My views on politics, life, death, the army, and other things too miscellaneous to mention here. This is a personal blog. This blog is 100% factual.
Bill Duckwing
Poet, Author, Journalist
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Your Super-Cute Daily Terror Alert Update Will Be Forevermore:
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"There are some myths and untruths surrounding the role God plays in our daily lives. To say that religion and politics do not mix, is certainly a myth, unless you ask a liberal. Anything that affects a Christian (and voting is one of them) — enters into the religious realm. Trying to separate the two is like trying to separate oil from a glass of water, it's impossible to do. "
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Saturday, February 28, 2004
Spam Sucks, or Something...
I don't know how it is for you folks, but I am still getting slammed with spam here. Having a public blog that spam crawlers search with a certain amount of regularity, I guess this isn't too surprising. Yahoo does provide a bulk mail folder for most of the spam I get, but it also on occasion filters out real email from people as well, while at the same time filters in spam it figures as genuine.
This has been a problem for several weeks. I could just re-register a new yahoo account (like I did before a few months ago), works for a little while, but even if you have a "Fight Spam" link (like I do, see my links section), does nothing but slow down the amount of spam.
While I try to figure out the best way to deal with this, I still ask for email on occasion, but I'd prefer you reply in my comments section if you want to respond to a particular post. If you do decide to email me, and I don't know you, make sure you reference a particular post or the blog in general in your subject line. If you don't, it will not be read. Do not include the words "hi," or "Re:" in the subject line -it will be deleted. And, even if I do know the person sending the email, if the subject line reads "Re: HI!...dfkjpowdn..Gen.er ic Vi.agra" -I will assume you have a computer virus, and your email will also not be read.
I do assume that most people reading this are either bloggers or internet junkies, and are people who know the somewhat tricky points of sending an email to someone so it doesn't look like spam. But it bears repeating, as spammers are getting trickier themselves -reference the blog or post in question in your email, as spam crawlers seem to have no way of actually reading the text of the blog they're crawling yet. At this point, I get about 20-30 spam messages a day for my email account posted here, and my other email account gets upwards of 200 spam messages a day. I know all the tricks, and assume other bigger blogs out there know them as well. Saying "I love your blog!" or "Here's a thought!" in a subject line, while maybe being an honest attempt by a fan to get the blogger's interest, are instantly deleted.
My thoughts on spam -I love the fact that I live in a free country, but I hate the fact that spam is the most intrusive, annoying, and evil form of advertising I've ever seen in this lifetime. While I hate telemarketers, I never get much more than a couple of calls a week, and junk snail mail can be fun as it's not at all intrusive, and sometimes there are some great sales. That said, spam...jeez. I knew spam was going to be a nightmare on the internet in the mid-90's, when my first DOS-shell email account started filling up with junk email a couple of years after it was created. Since I closed out that account, I've been exposed to at least a couple million billion messages asking me to either reconsider purchasing g3n3rIc -V1.agra (despite the fact that I'm a healthy guy in my mid-twenties), or look at some Sw33T tE3.n p0R..n, or help some rIch PrInc3 from N1g3rIa unload his Ba.nk A((oUnt into my hands before the rebels came and took him away in handcuffs (which I hope they did).
And the fact is, these spammers know that 99.9 percent of the hundreds of millions of people they send this crap out to are going to delete it before reading it. It's apperently the other 0.01 percent that are cool with it, and send them money, or attention. Or whatever it is that keeps them going, from their hovel in Tunisia, to Pakistan, to wherever they can go and get away with it. Damn...
I realize that just publishing a post about spam, that I'll be slammed two-fold by the spam crawlers. Perhaps it's a small price to pay.
-duckwing, at 11:06 PM
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004
The Laws of Griping, and Trash Talking, and Gay Marriage
Lots to talk about today, though I not be sure I'll get to everything going on, I will warn you in advance that some mild griping being translated into exaggerated pointless stewing is forecasted, as well as some ruminations on gay marriage, and perhaps more. We shall see...
First off, I am convinced at this point that I'm pretty much reading everything that is worth reading on the Internet. Of course I'm sure there's plenty of material on the net that I haven't read but is still worthwhile to read, but I've reached the point of internet saturation where anything new that I haven't hit upon yet (i.e. a new blog with a new perspective or a new site) really would have to leave me floored for me to read it for more than a few seconds. So I wouldn't expect any more links to new sites hitting my site anytime soon (of course if you're not in the mood to read anything, there's always SuperBad).
