Shih Tzu

03:04 pm: You know what's weird?

Finding out from Google Street View that your parents finally took out the deck in the backyard.

04:52 pm: Heroic Prosecutors Save Imaginary Japanese Children
Or Maybe Imaginary Adults Who Look Like Children To U.S. Customs Officials, Who Cares, Lock Him Up

This happened a week ago, but I just found out: the Handley case is ending with a guilty plea, meaning that there won't be a challenge to the PROTECT Act, and thus unless another challenge surfaces it will still be permissible to turn off the First Amendment whenever it makes lawmakers and/or their voting constituents feel icky. (If some art makes you feel icky, this is a sign that it may in fact be legally obscene! You can check if your art is obscene, and thus okay to waive our most fundamental constitutional rights for, by asking someone on a jury if it lacks "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." This personal philosophical inquiry, when performed by a member of a jury, is transformed into unimpeachable legally-recognized truth!)

America is saved!

(It's still helpful to donate to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, as there's bound to be more nonsense like this in the future. They're like the ACLU, except they only do comics, so they're like 20 times cooler.)

03:43 pm: 詐欺
I have some new friends! It is very exciting. They call me up at work every couple weeks and we chat about vehicle warranties and the renewal thereof.

I have always been too shy to say anything but today I shared a bunch of fart noises with a lady and I think she enjoyed them very much! Next time I think I will sing her the song about the devil and the farmer's wife.

06:02 pm: There once was a wee bonnie lassie
Whose demeanor was wild and sassy.
As a thunderous roar
Echoed o'er the moor,
She applauded: "Dear me, am I gassy."

11:47 pm: No Joy?
Very Very Joy!

Gamba Karaoke in Cupertino just added Joysound. Guys this is the most ridiculously best thing to happen in years. Joysound is easily the coolest and most comprehensive karaoke system available in Japan; for every song I can't find in the catalog, there's ten I can't believe made it in.

They've got the rock-orchestra version of "Gamble", they've got Yasunori Mitsuda's "kibou no na wa" from Kirite, they've got a version of "Hai, Irasshai" that isn't bugged up like in Lavca, they've even got a couple entries for KAREN and humbert humbert... which is better than none, which is what they had when Lavca was the only choice. They have song search and entry right on the touch-screen remote. They have the vicariously transsexual voice-changer option.

What I am saying is, if you are at all into the Bay Area Japanese karaoke scene, shit just got real and you had better bring it. As this applies to, I think, roughly two people who might read this, one of whom just fled to Hokkaido, I suspect I am not meeting with enthusiasm in kind. But for all I know, this is the only Joysound parlor in North America, and it's a 15-minute drive away. Life is sweet.

02:26 pm: you guys you guys insects are messed up

Traumatic insemination, also known as hypodermic insemination, is the mating practice in some species of invertebrates in which the male pierces the female's abdomen with his penis and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity (hemocoel). ... Traumatic insemination is detrimental to the female's health. It creates an open wound which impairs the female until it heals and is susceptible to infection. The injection of sperm and ejaculatory fluids into the hemocoel can also trigger an immune reaction in the female.

ewwwwwwwww hahaha awesome

04:23 pm: The Broken Axle
Hm! I think this tune is ready. It's a sort of a slide, maybe?

X:1
T:The Broken Axle
M:6/8
L:1/8
C:Andrew Davis
R:slide
Q:150
K:Gmaj
d|gaf g2d|e2c dBG|~c3 edc|ABG A2d|
gfg b2g|fge dBG|DBG AGF|G3 GBd|
gaf g2d|e2c dBG|~c3 edc|ABG A2D|
EFG c2e|d2g BAG|DBG AGF|GDB, G,2F|
EFG D2G|C2G B,2G|A,2G GFE|AFD DGF|
EFG D2G|C2G B,2A,|B,^DF ABA|GBG FAF|
EGE DGD|CGC B,GB,|A,2G GFE|AFD G2F|
EFG c2e|d2g BAG|DBG AGF|GDB, G,2|]

You're welcome to read the title as an Oregon Trail reference, but in actuality it's just the reason I won't be biking for a while.

Sheet music and midi here

Tags: tunes

02:58 pm: Can I Write For Your Site?
Hi,

Hi!

I was checking out your site http://www.flammie.net/vse/ and saw that you publish articles and content related to dogs & pets.

...That's funny, other than the bleary-eyed Shih Tzu picture I swiped from a Japanese site years ago, I don't remember any Would you be interested in publishing more dog-related articles that would be totally unique and exclusive to your website?

Wait, what? Why would I We have a full time writer named [redacted] who exclusively writes about dogs. What we prefer to do, instead of sending articles to the article directories, is to find other website publishers who use quality content & maintain mutually beneficial relationships.

