Ilaniowear pushes the gag reflex</h1> <article> <h1>Ilaniowear pushes the gag reflex</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:11:27 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/cc216d1a-41d9-4491-98de-76e8610a6d2a"> </a> <div>This has to be the most terrible combination of everything imaginable. </div> </article> <article> <h1>songs thrown in #1</h1> <p>Mike_C — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 06:45:59 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/3865ce8a-5c3b-4f0f-9580-5a77e33041f2"> </a> <div>Just figured what the hell, got the youtube. I might as well throw together a mix of songs. Dr. Octagon -- Blue Flowers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmLhRzgVMU Screamers -- The beat goes on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXgV655tlc Butthole Surfers -- who was in my room last night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CToPK14-gsc&mode=related&search= Cabaret Voltaire -- Nag Nag Nag http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-IixtxKETU Saul Williams -- list of demands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1llNYAlYrc Poster Children -- 21st Century http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtZ_DikSb-w The Birthday Party -- Nick the Stripper http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5I2vEcVC_I Black Heart Procession -- (?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpPevU_e7FI Elvis Costello -- lipstick vogue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dip-FtbsD8E Bob Log III -- String on a Stick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqFE5fJ3xT4 Dick Dale -- Nitro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xymVxcLQVT8 No Trend -- Teen Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdYs0P52YcE Talking Heads -- stay hungry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn2NIhVI8qQ&mode=related&search= Handsome Boy Modeling School -- the truth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7tz03v8wc</div> </article> <article> <h1>A bit of work</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:53:46 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/d3e1f489-6860-4312-b0d9-4239f600db19"> </a> <div>Attempting to tie up loose ends at this point since the thread has become a sort of spread out brainstorming session on how to end war by addressing the larger problem of conquering the reasons why we are at war. The main reason of course is oil and the attainment of resource from other countries by force. The solution is to develop resources that are renewable and can be completely supplied within the borders of the US. Our main commodity, arable land, (3000x194 miles of total surface) is currently being wasted, with 60% of all grain used to feed livestock, which in turn feeds us at the cost of almost a complete energy loss at the end of the chain for a resource we don't need for survival. Here's a list of proposed solutions. http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#63a81ecb-223b-416c-9053-a7f758f5d4e7 The solution for problem 1 -- working at home to reduce the demand for fuel. http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#4eb21f67-7e6e-4e76-b7e7-de66b920a58e http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#f6065d65-f72b-4a70-be3e-33b9b2bbb41d Problem 2 -- the mass production of electric cars -- This is currently unresolved simply because the real problem is getting the amount of electricity required to supply 180 million cars requires massive infrastructure changes. Electric cars must be abandoned until the US develops a reliable alternative fuel source to oil. My layman's explanation of the problem http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#babedc5d-165d-4690-9a4f-104aad7238ad -- and I'd be very happy to have a real electrician prove me wrong. Problem 3 -- the removal of international tariffs on energy efficient products is pretty self-explanatory. I say 'remove them'. Say otherwise if you want. Feel free to discuss the economic reprocussions of that move. I'm sure that would be an interesting and heated political debate. Problem 4 -- supplying biodiesel or alternative fuel necessary to keep trucking and supply lines moving. This is pretty much the only realistic answer to the problem. http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#4755af69-f4c6-4d05-8a21-6f73855916de with a funding schematic and cost breakdown . . . http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#1a9f8ca3-9822-41a1-9073-38a4c1be5b0a http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/e9afff02-ecf2-42a5-9615-ed5a7845e35a#2cf2d2a8-aea0-40c3-9a53-254df74c104d This is a summary so far. There are many other ideas are sprinkled throughout the entire thread, from developing arcologies to the use of fission, hydrogen, and geothermal as an energy source. Any other ideas, feel free to jot them down or attack any flaws you might see. I think that overall, this might be a realistic political platform for a 2008 presidential candidate or political party. Thanks in advance, Mike C </div> </article> <article> <h1>Job interview failure</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 01:03:57 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/495f255b-5891-4b26-90a0-c1dfaf6ab591"> </a> <div>Excerpt from a question and answer session I undertook to gain admittance to a marketing think tank. I didn't get the job but figured I might as well post the interview and the answers (for good or ill) Question 1. YOU ARE WALKING DOWN A TRAIL AND A ROCK SLIDE STARTS IN FRONT OF YOU. NOTHING YOU DID STARTED IT AND IF YOU STOP WALKING IT WON'T AFFECT YOU. IF YOU THROW YOURSELF IN FRONT OF THE ROCK SLIDE YOU WILL STOP IT. IF YOU DON'T STOP IT THEN IT WILL BUILD UP AND CRUSH A VILLAGE OF A 1000 PEOPLE. IF YOU DO STOP IT BY THROWING YOURSELF IN FRONT OF IT NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW. YOUR LOVED ONES WON'T KNOW WHY YOU DID IT. NO ONE WILL KNOW. STOP IT OR NOT -- GIVE REASONS WHY? If a rock started to slide in front of me I would get out of the way and I wouldn't think of it harming a village or killing thousands because if I could actually stop it with my body, it would seem insignificant and unable to cause that much damage. Also if I were able to stop it with my body, I should be able to do it without it killing me. I'd be more likely to lead with my feet and kick the landslide rather than stop the landslide by placing my head in front of it. Question 2: HOW DO YOU RESPOND WHEN YOUR IDEAS ARE SHOT DOWN BY A GROUP? If it's a group I respect, then I would probably consider it a bad idea or I would simply try working on it myself to see if there really was some sort of potential to it. If there was promise, I'd polish it up some and suggest it again. If it didn't take, I'd then move on to building something else with the group. But in general, I expect ideas to be shot down. If I don't respect the group and feel they are deserving of scorn, and by this, I usually mean a group that expounds on their own misery in order to create more of it; I often develop ideas that bludgeon them with solutions to their reoccuring problem until the group either fragments, throws me out of the discussion, or recognises the essential hypocrisy and creates their own interesting ideas . . . in which case I pull back and listen -- with respect for the discussion and the group. Question 3: WHAT IS YOUR FEELING ABOUT NUDE IMAGES SHOWN IN ONLINE FORUMS? DO YOU FEEL A NEED TO SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTER WHEN TABOO IMAGES ARE DISPLAYED IN A PUBLIC SETTING? I don't get offended by the images themselves but I do get offended by the reactions of the public that might surround me. I feel that they would be a distraction from whatever I was doing. However, I might just be overreacting because I am generally a private person and don't like it when people look over my shoulder uninvited. Question 4: WHAT SORT OF RISKS HAVE YOU ENDURED TO PROMOTE AN UNPOPULAR IDEA? I got fired from a theater group for refusing to take down a 3' high painting of a hand holding a gigantic Lichtensteinian style penis superimposed over the word POW! in a Batman-style thought bubble. My rationale for doing so was to preserve respect for the artists in the group show and my respect of the art itself, which was the individual expression. I didn't necessarily like the painting but I did respect the skill with which it was done and the risk that the artist brought on himself by the expression. In the environment, (a show called Return to Normalcy that sought to 'define normalcy through a catalog of extremes') it was shocking and thought provoking and within the context, art in itself. As was the divided reaction from the theater group. A puzzling combination of respect and scorn measured by creative types and bureaucrats, and as I think about it, not all that much risk was involved considering the lesson received and the shit job I actually lost. Question 5: HAVE YOU OR A FRIEND EVER BEEN A VICTIM OF RACISM OR SEXISM? DISCUSS THE INCIDENT AND HOW IT WAS RESOLVED. I don't know if I've been a victim and feel I can never actually call myself a victim because I call my own shots and risk when I know the risks. But have I felt racism . . . yes. I like playing the dozens game because it is a complicated intellectual exercise and I am very good at beating down your mother. Is this sexist? Probably, but it is extremely abstract. Saying to someone that their 'mom's face is their mother's pimp and johns pay her to keep her bag on' or that 'yo moms so fat she had to get her Parachute pants designed by Christo' simply can't be taken seriously on any level, and to my experience no one has. For Dozens, I am always on. Now free-style rap is another game I've been known to play. This sport I consider doubly respected because not only are you forced to be innovative with ideas and theme, you also have to rhyme, be quick with your designs and keep it all to a beat. It takes a ridiculous amount of hard work and discipline to even have a smidgen of talent with the art and there are times when I get so involved with it that my regular thoughts end up rhyming and hitting beats in a trance-like effect. The game is highly addictive when you are in the right state of mind. In a free-style rap forum, my participation led to one of the contestants saying free style was domain of the streets, which is fine. But after I had sufficiently trounced him in competition he (the moderator of the group) completely abandoned style and rhyming and basically devolved into calling me a wigger for getting into the game and probably because I was persistently good at it. That is the incident of racism. Is it significant? I don't know . . . all I know is the situation surprised me with it's novelty and made me take a step back and think about it. It's a limit I feel impossible to resolve to my satisfaction within the style of rap since using the language only reinforces my difference, which isn't language. The difference is skin. And after much thinking, I'm seeing that the limits racism creates is not only the limit of potential in a human being; it is also the refusal to call someone an asshole based on the merit of their thoughts without having those thoughts attached or justified by a stereotypical grouping. My immediate impression of being called a 'wigga' because I participated (and did it well) automatically limited the potential of the group and reversed common stereotype. It showed me a black man calling himself whitey by relying on racial expectations instead of simply talent at verse. Now the group, once relatively active, has been dead for two months. The situation is not resolved. Resolution if anything hinges on my participation but at the same time, that spirit of participation is pretty much destroyed by the action. There is no real freedom to being there as there is a reaction. It derailed the discipline by throwing away the joy of it. And rather than waste the thought required to throw verse, I've ended up turning my attention elsewhere. I guess that is a resolution of sorts . . . it just nags sometime. Possibly the one validity I can give my antagonist is that I can drop out of it at any time, whereas it would be naive to assume the moderator of the group would be able to just do the same . . . which is probably the extra