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the nonist » Long Duration Love Affair

Beauty in orbit.

Hey, who's in Brooklyn visiting this?

Hi there

And flower mound, that's a good name. Hope you're made welcome.

Tempe too.

Linkbait top eighteen

Sure-fire:

1. Apple sucks chunks
2. Microsoft blows chunks
3. Linux blows monkeys
4. Is the penguin dead? Microsoft buys every patent in SCO's portfolio
5. Microsoft admits porn spyware conspiracy: if you look at tits, we will know; and that's our genuine advantage
6. Linux is less secure than Windows 3.1
7. Mac OS X has severe vulnerability that allows hackers to access your bum hole
8. Linux has severe vulnerability that allows hackers to access your bum hole
9. Windows accesses your bum hole
10. Bum holes access your Windows
11. Bible code patented by Microsoft
12. Cold fusion demonstrated by conjoined twins in Ohio
13. Mathematical proof of mathematics inability to prove itself proved, or am I? Says Gödel
14. Perl is shit, .NET is teh bomb
15. French language traced back to the mumblings of a senile duck with a heavy cold
16. Eating, drinking water, implicated in lack of immortality say Breatharians
17. Linux installed on bacteria, Ventner pissed
18. Digg a lot of shit, say Diggers
19. Blogger can't count

Contributions welcome

exploding green

Global warming, wind in Denmark, destroy puny human attempt at genuflection before the dead god of metal things erected. Probably. That, or a brake mechanism that failed (the brake was broke).

One of the spiralling propellor tines impaled a whale too, but the weasel nest in the turbine nacelle was unharmed, landed gently in the gorse as all about misfired.

Boat drifts into harbour

Everyone dead, variously staring, except me. I caught them all. Mainly whilst being incredulous that the blood hitting the ceiling was theirs and arterial.

I am tired because I've had to haul dead crew over the rail. Twelve of them. Each one in some different explanation of what it is to die violently.

But the problem is I don't know how to drive this boat as it heaves to the dock (quay? some fucking thing that gets destroyed, big splinters the width of your leg exploding up, because I don't know how to stop its progress). And it is basically halted by the granite side of the promenade that loops down from the hill of the little port we, all dead except me, enter.

I have fucked off long gone, dived into the black night-time waves five hundred yards out. I will swim to shore, and hopefully wash this blood and headache out. Salt cold sea will maybe make me feel better. At least clear the sparky fog from my head.

multitasking

Shaving and smoking. I got that down pat. Pat was pleased.

He makes to leave

It's the cabin boy (or something, youngest anyway), he's like a rabbit in the headlights. And then he bolts.

But I still have the knife and head him off.

There's a moment when I'm looking in his eyes when I realise I am about to cross a rubric's cube. If I stick him, then I'm on a journey that I can't backtrack.

Then I realise, with a kind of lightness inside, that I started that particular track before.

I don't bother pushing him over the side when I'm done. I have to deal with the others, and get rid of this headache.

Creationism

Frozen throne tutorial, courtesy of my boy, Marlowe

"dwarf on a bird that throws electric hammers"

I want one of them

three of my favourite things

Sometimes I understand what it is to be right wing

Sometimes I can just about understand those fuckwit mouthbreathers when I re-read the Lensman series by E.E. 'doc' Smith, doughnut scientist and librettist for space opera without equal.

Guns, individualism and a juvenile optimism. All good and life-affirming. There I can see the frontier spirit. But then I retract, and realise I am fundamentally Boskone - evil, collectivist and power hungry, living on an ice planet, impatiently waiting for the second galaxy to collide.

Kim Kinnison and Worsel, heroes for a grimy youth in the seventies concrete nasty forever England.

However, I remember the seventies in England differently - there were long hot summers there, and reeks full of shrimps and gudgeon. Red ants to chase with magnifying glasses, I/32^nd scale blue plastic soldiers and action man and Airfix Lancaster bombers.

Worseness

Just posted this baldercrap on pooTube.

I have no idea why.

Perhaps I like the idea of seeding bad UGC in the long tail of crap intermaweb. A hinterland of basically shite content. Also got a Lensman allusion in there, good for me.

Mac music

Man overboard

Wiping knifed under-captain off my hands.

I was out in the dark at the front of the boat smoking a silkstring cigarette (I got a taste for them in Albonia) when the under-captain (whose name was Krasp) came up behind me and punched me in the kidney.

I went down like a sack of shit and he kicked me hard.

"Who's a big fat fuck now you little cunt?"

