January 31, 2005
DJ Duk's vacation
Here is a short video from DJ Duk's last vacaction to the American south. He always seems to run into some interesting people. And yes he really can play the guitar.
Posted by Ripley at 09:48 PM | Comments (94)
January 30, 2005
Government Enforced Prostitution
In Germany and person under the age of 55 can be forced to take a job or face cuts to their unemployment benefits. And since Germany's unemployment is now the highest its been since the reunification the government appears to be getting desperate. Women are now being told that if they do not take jobs in brothels they will have their benefits cut. The goverment had thought to allow the women to object to the job on moral grounds but decided that since it is viewed moral by the law, prostitution having been legalized, and that it would be to difficult to distinguish from work in a bar no objection should be necessary. Glad to see that Socialist system is taking such good care of its people.
Posted by Ripley at 03:47 PM | Comments (10)
January 23, 2005
Actor
A paid liar. An actor is somebody who gets money for pretending to be somebody else. This is similar to a spy, except a spy is pretending to be somebody else to get information. Current evidence indicates the average actor can't even spell information, let alone ferret it out. We, as a society, pay actors to pretend to be more interesting people than they really are. The fun part is that this almost inevitably drives them nuts. Many people point out an excess of wealth as to why actors behave bizarrely. I'm sticking with driven nuts, unable to figure out who they really are. So we've expanded that definition, an actor is a paid liar driven nuts by the doing of it.
A second option, one that could also cover the majority of actors is somebody paid to deliver food to diners. So, an actor is a paid liar, nutty as a fruitcake, that waits tables.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (596)
January 22, 2005
Cloning
The practice of duplicating exactly the genetic material of an existing creature, theoretically generating an exact copy of the first creature. There are a lot of moral and ethical implication for this, and no small number of possible uses and misuses. I'm not interested in any of those things. Rather, in the tradition of my supervillanic forebears, I'm curious to see how I can use the process to secure my absolute domination over the whole of the world.
Through actual and comic book history evil men have considered the use of clones as a surefire way to be in several places at once or always have a large army. The abominable Doctor Watson, and his associate, Crick the bloodthirsty, originally unraveled the secrets of DNA as part of a vile cold war scheme to conquer Latvia of all places. Ming the merciless was a big fan of using clone armies to impose his will on the earth, as Darth Sidious, later the very famous Emperor, was known to do much earlier with his galactic empire in his defeat of noted Muppet Yoda and his Jedi.
Democracy seems to be a particularly vulnerable institution for a cloner. Provided the manufacturing facility is in the United States each clone could probably be considered a citizen. Cloning myself enough times to outvote the rest of the country is a bit expensive for an immediate plan but holds some attractive possibilities. As a lower budget alternative go the Simpson's route and find a magic hammock and simply out eat the rest of the world.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (1)
January 21, 2005
Hypnothermia
I spoke today with a person convinced that there was no hypothermia. That there was instead hypnothermia. It wasn't Bailey, which is vaguely disappointing.
I like the idea of hypnothermia. For those of you that are curious hypothermia is "hypo," which loosely means "lacking" and "thermo," which is "heat," or more generally "temperature." "Hypno" derives from the word for sleep. Hypnothermia would be a condition of falling asleep at certain temperatures. Think of the possibilities. Thermostats with snooze alarms, covert ops heat pads for quietly nullifying enemy operatives, sudden cases of narcolepsy in the summer, what fun, especially in traffic.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (2)
January 20, 2005
Powdered Lettuce
I was watching TV the other day and a McDonald's commercial came on. The commercial featured a woman describing how much she enjoyed the greens in her McDonald's salad. I was aghast. If there's anything green at McDonald's it probably grew of its own volition. Besides which, I've seen McDonald's lettuce. It's white, with the occasional streak of sickly, pale green. I have a theory that the lettuce at McDonald's comes from a cardboard box. Each morning some poor employee dumps the powder in this box into a garbage can, adds water to the fill line and stirs it with a hockey stick for a few minutes, then the entire thing is left to dry. The reconstituted polymer reacts to the water by aligning itself into the strips of McDonald's lettuce so familiar to us.