effort needed not just to fight racism but fight dirty when cornered. I cornered him with my talent and he lashed out in a way I didn't expect. I shouldn't have lost respect for him but I did anyway. Now to express that feeling in verse, strung along a beat that rhymes? I guess you just have to throw out the timing when considering your response. Or just not consider your response . . . which would be the ultimate goal of abolishing racism or sexism, that it is the individual's response right or wrong that defeats it and not allegiance to the group or stereotype. Question 6: WHEN ANGERED, HOW DO YOU EXPRESS YOURSELF? BE HONEST. ARE THERE ANY DEFINABLE LINES THAT ONCE CROSSED LEAD TO VIOLENCE? I usually withdraw from the conflict and everything else associated with the person involved. I consider my input, experience and ideas valuable as I am both a good conversationalist and a decent audience. Disappearing is in a way it's own punishment. Now cornering me, that's something different. Backing me into a corner justifies killing a person by any means necessary. Not hurting but killing since to my ethic, fighting with the intention to hurt, dominate or increase suffering in any way is more distasteful than simply fighting to kill and it's also less practical since fighting to hurt just ends with me having to look over my shoulder for retaliation. Since retaliation is inevitable, I fight with the intention of killing and with all the desperation of someone who is scared shitless because I know if I have to kill one person I'll have to kill several. Realistically this is impossible . . . so I don't fight. In addition, I'm smart enough find escape routes so I am rarely cornered as a result. If I see an objective or a way to turn a balance in a mob situation, I will fight to keep it from exploding out of control by seeking the source and stopping it from going crazy, hopefully through discussion. I've done this before as a bouncer and to my credit, I've been able to talk people out of knife fights twice after knives were drawn. The motivation for interfering in any of this drama is usually social embarassment that a group would let a situation go this far without acting on it . . . so I act. It is violence sometimes, but in a way it's violence to a rational end. But this isn't anger . . . it's actually violence fueled by embarassment, which is different. Question 7: TELL ME THE STORY OF YOUR LAST BREAKUP. No. Question 8: TELL THE STORY OF YOUR LAST BREAKUP FROM THE OTHER POINT OF VIEW. A screaming hysterical terror that cannot form words. Question 9: WHAT DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO? WHAT SPECIAL SKILLS CAN YOU BRING TO THE THINK TANK? I can forcast trends and define uses for new technology before anyone else. I have done collage art in the past with a subgenius/industrial feel. I know how to edit film effectively. I can write plays, short stories, screenplays and commerical scripts pretty much on demand. I can proofread and edit written work, layout a magazine or website page with dreamweaver, photoshop, InDesign, and illustrator programs. I know how to do my own taxes and have been known to find loopholes in the laws. I work well with others and know when not to impose myself on the flow of someone else's ideas. I am polite, honest. I can be a very persuasive salesman as long as I have a product worth selling. Question 10: WHAT CRITERIA WOULD YOU USE TO EVALUATE THE WORTH OF GIVING ONE PANHANDLER MONEY AND NOT ANOTHER? The old and the injured get money. The rest don't. Question 11: WHAT SECTION OF THE NEWSPAPER DO YOU READ FIRST? I read leftover newspapers. Usually the front page if I can get it but if it's predictable news I move off to editorials, sports, and entertainment sections. Question 12: WHAT WAS THE LAST SHOW YOU PAID TO GET INTO (MUSIC OR ART)? Blowfly and Bob Log III at Sabala's, 10/15/06 Question 13: HAS THE DEATH OF A POTTED PLANT EVER MADE YOU DEPRESSED? No. Other than maybe some weed I was growing . . . but I think I was more depressed about getting caught with the plant before I could kill it and smoke it. Question 14: HAVE YOU EVER LOST SOMETHING (AN OBJECT OR POSSESSION) THAT WAS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE TO YOU? WHAT WAS IT? HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH THE REPERCUSSIONS? I lost half of an X-files screenplay I was writing when my Smith Corona word processor crashed. Fucking bitch! . . . that's pretty much all I said for the next two months before I rewrote it. By the time I was done, the connection I had over at Fox studios ended up having a mental breakdown and moving to Australia. Fucking bitch! Fuuuuccccckkkkin Bitch!!! #15: WHAT TYPES OF BOOKS DO YOU READ? Lately a lot of philosophy and essays by Montaigne and Emerson. I've also been on a sort of Phillip K. Dick binge and otherwise picking up lots of stuff on deconstruction (Derrida, Ronell). Occasionally I try to read Ouspensky and fail at it, finding better success with Gurdjieff's more humorous style in expressing the same ideas. #16: WHAT IS THE BOOK YOU HAVE READ MOST RECENTLY? Grant Morrison's 'The Filth' and surprised myself by understanding it the second time through. #17: WHICH CHARACTER WOULD YOU BE IN FIGHT CLUB: EDWARD NORTON'S, BRAD PITT'S OR MEATLOAF'S? I'd be Edward Norton if Edward Norton's character was Meatloaf. #18: IF YOU EVER HAD TO MOVE OUT OF YOUR LIVING SPACE, WHAT THINGS WOULD YOU THROW AWAY TO MAKE THE MOVING EASIER? Living space? #19: WHAT IS YOUR LEAST LIKED TYPE OF MUSIC? Covers! I hate cover bands. Make your own music or fuck off. #20: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A FIST FIGHT? WHAT HAPPENED? I've been in several and I have about a 50/50 rate of success. I got beat up by three people when I was young. I would have been beat up by four people but I broke one of the kid's legs with a chunk of concrete after warning him to back off. I felt guilty about that sort of stuff when I was young. Now I don't. #21: HAVE YOU EVER DONE DOOR TO DOOR SALES OR TELEMARKETING? WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE? ANY FOND MEMORIES? I did door to door sales for about four years, selling landscape service. I ended up getting pretty good at that and ended up averaging about $300 in sales for every day I went out. The only reason I was any good at it was because I realized you had to sort of suck as a salesman in order to sell anything so I didn't lie about anything, didn't pressure anyone and didn't care about not selling anything. People ended up telling lots of stories about whatever was going on in their lives far more often than people told me to fuck off, which was practically never. It was also the first time I felt like I'd actually earned something since I didn't have to rely on anyone else to make my money. That was satisfying. Telemarketing on the other hand sucks. You are talking to the phone, not the person . . . and as a voice I sort of suck. Person to person I do much better. #22: IF YOU COULD INTERVIEW ANY PERSON ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? hOW WOULD YOU GO ABOUT LOCATING AND ASKING THIS PERSON FOR THE INTERVIEW? Avital Ronell, the feminist philosopher and deconstructionist. I'd figure out which college she taught at (pretty easy since she's google friendly), then send her an e-mail with a few quick questions. I'd probably ask her to deconstruct feminism at some point and hopefully we'd get into one of those arguments that sell magazines. My suspicion throughout the interview is that the feminist label is attached to her by feminists because she is intelligent and a woman, and that she herself doesn't really believe any of it and may actually resent it on a certain level. Furthermore, as a deconstructionist, she is basically a virus of the feminist system, and that her system of philosophy could be construed as an attack on the group or an attack on any philosophy in general. I'd ask if deconstructing feminism would hurt her career as a feminist philosopher. If deconstruction ended up causing the invalidation and destruction of feminism, would she still end up defined as a feminist because she is a woman? I'd also ask if the definition mattered at all if she didn't accept it. Then I'd ask how this could be applied to other gender or race based philosophies. #23: WHAT QUESTIONS WOULD YOU ASK? See above. #24: IF YOU WOKE UP IN TIJUANA, MEXICO WITH ONLY ONE DOLLAR TO YOUR NAME, HOW WOULD YOU GET BACK TO PORTLAND? I'd walk across the border and hop a trolley into San Diego. Then I'd phone my mother and ask her to loan me money for a bus ticket . . . or I'd just walk to one of the jobs I'd worked at and work there for a month until I had the money if that ever happened. But that would never happen. I try to always keep $1000 as my ace in the hole. $500 if I'm extremely pushing it. #25: DO YOU LIKE TO HUNT AND FISH? I like fishing if I'm fishing for food. I've done that before when I was broke and it was very satisfying to be able to cook my catch over an open fire and feed myself. Fish I don't really care about. I sort of think of them as plants that swim with the exception of Octopi and Squid which have cognitive ability, have language with up to 150 signs via color change, and are able to problem solve. Hunting animals is disgusting but I'd do it if I had to face starvation. I wouldn't hunt and eat humans if I had the choice to hunt animals -- but if I did have to kill a human in the post-apocalyptic world, I'd probably end up eating it. I'm practical that way. #26: IF YOU HAD TO DO ALL THE WORK AND SOMEONE ELSE TOOK CREDIT FOR IT, HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH IT? If they did it intentionally, I'd smile to their face and cause them misery every chance I got. If they just didn't know . . . if they were absolutely too stupid to figure it out, I'd let it go but warn others there's the possibility of theft. #27: HOW WOULD YOU DEAL WITH AN IRS AUDIT? I'd have all the receipts and have the rationale for making deductions ready. If the rationale was wrong, it would be so thoroughly complicatedly wrong that the auditor would have to decide I didn't know what I was doing and impose either leinient fines or none at all, but odds are everything would be done correctly and would end up coming down to a question of my word against theirs on what was a legitimate business expense. If fined I would also investigate other tax law to see if other businesses had managed to get away with the same things I did, then call them on the hypocrisy and create further headaches . . . if the dollar amount was substantial enough to contest. #28: HOW MUCH MONEY WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO PARADE AROUND TOWN IN A CHICKEN OR GORILLA SUIT? $500 a day. I was going to put $300 down. Then I thought about it and decided $300 ain't worth it for eight hours in a chicken suit. #29: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MONEY? I like having it but I don't like having to be an asshole in order to earn it. More often than not this is the case. Since being an asshole goes against my nature, I don't really find money all that useful and choose instead to limit my needs. I guess you can say I prefer sleep over money; but since I am a pragmatist, I get up at 6AM every day and go to work. #30: WHAT MAKES MONEY WORTH SOMETHING? The opportunity it provides and the time it allows. #31: WHEN IN ROME? Do as the Romans do. But when in Jonestown run the fuck away. #32: WHO BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? Japan. #33: IF YOU COULD CRAWL INTO ANY PAINTING AND IT'D BE YOUR NEW WORLD, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU CHOOSE AND WHY (SPECIFICALLY)? Sinibaldo Scorza's 'Orpheus and the Animals' or John Martin's 'Figures entering an Extensive Valley' http://www.wga.hu/art/m/martin/deluge1.jpg I couldn't find a good image of Sinibaldo Scorza online, but the one by John Martin above gives you a potential of the type of worlds he might create.