Don't you want a little taste of the glory?

Presidential Pets

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:04:07 GMT

I love those moments on Wikipedia where you go to look up something relatively innocuous and you end up stumbling across something else entirely. Such was the case for me tonight, where I went to look up what exactly a "malamute" looked like and ended up reading up on pets owned by U.S. presidents down through the years.

Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, it's been a fairly bland assortment of dogs, leavened by the occasional cat (and apparently the Clinton cat Socks finally kicked the bucket this year!) and assorted miscellanea (Kennedy's kids had a couple hamsters and a parakeet).

Ah, but go back a bit further and we start to see some really...interesting choices.

For one thing, you get a real reminder of the the rural nature of 19th century America as nearly every president from that time owned some kind of barnyard animal. Lincoln owned a turkey named Jack and two goats, Nanny and Nanko.

That's another thing--the names! I think George Washington takes the prize for best overall names; he had a staghound named Sweetlips, a pack of coonhounds named Drunkard, Taster, Tipler, and Tipsy, and a donkey named Royal Gift. Take that George III!

Teddy Roosevelt takes the prize for best individual name, or in this case names, for a set of guinea pigs (probably belonging to one of his kids): Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady. Oh my god, Fighting Bob Evans is the best name for a guinea pig pretty much EVER.

Some other bizarre presidential pets:

John Adams had a dog named Satan ("Satan! C'mere boy!")

Thomas Jefferson owned two bear cubs at one point

John Quincy Adams owned an alligator(!) and raised silkworms

Andrew Jackson, aka "The First Redneck President," owned a parrot he taught to swear and fighting cocks

Martin Van Buren "briefly owned two tiger cubs"

U. S. Grant had a way with naming horses: he owned one named Butcher Boy, another named Cincinnatus, and his mount during the Civil War was named Jeff Davis

Chester A. Arthur is the only President on the list with no record of having owned pets

Benjamin Harrison owned a pair of 'possums named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection

In addition to his illustriously-named guinea pigs, Theodore Roosevelt hosted a veritable menagerie at the White House: four terriers, a Pekingese, a Saint Bernard, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, two cats, a garter snake named Emily Spinach, two ponies, a pig, a badger named Josiah, a rat, a hen named Baron Spreckle, a macaw, a couple more dogs (breed not stated), and...a one-legged rooster.

Not to be outdone was Calvin Coolidge, perhaps the last of the great "menagerie Presidents" as we must now call them. Observe: two white collies named Rob Roy and Prudence Prim, nine other dogs of various breeds, two raccoons named Rebecca and Horace, a donkey named Ebeneezer, a goose named Enoch, a cat, a bobcat, two lion cubs named Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, a pygmy hippo named Billy, a wallaby, a duiker, and, to round it all out, a black bear. And why not?

Lacrimous Cinema

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:42:11 GMT

Desiree has refused to watch Return of the King for nearly a year now because she's convinced that she'll turn into a pile of blubbering tears at the end.* She says she gets antsy just thinking about the scene where Frodo and Gandalf sail off to the Undying Lands, never to be seen again.

She'd never let me film her--she has enough of an issue with crying just in front of me--so I must commend this woman for allowing her own Lord of the Rings meltdown to be recorded and posted for the whole world to see:

Wait...it looks like the end of the Star Wars trilogy makes her a bit weepy too:

And who doesn't dissolve in tears at the end of the...Back to Future trilogy???

Wow.

---
*Desiree also cries at the end of Smoke Signals, My Neighbor Totoro, Anne of Green Gables, and Spirited Away. I still maintain that we should just do a back-to-back viewing of all five movies one day as the ULTIMATE CATHARTIC EXPERIENCE. If she survives, she'll be set for life!

Girl Groups

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:46:07 GMT

I've long loved the girl group era, so you can imagine my joy when I spotted a four-disc collection of "Girl Group Sounds" at the library the other day. Des and I have been listening to the goodness for the last few days and having a lot of fun with the music. And the lyrics! It's funny to hear Des make these random exclamations at the tales of betrayal, abuse, heartache, and general mind-fuckery that the girls sang about. You really can't ask for a balder portrait of patriarchy than in the lyrics of girl group songs.

The set, by the way, is from Rhino. If and when I find myself back in some money, I might have to splurge and get the set just for its sheer gimmicky opulence: it comes boxed in a hat box, the booklet is made to look like a diary, the CDs are housed in oversized makeup compacts, and the discs themselves look like powder puffs. Fantastic!

