Diary (December 26, 2020)
Online diary of Karl Jones for Saturday December 26, 2020.
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Diary
Roseburg, Oregon
- Roseburg Blast
- Massacre
- Robert F. Kennedy speech on gun control
- Roseburg, Oregon @ Wikipedia
From Crusting to Cresting
From Crusting to Cresting - tip of the hat to Howard Kranz
Hawaiian Paunch
Brain Homage
Slurry-Eyed
"She was so, how do you say, slurry-eyed, so beguiling I could not resist."
"Sloe-eyed. I think you mean sloe-eyed."
He sighed. "Well, it could be. We were drinking gin."
Alice glared at them mildly. "Doe-eyed."
"Definitely doe-eyed," affirmed the bartender algorithm.
Swoop focused a stink-eye on the bartender, suspecting irony, or collusion, or worse. "How definitely is the 'gin' you served us 'Gin', in the sense of "Winston Churchill would have admired it on a hot day while overseeing the Brittania's interests in India?"
The bartender feigned a priority interrupt and began mixing drinks in response to a stochastic customer arrival routine, all very convincing, no doubt customers would arrive soon.
Algorithms, Swoop said to himself darkly. Never joke with algorithms. Even the stupid ones pick up patterns. Any sense of humor in an algorithm is too much for Mortal Man to bear.
Baby-throwing contest
"You wouldn't normally expect a baby-throwing contest to end in comedy. Yet here we are."
—Fell Swoop (interview by Niles Cartouchian in "Las Vegas Review of Sports Gambling", 26 December 2020).
Russell's Viper Venom
- Dilute Russell's Viper Venom Time - a children's television show combining herpetology lessons with elements of Pee Wee's Playhouse.
- Dilute Russell's viper venom time (nonfiction) - a laboratory test often used for detection of lupus anticoagulant (LA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilute_Russell%27s_viper_venom_time
Sulfa drugs and pocket calculators
"They are primitives, neanderthals", said the time traveler, "from before the age of sulfa drugs and pocket calculators."
Wild Freudberries in America
He [Freud] said to Ernest Jones, America is a mistake, a gigantic mistake.
-E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime.
Compare Wild Freudberries in America.
American Football
I am on a crusade to popularize the globally appropriate phrase "American football", in order that the word "football" shall mean in America what it means to most of humanity: association football, or simply football.
Accordingly, I demand that the National Football League (NFL) rename itself the National American Football League (NAFL).
"Soccer" remains a tolerable transitional synonym for football, but its days too are numbered.
- Comment @ Facebook
Frank Serpico on the typical American epic
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the typical American epic. It’s been beaten into us by films and stories. A guy who really covered it nicely was Vonnegut. He said we’ve become as disposable as tissues. Authors find it very convenient to just dispose of certain characters, have them assassinated, killed off. When I was a kid, watching the Phantom, watching these melodramas they pounded on us, the hero kills the villain, saves the girl, and that’s the end of it. They live happily ever after. Popeye the Sailor. Now the American epic has extended itself from saving the little damsel in distress to saving the nation. And everybody’s really swallowing this crap, that we’ve just been saved. We haven’t been saved from anything. We’re in the same rut that caused us to be in a rut in the first place.
- Frank Serpico (1975)
https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/01/28/frank-serpico-a-letter-home/
Catheter in the Rye
Albacore Around My Neck
Dialog between the The Eel and Neptune Slaughter:
Duchess of Malfi, Largesse of Delphi
The Duchess of Malfi, the Largesse of Delphi ... whatever it takes.
Spoon Falls Baby Calls
Spoon Falls Baby Calls - TO_DO : Inquiries
Artificial Palmistry
Compare Man-portable phrenology system.
OS X for Men
- Ive leaves Apple, but will keep it as a client @ Boing Boing (27 June 2019)
Zacharoon
Zacharoon - any of a variety of cakes or cookies which function as temporary transdimensional corporations during the digestive (middle) phase of their consumption by sentient entities.
Tallow sapiens
Tallow sapiens - an advanced variety of sentient fatberg.
Compare Organic golem.
A Broad and a Detective
Tom Sawyer: a Broad and a Detective.
Injun Joe
The World's Most Humble Celebrity
"Bruce Schneier is the world's most humble celebrity"
—Attributed to Alice Beta - [dubious, discuss]
See The Order of Most Humble Celebrities.