The Bubbha’s Frontporch

March 13th is the Church of Scientology founder’s birthday. A date which falls closely to the auspicious Ides of March. Apparently this coincidence was not overlooked by the group calling it self Anonymous. A group that you might remember spearheaded the worldwide protests last month against the religious organization, which they refer to in text as “Co$” for obvious reasons. The protests that are referred to as “raids” are planned to occur worldwide on the 15th of March. Should be interesting to see if this gets any media attention. The last protest did a bit. Honestly, I thought these guys would get bored and move on to something else, but they’re showing some real persistence.
BRING CAKE!

I saw that the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, died today from undisclosed causes. I heard a thousand nerd voices crying out at once and were suddenly silent. One more inappropriate joke, but this one is not original. I saw this on many blogs today: “Creator of D&D dies today, fails saving throw vs. death.” Well, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed many hours of entertainment from this game he designed.
In fact, some of those hours occurring in the past 6 weeks. Currently the party is in a huge battle with orcs, bugbears, and gnolls. It “raged” on for hours last week with many crappy 20 sided rolls until we had to call it a night. It’s a weak replacement for the fast paced game of World of Warcraft, but not as life consuming. Its the basketball to D&D’s futball/soccer. Or maybe ping-pong to baseball. Oh well, I’m not good at these analogies, you get the point. If you’ve ever wondered how dorky it can get I recommend this good-for-amateurs movie that I found. Here’s the trailer. (Careful with the volume)
It’s EXACTLY like this! But I mean I live in the middle of Illinois, what else am I going to do? Really it’s more of an excuse to get drunk….it’s not like I’m really into it or anything. Umm, I’m cool. Nevertheless, here’s to Mr. Gygax (uber cool name btw). Schmendric the Wizard and the Elves of the Emerald Shroud mourn his passing!

Not saying anything original here, but on the eve of the most important two primaries left for the democrats it is imperative that Obama win Texas or Ohio. Going by the polls it looks like its going to be Texas (hopefully) and not Ohio. I feel this way not because I’m a big Obama supporter or a Democratic party supporter, but it’s because I despise dirty no good politicians. For some reason, here lately, the Republicans have been full of these fucks. They’ve been infected by the likes of the NeoCons (Project for a New American Century) and men compensating for their neurotic behaviours. You look at these men and you find the dirty filth of 40 years of human subjugation, malicious international manipulation, and bloody pockets full of cocaine encrusted dollar bills. Let’s try to think of a few that come to mind in the last few years (just off the top of head). Rumsfield, Chaney, Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. Sure, you say, this is biased, what about the democrats? Oh yeah, that’s right…some guy hid bribe money in his freezer. And, hmmm, I’m sure there’s other things. Drawing a blank here. So that’s why Obama needs to win. Because if this primary election goes on much longer those two will drag each other down too low to beat McCain. McCain is fine…for a Republican, but this isn’t the time for these guys to win again. They really need to be taught a lesson and put into their place. Unchecked power for 8 years will create a party full of depraved maniacs drunk on the juices of government toxic waste and dripping sweat of legislative orgies in the congressional rotunda. So please, lets end this tomorrow. Nothing against Hillary, but if we lose this one we might not ever have a chance to put these guys in their places for years to come. Endless war isn’t the vision I have for this country.

High and drunk. Why is Bob Dylan relevant? should I have to tell you why Dylan is important? Nope. He’s important because Woody Guthrie was too old to take this music into the Rock and Roll era. The music of soul, heart, and mind. Its haggard music. No, not Merle Haggard you bastard. No I’m talking about haggard like the woman in the picture that’s the face of haggardness. You’ve seen it in your day, trust me. It tells a story about us. But it never would have lasted had not Bob Dylan plugged in. He put that music into a time machine and projected it out into the future. A music rooted into the past.

But what do I care I’m high and drunk remember. Anything goes here. So let me tell you why Otis Redding is relevant. Well, he had it all. Man, that guy could sing.

Fuck you if you think you can top that!