As the AMG review rightly points out, the set is strengthened by the fact that it skips the obvious songs, going for B-sides, rarities, and lesser-known hits. This is a big beef I have with oldies and classic rock-style radio programming: there's such a rich heritage of great music from the three decades you're picking your playlists, why go with the same 50 songs over and over?

To whit, here's a few selections of my personal favorites:

Bombardment of YouTube Videos

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:21:28 GMT

Hey, it's also been a while since I flooded your Friends page with a bunch of YouTube videos that you probably won't watch. I will not only be embedding videos, but linking to yet more! Here we go!

I posted this vid over on my Facebook too. Halloween is a great time to invoke Lightning Bolt--

--no! Not that kind of Lightning Bolt! This kind:

I love that pan at the end where you suddenly see somebody literally swinging from the rafters. Looks like quite the show.

###

From the life imitating art files, here are a couple videos of bands playing their effing hearts out despite what I think few would argue are less than rockin' surroundings.

First, we have seminal 80s doom pioneers Saint Vitus kicking ass at...the Palm Desert Community Center.

I love how the lead singer has this standoff about shilling for Cokes before grudgingly acquiescing.

It's all strangely reminiscent of when Spinal Tap winds up playing at an Air Force base.

Second, legendary Swedish hardcore punk band Refused playing...an Irish pub??? WTF!?

Playing their hearts out, tight as all hell, trying SO hard. And you've got these typical Saturday night bar-goers just...sitting there. Christ. I immediately thought of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Much like Hedwig, Refused wasn't long for the world thanks to bookings like that one. Just too damn depressing, I guess.

Really, who HASN'T contemplated this at some point in their lives?

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:37:51 GMT

ZOMG Punk Rock Anarchists!!!

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:19:25 GMT

It's reassuring to know that in this day and age, what with all our modern ideas--and products--that good old American nativist paranoia is still alive and well:

One thing [G20 protesters] won't likely encounter are citizens. Fear of protesters is the talk of grocery and bank lines. At one point, local media was filled with reports of surreptitious foreigners training in a vacant building (they turned out to be a Swedish punk band on tour).

Sauce.

The Secret Origins of Pigeons

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:24:28 GMT

I've outed myself in the past as a pigeon watcher. No, I am not 82 years old. But what can I say, I like watching pigeons while I'm waiting for a bus or walking from Point A to Point B.

I like to watch their lives play out amid the hustle and bustle of the city. Nobody pays them any attention, yet even just a couple minutes' casual observation reveals personalities and drama and (in the springtime) romance. I wonder about pigeons living in different neighborhoods--do the filthy gutter pigeons that hang out at Hayes and Divis realize they could just fly a few blocks west and hang out at Golden Gate Park? What keeps them living amongst the grease and squalor outside Popeye's?

I'm also attracted to the fact that pigeons get no respect. Like a typical American, I'm prone to rooting for the underdog, I guess. It was while reflecting on the ubiquity of pigeons, and the ubiquitous lack of respect they get, that I started wondering where they came from. I mean, pigeons had to have an "origin story" of some kind, right?

Turns out, it's a rather interesting one.

Pigeons, it would seem, originally hail from Egypt. Their ancestors were cliff-dwelling doves. How differently would we regard pigeons if they were called Egyptian cliff doves instead? Sounds much more exotic.

So how did pigeons find their way into cities around the world? It's a bit of a convoluted story. The original wild cliff doves were domesticated by the Egyptians to use as food and pets. Domesticated pigeons spread throughout the Mediterranean world. Over the course of centuries, as the fortunes of Mediterranean civilizations rose and fell, certain pigeon populations reverted to a feral state. Being located in population centers, far from their native Nile Valley cliffsides, they made do with the sides of buildings and other such mandmade "cliffs". It's sort of the equivalent of a future society being infested with wild chickens or parakeets.

I still have yet to find details on when the first pigeons came over the Atlantic to the Americas, but I love the mental image of pigeons stowing away on a ship, perhaps quite by accident (I imagine a pigeon innocently building a nest in a nook aboard a ship sitting at a European dock, then the next thing it knows it's off to the New World!). At any rate, needless to say, pigeons have proven remarkably adaptable to the urban environment precisely because our buildings mirror their native cliffs so well.

So there you have it. Next time you see pigeons going about their daily business, take a moment to reflect on their rather bizarre journey from the cliffs of Egypt to a gutter outside Popeye's.

Won't Somebody Think of the Children???

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:41:53 GMT

So this teenager apparently got up to some pipe bomb-related mischief at a Bay Area high school yesterday, so the local news this morning is all over the story. Other than the fact that the lad seems to have shown up at his former high school armed with a chainsaw and sword (this kid's been playing too many video games!), the only thing that really lept out at me from the news reports was what this one woman said when she was interviewed by the news crew out at the apartment complex where the teenager lived (with or without his parents, I'm not sure).