If I disappear its proof of a McDonald's conspiracy protecting itself from the truth.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (736)
January 19, 2005
Deus ex Machina
Famed literary cop out. Deus ex Machina means roughly, "The god from the machine." The phrase is Latin but it derives from ancient Greek plays where an author would write himself into a corner and then have some god or another show up to make it alright again. The tradition continues to this day, when hackneyed author's stories require some sudden plot device at the end to wrap it up. The machine reference refers to the fact that the actor playing the god was frequently lowered from above the stage by various combinations of pulleys and gravity.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
January 18, 2005
Pinyin
A method of writing Chinese phonetically into a western alphabet. Pinyin is the accepted international standard for writing Mandarin Chinese without the traditional Chinese characters. As an American I find Pinyin to be a truly maddening experience. It's almost like the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet; they use the same symbols as English but give them different meanings. For instance, a Pinyin "B" sounds like a "P" in English. That means our friend LuBu is pronounced closer to "Loo Poo."
Pinyin replaced the somewhat clumsy but much more English friendly Wade-Giles system. A system developed by British capitalists. For a long time I've wanted to find a way for the Cyrillic alphabet to be a Communist plot. I've been consistently thwarted by facts, as the Cyrillic alphabet clearly predates Communism of any sort. Pinyin, however, is clearly a plot by the Chinese Communist Party, who developed and authorized Pinyin. What the sinister purpose of this bewildering mash of new sounds for familiar letters is is unclear. Nevertheless, it must be stopped.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (462)
January 17, 2005
11:44 AM
The right time for lying. Anything that supposedly took place at 11:44 AM simply never happened.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (8)
January 16, 2005
Boggle
One of if not the most, frustrating games in the world. Boggle consists of a 5X5 grid of letters assorted randomly through vigorous shaking. Players then attempt to chain the letters together to form words and to have the most words not discovered by other players within a set time frame. It's a fun game, and it's not a hard game, and yet, I can't win. Have never won. Have never done better than tying for last place.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (7)
January 15, 2005
Vig
The interest paid on a loan to an "independent businessman." That means a loan shark. The important thing about the vig is to pay it fully and on time. Failing to do so results in smashing, breaking, hitting, kicking, and all manner of carnage and wreckage. If anybody is curious Vig is not an acceptable word in Boggle.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (7)
January 14, 2005
J-Pop
Japanese Popular music. J-Pop is primarily in Japanese but frequently laced with out of place English words. It has a tendency to be bouncy and annoying. At the same time it can be rather catchy in aTainted Love kind of way. It's a bit like Brittany Spears with competent guitars. I don't mean to impugn all Japanese music as that sort of bubblegum. There are number of Dance and Rock groups like Globe or The Pizzicato Five that do very well.
There are however a plethora of groups like Morning Musume. Morning Musume started as a five member group of preteen signers fronted by a member of SharanQ (a surprisingly good band responsible for some decent songs including the Orphen opening track) to essentially act goofy on stage and sing catchy machine produced music. Then they added three more members. And then they lost some. Then they added more. They've had as many as thirteen members at a time. It's a bit of a merry-go-round. Old members come and go, new members get added, the lyrics change, but the songs stay the same. A quintessential annoying J-Pop.
There is a middle of the road also. Groups with outlandish names and only slightly annoying songs. PuffyAmiYumi started as something of a metal band but realized they could make more money on the J-Pop train and sold out in an odd fuzzy pink bunny kind of way. Now they produce little but the typical machine mixed happy-bubble music that makes every J-Pop "hit" sound the same.
The other real problem in J-Pop is voice actors deciding they need a music career. Megumi Hayashibara has possibly the highest pitched, tiny voice I can imagine. Somehow she has a successful singing career. Parariru Paradise ranks among the most teeth shattering songs I've ever endured, and yet, through the magic of J-Pop it stuck in my head for an entire semester back in college and I can still sing the chorus from memory. Most of the voice actresses from the show Ranma 1/2 got together and decided to make a band, DoCo, whose songs were prominently featured in several places in the TV show. They specialize in spastic. Somehow I got conned into buying one of their albums.
