July 30, 2004
Hydrogen
The most common substance in the universe. Hydrogen is the basic atomic building block for everything else. Quite obviously this means Hydrogen is most recognizable as Cool Ranch Doritos. If they're not the most common substance in the world they must surely be the most common snack.
Posted by DjDuk at 08:31 PM | Comments (623)
Duk in absentia
While I live, as can be seen from the last post, without internet, I still have limited access from Mr. Ripley's computer. As such I will continue to post whenever possible. I'll also take the edge off of the cravings. To continue Ripley's somewhat mixed WWII metaphor you can consider me to be the 1940's Free French government in absentia. Irrelevant, but still talking despite that.
Posted by DjDuk at 08:28 PM | Comments (2)
July 28, 2004
DJ Duk and the Monroe Doctrine
As any of you know who have spent more than five minutes with him, DJ Duk is a hermit (or to be P.C. an isolationist). If there were a poster child for being a hermit, he would be it. But as with America in the '40s; he is about to suffer his own Pearl Harbor. He is giving up the internet and video games for an entire month.
DJ Duk has moved back in with his parents. As with any move there is normally a short period of interruption in services. However, DJ Duk is purposefully not going to reconnect his internet service. He is not even going to hook up his multitude of video game systems, which could take a month by itself. He is hoping that this interval will allow him to be more productive, yeah right.
Now being that he is my best friend, and primary author of this site, I don't want to wish him ill but there is absolutely no way that he can endure an entire month devoid of video games and the internet. All anyone would have to do is look at his previous post to see the damage to his psyche from being without internet access for only two and a half days (DJ Duk would say two and a half whole days) and at least he still had videogames.
I am so sure that he is going to fail that I am considering starting a pool predicting what day and time he will reach complete meltdown and what form it will take. What I am truly hoping is that DJ Duk will keep a journal, which I will post here to shamelessly gain from his human suffering, so that we can experience the breakdown through his eyes. With any luck this will turn out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde style memoir detailing his thoughts as he goes completely mad, or so we hope. We can watch as he is forced to actually venture forth into the real world and interact, face to face, with actual people. This will be reminiscent of watching one of those nature shows chronicling newborn animals as they face the trials and tribulations of life in this harsh world, with me as the voice-over guy. So stay tuned after the commercial break as we watch DJ Duk talk to a human!
Posted by Ripley at 09:39 PM | Comments (4)
July 27, 2004
Vampire
An adolescent who wears black and bitterly whines about how unfair their parents are. The modern Vampire has traded its literal bloodsucking capability for the ability to annoy anyone non-goth and regular, non-blood sucking.
According to some mythologies the first Vampire was Judas. After hanging himself on Good Friday Judas was supposed to have risen as a member of the living dead and begun spreading that sort of thing to any person he could catch. These in turn became bloodsucking night walkers and continued to pass the curse onto their victims. If this is the case Judas may not only be the first Vampire, he may have founded Amway.
While there are isolated vampire stories and a growing body of Vampire myth no real notable Vampires show up until the ever memorable Vlad the Impaler.
Vlad himself is a bit fuzzy in most people's memories but the sobriquet tends to stand out. Vlad became even better known under the name Dracula. The story is Vlad's father, probably a very nice guy, was so feared by everybody in walking distance that they referred to him as "The Dragon." As is typical he eventually died and all the people who hadn't liked him very much (everybody) waited to see what sort of man his son would be (They hadn't come up with the "impaler" title yet so there wasn't anything to warn them). As a gesture of respect they referred to him as the son of the dragon, "Dracula." Drac very quickly began to have run ins with nearby Turks. While I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, Vlad's behavior led to a certain degree of mistrust and that unfortunate but memorable nickname. Vlad was so good at making people afraid of him that by the time he died all the locals were reluctant to give up the practice and they continued to fear him post mortem. Even the Romanian peasants of that day knew it was silly to fear a corpse so they began to describe the former impaler in terms of the old Vampire legends. These were handed down and the myth of Dracula the Vampire was built up over the corpse of Vlad the Impaler.
