You tell 'em goat.

Rainbow

I'd say this was an auspicious start to pride week in Toronto, but National Geographic says this occured in Idaho. Neat.

Eat (drink?) your heart out Bellagio

Hilarious... and truly a statement on creativity, consumerism, cola-culture... you name it. Ranks up there with Pop-Tart blow torches and exploding grapes, but the video presentation is what makes this video extra special.



Potentially a brilliant and bizarre marketing campaign...

Who's got the nuts?

I do, or rather I did on Friday night when the Poker tour met with a season high attendance of 16 people.

It was another night of wild swings. I won a big pot early with a straight beating two pair to give me a nice chip lead, which was chipped away from me leading up to the merge of the tables. I had just been dealt big slick when the merge was called, so I saw an opportunity to try an grab some extra chips before we consolidated. I went all in, and Steve, sitting to my right called, but in the way someone might when they had resigned to giving up and leaving for the night; he had 4, 5 of Spades. He hit the straight, and left me with $13.50 in chips (we start with $25.00, and you would probably want to have at least $40-$50 going into the final table).

I went into disaster recovery, and held on for dear life. It didn't help my cause that the blinds went up to $4 - $8. Soon after I was dealt big slick again, but this time fate was kinder, and I managed to double up, plus the blinds. I then went on to steal the blinds a few times, before hitting a few remarkable hands. One of the other players (Ron) noted that I'm most dangerous when I'm the small stack, and look like I'm about to be pushed out; that's a reputation I don't mind.

I went all in once with A,3, and found myself staring down A,A. I hit the straight on the river.

I've already forgotten most of the other winning hands. The adrenaline high I was catching from the cards was giving me the shakes, hence my nickname "shaky lady," which also derives from a notable panahndler who put on the shakes from 9-5 every day in downtown Toronto. I think everyone who's lived and visited downtown TO in the last 15 years would say they've at least seen her, if they haven't given her any spare change. One day, someone sees her promptly stop shaking, get up, and get into a Lincoln that has pulled up to the street side. The story made the front pages of the papers.

When it came down to the final four, my goal was to make at least 3rd place for the $50. By the time I had at least claimed 3rd, I was the chip leader, and started bullying my way to first. My last hand of the night was Wayne Gretzky, which ended up making made a set of nines. I went home with $200.00, and tied for first place on the tour.

The squirrels are the design from the t-shirt I was wearing that night.

My first audio post... more to come?

I'm a Leftist Libertarian...

...at least according to this survey.

The Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.63Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.21

Who is this man?

Who is this guy? Found this picture of him on his awesome website.

Let's make this a contest; first correct guess wins a free peanut butter and bacon sandwich.*

Mmmmm...

*Another kind of sandwich of the winners choosing may be substituted, should they have no taste.

Latest addition to my iPod

I downloaded the Philip Glass score for the film Mishima from iTunes last night. I'm curious to see the movie, if I can get a hold of it. Yukio Mishima seems to be an interesting personality... I may try to hunt down some of his written work.

My place in humor space...

the Prankster
(47% dark, 38% spontaneous, 36% vulgar)
your humor style:CLEAN COMPLEX LIGHTYour humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You're not pretentious, but you're not into what some would call 'low humor' either. You'll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist.You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it's highly likely you've tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it's smart without being mean-spirited.PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Conan O'Brian - Ashton Kutcher

That is sooooo romantic!

I've never had the wherewithall to plan a special moment like this, but I'm inspired now (just kidding hon... if you're reading my blog...)

5/23/2006 - Morning Show Surprise Announcement On a recent episode of Australia's Sunrise morning show one of their guests took the opportunity to make a big announcement on live TV to his girlfriend of seven years. Some lucky girl named Jo just had her dreams come true, I hope she said yes!

It's from an Australian morning show, and it's likely that it was more of a planned gag, but I still think its funny.

Fait accompli?

“There is already one carrier task force there in the Gulf, two are steaming toward it at the last report I have at least - they will all be there in another week or so. The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are in place, it doesn't take much to fly the bombers out of British and US bases - cruise missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on."(Former CIA Analyst Says Iran Strike Possibly Set For June Or July)

Rolling Stone: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

The evidence presented by this article suggests it was.

So what are they going to do about it?

Update: An article that discusses probelms with RFK Jr's take on exit polls

Scary Bedtime Stories

No, this isn't about the bedtime stories I tell my 3 year old.

