home, sweet and dreamy

The Visible Man

They came. They saw. What? They saw me? Not again!

And thus began my travels as the Visible Man. I got off the bus somewhere downtown, and walked into a tanning salon. The lady asked me if I wanted to get a tan, and I simply said, "Invisible people do not care about their appearance," for at the time, I thought I was invisible. Similar incidents occurred until I realized everyone could see me. Especially considering that I am a middle-aged man, I felt ashamed of my foolishness. I was so sad, I wanted to turn invisible.

insane.blogger

Essentially, there ended up being only three bloggers left.

Back in 1995, the Earthlings first began to record their daily mishaps. Enchanted with this "weblog," as it were, bloggers...excuse me, fanatics, ran wild with possibility. In the beginning of this decade (which, mind you, is not over until 2011) websites sprung up, hoping for untold million. It turned out that the cash was not only untold, but also unfound. It turned out that the Internet was not a network of pennies but actually just painted wires.

By the middle of the decade, "blogger" was in full swing as a term and poor slobs like me could run a blog which nobody reads out of their attic. Yes I am in my attic. Near the end of the decade, the process continued and led to the neccesity of "RSS feeds" and "filters" so that poor slobs unlike me (who read blogs, rather than write them) could manage the overgrown sentience of the BlogNet. (phwoosh! enter future speculation)

Just like cattle farming in the early 1900s, blogs began to compete.* Ruthlessly attacking each other with flagrant posts about the ___ writing style of ___ blog, a new type of website was coined: metablog; or a blog about shitty blogs. All across the northern blogosphere,** blackouts occured from this flooding of posts. Only a three blogs actually toughed the servers: ultrauber.blogspot.com (what did you expect?), xkcd.com, and another one. Case and point:

Give or take, I'll still come back here to post, once in a while.
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* If you thought this was funny, then you are either Comrade Thai Guy or a hopeless conformist. Either way, that was just an empty reference.
** If you still thought that was funny you obviously haven't read enough xkcd. Do yourself a favor.

Typewriter, Typewriter

Typewriter is the longest word in English typed only with the top row of keys. I had to share that.

With that, here's a strange poem involving this concept:

Only the top row

two petri typewriter writeup

Only the left hand

gassed were ed; fred were sad

Only the middle row

glad gas, salad lad's gal

Only the right hand

pin yip: kill

Only the bottom row

mxCCC

Reminiscent of my childhood, this ditty reminds me of the foolishness within us. And our computers. (yes, there is a secret in the last line)

The Modified Alphabets

Normal alphabet

A comrade and I have spent much time recently arguing over which letters in our alphabet are useless. This is to be a presentation of our findings.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

(26 letters)

That is the alphabet as it is today, with all characters present.

Refined alphabet level 1

A komrade and I have spent muth time resently arguing over whith letters in our alfabet are useless. This is to be a presentation of our findings.

A B D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z

(23 letters)

We remove C bekause it kan be replased by S and K. For "ch" we use "th." We remove Q bekause it is replased by K and "qu" is replased by "kw." We remove X bekause it is replased by "ks." "Ph" is trunkated to F.

Refined alphabet level 2

A komrate ant I have zpent muth time resently arguing over whith letterz in our alvapet are useless. This is to pe a prezentation ov our vintings.

A E G H I K L M N O P R T U V Y Z

(17 letters)

Ve remove C Q and X vor the zame reazons az bevore. Ve remove B pekause it zounts like P. Ve remove D pekause it zounts like T. Ve remove F ant W pekause they zount like V. Ve remove J pekause it zounts like G. Ve remove S pekause it zounts like Z. "Ph" iz trunkatet to V. Avter vinal revinement, iv you zay it out lout it zounts like a thik aksent. Not a sukcez, put a vail. Hovever, ve only have zeventeen letters.

PZ: you are vugly

The Saga of Downtown Seattle

Does the public transit system have a complaint line? I don't know, but I hope they read my blog. This is an overly-detailed account of our adventures on Friday.

From Shoreline, WA, we opt to be eco-friendly and take the bus downtown to the Seattle Center. The fancy Metro Trip Planner tells us to walk south and take the 346 at 8:45. OK. About 5 blocks into the ride on the 346, we realize we are going south. The directions tell us to go north, despite the fact that our destination is southwards. So we go north again, passing our starting place for the second time, and finally arrive at the location of our second transfer. It is now 9:15.

We find the location at which the 301, our next bus, is to pick us up. Upon reading the little panel about that route, it is revealed that the last 301 left at 9:01 - fifteen minutes ago. The next bus comes at 4:17 pm. So, we talk to innocent bystanders and they tall us to take the 346 south to the Northgate transfer station, then switch to the 41. We cross the street and wait for a half hour. Finally, an hour behind schedule, we get on the 346 south, and pass our starting point for the third time. It has taken us an hour to get five blocks. Tapping our feet impatiently, my comrades and I step off the bus at Northgate, weave through the mess of "bus ports," and take the 41 downtown. We exit the bus at Westlake by recommendation of one specific friend. The monorail station is across the street. We are twenty blocks from Seattle Center. It is 10:45.