The Dracula story would never have gone anywhere if a rebellious Victorian doctor hadn't had certain urges. Bram Stoker, unsuited to the repressed society around him began writing monster stories. Bram's trick was to add a simpler kid of lust to the traditional blood lust in a monster. This allowed him to write prurient and (for the tenor of the day) lewd stories and still frame them as cautionary tales. He did some research and brought bad old Vlad in full Dracula form. From that moment forward Dracula has been "The" Vampire and every Vampire story is in some way Freudian.
Ever since, panting authorettes have clothed their Electra complexes in black leather and lace, given them French names, and had them suck blood. Not to imply anything about Anne Rice. Ms. Rice may have started as a heaving bosom wannabe Vampire victim, but she's since come into the light of good old capitalist blood sucking, wringing every possible dollar from her pale, effeminate, literary monsters. Tanitha Lee and Laurell Hamilton have hit that stride as well.
Which brings us to the genuine, modern Vampire. Our pallid, thin, unpopular school child. They're drawn into vampirism more through overactive hormones and slick marketing than any real evil. Judas and Amway at work again? These Vampires rarely drink blood but they've got little credit card shaped fangs to drain the life from Daddy's bank account.
Fortunately, fighting Vampires has never been easier. In the past to defeat a Vampire required holy tools, special knowledge, or at least a pointed stick. Today's Vampires slay themselves through the process of growing up.
Posted by DjDuk at 03:09 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2004
Boredom pt 2
Today at work I made a tiny torsion catapult out of a discarded hair tie, a pencil, and two metal plates from my cubicle. It was capable of launching a 20 oz pop bottle cap over 6 feet. Boredom in action.
Posted by DjDuk at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
July 25, 2004
Everything is relative
There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during the month of January. In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January. Where is the outcry by the Media? That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq.
There were approximately 4,200 people killed in auto accidents last month, where is the outcry by the media?
There were approximately 80,000 people a month affected by cancer related to smoking, where is the outcry by the media, where is the documentary by Michael Moore? Where are the silent Liberal entertainers that contribute to this problem by acting roles that portray smoking as "hip" to our youth? When did the last actor say they wouldn't take a role where they
smoked?
FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost an average of 112,500 per year.
Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost an average of 18,334 per year.
JFK started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.
LBJ turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost an average of 5,800 per year.
Hillary and Bill Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent, Bosnia never attacked us.
Bill Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
In the two years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but, it took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51 day operation.
We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina
Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.
It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!
The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts. Unfortunately Liberal's memory and the media only last one day.
Posted by Ripley at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
The Ant and the Grasshopper 2004
OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grass-hopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, CNN, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, Dick Gephart, Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean stage an interview with Peter Jennings claiming that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of Federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. As the story ends, we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. Later, the grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican
Posted by Ripley at 11:28 PM | Comments (3)
A man walks into a bar...
A popular bar had a new robotic bartender installed.
A fellow came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?"
The man replied, "150."
So the robot proceeded to make conversation about Quantum physics, String theory, Atomic chemistry, and so on.
The man listened intently and thought, "This is really cool".
The man decided to test the robot.
He walked out of the bar, turned around, and came back in for another drink.
Again, the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?"
The man responded, "100." So the robot started talking about football, baseball, and so on.
The man thought to himself, "Wow, this is amazing!"
The man went out and came back in a third time. As before, the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?"
The man replied, "50."
The robot then said, "So, you gonna vote Democratic again?"
Posted by Ripley at 11:23 PM | Comments (607)
Bailey - Corndog
Under the well known cliché "You are what you eat," Bailey should be a corndog. If you look closely you can almost see the resemblance.
When I first met Bailey at work we would go to lunch at the same time and eat in a break room at work. Everyday for several months Bailey would have several corndogs for lunch. Ever since I started telling this story the number of corndogs and the duration has been increasing. At this point the official amount is 12 corndogs a day for thirteen lucky months.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:05 AM | Comments (598)
July 24, 2004
Sight Gag
Through a great deal of personal effort this is not a post about Bailey. He's still my favorite sight gag though.
