC.
Assorted random and mostly out of context conversation between Cole and myself.
Yes, I know I'm an evil bastard.
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Cole: dude,,.\ i'm plowed to shit, you ba ve bnow idea
Me: Well, if I didn't before, I sure do now. I mean, given the spelling of that thing you just sent me and all.
Cole: yeabh, i heugss
Cole: or guess as the ase mayb e
Cole: *case
Cole: keep in mind i don't have my gleasses on so i can't see the screen
Me: heugss? Look, I've heard of beer goggles, but that's a little extreme.
Cole: the fact of the matter is that i shgould go to bed but i'
Cole: m reall6 easted ah have no idea what i should be doing
Me: Going to bed at this rate sounds like a plan.
Cole: *i'm really wasted and i should go tod ved
Cole: *bed even
Cole: brian had to help me home
Cole: couldn't even see as far as a block
Me: I take it he's a little less drunk.
Cole: ye3ah, way lesss
Cole: sorrry7, but i can barely control my typying
Me: It's ok. Just realize that Whir and I get to make fun of you in the morning. [ED note - does this count?]
Cole: oh, ok,, but i probably won[t be awake any time before 12
Me: We have a pretty broad definition of morning.
Cole: habh
Me: habh?
Cole: wjatever. upi lmpw wjat o ,eam
Cole: *whatver, you know what i mean
Me: You realize I had no idea what the fuck you just said.
Cole: I'M BLI9ZED AND YOU CAN'T HOLD IT AGAINST ME
Me: Considering that the 9 and T keys are on opposite sides of the keyboard? Yes, I can.
Cole: exdatly
Me: I can't even begin to comprehend how you managed to spell that.
Cole: what were we talking about agin? stuf with the thing?
Me: The sociopolitical impact of squirrel aliens on the countries of 17th century Asia.
Cole: dumb it down for the drukn guy
Me: Well, there were these squirrel aliens. And they did stuff. And things.
So tonight's random entertainment is like this:
1. Open up Acrobat Reader. Make sure you have the latest version.
2. Open up some sort of text PDF. If it's one with a lot of screwy words/slang, foreign languages, or both, so much the better.
3. Go to the View menu, find Read Out Loud, and have at it.
"Blood Spirit PraaaaaahtoMech Pilot"
Whee.
Too bad I'm still sick.
