This afternoon at the park.

Inspired by the inspired 'Obama =...' macro thread over on Fark:



I noticed they were missing a Mad Men one, y'know. Ideas mine, actual photoshoppy work by Ryan over on @.

Tell me that Palin isn't a female Pete Campbell, slimy, mildly psycho, totally convinced of her own talent and charm and so very ambitious and eager to take over her boss's job? And that Biden doesn't have Peggy Olsen's earnestness and that Roger Sterling in his grey-haired, moneyed, spoiled shallowness and basic contempt for women isn't the nearest thing to McCain in the MM cast? And that while Don is definitely a flawed character, you kind of like him and root for him anyway, because he does come across as having some kind of weird integrity and leadership qualities compared to his contemporaries. And he's so, so pretty.

Of course, we could also argue that Don by taking credit for military heroism when he shouldn't have is also somewhat McCain-y. And yet and at the same time a bit Obama-y because of the aforementioned good qualities. Damn, it's that whole dual-identity thing again:

( alternative )

Everybody is hereby ordered to watch omlaboombleigh's (aka Mordecai on @forumz's) fantastic video tribute to the 'community organisers' of the USA, set to Leonard Cohen's 'Democracy'. It's frigging awesome, so awesome it even made crusty old me tear up a little bit. That ought to pique your interest, if nothing else!



It makes me want to make propaganda too, actually. Whee!

This video is just ..... well, you have to watch it. It's bizarre and a little disturbing.

It features two crazy and possibly indestructable Swedish sisters going crazy on the motorway and getting hit by traffic going at 70mph+. Twice. And surviving, more or less

There's no actual gore involved and the points of impact have been edited out. Proceed with caution, anyway. It's just weird and unsettling watching people act like this and the policemen and drivers who witnessed it/hit the women are clearly quite upset by the scenario. I imagine it's a scene that'll keep coming back to them, the 'why' as much as the 'what the fuck?'

As last seen on ginasketch's journal.

Go over to Wikipedia and enter your birth date (month/day) and then pick 3 events, 2 births (other than your own, silly) and 1 holiday that occurred on the day of your birthday.

January 25th:

Events:

AD41: After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.
1942: World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
1949: The first Israeli election -- David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister.

Births:

1882 - Virginia Woolf - English writer
1923 - Shirley Mason, American psychiatric patient (Commonly known as "Sybil")

Holiday:

Crimion Day - Commemorates the 1970 founding of Criminon, a program which seeks to rehabilitate prisoners by disseminating free copies of Scientology-related materials such as The Way to Happiness. LULZ!

Humanity's addiction to plastic tat.



You can watch the whole documentary - Hawai'i - Message in the Waves, here

Someone needs to start either heavily educating tourists or actively terrorising those fucking dive companies that let tourists loose to WALK on the reefs. Which in case you didn't know, kills the reefs stone dead.

There I was but half an hour ago, thinking the second season premiere of Mad Men was entertaining, thoughtful, but not quite as ... intense as pretty much every episode of season one, then we close with Don Draper reading this:

"Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

"The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

"It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again."

'Mayakovsky' - Frank O'Hara - from 'Meditations in an Emergency'


... and I am on the floor, overwhelmed, yet again. Fuck, if I don't love this show to bits.

I note the book has soared up the Amazon sales ranks. Insidesocial blog has a nice little piece on the poem in relation to the show, with commentary from Matt Weiner.

And so it begins.

Also, people evicted from (and uncompensated for) their homes for construction of luxury developments for the Games demonstrate in Beijing. Go them! They're on the Beeb, now, mouthing off to Beeb cameramen splendidly.

Quick crosspost, hopefully not too late:

Animal lovers stateside, please click.

Nicely-timed Amnesty report slams China for still-shameful human rights records and broken promises.

IOC in 'pack of festering, self-interested poltroons' shocker!

But whatever, have a happy funtime Olympics!

If you can breathe.

I'll be watching of course - hoping to witness at least one or two totalitarianist-shaming stunts or unintentional comedy moments. My personal fantasy is for some top athlete to pull out a Tibetan flag during a victory lap or medal ceremony. Not only would the regime lose face to a highly entertaining degree, the resulting footage of said athlete being chased for laps around the stadium by the boys in blue (note rabid China apologists in comments) could be set to the Benny Hill theme tune for ultimate LULZ. It would be the most exciting Olympic moment since this.

I wonder if it's a deliberate policy or the usual crappy default net filters at work here?

