Category: Uncategorized

The result from feeding my user icon (which is the cover to Spectrum’s True Love Will Find You In The End CD into the 1024 Cheerleaders generator. Neat site.

Pruned ran this picture of NYU students in 1943 learning how to design camouflage schemes and instantly decided that it had to be a desktop picture.

As much as I like any critter with the word “pod” in it’s name, just knowing that these things are crawling around down there makes me never want to go diving at all. Not. At. All.

And if you key in titles, don’t drink.

Last night’s channel 11 News in Los Angeles emphasizes the point, or misses it completely. I can’t decide which.

Yowza! Mega (belated) congratulations to fellow Webb Mafioso John Scalzi for winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

1. Did Woodstock ever have any concerns about potential cannibalism charges when he had Thanksgiving dinner with Snoopy?

2. How come automobile engines and electrical systems will invariably quit when in the presence of UFOs, but airplane systems are apparently immune? Note: I’m ignoring the Thomas Mantell case here.

3. For all of the “pro-family” propaganda that the apocalypse-watching fundamentalists put forth, aren’t they worried a little about that “woe unto them that are with child” line in Matthew?

4. Whatever happened to that Russian guy?

It’s pretty common to see celebrities around L.A., especially around the Arclight or The Grove, so it’s sort of a cop out to crow about someone that half of Defamer’s Privacy Watchers have seen already. Except for today…

I was on lunch break and killing time in Book Castle in Burbank today when someone came in to speak with the shop owner and I didn’t even have to look to confirm that it was Gary Owens, I just instinctively knew it was him because of his voice. I sorta wanted to do the fan thing and say hi, but I probably would have blithered out a “OMGILOVELAUGHINGONGSHOWRENSTIMPYSPACEGHOST!” in one syllable. Besides he was talking to the Book Castle guy about the Coconut Grove, old Los Angeles, and Frank Sinatra’s paintings and that was

I did find the book I was looking for (Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns Of August) and one I inexplicably didn’t have yet (Future Noir: The Making Of Blade Runner)

Me = nerd

Like everyone else, I’ve been killing time plowing through the search records of AOL users and once you get past the pervs, murderers, and the general cluelessness I discovered that the search profiles are a dynamite source of characters for fiction writers who might be stuck in fleshing out their characters.

Just plugging in some random search terms came up with an instant “strangers thrown together” sitcom or suspense show.

User #854617
Found by: Searching on Pi (“31415”)
Female in Savanna, GA (Zip Code 31415) who’s interested in minor home repair, Better Than Ezra, Bob Dylan, and the Bonnaroo Festival. Beginning on May 3rd, she searches on “baby names,” “odd baby names,” “flowers,” and wedding dress combinations so it looks like she got a surprise. Hopefully, the “zodiac symbols” work in her favor. Maybe she’ll find a sensible car at “grainger honda”

User #15728506
Found by: Searching on “jfk dallas”
Wanna-be male model in Texas who’s very interested in/has business with the Texas state comptroller’s office. He has nagging suspicions about his height and the JFK assassination but doesn’t let that interfere with keeping up with the latest soap operas. Last seen at Panera bakery, Starbucks, and Houston-area massage parlors. Favorite search term: “judith campbell exner- miscarried jfk’s baby”

User #929313
Found by: Searching on “it’s all over now baby blue”
NYC biology student who lives in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. She’s concerned that her dual major in medicine and sociology might be giving her ADD, but she still has time to send out Purim Baskets and worry if her dog has lice. Writes poetry in her spare time and is fond of quoting movies at parties. Not sure if her parents approve of who she’s dating. Favorite search term: “how did plath die”

User #1167199
Found by: Searching on “las brisas”
Conspicous consumer of cars (BMW 750il, and a vintage Plymouth Roadrunner) golf gear, and LA-area Chinese restaurants. When he’s not thinking about investing (he’s heard something about nanotechnology!) and thinking about cars, he has a somewhat disturbing obsession with Desperate Housewives and Chloe Sevigny. I’m don’t believe that Iceland will let pervs emigrate there though, especially if you have to search to find Google’s page. Sheesh. Favorite search term: “waste management corporation”

Put those four together and the plot just writes itself… “A sudden snowstorm forces down a commercial jet in an unknown territory. Thrown together, the four survivors: a hot-tempered yuppie with dubious friends in ‘waste management’, a pregnant woman desperate to find her way home, a doctor who’s secret is that she isn’t a doctor yet, and a male model, learn to survive as they discover the shocking secret of this strange new world.”

Hell, I’d even watch that. Sure beats the hell out of Lost.

My sister leaves tomorrow for a two month trek down the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in the northern part of Spain. Internet access permitting, she’s blogging the walk at pamsbigwalk.blogspot.com

Congrats to the CLUI for winning the 2005 Lucelia Artist Award.

CLUI is currently running a “greatest hits” package with mini exhibits of “Emergency State,” “Loop Feedback Loop,” and other recent shows along with the main “Vacation: Dauphin Island” exhibition. I’ve seen plenty of “dead vacation spots” collections, but the Dauphin Island set is incredibly striking – I’d shell out for a coffee-table sized book of them.

Dauphin Island (more of a sandbar than an actual island) itself is even sketchier shape than Grand Isle area of Louisiana. As you might have surmised, Katrina practically sank the island and it’s only barely reopen now – just in time for the next hurricane season.

I had no idea it was there… I wish I stopped in on the road trip east last year.