Here's some neat space footage

Lookin' at the news for the last three weeks

and it's hard to go anywhere without seeing "Torture!" "Gitmo!" "Enhanced Interrogations Techniques," and "My God If We Didn't Torture We Would All Be In A Smoking 9-11 Crater!"

I was gonna add my two cents, but after writing something, it made me feel dirty, and it made Fjord feel dirty...and besides, you can find people's opinions about it everywhere.


Instead, I'll tell ya the funny thing I thought about today. Remember Marky-Mark and the Funky Bunch? How funny would it be if you met a musician and their biggest accomplishment was being in "the Funky Bunch."

Question...

You've got a team of five writers at your disposal for 3 hours - what do you have them write?

Me...I'd be going for a story about cannibal robot zombies.

But that's just how I'm feeling right now.

Buggin Me

So there's this idea that mass transportation will be the solution and salvation of society. Build trains, and development will spring up around it...and everyone will use it, and it'll be great! We'll stop global warming, and utopia will follow.

But there is never a real discussion about what goes down on the street level of this kind of people mover. I've used public transportation in a bunch of cities, and love it. Sometimes it was out of necessity (like um, 5 years of no car, and building up capital here in L.A.) sometimes it was more practical. (beat downtown parking prices by 90% in Minneapolis) But all of this was also while I was a non-family man, just doing my thing. Most of the time, public transportation is nothing more than blank-space...like being at the laundra-mat. But sometimes public transportation drops you into a confined space with a super crazy person...like the dude in the wheelchair that had a knife and was pissed as fjuck and lashing around with it (I wrote about in '05 and I'm too lazy to look it up now.)

Anyways, as a fellow who can appreciate "the crazy" because it happens in cities everywhere, and for the most part, it's kind-of-free urban entertainment. I wonder how someone not versed in this particular human interaction (like the new train line just got to the suburb where a father and mother are excited about taking their newly turned 5-year-old to the new Disney movie) would be shaped by their first (or first family) mass transit experience.

Then what? Then they never ride the train again. The SUV is just safer for the family.

Not saying this is right...but literally all talk about mass-transportation, and all it's advantages ignores the problem of "human-mass." At least 1% of all humans are totally crazy.

2,000 Posts on this dinky landmass!

(9 years too late - but now we're Fjord2000!)

I been thinking about musicians and athletes - successful ones (of course) and wondering, why do they bother? Like, make enough money and be smart with it - why strive to be better? If you got 15 million bucks in the bank, and the bills are all paid, why not spend the rest of you life in the jacuzzi?

I guess there's something to be said about a person with financial means being more productive than people with less. Some sort of responsibility that leads them to keep going, and pressing the edge of the envelope. Maybe it's related to something else, like the desire to be the best, and has nothing to do with money at all.

Maybe it's got nothing to do with any of those reasons. I'm broke as fjuck, unfamous as hell, and still troglodyte'in around in the backwaters of blogger world. And yet, what would I be doing if I was rich as fjuck, famous as hell, and getting 370,000 hits a day...

Probly doing what I do every day...wondering what I should post about, wondering if it was entertaining enough. Altho I'd be happy to switch places with my opposite, in order to find out.

Yers,
Tsunami

What I would like right now

1) maid (preferrably not French, but dressed like one)
2) sweet, sweet income.
3) Off-street parking.
4) About 10 times the inspiration I have now.
5) That's it. I mean, I could go on about how I want to pilot the Goodyear blimp, or be travelling via flying boat through the tropical islands of the Coral Sea, or be smuggling illicit goods with a speedboat, or be planning my next cat-burglar heist, or be preparing to duel Dick Cheney over a matter of honor. But really, for now...right now, that's it.

It's Been A Long Time Coming

But I've finally taken this FJORD

thing

MULTI-MEDIA!!!

For our first (and likely the last - at least for the near future) piece of original programming,

I give you

TANGENT!