So Obama pronounces the state of Massachusetts as “Massatusetts.” I missed the debate the other day, but apparently he said it twice. So a slip of the tongue wasn’t the reason. The reason it struck me was this popular mispronunciation has been a running joke between my wife and myself since Christmas. A family member is totally incapable of pronouncing it any other way. At a certain point in a person’s life the cement dries and it takes explosives to chip away at it. So I just gave up trying to correct him. I saw a clip of Jessica Simpson attempting it, but it came out as “Massa-two-shits.” Its strange how dumb people can create things on accident like that. I’m guilty of these serendipities too, but I’m smart enough to at least pretend like it was on purpose. But it was disturbing to hear Obama say it that way.

Of course, McCain pronounces the present day capital as “Warshington.” Which is strange, because that’s kind of a Southern thing. I’m pretty sure McCain’s not a Southerner. I’m from the south and like I told a friend today, “I can recognize one of my own.” I was listening to Todd Snyder at the time, but the same goes for McCain. Last presidential campaign John Kerry, like any New Englander, would say “idear.” “I have an idear.” “What’s the big idear.” “I have something in my eye, dear.” Where the hell are all these extra R’s coming from? I distinctly remember saying that America would never elect someone that pronounced idea that way. Too bad I was proven right. Not because I’m a Kerry fan, but the alternative was…I mean.

And speaking of that guy, I’m not about to attempt to go into ALL of the crazy misunderpronunciations that have come out of that man’s mouth. I’m going to defend him on the whole Missouree vs. Missourah issue, though. This might come as a surprise to some of you, Missourah is a legitimate way of pronouncing the Show Me State. So the point is I suppose I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. I mean the governor of California can’t even correctly pronounce the state he governs.

C: Welcome everyone. Tonight’s guest is the Scandinavian God of the sky and thunder. He’s the son of Odin and the defender of humanity against the evil giants. THOR!

Applause

Welcome to the show, Thor. How’s life treating you?

T: (In a thick German accent) I tell ya traveling to the States isn’t what it used to be since the FAA rules have been put into place. It used to be just a matter of hitching up the goats to the chariot and off I went. Apparently the flying goats don’t meet regulations so I’ve had to ground the chariot for now.

C: And the goats?

T: I ate them.

C: I see.

T. Nowadays, I travel commercial…first class. It’s nice to yell at the attendants for more mead. But, they don’t serve in it a horn, not even on international flights. By the time I land I’m usually pretty hammered. Ha, Ha I make a little joke there.

Silence

C. Yeah…so how’s the comic book coming along?

T. Fairly steady. Its always been the bread and butter for me. We’ve had a long run. Some people say the storyline is getting a little stale, so I kill them.

C. Now you’ve had the comic for quite sometime, why no movie deal? It seems like a natural transition to a movie script. Especially after Spiderman, the Hulk, Ironman, the list goes on and on.

Thor’s eyes begin to smolder with an eerie reddish glow.

T. No deal as of yet. “Our people will be in touch with your people.” (Thor stands up) Love ME babe!? I’ll show you, not feasible at time!!! (Thor pulls out his hammer and begins swinging it wildly. Lightning bolts explode from the glowing instrument of destruction.)

C. We’ll be back next week! Go to commercial, for Christ’s sake!

The entire set is trashed by the drunken Norse god. The screen goes black

Just in case you somehow missed this, I thought I’d at least throw it up here. Didn’t really feel like posting anything tonight, so this is just a quick little something. I usually watch a little Nightline and then Kimmel before I drift off into dreamland. My real intentions here are to see if I can post a video or not. I haven’t tried it yet, but don’t think I’ll have a problem. This epic video premiered last night after the Oscars. I laughed my ass off. This video is in response to Sarah Silverman’s video, “I’m fucking Matt Damon.” I’m laughing at myself here, pretending to be relevant and cutting-edge. OK, let’s see if this works.

Well, I can get the video up, but it reformats my entire page. So I guess I need to spend more time on this.

Hell yeah!!!!

Going to play armchair physicist tonight. Some cool things to think about. The birth of Universe. Visualize that for a second. I’m sure the vast majority of you think about it as blackness and then a sudden explosion filling that blackness with expanding light. But let me float this idea out there. Before the Big Bang there literally was NO space. No fabric of the universe, NO matter, NO dark energy, NO dark matter, NO-thing. If you will…no place to put the camera. There isn’t a vantage point to observe this event. All points in space and all matter that will EVER occur are occurring at this singularity the size of a pin prick on a flea’s prick. Thus when the primordial universe finally bangs, it’s space itself that expands. Stretching out in all directions. I used to think about it like matter was flying out from this place…the center of the universe. But that’s not the case. It’s the center of the universe that’s stretching in all directions. So literally every point in space is the center of the universe. The place of the Big Bang.

