Bumper to Bumper License Plate Analysis

I guess I will read compulsively anything in front of me. Today, I spent ten minutes behind a Toyota 4 Runner, license place "Attatud."

Hmmm...What mean they by this? A contraction for "'Ata boy attitude?" And then what next came to mind was probably not a connotation they were looking for. "Atta-tud." Somebody, somewhere on the Net is probably selling sick t-shirts with this guy's mug with the tag line of "Atta-tude".

My clip is at least interesting as the Winter Olympics (which is to say...)

Over 15 miles per hour, 5% grade baby! Put me on the cover of Newsweek, the Bad Boy of the Greens.


Props to Vimeo

It's cool that there are more free services to host video, I'll have to use that feature of my digital camera more often (though having no zoom presents some 'ssues).
Like the world didn't have enough inanity.

The Bestest B-Movie Scrolling Quotes

"The Third World War left the planet shrouded in a pall of radioactive dust, under skies lurid and angry, in a climate gone insane."

I cracked up watching the first few scenes of "Damnation Alley," a 70's movie wherein the denizens of a U.S. nuclear silo manage to launch a counter strike with less drama and emotion than if Mr. Spock been 100% Vulcan. I especially loved the attempt to be poignant after depicting the nuclear apocalypse from clips of nuclear tests with the movie equivalent of "It was a dark and stormy night" scrolling across the screen.

The first post-apocalyptic scene starts with the former nuke-button key-turner motorcycling past human-size scorpions with a female blow-up doll in tow, and that's when I had to say "basta ya!" I mean were all movies from thirty years ago in "StonerVision" (TM)?

Neologism of the Hour

Lockbrain, the metaphorical equivalent of lockjaw. Looks like a few people have used it before after searching google, but it is apt to me for that mental state coinciding with writer's/programmer's block.

Taipings and Lamanites (oh my)

Choose me! Choose me! I want to be chosen, they never picked me first for dodgeball. :-(

This article about Mormon claims of Hebrew migration to the New World being disproved by genetics struck me because I just finished reading "God's Chinese Son" by the Yale historian Jonathan Spence. His book is about the 19th century Taiping rebellion, in which Hong Xiuquan claimed to be God's human son, the younger brother of Jesus, who had come to exterminate the Manchu Qing dynasty and assorted demon devils and rule over the whole world in an epoch of great peace ("tai ping").
I've heard various estimates that the Taiping rebellion killed millions of people in the decade or more of Taiping rule, although Spence doesn't speculate much about any of the casualty figures, other than 50,000 troops wiped out here, another 30,000 there. Great peace. Smirk.

Since I had only vaguely heard of the rebellion, part of what I found fascinating was the parallels and differences to Mormonism (granted that the Mormon history is less sanguinary, though not wholly devoid of violence, cf. Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith ). (On another note, it left me wondering if the rebellion influences present-day policies of controlling religious movements in China.)

Besides the nearness in their founding chronologies, the claims of new revelations, the usual discord over counterclaims to personal revelation and succession, the teetotalitarianism (opium smokers and other misfits faced death under the Taipings and in "Deseret" some faced steep penalties under the guise of "blood atonement" for victimless crimes or thought crimes), the theological variance with established Christianity, there is the greater historical record available to analyze both new religious movements -- one stillborn, the other institutionalized.

There are disadvantages to being born yesterday, as one response of biblical literalists is to hide scriptural difficulties behind ancient copyist errors ("the original text was inerrant"), whereas this apologetic is not available in the era of the printing press for the Book of Mormon. Cf. the South Park episode, where Stan feels like an ass for pointing out the blatant problems with Mormon history even though the Mormon family he met treats everyone supernaturally nice.

Oh and to change the topic slightly, and I'm happy to report that on my plane back from Panama, the seating gods were kind enough for a change to seat me next to a pretty Panamanian 20-something woman named Vanessa on her way to stay in Utah for a month with her friend. It was cute, she had never been on a plane before, and she sat with bag on her lap the whole time like you do on a bus if you don't want your stuff stolen. In the terminal before I had noticed her waving goodbye to about eight people in her family, so I had suspected before takeoff that it was a bit out of the ordinary for her.

We were friendly, and I got her to laugh by teasing her for not taking a window seat and being so calm for a first flight. It piqued my interest that she was going to Utah of all places, so I obliquely referenced that it was a bit of different state than the rest. And she confirmed that her trip was in part a pilgrimage to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake, so it was interesting to see that the missionary efforts were having an effect, although we didn't talk about it after that. I had come across a pair in Limon in Costa Rica, who couldn't stick out more in their suits. I wish I had struck up a conversation to see how much they would play up the story of an ancient tribe of Israel coming to the Americas.

Fenian Bracelets

J.J. showed me her bracelet collection. LiveStrong-let. A pink Breast Cancer Awareness-let. And then a green Irish Step Dance-let. My first thought: finally, some one else has recognized the need to raise money in order to cure the world of Irish step dance music! (Although J.J. didn't like that interpretation much.)

Don't get me wrong. I respect Irish step dancing. It's just that I think if the music that goes along with it would have been blasted into the Branch Davidian compound those unfortunates would be alive today. T'is not Blarney.

Sinification

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