So long, and thanks for all the fish...kind of...

it has been a good run, and a fun experiment, but the time has come to change things up. this will be the last post at thecarnage.blogspot.com. i am off to build a blog hosted on my webspace. web design and creation for me is something that happens in fits and spurts. from getting ninety percent of the new firefly site up and running in three days, to taking two weeks to get the damn quote engine working. so, while a new blog is coming, just as i never say i will post an entry on day x, i can't say when it will actually arrive. the tentative goal is sometime around the next rubble post. (he shoots, he scores) the blogspot posts will stay here if anyone wants to link to them or move them to a new blog/live journal/movable type install. now go read moralcalculus and functional, with flare. you'll be glad you did.

Das Dotzi

this is for you, faru. anyone who ever wanted to get suggestions for a baby's name by one of those name books knows that some of the weirdest, most stupid names are listed up there. for example "dotzi". trust me when i tell you that "dotzi" is not a decent name in germany, neither for a boy nor a girl. so it is not surprising that the last time i saw one of those name lists - almost 3 years ago when my friend, the incomparable faru, was pregnant - and found "dotzi" on it, there was only one possible article to go with it. das. "das" is the neutral german definite article ("der" is male, "die" is female). and even though the name dotzi never made it into the top 3 - in fact it didn't even make it into the top 100 - it kind of stuck in our heads and we tend to call the baby girl dotzi from time to time. everyone knows who "das dotzi" is and although the name is just too silly it somehow got a loving, caring undertone because das dotzi is simply awesome. i sometimes babysit her for a few hours, and i have been babysitting her in the afternoons last week which i love and works very well because she knows me since she was born - and she is in love with my boyfriend chris (whom she calls moh-de). faru and i have been watching "finding nemo" with her so often that everytime one of us says sharkbite she answers uh ah ah. but she of course also influenced our speaking. tee is tea, vorsicht became waussi, silke siih-ke, brötchen bröht-sen, arm aahm -- the list is almost endless. and das dotzi is so crazy about music (= siihk); the last time tom jones feat. stereophonics 'mama told me not to come' was played and the lyrics started: "put some whiskey in your water, sugar in your tea" she screamed "tiiih?" soon enough she will start speaking better and better (i already made her say "krokodil" properly, so she is now officially ready to watch steve irwin every sunday), and i will miss her siihk and waussi and all the other words she made sound so brand new. and tonight the little girl will stay with moh-de and the big girls will go out :o) you all have a great weekend.

Hmm

I'm not much for posting tests anymore... it's not that I mind when other folks do it, because usually it's something amusing, but for my own self, I usually have something to rant about that supersedes tests and suchlike. Song- Shinedown, 45. It's a song that plays a lot when I'm writing the June scenes. And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45, Swimming through the ashes of another life There is no real reason to accept the way things have changed Staring down the barrel of a 45 ----------------------------------- And this test, which came up just so perfectly I had to post it. How did they know I was a Viking?

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Lo! Who is that, skulking along the icy wasteland! It is Archer, hands clutching a meaty axe! He bellows thunderously: "By Odin's mighty spear, I hereby snap and go berzerk!!!"

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The Shock...The Horror...The four hour woody???

I agree with most of what you said on the nipple incident Josh. The uproar is yet another example of the complete and total lack of logic involved in situations like this. FCC poo-bah Mikey POWELL (how'd he get that gig ya think?) was outraged that his children saw it. Well what did ya think when they saw all the commercials for the woody drugs? That was somehow more appropriate? Nice touch with the football going through the tire by the way. Subtle... I am assuming that a fancy guy that is in charge of the FCC probably has children that can read. So did you have to explain to the little ones what a four hour erection was and why a person with one should consult their doctor? Anyone that is outraged by two seconds of a woman's nipple can feel free to just keep right on fucking off. Asshats. Oh, and for anyone wondering why I haven't been posting. My time has been spent doing this. As always, with the much appreciated help of Annie at The Rubble.

Oh... my... god... A NIPPLE!

