November 29, 2007

My Profile on Technorati

So I'm creating an account on Technorati so that my blog will be picked up by its spiders.

Technorati Profile

Old Greg

Viewing YouTube Clips

OK, so has anyone else had trouble viewing YouTube clips from the module on my blog? I find that it doesn't load up properly all the time. For that, I apologize.

Now, if only we could get Microsoft to apologize for Vista...

Check out Meathead!

FINALLY! Meathead has updated his site so that there's an archive of all the old Flash animations he's done.

http://www.theninhotline.net/meatpers/meatpers.html

For those of you that don't know, Meathead is this guy who makes silly statements about Nine Inch Nails. The aforementioned Flash animations are all spoofs of NIN songs and that kind of thing. I encourage everyone--even the most casual NIN fans--to check out the site. Click on the Cartoons link.

November 28, 2007

Posting Third-Party Material To A Blog Post

Can anyone explain to me the legality of posting third-party material to a blog post? I'm specifically referring to song lyrics and quotes from books.

I like to quote things, you know, because I'm an observant person. But I can't seem to get a straight answer from anyone about whether or not some red flag will go up if I quote a book. What if I include the author's name, the name of the book, and the page that the quote appears on?

November 27, 2007

A Canticle for Leibowitz

All right boys and girls, I've got a book excerpt for you, and if you're the type of deranged people I think you are then this is definitely a book you'll enjoy. The book is called A Canticle for Leibowitz, and it was written by Walter M. Miller, Jr. in the late 1950's. It's amazing how it was written 50 years ago but still applies so well to society today. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and even though the Hugo is a scifi award this book is more along the lines of "speculative fiction." I like that term. Anyway, the excerpt below is from pages 61-62, and it kind of gives a brief synopsis of what happened before the beginning of the novel. Enjoy.

It was said that God, in order to test mankind which had become swelled with pride as in the time of Noah, had commanded the wise men of that age, among them the Blessed Leibowitz, to devise great engines of war such as had never before been upon the Earth, weapons of such might that they contained the very fires of Hell, and that God had suffered these magi to place the weapons in the hands of princes, and to say to each prince: "Only because the enemies have such a thing have we devised this for thee, in order that they may know that though hast it also, and fear to strike. See to it, m'Lord, that thou fearest them as much as they shall now fear thee, that none may unleash this dread thing which we have wrought."

But the princes, putting the words of their wise men to naught, thought each to himself: If I but strike quickly enough, and in secret, I shall destroy those others in their sleep, and there will be none to fight back; the earth shall be mine.

Such was the folly of princes, and there followed the Flame Deluge.

Within weeks--some said days--it was ended, after the first unleashing of the hell-fire. Cities had become puddles of glass, surrounded by vast acreages of broken stone. While nations had vanished from the earth, the lands littered with bodies, both men and cattle, and all manner of beasts, together with the birds of the air and all things that flew, all things that swam in the rivers, crept in the grass, or burrowed in holes; having sickened and perished, they covered the land, and yet where the demons of the Fallout covered the countryside, the bodies for a time would not decay, except in contact with fertile earth. The great clouds of wrath engulfed the forests and the fields, withering trees and causing the crops to die. There were great deserts where once life was, and in those places of the Earth where men still lived, all were sickened by the poisoned air, os that, while some escaped death, none was left untouched; and many died even in those lands where the weapons had not struck, because of the poisoned air.

A random (and typical) night at my old job

For those of you who personally know me, you know that I worked at an unnameable video rental store for a couple years. Well, for everyone who hasn't worked at a video store, let me tell you, it attracts some weirdos, and I mean that as a weirdo myself. But seriously, I had a (male) stalker before I left, it's actually one of the reasons I quit working there in the first place. That, you know, and the really crappy pay.

I was afraid I'd get off work and he'd be in the parking lot, leaning against my car and hoping he'd get the chance to wear my face as a mask.

So anyway, the highlights of work tonight:

It was a regular kind of Monday night. Mondays are usually pretty quiet, and tonight was no exception. I like the quiet nights because it gives me time to organize movies and talk about movies with customers. On the whole, the citizens are pretty predictable when it comes to their taste in movies. Nonetheless, I do sometimes run into some characters.

Around 8:00, this guy walks in and wants to make sure his account is clear so he can rent movies. He's pretty young, and as I'm checking his account I see that he's 18. He's got some white crusty stuff on his upper lip, and as bad as this sounds I think it was actually toothpaste. Anyway, his account is clear so I let him loose on the store. He looks around for a while and then comes to the front counter with Terminator 2 and Terminator 3. These are both older movies, and since most people come into the store looking for the new movies, I assume that he had purposefully sought these movies out. Imagine, someone intentionally rented Terminator 3! Sorry.

My theory proved correct when he started up a 10 minute monologue about time travel and how much he loves Terminator. I say monologue because I didn't contribute to the conversation, and I found that if I didn't talk he would just keep talking.

He said he couldn't understand why Arnold was bad in the first movie and good in the second one, and I tried my damndest to give him a look that said, "I don't give a crap about John Connor." And he went on.

He told me he had just watched the Back to the Future movies as if that counted for something, as if watching Back to the Future could unlock the secrets of the Terminator films. It was actually painful, you know, watching this kid unleash his verbal diarrhea and stumble over his words. Finally, though, I got the guy out of the store.

A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman comes to the counter holding the box for Lost Highway and asks me to explain what the film is about. I felt like George W. at a spelling bee. I stumbled over my words and picked phrases at random, hoping they would inspire her to rent the movie. For whatever reason, either my comments or some other external factor, she ended up renting it.