I wanted to say something clever but was too surprised and hurting so just said fuck off.

He kicked me again. Bastard. Then he got his knife out. I saw it glint.

"I could stick you now, and fuck you off over the side. That'd be the end of you. Get up." And he pulled me to my feet, holding the knife close to me. "I'm going to push this into if you make a noise."

I still couldn't think of anything clever to say so I head-butted him full in the face. He went back flailing his knife, blood gushing out of his nose. I followed him inside his swing and hit him in the throat, one short jab, and brought my knee up quick into his balls.

Then it went into migraine mode, where the light comes on and things start looking sparky and grainy.

I took his knife and, wrapping my arm around his head, my fingers pulling into his left eye, forced the knife between eyeball and nose until I felt the crackle grind of bone, and then pushed harder. He went limp. I took his weight and waltzed him round and over the side.

A little splash, small against the grumble of the engine and white sea noise.

And then I see the little red glow of my dropped cigarette, so I pick it up and take one last drag before flicking it after the phosphorescent scumble, last sign of his passing, fast receding.

The migraine thing starts to go, and so I light another cigarette.

Man overboard.

I feel a tingle up the back of my neck and turn round. There's someone there, standing very still, breath held, looking at me.

I'd like to

Push myself through the brick and plaster of the wall just there, in front of me

So that, just that, the things that are left, are the things that survive that

Teeth maybe, maybe sockets for my eyes, maybe bits of skull pushing through, maybe jaws, maybe teeth

And what's left will be enough to bite your fucking face off

I'm coming, I'm coming for you, Bêbe

Attacked by dogs

Would that they were big black dogs that can eviscerate in one bite. But no, these are shit dogs, spaniels (ugly cats), that nip and yelp. And you can kick one or two off into broken-necked, eye-popped death, but the other little snappy fuckers will beset you. Biting with their tiny teeth, hardly raising a welt one and each, but still adding up to an exasperating finale where you just want to slam down the iron lid on all those little snarling fuckers - virus rats with big engaging eyes.

That is a metaphor for the thoughts I have as we get close to Sundetenland, our final port of call for the oily tug, where I will disembark and catch the land train to Svaltwoond.

dalek tuesday

dalek tuesday
Originally uploaded by diskgrinder

that's where my heart is

Vista vs. XP: using ice cube trays as a metaphor

Vista: looks pretty; doesn't fucking work

XP: fugly sinner; does work

Case closed.

Manic bunch mind

Like a hive mind, but made from a social network of lithium-deprived schizoid types. These are my friends - all have the same idea at the same time, but the democracy of agreement doesn't make that idea any better.

No, I will not parachute naked from a tall building on Sunday, nor do I agree that Scientology is a good life-style choice for bulemics.

Are we clear on that?

But yes, mountain biking in a ball gown, that's ok.

n noise

Out to sea

Looking out this grey day across the grey waves, I think I saw a whale-worm.

The detritus of a badly conceived solution to the box jellyfish conundrum (these plastic bag type stinging shits that can kill a dog, and make you sick as a sick thing, that washed up on the concrete sea-defences which pass as beaches on the seaward corners of glorious and orange-flaming Blankland - my nation, one nation under dog). The whale-worms were genetically engineered carnosaurs, vast and hungry, that were meant to trawl the inner seas and eat the fuck out of these four-eyed, four-brained snot monsters with trailing fuck-you-up tentacles.

Well, it didn't work, they ate their fill and died with bellies inflated with tonnes of nasty little fucker jellyfish, and then died and sank. During the meanwhilst, the jelly bastards got a species alert and produced acres of sperm and eggs in response. So that the seas heaved with jelly jizz and ova.

But every now and then you see a whale-worm break the waves, and hill up their massive bulks above the crashing.

One thing the sweaty scientists got right, with tubes and DNA refractors: these things are beautiful; and still sing long songs that echo in the deeps. Seeing one, a sad way away, is somehow heartening.

Anthropophobic

That's me. I just don't like people. I discovered this on the tug out of Blankland.

We were going up the main way through the skeletons of discarded power-stations adrift on the straits. The captain was up on the deck doing that windswept sou'wester thing in the pissing rain. Me and most of the others were down in the main cabin, the stove hot, mugs of tea, cigarettes and cards. I can't play cards, and I can't talk stupid, so I was a bit out of sorts in the company. I noticed my accent subtly changing so I could better fit in. It got harsher, with more swearing. Good for me.