We wander to the sign listing the monorail fares and discover it's expensive. So, I scrutinize the back of my bus pass to find the following uplifting message: "Not valid on Seattle Center monorail." You mean this monorail? Yes, this monorail. My comrades are pissed off. We summon the will to walk all twenty blocks to the Seattle center. It is 11:00.

By some unknown force, we are driven to take pictures of frickin everything, despite being in our own city (yes, we were tourists in our own city). When we see the Center House, we scream like both a little girl and a young piglet and immerse ourselves in the warmth. We take more pictures, them head outside to the huge fountain and run around. We go to the Pacific Science Center, but do not enter, just take pictures. We have a low budget. It is 11:45.

We're hungry. Our initial plan was to go to the International District for lunch, but because we are late and angry at buses, we return to the warm center house (with Christmas decorations!) for lunch. Each comrade had a different lunch. I, a plain folk, opt for Subway. Another has Mexican, and another has Thai that he does not finish. One decides to spend $7 on some fat-greasy-american thing called a burger. After eating, Thai Guy brings us these delicious (albeit unhealthy) items called beignets. As I bite into mine, I learn the "beignet" is actually pronounced "Ben, yay!" Burger Guy devours his at astonishing speeds and ingests the leftover cinnamon and sugar in the tray before you could say "diabetes." After this hearty meal, we leave the Center House to return to the fountain. It is 12:30.

Running like schizophrenic chimpanzees around the fountain, we eventually need to return home. It takes several minutes to find and gather all of my comrades and several more to persuade them to leave. Finally, we find that bus 1 will take us all the way back to Westlake. We wait for an outrageous amount of time and discover that the bus is not only late, but also never. Route 2, apparently, also goes to Westlake, so it is Route 2 that we take. We arrive, exhausted and wet from the fountain, at Westlake station. It is 1:15.

At the Westlake transfer center/light rail station, I decide to get some exercise ant take the stairs. On the way down, I see what looks like someone's spilled mocha. I carefully step around it. Five steps later, its scent hits me. That's not a mocha. The many brown, solid objects floating in it should have been my first clue. Someone shit on the marble staircase. Not just shit. This is full blown diarrhea. I, quite literally, run away from the site of the disaster. At the foot of the staircase, we meet, both laughing and disgusted. For posterity, one comrade is sent to photograph the crime. He is nervous, and does so very quickly. Because of his haste, he actually missed. He just took a picture of plain old marble. We forget about it, partially, and scurry off to catch our bus. We traverse the complicated streets of downtown. We transfer to the 346 north at Northgate. We arrive at our starting point for the fourth time. It is 2:30.

For the photos associated with this trip, see this Picasa album. Sorry, no photos of the diarrhea.

I've Got Competition

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/6544?q=taxonomy/term/49

This guy seems to be about as opinionated as I, and as stupid. Check the post about water on the moon.

I'll Tell You Why

There's a reason for everything. My not having posted in a while: I'll tell you why. Windows. These problems have yet to go away. Not that I'm surprised, or anything. And, the Dow is at it's lowest since '03. Right now, it looks like it's at 7552.29. And guess what: I'll tell you why. Windows. You see, Microsoft is in the NASDAQ, with pretty good stocks along with Apple. So what does the Dow have? Dowels. Bad pun. But still. And we all know that most car crashes are caused by younger people. I'll tell you why: (surprise!) Mac. You see, it works like this. College kids tend to get Macs more that old people, because they are smart. Sort of. They have awesome Macs, so they make some awesome home videos and show them to their friends. Their friends like them, so they decide to submit it to the movies. But, since they use Macs, they are obviously more educated, so they search for a way to stream their video to a bigger audience. And, with a Mac, they can get around the internet faster, so they do not grow impatient in their search and find instructions and software to help them hack into NASA's satellites. They then find directions on how to construct an ultra-powerful projector. Once they are done, they wait for a cloudy night. They set up their projector, followed by a pair of speakers directed creatively at an angled Mac Cinema Display, which directs the sound to the world. They start playing the video, both on the sky projector and the Cinema Display, then head to their computer. They tap the satellite, and stream the video to every internet-conncted 'puter in the nation, plus every TV. Meanwhile, John Smith, a really old dude, is driving 30 miles an hour on the freeway, thus slowing down the 927 cars behind him. His vision is distracted for a second, as he sees lights flashing in the sky and monitors lighting up in houses. Faintly, and then louder he begins to hear...the Pokemon theme song! Mr. Smith chuckles to himself, remembering that old show, before he realizes that he's stopped moving. The other cars pile up behind him. One of the radios in another car flies through his back windshield and he hears: On interstate 492 tonight, we have a 928 car collision. Officials are directing traffic onto the other side of the freeway. They have requested us to announce that kids using Macintosh computers for devious purposes are to be shunned.