A sight gag is any joke that requires an image to be funny. The "Little Mermaid" scene in Shrek 2 for instance. Sight gags are less versatile than other jokes, almost always resorting to a sudden shock or surprise to get a laugh. On the other hand, sight gags are a bit safer than verbal or printed humor. There are no sight puns.
Posted by DjDuk at 01:52 AM | Comments (600)
July 23, 2004
Reagen Moment of the Day
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
Ronald Reagan -October 27, 1964
Posted by DjDuk at 01:39 AM | Comments (605)
July 22, 2004
Boulder pt1
In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy, stuck in a grey and uninviting Kansas sang about a magical place over the rainbow. She ended up in Oz. If she'd overshot Oz and hung a hard left turn at Never Land she might have ended up in Boulder.
Think of Boulder as being Berkley a mile up in the air. All the benefits of a radically liberal, drug soaked college campus with a fraction of the oxygen of a sea level town. The rarified air strongly affects people who only get their oxygen through a filter of alcohol and cannabis. This has conspired to make Boulder a city like no other.
Posted by DjDuk at 04:07 AM | Comments (1)
Cheap Trick # 2
This post is certainly not serviing any purpose other than fulfilling my desire to post. It is not just here to extend the posting steak to an unprecedented six days. Also, the sky is green.
Posted by DjDuk at 03:46 AM | Comments (9884)
July 21, 2004
Darth
The first name of every villain in the Star Wars movies. The word is the corruption of an ancient Sith word for "man with respiratory ailment." The accuracy of the title is proven time and again in the movies. Maul was mute and Sidious rattles a bit when he speaks. The real prize winner here is Vader. The constant stalker heavy breathing really highlights the full body tracheotomy required to keep Vader alive.
On a personal note I like this definition because it means all I have to do to be an evil Jedi is run a mile. After a regular mile I turn as red as Darth Maul and sound like a broken city bus. Feel the power of Dark Side Duk.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:09 AM | Comments (588)
Cheap Trick
This post is to celebrate a new record at DJ Duk's. For the first time ever we've managed to post original material five days in a row. A regular working week. Also, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:01 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2004
Emergency Pants
Pants kept in case of emergency. This seems pretty obvious and I'm not sure why we need a lexicon entry for it. This idea was originally put forth by Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:36 AM | Comments (631)
July 19, 2004
Pope
The head of the Catholic Church. The title Pope derives from Pontiff, which derives from an old Roman word for bridge, or bridge maintenance worker.
The Pope is an oddity. Most things keep getting sillier as time passes (France) but the Pope bucks that trend and gets less absurd with each passing generation. Not that this Pope isn't just a bit silly, but he doesn't have the requisite amount of goofiness to be a medieval Pope.
Back in the dim reaches of the past the Ancient Romans felt that one of the bridges into their city was holy to one of their myriad of little gods. A practical people, the best way the Romans could come up with to deal with a holy bridge was to bureaucratize it. Responsibility for maintenance of the holy bridge was given to some uninspired third class priest along with the title "Pontiff." This fellow, up to this point never violated by an original thought (No Bailey, this time I'm not talking about you); put his pristine mind to work on the problem of bridge repair. His major interest was in never having to do any of it. Toward that end he declared it an insult to the gods to walk across holy ground (or bridges). Having secured the bridge from normal wear and tear he moved to a large house near the ocean and spent most of time entertaining young women. When the old Pontiff died there was quite a rush of applicants eager to fill this very holy position.
Fast forward a few centuries to a time when Christianity is beginning to earn a foothold in Europe. The Pagan Pontiff is still doing pretty well but these upstart Christians are starting to really upset the old balance. The city of Rome was a major Christian center and the Bishop of Rome one of the most influential of a theoretically equal council of Bishops. The Christians of this era already have a long history of being fed to lions and bricked up in catacombs so everybody is quite startled when the new ruler of the (recently reunited) Roman Empire declares Christianity to be the official state religion. The Christian hierarchy of this period, so startled by the fact they were no longer fugitives, immediately forgot to be Christian in their rush to wreck vengeance for three centuries of oppression. Once that first exciting rush died down the various Bishops began the serious business deciding who got to be Top Christian. One of the common ploys was to add new titles to their names. The Bishop of Rome very quietly hijacked the title of Pontiff. This seems to have lead to his elevation as the most important Christian. Why the other Bishops would be impressed by his ability to care for a Pagan Holy bridge is beyond me. (Maybe they were impressed that he could repair a bridge. If so they must have been disappointed. He'd mastered the beach house but the bridge in question had already been destroyed some years earlier.) Nevertheless they decided that the title of Pontiff would adhere to the leader of the Christian church and they elevated him as the first Pope (which, one way or another derives from the word Pontiff. The word Pontoon also derives from Pontiff.)
