Monthly Archives: November 2004

And furthermore

marcland is no more.
Long live Hubs and Spokes!

…and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does!

Tom, at his temporary Undercaffeinated blogspot site which I have not changed his link to in my blogroll at his specific request so that his dispute with his bankrupt host company gets some momentum and I sure hope he appreciates it, takes the WaPo to task for torturing its comparisons:
In World War II there were [...]

Reasons to question my taste, Part Two

Okay, I gave you a partial list of (somewhat) shameful filmic loves of mine yesterday, so today I bring you a partial list of Movies I Am Supposed To Love, But Don’t:

Chinatown—In fact, Roman Polanski in general leaves me cold. His direction is unobtrusive, though at times “pedestrian” seems a more apt adjective, and [...]

Reasons to question my taste, Part One

For no reason, here are some movies I love, or at least like a lot, that tend to diminish others’ opinions of my taste:

Disney’s Hercules—Sure, one of their lesser efforts from the 1990s, but the first time I met Megara I fell hard, and I still haven’t gotten back up.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch—Dated? [...]

Quote of the day

I’m too old to have ideals. I had that knocked out of me before I was fourteen. I’m not the sort of man that goes and puts his shirt on Truth or Justice or Purity, or any of those things with capital letters. That was the difference between Compton and myself; he [...]

Comment spam update

Installed Spam Karma.
5 kills so far, no mistakes.
Life is good.

Attention, comment spammers

Getting around the fact that I only accept trackbacks and pingbacks was neat, I grant you that, but have you noticed something?
That’s right, your poker site spams still aren’t getting through. Not a single one. And I’ve yet to install any sort of plug–in or anything.
You have two options. First, go home. [...]

Play MST for me

Waaaaaay back when it was on Comedy Central, there used to be a 24+ hour marathon of Mystery Science Theater 3000 called “Turkey Day,” which featured new–for–the–promotion commercial snippets. My favorite of the batch:
You’re watching Turkey Day on Comedy Central. Turkey Fun Fact Number Five: One Thanksgiving turkey has enough L–Tryptophan [...]

For all its faults…

…Ann Arbor truly doth rock.
As Phil at Brandywine Books discovered, A2 is home to Aunt Agatha’s Books, a small little storefront on Fourth between Washington and Liberty (almost precisely halfway between, in fact, on the east side of Fourth) with attitude to spare.
Aunt Agatha’s is where approximately 40% of Banana Oil’s Rex Stout [...]

Confessions of an addict

I returned to Shanghai on the 20th. I bought a 42 gram bottle of garlic powder on the 22nd. Today is the 25th, and there are about 4 grams of garlic powder remaining.
The curry powder is lagging behind, but that won’t last long.

Maybe you didn’t hear me: I said I liked you!

One of the weird side effects of the job–loss fiasco is that my self–assurance has punched through the roof.
Normally in the presence of females I find attractive I am awkward and timid. When explaining to a female friend in college, she asked me just how bad it could be, and I replied: “Did you [...]

A word to the wise

If you have flagrantly violated, and then broken, a contract with a man, and that man continues friendly relations with you as a gesture of good will, do not then insult him.
Every man has a limit.
Beyond that limit may stand a lawyer.
(To say nothing of a justice system that does not want to [...]

Quote of the day

I had an argument with my father. I argued that Plato was the Father of Philosophy. My dad takes the opposite position: that I should wax the kitchen floor. I said, “Well, the kitchen floor doesn’t exist, at least not in the permanent sense that the concept ‘floor’ does.” He said [...]

A good thing for her he was there, too

Why am I so prejudiced against middle–aged women? I love young ladies, I love little old ladies (excepting the small subset that hate the world), but middle–aged women generally drive me batty.
(Do please note that there are exceptions aplenty to this.)
This morning I was dragged off to the office of the committee for this [...]

I beg your pardon…

…but I am not a “godless, amoral hedonist.”
I am a godless, moral hedonist, thank you very much.
(Or, at least, I try.)