Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up' according to a preliminary report from the millennium ecosystem assessment project. Nothing to worry about really, just some crackpots like the Royal Society and representatives of UN agencies and international scientific organizations.

Illusion of Gaia and My Cousin David
The next Nicolas Sparks novel?

Carl G. Estabrook: The Subversive Commandments: "The Ten Commandments in their proper historical context commend atheism in regard to the religion of the gods and anarchism in respect to the laws of the kings. Arising from a revolutionary people, they support the overthrow of authoritarian structures in the name of human community."

Top story on AirAmericaradio.com on Sunday, 27 March 2005:
Christians Observe Crucifixion Anniversary
"Many offices and businesses were closed today in observance of Good Friday. The holiday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, a Jewish preacher who is worshipped as the son of God by the Christian faithful. One of the religion's most revered leaders, 84-year-old Karol Wojtyla, also known as Pope John Paul II, was too ill to participate in the ceremonies for the first time since his tenure began...."

In other news, Air America top stories written by Martians. Is it sarcasm or is it Martians?

FOR SALE/BARTER: My body in Persistent Vegetative State...
Append this to your living will: "If, due to the absurd political state of affairs in this country, my persistent vegetative state and impending unplugging can be parlayed into some sort of political leverage, I wholly endorse using my predicament in whatever way possible for the purposes of passing legislation favorable to my general political and ethical outlook."

"Gone to Croatan"
"Having declared themselves 'at war with all the world,' [buccaneers] sailed forth to plunder under mutual contracts called 'Articles' which were so egalitarian that every member received a full share and the Captain usually only 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 shares. "

Good thing we've done away with piracy. Oh yeah, did I mention the CEO where I work received a bonus that was approximately 1467 times the bonus I received? Avast me.

Today in cynical bitching news: Korn has issued a Greatest Hits album, so thankfully the end of that pap is near. Slashdot's design is so ugly it hinders you from understanding. I was also going to complain about Gourmet magazine having zero recipes, but apparently I just skimmed through it too quickly. My bad.

This term from the Apr 2005 Wired magazine's Jargon Watch column is an effect that I've been suffering from at least six months now:

Open Loops: The incomplete tasks and projects in your life that constantly cycle through your head, leading to anxiety, stress, and creative constipation. Popularized by David Allen's work-flow management book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Actually my Open Loops are not stressful but they consist of creative ideas trying to bubble through my otherwise full schedule of wake / drive / work / drive / sleep repeat repeat repeat repeat. My daydreams when I first wake up, while I'm in the shower, while driving to work, walking the halls at work, while driving home, are constantly filled with the next step of a story I'm working on, or an idea for a new story or card game or chess variation. I dictate some of it on tape driving to and from work, but when I'm finally home and in a position to do something about it, I'm creatively burned out. Sometimes I can manage to transcribe whatever Open Loops I babbled about on tape, but by the time I get it all down, I'm too tired and lost the mood to write.

Then I wake up the next day and can't stop thinking about the next scene, a different story, a new game.

I'm not going to be a disgruntled employee who harms anyone, but it's quite possible that my supervisor will note my absence for several days or weeks, until finally someone finds me at work hidden in an abandoned office or cubicle somewhere, surrounded by heaping pages of stories, game ideas, chapters for novels that will never be finished, etc. If I claim "exhaustion" or that my nerves are shot, will my HMO cover treatment to make me become a better cog again?

I actually kicked this idea around jokingly with a friend of mine: if I were addicted to some drug, and if they paid for several weeks or maybe a month of rehab, that would probably give me enough free time to finish a damn novel. I hate working so much, it's seriously tempting. How do you fake a drug test to make it a false positive?

Maybe Stan Goff is right about our violent patriarchy getting way out of hand.

"When I looked at the list of cities where there will be events [protests] today, I was most excited to see my hometown of Fargo, North Dakota. If people are in the streets in Fargo, the revolution must be just around the corner. You betcha."
-- speech by Robert Jensen, journalism professor at U of T - Austin, at an anti-war rally on Mar 19, 2005

That's how I felt about Jackson. There were more events and bigger rallies in Lansing and Ann Arbor, but to think that 30-40 people felt appropriate marching in front of veterans' memorials downtown in the birthplace of the Republican party, somehow that seems more of a challenge to the status quo than hundreds gathering in A2 or the state capitol.

Oh yeah, and there's even an active group where I grew up, the Chelsea Area Network of Peace Activists! (Population 4398 as of 2000). I might have gone there instead, except the only event I found on Mar 19 in Chelsea was a conference with speeches. Dude, if there are protests in Jackson and Chelsea, something's bubbling up.

BEATBOX + HARMONICA.
O my fucking god. I have a new calling. This is bigger than when I heard Beck for the first time on Fresh Air.
See also yurilane.com, then timbarsky.com

I Know What You Wrote Last Tuesday
Here's an amusing hypothetical situation: what if you were picking up some paperwork from a shared printer and found an angry letter from one of your co-workers to management? (Probably motivated by that announcement about exec bonuses that I mentioned earlier.)