You might want to improve your aim, then. Also, what the hell is an "article directoFor you, that means unique content - which means two things. First, you'll get more bang out of the search engines when the article is exclusive to your site. Second, your visitors won't be able to find the article anywhere besides your site.

I think if I really cared about getting hits, I wouldn't have made a translation of a mediocre Mega Man ripoff and an analysis of Totally Rad's English localization the centerpieces of For us, it allows us to expand our overall reach. When a reader likes the article, they sometimes click through to our site, which sometimes results in them buying something cool for their dog. By the way, our site is [redacted] - we specialize in upscale dog beds, bowls, and feeders. We're sort of the "anti-petco."

Suddenly I have a mysterious urge to shop at PETCO for all my So if exclusive content sounds appealing to you, just reply to this email. Here's some of the current articles I've got on hand:

Curbing Puppy Aggression
Putting Your Dog on a Diet
Household Items That Are Dangerous to Your Dog
Liability Problems For Dog Owners
Challenges With Teenage Dogs

Top 10 Spots to Scratch that Make His Leg Twitch
How to Freak Out Your Parents by Faking the Noise Your Dog Makes When He's About to Ralph
Oh Gross the Fur is Actually Touching His Eyeball

I can also have custom reports written for your site. If theres a specific subject that your readers are very interested in, we can create it.

Oh, sweet. Can you review Söldnerschild for the Saturn and let me know if it's actually worth my The goal here is not just a 1 shot article. If this first time works out well, I can be sending you several articles every month. Constant source of fresh content.

I can think of nothing I would love more than The articles will have a link back to our site in the "about the author" section (like most articles do) - you're not obligated to keep the links in. You can take them out if you choose. But I've gotta be upfront and tell you that the publishers that keep the links active get the best and most frequent contact.

Remember once you publish an article, we will NEVER send it anywhere else.

Remember, even if you send me bizarre misdirected spam, I will NEVER make fun of it on the internet.

06:01 pm: Amazon caves in to copyright holders
Amazon has apparently decided that they'd rather cede control of the Kindle 2 text-to-speech function to copyright holders, despite the fact that consumers have as much legal right to privately convert (through a machine) text data they've purchased into a bunch of mostly legible sounds as they do to privately convert (through a human) text data they've purchased into a bedtime story, and despite the fact that a universal machine reader might be, you know, really really useful to disabled people.

Gosh, it sure was clever of them to take a bunch of my money (well, it'll be my money as soon as I send the check off to Dad) by advertising Feature A, and then as soon as the product ships turn it into Feature B! I wonder why this business model is not more popular.

12:15 pm: よつば！
Turned my Wii region-free capable, yay. Take that, obnoxious and archaic region lock!

The upshot of this being that now I can finally play the glorified choose-your-own-adventure novel 428: Fuusa Sareta Shibuya de that got a rare perfect score in Famitsu last year. Like its spiritual predecessor Machi, it lets you read a handful of simultaneously ongoing stories set in downtown Shibuya; choices you make in one character's story might change the direction of another's.

I can tell one of the writers likes Twin Peaks. A minor character named Leland Palmer I was willing to write off as coincidence, but then came the scene in Café Log Lady.

11:51 am: more like tossers guild
The Authors Guild:

A Wall Street Journal article quoted a portion of an interview with Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken regarding the Kindle 2. The remarks have been interpreted by some as suggesting that the Guild believes that private out-loud reading is protected by copyright. It isn't, unless the reading is being done by a machine. And even out-loud reading by a machine is fine, of course, if it's from an authorized audio copy. Others suggest that challenging Amazon's use of this software challenges accessibility to the visually impaired. It doesn't: Kindle 2 isn't designed for such use. The Guild continues to support efforts to make works truly accessible to the visually impaired.

No. No, you don't. You are talking about a machine reader. Blind people have used those for decades. My mother has a scanner and a PC in the basement with software that can do the same thing, except it's less convenient and a pain in the ass. Now that the technology might be less of a pain in the ass, it's become inconvenient for you. Just suck it up and admit it.

You like to sell audiobooks, I know. A professionally recorded audiobook is a legitimate derivative work, in fixed form, and thus copyrightable. It upsets you that machine readers might now or in the future make the audiobook market more challenging, but just wanting it to be so does not make a private machine reading a derivative work or unlawful copy.

If my mother wants to buy a dead-tree book, scan it, and have a machine read it to her, it's within her legal rights to do so. If she wants to hire a human being to read it out loud to her, she can do that. If she wants to buy an electronic copy of the book and then use software to make it accessible to her, you really have no standing to stop her, or to stop Amazon from making it possible.

Thankfully, some (most? I haven't checked) authors actually get it, including Neil Gaiman.

Mom is very excited about getting a Kindle.

