Hokie Nation

The shootings at the Virginia Tech campus were a really bad thing.

I needed to get that out of the way.


Much of the coverage and the concurrent coverage of the rest of the world makes me a bit loopy.
Sure, lots of people were hurt or killed. I am sure they are/were very nice people.

There were the same "experts" that say the same things about the people who shoot people. The exact same rap we heard after Columbine, the various Post Office shootings, the McDonalds that got shot up, the Washington sniper shit.

Sometimes, in spite of expert opinions, people shoot people. There are probably more than 40 violent deaths where you live a year, aren't their? Maybe not. There are here.


There is a lot of that going on in other parts of the world, too. There are those college age kids over in Iraq and Afganistan, the ones who maybe couldn't afford to go to Va-Tech and signed up for the GI bill.

There are about 4000 of them dead. There are quite nearly as many who are double amputees.
I have never seen coverage of their struggle as graphic as what we have seen from Virginia.

I wonder if people think about what we are, as a nation, engaged in. I wonder if we would so casually address the wars we have started - if we saw the kids getting shot up, on the news every night...

Obit. - Kurt Vonnegut

My words are propped up, I will let those of Mr. Vonnegut provide you with things to ponder and remember him by...

"How is this for a definition of high art?... Making the most of the raw materials of futility."

"I like 'Howl' a lot. Who wouldn't? It just doesn't have much to do with me or what happened to my friends. For one thing, I believe that the best minds of my generation were probably musicians and physicists and mathematicians and biologists and archaeologists and chess masters and so on, and Ginsberg's closest friends, if I'm not mistaken, were undergraduates in the English department of Columbia University. No offense intended, but it would never occur to me to look for the best minds in any generation in an undergraduate English department anywhere. I would certainly try the physics department or the music department first -- and after that biochemistry. Everybody knows that the dumbest people in any American university are in the education department, and English after that."

"Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club... and kiss my ass!"

"I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living."

"for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am now eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."

"if Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake"


sourced from various places

One... by one.

Today is the day.




Sweet poster, huh? You can almost skip the whole movie by following the illustrated narrative.
It does leave you wondering how it is that everybody dies horribly.

That would be how they get you.

Word up, my Peeps

It is that time of year, my peeps are everywhere. By everywhere, I mean that Peeps are available at the store, for purchase, for a limited time.

The seasonal nature of the Peep make them elusive. Their association with the resurrection of Christ, though dubious, relegates the Peep to novelty status through availability.


Or so I thought.





It seems that the unholy fun-makers at Wham-o actually developed and retail a DIY Peep Maker. You could, for a small investment, have the power and ability to create your own delicious marshmallow Peep snacks in the comfort of your own home, in minutes.

The technology involved boggles the mind. Luckily, I do have a contact with insider information regarding the operations at Wham-o. Perhaps said operative can also provide internal details on the Peep Maker device.

April Fools!

That's it, it's April. Fool.
Another month flushed down the crapper, eh...
March. Time marches on.



So, how have I been celebrating, you ask. I have been trying to maximize my interaction with fools, in the spirit set forth at the start of the month.

I keep waiting for somebody to look me square in the eye an scream "April Fools!"
I am nearly positive the joke is on me.



After some DMV fun, getting tags for the truck, I was left with a temporary tag and a list of things required by the state of the Golden Bear. That list expanded with a trip to the DEQ.
Some douchebag smashed the back window out of the truck, to steal the temporary tags.
Window replacement has been added to the list of fun - along with whatever the steps are to get a replacement temporary tag - so that I might drive to various tasks that I am required to complete - to get permanent tags - for a truck that is not really in use at the moment.



It's tax season, too.

Racing Season...Cont'd

Turn up the sound for this one. If you like engine noises, that is...



Yup, it is a commercial. The last few seconds kinda spoil the purity that leads to the pitch.
Hearing the change in RPM's from one car to the next is pretty crazy.
Pretty music.

Racing Season...

Those San Fernando Valley guys are back at it. Things seems more serious - more cars, more speed, perhaps more organized. Why aren't you building one of these cars?

Why am I not building one of these cars? What is wrong with us? Do we just not like having fun? Are we avoiding hills, for some reason?

Perhaps we are just a couple of Nancy-Girls. Perhaps we need to stone up and get to building.

The Gorn

Following my post on the Creeper, I thought I might speak of some of my other favourite villains.

Right at the top of my list - The Gorn

The Gorn are featured in a sweet episode of Star Trek. I am no Trekkie, but this episode is extra-awesome. Kirk is sent to battle another inter-stellar space ship captain, by some hyper conscious/intelligent dude. His adversary, some slow moving lizard guy. The Gorn.


I am not sure if the lizard dude was named Gorn, or the whole lizard race was called Gorn. It doesn't matter, either way.


The Gorn was a super villain to the nines. He was kinda ugly and had a hiss/weeze thing going on. The Gorn moved at a snail-like pace in his pursuit of Cappy Kirk, perhaps to add to the over-arching tension of their battle.



The Gorn seemed a little sad, to me. It seemed as though he might suffer from some manner of giant lizard asthma, and maybe some corns or foot thing.

Yet, keep in mind, The Gorn was a cold blooded giant lizard guy - ready to make lunchmeat of the handsome Jimmy Kirk.

Kirk shot the guy with a mystic crystal bazooka thing.
Oh, the humanity.
If I remember correctly, ol' James T refused to off The Gorn, in the end, much to the disappointment of the super smart puppet master of the battle.

I think we could all learn some deep and meaningful crap from Cap'n Kirk and The Gorn.

Wit

Just so you know, it has been determined through very unscientific methodology that KVC is in fact more witty than the entire geographic area known as Whittier, California.

Yes, it is true...

Witty-er than Whittier.



It is yet to be determined if the imported wit of other regions, into the general Whittier area, is to be included in final computations. Humor, you know, includes a modicum of perception in relation to the audience.

Whittier may not think things are quite that witty, as compared to you and me.

Tired

Well, here we are. Tomorrow will be one week with the new gig.

This whole bit of travelling to work is a little tiresome.
In short, I am tired.
I feel like a recap tire after a few thousand miles of bad road.


That is about all I have to say on the subject.

Open City

I really wanted to post on this, but it fell out of my head. Out there, in fancy-pants New York City, it has been declared "Open City"

That is like open season, in hunting terms, for various graffiti, environmental and oddball artist types to have at it.
NYC is the canvas.


There is a conference, in support of the whole thing. I would guess that there are some sort of shows to go along with things. You can read more about the deal here:
www.eyebeam.org/engage/engage.php?page=exhibitions&id=116

I had seen pics of that giant projector thing in action, over some where else. I really dig that device. Graffiti Research Lab, probably.
I had mentioned creative genius before, that projector is genius.


Think about how much time you spend in "public" spaces that are actually private property.
Think about how much of the visual landscape in your daily life is owned by some corporation.
These folks are working hard to provide some medium of commentary and interaction, in a city and a world where that is increasingly made illegal.