</div> </article> <article> <h1>A LITTLE STORY ABOUT THE MEANING OF EASTER</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:07:36 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/65fded4e-1142-46b9-aced-aff54eeb9533"> </a> <div>It was ninety minutes on the good side of midnight and Y2K was a monster looking to kill the lights. Survivalists wandered through the aisles of the local supermarkets for last minute items, purchasing substantial quantities of canned goods and trail mix. Others shrugged off the doomsday rumors with the help of a cold beer, watching for the ball to drop smug with cynicism to wall over the doubts. The tabloids had made numerology a hot topic all year; leaching off the paranoia with double issues of dread and prophesy. Now in this final moment, a demographic chewed fingernails over pop up angels and brimstone calendars, awaiting the rapture as the clock struck midnight. Five minutes after midnight, the magic number rolled past. The gullible emerged from their bunkers and tittered nervously. They brushed off the khaki and drove mini-vans back to their desk jobs. Great expectations fizzled and the spin doctors went back to steady earners, the drug wars in Colombia and viral epidemics in Africa. The tabloids sent Nostradamus on a six month vacation and killed the angles on tech rampage, the staff settling on gimmicks bent toward reviving Princess Di as a gentle Elvis; Osama a rampaging Bigfoot. Wars waxed and waned; the coke wars of the jungle became meth labs in the suburbs, people had it rough or great somewhere else, and generally, the world shrugged it's shoulders as it returned to business as usual. Somewhere in this futuristic muddle of slow news days and reality television lurked the seeds of some really bad news. The Earth, at first; trembled and spasmed at slight events, minor deformities given little notice at first began to multiply, then multiply in multiples and expand to all corners of the Globe. Horrified, we watched as Chernobyl's second generation of conjoined twins turns hardened Soviet census takers into sniveling anarchists. We watched as forests steeped in decades of industrial waste bloom with tye-dye flora drew America's dreadlocked youth and vestigial hippies into vast migrations, psychedelic dreams of world peace realized, then dashed as aggressive pancreatic cancer flared up to harsh the mellow. The earthquakes piled up everywhere: LA, Buenos Aries, Tokyo, and New York. There is a volcano rising out of Wichita; a rain of frogs in London, an ice storm in the Gobi. When the Ganges catches fire, it sinks in. The group mind has a blowout. Preachers and Gurus everywhere begin liquidating their inventories; the portents and omens flooding what is already a white-hot market. Tabloids cranked out the old hits, upping the costs of ad space as a grateful public grabbed for every plastic relic and pint of noumena they could afford while the true believers cried out in pain, crashing down on their knees with dramatic gestures and appealing to god or gods to rescue them from the fouling nest that was the Earth. The cold stars paid no attention to their mumbling astrologers and rolled out every night with constallations recalibrated; and soon unknowable. Children grew restless and old before their time. Liquor stores everywhere ran out of antacid. No one knew what to do. There were rumors of a messiah. Then it was 'the' messiah. And then there was the day that Jesus actually appeared on Oprah to transmogrify a low salt cracker into a sumptuous seven course meal for the studio audience. That was the day He was here, finally, He was here and He was ratings dynamite! A throng of network wranglers and press agents waited after the show and sought attachment to the Lord. There was talk of a series, a reality show; a fashion show. Blackwell criticised the robes and thongs and pined for Simon LeBon until someone hit him with a rolled up newspaper and told him to shut up. After that, there was nary a word of dissent for everywhere; in every corner of the world, the holy war became yesterday's news as the ratings war began. Jesus was fair and just. All the daytime talk shows would eventually have their turn, with each trying to up the ante. Rosie had an entire studio audience filled with the crippled and blind, and under a barrage of Rosie's terrible jokes about the lame Jesus endured, strolling through the aisles until he had healed all. Jenny Jones asked if He and John the Baptist had a 'thing' going and Jesus politely declined to answer. Sally Jesse Raphael filled an entire soundstage with three feet of water and brought in Gregory Hines to teach Him how to tap dance. Jesus danced like Fred Astaire, doing the moonwalk and the smurf. Dr. Phil brought up Christ's latent abandonment issues and Jesus performed the miracle that was a full head of hair. Jerry Springer assembled a panel of dissatisfied transsexuals looking to regain their penises. Jesus snapped His fingers like the Fonz, then miracle concluded, rolled on the floor in a fit of hysterical laughter. The critics began throwing around words like 'amazing' and 'life affirming'. Jesus was making every bland and tragic day into something to root for and everywhere the Earth seemed to breathe a collective sigh as He waved to the crowd, flashed victory and exited stage right. Of course, not everyone in the world was smiling. In New York, high up in a penthouse apartment, Ricki Lake was not smiling. Already having a chip on her shoulder after his first appearance on Oprah, she was only further peeved by His refusal to bring John back from the dead to reunite the Beatles. Jesus had smiled, gently reminding Ricki that Lazarus had only been in the ground four days the last time He'd worked that trick and expressed doubts that conjuring up a pile of dust to sing Strawberry Fields would be an uplifting experience for anyone. That went ditto for reuniting Nirvana. He 'did' offer to give Paul his talent back but by then it was too late. Fuming, watching as the frogs pelted against the window of her penthouse apartment, she felt like secondhand goods. Ratings were slipping after all. She needed to have the most spectacular Jesus daytime talk show ever. And so, when the time came for Jesus to appear on her show, she did the most spectacular thing yet. Ricki Lake pointed to Jesus and a squadron of tall black suited gents walked on stage. With cameras following, the Son of God was quickly herded through backstage and outside into an unremarkable black sedan, the national audience watching as Jesus rolled down the road toward his next gig. John Waters was shocked for five seconds. Many Hollywood insiders considered this a new record. With the cameras turned off, the talk of press agents and three picture deals quickly went sour for the Son of God. The CIA needed the facts and they needed miracles right quick. They wanted miracles that would erase the trade deficit, miracles that would make Iraq the fifty first state in the union, miracles that would create a nice PR package for the international press or give them an anti-ballistic missile system that was more reliable than 50/50. And they thought He'd get the hint when they began hitting the strobe lights, the heavy metal music and administering the not so gently inserted toothpicks under His fingernails. But no, all they got was loud and breathless talk about brotherhood, love, world peace, and tree-hugging commie crapola. And after several days of this continued uselessness on the part of Jesus, an OK was given to perform other extreme measures of persuasion. So they took Jesus to a small room. There they bound Him to a chair with padded restraints and attached the oxygen mask to His face. When all was in place, they gazed upon His face from behind quarter inch glass and leached the oxygen out of the room. Once they had the room sufficiently pumped with carbon dioxide, the doctors began ceasing the flow of oxygen to Christ's mask and began asking questions. As they watched cyanosis blush His lips and cheeks by degrees, they asked Him to make an effort, to clarify his position on the meaning of life. And as they continued to see nothing but more of the same gasping offers of goodwill toward men, they decided it was time to switch off the oxygen for ten minutes and ask Jesus to save Himself. The notes were meticulous, the scientists watching every flutter of the cardiograms and the spiking EKG's. Then they waited. When He went flatline, they sent a team of interns in to jab Him with a spear. They found none of the old scars, no marks other than the marks they'd made. He was quite conclusively dead. So they dissected Him. The indignities of the cross were tame by comparison. Lab techs, lacking the imagination to crown Him with thorns, cut off His head and split His skull. The brain was pulled out, dyed, bombed with radioactive markers and sliced into slides. Hands planted electrodes in His dead flesh and ran varying currents. Muscles twitched and they analyzed the results. They removed long bones to scrape His marrow. They centrifuged His DNA and spit it into marked tubes. Motor neurons were pulled from His arms, hoping to reveal where the Duck a la' Orange came from and how He made Cherries Jubilee without a chafing dish. And there was more. They yanked His eyeballs, squeezed His organs, analyzed His bile and blood gases, tapped His spine, searched His ass with gloved hands and scraped His stomach for the contents of His last supper. Jesus was pinned to a board. Dipped in agar. Preserved in polymers. Jesus was flash frozen and sliced into longitudal sections. Jesus was cut and tested, cut and sliced, burned and pulled, boiled, stretched and insulted with every diagnostic machine in the menagerie until there was nothing but a lot of little piles, each nametaged and numbered and catalogued in triplicate. They found nothing. The lab tightly screwed the lids down on three hundred formaldehyde filled jars. The bigger chunks of Our Savior were cryogenically frozen and placed in a vault between the Roswell Aliens and Aldous Huxley. Then they tidied up the dissecting tables and wiped down every surface, making sure to forget who He was as they continued the business of prodding, pestered and analyzing the loose samples remaining in the petri dishes. Two days passed. On the morning of the third day, three tired researchers ending the overnight shift watched as the frozen visions beneath their microscopes began to move. They looked at each other from across the room, puzzled expressions changing rapidly to horror as the knowledge took hold. In the legend, no one moved the great rock. The scientists looked at the door of the walk in freezer and heard the latch jiggle. They wanted to run but all they could do was remain locked in place as the door opened and the anatomical parade that was Jesus slid into the room. One researcher had a heart attack and flopped to the tile. The other splashed half a beaker of cyanide on his face and quickly died. Only one scientist remained conscious for the entire procession, standing on his desk and yelling as parts of Jesus scurried across the floor like blind rats, making kissy grandma noises as they collided with one another. Several parts of His head began to make more of an conserted effort than the rabble and began crawling toward the desk on their formaldehyde slick. Underneath the desk of the hysterical scientist, His eyes jumped into the sockets like trained poodles and rolled to take a look. The scientist screamed. "Oy Masugena, enough of the noise already." Jesus said, looking around and attempting a smile with reattached lips. "What's with these shabby accommodations . . . please don't answer right away. You want edgewise you better wait a bit. I already had it up to here with hell, all that kibbutzing with all the souls of the damned and if that wasn't bad enough I get this as a thank you? Oy vey, you're all a pretty bunch of petunias! It's enough I gotta forgive the Hitlers, Roy Cohns, Stalins and Pol Pots-- oy a list, enough of a list! What sort of batch were you people brewing down here -- don't answer, please! I mean Malachi and Saul were pretty bad guys but youz guys . . . youz guys make the Romans look like pussycats." The scientist stared from on high and closed his mouth, watching luncheon meat swirl around the legs of his desk. "Well?" Jesus said, "Why are you waiting like such a putz. Get a bucket. Let's get this show on the road. You must have a bucket somewhere, smart guy?" The scientist pointed a shaky hand underneath one of the desks and stammered. "What, you don't have a bigger bucket than that?" And that's the story of how the Resurrection Tour became the biggest hit of the Summer.