Another gripe, the guys that pick up my trash every week for some reason abhor cardboard boxes. They'll generally do a good job at emptying my trash cans (although sometimes they'll miss those, too), but leave a box out for them to pick up, and never fail, it'll be there, like a love offering. Waiting for me to carry out back it back behind my house when I get home.
The only plausible explanation for this that I can think of is that I live in DC, and given the general crisis level of living in the Nation's Capitol, it causes people in the city to be on higher alert to things like packages and boxes. Like in the Metro, or airports, the PA system is always reminding people to be alert of suspicious people, packages, or luggage. But in the context of garbage disposal, the idea seems ludicrous. Are they actually worried someone is going to put a bomb in a box that's just going to be compacted and thrown in a dump? "Hahaha...I just bombed the hell out of a heaping mound of garbage! ...Fuck you, America!"
Anyway, I'm not really sure how to dispose of my cardboard boxes right now. Maybe if I break them down and stick them into the trash cans, I'll be all set.
Which segues me into the gay marriage debacle. I tend to be suspicious of any argument that doesn't have any rational argument behind it. On most debates between Democrats and Republicans, I can generally see a rational basis from where the other side is coming from, even if in the end I don't actually agree with the argument. The problem with opponents of gay marriage is that I don't see any rationality in the more practical arguments they've been making lately.
The "gateway" argument probably shows the most promise, but I've never bought into "Gateway" arguments of any kind (the classic is the argument that pot leads to other more dangerous drugs, but modified to gay marriage, opponents claim it's a "gateway" that leads to legalizing polygamy, bestiality, incest, necrophilia, whatever). People like this argument, because they think they can say they like gay people and their lifestyle, but the reality is that by linking gay marriage to the above, they're basically claiming that homosexuality should be compared to criminal behavior. So it will give people pause, until they realize that it's all a bunch of horseshit, since homosexuality hasn't been considered "criminal behavior" for ages, but it's the best they have.
The other argument I've heard a lot of is -gay marriage is fine, if homosexuals weren't being such victims about the whole thing. This argument basically says that the majority really doesn't hate the idea of gay marriage, and if gays weren't being such arrogant pussies and pushing this whole thing down their throats, this would've been resolved years ago. But because they keep flaunting their victim hood, it ends up offending the vast majority of Americans, who are obviously open to retaliation. But aren't the majority of Americans being victimized pussies by retaliating to this? You can't really be a stoic if everyone (including yourself) is acting like a victim. But the real problem with this argument, is that it really isn't evan an argument against gay marriage, it's a reaction to how the other side is acting. It's the kinda of argument that says -you don't deserve rights if you can't act like a polite gentleman and conduct yourself accordingly. Let's apply that to African-Americans a century and a half ago -you can't be free unless you respect your slave-master. How about women less than a century ago -you can't vote unless you act more like a lady. And please, just stop shoving this stuff down our throats, please! We're just trying to be stoic and objective for the times here...
The only real argument I get from the other side that doesn't sound insincere is: "I don't believe in gay marriage because I think that homosexuality is a moral evil that I despise."
And fair enough, I think we should fight this one we by disregarding all the other disingenuous arguments stated above and fight the battle on this one premise alone. Who knows, we just might turn some heads of the moral majority.
UPDATE: I also totally get the fact that most of this stuff should be taken up in the courts, rather than the streets, too. SO while I'm sympathetic to Newsom's position, I do tend agree with most of the nation on this one point and think that it should've been challenged in the State of California first. Blah.
Also -I'm going to have to revoke what I said before about the internet, too. I found something on Fark that, while not exactly original, it's worth reading. I'll keep my eyes a little more open, I promise...
-duckwing, at 10:31 PM
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Monday, February 23, 2004
On the Passion of the Christ, and Incidentally, Grey Hairs...
I got a haircut today, and unfortunately, noticed that among the nominal strands of natural colored hair, was one single, obscene, obvious grey hair, fucking up the mix.
What is the point of that, I ask myself. Is that a vision of mortality -am I getting old?
Should I watch "The Passion of the Christ?"
No, I said to myself, and thankfully the hairdresser didn't notice my mumblings. Although she did ask "is this hair-doo too dorky for you?" -I considered myself lucky, as it was a far better thing than if she asked, "Are you well over 30?"
And if my grey hair multiplies and inherits my head, so be it. At least I'm not too bothered by mortality just yet.
-duckwing, at 10:58 PM
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Friday, February 20, 2004
C'est Tres Bien!