11:47 am: The Religious Right discovers hentai rape games
http://www.lifenews.com/int1082.html

And for once, it looks like they've got both the facts and the characterization of the situation pretty much exactly right. (Note: Site contains borderline NSFW images.) I almost feel like volunteering to help translate their angry emails, because, like the whole 4chan vs. Scientology thing, this is a Feud Between Two Groups I Find Distasteful That Could Be Lots Of Fun To Watch.

Over in the UK, Labour MP Keith Vaz now gets to use a porno game considered fringe and obscure even in Japan to characterize the entire mainstream game industry. Le sigh.

09:00 pm: 呪い
Oh yeah! Did you notice? That whole twenty-year presidential curse thing seems to be done with once and for all.

Wikipedia says it's also called the Curse of Tippecanoe and was enacted by Shawnee chief Tecumseh, I guess because Native Americans are all mystical and everything, although it seems like an awfully bureaucratic way to go about your spooky metaphysical vengeance. "Harrison! I bring upon thee death! But not now, 30 years later so you can be elected president and then die in office. And also, why the hell not, every president elected in a year ending in zero, but not necessarily in that exact term. And also skip 1980 and 2000, because full terms for those two is already revenge enough."

06:21 pm: アイデンティティ・セフト
Nihongo Corner! Today's word:

個人情報漏洩 (kojin jouhou rouei) - identity theft.

カード決済が拒否された理由を確認してみると、なんと個人情報漏洩の被害者になっていたことが明白になった。 "When I looked into why my credit card transaction was declined, it became evident that I was in fact a victim of identity theft."

このやろう！

10:55 am: High drama in Tennessee
Okay, so you probably didn't hear about this unless you follow political news sites, but apparently there was some legendary maneuvering in the Tennessee State House yesterday. We're talking the kind of thing you get in juicy fantasy novels about court politics, the kind where the king just died heirless under mysterious circumstances and the evil chancellor is about to assume power, and then as the ceremony is getting underway the royal alchemist coughs quietly and observes that the ancient laws actually require the chancellor to first call for anyone of the royal bloodline to step forth and claim the throne, just a formality really, and in the meantime the kitchen girl is quivering in the back wondering why the alchemist summoned her to such an important meeting... That sort of thing.

So it looks like what went down is this: November gives Tennessee Republicans a majority in the House for the first time in something like 140 years, as part of the general trend of Republican ascendancy (decline?) as the regional party of the South. It's the slimmest of majorities (50-49), but it looks like enough to oust longtime Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D), who nevertheless maintains that he'll round up enough votes somehow. As the day for the vote approaches, super-conservative Jason Mumpower (R) prepares to take power and happily celebrates his plans for "more family-oriented values" in Tennessee. There's some uneasiness about whether moderate Republican Kent Williams can be counted on to vote with his party, but Mumpower says he's on top of the situation, and besides, Williams (along with every other Republican representative) signed a pledge to vote for a Republican Speaker, so no worries, right?

( Click for more and a wonderful video of Tennessee politicians being snide to each other )

11:17 am: Revenge of the Lizard People
Ah, Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Ballot Challenges and good old-fashioned Midwestern pragmatism. Watch the Canvassing Board's very serious discussion about the famous "Lizard People" ballot and whether Lizard People counts as an identifiable individual. Also features a bonus cameo by the FSM!

( Click for video behind the cut )

I would say they're just trying to drag this out as long as possible so they can stay in the heated chambers of wherever they do this, but it actually got back up to 17°F yesterday in St. Paul, so really there's no excuse.

04:42 pm: How to feel awkward
1. Chuckle at the latest Penny Arcade, about tracking down one's childhood tormentors on the internet.

2. Oh yeah! Remember that total douche, let's call him Ray Phillips? Man, wasn't he a dick? I had to put up with his bullying crap all through seventh-grade orchestra, knocking the music off the stand and laughing while I cleaned it up, loudly asking if I had a "hairy log", generally making life intolerable and nearly putting me off violin altogether. Maybe I can track down how that jerk failed at life.

3. The lone Google result: a listing of scholarships that includes the Ray Phillips Memorial Fund.

4. Awkward.

10:00 pm: Our long national nightmare is finally at an end.

Hey world peoples, sorry it took so long!

08:56 am: Come to think of it, I don't even know what a McCain bumper sticker looks like.

I do love living in the Bay Area.

05:06 pm: The War of Lower 48 Aggression
Interesting. Not only is Sarah Palin a genuine social conservative (supports creationism in public schools, opposes sex education and same-sex families, etc., etc.), but she's even married to a bona-fide secessionist! McCain really does know his base after all.

(It's a good thing she's a Republican, or there might be serious questions about her patriotism. Openly advocating secession from the Union is nearly as bad as sometimes not wearing a flag pin!)