Here begins and ends my commentary on Nipplegate 2004. (Let the record show that I'm the first person I've seen who attached the obligatory 'gate' to the incident. Nyah.) Yay. Cheapass publicity stunt that's going to cost MTV some serious money, being as how the NFL pretty summarily stated they'll not be having any more MTV halftime shows. Beyond that, uhm, yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn. Yes, it gets Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake in the news for a couple of days, which was the whole plan. (Bullshit that it was unintentional. I'll sooner stick a tooth under my pillow and expect to wake up with a quarter in its place than buy that line.) In any event, as Angel so noted in her LJ, the full power of the FCC will be unleashed over this transgression. Agents will be storming the MTV compound, cruelly grabbing the staffers by their multiple piercings and dragging them off to a host of basements to be slapped about with rubber hoses to find out what they knew and when they knew it. Being as how this happened in Texas, undoubtedly there will be a wave of executions to follow. Michael Powell was of course shocked, shocked to learn that there was indecency taking place in the music industry. (I'm trying to think of a clever way to finish this Casablanca reference with a line about "Mr. Powell, Miss Destiny said she'll be a half hour late this evening, being as how she hasn't gotten her Little Bo Peep outfit back from the cleaners." Unfortunately, the former sentence is the best I can come up with, so there you have it.) Anyway, it's nice to see that the Evil that Taxes can still find creative ways to spend our money to protect us from ourselves. Bureaucrats can be such uncreative creatures, after all. On to more interesting things... ---------------------------------- The beautiful blond woman leaned close, pressing her body against mine as she gazed intently down. I caught the faintest whiff of something floral as she raised her hand. "Open your mouth," she said in a serious tone. Something told me I'd be best served by complying, especially given the fact that I was paying for this experience. She then proceeded to insert the evil hook thingy into my mouth... Yep, got my teeth cleaned today. Yay me. Next I get to talk to the dentist, who will want to crown the soft enamel defect on one of my molars, and then he'll want to charge me an arm and a leg for a custom mouthpiece to deal with my TMJ. Then he'll get on me again about yanking my wisdom teeth. Then he'll want to do the chip treatment stuff to fix up the chips I've ground off my teeth over the years. And he'll probably want to know where the new chip came from since my last visit, and I'll make up a nice creative story involving Miss Destiny and a Little Bo Peep outfit, along with a squad of ex-Soviet Spetsnaz troopers and... well, maybe I'll just be honest and say I really need to watch where I'm walking. Dentistry. Yee. Haa. ---------------------------------- I've been having a blast with the Darkest Corner of the 'Verse game, known amongst the creators as the DC game. Hopefully we'll soon be launched and picking up our final cast member for full-time posting, the divine Poptart. Half-game, half multi-contributor novel, I find the creations of my fellow writer/gamers wandering across my mind often. Ryl, Lucky, Saami and Adrian are well-designed characters that have already managed to engage my imagination. As Matt said, with no long-term limits on the story arc, this thing could get pretty damn crazy. Angel has been compiling the material and it already has exceeded thirty-five printed pages. One of these days we're going to have ourselves a nice DC Shindig, get the gang together at, say, Amarillo. (Why Amarillo, you say? Amarillo is home of the Big Texan. I don't know if I've rhapsodized about it in the past, but the Big Texan is a combination of restaurant and museum with the ultimate challenge... eat a 72 ounce steak in under an hour, and you get it for free. It's also just a damn good steakhouse in general.) In any event, I can't wait to see what this crew will come up with next. Not to mention what the lovely and gracious Xen will be doing once she gets past the chaos of moving and into posting.

Not bad, not bad at all

Well, we were sitting around watching the most hallowed of sporting events here in the states, the Superbowl. I had already been prepared for what we were desribing as what could possibly end up being the "Paint-drying bowl." For the first half, it looked that way. I knew we were in trouble when the Panthers got off a fifty-one yard punt and I looked over at Rob Roy, remarking in all seriousness "That was a good punt." It was a telling example of just how utterly BAD the offensive execution had been during the first half. We weren't talking a good defensive struggle here... we were looking at two offense which were just not clicking. Especially the Panthers. Finally, I said that most horrid of things. "I'm going to wait until the commercials are over, then go out for a smoke." Come back in after satisfying my nicotine craving and wha? Patriots with a touchdown. Suddenly there was a game. Then there was a halftime show complete with more Janet Jackson than most people probably wanted to see. -------------------- Me- "That bald guy did not just do that..." Him- "Do what? You're actually watching that crap? Deal the cards already." -------------------- Bald guy being Justin Timberlake, although with as little as I pay attention to such figments of pop culture I was blissfully ignorant then. Then the game suddenly gets good, moving back and forth. I'll admit we were rooting for the Panthers, hometown pride and all. When good old Ricky Proehl started making those trademark clutch catches, I was figuring the cats might pull off another nailbiter. Shoulda known that the Proehl curse would catch them, though. I liked Proehl even during his stint with the Lambs, because he was the slow but deadly guy you couldn't overlook. Third and seven, cover Faulk, cover Bruce, Holt, and Hakim... and there's good old Ricky hovering nine yards out. Move the chains, right on down the field. I was happy when he got over to the Panthers because then I wouldn't have to root for Lance Schulters to tear his head off anymore. Congrats P.J. Beantown got a trophy this year, and there's always next season for the Red Sox. (Or not, dunno. I don't keep up with baseball.) Good game in the second half, tense and exciting. Given the pattern we've been following the past few years, that means next year's game will be a crappy blowout. May the Niners be the one lobbing the bombs on that one... ------------------ Side note. During the early doldrums, Rob Roy suddenly up and said "Boy, I'd hate to be the back judge." "Wha?" Then I looked at the position initials on the back judge's shirt and it dawned on me. I'd never even noticed that before. Damn him.