(and thanks for watching Channel Fjord)

For no apparent reason

I was thinking about the D.C. Madam and why that story was so fishy. I mean, she was going to jail...okay - but suicide? That was waaaay to fishy, especially when she was basically threatening to reveal a buncha' govmt types who used her girls. All she had to do was last a couple years in the slammer - and she's got enough fame (or notoriety) that she's doing fine. I mean, are you under the impression that Heidi Fleiss was totally ruined after going to prison? Anyways...no apparent reason for thinking about this now.

Wolverine?

Nope - haven't seen it, and probably won't. From the trailers...I suspect it looks a lot like
this...(wolverine in 30 seconds)

The Continuing...

Continues...visit here for an amazing kangaroo clip.

Gahhh! Finally Something Cool

It's almost like my innernet thingie has been broken as of late. I haven't found anything really cool in days...maybee weeks. However, here's a link to a flickr page that has an awesome movie of a ship going down a river. Really good.

Emu Flu, Hawk Flu...

Lemur Flu, Toad Flu, Sushi Flu...on and on it goes, until people just get bored and move on. Of course, nobody cares until the next outbreak!

Anyhoo - let's move on.

I ended up at the JPL's open house yesterday, and walked around looking at robot landers and space probes and tons of super-duper hi-tech space gear. The best part about this event is there are a whole mess of JPL people standing around by their mock-ups or whatever, and you can just walk right up and ask, 'What do you do?" Of course, they're all rocket-scientists who are like, "I operate the robot arm on the Phoenix Lander...finding water-ice was pretty cool." Or "I design sensor arrays for satellites that will find and analyze extra-solar planets."

The thing that stands out when you're talking to these people, is their job satisfaction is through the roof. I suppose it's not really surprising, when most of us go to work and someone's like, "You! File this stack of crap!" These people design spacecraft, build them, and shoot 'em off to distant planets. I'm envious...but I'm also bad at math.

Swine...you swine!

I've noticed the pork industry has switched the "swine flu" to Nu1U or somesuch "official" rebranding, but it's too late. How could anyone not call it "swine flu?" You can't help it, it's too great a title. I mean, I'm sure there was a N2IOB4 designation for avian bird flu, but nobody remembers anything but Bird Flu. Anyhoo - I've been playing a little game to try and come up with the next source of flu...I think the best one is Octopus Flu, but I know there are others.

I know about the innernets!

I also wanted to get you to this thread, cause it's fjuckin' funny.

Noir Tales...From The Future! (part III)

I stuck my head into the black square of the hatch and, followed the flashlight beam along the crappy wires that led to the electrical system's computer. Since I didn't see anything resembling a broken feed, I reached in and tapped the reboot command on the dirty 10-digit console. My ancient hovercar ran on the Windows "Opulent" O.S., and any old car affectionado would call it "buggy" and probably be impressed anyone had kept the factory-issue software.

I wasn't a old car affectionado, I was just too poor to replace it. Tapping the console left black and oily smudges on my fingertips which I knew I shouldn't wipe on my suit, but I did anyways. As the thing ran thru it's startup code, I clicked off the light and stood there like an idiot, waiting to see what happened.

A few seconds later, the red beacon started spinning around, and the white strobe flashed, along with the reassuring hum as the car powered back up. I walked back to the driver's seat, and that's when I heard the stiletto "clip clip clip" of high-heeled footsteps. There was only one woman in that place that could make that sound.

"Wait!" Vicki Valise shouted. I did. As she came up, I looked at her like a stone.
"Why." I said. Not a question, a statement.
Her tears had made black streaks of her mascara, that went pretty far down her cheeks. Her hair was disheveled, and she did have the rich, totally beautiful, damsel in distress act down perfect.
"I didn't mean what I said."
"I figured as much."
"I..." Her voice caught for a second. "I didn't tell you everything."
"Oh." I said. "Hire me three hours before your husband was killed, with no leads, and then tell the cops I was the one that killed him. And now you're saying you didn't tell me everything?"

She grabbed the playbook, flipped to page three, and bit on her lower lip.

Damn.

Sometimes you know what the other team is doing, and are ready to stop it. And yet, sometimes, even when you know, their execution is so perfect...that nothing you can do, is good enough to stop it.

