Preference Personnelle
Back in 2001, I missed this essay from
Harper's about the
Barthelme/
Rather/
"What's the frequency, Kenneth?" connection. I'm a big fan.
Here's a good tip for people who might be contemplating murder: don't write about it, no matter how vaguely, on the
Internet. The link is to a Metafilter post, because respondents manage to hit most if not all of the related sites. Here's what it looks like: a 16-year-old Alaska girl got together with her two 24-year-old ex-boyfriends in order to murder her unpleasant mother. Reading the comments on the young lady's
LJ page is... not an edifying experience.
Did you hear?
Target decided they aren't going to let the
Salvation Army station bell-ringers outside its stores this year. Among other things, it violates their no-solicitation policy.
I think this is great (
this guy sure disagrees--and, like many disagreers, he's got a straw man whose initials are P.C. On the other hand, of course, I'm
not alone).
Target is probably going to get a lot of bad press for this decision, so, if you're happy that they kicked the bell-ringers to the curb, maybe it would be nice to
let them know. That link's to an email form, or else you could call 'em at 1-800-440-0680.
That BBC News
neologism contest I
linked to a couple weeks ago? I sent in an entry. My count is 146 words, 62 of 'em from their list. These are pretty good numbers. Admittedly, though, the word count involves the conceit that list items like 'fast food' and 'dumbed down' must therefore be one word, and the other word count involves the conceit that 'sexy mobile phone' contains within it 'sex' and 'mobile' (all are on the list). At any rate, here's the entry. The Beeb, alas, awards special consideration for coherence.
Sexed up, pissed off and dumbed down, I Googled for virtual reality cyborg cybersex. I double-clicked, but before I saw a single byte of It-girl love-in applet URLs, my mobile phone went tiddly-om-pom-pom. Text-messaged by Chav, a Generation X dot-commer. Chav was non-U. The peacenik hippy beatnik fancied himself a ghetto fabulous hip-hop gangsta celeb, but his beatboxing was worse than Watergate. "Fast food latte tonight? We'll have it large, dunk cheeseburgers!" I tried to ad-lib. "OK, yah. Bling bling!" F-word! Chav's DNA has the Trekkie gene--the Big Apple, with this Mickey Mouse toyboy? That's my idea of sudden death. "Awesome cool," he replied. I was hot-desking, dreading the evening. The tailspin was turning into a snafu when inspiration struck. I texted him again: "Forgot about Mom's birthday. Pop bought her a Wonderbra, kitten heels and some sexy-hemlined miniskirts. Big brother and I are going in on Botox." Sure, I lied, but it’s not like it was a U-boat blitzkrieg or something.
Real evidence of sex slavery? Skilled investigative reporting? A cautious, restrained blogosphere?
This story has precious little of any of those things, which may be why I like it.
Douglas Rushkoff is the host of a new Frontline episode, '
The Persuaders,' starting to air this evening. I am excited. Here's some
Metafilter discussion, and a
Wired writeup that also brings in Little Rock-based data mining firm (and
cracker target)
Acxiom, which employs a foaf, and whose building I drive past most days.
So here's this Slate article about
political video games, and this 1up article about
important video games (at one a week, with a planned fifty, they're up to 38 or so. Just added--Tony Hawk's Pro Skater). And here's one of the games that Slate mentions, from the fine folks at Cable in the Classroom:
eLections. Hey, I didn't name it.
A few political links:
Here's Charlie Brooker's scathing anti-Bush Guardian
editorial,
since removed.
And have you noticed the irregularities between exit polls and final results? Have you heard the assertion that these irregularities are most pronounced in places with paperless voting machines? Here are two different recent
Metafilter links, and here are
two stories. Ooh, and here's Dick Morris suggesting that exit polls were '
juiced' on Bill 'The O.J. Simpson of phone-sex scandals' O'Reilly.