By the power of Google, you may read The Apple Coda in any number of languages, including French!
A story coming up this weekend, I think...
-duckwing, at 10:06 PM
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Killing Off The Bears
Bears are apperantly invading Western Maryland, according to this article by the Washington Post.
The weird thing is that it mentions that Maryland only has some 200-400 black bears, but there localized and concentrated in such a small part of the state (West Maryland) that they are becoming a problem for those residents. Despite the Washington-Baltimore corridor, Maryland has plenty of rural area (why do you think we have conservative Gov. Bob Ehrlich governing it right now), and just north is Pennslyvania, which (according to the Post story) has about 15,000 of the buggers.
So we should shoot them. As the picture above indicates, any bears worth visiting my porch will become my rug.
Side note: Is anyone really gearing up to watch "The Passion of the Christ?" I don't get it -it seems really gory for a passion play. I know there's a lot of controversy over it, but I mean it was based on the Gospels, basically. And some of the Gospels are anti-semetic (especially John, which is a shame, cause it's definately the coolest one without that blemish). My problem with it is that it looks really gross. And you already know the outcome. It'd probably ruin my weekend if I went and watched it. Anyway I digress.
Yikes.
-duckwing, at 8:27 PM
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Tuesday, February 17, 2004
I Love This Guy...Really!
If disingenousness can be cocktailed with entertainment in any satisfactory form, look no further than Wil Saletan's latest piece.
After dissing Dean while he was the frontrunner, he looks like he's going to appoint Dean the Jesus of American Politics or something.
God bless Dean for bringing honesty to a political process rotten with double-dealing and cowardice. That's why I'm counting on him to immediately fire his campaign chairman, Steve Grossman, for trying to slink aboard Kerry's boat even before Dean's has sunk. (Grossman's amazing statement to the New York Times: "If Howard Dean does not win the Wisconsin primary, I will reach out to John Kerry unless he reaches out to me first.") As long as there are Grossmans in the world, we'll always need Deans.
Well okay, Saletan, great that you've decided to not only sing his praises, but martyr him for the cause of the Democratic party now that he's done for. It's like saying -we need Presidential Candidates like Howard Dean, just as long as those guys will never be the President.
And no, I'm not bitter...
-duckwing, at 11:53 PM
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Funney!
The Onion has finally gotten around to being funny again. Their lead story is great, in a I'm laughing but crying on the inside kinda way.
-duckwing, at 10:53 PM
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Thursday, February 12, 2004
Lend Me a Vial of Some of That Poison
To all of you 80's nostalgia lovers out there: there's something blinding you, and you're going to have to face up to it.
Ready, now. Here is the truth.
The music of the 80's was horrible, particularly the mid to late 80's. The worst pop music in the history of popular music ever, for sure. Worse than George Cohen, worse than Irving Berlin. Worse than even Paul Anka.
It doesn't matter that you grew up as I did, reaching that all important peak of adolescence in the mid-eighties, and feel a slight tinge of nostalgia for it, even if you truly hated the music back then.
All because of the fact that a band called Poison existed at that point.
The reason I post this is because I felt a tinge of nostalgia for Poison, particularly and only for the song "Talk Dirty to Me" -I've always liked C.C. Deville's punkish guitar to start off the song, and truth be told, it's a hard song to get out of your head.
So I downloaded it, and was actually shocked that I relived the true and utter horror of the Poison experience in a matter of seconds.
"Talk Dirty to Me" was undoubtably the best song they ever did. The fact that they took the rebellion of the Sex Pistols and sorta turned it into "Porky's Revenge" is sorta besides the point. The fact is that they honestly couldn't play their own instuments, couldn't sing, couldn't sneer, that really is the biggest impression I got from this.
C.C. Deville was truly a horrible guitar player, his chunky guitar riffs slowing down and depressing the song dramatically. I could play guitar better than CC Deville tonight if somebody held me down and injected me with cat tranquilizers and if I had been forced against my will to shovel a couple of pounds of cocaine up my nose.
To those of you who think that Justin Timberlake is the nadir of popular music these days -fuck you. Justin at least has the power of Timbaland and the Neptunes behind him to craft some legitamately listenable music. I mean, I'm not a big fan of boy-band crap, but at least you can dance to JT without looking too much like an ass. Ditto Britney, Janet, Kylie, hell, even Madonna.
Holy crap, even NKOTB wasn't quite as bad as Poison. OK, it was... but NKOTB was in making music at the same time as Poison, so I'll lump them together.