She turned her rich, totally beautiful, damsel in distress act, into a poor, adorable, naive street waif that just needed help.

"I didn't...but I couldn't." Vicki said. "But now...after what happened to Bruce, I can." She pushed back a cute lump in her throat before she revealed, "It was Eddie Valentine."

"Go to hell." I said.

I was so smart for saying that.

What wasn't smart was, I didn't mean it.

I should probly

drop a cool video I saw today (cause I spent a long time hidin' from the mothafjuckin' heat today an saw a few good ones...)

But instead, I'll give yas a link to what Cassini is up to around Saturn. (Some supa' amazing photos here.)


***Update***

If you'll catch comment #69 you'll see a really edited down comment of how I feel about this.

U-toobification...OF EVERYTHING!

A while ago, I realized I was using too many exclamation points in my post titles. Now I'm about to impose a moratorium on ellipses, which apparently I can't stop from appearing in every title I write.

Anyhoo - I was thinking about what makes a good you-tube channel, and there's not one thing that comes to mind. Now, a while back there was "lonelygirl" who apparently was a you-tube innernet superstar - until it was revealed she had some corporate backing. I've followed a couple of channels that uploaded stuff that was clearly/obviously not theirs to upload, but I watched because it was stuff I wanted to see! I wasn't so much saddened by their suspended accounts, as I was pissed I couldn't watch some WWII documentaries or Craig Ferguson shows that I missed.

But really, the idea that you could somehow make a you tube channel of your own popular - with visitor numbers like a website is obviously nuts. You could have a bitchin' video of something crazy-cool and get picked up on digg or reddit, and have 15,000 hits in a day, but those people are never coming back. Vloging was once thought to be the next big thing after blogs - but name one popular video-blogger. You could, (if your reading fjord - I know you could) rip off twenty-five actual blogs without much struggle.

It seems to me that you tube is like an on-line archive of video more than a fame generating machine - which is great, I mean, if you know the location of a cool-assed video, it'll be there for a hell of a long time, and you can access it whenever you want without storing it anywhere. It's like flickr (where user images have been actually saved in the Library of Congress - because some images are essentially "national history") where, strong flickr users might know other great flickr members, but really, that's a pretty small chunk of people.

Anywise, I'd say that the you tube is just a redundant blast-medium. By blast medium I mean, it has the potential to explode some small thing into something huge...it's easily accessible (no password or login to view) and it's easily transferable (copy the code and it's on yer joint for your audience to see what you just saw) You can post the footage you got of some police beating a protester and get it out to the world. If it strikes the right chord, it could be seen on 100,000 websites with an audience of billions! (this doesn't have to be cops beating protesters, it could be something really cute your cat did - it just has to strike the right chord) But whatever it is...the A.P. or NY Times, or Hollywood, ain't going to be calling and asking if you want a job. It's background radiation that only gets a spike when something crazy is caught on camera...but at least it does do that.

What it is, is a good platform for getting your video on the internet and having it easily accessible. Like this for instance...a dude who once wrote over here (under the pen-name Q-dog) doing some standup in a shitty club in NYC.




The point I'm driving at is, you tube won't ever make a stars, (well, it could, but the odds are super slim) but using it as a part of your media presence isn't a bad plan at all.

So I been compilin' a buncha old posts for my book

(okay, I'm not yet working on a book - but here's a great motha'fjuckin' post I found in October 2005)

It's nap time...

Now napping is all well and good, unless you have a recurring dream (such as myself) being on the debate team, making a wonderful - and debate winning argument, when a pack of weasels arrives to carry off your shoes.

"Sure," you say, "it doesn't sound that scary."

Of course, in that case, you've never found yourself in a vicious pack of weasels who want your shoes. They have very sharp teeth and claws, and move very very fast. On top of that, they really don't know where your shoes stop, and where your feet begin. This leads to a lot of stomping, kicking, and yelling - both in terror and agony.

