I Kill Spies

DANH: did you read about SFPD shooting
BRAIN: this thing?
DANH: yeah
DANH: new development!
BRAIN: jeez
BRAIN: SF citizens suck
DANH: that guy wasnt from SF
DANH: also
DANH: did he shoot himself
DANH: then run
BRAIN: the cops shot a guy while searching him for weapons, they found a weapon on him when they stopped him for not having a ticket
BRAIN: so the protesters want no police on the trains
BRAIN: which seems like the opposite thing that should happen
BRAIN: like, there are dudes on the trains with guns
BRAIN: “quick get rid of the police!”
DANH: oh i agree with all that
DANH: the story is very strange now though!
DANH: when was he supposed to have shot himself?
DANH: totally bizarre
DANH: if you’re a fugitive felon on parole from another state
DANH: carrying a concealed weapon that you’re not even old enough to have
DANH: you should pay your fare
BRAIN: I agree
BRAIN: it’s just common sense
DANH: ‘he shot himself’ is totally weird though
BRAIN: yes
BRAIN: also there’s this person who lifted the gun from the crime scene

The Dalai Lama walks into a pizza parlor and says “make me one with everything.”

The actual Dalai Lama didn’t get it, but was pretty cool about it.

One commenter mentions:

the REST of the joke is,,,, after handing the clerk a $20 bill against his $12.00 tab, the Dalai Lama says, change pleae. the clerk replies,”” change must come from within””

I like the hot dog version better – also, my more koan-like variant is:

A zen monk asks a hot dog vendor,
“Make me one with everything”
And the vendor says
“Mu”
And the monk is enlightened

I guess I should find a way to make that into a haiku or something.

Netflix tries to come up with categories of movies based on my rental history and on my registered “taste preferences.” The more elaborate these are the more I like them:

Quirky Independent Comedies
Visually-striking Mind-bending Foreign Movies
Mind-bending Independent Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Cerebral foreign dramas
Emotional 20th Century Period Pieces based on a book
Dramas Featuring a Strong Female Lead
Violent Suspenseful Movies
Classic Dark Movies based on classic literature
Scary Foreign Thrillers
Cerebral Independent Gay and Lesbian
Gritty Movies based on contemporary literature
Exciting Cult Movies
Witty Biographical Movies

I don’t think “Priscilla” or “Hedwig” were all that “cerebral.” Maybe it’s keying off of “I Shot Andy Warhol” and “Happy Together.”

According to the Haunted Pittsburgh Ghost Tours, there’s a library donated by Carnegie that was built over a mass grave. The library is, of course, haunted, notably by the image of a young boy. The ghost has been identified with a boy who died many decades ago, whose headstone was on display.

BRAIN: you ever notice how all the paranormal investigations emulate a “scientific” approach rather than an “engineering” one?
KIRBY: how is that?
BRAIN: I mean usually there’s these guys running around with sensors and recording equipment… trying to quantify the ghost, or an effect or something. And it never works.
KIRBY: Definitely
BRAIN: But in engineering, you’re not so concerned with the “why” of it – you just take a known effect and employ it to get a desired outcome. So what if instead of trying to research the mechanism of ghosts, you just use what you know…
KIRBY: with the boy’s headstone?
BRAIN: yeah, like if one headstone on display makes the library kinda haunted… I bet fifty headstones would make it much MORE haunted. Two hundred even.
KIRBY: You could put the headstones in certain patterns, and make a “ghost gun.”
BRAIN: …what would a “ghost gun” even do?
KIRBY: I don’t know, but it would be awesome!

Well I hope you’re happy boys, this library is completely unusable now

SHAC: …but after watching it she sounds like she was pretty unprepared and didn’t do any homework either
SHAC: i expected her to tell a story about how groupon screwed her over but it seems like it was only 1/2 their fault
BRAIN: or 1/4 their fault after markup
SHAC: holy hell i just realized i only watched part 1 of 5
SHAC: f this
SHAC: attention span done
BRAIN: your attention span is discounted to 20%
SHAC: sigh

• I ate 10 sushi once and was still hungry
• The next time I ordered 12 sushi, and that was too much
• I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the optimal number of sushi to order
• It took a while before it occurred to me that I was variably hungry

SHAC: sigh
SHAC: i think we were planning to take one of the kids to see winnie the pooh that day
BRAIN: I think I’m working on the product release
SHAC: its christians vs. mayans
SHAC: who can get their product to market first
BRAIN: it’s a tough product
BRAIN: many have tried to deliver
BRAIN: no one has yet succeeded

XUXE: wow, leader of the largest neo-Nazi organization in the U.S. was just killed by his 10 year old son…
BRAIN: does that make him leader now?
XUXE: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! dude when i saw this headline a script started unfolding in my head. that would be such a great twist! despite his upbringing, the kid is born good and is compelled to patricide – but then people turn to him to fill the leadership vacuum and his evil DNA comes out from the power trip… internal struggle ensues! which way will you go, young neo nazi prince?
BRAIN: “a children’s movie by xuxE”

California boy charged with murdering neo-Nazi dad

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A 10-year-old boy was charged Wednesday with murdering his neo-Nazi father in the family’s Southern California home in what prosecutors say is an extremely unusual case because of the child’s age.
Riverside County prosecutors decided to charge the boy with murder involving the use of a gun after reviewing the facts surrounding the early Sunday morning shooting of Jeff Hall, a 32-year-old plumber who had carried a swastika flag and led rallies outside a local synagogue and day labor site.

It’s a good season for it apparently.

I know some people are feeling conflicted about killing bin Laden. We are a culture of peace, etc etc.

But the reality is: we live in an empire. Our entire way of life is predicated on this. Some people don’t like it and decide to kill us for it. They know we will fight back, they accept it. If bin Laden thought he would get away forever, he was just stupid or crazy, and he was not a stupid guy. Crazy, maybe.

If we as citizens are so upset that we ordered someone killed, why aren’t we upset BEFORE we devoted billions and billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives to execute? Or for that matter, why aren’t we mindful of the exploitation necessary to run our air conditioning on a hot day, or the air conditioning in the server rooms required to run the internet? That’s a lot of under-market oil right there.

I find you can avoid a lot of angst if you just tell the truth to yourself. Just feeling guilty about it doesn’t help anyone.

I suppose this might wake some consumers up and they’ll come around to being more mindful of the sacrifices of others required to maintain their lifestyle.

But I doubt it.

Looks like a college classmate of mine, “ikiru,” died recently. I didn’t know her real well, but she was an interesting lady.

Ikiru had a lot of zany projects going; I remember at one point she had a “plantation” in Hawaii.

Born Deborah Anne Ziegler, she became Euphrasia Lavette Alzena Guri Scientia Ventura Ikiru Alvera Ganbatte Gelasia Curvilinearjky van Bezooijen.

The last part was the last name of her husband, who I think was at this point an ex-husband. He was interesting too, but I haven’t talked to him in years (even online), so to respect his privacy I won’t mention anything else about him.