At any rate, she basically said that, on finding out that the kid had been making highly unstable explosives in his room for the past year, she felt a great sense of relief that nothing had gone wrong. Her reasoning? "Because everyone around here has kids, and if there had been an explosion it could have been really bad for all the children."

So...if it was a complex full of childless adults, that would have been OK? Or if there had been an explosion, only the children would have been hurt, but the adults would have been fine?

Bah, I say!

Things Are Better For Me Now 'Cause I Found That I Love Music

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:19:15 GMT

Thursday really threw me off. I've been trying to tap back into the groove I was in before all that rigamarole. How could I forget about this gem?

Sufficiently cranked up, The Barbarians make everything A-OK.

Larry Wilmore Nails It

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:32:20 GMT

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Reform Madness - White Minority

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Spinal Tap Performance

Actually, Black Flag called it 30 years ago:

Gonna be a white minority
Dont believe theres a possibility?
Well, just wait and see
We're gonna be white minority

--why is everyone acting all surprised? ;)

Disruptions

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:16:39 GMT

So 5-6 years ago, we had liberal protesters disrupting town hall meetings...over war.

"Boo! War is unbelievably costly in money, misery, and human lives! Boo!"

This year, we have conservative protesters disrupting town hall meetings...over providing health care to all Americans.

"Boo! Giving everyone access to basic medical care is...somehow...wrong...and stuff. BOO!"

::sigh::

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:12:43 GMT

Antworten für Wörter

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:54:12 GMT

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words (more or less) that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

These are the words delicata77 gave me...a couple weeks ago...heh...

1. Desiree

Okay, I know why you gave this to me, since I never talk about this sort of thing on my LJ. Very well, here goes.

I had never met a real-life Desiree until I met my Desiree. We just passed our five year anniversary. This is kind of crazy to me. Although when I think about it, there's definitely been lots of water under the bridge in that time, simultaneously it still feels like we're just getting started.

I couldn't be happier. It's great to be with someone who understands me, who nurtures me, who supports me, who accepts me. From the get-go we've been really good at setting boundaries with each other and with respecting each other. We've also always been very affectionate and devoted to each other. It's a fine line, but we've managed it so far.

2. New Mexico

I was born in Santa Fe. At the time it had a population of about 50,000 people. I think it might be half-again larger than that now, but it's still very much a small town. In fact, when I was out for one of my visits last year I had this sudden realization strike me: "Holy shit, I grew up in the Old West!" I mean, seriously.

I lived in Santa Fe off and on until I was 13, when we relocated to Los Angeles permanently. That part of New Mexico will always be close to my heart, even if I don't end up moving back there at some point. The sky, the summer rains and winter snows, the weirdly alien blend of cultures, the FOOD, everything. They don't call it the Land of Enchantment for nothing, people.

3. Fat tooth

This is a term I coined. Desiree has an inveterate sweet tooth, as do many people. For me, I can take or leave sugar. Don't get me wrong, I love a good sweet, but I'm all about moderation with things sugary. I don't know why this is. Both my parents are total sugar addicts, and my mom was one of those parents who banned me from eating sugary cereals or drinking Kool Aid, so you'd think I would have developed a lust for the forbidden. But I didn't.

Instead, I developed a lust for fatty foods. As a kid, I could never understand why people would cut the fat off their steaks--that was the best part! Greasy, fatty, fried, I love it all. Pizza, nachos, chili cheese fries...my mouth is watering.

I paid for my fat tooth when I got the news after my physical last year that my cholesterol was a whopping 310. That's, er, 70 points above the maximum healthy range. So I adjusted my eating habits, with the help of a Desiree, and just got my new total: 249. Woo hoo! A 60 point drop without resorting to medication. It's still 20 points above "healthy," so I need to probably start exercising more to eliminate that last bit, but I'm pretty excited about my progress so far.

And yes, I still have my fat tooth, but I think I've been moderating it pretty well.

4. Geek culture

I have an old Far Side cartoon posted on my wall for years now. In it, we see a party in progress. A man is talking to a woman, but is visibly tensing up as two police officers come in through the front door with police dogs on leashes. The caption reads, "Suddenly, and to Rodney's horror, the police arrive with nerd-sniffing dogs."