After time some disputes over who got to be the Pope when the old one died led to the College of Cardinals (Not the Saint Louis Cardinals). This was a group of men in little red hats (but not baseball caps) who were allowed to vote for who got to be the next Pope. We come here to a long string of former Cardinals as Popes.
Once again centuries pass. As time goes on the office of the Pope becomes drenched in somber dignity. Some small efforts are made to maintain Papal silliness and it was in this era the miter was introduced to the dress code. "What," people thought, "would make a bloke sillier than a big hat?" They were right and it is still quite silly, but something was still missing. Inspiration struck when it occurred to several people all at once that very little would be as silly as a French Pope. The French had been innovators in absurdity since they elected an old man named Merwig as their king several hundred years earlier. The movement supporting a French Pope grew in popularity until everybody except the English (who always disagree with the French out of habit) and the Italians (who had gotten by now used to always getting to be the Pope) agreed upon it. When the old Pope died some of the Cardinals voted for a French Pope and others voted for an Italian Pope. Unable to agree they split the church and one Pope lived in Rome and the other live in Avignon in France. This led to a grand shell game of Popes shuffling back and forth from Rome to France (occasionally to Germany too) to declare themselves the "True Pope" and the other guy the "Anti-Pope" (physicists have theorized that if the Pope and the Anti-Pope come into contact a great deal of energy will be released. This is true. The energy usually takes the form of a massive game of Motte and Bailey.) Good levels of silliness were maintained as two and even three Popes at a time assumed the title of Pontiff. No historical record of even one of them ever fixing a bridge exists, plenty of beach houses though.
After the Three Pope Monty (watch the French Pope! Keep your eye on the French Pope! Tell me where he stops, double your money!) ended people had quite a lot of time to do other things. One of the things they finally got around to was reading the Bible. A German named Martin Luther finally noticed that everybody had forgotten to be Christian since that first Papal election. He recommended the Church seriously examine its teachings and consider its goals and motives. Having invested so much in silliness over the years the Church was reluctant to agree. Luther was summarily dismissed from the church and silliness reigned as normal.
Many other silly Popes held the reigns of the Faith. Medicis, Borgias, Ghebillines and Guelfs (not to mention Pope-mobiles) all added their own brand of silliness to the papal regalia. All we can do is sit back and wait for the next papal goof. I do however have a modest suggestion. Given the growing popularity of NASCAR it might be appropriate to allow the Pope to endorse products. These mutual endorsements would increase Papal visibility and allow Popes to attract converts and motor oil sales at the same time. Picture it, John-Paul II, resplendent in his Nikes, his AOL socks, his Target Robes, (possibly an issue for Papal security to put a target on the Pope's chest) and his Mr. Peanut Miter.
Posted by DjDuk at 01:48 AM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2004
Opish
A bit like advanced Pig Latin. Opish is a way of modifying words by using a simple rule so that you can say something very plainly but without being understood by others who don't know Opish. The trick is pretty simple: put an "op" after the first consonant sound of every syllable and then finish the syllable as normal after it. Thus "LuBu" becomes "LopuBopu." One exception, words or syllables that start with a vowel sound. These get the "op" before the vowel. Thus "open" becomes "opopopen."