Part of me wants to hide it so it won't embarass the pissed off co-worker. I assume she had a better plan for delivering it than just leaving it on the printer to be found by the next shift. But I don't know who wrote it, so I can't leave it on someone's desk.

I had resolved that the better part of valor is to post funny shit on your blog, but when I went back to the printer to look for it, it was gone. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I just read a news article that said the CEO of the company I work for received a bonus of $440,000 for our success in 2004. That comes to approximately 1467 times the amount of bonus I received. Given that I can type about 80 words per minute, and given that he's 1467 times more productive than me, that means he should be able to type 117,360 words per minute. Cool!

The vigil/protest on Sunday was better than I thought. 3 people had signed up online, including me, so I was worried whether anyone at all would show up (including me). When I drove up about 11:05, there were about 30 people walking around the park with signs. I just walked up and asked how to join, they gave me a pre-fab sign and I walked around with them for an hour. The guy from the Kucinich campaign last year was there, and he asked to trade signs with me. So I got a kind of corny one, "Grieve with us the many we have lost" and he got "Give peace a chance." But nice seeing a 73+ year old guy there, making the effort even though he has obvious health problems.

Mostly people in their 40s, a few old ladies, probably church-goers for the most part. There was a reporter from the Jackson Citizen Patriot and a camera man from Channel 10. [I assume those two links will crap out within a few weeks. Sorry.] There were also three men standing across the street. I kind of wondered whether they were reporters or counter-demonstrators. Didn't realize until I read in the Cit-Pat article this afternoon that those three were counter-demonstrators with no signs or anything that I saw. According to the article in the paper, one of them had a sign that said "War protestors give aid and comfort to the enemy" or something like that. The article also mentioned that one of them had worked as an independent contractor in Iraq.

At the end, the organizers of the vigil passed out slips of paper with names of Michigan soldiers who had been killed, plus a few slips representing people from other "Coalition" countries and Iraqi citizens, and we stood in a circle and read their names.

There were no confrontations that I saw, only a few cars that honked and waved at us, and a few pickups that revved their engines while they were stuck at the stoplights. I swear there were three that either revved their engines or peeled out when the light turned green, and they were all pickups, one of them a jacked-up 4x4. So apply whatever interpretation you want to the kind of people who own pickups and rev their engines to express themselves.

Slogans: Good. Policy: Bad.
Will Durst suggests 30 U.S. Foreign Policy Extreme Makeover Slogans, such as:
* Be All We Think You Should Be.
* Democracy: Just Do It.
* Don’t Leave Home Without It. No, Really. Stay in Your Homes.

Back in 2000, Melinda and I got the news that our eccentric pen-pal Professor V had passed away in a fire. We had never met V, never even knew his real name for sure. He had a lot of unusual beliefs. If anyone was going to fake his own death, or let you think he had died because he was offended or sick of talking to you, V might be the type to do something like that.

I've been searching the web on and off for years now looking for old obituaries or old news stories about a fire in Central Islip, NY. Finally after a fruitless search on the web tonight, I wondered if they would have some exclusive archives where I work (which happens to do database aggregating, or whatever you want to call it). Anyhow, I found two articles from Newsday dated June 28 and 29, 2000, about a fire on Wheeler Rd in Central Islip, listing one of the names that Professor V had used.

So five years later and I still feel like I've been punched in the gut. I was still a little in denial, holding out for the possibility that he could have been alive, even if that meant he had played a dirty trick on us or was angry with us.

Feral Scholar

Finally found a blog by Stan Goff. (Title is "Feral Scholar" but the url is just stangoff.com if you're concerned about remembering it.) I'm listening to an ass-kicking speech he gave that's rebroadcast on Unwelcome Guests. Picture Chomsky possessed by Malcolm X, with the added credibility of being a veteran.

[For Goff's speech, go to the 30 minute mark in the second hour of the show. The rest of the episode was interesting too, including a Marine recruiter talking about some of the devious and illegal methods recruiters use.]

'A New Bunny'

'A New Bunny'
Xtreem! Lots of beeped out words, still NSFW. LMAO

Article accepted???
Here's the deal I'm going to make with myself: I won't mention what the article is until it actually gets posted to the website that has accepted it. So if it actually goes live, then you'll just follow the link and it'll be cool. This will prevent me from bragging and getting ahead of myself and then the whole thing falling through.

That said, I rec'd an email saying that a website accepted my submission. It seems to be a more exclusive website than other places that have posted my articles like h2g2 and Disenchanted (defunct fiction webzine). So if that comes to pass, it will be a nice milestone.

Blah. The less said the better at this point. I'm excited, possibly getting my hopes up too high, but will hold off til later to really jump for joy about it.

...Oops, I accidentally jumped.

Aerial Propaganda Leaflet Database.
LOL/yikes

Idea for another metaphilm article:
When Agent Starling was a little girl, she tried to protect some animals (lambs) being slaughtered, eaten and/or turned into clothing.
When Agent Starling was a big girl, she tried to protect some animals (humans) from being slaughtered, eaten (by Hannibal) and/or turned into clothing (by Buffalo Bill).

Then tie it in with the stolen clothing/identity in Terminator series. Terminator of the Lambs? Silence of the Terminators?