Tired of it pretty quickly, and told the big fat fuck under-captain that he was a big fat fuck.

That didn't go down too well. There was a sticky silence. He'd got a reputation for being a bully, and I just pushed his fuck off button. Good for me.

"You want to say that again?" he said.

I told him, no, I was OK with saying it once.

"So are you apologising?"

I smiled, a bit strained, and told him no, and pointed out he's big, he's fat, and he's a fuck. Which makes him a big fat fuck.

youTubed some more massive embarrassment to myself and loved ones

Because I'm a giving person

Top ten shit things to say

1. I think we need space
2. A word in your shell-like
3. You won't do that again in a hurry
4. We really need to talk
5. Let's party
6. In situations like these, I always wonder what Jesus would have done
7. They're not like us
8. Your mother just phoned
9. I have a meeting in the morning
10. Let's invade poland

cleave to the buttock

defined

Stealing music

What if me stealing music from you meant I now had the music and you don't?

Stealing a copy of the music does not make a victim of the person the music was stolen from. They've still got the music and so have I now. It only harms the distributor whose profit comes from inability to copy. Oh, and the artist, who doesn't get the skin scrapings the labels leave behind (do you have any idea how vast the profit is on that disc of plastic?)

But if I stole music from you, and therefore you didn't have it anymore, meant you couldn't hear it, then you'd think twice about letting me in.

So how about this DRM method - when you buy a song, you buy one thousand plays, and when a song gets stolen, that's one less play for you.

That's a shit idea, but then so is DRM (probably, I don't give enough of a shit to deeply consider).

Thoughts for an online game

How to emulate fun in realtime in a stateless protocol.

Choreograph your fighting thing and compete with others.

The game (in flash) gives you the ability to structure the moves of a stick-figure.

But you don't know (and nor does anybody else) what the moves your opponent will make.

So you make the moves (by moving elbows, arms, knees and legs) and hope you've predicted the defence you need, and the attack you can (and hope it's not blocked by your opponent's similar machinations).

Then you upload your programmed stick-figure.

The system matches your stick figure against everyone else's uploaded figures.

If you got it right, and your figure defends just there, and attacks just here, overcoming your blindly flailing opponent, then your little bloke will climb the ladder.

Whoever gets to the top of the pile gets a prize (a cup of coffee or a monogrammed pencil eraser).

another deleted scene

Anyway, we have landed in the claustrophobic green jungle (cloying and too close, vines and insects in your face).

There are stepped up pyramids lurching out of the vegetable fold (ziggurats with dried blood down the steps) above my eye. In a different world, with broad leaves, pricking undergrowth and scaly animals warning-coloured

Trees, an analysis

An in depth review, a scathing attack, or paean? You decide.

No.5, the larch.

Playing devil's avocado

So I said to him, "what happens if I poke this in here?"

He thought for a moment, sucked his lip, and said, "well, I'd have to say that you would break it. It's not meant to have things poked into it."

"That answers my question." Then I thought for a bit. "I could poke it a little couldn't I?"

He looked a bit annoyed for a minute, then sighed. "Look, you can poke it if you want to, but it's really not meant for that kind of thing."

"So I can poke it a bit?"

"Yes, if you want to, it's a free country."

"Would that void my warranty?"

"If you poked it?"

"A bit."

"If you poked it a bit? After I told you that you would break it?"

"Yeah, but say you hadn't told me that."

"Even if I hadn't told you, and you poked it..."

"Assuming I had no warning,"

"Yes, like you had no warning, because I hadn't told you, and you poked it, but only a bit, and it clearly isn't designed for any kind of poking, then, yes of course you'd void your fucking warranty."

"Best not poke it then."

"NO!"

"Ok, I got it."

He took a deep breath. "Now, is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Yeah, so what if I got someone else to poke it?"

Plugged in tonight

So they electrics don't seep out the socket.

Don't want to come down in the morning and find a pool of electrics all in my rug.

Might sting a bit.

Spiffing tunes

Landed my spitfire in the lee of the down below the cliff. Rolls Royce supermarine engine hot and four guns spent. Gallston, the only survivor of my groundcrew, hanging on to the undercarriage all the way from Rory Bremner, was pricked atrociously by gorse as we landed but was still able to refuel the old girl with his saliva.

I divested myself of my dress and pearls and popped the canopy. I stood naked with the wind in my ears and surveyed the bleak landscape before us.

Off away in the dim bleak distance was a standing bollock of a stone pub raised up against the lowering sky. It was raining over there, I could see the water slanting in thin lines from the emptying clouds.