</div> </article> <article> <h1>Downtown at Baboonsasshole</h1> <p>Mike_C — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:00:02 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/c2f8f1a8-28e9-4571-9950-8bf77580a520"> </a> <div>City hall gets involved -- there's a flock of dirty sensualists on the veranda, smelling their fingers and commenting on the strung out, dew-crusted minions rolled up in chains of bedloused mexican blankets. Cheap garbage diving trash, humans fighting a pitched battle for real shoe leather -- not polymer substitutes. Chaplin flicks flash across their racial memory, once, a long time ago, and the bombardment of cheap medicine finally does the impossible for one paint huffing junkie -- within him the gall bladder has mutated to make plastic edible! Down in the pit of being, they are testing quantum theory, social experimentation has taken collateral on intestines. The cud chewers rip out the bucket seats on an old Volkswagen like pirahnnas flipping through the guts of a Capybara, the carcass is stripped to it's frame; bloody fingernails exchanged for a dirty needle filled with cut-down horse. Gnashing their teeth, the young ones. The old move their tongues over their slippy blackened gums, on walkabout; wild eyes hungry for a cheap cigar, half blind; thoughts pegged at three am in the middle of the day. It's rush hour traffic. The city moves like blood, antibodies flock around their dealers as the windows shake. Newsflash! Injections of speed at city hall. Somewhere downtown, a roll up garage door opens and the department of transportation blunders out like backstage extras at a Troma film, circling aimlessly, covered in glitter for unnamable reasons -- they gesticulate to one another slowly, the weakness of muscle slack pretends to be the mudra for a revolution. When it hits, their obese sandbag flab will suck up bullets like a pillow fight. A headshot from a Cabana Boy Che Guevara does no good, the old politicos have adapted to snipers in this bleak future of designer genetic alteration; they now have their double brain lodged in a mutated tailbone that has the slop consistency of crawfish innards and the reaction time of a Stegasaurus. John Kennedy bleeds all over the guests and a waiter stuffs a terrycloth version of the regulations in the hole to act as temporary forebrain while the mouth works and the hand makes spastic gestures with it's martini glass. "Tourism must not suffer during this protracted conflict." A roar goes up from the crowd outside and these civil serpents open their garden windows upon a scene filled with casual knife fighting transsexuals, dealing ritualistic death with vicious swoops of air guitar. Their dignity hand: a stylized withered faux thalidomide arm, snakes out to pay tithes to stunted radioactive midgets that erotically pluck at each other's keltoids; the impromptu circus bathed in the orange glow of cut down tire swings. The acrid smoke wards off the superstitious dread of the hoi palloi as privilege tosses shit flecked dollar bills into the game with calloused hooks; reaping tax deductions. "You cannot beat the internet for perversion." John Kennedy says, his bloody dishtowel pulsating like a zit you can't help but look at. "You stare at 1955, where some teenage johnny's jerking off on the end of a noose and go 'ho-hum', meanwhile in present day Baboonsasshole, there's some Russian pedophile staving off a prolapsed rectum with greased up German foreheads, collecting kudos by making a glass bottom boat of himself and giving the inspector more than a first hand glimpse at the greasy piles of spinach from the inside. Yeech! No one in this damn town tells a good proctologist joke anyway." He says, spilling his Martini. Ol' Burroughs spins in his grave and attempts to get a better look. An official inspector says, "This asshole's clean as a whistle" but no one hears the results, you can only gauge the disappointment by a shrug of the shoulders-- a puppet show made up of anti-virtual goggles. Apparently, someone went in there looking for some old reruns of fraggle rock and never returned. "It was a quest!" says an anonymous voice on the Veranda "Who says there isn't socialized medicine here in Baboonsasshole?" says another. With blind corpsish waves, the inspector improvises a mudra to alert the media "Nothing but greek salad as far as the eye can see." Upstairs, the taxpayer has had enough of the show and has resorted to gulping down spoonfuls of flaxseed and attempting to wriggle loose from the mayor's video game. All of them demand a measure of cleanliness above all else, as a glistening spectre to dredge more spare change from their moth-eaten coat liners. Despite it all, the inspector continues to rasp away at the Russian's loose orifice like it's art history month at the Guggenheim. A passing alcoholic, saner than the rabble, flies back against the wall like he's been hit with a concussive blast. Exclaiming, "there are brains in there, where's your light source?", he stares at the shoulders leaking out of the Russian's ass and smelling the rank sewage of downtown as a background, he vomits up his cheap steak dinner; swearing off liquor to complete his nightly ritual. He wanders down the street, plucks the megaphone out of the street preacher's hand and staring wildly, pregnant with cognition and awareness, he drenches the circuits of the megaphone with yellow bile. His wet arm conducts an electrical charge and he stands there locked in place, bathed in an aura of tertiary syphilis. Looking alive, he gawks at the spectacle while his heart smokes, trapped in the cage of a day-beggars chest. He'll wake up tomorrow in the afterlife, lips tasting the dirty concrete and the back of his neck singed by cigarette butts . . . if he's lucky. Charred by travelling sadists if not, a hot fireplace poker sticking out prison style from his virginal confines -- a yellowish mascara caked transvestite covered in synthetic hair extensions stops, clicks her heels to attention and salutes the flag of Baboonsasshole before stumbling her powdered donut to her morning shift at the gloryhole. From the morning's dark corner, high above; thick lipped groupers line the office windows of the city's derilict ship, and sharpen their teeth. </div> </article> <article> <h1>The long version of a four letter word . . .</h1> <p>Mike_C — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:09:19 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/dbaa1184-5d50-4d0f-b2e2-52143788029a"> </a> <div>There is a lethargy that sets in when someone knows they are about to push against something immovable. To just stand in view of the stone is depressing, let alone to lay my hands upon it and push only proves the expectation of a wasted effort. Because I know the effort will be wasted, I have already conceded that the letter you are reading is an exercise in futility. I know this because the wall has opened it's mouth and told me that 'it is a brick wall' and that any content, any meaning and effectiveness of conveying my situation is about to be negated by an automatic system, the system which my Bank of America credit card depends on. The problem I have with Bank of America is this. I brought in a monthly payment of a hundred dollars for my November statement. I paid this to the teller at my local branch, received a receipt and left, just as I have for the last eleven months of regular payments prior to this one. A few weeks later, I received a bank statement showing my payment on November 29th and then a late charge applied to my balance on December 6th of $39. Additionally, the promotional interest rate on my credit card was raised to a default rate of 21.49% from 7.99%. In addition, the original interest rate of 14.99% has been raised to the default rate. Reduced to simplicity: I have been charged a late fee and additional penalties for paying on time. As soon as I recognized the mistake on my statement, I called the customer service line. Bank of America looked at the information on my statement and said the payment I had made was a 'credit' to my account, not a payment. I asked them to explain the difference. They did not explain, they only repeated the statement again. I told them I made the same payment the same way every month for the last eleven months. I walk into the bank and hand the teller my card and my cash, getting a receipt saying the date of payment. Telling me this month's payment is different doesn't explain how or why it is different. There was no explanation for the shift in definition, nor reason why it happened. Calling the customer service line became a wasted effort. I began going into the bank office to ask questions. It took two visits to the bank and numerous calls to the customer service hotline before I knew I was at the end of the line. The realization came while asking when was the right time to make a payment on my credit card. At first, the employee didn't even want to answer, and didn't even want to acknowledge the seriousness of needing to know. Finally, after some eye rolling, she definitively answered that 'paying the bill on the due date' was required in order to be absolutely sure I wasn't going to receive a late charge, except on weekends, when I would need to pay a day in advance. So, in conversation, I naturally asked if paying two days in advance is all right? Yes. I got a definite yes on that one. Then I asked if I'd be safe paying seven days in advance of the due date. "Mr. Coppolino, I'm not going to go over that with you again." Yes, I realize the style of argument is pedantic. It is also an amazing effort to get to plain speaking around a simple idea that everyone takes for granted, the due date on paying off the contract. In relation to the error, it's monumental in determining if I've done something wrong and whether the bank justifies itself in raising my interest rate. Watching a bank employee refuse to pick up the phone and correct the mistake in the interest rate on my credit card, or even attempt to look at my account, leads me to conclusions that the question was not important. It may be stalling. It may be because the employee couldn't begin to figure out how to do such a thing, or even if, a mistake has been made, and was essentially afraid for her job because I was bringing the problem to her and asking her to define it as a bank error. If so, she should have refered me to someone who could help with the problem. But because the employee 'knows' that the system is automatic and cannot be adjusted, there was no point in doing this. This makes the need for further explanation or argument worthless because nothing is at stake. No one is listening because a machine cannot listen to an argument. Therefore, the problem becomes immaterial because the bank says it is. Dismissing the real problem, the error and the inability of the bank to correct it, by belittling the person who asks for a solution is not an answer. In the world of real credit, the way people relate to one another is what business is all about. To make a system that cannot correct itself, as the employees of Bank of America have claimed, would be the height of irresponsibility. The only way I feel that I could raise that bar would be by accepting it, or as several employees have advised, transfering the balance to another credit card (at substantial penalty), thereby transfering their mistake and their responsibility for making it elsewhere. Since Bank of America must avoid the issue and do so in such an obvious manner; they must believe that an error never recognised means they never will be culpable. Yet on the issue of contracts, having a variable due date is like watching someone say red is blue, especially after the precedent of having made 11 monthly payments in exactly the same way. The answer can only be . . . 