Rather, about some interesting comments I came accross at one of my favorite political blogs, POGGE (for Peace, order and good government, eh?). I generally find the analysis on the site to be of a higher order, and attracts a better calibre of reader/commenter (myself notwithstanding).

Now, if you know me you also know I have a penchant for predictions, and getting them down in writing so that they can be tracked, measured and discussed/debased, etc. It's really all in fun... well, morbid kind of fun anyhow. My predictions are usually simple, based on 'gut-takes' usually not fleshed out in to much detail.

I came accross this beaut of a herald for the future of the USA on Pogge, specifically as a comment to the posting "I'm the decider" and so I thought I'd share it with anyone who happens by here. This piece comes from someone who calls himself 'Purple Library Guy'

I'm finding it increasingly hard to care about the internal developments in the direction of fascism in the US. It's gathered a flavour of inevitability. The scenario for the US over the next few years goes roughly like this:

The US attacks Iran, primarily from the air. They cause considerable destruction and death, spend a lot of money, and accomplish nothing useful. The Iraqi insurgency suddenly broadens to include the Shiite militias. The most reactionary elements in Iran cement their hold on the country (duh).

Meanwhile, the US housing boom/bubble loses steam and no other economic activity takes its place. Worldwide lack of confidence in the US dollar reaches critical mass; lenders such as China greatly slow down in willingness to buy up US government debt. Iran retaliates for the US attack by stepping up its program of selling oil in Euros, threatens closure of the strait of Hormuz. Venezuela follows suit with the Euros thing, Russia dabbles in same. Oil prices rise in real terms, and the US dollar starts to fall fast, multiplying the impact of the price rise.
The US goes into recession, probably with spiralling inflation. In a desperate attempt to prop up the dollar, the Fed raises interest rates, worsening the recession but doing little to prop up the dollar. The public is upset, to say the least. The illegal immigrants' protest movements continue to gather strength.

Somewhere in all this, the midterm elections see widespread voter discontent with the Republicans, reduced in impact by the Democrats' utter lack of a program and the Republicans' gerrymandering, vicious mudslinging, and election-rigging. Democrats perhaps gain a majority; many US moderates are surprised to find that even as a majority the Democrats continue to back Bush-style policies and the Neocon police state, which continues to broaden and deepen. All those provisions which were, honest to gosh, only for use against terrists, increasingly are used against the broadening protest movements, using the current actions against radical environmentalists as a template.

Over the following years the US economy tanks pretty definitively, the US polity becomes more and more a fascist police state with a thinner and thinner veneer of "democracy", and the US in general becomes increasingly unstable. Voices in the South talk more and more about secession, charismatic preachers' doomsday "end times" cults become more and more popular. On the plus side for the rest of the world, the crashing of the infrastructure, economy, and currency mean that it becomes increasingly difficult for the US to maintain that huge military machine, much less buy the high-tech gizmos they need to produce the next generation of bang-bang; end-of-USSR-style failure to pay soldiers and government workers becomes endemic.

Somewhere in the throes of this, the US probably attempts some other incredibly stupid foreign military adventure. It costs a lot of money, causes much destruction, but in some way or other underlines the inability of the US to effectively project military power as it used to. If it doesn't, it nevertheless absolutely fails in all its stated policy goals. Repeat this step until one of these military ventures definitively fails--like, they find they literally can't refuel or maintain their aircraft or something.

Debts to the IMF and World Bank, denominated in US dollars, are generally paid off with ease due to the low value of that currency; those institutions become irrelevant.

At some point, Neocon types may or may not officially seize dictatorial power. If they do, it has little or no effect on either foreign or domestic policies.

That's my scenario. I'm increasingly convinced that's the rough outline the US is heading towards. The details of just who manoeuvres or monkeywrenches which bit into position is just losing interest for me--it's gonna happen. The Democrats are a strange mix of apathetic and onside with it. And there is no sign of any effective third-party or extraparliamentary opposition that could stop any of this before it's far too late. The only question is what do the rest of us do while the leviathan is flailing about in its fall?

Posted by: Purple Library Guy at June 4, 2006 04:42 PM

Yow. Let's hope for our sake it's not as bad as that. We shall see, one way or another.

You've come a Long Way, Baby.

After a 28 year hiatus, Batwoman is back. Shove off Batman.