"We'll walk!" I shouted in Gallston's ear.

"Yes sir," he replied, "what you said."

"Smart and tarty," I replied with a saucy wink, "I'll stand you a pint."

"What about the Germans, sir?" he asked.

"Fuck 'em," I said, "let's see if we can't drink as much mild as would make us piss a bucketful, you ugly cunt."

this good

hardrock sampler

Cheers ta Amos

Each day is valentine's

Because he's the one with some flowers in his back pocket. And all the angels are flapping their wings, even the ones with tattoos and piercings (I'm looking at you, Satan). Even god got his gown in a twist, and tripped over his beard on the way home to his diamond palace on the glass mountain held up by especially trained clouds.

I'm in two minds about it, however. See, I can't see that there's anything special to say. Some spiritual bone in my head missing probably.

deleted scenes from Imaginary Travels: Gethsemet too Lovecraft

Discarded by the Nazis, banging and shouting in their containment cells either side as we went deeper in the corridors of Gethsemet. Ginger got scientific as he led us down into the bowels. “These rooms are connected in to occult dimensions, they spiral out into cold universes, and the shitting Nazis channelled them here with one way valves, and put them in numbered cells. We are at one hundred and twelve,” and he gestured dismissively at an iron door as we passed by, where we heard infections. “This is a small god, the god of charnel houses who sits between disease and accident, and sucks on bad luck. Soon we pass the gods with murderous intent. You close ears then.”

yes

Way easy in school

Where I can be the little man, with little desk, a little lamp lighting my feint-ruled, ring-bound, day-book, wherein I doodle over-biroed things.

Where every small day with sunshine shuttered, I make one more mark on the electronic register. I live in excel pivot tables (and am good that) but only provide charts for nasty powerpoint.

I wish my target was Keynote, underscored by Pages, Numbers and OmniGraffle.

daily record

one photo each day, until you stop

And then, don't post again.

Selling out

Someone on the phone today:

"Hey, disk, how's it going? It's Sam here. Sam from [xxxx].com."

"How did you get this number?"

"Good, good on that. Glad to see we're still singing from the same hymn sheet."

"What? Sorry, what's that?"

"Got a thing for you. A thing you can get behind."

"What?"

"We've noticed you're blogging stuff that fits our demographic: you know; fucked up people?¹"

"Fucked up? What's fucked up?"

"No, no. Hey, and that's good, man, exactly the kind of fucked-upness that appeals to our audience. You have an ability..."

"What ability?"

"Hey, now, don't interrupt me, fucker. I'm about to offer you money. You need to hear me out."

"Sorry, I don't get this. This is... this is not... I'm putting the phone down."

"Yeah, yeah, you can do that. You don't want to do that until you've heard me out."

"..."

"It's about money."

"Sorry?"

"Good, good. See, this is the thing, we can leverage that."

"What? That there's money?"

"Yeah. That. Anyway, about the money thing: we can give you some; a percentage. You see?"

"Percentage of what?"

"Traffic. You know, traffic, more traffic equals more money. A percentage of that."

"I don't get traffic."

"Come again?"

"Fuck off."

"Hey, good skillz there. Liking the 'fuck off'. But, seriously, you want some money, right?"

I have upgraded his grammar ^{back there 1}

Taking the inner route out

As there are now restrictions on our egress from these sceptred isles, and I have travelled to subprime sovereignties, I can't now travel freely (at least not where photographs stamped into hemp-covered booklets are concerned). So I'm out of Blankland on a tug.

Regiment of flowers

Fescapattalion

Multiple instruction terrified

I wonder how my duck is doing now?

From radio 4 (8pm to 9pm wasteland), a new movement in social science: "Children speak through duck"; a way of getting children to testify by subsuming their defences into an anthropomorphised third party.

"Duck says he is angry."

That's ineffably sad. So social worker shits parameterise children's imaginations into one more, little more disintegrating recollection. Well done you. Don't you remember how big the worlds you could make from little things: cardboard boxes, newspapers and biros, when you were nine or ten; then you could make reeling empires.

And you have to ground them, discharge the idea, sap its power, by triangulating it in your little wireframed diagram of inputs and outputs.

Well, you're all breathy and assiduous masturbators. Hot-eyed socialist fascists, breaking and braking.

fighting bigger things

That came out of the clouds, unexpectedly, whilst I was sleeping on the floor.

Big fat fuck it was, with bingo wings.

placeholder

Just getting an in-between so the last post isn't that one.