'we have hit a brick wall'. The logic of this argument is saying, plainly, that a mistake isn't a mistake because I am unimportant. My stature honestly is immaterial; I know this. But the problem with relying on an automatic system that cannot repair itself is of major importance. The real financial damage caused by the error, beyond the violated feeling of the bank reaching into my pocket and taking dollars they aren't entitled to, is minor. The record of a late charge attached to my TRW and the collection notices being sent to me is not: that effects me beyond the scope of Bank of America and affects how I do business with everyone else. That is 'real' financial damage. Watching a bank employee tell me this credit card error isn't going to affect my credit rating; while not having picked up the phone once or even having taken a look at my account, isn't doing much for my confidence. Even as I was attempting to make this case, this same employee actually asked me 'why I didn't 'do internet banking like everyone else?' That actually made me pause to consider what 'not' to say. I could have said that my being there to discuss the problem was paying her salary, just as my insistence on making payments at the bank was my way of making sure the tellers weren't downsized quicker than expected. The only real thought I had was to keep from saying this because I was embarrassed, both for myself and for the employee. For myself because I was naive enough to believe I made a difference, however small. As for the bank employee that is essentially arguing for the obsolescence of her job, how could anything I say be anything other than insult? The conversation was officially over at that point; and anything further would be engaging in another useless effort. As a customer and a businessman, this is something I dread. the need for having to overexplain myself. And I'm pretty sure the bank employees I'm talking with know I don't have the time to make a Quixotic search through Bank of America's office staff to find someone with the appropriate level of knowledge and responsibility, especially if I did find someone who did understand what went wrong here. For that, I'll leave it up to the branch manager I am handing this letter to. I really don't care enough to follow up. The amount of money at stake here is not that important since the two of us are only really arguing about the interest rate on a $2000 balance. What this argument does provide is a warning for someone who invests more than they can't immediately pay off: like a mortgage or car loan, when Bank of America decides to make automatic changes. That person, whoever they might be, should be asking how a customer can feel safe when a system making automatic decisions makes a mistake no one is able to repair? And in the wider sphere, how does this arbitrary mistake affect their ability to finance any large purchase in good faith? The answer obviously is that it can't. Automation is an excuse to avoid effort, and in the context of the conversation, it must be a machine 'invented' to avoid responsibility. This is not something I value. This is not something anyone I know values since everyone I know values effort and productivity. This is what the people I work for value and how they justify what I get paid. More importantly, it is how I justify on a personal and ethical level what I get paid. If the tables were turned, I would in turn value my employees based on their effort and productivity, enough to pay them well because I as employer would choose my clients based on that set of values, 'which includes credit rating'. That is how an economy should run. That is how the real value of credit and credibility is defined and most everyone knows this. Real credit, real credibility, is not defined by the ability to make excuses. Bank of America's inability to address the problem directly and repair it directly is a more telling error than the initial one. It reveals an entire institution that has chosen to render itself incapable simply because the process is 'automatic'. Every time anyone at the bank tells me something is automatic, I know an excuse is being made. Any time I accept that as an answer, my credibility is diminished. It says that my argument, though valid; cannot mean anything because the process it's been subjected to is 'automatic'. It shows me that the only thing reliable about Bank of America is their ability to reduce a customer's argument by making an 'accurate' assessment of their real value, which is negligable in the face of automation. Any arbitrary changes in the contract are allowed as a result because an automatic system cannot be fixed without making an effort which any single customer simply is not worthy of. Because of this automation, the interest rate can never be reduced arbitrarily, it can only be raised arbitrarily. Now in case anyone is wondering, mistakes only be considered arbitrary if the result is arbitrary. The ability to choose the mistake that is and isn't repaired is not arbitrary, it is a planned part of the system. Since the interest rate is automatically set to never go down and as the bank employee said, 'cannot be adjusted', the system is automatically set for a degree of villany. That setting is an allowable 'profit' Bank of America earns by breaking their word. The real automatic system in this case is Bank of America's abiding belief that they cannot get called on it. That might actually be true on the bank's side of the wall, so long as the wall exists. But in the language of real credit and real credibility it is a monstrous error. Credit and the real worth of money, labors under the principle of good faith. When an 'arbitrary' decision the machine is making, based on a single mistake, is set to ruin financial lives at a single automatic stroke, with no possibility of ever restoring the credibility that is lost other than a doubling of effort that was already sufficient, how should that effect the worth of what a bank employee says? That is the automatic process of devaluing effort. Now, because the economy is interconnected, what happens on one side of the wall necessitates a change in what happens on the other side. Devaluing of the people who bank with Bank of America automatically devalues their promises and when these employees are forced to say 'nothing more can be done', it only indicates a complete disdain for the process of making a meaningful effort. Because of Bank of America's mistake, I have lost points on my credit rating. That means the ability to get low interest loans on necessary tools for my business is diminished, which effects the amount of money I can command for a job, effects the speed with which I can complete a task and, in general, keeps me from being able to bid larger jobs in good faith . . . remaining fair to my customers. That means a lack of income -- and a lack of income 'is' a loss of income. That should mean 'the bank' losing interest on the investment. That should mean the bank loses customers and solvency. The loan that would have provided me with more work and you with more earnings on your investment (the interest). Not that that relationship means anything other than what banking is founded on. Definably, this isn't money. It is our good word that the bank stands for. It is a stable relationship that the bank stands for, the relationship between the lender and client that is signified by a contract which is the ultimate goal. The process of maintaining the value of this contract defines the value of this transaction. And the value of this transaction, and of all transactions, be they cash or credit, is faith -- The product of which has a known worth signified by the dollar. Without that faith, the money itself is just a piece of paper with a poor reputation. The same goes for a credit card, which is nothing more than a substitute dollar created by a bank. By this standard, arbitrarily changes in the rules of the contract mean that Bank of America loses credibility as a result, but because the basis of the system rests on the dollar, the real value of the dollar goes down as a result. This is real economic damage we're talking about, all resulting from the acceptance of a simple error and their unchecked ability to excuse or redefine the error. Bank of America can even say that the direction of the error is so entrenched and prevalent throughout the entire credit system that it must be exploited in order for Bank of America to remain competitive. This myth, of course, would be self-perpetuating and another perfect excuse to justify Bank of America's unspoken desire to make money without earning it. The basis of this is the ultimate evil of banking and the ruin of economies; that being the practice of printing money that doesn't have any real worth. It is economic irresponsibility. But for the sake of a meaningless argument, we'll say that it is arbitrary. Against such a mechanism, how can my argument be valid? The bank knows I cannot afford the luxury of pacing out the labryinth of bank employees needed to correct a error. As a result, Bank of America's credit rating goes down. It goes down every time I have to walk in or call the customer hotline to discuss the matter, only to have the prearranged outcome be a meaningless effort. And from what I see, my having run through the circle four times means my 'credit' has been damaged not by the error but by my waste of effort in trying to repair it. That makes me pull my money out of the Bank. The lingering damage remains. My credibility, the reliability and responsibility with which I live my life, will not be annotated on my credit report. My financial record will not be adjusted to the level in which we started because Bank of America made a mistake. The system is 'incapable' of doing so. Credibility in this case can only be restored by an overall awareness of bank policy; a general alert of a core problem with Bank of America which it is unwilling to recognise. This is not the overreliance on automation. It is the overreliance on assumption, the basic flaw that allows automation, and ultimately, insolvency. If this error is known about and nothing is done about it, then the only possible conclusion is that Bank of America's credit system has become too centralized and has lost the ability to repair itself at the local level, the business level and the level of the customer. And for all this, it is receiving a monetary award as a reinforcement. Again, let me repeat myself. Money is a piece of paper. Making money off of error destroys the value of money. Making money off a lack of effort destroys the value of money by destroying the signifigance of the work it stands for. And by saying this error is not a mistake, you have destroyed the value of the interest you have received from the error in my account and ruined your credibility by breaking your word. That is the sum of your worth as a person, an employee, and an institution; and that has nothing to do with money. That has everything to do with pleading irrelevance as a solution to your problems . . . and being accustomed to doing so. I don't value that. A person made the error in processing my credit card payment. A person filed my payment as a credit. A person will restore my interest rate to what it says in the original contract and a person will restore my credit rating to the level it was prior to this incident. That, from my side of the wall, is the only thing Bank of America can do to rectify the situation, and these are the steps I am asking you to take. 1. I am asking that you return to me the amount of interest you have collected off my account since the mistake was made. 2. I am asking that you reduce the interest rate on my existing credit card to a competitive rate of 11.99%, the same rate that I can get on a Washington Mutual credit card. 3. If this cannot be done by the person who receives this letter, I am asking that it get passed up the chain of command until it finds someone who can repair the damage; or at the very least, understands the signifigance of it. Not that this will restore my faith in Bank of America. I am in reality, not that complete an idiot. I will always on some level resent the amount of effort you have put me through in having to explain the mechanations of responsible banking. Believe me, the aversion at having to do so is not only automatic, in addition it is signifigant because it keeps me from doing other tasks that actually have 'real' meaning. The only signifigant real action I have taken is paying off the balance on my Bank of America credit card. I have used the money I usually hold on reserve to do this, not for any actual emergency, but to simply correct what I feel is an injustice, and one my bank shouldn't reap the benefits of. That is the 'real' consequence of the error, a run at the bank to remove what is ultimately an insignificant amount of money from it. That, despite a personal measure of financial suffering and lost economic