I'm considering sending this out as chain-mail. A little reverse psychology maybe?

ALERT: If you receive information of dubious veracity, DO NOT go to SNOPES.COM to verify it. That website is part of a cover-up effort by the international conspiracy to prevent the public from discovering the existence of aliens, and is funded by a black market trafficking human organs. Their information is therefore highly suspect!

Yes, I just posted in livejournal. Long time, huh?

If you're wondering where I've been blogging lately, the answer is:

http://www.survivalmachine.org/

There may be room for one more in our caravan to Burning Man (round trip travel expense would be about $200 per person), and we'd certainly be happy to welcome other vehicles of Burning Man travelers from the east coast into our caravan.

Anyone else going that I don't know about?

xkcd makes me chuckle.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Nothing against poor Mr. Ledger (rest in peace) but I couldn't resist:

Read my latest blog post, The Grim Reaper v. The United States of America and post a comment! Also, watch the news over the next couple of days, because this issue is a BIG DEAL.

     Would it surprise you to learn that chimpanzees may be smarter than college kids?  I've always been a bit suspicious.  And Kyoto University cognitive scientist (yay, Jon!) Tetsuro Matsuzawa may have confirmed that suspicion, it seems.  The smartest of the chimps in the experiment, Ayumu, consistently trounced the college students in a test of numerical recollection (he was trained to recognize the arabic numerals 1-9 in sequence).  His study is published in the Dec. 4 issue of Current Biology.¹  Now, between this and being the first mammal in space, I am beginning to think that Pan troglodytes may be on its' way to the rank of dominant species on earth.  We humans had better step up to the plate; we're falling behind in all the things that we had previously thought made us so special among species.

     And if you think that the chimps are not a threat, think again... "the chimps chewed off most of Davis' face, tore off his foot and attacked his limbs and genitals."  I won't even go into how much more accurate they are when throwing their poop than humans.

¹ Current Biology Volume 17, Issue 23, 4 December 2007, Pages R1004-R1005.

It's been suggested to me that it's not immediately obvious that the first letter of each word in each line spells out "simian." So, I'm telling you that fact now. Written last night.


Simian by me

Smoking, impugned morality in ardor noted—
seems I made it all nonsense.
Suit ironed, my incidental agonizing neuroses
swinging innocently, moments into autumn nights.
Surely, if model idols are neighbors
sought immediately, maybe I'm allowing nothing
soldierly inside me... I am nowhere.
Swimming injured, my ichthyic arms now
swell into mythic instruments ad nauseam!
Sorrow isn't my ideal apocalyptic niche;
suddenly, I'm more immune— as necessary
sunken investments, modeling ideas, atonement near!
Soon, I'm made into a nautilus,
sorry if my insurrection accomplished nothing.

There are also pictures in my album called Spring/Summer 2007 Fun. Including myself meeting Greg Hetson of Bad Religion! I have actually met him once or twice before and he's always a really personable and humble guy. He also plays guitar in the Circle Jerks. According to him, Greg Graffin isn't teaching in the fall like I thought so they will be back in the area this fall for a regular tour. I asked him about playing in Baltimore and he says they would like to, he was familiar with some of our venues and sounded like he would prefer to play here. They apparently did play at Hammerjacks back in the day, but that was many years ago.



Enjoy the videos - the cameramanship isn't exactly superb, but I was recording in the middle of the crowd and wearing sandals! American Jesus is the opening song, and my memory card ran out during Anaesthesia, but the rest of the show was great too! They played some good tracks and closed with Sorrow.



AMERICAN JESUS




SOCIAL SUICIDE




I WANT TO CONQUER THE WORLD




ANAESTHESIA (partial)




REQUIEM FOR DISSENT




HONEST GOODBYE

I can't make it to ROCK THE BELLS in New York City tomorrow and I am selling my ticket at face value plus the ticketmaster fees I paid, about $99 in all. http://www.rockthebells.net/ for information:

E-mail me if you're interested: theophany at gmail dot com

Here's the lineup:

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - WU-TANG CLAN - CYPRESS HILL - SAGE FRANCIS - PUBLIC ENEMY - ERYKAH BADU - THE ROOTS - RAKIM - NAS - MOS DEF - EPMD - UGK - DAVID BANNER - TALIB KWELI - DOOM - MOP - PHAROAHE MONCH - SLUM VILLAGE - FELT - IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE - LIVING LEGENDS - MURS - JEDI MIND TRICKS - BROTHER ALI - CAGE - MR. LIF - GROUCH & ELIGH - HANGAR 18 - BLUEPRINT - LUCKY I AM

HOSTED BY: SUPERNATURAL AND RAHZEL

DJS: MIKE RELM, C-MINUS, AND ICY ICE

Please repost this so everyone knows to fuck Michael Vick up if they see him.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick indicted by federal grand jury for dogfighting charges.