That pretty much sums up how I've felt in the past about being part of "geek culture." I've made some adjustments over the last few years in terms of being more open about my geekiness. At the same time, I've become less of a believer in an over-arching, unifying "geek culture" after encountering more geeks through the years. There's a geek hierarchy that, although intended as satire, is pretty much spot-on. Sick of it. Fed up.

And don't get me started on co-option of the terms "geek," "nerd," or "dork." Seriously.

Then again, there's nothing quite like those moments where you run across one of those few like-minded geeks out there!

5. Music

This is a big part of my life, which is kind of funny to me, since I've never thought of it that way. But looking back, both my father and my brother were inveterate music listeners while I was growing up. Around the age of 13-14 I became one too, ransacking their cassette collections.

Des and I actually had a really interesting discussion about my musical tastes after we went to the Tori Amos concert last Monday. I'm sure she'll talk a bit about that in her post about the concert, so I'll hold off on specifics here, but suffice to say that I loves me some good rhythm. Melody and lyricism are much less important. With that in mind, you'd think I'd be a huge hip-hop guy, but it's kind of the opposite...

My tastes have always run towards to the older sounds. As a kid, my favorite album was the American Graffiti soundtrack. For probably the last 15 odd years, my favorite musical "decade" has been the 70s. As far as I'm concerned, we're still living in the musical shadow of that decade, and nothing since has come close to measuring up.

With my love of music, it took me years to pick up an instrument. I learned rudimentary drumming skills a few years back, but for the last couple years I've been a fairly serious amateur student of the mighty ukulele. I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to start learning some advanced techniques and full songs. Can YouTube videos be far behind...?

I like where this is going

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:55:52 GMT

Another one to file under "They Don't Make TV Like They Used To"

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:18:40 GMT

David Bowie on Saturday Night Live with back-up singers Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. Back when, you know, crazy shit like this was allowed to air on broadcast television.

"OK," you're saying, "a little weird maybe, but so what?" Ah, let's check out the second performance from that evening, shall we?

I know the Internet has largely supplanted TV as a format for weirdness and creativity, but it's so much more fragmented an experience I think something's really been lost.

Twitter Has Officially Jumped the Shark

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:27:50 GMT

Spotted on a church marquee while driving through Millbrae today:

"Give God a Tweet--Pray!"

Best Outlaw Name(s) Ever

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:26:46 GMT

From Wikipedia:

Dave Allen Mather (August 10, 1851, date of death unknown, most probably May 1886, but nothing confirmed), known as Mysterious Dave, or sometimes as New York Dave, was an American lawman and gunfighter in the American Old West.

I wouldn't have been able to choose between "Mysterious Dave" and "New York Dave" either.

Thought of the Day

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:08:24 GMT

Having been recently reminded of the song, I've once again stumbled over a lyric in Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" that's always troubled me. To whit:

No barking from the dog, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog

No barking, check. No smog, amazing! But cooking the breakfast with no hog? C'mon Cube, you can't be serious! That would straight up ruin my day, starting it out without some wholesome bacon or perhaps sizzling ham shanks. I don't know about you.

Is there something I'm not aware of at work here? Is Ice Cube a member of the Nation of Islam? Is he trying to watch his cholesterol? Some bit of arcane slang from "teh ghettoe" that I don't know about? Fifteen years later, I still can't figure that line out.

Wallpaper Meme

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:12:12 GMT

001: Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LiveJournal.
002: Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper.
003: Don't change your wallpaper before doing this. The point is to see what you had on.

I found this on film_stills. It's from a collection of 70s grindhouse movie trailers. Do I have to explain why this is totally awesome? As my AP English teacher would say, "Juxtaposition!" Plus the look on the dude's face.

Good to know

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:30:13 GMT

Random Pics and Vids

Fri, 29 May 2009 21:08:30 GMT

Most hardcore high school ever:

From the Jesuit Oath

Thu, 28 May 2009 14:17:24 GMT

"I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus."

How anyone could intone this passage and end with the word "Jesus" and not die from hypocrisy, I have no idea.

Also, read Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation.

There Are No Accidents

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:43:00 GMT

I just got up, and I'm sitting at my computer blearily reading Wikipedia and eating cereal. The TV's on in the background, but the volume is low and the voices of the morning news casters has blended into a general murmur.

So I find myself reading about the 23 Enigma, the belief that the number 23 can be connected to almost every event, when suddenly I hear very clearly the traffic reporter's voice intone: "There are no accidents." The weird part is that he put the emphasis on the word "are". Anyone have an anti-paranoia serum they can inject me with?

The Life of Pietro di Savoie

Thu, 14 May 2009 17:00:59 GMT

drownedinink, this post is especially for you. You MUST own this game!