Also?

Dear B'ham City Halfwits - Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and for the record, Buddhism and Judaism also fall under the heading of 'mysticism'. Ever heard of Sufism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism or Vendanta? No, thought not, you pack of ignorant little twerps.

Season 2 Mad Men premieres tonight on amc, you lucky Americans. I'l dld it later when it hits the torrents, but for now, I've had to content myself with making this:


Big Wheel - A Betty Draper Fantasy Theme:



Plz to go rate it if you will. I like ratings. They make me feel special.

( Doctor Who fanvid I made earlier this week )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqfQdWjMzlw

Ooh, didn't Obama's speechwriter do well tonight? I almost expected a 'WE SHALL GO TO THE MOON IN THIS DECADE AND DO THE OTHER THINGS!!' to come tumbling out by the end.

I must say too - it would be very nice to see an American president who can orate reasonably well as opposed to, y'know, blinking, sniggering, guffawing and dribbling quietly into his lapels while gawping at an autocue.

ETA:

helen: your boy obama is burning up Berlin
robin: ONOEZ ADOLF II
robin: seriously, our nutcases are comparing him to Hitler
helen says: what?
robin: it's the dumbfuckingest RL Godwin you'll ever hear about
helen: that would be the right-wing politics, the ability to speak without boring people to suicide and the being black, then?
helen: i mean, i do see the resemblance

Take a break from reading about how the USA is apparently committed to not merely slouching but hurtling toward Gilead, and read lapetitepaumee's very splendid and highly factual guide to What Makes A Man Good In Bed. Go on, go on, go on, go, on.

And then go read this this very splendid and factual rant about Gilead. Read it and pass the link it onto anyone who needs edumacating about these things or simply to someone who doesn't deserve to live and to whom the terms 'spraddle-legged fuckslots', 'moral coprophage' and 'tongue-kissing god's honky ass' will induce a fatal aneurysm of sorts.

I discovered I had several large, overripe bananas this evening that I had no particular urge to consume raw. So I decided to make banana bread, which I've never even tasted before. I googled for a recipe, and an hour and a bit later .....

( Voila! )

Another victory for woman and machine (a blender) against time and the elements.

Or something.

Yeah, so it has taken me weeks to catch up with this. Blame work, me being outside, the internets being full of fascinating things to read and er, pure laziness on my part, will you?

Where was I? Oh yes. My second day at Whitby I decided to walk to a former smuggling village nearly 7 miles south - a place curiously named Robin Hood's Bay, even though the folk hero has no historical connection to the place. Maybe, as Bill observes of the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill 2, they just named it that because they thought it sounded cool. Anyway, legend has it that the goods - booze and fabrics, in the main - brought into the treacherous bay to avoid duty, would travel through the village via a series of underground passages, never seeing the light of day until sale. Which is kind of cool, when you think about it.

Anyway, there are two ways to get there - road or by walking along the clifftops down what has been designated The Cleveland Way. You climb the 199 steps up to the east cliff and wend your way around and behind the abbey, past a farm and onto the clifftops. I chose the scenic clifftop way, naturally.

( Picture heavy post below )

I've been losing track of the whole Anonymous/$cientology thing lately, so thanks to dyfferent who has been attending various UK raids and posting about them, for reminding me. I hear Wise Beard Man and Magoo are in London this weekend. Hooray!

Anyway, this latest piece of footage, where a bunch of OSA goons get pwned by a very vocal disabled lady in L.A., is absolutely classic.

Background: July 5th 2008 was the premier of the OT Celebration and Freewinds Maiden Voyage in Los Angeles, CA. Scientology was scared that Anonymous would show up and spread truth to it's members; their only defense would be to abuse the city's permits dept and block off a ridiculous amount of space, restricting access to a residential neighborhood as well as a HOSPITAL. In doing so they attempt to stop a 61 year old disabled woman in a walker from using the sidewalk to go home.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP6CHGdnLEQ

"He's not ruling my life ... L. Ron Hubbard does not rule anybody's life .. let me go through! Bad people! Bad people!"

Somebody should track down this lady and give her a certificate of merit or something.

Wacky, wealthy cult wants magic biscuit back* or else!

*Line stolen from comments.

Manhandling, harrassing and threatening to kill someone for taking a piece of biscuit you've decided is, under certain circumstances, the flesh of a Jewish man who was executed almost 2000 years ago.

If this wasn't religion, these people would be assigned to the local asylum. Bloodfucking Catholic loons.