The truth be told, I was only nine or ten when Poison got big. I was a kid. I should've been loving pop music for all it was worth back then.
Instead I listened to classical music, and jazz -in rebellion to the total crappines of popular music during that dreadful period. Poison was so bad, that it stayed my appreciation for Guns and Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" arguably the best album of that decade, for about five or six years, simply because they could both be catagorized into the same catagory: hair metal glam rock.
Grunge eventually revolutionized the music industry, and it was necessary for there to be a grunge revolution. Pop music had simply become too revolting. True, the 80's had some great music. REM and friends were big on the college circut. New Wave was great in the early 80's before it did an inverse Big Bang and just collapsed into Duran Duran.
The reviews that Poison's Greatest Hits 1986-96 has gotten by both critical reviews and nostalgia junkies shows the truth. People are so willing to fantasize about their past, they're even willing to give Poison a second green card into their personal lives.
Horrible. Just horrible.
-duckwing, at 10:27 PM
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Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Knock-Out Unpaid Advertisment
Today I went ahead and bought The Chills masterpiece "Kaleidoscope World." I've been a pretty big fan of theirs for years now, thanks to Napster back in the day, and I gotta say their song "Pink Frost" is probably the coolest love songs about dead bodies I've ever heard. ("Cut Flowers" by the Smithereens is a close second)
I figure I own them something for listening to their stuff the last couple years without paying them a dime, so if you like trippy pop stuff from New Zealand, go ahead and buy their album. It's good.
-duckwing, at 10:22 PM
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Monday, February 09, 2004
You're Either On the Bus or You're Off the Bus
This is the occasional post where I rant and rave about the current status of public transportation and the need to have a car in America, so if that's really not your trip, feel free to tune out a bit and think about Springtime in America, or something.
That said, I finally picked up and decided to read Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test." Long derided and sneered at (even laughed at) by Generation Xers (the hippy schoolteacher from "Beavis and Butthead" once brought it up in an episode to much amusement), it's actually a bit of a surprise to me it took me so long to finally give it a read through. I've never really bought into the hippy culture enough to emulate it like those other retards you see playing hacky sack in certain parts of the country, but in High School I went through the typical adolescence of grooving on the Doors and Hunter S. Thompson, and was also influenced pretty heavily by the movie adaption of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." And, of course, the Beatles (happy 40th in America, yay...)
Holy crap, this might be a long post. Anyway, the big problem with Wolfe's book is that it's way too much in love with it's own time period. I mean the whole reason why the book was so popular was because the hippies could groove on the book just like they grooved on their own culture. And an outsider trying to grok the people involved with Ken Kesey at the time just doesn't really get a good perspective on who these people are, and why we should care about them. They just appear, trip out, get silly, and vanish again, without ever getting a good look at why they were there in the first place.
Anyway, another aside. At this point I would've looked at the other great head book of that decade, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and contrasted them. A simple conclusion is that "Kool Aid" is an upper and that "Fear and Loathing" is a downer, as far as an analysis of drug culture goes. I disagree, "Kool Aid" is an exclusive book, and "Fear and Loathing," is well, a paranoid one. But it's more inclusive to an outsider reader, since everyone feels a bit alienated at times, and the book tries its best to touch on a general reader's natural alienation and exaggerate it (and laugh at it) though horrific nightmare acid trips.
Anyway, the reason why I brought this whole thing up is that Kesey says in Wolfe's book (I'm sorry, I cannot bring myself to writing out that books full title again), and I quote:
"You're either on the bus, or you're off the bus."
And today, I was definately off the bus.
A good sweet old 50 minute groovy commute can easily turn into a two and a half hour nightmarish death march when you're off the bus.
I got out of work 10 minutes before the bus was to come. Popped in an Operation Ivy CD, thinking about the good ol' days back when ska-core was hardcore back in Berkeley, taking warning about the crowd and the freeze out coming.
No bus.
Half an hour later, and the fear starts taking hold. Just like those fuckers at Metro for taking a bus off schedule and not telling anyone about it. Buses are supposed to cruise this place every 20 minutes during the rush hour. What is going on?
I smoke a butt. Five minutes. That's it, then I walk to the nearest Metro station and take the other bus home.
The Other Bus.
The Other Bus is the only option, since they discontinued my bus and didn't tell anyone about it. But you have to meet it a the station, and it takes you through Downtown, and nobody wants to go through Downtown during rush hour if it can be avoided.