Needless to say, this is not the way to win a debate, altho it does instill in the minds of the nerds yer debating (and who are watching said debate) a great deal of fear in your psychosis. The kind of fear that leads them to quickly move away from you when you say,
"Where the fuck did all those weasels come from?! DID YOU SEE THE WEASELS?!? Well fuck - they just ran off with my shoes- I suppose you didn't see that!?!"

Anyways, that's why I don't like talking naps.

Mothafuckin' Snakes

I have a hard time fathoming a snake big enough to grab a guy off the ground and haul him into a tree.

But they're out there...

Noir Tales...From The Future! (Part II)

She was standing there on her legs, and then she saw the body. She screamed, while dropping the mini-Schnauzer and her Gucci clutch to the floor, and ran as fast as she could in those Steve Maddens towards the body. They made little clip, clip, clip sounds across the tile that I thought sounded funny. I might have actually laughed while it happened, it just reeked of production.

She wrapped her arms around the corpse...yaknow, the one with the one-inch laser hole through his head...and proceeded to wail,

"No. NO! NO!! This can't be happening! Bruce come back! Bruce! Come Back! No! Bruce!"

She was dragged away by some bull-dyke in a uniform that had the same look in her eyes as every other guy in the room, only she acted on it first. The C.S.I. guys would have a hell of a time explaining the contamination of the crime scene to their boss - but hell, that wasn't my business. The Dame with the legs was my business.

So, like a dink, I followed the dyke cop that had my client in a headlock. I picked up her clutch as I walked past it, thinking she might want it later. I wasn't the kind of guy that would pick up a mini-schnauzer, besides, it was already sniffing at the shoes of the dead guy. Hell, the little rat would probably gnaw on the corpse if it had half a chance.

Anyways, I ended up in some parlor-side room, where the waterworks were already making a mess of her mascara. The dyke cop was making with the consoling, and I stood there for a bit, fiddling with her bag. Eventually, as I figured, she recovered a bit, and realized someone else was there. Vicki Valise looked up at me, and a look of realization hit her face. Between sniffles she practically yelled,

"See! You See! I hired you to protect him! Now look..." She let out a fairly convincing sob, "He's dead! A hell of a lot of good you did!"

I stood there and took it. What else could I do?

Then right out of the playbook, she sprung up, grabbed the flower vase on the side table, and threw it at me. I had good enough reflexes to dodge it, and it shattered against the wall. Flowers and water oozed down the wall behind me. She swayed there seething, and whispered,

"You killed him. You bastard."

I didn't really need this. I had a retainer that would cover my expenses for a while, and though I didn't like to leave a case like this, I wasn't helping matters any by being there. The dyke cop was a bit more shocked at what was happening than I was, so I said to her,

"Here's her bag."

I set Vicki's clutch on a chair next to me. "She's probably going to want it later. If you think there's anything to what she's just said," I made a gesture with my thumb over my shoulder at where I thought the kitchen would be, "Six guys in the other room have my information. I'm also in the internet."

I walked out of the room, not noticing anything else. I made my way through the mansion in a manly fashion, only getting turned around once, and ended up at the hoverpad. It was well past dark, and from where I was, the city was lit up to the horizon in awe inspiring grandeur and beauty. At that moment, however, I didn't give a rats ass about the city or anyone in it. Humanity could go fuck itself for all I cared.

I got around the four shiny black police cruisers that were parked around my rust-bucket, and got in. I fired it up, and the cockpit displays gave my eyes their information in blue LED light. The exterior beacons ran a red cone around the hover-pad, and the white strobe kicked in at two-second intervals making mirrors of the cop-cars around me. I jammed on the lifters to get the hell out of there.

I was up about five feet when the whole thing lost power, everything went back to night-black, and my hover-car dropped back to the pad. There was one thought in my brain. It was, "Damn."

I popped the hatch over the electrical systems, grabbed a flashlight, and got out of the darkened cockpit to have a look. In hindsight, I should have just walked as fast as I could away from that house, Vicki Valise, the whole scene, and called the impound lot two weeks later. A DMV hassle, towing fee, and impound fine would have been a gift compared to what happened next.