My latest big writing project has at long, long last finally gotten under way--my first deadline is tomorrow--so naturally my life has been taken over by one of my periodic forays into the realm of computer gaming.

I'm not a huge video/computer gamer by any stretch of the imagination. I owned a Playstation 2 once, but I used it as my DVD player. I think I had, like, two games for it. As for computer games, first-person shooters can be a fun way to pass an afternoon with friends, blowing each other up over a network, and I can sometimes be talked into giving a real-time strategy a go (Company of Heroes is a pretty decent RTS)...again, for an afternoon's diversion. But don't get me started on MMORPGs, and as for CRPGs, I generally find them way too restrictive when compared to the real deal.

Ah, but I do have a weak spot for historical games. Once or twice a year I'll indulge in flying an IL-2 Sturmovik around the Eastern Front circa 1942. And my all time favorite computer games fall under the category of what I'll call strategic historical simulation. Many a weekend in high school and college was whiled away playing Civilization I and II. And a few years ago I discovered Europa Universalis II, which is a bit like Civilization for grown-ups...or at least for grown-up history nerds like me.

The idea behind EU2 is that you can play any country in the world. You start out in 1419 and go all the way to 1815, acquiring provinces, fighting wars, cementing alliances and vassalizations, pursuing discoveries and scientific advances, and so forth.

The company that makes EU2, Paradox, also makes similar games for other periods. Victoria covers the Age of Imperialism, Hearts of Iron II covers the first half of the twentieth century, and my current obsession, Crusader Kings (with the Deus Vult expansion), covers the latter half of the Middle Ages (1066-1453).

(One really exciting option I have yet to pursue is that you can import games from earlier periods to the next game in the series. So you could theoretically play a country from 1066 to 1953. One day...)

The thing that differentiates Crusader Kings from the other games in the series is that, as befits the era, the game play is much, much more focused on people and personal relationships rather than political and economic structures. You can play the game starting out as a King, Duke, or Count. The difference isn't so much in how much land you directly control, but in how many vassals you have.

After a disastrous false start playing the Emperor of Byzantium, I decided to restart as a Count and go from there. Since I have a weak spot for Savoy (don't ask), I chose the County of Savoie, which in 1066 was a small county on the south shores of Lake Geneva, part of the German Empire.

Gameplay is carried out through a leader who ages, grows old, and dies. The only way to lose the game is if you don't have a direct heir when your current leader dies. I just wrapped things up with the death of my first leader, Pietro. When the game started in 1066 he was a strapping young go-getter of 25, newly married and childless. He ended up living to the ripe old age of 70. When he died, he was no longer Count of Savoie...he was Duke! Furthermore, upon his death his Christian piety was such that he was instantly beatified by the Pope in Venice (yes Venice--part of the fun of these games is seeing how alternate history plays out; other examples are how Jerusalem was not taken by the First Crusade and Byzantium fell to the Turks...but the Empire's still chugging along, having retaken most of Anatolia and Palestine with the help of the Hospitallers and Templars).

Ah, but it was those 45 years between the auspicious beginning and the beatified end that proved most interesting indeed. A regular soap opera of Shakesperean proportions developed--suicide, madness, fratricide, mad grabs for power (not only gaining the Dukedom, but eventually declaring and successfully achieving independence from the German Empire), bastard children, Cathar heresies, and accusations of black magic. In the words of Buster Bluth, it was a wild ride.

The situation as it stands now is that Pietro's only surviving son (his eldest was the one accused of black magic...and found guilty...oh dear...and his youngest was the one who killed himself) has become my current character. He rose, through his own scheming, to assume the Dukedom of Lombardia. So Savoie is temporarily out of my hands until his son, who was just born, comes of age. Actually, Baudoin, as he's known, does have an older son, but that kid's a bastard, the product of a forbidden love affair from when Baudoin was a teenage fosterling at the court of the Count of Provence. See? Told you this shit got Shakespearean! So yeah, no inheritence for bastard boy. I just hope I don't lose all that I worked so hard to gain in the next 16 years--until then, Savoie is out of my hands!

At any rate, I'm not going to be going back at least for the next couple days--my deadline calls, and I've got to generate some content between now and tomorrow morning. Dang, where was this game the last five months when I didn't have anything to do?

The only downside to the game is the complete lack of a manual, either in print or online. There's a handy series of tutorials on YouTube, though, so if you pick the game up do yourself a favor and check those out, even if you've played other Paradox games before.

Winning converts with animated GIFs

Wed, 06 May 2009 04:48:12 GMT

Hinduism, eh?

Christianity, eh?