So I start walking. Cross the street, walking 15 minutes before I reach the intersection of My Road and Busy Blvd., and dang...
My bus on the other side of the street, 45 minutes late.
I take the Other Bus.
The Other Bus is funky. I sit down next to an old lady asleep and taking up one and a half seats. My half seat doesn't really give me enough room to comfortably open up and read the paper, so I take a gander. A dude with ripped jeans and a painters cap, leaks out silent but stinky farts all over the bus, and gropes a bag lady seated next to him.
"I love you."
"I love you too, honey..."
"Bye."
How long, I ponder, before they're reunited again? Something inside pushes the fact on me that they probably didn't even know each other, and will probably never see each other again.
Leaving downtown...another dude gets on the bus but holds up the driver.
"Hey man, got change I only got a twenty."
Bus driver man says, "Hey, why don't you go get some change and catch the next one."
"Dude, man, I only got a twenty..." and he starts off towards the Back of the Bus...
Hand reaches up and grabs his arm. "Hey, I just said to go get some change."
And that's the deal. And you're Off the Bus if you don't have exact change.
And at this point, going home, tense and tired beyond belief, I know that if you don't have a car in this town, you're definately off this bus.
-duckwing, at 10:02 PM
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Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Obligatory Boob Editorial Post
Well, all I can say is Wow. I've been so stuned about this whole Janet Jackson thing that it took me about half a week to finally get my bearings and write about it.
Wow.
I'd also like to say that, while my fake name has held on to top spot over at Google for some time now, my real name, a much more common name in the US, actually is jumping up, to around 11 or 12 or so in the Google rankings. I like to Google myself. It's fun.
Yay, me.
Anyway, the boob...What can I say?
I can admit that, even though I did watch the SuperBowl that night (Yay, Patriots), that I totally missed this. I was saying to my friend uneducated in the ways of football:
"Do you understand the concept of 'down by contact.' Defenders can't just pick up and drag the guy with the ball for 20 yards downfield before throwing him down to the ground and calling it a tackle. He's down at the spot where they first came in contact with him."
"Hey, Bill, I think you just missed seeing Janet Jackson's boob!"
"What?" I turned my head over to the screen, and that was it. A cut away to the stage.
And even though I missed it, I knew I was shocked. I was floored by the way the announcers just totally failed to mention it.
"Damn," my exact words.
Of course, I've seen the replay over a gazillion times now. Although the boob, of course, is nixed out.
Wow.
I think this is censorship, but it is also a small victory for the libertarians. The same CBS that declines the MoveOn spot and bans "The Reagans" -possible the greatest television mini-series ever created that I have yet to see, also allows a two-second shot at quite possibly the greatest tit God has ever concieved.
CBS, you are truly vindicated.
-duckwing, at 10:54 PM
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Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Now With Comments!
BlogOut went kapput about a week ago, but I finally got it together and got registered over at Haloscan, so now you may comment again.
Remember, I get so many comments here that I probably won't have the time to answer them all, but I'll try as best...
Okay, people might notice that all the old comments from my previous posts have been deleted in the transition from BlogOut to Haloscan. If those commentors wish to be enshrined forever on this site, I urge them to recollect their thoughts and post them again, right here, for posterity's sake...Show the True Power of Haloscan Commenting Technology...think about it, this Post alone could be The True and Only Shrine of Old Apple Coda Shout Out Comments...
Right.
Actually, I'm kinda glad I finally found a reason to get the words "Shout Out" outta the Apple Coda lingo. It made me feel way too TRL about the whole thing.
Out with the old. In with the new. As I say.
-duckwing, at 10:24 PM
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Super Tuesday
First thing -Joe "Joementum" Lieberman has pulled out of the race.
It's getting harder and harder to figure who's still in and who's out of the race already. Gephardt? He gone? Kucinich? Dean?
I wish I could be something out there and say I'm Anyone But Bush -but weird thing is I can't say that. Kerry doesn't knock me out, and I got to vote for a knock out this time around.
Especially the fact that no matter what, the next President is gonna gonna cut cut cut. Gotta cut that Government. The next Pres better put a damn smile on my face while he's getting rid of all that butter, or the next four years ago going to be tough.
I was rooting for Dean. Howard Dean really knocked me out, but he's probably out of the race now. The substitute, be it George Bush, or John Kerry, or the ever elusive None of the Above, I can't quite get on the ABB ticket, until the ticket proves itself.
-duckwing, at 9:06 PM
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