6/3/2003
Like A Record Baby Right Right Round Round…
Alright. Well you’re probably wondering what a guy like me tells all of the VIPs we host, that keeps you awake at night, right?
It went a little something like this:
We fired the admin, the person who hired the admin and the person that hired the guy that hired the admin. I’ve even thought about firing myself, because I hired the guy that hired the guy who hired the admin. I’ll hold off on that until tomorrow, after more bloodletting at the board meeting, after all, those guys hired me and look who I hired?
Hehe, actually, if I did have a real boss I would probably get fired for how I sorta joked around with a few of the clients, using email subject headers like: “Your Blog is completely deleted” and “Totally gone.” And then promised improvements in the server uptime category, moving from the previous 19.3% each week to about 27-28%, though that might be pushing it.
On a more serious note, I do appreciate all the comments you guys have made. I spent about 30 minutes reposting all the blogs I’ve made in the past week (25+) and afterwards went back through and posted all the comments you guys made (I inserted phone numbers, online personals, fantasies, etc. along with each of them too).
So now you’re wondering, what’s next? Now that Tim Swanson has conquered the blogosphere with his 7+ visitors a day, what kind of grandiose, megalomaniac, pedantic plans does he have next? Well assuming I’m not the target of another black hat hacker, I’ll probably do more of the same: me thinking I know more than other lesser/inferior hu-mans (say it like a Ferengi). Well, to be honest it really all depends on the time of day, angle of the sun and how much money is flowing freely between my account and yours.
Anyways, I’ll try to stay cool, low and phat. Dig it yo?
Ever had that experience, where you’re driving along, minding your own business and some obnoxious driver pulls up behind you, with his horn blaring and starts flashing his lights at you? The kind that kisses your bumper and follows you wherever you go, never giving up? And rather than cause a huge scene or car accident you pull over to the side of the road. Oh, and my favorite part is when the driver of the other vehicle has the gall to come up to your window and demand that you show him that you’re not from planet Mars and you aren’t drinking large quantities of Formula 1 oil.
Even better, some of the more hot headed ones demand to know what you’re cargo is, making sure you didn’t ford across the Atlantic Ocean with a contraband Persian rug you didn’t pay excise taxes on. Or that you aren’t smuggling droids from Tatooine for the neighborhood robot wars competition.
At any rate, if you’re making a road trip and want to know where some of those cop-ers are and how to handle them (peacefully), SpeedTrap Exchange is the place for you.
Note: this post fulfills my public charity quota for the rest of the year.
by Alan Haley
I would like to take this opportunity to finally, formally, apologize to the country of Iceland.
What I did was wrong. All of it. From the merciless exploitation of the country’s natural resources, to the ill-advised economic reforms in which the national currency was replaced with various flavors of Fruit Roll-Ups, to the (now) infamous incident with Bjork, ten thousand tubes of model airplane glue, and a roll of duct tape. What I did was wrong.
I guess I was going through a rough period in my life. I had just broken up with my girlfriend, and I was unhappy with my job. I remember clearly how it started: I awoke one Saturday morning, feeling empty and alone. I bumbled into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and thought: “I’m gonna quit my job and go fuck with the country of Iceland.”
So, I’m trying to make amends. I’m giving all the babies back. Palace guards are no longer required to refer to me as “The Great Goombah.” Henceforth, state television is no longer required to air video of me sitting on my couch all day long. Jell-O fights are no longer the means of arbitrating justice. When speaking directly to me, it is no longer required that Icelanders blink excitedly and preface their comments with “Holy jeez, will you look at that!” You can start using the letter “T” again. Pull My Finger is no longer the national sport.
I have some confessions to make. There is no death ray. It’s just a couple of empty coffee cans covered in aluminum foil with wires sticking out each end. The United States of America did not surrender itself to Icelandic sovereignty. Norway was not destroyed. The population of Greenland did not replace their limbs with two-by-fours as a symbol of unity. I am not the Pope. I ordered the city of Grundarfjordur off limits to the population, not because it was devastated by UNESCO battle robots brandishing green, stinging tentacles (they don’t exist), but because I prefer to be undisturbed while looting and setting fire to garbage cans. When I demanded that all Icelandic females between the ages of 18 and 24 be delivered to me, it was not so that I could choose a new host body, but only because I liked looking at them naked. You can have them back, and you will find that, for the most part, they are uninjured and working properly.
My face was not scarred during a horrible, mystical experiment gone awry during my college days. That’s just what I look like. I do not have the ability to direct beams of pure energy from space down to your homes, nor can I cast someone’s soul into the Gut Wrenching Den of Perdition (I made that place up) by thrusting my pelvis. I do not have an Ultimate Nullifier, a Dirty Bomb of Justice, or any other super weapon in my pants.
Work on the nine miles long Battleship of Imperial Doom can cease immediately. Stop painting everything puce. No longer will you be required to set an elderly person on fire every time I arrive. All slaves in the icy wastelands outside Reykjavik who are molding tons of snow into enormous images of my nose and mouth can go home. The city of Akureyri, which had been renamed Asspeeperville, can have its old name back. The lyrics of the beautiful and proud Icelandic anthem may be restored. You will no longer be asked to simply scream irately in time to the melody. You can stop dumping raw sewage outside the German naval base at Reykjavik; Germans are your friends, and they don’t deserve this kind of treatment. You may immediately cease imprisoning people who refuse to walk backward, and release those currently behind bars. You are no longer required to refer to Tori Spelling as “The Mighty Evil One”; you may speak her true name openly, and please know that she is simply a Hollywood actress whom I came to resent because she never responded to my e-mails. Please, go to your world maps and your geography textbooks and reinstate the continent of Africa. The newly created cabinet minister position of Fat Chick can be eliminated.