I had intended to offer this post as a warning to those who've never encountered J-Pop. As I read back over it its more embarrassing than I had intended. So the call to action here is, don't be like DJ Duk, resist bad but catchy foreign music.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (440)
January 13, 2005
Headlights
Anything that causes sudden panic. The word comes from the phrase, "like a deer in the headlights," referring to the well known tendency for deer to freeze up and stare into the head lights of an oncoming car. When the deer see the lights they have a panic reaction and just freeze. This usually results in an insurance claim and a dented fender for the driver, the deer doesn't usually get off so easily.
DJ Duk is well prone to panic and is surrounded on a daily basis by any number of "headlights." Few people are aware of this because DJ Duk moves too slowly for the average man to notice the difference between "normal" and "frozen in panic."
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (7)
January 12, 2005
Epiphany
A sudden insight. An epiphany is when you study and study and it never helps, but one morning you wake up and suddenly realize what a cosine is. I had an epiphany today. I'd seen Sister Act II when it came out but I didn't realize until today that the subtitle, "Back in the Habit," was a pun. Clearly, not all epiphanies are good.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
January 11, 2005
The Ten Best Tools
This list is great. I have used almost all of these tools more than once to fix an otherwise insurmountable problem.
Posted by Ripley at 10:11 PM | Comments (7)
January 10, 2005
Tonsure
A circle shaved on the head of an especially religious person, usually a monk, to represent the crown of thorns worn by Christ. Tonsures got quite popular in the middle ages with men in their middle ages. The reasoning I think is the ability to say, "See, I'm not bald, I'm holy." The Tonsure has declined in recent years but there are Catholic denominations where people still practice male pattern piety.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
January 09, 2005
C'est la vie
French for "Such is life." This very French phrase encompasses simply accepting things as they are and moving on. The French have a great deal of practice with accepting things as they are and trying to live around it. France is probably the most conquered country in the last 1200 years. From Vikings, to Muslims, to Englishmen, and Germans, nobody has had a serious problem invading and frequently conquering France. Rather than form effective resistance networks most French people notice that the foreigners tend to run a more stable and fair government and give themselves over the being history's bitch with a shrug and a C'est la vie.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (7)
January 08, 2005
Genius, Try Twice
A genius is somebody possessed of a greater capacity than a normal person. A genius is stronger, smarter, or just simply better. I've long been intrigued by the idea of genius. A person who clearly stands out above the crowd. Why, they'd be able to get things done much more quickly than normal and have much more time for goofing off. In fact, a real genius could probably find a way out of doing anything at all. Somewhere in my brief life I've managed to confuse the idea of genius with the idea of laziness. C'est la vie.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
January 07, 2005
Genius
Today I sat down, wrote a brief post about genius, hit the wrong button and lost the entire thing. Genius indeed. I shall try again to reconstruct it "Tomorrow."