potential, is an act of social responsibility which has no meaning since the content cannot be accurately symbolized by dollars anymore. It is, in a sense, summed up by our automatic disregard of one another. That removes the meaning of this letter. The letter becomes just another piece of paper, the value of which solely rests on those that read it and understand it. Based on my experence I cannot help but doubt that anyone at Bank of America will ever read this, let alone act to address my grievance. It is only an exercise and an essential glimpse of my definition of credibility and my way of recovering an integral self-worth and dignity that I value and do not give up automatically. And if writing this reminds me of the reasons why I won't be doing business with Bank of America now or anytime in the near future, I can say there is some tangible worth, even if it is only the price of wisdom. thanks for your time, Mike Coppolino dissatisfied customer </div> </article> <article> <h1>Happy New Year</h1> <p>Mike_C — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:55:06 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/093109cf-1b67-44a9-b49d-00f752ff6799"> </a> <div>*Ack*</div> </article> <article> <h1>A house by storm drains</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 07:31:29 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/a60f4bdb-3010-4014-83da-6f56b09ebe70"> </a> <div>Started writing yesterday and the post got too long to finish in one sitting. It was a story about a flooded house and a dead man hanging from the rafters in his garage. Now even though the dead man is no longer there, or ever was there, the house still stood with it's backyard to the flood channel and the mud swam up one day until it filled the bowl the house sat in, curling around the garage door so that excavation was tough, the effort of ridding the neighborhood of that smell costly, with no one to send a bill to. It was all about the detail that comes with decay: The collection of thorns and sticks leaning underneath the window, the browning curtains with dead blooms of mold, the decapitated sprinkler heads on a dirt lawn. A new house. A tract home made haunted when the water rose too high. And the thing in the house and what it does, it's really unexplainable. All it is is a purple light that creeps along the walls and ceilings and I'm trying to convey that the thing is malevolent but there's no real way to explain it. It hangs out over people and they are stuck frozen as if caught in an electrical current. But the person who is there remains alive. When it moves away, they seem unchanged -- and I'd really like to believe that -- except that the person caught in that light seems to disassociate from everything. She sits alone at lunch and no one wants to sit with her anymore, even though she was once popular. And he wants to sit with her but he knows the change is abstract and confusing. The reason is gone, the attraction a repulsion, a bubble of force inside her that is curling up and turning brown like the house. The change cannot be seen but it's visible. I know it's there. To deny it is to deny that the event ever happened and so the main character begins to lose their sanity. He begins to think the person who got caught never actually existed; that wandering into the house was all just a bad dream. While he was watching, he didn't know what happened. He didn't do anything. He was paralyzed and he thinks maybe he couldn't see one of those things hanging over him. Maybe he was infected without knowing since he has no idea how they got out of the house. He doesn't know where his bicycle is. He begins to think it's still on the lawn and thinking that, it's a logical step to thinking he's still in the house. Meanwhile, the house still sits there, drying; the color of the drapes creeping like a dead rose. And he rides his bike past it knowing he has to go in there again, just to prove that what he saw was a dream. And he's still sitting in that house, staring out the window as the cobwebs grow around the edges. </div> </article> <article> <h1>The frisbee</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 07:17:35 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/8d16e46d-7d87-473b-9631-0410d4e8034f"> </a> <div>I don't think I can relate to the Dilbert people. I saw a few of them crossing the street, looking all sweaty in their suits and ties; four rumpled grey-fleshed businessmen with balding crowns crossing the street in formation, each of them holding a red in the right hand and swinging it along as they pumped away to the other side of the road. I found the image absurd that the human destruction was so apparant when juxtaposed against those shiny red discs of plastic, the crumpled long-sleeve shirts holding that disc tight as if it actually meant something . . . a window of recreation that could magically appear when carrying the proper tools. Looking at each one of them, you could see that not one was thinking of going to the park and throwing a few rounds, diving in the cool grass beneath the shade of trees. The mission was 3:45 heading to the parking lot, curling into the concrete maze to navigate the car back home. And the frisbee? Would it sit in the trunk or on the front seat? Would it mock him, that logo of the place he worked at staring up at him from the passenger seat, the stamp of the office pressed on the tool that might soar along the riverside or in the meadows during vacation hours. Would he take it home to the wife and kids, laying it on the kitchen counter as he wiped his sweaty brow and what comments would be made. What could be said about it? Curiosity would demand a use for the frisbee. The kids would read nothing on it; they would only know that it was round and that it flew and that it was a frisbee . . . but they would be unable to find the room to play. The man would look out the window of his condo and glare at the alloted place for his recreation, a balcony bordered with white pool fencing and sigh because he was just so tired. He would hope for a greenbelt and there would be nothing but wide sidewalks to anchor in the units. And in all of those were the victims who knew of a time when there were open spaces to play frisbee in their backyards, in their neighborhoods and vacant lots and quiet streets where you might call safe when the occasional car drove by on the way to a smoothly opening automatic garage door. And with the victims are the kids who know no better, who have no knowledge of a time when there were no buildings, when there were places that were nothing but a dirt field. They are not victims. They at least have the curiosity that hasn't been killed yet and will ask to go to the park. And tired, the man will unwind the tie from around his neck and grab a beer and without thinking he will say 'yes'. Because this is what you are supposed to say. He will say yes. And he will go to the bedroom and change into a T-shirt and this time he will avoid the ones that the company gives him. He will look on those silk screened monstrosities that are two sizes too big with spite and just for an instance there will be a rebellion in his head, and he will see the particle board material his dresser is made of when the drawers are open and the chipping plastic of his wood grain veneer. A frown will etch his face. He will slam that drawer shut and forget. He will put on the white T-shirt and they will go. They will go to the park and play frisbee, him and the kids. And no one will be good at it. They will try to be good at throwing the frisbee. They will learn for a bit and congratulate themselves when they've made a good throw and a good catch. And then they will get consistent. The kids may even try a few tricks. The father may try some too, unlearning everything that's been given to him as he goes back to those days of his youth. And he will lift his leg and make a perfect catch of the frisbee to celebrate his son's perfect throw and it will all look so nonchalant, so natural . . . that it could just not get any better than this moment. They will all know this simultaneously, an unforced realization. And as the shadows lengthen, there is a chill in the air again that touches everyone until the throws go wide, until the frisbee rolls on it's edge and squirves away in a blazing arc on the grass that is a failure no one wants to chase. And after a few of these throws, the kids are just throwing for the hell of it, with no pleasure in it. Automatic, to please the old man. And he knows it but he doesn't say anything. He is grateful and he is angry at the same time and in the combination there is a sigh that only he will hear as the frisbee rolls away from him and he gives chase, a short run devolving into a slow walk -- and everyone knows it is time to go. So they go back home. And they eat dinner and watch TV and go to bed. I don't have this life because I know what it is. But I probably don't, so it may be the best of all possible worlds. Only this one is slanted. </div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- The Houndfish</h1> <p>Mike_C — Mon, 08 May 2006 03:47:36 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/e6cb340e-493e-402e-beb0-3044062d9295"> </a> <div>Now for a bit of comic relief. The houndfish or needlefish swims in warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico all the way across to Thailand and Tahiti. It is a schooling fish and one that ranges in size from a half pound variety (the needlefish) all the way to specimens of houndfish in excess of 20lbs. These fish would be considered a bit innocuous if they didn't happen to kill more people each year than shark attacks combined. And it's not that they mean to, it's simply a death by misadventure. Take the houndfish for instance. It has a long impaling beak on it that swipes through schools of smaller prey as it makes dashes through schools of fish at speeds of over fifty miles an hour. Now you take some fat miami beach tourist running around in the warm waters with a shitload of bling hanging off his trunks and what do you think this pea-brained missle is going to think? Obviously, that's a school of fish. And so lured by the flash of bling, this phantasm ball of the ocean swims at 50mph straight into the well tanned guts of some Italian businessman and gets stuck in this poor fucker's short ribs like a wriggling dart. Now there's this old man trying to struggle out of the water with a flailing fish stuck in his chest and you know, this has got to be funny to everyone laying around on the beach, but not for these two. The meeting of houndfish and man ends in inevitable tragedy as the fish struggles enough to force it's stilleto like beak to break off at the jaw. Bobbitted by the old mans guts, it spins down to die on the sandy bottom, of embarassment no doubt, and the old man struggles to the beach, spitting blood, with an amazed and desperate look on his face, his lips trying to mouth out 'look what happened to me'. It's predation, sure, but it's a confused sort, with neither of the players involved getting any bennies. Now if you think a big houndfish is pretty bad, try dealing with a swarm of needlefish. Yes, a swarm -- they travel in schools and more than that, they're a type of 'flying fish', ones that use their pectoral fins as wings to escape predation from bluefish and houndfish and what not. In escaping, the schools launch out of the water at fifty miles an hour and glide for up to a quarter mile. Sometimes, these smack into a fishing boat like a volley of arrows and boy, can you imagine the surprise of watching some poor schmuck whirling around with a little fish stuck deep into his cranium in the middle of nowhere while the rest of the school writhe around with emasculated faces, maybe now their last shocked thoughts being that the big fish got them after all as they toss their cowardly fish blood all over the decks, the deadly weapons still stuck in the side of the boat, and dance along with the spastic twitching of the unfortunate fisherman thumping out his death throes on the non-slip rubberized deck of his Boston Whaler. I guess it's irony. Again, not really predation, just a comedy made by the shocked surprise that can only come when humans gets slapped by the idiot hand of mother nature. So this week, chaos, in the form of a houndfish is the official predator of the week