Archive for 3/4/2008 - 27 Adar I, 5768

Obama’s shown that he’s fairly intelligent. There’s a good chance he could beat me in a contest of wits.

He can definitely deliver speeches better than me. And his speeches have moments that illustrate poetic strength.

But I can bowl better than he can! I usually bowl at least double his score.

And those of you who have seen me bowl, know before you even follow the link, that bowling isn’t up Obama’s alley. But luckily, that isn’t something a President needs to do well.

Note: Removing anything that contains leavened bread (chametz) from the home is one of the traditions of Passover. (One that is occasionally missed in more “liberal” branches of Judaism) Beer contains barley, and fermentation and leavening are closely related. Which is why beer must be removed. But the video suggest pouring it down the drain. (Perhaps for lyrical reasons.) There are other ways to get rid of it. (Unless ‘drain’ is meant metaphorically.)

And there is Kosher for Passover beer (though according to the article, the first batch in 2000 years was made back in 2004.) The fact that it is ‘gluten-free’ creates an additional market for it year-round. The brewery has an interesting selection of beers
.

I’ve done this before, with a different page number. (The meme was probably changed by someone who reads very short books - but memes are supposed to change, so it’s OK.)

This time it’s Blair’s fault, but luckily, this time, I’m at home!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal…along with these instructions.

Definitely.

Counting sentences in some poetry can be challenging; I almost posted the fourth sentence, which was significantly longer.

This comes from Elegy by Mary Jo Bang. The title of the poem is, by happenstance, Definitely. All twelve of the other sentences in the poem are significantly longer.

The meme doesn’t ask for it, but here’s the first sentence, to give you a better taste:

What is desire
But the hardwire argument given
To the mind’s unstoppable mouth.

Mary Jo Bang is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. The collection Elegy chronicles the year following the death of her son.

Blair asked: “Who the heck keeps great literature - or even a comic book - near the computer?”

And I answer that question, “me!” If I’m not at work.

I’m posting about this a little late, as it’s only five hours away in St. Louis. It’s a nice symbolic gesture.

Here is the context of the sermons we’ve heard snippets of.

The 9/11 sermon [9:57]

G-dam America sermon [6:48]

The Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences is an internationally renowned center for sex exploration, expression, education, investigation and therapy, founded by Susan M. Block, Ph.D. in 1991.

Here is a summary of the Purim story. (Written by Dr. Susan Block, a sex educator, author of “The Ten Commandments of Pleasure” and founder of The Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts and Sciences.

This shouldn’t be read by anyone under the age of 18, or anyone who at this point in my post
thinks they might be offended.

For those who attended a party tonight where the text was read — there are pictures that accompany the text online.

Update: Here’s how I looked last night, courtesy of Bob:

Sure, sure, many of you probably read about this yesterday, March 18th, 2008.

However, go back to the news stories and reread them. Yes. He died on March 19th. Today is March 19th. So he died today. You read about it yesterday. One of the greatest SF writers in history managed to do something all SF geeks dream about. His final act was one of time travel.

Oh sure, you can talk about time zones. And we did talk about time zones a few days ago in this comment thread. Still, it’s something.

I have to credit Blind Lemming Chiffon for the catch.

Three Cheers for The Support Team!
Everything is now working.

(Well, except for the translation plugin so you can’t read this blog in French at the moment, or one of the other language options. But that’s a relatively minor issue. For me at least. If I have *any* regular readers out there who had been reading my blog in one of the foreign languages, despite what I assume was a pretty lousy translation, let me know, and I will work faster at restoring the plugin.)

It seems the original problem was merely 1 file that somehow mysteriously got deleted. That file has been recreated. However, we also now have the latest greatest version of WordPress/

Well, the blog is back, and I can write posts again.
But there’s still an unsightly error msg in the header.
And no one can comment or even view the ’single entry pages’. (Same problem as before)

My ‘attempt’ at fixing the blog involved upgrading it first since it was an out of date version of Wordpress. I tried the host’s one-click easy upgrade, which I shouldn’t have done, since I have installed a lot of plugins. One of those plugins conflicted with the new version. I uploaded a ‘fixed’ version of the plugin for the latest version of WordPress. Still has some issues (unsightly error msg). And didn’t fix my original problem.

Support has told me they will back out the changes I made, which should get rid of the unsightly error message in the header.

And I will upgrade manually. That could be tonight.

If you have any urgent comments…email me.

I have been told that some people are having difficulty leaving a comment.

If this is happening to you, please leave a comment….

Err…I’ll look into what’s happening.

When Pi day falls on Friday, all the geek poets go even more crazy.

Of course, this should have been posted at 1:59 am this morning. And according to the timestamp, it was.

If Senator Clinton were a guy, this nation would be in a much different place than it is today, because after an 8 year administration with a homosexual couple in the White House we would never have elected GW Bush. And there’s also a good chance that Geraldine Ferraro would not be campaigning for Sen Clinton. (She might be, she might not be. I’m just saying I suspect her gender has played a significant role in her choice of who to campign for, based on her recent comments.)

The best part of reading Ansible, a UK Science Fiction newsletter, is their quotes from critics and others who go through amazing contortions to explain how writers that they enjoy aren’t really science fiction writers., even though they may walk and quack like a duck.

“For many readers, Ballard is the author of the controversial novel Crash (1973), a surreal exploration of sexuality and the motor car. But before Crash, and before his wife’s death, Ballard’s novels had begun to shape a unique suburban dystopia. In its time, this vision was categorised as science fiction. Now we can see it more clearly as deeper, darker and more prophetic.” — (Robert McCrum, Observer review, 10 February)”

Because Science Fiction can’t be dark, or prophetic, apparently.

Ansible 248

But [Philip K] Dick himself really wasn’t a “sci-fi author”. He was essentially a serious writer, who used the genre of science fiction as a disguised delivery system.’ (Paul M. Sammon, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, revised edition)

Because writing science fiction doesn’t make you a science fiction author.

Ansible 247

There are some great postcards and photographs at the St. Louis Time Portal. (If the postcard above is confusing, it’s from 1912, and makes reference to Ragtime music, I believe)