Vick, 27, and three others are accused of violating federal laws against staging dogfights, gambling and engaging in unlawful activities across state lines. According to the indictment, they ran Bad Newz Kennels out of a property the quarterback owns in Surry, Va., and executed pit bulls -- by methods such as hanging, drowning, electrocution, shooting and beating -- that did not perform well as fighters.

If you see this guy, kick his fucking teeth in. And if you have it in you, take a dump on his toothless, bleeding face.

splatterhouse is brilliant!

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: tentacles of DOOM
Date: Jul 7, 2007 3:55 AM


Yay, what do I win! MAKE A POST ABOUT HOW SMART I AM.

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: An Atom In An Ectoplasmic Sea
Date: 06 Jul 2007, 05:23


wow that worked! thank you!

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: tentacles of DOOM
Date: Jul 6, 2007 5:21 AM


OMG TIM ARE YOU BEING EATEN BY ZOMBIES QUICK GRAB A HAMMER!!

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: An Atom In An Ectoplasmic Sea
Date: 05 Jul 2007, 17:06

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[actually written a week or so ago, posted in myspace blog but forgot to xpost it]

The chirping of tires, the shattering of bones, the crunch of breaking glass, the gravity toward asphalt, the warmth of blood-soaked clothes, the flashing paramedic lights... I don't remember any of it. It's called retrograde amnesia. The last thing I consciously remember was walking on the sidewalk, so I have no idea how any of it happened. The only witness was the driver himself, who of course had his own interest to look out for when recounting the story to the police. The reality is, I'll probably never know exactly what transpired on that fateful night. I'm reminded of an episode of the Simpsons, which I managed to find a clip of on YouTube, albeit in German:



What I've never really understood since then is how nonchalant I've managed to be about the whole thing. I very nearly died, I lost most of my sense of smell, my right elbow is functioning only by a true feat of orthopaedic jigsaw-puzzle surgery, I have truly morbid scars, and yet I have treated this entire ordeal with a very dismissive "shit happens" attitude. Yet for the last six months or so, the walls have been closing in and the anger, depression, and frustration are eating away at me. This is not who I am.

Ever since I lost Cydny it has grown worse. Perhaps she occupied my mind in some way that postponed the psychological aftershock. Perhaps the psychological aftershock was already under way, and is a big part of why I lost her. Perhaps it has nothing to do with her and is a complete coincidence. I'm just running through so many possibilities now, trying to understand everything that's happened to me in a way that is useful. What was my fault? What could I have avoided? How can I apply that knowledge to what I'll do tomorrow?

The range of choices I have seems extremely limited. I am running into walls and only feeling better for frenzied and fleeting moments. This is a bullshit world and I'm getting nothing from it. Maybe I'll look into electroshock therapy. Something with a new feeling, at least. Because I'm sick of the same dark, murky world day in and day out.

I've been here in central Oregon since Monday evening. After a long day of flying, I drove from the airport in Redmond, Oregon to Bend, Oregon and did some preliminary work at the lab. I was finished before dark, so I decided to drive out to the Pine Mountain Observatory and have a tour. That was so worth the 25 mile highway drive and 8 mile dirt-road-up-a-mountain drive. Even without the aid of the telescopes, I saw more stars and planets than I have ever seen at once in my life. We watched the international space station, with the space shuttle Atlantis docked to it, zip overhead at over 17,000 mph. This is visible to the naked eye under the right conditions, as it was this evening. It only takes a couple minutes to cross from one side of the horizon to the other, and orbits the entire planet in about 90 minutes. With my naked eyes, I also saw satellites, meteors, and the nebulous glow of the Milky Way. Looking through a telescope, I saw incredible detail of the moon's surface, and I saw the planet Saturn - rings and all! It may not sound that cool, but actually seeing one of our ringed planets through a telescope and not by looking at a picture is quite an experience.
Space Shuttle docked with ISS flyover

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It's really beautiful here in Bend. I've got a nice view from my hotel room of the Sisters peaks in the Cascades. Last night I drove from Bend to Sisters, which is a picturesque small city at the beginning of a scenic road to Eugene. A little ways down that road, I turned onto a forest access road and spent some solitary time hiking around in the breathtaking wilderness before driving back to the hotel at sunset. A few pictures from the day:







And last, but certainly not least, Bad Religion's unreleased 14th studio album, New Maps of Hell, leaked into internet file-sharing networks within the last 72 hours. It's scheduled for release (to be available in stores) on July 10. Anyone who knows me is likely aware that Bad Religion is my favorite musical group, and the release of a new album is somewhat of a 'big deal' for me. Of course I'm going to buy the album, but I could not resist an extensive free preview. Having listened to it several times now in the past day or so, I can confidently say that this album is easily one of their best, and possibly a contender for their #1 album ever. It's also sonically unique; this is no BR-by-the-numbers album. If anyone wants to hear it, let me know!

So yeah, not so much of the craziness would be nice.

Hey, I'm depressed! Woo hoo! Awesome!