Intergalactic House of Paisley

Dave Weigel, via Twitter:

BREAKING: Obama named God Emperor of Dune. Sandworm transformation in rose garden 8:30 am tomorrow.

More fun from the crazy hotness that is the Bloggess. A sampling:

Alternate versions of The Little Engine that Could:

The little engine that did it with a prostitute and got syphilis.

The little engine that tried to do it but couldn’t and then later he found out that when he was born they weren’t sure if he was a train or a tractor so the doctor just made him into a train because that was easier but turns out? Totally a tractor.

The little engine that refused to unload his cargo because he was a hoarder.

The little engine that isn’t even applying herself.

The little engine that refused to let men into his caboose because his father made him homophobic.

The little engine that’s way too concerned about Obama’s birth certificate.

The little engine named Luka that lived on the second floor.

The little engine and the half-blood prince.

There's lots more, including her upcoming keynote address in Vegas. Go. Read. You will lulz.

An exhibit of fossils in Kenya(!) draws complaints from local creationists:

Bishop Boniface Adoyo, who heads the Kenyan evangelical churches, hasn't been mollified by an invitation to tour the Human Origins exhibit before it opens to the public, The Times of London reported.

"I do not dispute that as humans we have a history but my family most certainly did not descend from the apes," he said.

Adoyo said that members of his churches will picket the museum if evolution is presented as a fact rather than a theory.

Richard Leakey, who led the expedition that discovered Turkana Boy, is more concerned that putting the fossil on public display may cause difficulties for scientists.

"Science is at the very foundation of our ability to deal with the new century, so if we bring it down to the idea that science may be un-Christian -- well, how stupid can you get?" he said of the bishop's comments.

Well put, sir.

UPDATE: OK, so that happened in 2007. The date was not well displayed in the UPI post, but sitll, my bad. Funny, though.

It's all The Bloggess's fault. To wit:

· Dear Bloggess, My dog has the farts so bad it's like his butt is snoring. Will the inadvertent inhalation of this kill me, and do you know where I can find a dog ass-sized cork? Holding my breath in anticipation of your answer. ~ Gassed in OK

Sadly, i might well know the author of that letter.


Also:





OK, I'm really going to bed now.

As some of you may be aware, I was one of the many people who worked on Anticipation, the just-ended WorldCon. My main job was that of doing the layouts for the Souvenir Book, which had the added entertainment value of being in English and French. The coommittee didn't want an Ace Double-style book with French on one side and English on the other; noooo, that would have been easy! Instead, they wanted the English and French to run side by side. This presented certain difficulties, since French is 25% wordier per average chunk o' text than English. So I played with various fonts and weights, and eventually settled in ITC Weidemann, medium weight for the English and book weight for the French. Overall, it balanced out pretty well. It was a lot of work, but an engaging and (in the end) fun challenge, and I am looking forward to seeing the final product at some point.

My other job (since no one ever does one thing for a WorldCon) was working with NPulsifer on the Hugo Administration Committee. My main activity was, once again, design: I created the nominating and final ballots (bilingual? Mai oui!), and the items related to the awards ceremony: the certificates of nomination, the envelopes with the nominees printed on them, and the "Winner is" cards. So I was one of the five people on the planet who knew the winners for the last month, which made things interesting, particularly when I read that Charles N. Brown had died on the way home from Readercon in July. Especially with the vote on eliminating the Best Locus Semiprozine coming up at the Business Meeting (it failed, by the way, before the Hugo Awards ceremony).

But that's not what I want to talk about. The person running the ceremony, Ian Stockdale, had asked for dummy winner cards for the presenters to practice with. I asked Ian how much fun I could have with them, and he mentioned the GoHs would be reading them, so I sadly abandoned my plans to give the short fiction awards to Ernst Hogan's classic trilogy (only two of which are real, as far as I know): "The Frankenstein Penis," "The Dracula Vagina" and "The Werewolf Rectum (Rectum? Killed the Sumbitch)" and came up with a mostly harmless set of cards, with fake titles and dead authors (though I did give Proud Flesh the Best Fanzine nod).

But there was one Easter egg. I had no idea how it would work or be received, but NPulsifer let me know earlier this evening:

So we all were at the rehearsal of course. They were blocking some
stuff and what not, then Neil showed up so they rushed forward so he
could practice his bit.

He pops open the the first envelope and reads Award for best
professional artist is: Amanda F. Palmer. About half those in the room
(100 people or so) laugh. He just stare dumbfounded at the card.

He then read out the best editor card (Some guy who I didn't
recognize, but who had been dead for a long time and somebody shouted
that fact up to him. Very nice.) Dumb luck that he got the best
artist one, but...

During the ceremony Diane, Ruth and I were back stage. Ruth handing
cards and Diane and I staging trophies. (Tanya was back there as well
and because of the glut of trophies for BDP long and short, she got to
carry one of the trophies on stage.) So best Graphic Story comes up
and Neil is kind of pacing around. I sidled up to him and said,
"Promise this one won't say Amanda F. Palmer." and he replies "That
was so funny!"

For those who don't know, Neil is currently dating Amanda, who is the co-founder of the band Dresden Dolls, and an incredibly talented singer/songwriter/performer. She refers to herself on her blog and elsewhere as "afp," which stands for "Amanda Fucking Palmer." I do hope he was able to get that particular card and take it home as a souvenir. Just wish I could have been there to see it.

Gives the birthers an atomic wedgie.










Why the hell is Loud Obbs* still on the air? What's next, Obama killed Vince Foster for the Clintons?

Oh, and are the people who express some doubts about Obama's qualifications for the Presidency without actually claiming he's an evil furriner partial--birthers?

When Bill Orally and Mann Coulter think your position is a tad extreme, you just might be in Wile E. Coyote territory. Don't look down.


*H/t Atrios

Hitler has font problems, via Pandagon.









Truer words, people.

In other news, the a/c unit is back in the window downstairs, and works!

Thanks to all for the kind words and offer re: television; i should be picking up a replacement tomorrow. Would have been today, but work kicked my ass good today (yesterday I cut out 99 posters for a conference on Tobacco or Health [their title]; today I taped over 140 plastic job ticket holders onto them) and I took an hour nap when I got home (naps are good, indeed, Geri!).

As I was eating a humble dinner of homemade wontons courtesy of Dragonet, I felt something odd when I bit on one of them. A quick examination revealed that on of the front teeth on my less than six month old upper plate had decided to become a free agent. Fortunately, I have the temporary as a backup, so I don't have to look like a hockey player at work tomorrow. I'll be dropping the device off at the dentist Friday.

I think I'm going to go out on the porch and smoke a cigar and drink a big beer.

The distance between me and the edge is decreasing in an "Antelope Freeway" kind of way.

Ghu, I love the internets. LJ, less so. The full title of the album is "How Can You Be In Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere At All."

A response to Pat Robertson

. . . here's an excellent take on the new Star Trek film.

http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/view/8433105/1