until May 10, 2006. </div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- Group A Streptococcus (variant) -- The Flesh Eating Bacterium</h1> <p>Mike_C — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:29:25 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/5b15dd41-819a-41c5-95ae-b38ea677181e"> </a> <div>Flesh eating bacteria can be found in supermarkets, hospitals, holes made in dirt, piles made of dirt, spider bites, the waters of our harbors and in the bite of the komodo dragon. Everywhere in the world, it exists to emerge from it's dimension into ours in a way befitting those methods employed by Lovecraft's elder gods. Only here, there is no gauzy poetry or occult description to shield the eye and mind; the terror of this real invader lies in the shock of it's punch and the blooming speed of an attack that is illiterate, wet and brutal. The only thing warding this unholy terror away from your soft flesh is your dead barrier of skin and the addition or subtraction of an enzyme on the bacterium itself. The mutation between one strain and another is random, making the separation between coming down with Necrotizing Fasciitis or Strep Throat the choice between a bad day and the worst day of your life. It 'does' feel like a simple case of flu at first, which is why many people tend to sleep on it rather than seek treatment right away. The timing is deadly, one day is enough for the entire immune system to become completely compromised. Once this happens, the flesh-eating bacteria begins to crawl underneath the skin and eat -- and as it eats, it digests and shits. The progress can be marked by the advance of bruising and swelling flesh, a mound of feverish tissue that rides up from the point of entry in a wave of stink and pain. Underneath the skin, flesh is being converted into water -- the immune response rushing fluid to quell the active and rapidly growing colony that is creeping and excavating nutrients from the cramping flesh. Within hours, the human battleground is covered with pitted trampolines of fragile skin filled to the bone with cottage cheese. Without aggressive treatment and sometimes despite the best, the colony rages without mind or concern over the havoc for the sentient buffet it consumes. For you, thinking feeling you, the entire world has quickly turned into a gigantic stomach. The body flies into toxic shock and the core thing that is you now squiggles around within the intestines of a great beast. The battleground to save the body hinges on keeping the skin intact once the infection settles in. Many times this is impossible and the skin slides off like a rotten tomato to aerate the wound and aid consumption of the host. The window created by the opening skin fuels the spread of infection, creating more surface area for the bacteria to cover and consume. Many victims of the flesh eating bacteria feel that the touch of Necrotizing Fasciitis is akin to the touch of God. Certainly, there is an awe inspiring shock that comes with the onset -- both systemic and in the actual pain of the ordeal there are many who cannot help but believe they were selected to receive such an extreme ordeal and selected to survive based on the will of God's grace alone. How does any of this seem like the touch of a benevolent god? Even the healing does not seem benevolent at all, what; with skin debridement of over twenty five percent of the body and the constant threat of multiple amputation and reemergence of dormant pockets of infection following therapy and skin grafting. No, beyond the touch of benevolence or wrath, this decision comes down to little more than the wrath of poor hygiene. It is the arrogance of immunity over neosporin; the extremity of sloth personified . . . I peek through my fingers at another photo of swollen opened guts. Blackened edema. Ugh! These are things that cannot be named, screaming ordeals that fall apart, the flesh softening into an impossible definition. The images of debrided flesh are juxaposed with prayer. 'Promotional Gore For Jesus', where the medically induced coma is a process of beautification, as is the packing of wounds with absorptive gauze padding. To be blind at this point is a blessing for all. A quote from necrotizingfasciitis.net "My ankle was still in trouble after most of my leg had been grafted. The plan was to release me from the hospital, give me time to gain back some strength and then return and have the plastic surgeon perform a flap or some other procedure to fill in the big hole in my ankle. Dr. Blaisdell summed up the situation in these words; "his tendon is hanging in the breeze." However, the Lord touched my ankle and when my cast was removed five days later, everyone was amazed to find the tissue had quickly and miraculously "granulated" from my ankle and was touching my tendon -- an occasion for rejoicing by all . . ." Under the GAS, the victim is inured to the market. Bumper stickers glossy with split corpses. 'PGFJ' acronyms rolling off the tounges of the faithful. Simplistic doublespeak mantras appealing to a lowest common denominator that sees the fear fly in on bat wings. Cowering, we give thanks . . . For life. For survival. There is nothing special about getting touched by Streptococcus other than the fact that is offers the least mercy of all predators and offers the slowest death, the sum of a thousand cuts in one as it creeps under the skin and into the petri dish that is you. There is no compensation at all. As vanity mismanaged, it becomes a higher calling. Stumpy amputees pray every night for my salvation as if they might levitate on the wings of beautitude, reflecting on their experience with shiny moonlike faces. And yet if this is so, such enormous faith would have allowed you to die without fear and need for prayer. Group A Streptococcus killed Jim Henson. At this pentupulate moment, the marketing behind stories of healing and survival fails utterly. The stumpy nightmares of fear crash to soft beds and as the lights come on, there is nothing positive to salvage from this experience other than the lingering horror that it might happen again. That is the market excluding beautitude to sell something much older, much elder. And as the flesh is weak in the face of such horrors, so must the mind be as well. May the fear permeate your day. May every scrape be greeted with horror of the abyss. May your house be bathed in Lysol. Even now, I am bathing myself with lemon freshness and shaking off the fear. I am applying it to the athlete's foot and as I grit my teeth with the burning purity, I shake my fist and scream to the heavens "Group A Streptococci: you are predator of the week. Fear my wrath! Fear my wrath!" </div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- Komodo Dragon</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 22:22:28 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/c3094876-1bd4-4344-86f9-07b24a66eed8"> </a> <div>http://www.draconian.com/dragons/Images/Komodo%20Dragon/map.jpg One day while I was sitting at this dive bar high on mushrooms, I got into watching a shitload of tweekers over at another table. Now I wouldn't normally know these were tweekers except that due to this little bump in awareness, I couldn't fucking help it. I especially got lost in watching the actions of one particular rot faced kid try to make a decision. Now, I imagine this whole process was happening pretty quick but from what I was looking at, the process was getting out of his seat and then doing this weird jerky shift in motion where he couldn't quite figure out what to do with himself. I swear this, the guy must've moved sixteen directions in five seconds without getting anywhere and then he rolled up his sleeve and showed off his new tattoo to his tweeker friends. This epic battle was a fight between the lizard brain and the cortex and in this case . . . lizard brain lost. Rolling up the sleeves is just too complicated for a lizard brain. That dance of misdirection, that was all the evidence of a warm blanket of thought smothering a kick from the lizard inside. The kick was an impulse: a thing saying "I wanna fight wanna fuck wanna get out of this place wanna eat some meth" and human decorum slowed the thing down and said 'look at my new tattoo'. Civilization, conditioning and memory smothered that lizard like a wet blanket and left the entire action cuddly and warm, kind of like a cute alzheimers patient -- picture the grandmother from 'Mars Attacks' if this helps. Ah humans! They're always up to doing shit like this, anthropomorhizing the beasts in the interest of lording their inflated cortexes above all the other animals in the menagerie. It is funny, really terribly funny. Maybe, if you'd like to interpret anything as the Komodo Dragon is killing you, why not believe they're motivated by envy of your ability to think abstractly. The Komodo dragon after all is a big lizard, one that can grow over ten feet long. It has huge flesh-ripping jaws and serrated needle sharp teeth instinctively guided by a lizard brain that's angling for every opportunity without regard for limits or ethics. It kills by lurking along game paths and by waterholes, motionless and concealed in rocks or tall grasses. When an animal, any animal whatsoever, comes within a meter of the dragon, it lunges with blinding speed and can give chase at speeds of up to thirty five miles per hour. Large animals such as horses and goats are usually hamstrung by a bite from the jaws. If the animal goes down from the force of the initial attack, the Komodo Dragon will rush it, biting at the face and throat and making disembowling slashes with it's clawed feet. If the human prey manages to stumble away from the attack, it may get to think for a while. Here is something you should think about following an attack from a Komodo Dragon. In addition to not being picky about portions, the Komodo is even less discerning about condition. In actuality, the Komodo's preferred diet is the stinking rotting corpse of anything and has a highly developed sensory apparatus for finding a meal. Called the Jacobson's organ, this frilly area on the roof of the mouth cleans airborne particles of filth off the beasts yellow forked tongue then acts as chemical radar to locate meals from up to five miles away. If the Komodo was in Harlem and your rotting corpse was in a basement flat on Bleeker street, the Komodo would eventually come knocking if it weren't distracted by the numerous corpses around Times Square and Soho. When the Komodo Dragon finds food, the bones, fur, hooves, skin, crushed brains and skull all go down equally. Even other smaller Komodo dragons that try getting in the way go into the adult Komodo's gullet. Weight varies, a Komodo Dragon that weighs a hundred fifty pounds before a meal can gorge itself into doubling it's weight following a meal. Not only can it consume this huge amount of meat in a single sitting, it can do this quickly, with a large specimen observed to eat an entire 70lb. pig in seventeen minutes. So ravenous an eater is this lizard that it will chew through it's own gums in the process of devouring a meal, making it the only animal thus far on the predators list that actually manages to eat some portion of it's own face with every meal. Due to it's preference for carrion, the breath of the Komodo Dragon may get a bit foul. In addition to the chunks of decaying flesh that get lodged in the rows of regenerating needle like teeth, the Komodo's bleeding gums and flowing saliva create a festering stew of bacterial infection that drools in yellowing runners from the beast's mouth. As an adaption and a boon to predation, the Komodo Dragon is immune to infection by the septic bacteria that lives off the carrion and nutritious ooze supplied by it's horrid case of gingivitus. You, as a weak human, are not immune to filth. Fact of the matter is that as you stumble away from the attack, you are carrying within your bleeding wound at least one of fifty known forms of staph infection. This will finish the job that the Komodo Dragon started and even if you manage to stumble out of the three hundred yard range of the lizards vision and run for the hills, the lizard will be hopping along like Pepe LePue on the unseen trail created by the stink of your desperate, rapidly decaying flesh. The lizard on average, will walk eight miles a day to forage for