Dammit Pantera

Dimebag Darrell. Shot down onstage. I have to admit it’s something of a Klingon way to die for a metal guitarist. At least he didn’t OD or crash into anything. This is the guy who, when Guitar World asked him about touring necessities, he made sure to include acid (“for long bus trips“) on his list. Despite that, I’ll always admit that the first two Pantera albums were classic metal records that showed a lot of ingenuity, but afterward they failed to remain innovative or creative. In post-grunge metal, only he and Zakk Wylde seem to be allowed to play guitar solos. Now there’s one less great guitarist. We all move up a notch.

Interesting point made on Fark.com:

In America a Beatle was attacked by a pyscho and died.
In Britain a Beatle was attacked by a pyscho and survived.

The obvious difference being that in America, Mark David Chapman had access to a gun. Of course, as Heath pointed out regarding the Churchill/Hitler comment below, you can find a statistic to support any damn ludicrous position you want.

Evil Comes in Many Forms

I found this on a search engine optimization forum recently:

“Winston Churchill was a drinking, smoking,
gambling womaniser and Hitler a one woman teetotaller.”

That really stopped me in my tracks when I considered the so-called morality of the ruling party in this country. I’m not sure if this is connected but yesterday I was pondering how many wars have been started by atheists. I don’t think very many. Just some random things to consider I suppose.

On the lighter side, here is Merriam-Webster Online’s Top 10 Words of 2004:

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton : noun (1951) : the main body of riders
in a bicycle race
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

Choice terms all. My particular favorite is #10. #7 is the only one I didn’t know.

Diesel Power

Recipe for a glimpse into an alternate universe: take one diesel tanker on one major freeway, and shake.

Such was I-630 (the inexplicably named 10-odd mile stretch through Little Rock that somehow got an “I” in its name) this evening as a diesel spill blocked all westbound traffic during rush hour. All traffic had to be moved off onto side streets. Creative commuters opted for the north route on I-30 and I-40, but were also stymied due to volume.

The importance of this is that, to someone like myself who had no idea what was happening (this was 6:00pm, after all the radio stations have ceased their regular traffic updates), the experience becomes a massive, uncertain, and vaguely paranoia-inducing shared experience with more people on the road than I’ve ever seen in this town. It’s especially bizarre for me because I commute from midtown to the hinterlands so I’m going the opposite direction of everyone else for most of my trip. When you’re seeing a solid wall of cars in the oncoming lanes for miles, you have to wonder if everyone knows something you don’t. The experience is what I imagine a citywide evacuation might be like. If some pre-apocalyptic event were to occur in Little Rock – alien invasion, poison gas leak, Godzilla – this was a sneak peek at its manifestation.

Or maybe I just had a long day at the office. Tonight I’m going to relax with my Chengwin DVD and some gourmet cookies.

Power of Pride

Searching on “proud to be an American” in Google, I found 183,000 pages. Searching on “humble to be an American” I found 10.

Says a lot, doesn’t it? Maybe we’re 18,300 times more proud than we are humble

I’m thinking of getting some bumper stickers made that say “Humble to be an American.” Let me know if you want one.

Road Movie to Chi-Town, or This is Red America

Pictures now in the new plog documenting my weekend road trip to Indiana and Chicago. I probably took more pictures of the rural Midwest just because the depths of its peculiarity seem to grow every time I’m up there. I saw a lot of “Adult Superstore” billboards and just as many “Pornography Hurts Everyone” signs. So that’s nice.

What I somehow failed to take more pictures of was the people, namely my hosts Craig and Jamie. Or Jamie’s adorable Mini-Me, Ella. I’m still trying to figure out how I neglected that. The depths of my confusion reach levels not seen since…well, November 3rd.

Credit Card Secrets

Here are a couple of things that I did not know about credit card companies:

  1. If you have incurred a late fee, you can just call them and have them remove it.
  2. You can say “please remove me from all marketing lists” and they actually will. Which is particularly nice if you’re like me and you get a zillion “low-interest” checks in the mail.

These are just little options I had no idea were available to me.

Video Games as Existential Metaphors

I was thinking about Tetris recently and how it was the only video game I really enjoyed. I think the reason for my enthusiasm stemmed from the game’s elegant metaphor for existence: oddly shaped objects are constantly being thrown at you and you have to make them fit into the most solid, sensible patterns. If you don’t, they stack up quickly and overcome you.

This got me thinking about other video games, like Pac-Man. It has a vaguely materialist message: run through the maze of life and consume as much as you can. Avoid the spiritual beings. They only represent death.

Donkey Kong’s message is one of corporate ambition. Climb the ladder, avoid everything the guy on top throws at you, and you can make it to the top, where you’ll live happily ever after.

Are there any abstract video games anymore? Or games that invent their own reality? Everything I see these days is variations on virtual reality themes of combat, racing, and movies.

Anatomy of a Spin

This is a perfect example of how the US political system works, and why it’s performing so poorly:

Fact: The popular vote in the 2004 Presidential Election was 59,459,765 for Bush, 55,949,407 for Kerry.
Republican meaning: Bush won the most votes in US history.
Democrat meaning: Bush won by the slimmest margin of any incumbent president in US history.

Each side will interpret raw data in whichever light is most positive to their side. Republicans will tend to deal in absolute truths (the Most Ever), while Democrats will more often choose relative truths (Compared to Previous Margins).

This is just one example out of thousands that are presented to us every day. It’s a variation on the glass is half full versus the glass is half empty. Depending on the situation, each side will choose to focus on whichever interpretation suits them at the time. Had the election been the reverse, each side’s analysis would change.

And Another Thing

I just realized the most troubling aspect of the entry below is that the room fell silent until someone changed the subject. The problem is not Bush’s idiocy, it’s that no one calls him on it. In a room full of yes-men, nobody is going to challenge him. What if the Swedish Army had made a good anchor in the West Bank? What if Bush had made an important decision based on that kind of incompetence? I would imagine he already has many times over, but that’s just me, the liberal critic. What if the only reason we went to Iraq was because Bush thought Saddam was a threat but nobody really questioned him, or at least if they did it wouldn’t alter his resolve?

It’s easy to dismiss the example as “ha ha, Bush is silly,” but he’s basing critical world decisions on his own lack of knowledge and no one is correcting him. I’m more afraid of him than I have ever been.

Also, on this red-letter date in the history of science, November 5th, 1955: Dr. Emmett Brown developed his theory time travel.

It’s Mourning in America

More fun excerpts from Ron Suskind’s “Without a Doubt“:

…Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

“I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,” Bush said. “They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.”

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: “Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.” Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. “No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.”

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. “You were right,” he said, with bonhomie. “Sweden does have an army.”

AAAIIGHH! This is what you’ve wrought, America! This is the man you chose! Are you happy now?!