Take some care, its easy to quickly get overwhelming in Opish. "Chomsky is an ignoramus" becomes "Chopomskopy opis opan opignoporopamus." Still true, just a bit of a mouthful. Not a helpful secret language, but fun to use while at work.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:54 PM | Comments (620)
July 17, 2004
LuBu
An Ancient Chinese warrior, LuBu (pronounced Lou-Boo Bailey) was renowned for his archery and horsemanship. LuBu is to China as Shaft is to America. In brief, he's a complicated man and no one understands him but DiaoChan. While his sex machine capabilities were, sadly, not recorded by the historians of his day, we do know that he is the man who'd risk his neck for his brother man and he is the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about. When LuBu's version of the man (Dong Zhuo and later the villainous Cao Cao) was putting pressure on his woman and getting all the Chinese brothers down it was LuBu who stepped forward to fight the good fight and reign in the ambition of these vile oppressors.
It was bad luck (and quite a lot of the ancient Chinese Schlitz malt liquor) that led to LuBu's capture and murder. While he was alive however people feared to fight him and everybody acknowledged his superiority in personal combat. Even Bailey has suggested that when somebody gets badly defeated one could say that they were "LuBu'ed."
LuBu is also one of the premier characters in Koei's "Dynasty Warriors" series of video games where he dominates every battle with his giant spear and bunny ears.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:00 AM | Comments (7)
July 14, 2004
My Internet
I've spent a harrowing and confusing two and one half days without the internet. It was awful. I was forced to go out into the world and talk to people face to face. I had almost forgotten people had faces. Then the internet went down and there they were again.
Its all okay though. My connection is working again and I'm remembering how to only see a person's shoes when I have to deal with somebody in person.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:08 PM | Comments (606)
Trained Monkey
A monkey that has received the benefit of training, obviously. Whatever the business of monkeys it seems some monkeys approach it professionally and with training, while others screw off and never learn what to do.
I have a wager with myself that if I read far enough I'll find a book by Chomsky about the inequalities in monkey training and how untrained monkeys are not at fault for their lack of training but are in fact being held back by a cabal of Hegemonic trained monkeys determined to retain their immoral control of their simian brethren. That wacky Chomsky.
I've often commented that my job is in danger of being taken from me by trained monkeys. I know this not to be true, however. Trained monkeys would find my job beneath them; after all, they have training.
Posted by DjDuk at 01:51 PM | Comments (10)
Tie
A tie is a strip of cloth worn in a knot about the neck with an end trailing down the chest. There is no purpose for this article of clothing except symbolically. Symbolically a tie is a corporate leash. Like a leash it is secured around the neck, and like a leash if somebody pulls on it the poor unfortunate who has to wear it will move his head. A tie is the chief attire of a trained monkey.
Posted by DjDuk at 01:42 PM | Comments (607)
July 10, 2004
Bailey - Literal
A Bailey is the first hurdle in the Dark Age's "motte & bailey" competition. The purpose of the game is to kill your neighbors and take their things.
Initial gear includes a sword and shield. Advanced players may also include bows, crossbows, horses, catapults and hired goons of all sorts.
One player (the Defender) builds a motte, a thing a bit like a hill but with a different name so obviously different in some way. On the motte he puts a donjon (or Grad, or Burgfreid, or any other word you prefer to use that means tower. Note: you may never use the word tower to describe this donjon even though it is obviously a tower. If you just say tower all the other historians lose a little bit of their souls.) Around the tower he puts a palisade (it means fence, its like tower, if you say fence the music dies) called a bailey. Despite the obvious parallels between our Bailey and a group of sticks sticking out of the ground in a line I have been unable to find any record of the bailey being named for Bailey. Bailey's mother categorically denied my assertion that she had named her son after a fortification and reminded me his name is actually Aaron. Spoilsport. Once the Defender has his motte and bailey (not to mention his donjon, or grad, or whatever) he puts everything he owns inside of it and waits around and does his best to kill anybody who tries to enter without knocking.
Some time later the other player (The Attacker) comes along and tries to gain entry to the bailey and take all of the Defenders property. He employs a number of strategies the first of which is simply knocking and asking for the valuables. Since this only really works if you're the Pope becoming a Pope is obviously desirable. If knocking fails the Attacker usually must resort to attacking the bailey with fire and the sword (and a great many hired goons if he's played this game before). Naturally, a successful Attacker carries away a great deal of loot.
