Shutting Down

It's a new year in a little bit, and some new things have to be done. It isn't really a lot of fun moderating comments, and doing this is no longer playtime, it instead makes me worry. Maybe a new name or place is in order. Anyway, the email will work if you want to keep up with me, and if I do something like this elsewhere - or there is meatspace drinking to be done - I will be happy to take advantage of your attention or supplies of available cash.

Thank you, people who brought me fun and advice and information and sometimes alcohol. You have no idea how helpful you were, or what silly fun it was making some of this nonsense.

Comments off, now and forever. All the best to you and Happy New Year.

Magic

This was initially a reminder to a friend to do taxes. Cute, right? But the way this one's constructed swapping in text is relatively easy:



It's only twelve frames, and something with an "i" should probably stay, but there's some wiggle-room there.

I'd kind of like a pony that's a little more disturbing though. Maybe this:



Ooh, this one's a keeper:

Seasonal Penis

Yes yes, it's a bad picture. I was drunk.

Fog and Snow and Death Wish

Music for Old People

The Slave Market

A long time ago, in a land far far away:

For of a truth [Abu al-Husn] had nothing left, after that which he had squandered, but a concubine, a slave-girl whom his father had bequeathed to him with the rest of his estate: and she had no equal in beauty and loveliness and brightness and liveliness and symmetric stature and perfect grace. She was past mistress in every manner of arts and accomplishments and endowed with many excellences, surpassing all the folk of her age and time. She was grown more notorious than a way-mark, for her seductive genius, and outdid the fair both in theory and practice, and she was noted for her swimming gait, flexile and delicate, albeit she was full five feet in height and by all the boons of fortune deckt and dight, with strait arched brows twain, as they were the crescent moon of Sha'abán, and eyes like gazelles' eyne; and nose like the edge of scymitar fine and cheeks like anemones of blood-red shine; and mouth like Solomon's seal and sign and teeth like necklaces of pearls in line; and navel holding an ounce of oil of benzoin and waist more slender than his body whom love hath wasted and whom concealment hath made sick with pine and hind parts heavier than two hills of sand; briefly she was a volume of charms [...] She captivated all who saw her, with the excellence of her beauty and the sweetness of her smile, and shot them down with the shafts she launched from her eyes; and withal she was eloquent of speech and excellently skilled in verse.

Now:

Having taught home-schooled girls in his classes over the past 30 years, Dr. Markos observes that they are head and shoulders above feminists in every way imaginable:

“They possess a razor-sharp wit with which they can cut pretentious people (especially males) down to size, but they rarely use this skill, and only when they are sorely provoked.”

They “have a firm knowledge of the Bible, but they (unlike my biblically-literate male students) don’t engage in forensic debates over minor theological points of controversy; they will, however, step in if the boys get too contentious or triumphalist.”

There’s more. Home-schooled girls “have wonderfully synthetic and creative minds that make connections across disciplines … they are gifted in the arts; almost all of them can sing and most play instruments and draw. … They have not bought in to the lies of our modern consumerist state: that is to say, they do not judge their value and worth on the basis of power, wealth, or job status.”

All of them plan on being wives and mothers – whatever else they do.

Where can I purchase such girl?

Oh right, from this guy:



He will also knock a hundred dollars off that Trucoat.

You're Not Supposed To

John Hawkins, Community Organizer:

Both jobs were low paying, difficult and generally unpleasant. There was never a time when I said, "Oh boy, I get to make Whoppers today," or "I can't wait to wake up a two month old baby and try to get decent pictures of him before he starts screaming his head off!" However, those were both starter jobs for people with minimal experience. The whole idea is supposed to be that you gain some basic skills and either move on or start working your way up. You're not supposed to try to support a family flipping burgers or stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart. You're also not supposed to make $15 an hour at a job where you work side by side with unreliable high school kids.

If you DID make $15 an hour would it be better or worse for you? Myself, I am thinking.

Stock Video SHREDS

A Repost

I posted this a while ago. Time for a repost, as she died Tuesday. It's unjust of course, she was a very happy and sunny person, and the numbers would say she was owed another few decades of life. Her other half got to stay with her for the last two weeks. He's a great guy who set a whole lot aside in order to both be with her and help her, but he couldn't have done any of that if there weren't some humane laws and policies in place. He and I will drink soon, and perhaps he will clarify where any excess methadone might be. Demerol also accepted.
___________________________________________



Now that is an awfully mean way to make an argument, and follow-up comments from Walt (who I like a lot as a commenter) take Wiley to task as it can be extended into this or that absurdity, and if you complain about the president you're killing grandma and so on. But look at this:



Yesterday I was out drinking with two friends, one of whom has been told by some doctors that she's gonna die. Those are nachos and pills, including, apparently, some methadone. Shoulda begged to try one: she's gonna get more! Anyway, it was a nice Sunday drink, and those pills are mostly paid for, not just through sociamalist Canadian government programs, but through extended health benefits at a union shop (though I don't know if she was union or exempt). Her partner, in the union at the same employer, has leave. She and he get to spend as much time as they like together in relative comfort, though not at full pay. And that is a pretty important thing.

People - myself included - can be as disappointed with Obama as they like, but a plan passed under him will provide more people with those pills. It falls short of what I take for granted here, but I am fortunate enough to live in a civilized nation where I can go out with my dying friends for a drink instead of despairing that I have to figure out how to hold a benefit for them. For a lot of people that health plan is gonna be a very practical matter with quick impact despite its piecemeal nature, and it's a step that you'd be insane to think would happen under a Republican. [Important caveat: getting money for autism treatment is a fucking bitch here.] There are of course other issues, but a step is a step.

Also we played some trivia:

I Blame Unions!

PISA results are out, and everyone leaps to condemn whatever they can condemn:

Canada has dropped out of the top 10 in international math education standings, a decline that is raising alarms about the country’s future prosperity.

...

“This is on the scale of a national emergency,” said John Manley, CEO and president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, which has sounded the alarm on the shortfalls in our education system. “We’ve got the natural resource sector to pay the rent, but that just keeps us in the house. We need skills, we need knowledge-workers to really improve our prosperity and build our society … Having the skills becomes a very important element to attracting investment and creating jobs.”

John Manley can suck my ass:



Education is a provincial and not a federal responsibility, and some provinces are doing quite nicely. That, however, doesn't serve the propaganda interests of idiots and assholes.

I might agree to an emergency in PEI.

Canada did not fare too well in reading or science, either. Only one country outperformed Canada in reading in 2000, and now five do. In science, two countries outperformed Canada in 2006, and that number rose to seven.

Two of those "countries" being Hong Kong-China and Shanghai-China, no doubt the most representative classes the Chinese could muster.

Sorry Americans, you have slipped beneath the Newfies in all areas.

Leftovers

At the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery:



It's about four feet off the ground, you can bend down and stand up in the bottom hole and imagine the corset's owner before the security guards hurry you away. Nifty.



That's a form of art I like, which is convenient because I am limited to it: figure out a process and the process makes the art, in this case smushing a deposit of charcoal upwards. Excellent idea! Have you ever thought of smushing the charcoal DOWNWARDS? Further process-as-art ideas involve the delightful errors introduced by the tiny fingers of child laborers.

In Disneyland, an untitled steampunk shrubbery. What fantastical creature might have a use for these things?

Delayed

News:

'Fast and Furious 7' delayed after Paul Walker's death

Obviously a valuable part of the franchise that should get off my lawn.

UPDATE

Sadly, I must turn off anonymous comments for a while. Wait, I think moderation will be better. Comment away. That way I get to put them in my "forward to the police" folder. Fun!