In conclusion, I apologize to you, proud Iceland, and beg your forgiveness. I know it was hard for you, all those years, and I hope you won’t retain any bitterness about it. And, it wasn’t all bad. Remember the look on the president of Greenland’s face when we bombarded his capitol with icy spit balls? How about that time we convinced the French ambassador that our religious customs required him to appear in public in blackface? Admit it, we had some laughs.
I return your country to you, Iceland. I promise it won’t happen again.
Nice find John.
Here are a few stories I came across but couldn’t blog about because of aliens and boogey men:
- The World’s Most Expensive Photograph - “At Christie’s in London on May 20, the oldest extant image of the remains of the Athenian Temple of Olympian Zeus, or “Olympieion,” on the Acropolis, 1842–among the most “modern” compositions by the seasoned 19th-century French traveler, artist and historian of Islamic architecture, Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892)–became the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction.”
I’ve got some old pictures of me playing in a sandbox, I don’t think they’ll fetch the same price though.
- Three Gorges Dam Begins Storing Water - “The Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, and one of the largest engineering projects underway right now, has begun accumulating water in the reservoir.” I remember reading a story on this 6-7 years ago in a National Geographic and haven’t read much on it since. If you read the comments in that Slashdot post you’ll see several dire predictions as to what will happen with this creation. Among others:
- “The project also has been plagued over the past decade by corruption and discovery of hundreds of cracks in the dam, though the Guangzhou Daily on Sunday quoted officials as saying the cracks, some tens of yards long, were not a danger.” (Yahoo)
- “But environmentalists say it might be too late. For one, 60 percent of the waste entering the reservoir comes from sources that can’t be treated, such as fields laden with fertilizer and insecticide. Of the 90 tributaries entering the reservoir, 60 are now considered heavily polluted.” (Washington Post)
Note: one of the justifications for building this dam was that it would not pollute the environment like other “power plants” do. Here is a detailed explanation discussing the environmental impacts of large dams. And no, I’m not going to build or buy property near it any time soon.
- Apple Japanese TiVo - “It’s a DV encoder/TV Tuner box that retails for JPY31,800 which is roughly US$270. It lets you watch TV and videos on your Mac as well as letting you record TV to your Mac.” (PowerPage) - I’m Sorry, But I Don’t Speak Japanese.
- Thieves stole car with no engine -
Police in Russia say they are baffled after thieves managed to steal a car that had no engine in it.
The dilapidated VAZ car was stolen from outside a house in Severodvinsk, northern Russia.
Its owner had left it there for more than a month, while he arranged to have it taken away for scrap.
Officers say they are now trying to work out how thieves managed to steal the vehicle, Pravda reports.
Just like I continue to have head-on collisions with parked cars…
I’ve mentioned inflation and ze deficit several times now, well the man who is by-in-large responsible for both, is none other than Monsieur Greenspan (that was not supposed to be a surprise). And to those silly kaniggets that insist that “there will be a recovery,” Mr. French (that’s his name) says au contrairé:
Greenspan has been on the job since August of 1987, and look what he’s done with the money supply. As measured by M-3—currency in circulation, checking account balances, savings accounts and time deposits such as CDs and money market fund balances held by institutions—the money supply has grown from $3.6 trillion in August of 1987 to $8.6 trillion currently. It’s an increase of $5 trillion, or 238 percent! In his almost 16 years on the job Greenspan has created more money out of thin air than ever had been created in all the years leading up to his appointment. He has accelerated the degradation of the U.S. monetary system to the point that money manager William Fleckenstein can appropriately describe it as on the “confetti standard.”
I discussed the M3 money supply here and somehow I doubt that being reappointed to an organization that has the impossible task of micromanaging the economic livelihood of millions of individuals, businesses, organizations, etc. will turn out any different for him this next term.
Continuing,
In modern economics parlance, deflation is a decline in the prices of goods and services, the reverse of inflation. But there is no deflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up 3 percent from a year ago. The prices of goods and services are not falling.
In 1913, the year the Federal Reserve came into existence, the CPI stood at 9.9. When Greenspan took over in 1987, the index had grown to 113.6. Now, in 2003, the index stands at 184. With Greenspan’s “careful management” it now takes a $1.62 to buy the same goods that cost a single dollar the year Greenspan took over at the Fed. Put that in your 401K and smoke it.
I mentioned that NASA has a poor track-record with the Shuttle, sustaining two catastrophic missions out of 125 which if any airline did, would result in bankruptcy. Similarly, if Mr. Greenspan was the CEO/Chairman/President of a Fortune 500 company (ex: a commercial bank) and his policies were the same as those he practiced at the Fed, resulting in the continual decline of both profits and the price for stock in the company, he would assuredly be fired (assuming that the company still exists and there is someone to fire him).
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, get a job with the State. Somehow I doubt that any of the media outlets or financial institutions that worship and adore the fellow would ever hire him for anything more than the same reasons Al Gore was brought on to the Board of Directors at Apple. Additionally, if one is to judge an organization based upon their empirically-defined merits, or rather, their weakest link, for the sake of all the neo-Keynesians still breathing, I would hope that Monsieur Greenspan is not that gimp (dare I ask who is?).
