Ultramundane.com -- It's Just Not Natural.

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United States, California, San Francisco, The Mission, English, Spanish, Casey, Male, 31-35.

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Saturday, February 2, 2002

If the Pagan Sees It's Shadow...

Six more weeks of winter, says Punxsutawney Phil, in a particularly patriotic message (and under careful watch by National Guard, who were stoked that they didn't get airport duty again, Dude!) Phil always gets the spotlight, but this is America, where any rodent prognosticator can make their prediction. Is this a great country or what?

Another holiday that is observed today is Candlemas, the traditional Pagan "Welcome to Spring." The ancient name is "Imbolc", which if I remember correctly is because this is the time of year when Pagans make their final run to CostCo before Spring. ("An' ye shael stock up on supplys, as it is of greyter valyue to perchase im bulc.") Or something like that.

God bless those pagans.

12:46 AM PST (link)

Friday, February 1, 2002

Is My Makeup On Yet?

I'm not very focused today at work, again. I'm not sure if that's because it's Friday, or because Mercury is in Retrograde, or if it's related to the fact that I'm treating my dry, hacking cough at night with a Codeine cough syrup. (It's "Grape of the Undead" flavored. Yummy! At least there won't be any worries about cough medicine abuse with this.)

The last time I took this stuff for a dry cough it didn't do much for me, neither putting me to sleep nor stopping the coughing. Mostly it just tasted bad. The past couple of nights, though, I've been like the bride on muscle relaxants in Sixteen Candles: "I feel so funky!" This has lead to a somewhat melty disposition in the mornings. That's been my excuse for being late to work this week, at least.

Is it working? Maybe. Is it worth feeling like a wrung-out dishrag? Dunno.

05:27 PM PST (link)

Premature Gothliness.

I'm not normally so over-excitable over events, especially ones I don't intend to attend. But apparantly I was so excited to find the San Francisco Proposal Site for Convergence 8 that I immediately started writing an entry about it. Thankfully, before I posted it, I surfed around and discovered that the event this summer was actually going to be held in Montreal instead. Wouldn't it have been embarrassing if I told everyone I almost did that! Ha ha! Oops, I just did!

Like I mentioned, I probably wouldn't go to anything even if it was here. I don't really know a lot of goths (besides my favorite two, of course.) You'd think, being sort-of-a-Goth myself (at least a Person in Black), and being kind of obsessively connected to the Internet, that I would have at least spent more time on alt.gothic or such by now, but I don't spend a heck of a lot of time in newsgroups that don't specialize in (ahem) binaries.

04:15 PM PST (link)

Open 24 Hours.

I was on my own for dinner tonight. I got home late from work, and set my bag down; didn't bother to take off my coat as I looked through the freezer, the fridge, the cupboards. I know I don't want to cook for myself tonight. Pick up my keys and wander out for food, and for variety's sake, walk over to King Diner on Mission for the first time in the four years since I moved here. (See More)

01:04 AM PST (link)

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

It's War-vertising!

What a great idea to bring a whole new audience to the Superbowl broadcast this weekend? Think of all those fresh new eyeballs in that far-left liberal market, silently fuming while waiting around to watch a couple million tax dollars go down the toilet ! I mean, what's wrong with a little brainwashing? (Maybe this is deprogramming. Or maybe reprogramming?) Besides, if we don't fill up all the commercial spots around the Superbowl, then the terrorists will have already...well, you know.

(First two links via Cory and The Roommate. The sarcasm, however, is all mine.)

07:01 PM PST (link)

Throwing My Weight Around.

You know, I'm doing my best today to be large and in charge here at work. But mostly I feel like I've only been successful in representing the large part, even if my group was directly involved with a "serious win" today, if you'll pardon the Marketing-Speak.

And the same time, a technology reporter from an unnamed national news organization sent me a message, wanting to interview me about Googlewhacking. I'm still not sure why me...I didn't come up with it, nor have I made a particularly high score. Hmm.

06:28 PM PST (link)

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Any Help I Can Get.

Not being Catholic, I'm not sure if it would be effective to petition St. Bernardine of Sienna or St. Blaise, but I swear if my cough doesn't go away soon I'm going to have to petition St. Dymphna.

02:02 AM PST (link)

Monday, January 28, 2002

Breaking Where, Exactly?

Mercury Center story in "Breaking News": BBC producers borrow from Stanford experiment for reality show. Interesting to note, however, that this story broke first last May (before they'd finalized the name) and also in October in the UK Press. So much for "Breaking" news.

As far as the show itself, I'm conflicted. The Stanford Prison Experiment was the impetus for all kinds of ethical questions regarding Social Psychology Experiments, and I find "Reality TV" somewhat repellent anyway. But I'm vaguely curious to know what happened, and how they kept this "experiment" from getting out of hand. Part of me really wants to see the experiment conclude in a non-exploitive way, but I'm not sure that "Reality TV" knows how to do that any more than the psychologists knew what their independent variable was.

11:50 PM PST (link)

Whacked Further.

Googlewhack update: Gary Stock found me (and Richard in the previous entry and added us to their list of GoogleWhack definitions.

I've only found a couple more since: perfidious defibrillator (1,789,920,000: "What do untrustworthy paramedics use?") and the low scoring but topical ultramundane lockjaw (53,935,000; "What happens when something mysterious and supernatural steps on a rusty nail?")

Real content coming RSN, I swear.

Even More Whacking: January 29th
I really ought to move all this to it's own page. Three more, with many thanks to the ingenious GoogleWhacker 74 Zillion...

Stamp Collector and Fish Stew: philatelist bouillabaisse (367,840,000)
An Artistic Medical Professional: angioplasty pointillist (726,880,000)
Talking pompously about stinky cheese: pontificate gruyere (1,164,320,000)

08:42 PM PST (link)