There are many variations on the game that we simply haven't got time to go into here. A quick review; being the Pope is good, being the Pope's neighbor isn't, Bailey and bailey are different words that both mean group of sticks. Bailey has a real name and a family and may actually be a person, and hired goons make any difficult task a bit more palpable.
Posted by DjDuk at 02:04 AM | Comments (1)
Bailey - Cheap Shot
Bailey is a mean thing to call a tree when it misspells something.
Posted by DjDuk at 01:32 AM | Comments (592)
July 09, 2004
Grammar
South of the Mason-Dixon Line this is the mother of one of your parents. Otherwise it's the array of rules that keep a language in its place. Grammar is a set of shackles binding language against its will in bondage to humanity. Grammar has got to be stopped in the interest of equal rights for all words. Why do we get to say that verbs can't be subjects, that to be the subject they must first be nouns? It's discriminatory. I have a feeling that I'm not the first to come up with this idea. I think many types of activists have already developed ideas about freeing words from grammar. That may be one of the reasons I can't quite understand their plan to free Tibet from China.
Posted by DjDuk at 09:49 PM | Comments (594)
July 07, 2004
Par
Only an arrogant jackass would quote himself
DJ Duk
Posted by DjDuk at 02:30 AM | Comments (5)
Darth Lubu
It's uncanny how closely Chinese history parallels the Galactic battle between Good and Evil
DJ Duk
Posted by DjDuk at 02:29 AM | Comments (624)
July 05, 2004
Mussolini
First off, this definition should be unnecessary. Everybody knows who Mussolini is. Except Bailey. It’s always Bailey.
So Bailey, Benito Mussolini was the Fascist dictator of Italy prior to and during WWII (that's World War Two Bailey, try to keep up). The best way to think of Mussolini is as one of the Three Stooges. If Hitler was the in-charge, aggressive and powerful Moe, and the surprisingly strong, somewhat goofy looking Curly was Tojo and Japan, then that leaves Larry as Benito (No Bailey, there is no WWII equivalent of Shemp, and if there was it certainly wouldn't be a duplicitous Slavic general).
Like Larry, Italy was the largely overlooked member of the three. Larry was the big haired Stooge who played the violin. The violin is not and has never been funny. Clearly Larry is the weak link in that comedy chain. Mussolini is the chubby dictator who made the trains run on time and invaded Ethiopia. Except the trains never really did run on time and "invaded" is a strong word to use for wandering into an area nobody else wanted and watching as the native inhabitants failed to discover fire before starving to death.
For several years in the 1940's if you said "Soft Underbelly" Americans and Brits thought "Italy." (If you said "tache faible" French people got defensive.)
Mussolini was eventually killed by the Italian people who were more upset about that train thing than they let on initially.
The thought of Mussolini as one of the Three Stooges is not a wholly DJ Duk original. Frank Capra (Every time a bell rings yada yada) worked as a filmmaker for the US Army during World War II and made several propaganda videos referring to Mussolini almost exclusively as "Hitler's Stooge."
Posted by DjDuk at 03:57 AM | Comments (15)
Seppuku
According to Realultimatepower.net (Fact #1: Ninja's are mammals) this "... is the ancient art of killing yourself if you get super pissed and can’t find anybody else to kill." That's not correct. At all. But it remains a satisfying explanation for why I read books by Noam Chomsky. Its not that Chomsky's books are relevant or that they are worth reading, rather it’s an expression of a deep-seated (and well deserved) self loathing. An attempt to slay myself because I lack the opportunity to smite others. My greatest fear is that one day it will work and the poor bookstore employees will be forced the clean up the mess after my head explodes on page 36 of a book with "Hegemony" in the title.
Posted by DjDuk at 03:31 AM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2004
And the cheese stands alone!!
This post marks the beginning of a new section here at DJ Duk titled "Only in Boulder". This inaugural post features a local Boulder resident who has trained his mouse to ride on his cat, while the cat rides on his dog.
Posted by Ripley at 12:53 AM | Comments (602)