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
January 06, 2005
Shark Jumping
Jumping the Shark represents the moment a TV show goes from a quality series down the road to ruin and cancellation. The real hope is that a show will be cancelled before it jumps the shark so you can remember it in a good way. This goes back to Dennis Leary's John Lennon versus Elvis. John Lennon dies young and you never have to see him get old lose those memories. Elvis gets old, fat, and dies on the toilet. No matter what else you know about Elvis you've still got to get over that. If Elvis had been killed younger, that is jumped the shark, younger you could remember only the "good" Elvis. Find out more about shark jumping, but sadly not Elvis, here.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (5)
January 05, 2005
"That's Funny"
I make a lot of comments that are meant to be humorous. Most of them are not. On pure volume however I get a decent number of laughs. One of the ways I know if a joke has worked is if somebody laughs. That's great, I like the laugh. What I hate is when somebody says, "That's funny." See, if it was funny they'd laugh. If it wasn't funny they'd just pass it off, or look at me funny, or draw a weapon, or something. "That's Funny," means that it wasn't funny and they feel bad for me for such a pathetic failure. It's the pity laugh. Once and for all I don't need your pity.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (8)
January 04, 2005
Poet
For the record, despite the resume of Maya Angelou, "Poet" is not a job. I've been told poetry is a wonderful medium of expression. That's fine and it may even be true but it doesn't make writing poetry a job. In brief a poet is somebody who takes jobs waiting tables from perfectly capable actors. The difference is an actor has a dream of being a rich, famous celebrity. Some of them actually make it too. Poets can't claim to have a crazy dream; they're already poets, that is their dream, it doesn't get much crazier than that. In the past bucketfuls poets have been other things first; novelists, writers, generals, kings, even drunken lay-abouts with family money. Even if a poet wasn't self supporting he had the good sense to attach himself to someone of the former category and write vanity poetry for them. Today's income tax laws make finding patronage difficult and the modern poet wants to be able to make a living just writing poetry. All through history nobody has ever really made a living just writing poetry. Modern poets, not being historians typically, don't realize this. They seem to feel the world owns them a living for their ability to churn out reams of drab verse. I think that's why so many modern poets are also communists. Communists realize they can promise poets a living and get a large group of previously trained waiters at a lower wage. Sneaky Commies
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2005
U.N.
The United Nations. An international body created at the end of WWII to prevent such large-scale conflicts from occurring again. The U.N. was designed to allow nations to air their grievances in a public forum. To civilly meet and dispute points in an open discussion and receive the opinions of other nations. The other, presumably disinterested nations, could then mediate the dispute and enforce a (usually) peaceful solution. It was, and it remains, a very good idea. Somebody ought to be doing that, sadly it's no longer the U.N.
The United Nations is composed of a number of committees. Only two of them really matter. The Security Council controls the disposition of U.N. armed forces and the General Assembly essentially controls everything else. The Security Council has five permanent members and several other rotating openings. The General Assembly is one large body with one representative from each U.N. nation.
After the end of the cold war and the fall of the Soviet Union there was a significant push to increase the power of the U.N. Instead of a forum for discussion it became a prototype of world government. Gone are the days of reasonable dialog and mediation of disputes. These days the U.N. doesn't wait for nations to bring them a problem. It goes out looking for causes to fight whether any of the primary participants want assistance or not. In recent years the U.N. has begun to offer services to compete with local governments. The U.N. now has a criminal court and provides welfare services. It's even begun mentioning the idea of a world tax.
One of the major downsides to that is the corruption at the U.N. Most governments get corrupt over time. The U.N. already is corrupt. Part of the problem is the open door policy practiced in regard to new nations. Any third world dictator can get an embassy to the U.N. with an equal vote and rotating membership to the Security Council. Most commonly they try to use the U.N. as a way to make money. That likely makes the U.N. the world's largest contributor to dictatorship and terrorism if we could just get an open accounting of it.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (6)
January 02, 2005
Violence
Commonly the most effective way to solve a problem. Violence is the act of applying damaging force. That is, any amount of force applied to one of the actors in any given situation would be considered violent if that actor is damaged by it. It's popular nowadays for well meaning people to assert that violence does not solve anything. The well meaning people who say that are idiots. What they mean is that because a certain amount of harm is necessary for violence to solve a problem the relative cost should be carefully considered. For instance, I want to buy a hamburger, but I don't have any money. One solution is to walk into McDonalds and kill people until somebody brings me a damn burger. This certainly solves the problem, I get the burger, but likely at the cost of the lives of several people and also my own freedom. The key is to find the correct amount of violence to solve a problem.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (75)
January 01, 2005
New Year's Resolutions
Every year Americans ring in the New Year by making resolutions. People tell others (and occasionally themselves) all of the ways there going to improve in the coming year. Nobody ever does these things, at least deliberately. I've always liked the idea of starting the New Year by lying. So, I resolve to post everyday and not backdate posts later to make it seems like I've posted everyday.
Posted by DjDuk at 01:21 AM | Comments (9)