Now this part is a bit harder to understand and to conceptualize. But, if you keep traveling in one direction you’ll never reach the edge of the universe. The universe has no “edge.” Supposedly it’s shaped something like an ice cream cone…minus the ice cream. The universe is curved, but it is also existence. You can’t somewhere or somehow jump off of the ride to see where there is universe and where there isn’t universe. There is just Universe. NO-thing else. Which brings me to the conclusion of this post. The universe’s nature is such that it’s center is everywhere and it’s circumference is nowhere.

This post was inspired from reading a short post on a friend’s myspace blog.

Also sorry about all the CAPS in this post. But I was trying to stress the absoluteness of what I was saying, so I thought it was appropriate.

Half mast or half staff? It was this quandary that dominated my thought processes during tonight’s quest for stamps. Yes, I know why should one need stamps in this day and age, especially one who seems to have his finger on the pulse of technology? Well, first off if you really think that about me then you have no idea who I am. Secondly, I thoroughly enjoy mailing via the U.S. Postal Service. I enjoy writing out the address on the envelop, sealing it, buying the stamps, and driving around town looking for blue R2D2 shaped mailboxes in random places. It gives me an excuse to get out of the house and explore. I think there’s something primal in me that responds to this.

But on this night it was the question posed at the beginning of this post that weighed heavily upon me. Is there ever full-staff or total-mast? There’s a Flagstaff. (Actually there are several Flagstaffs. The one in Arizona is named after a flagpole that a city grew around. Apparently much like a seed, one need only to plant a flagpole) Which brings up a thought. It seems like it’s called a flagpole when the flag is gone or at the top. NEVER…EVER…say half-flagpole.

I’m purposefully not looking up the answer, because honestly this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about this. I’m sure I looked it up on the internet and thought, “Oh.” But it doesn’t seem to stick. So I’m going to come up with a rational based theory and much like anything that you work out yourself it will probably stick with me. My mind is getting soft due to the reliance I have on Google and Wikipedia….oh yeah and internet porn.

Half-mast refers to the mast of a ship. Oftentimes there’s a flag flying up there somewhere depending on the mood of the country. The country has been crabby here lately. I know it’s strange to refer to the country like it’s a person, but if you must, then think of the country as Andy Rooney. I’d like to get back to somewhere around Kelly Pickler. Half-staff refers to a staff or a stake that’s been stuck in the ground. Ergo, half-mast is over water and half-staff is over land. If you care at all you’ll look this up. If you don’t, then I hope you were entertained reading this post. Good night.

Other items on my mind tonight: Full lunar eclipse & Navy waving it’s dick around to the rest of the world by swatting a satellite with it.

Damn. OK, I just wrote a huge post and then deleted it. Here’s a taste of it though: “I was able to involuntarily extricate myself from the situation due to my sans cranial insulation device condition.” It’s subject matter I want to avoid. It wasn’t about politics which is something else I wanted to avoid. It’s really hard to avoid politics though. Being something I pay particularly close attention too. It’s a genetic defect that was passed on from my father. It’s a mutation that doesn’t kill you till you’re in your 50’s, so you’re able to reproduce and thus pass the gene on to your decedents. Maybe it’ll end with me. My wife doesn’t have a lick of this affliction. But from observing the phenotype behavior, I would guess that it is a dominant gene.

An outbreak of the disease, unlike herpes, is on a pretty regular schedule. Once a week the light shines just a little bit brighter through my bedroom window. Sunday morning, Oh my precious Sunday morning, instead of sleeping in, I get up early in time to watch Tim Russert, Bob Scheffer, Chris Matthews, and George Stephan… Stephan-ah… Stephan-apolishrpuffnstuff. I’m a junky. Good thing I don’t have cable. It’s the only thing that keeps my addiction in check. And during football season..forget about it. I don’t even bother getting dressed.