meat. You, as carrion on the hoof, will be walking less than that and as the lizard catches up, it will harass you for the weakened piteful thing you are, until finally you fall. The big lizard then pads along to rake it's claws through your fluttering chest, it's complete victory over your precious cortex symbolized by your glazing stare as it turns you into a stinking litterbox. Don't feel too bad. Horses and wild boar go down exactly the same. Size in this case really doesn't matter. Now on to the meal. With the abdomen slashed and the intestines and stomach contents scattered, the scent of the kill attracts other Komodo's from across the island and a rudimentary socialization seems to occur. The Dragons loves to roll around in carrion, with heaven being nothing more that dipping into a gaseous bloating stew of your rotting organs. In fact, the only thing the Komodo dragon discards during the meal is the ungulate feces of an animal rich in digested plant products. Vegans take note: the discerning Komodo usually rips out the stomach and intestines of any animal it kills and puts these aside. Any young juveniles attracted to the smell from the kill will roll in the fecal matter like playful puppies in order to mask their scent from aggressive adults wishing to turn them into a meal. In this manner, the young sometimes manage to sneak away with tidbits of the corpse. Amid this orgy of rot, greedy consumption and salmonella -- opportunities for mating arise. Once sated with food, the lizards usually move on to these other drives provided by their streamlined brains. Eventually, all flesh and clothing will be consumed with the only remnant of the kill being the film of blood and lizard drool where the body fell. Occasionally there may be some gnawed accessories on the periphery of the spot, half a camera perhaps. Meat is quickly processed in the digestive tract, with 85% of the meal converted into fat energy and water to be stored in the tail of the beast, the undigestible remainder excreted as bone powder and concentrated urea. Komodo dragons do well in captivity. Since it lives on an island, it probably doesn't know enough to consider itself captive. Speculation is that the Komodo Dragon is the closest analog to what Hunter Thompson was seeing at Circus Circus when he stumbled into the Sheriff's convention during Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Probably a literary muse or buried symbol of the Lizard Brain as a blind instrument of law and order, my guess is that reading about Komodo Island on Acid is a pretty inspiring accident. As an allegory on the american dream, these lizards may be unsurpassed . . . and we might do well to devote further study into their rapacious lifestyle -- from a distance greater than this. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/10/MN156967.DTL Because of this, and because it eats everything made out of meat. The Komodo Dragon is our official predator of the week until April 12, 2006.</div> </article> <article> <h1>Muscle behind yo pimp's dashboard -- The Leopard</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 19:28:03 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/059f5b2a-f30c-4c09-8e9b-ccd479777d7f"> </a> <div>If Leopards were cruising along the outskirts of the yellow brick road, the Wizard of Oz would be a very short story. As one of the smartest of the big game cats, the leopard has survived and even thrived in a world where other big cats are threatened or on the verge of extinction. As a predator, the leopard is athletically pure, silent, able to hide in trees and swim; and able to make a game out of stalking, sometimes creeping to within five feet of antelope prior to pouncing. In addition to having all this going for it, the leopard is also one of very few animals smart enough to lie. They will often pretend to climb up a tree in order to fake mentally-challenged monkeys into jumping on the ground. Any prey that the leopard can take will be taken. Aardvarks, rodents, birds, fish, snakes, foxes, and even insects can be on the leopard's dinner plate on any given day. However, leopards tend to specialize when there is an abundance of food. One leopard may have a preference for pangolins and porcupines, some even specialize in hunting pet dogs, which made easy prey. A leopard can kill and eat bigger prey such as Eland which weigh close to a ton but prefers to pick on antelopes and other animals it's own size. Because the average weight of a leopard is between 150-200 lbs and because they are smart enough to have dietary preferences, it's inevitable that many end up specialising in hunting humans. In the outskirts of the city and the agricultural areas, it is usually the shepard who offers the cat it's first taste of human blood. After it realizes the weakness of this bipedal prey, now easily identifiable, it will hunger for nothing other than soft kills. For the leopard, humans become a revelation. As meat, they are far easier to chase down than an antelope and their evenly distributed body weight makes them far easier to stuff into trees. Humans are also easier to kill than chimps, something many leopards feed on. When comparing the fight a chimp can put up against a human, the leopards instantly recognize the practicality of hunting slow, soft, and weak prey and find this appealing. They will cruise the streets of India after dark almost in plain view, kind of like a two hundred pound opossum, only this is one that can burst out from the cover of a parked car with speeds of over forty miles an hour. The shelter built by humans are usually confusing to big cats and other predators. Tigers and Lions may stalk jungle paths but they will not venture out of forest cover to make a kill, thereby making cities and villages safe havens for humans. Leopards break these rules and refuse to abide by limits. They will tear doors off of houses, jump through second story windows and even climb along fire escapes to get at a human, showing utter disrespect for man and his castle. Once plopped in any living room, the humans are totally fucked. It's immediate, the stalking -- the pouncing, a big cat chasing you around the coffee table for fun while you cry like a baby. A leopard can drag three times it's body weight into the fork of a tree and any humans that think they gonna get away trying to smack the leopard down with their hookah are trippin'. This is the Ted Bundy of the animal kingdom, my friend and playing dead won't help. Nothing will help. You're going to be disembowled on your straw mat and your crappy Pier One furniture ain't getting in the way. Once killed and gutted, the leopard usually drags off dead villagers and stuffs them into a tree in order to keep Tigers and Hyenas from making off with their softening kills. Because of this ability to store prey for later meals, they have no compunction against killing again and again in case of lean times. This trait, along with their smarts, athleticism and overall confidence in exploiting new situations makes the man eating leopard one of the more prolific predators in all history. Leopards with over twenty human kills to their credit are not uncommon. The king of these killers, The Man Eater of Panar; managed to kill and partially consume over four hundred humans during it's reign in the northern region of India. Let's put this in perspective: Jason Vorhees: 162 confirmed kills Freddy Kruger: 35 kills The Panar Man eating leopard: 400+ confirmed kills Freddy or Jason would need to make ten more sequels before they could ever think of catching up, unless they bucked the stats with an epic that allowed them to kill off the entire cast of Gandi and stuff them into trees, leaving little time for atmospheric music, suspense, witty dialogue -- or cameramen. Sans reason or gimmick, the leopard is simply a pure, efficient model of cunning and predatory viciousness. There is no gimmick to killing a man and besides what the human ego imagines, there is really no defense against becoming leopard chow. For this reason, it is our official predator of the week until April 4th, 2006.</div> </article> <article> <h1>An old joke . . .</h1> <p>Mike_C — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 05:58:31 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/97e43267-7e61-46c0-b35a-2f59c85d5ba4"> </a> <div>A man walks into the office of a successful talent agency in Hollywood. He goes to the desk of the man in charge and asks if he could have a few minutes of time to pitch a successful act that "me and my family have been performing for years at nightclubs -- all the class joyints." The talent agent raises his hand to protest, saying "I'm sorry, family acts are real hard to sell these days." "Sir, don't say another word," the man said. "Believe me when I say this act cannot be any more real. In fact, I got my wife, my three kids and my dog waiting in the lobby right now. Just give us five minutes of your time and you'll see something so amazingly real and fresh that you'll be shocked, amazed and astounded. Just five minutes, that's all we'll need." The agent sees the obvious talent in the man's pitch and having a soft spot for carnival barkers says: "Well -- all right. I can't see how giving you five minutes can hurt. Bring em in and I'll take a look." So the Father goes to the door and waves the rest of the family in and here comes the wife and the son. The daughter carries in the baby with her, a pink and wrinkley newborn who coos and gurgles with delight, and certainly the entire lot is adorable, even the little sheltie that follows them in seems composed. Together they all stand in line facing the desk and the Father claps his hands together and says "All right, who wants some pudding?" On cue, the entire family begins taking off their clothes. The son drops to his knees and begins blowing the father. The mother and daughter stand back to back and spread their legs, their hands working to massage what are becoming huge strap on dildos out of each others asses. The daughter yanks the gear out of her mother and falls away as a flood of knicknacks and drug filled balloons pours out of her loosened hole. The mother's unrelenting grip allows the daughter to ease off her own latex intruder and with the sound of a sloppy toothless kiss, it slides out dragging with it a six foot extension cord. The sheltie grabs the cord and emits a series of short commanding yelps. The daughter runs after the dog, catches it and teases the cord away from it's smiling jaws. Tying a slipknot around her neck, she loops the other end around the doorknob and kneels to strangle herself, her thin semi-pubescent hands crawling into her cunt to wildly masturbate. At if cued by the rattling gasps, the father and son disengage from each other. The father goes to his daughter's arching behind, pulls her hands out of her cunt and mounts her. He claps twice and the yipping sheltie growls and jumps onto the daughters back. The dog inserts his fully erect dog's penis into the daughter's slackening, oxygen starved asshole and starts pumping, the father giggling as the fluffy tail begins tickling his peritineum. The father inserts one of his fingers into the dog's ass and twists, making the dog's foot piston madly as if it's trying to start a moped. Heavily leaning on the cord, the daughter's eyes roll around in her head, her smile doping itself into a near perfect Howdy-Doody impersonation. While this is going on, the son strolls to the center of the room, picks the dildo off the floor and goes to where the infant child lays in it's own waste. He removes the child's sodden diaper and straps the walrus tusk to the baby. His Mother, still facedown and breathing heavy following the extraction of her love tools, arches her back as her son positions the infant over mother's ass and slides this yellowishly stained walrus tusk half way home. As the son steps back, he watches reverently as the rest of it's length is pushed in by the gurgling cooing weight produced of her battle-scarred loins. Now the teenage boy goes in front of his prostrated mother and begins spinning the kid around with well-timed smacks on the feet and bulbous head, singing the Dreidel song as he's pissing on his Mother's face The kid spins around and around, moronically drooling and cooing baby slime all over his mother's back like a demented spirograph. Over on the other end of the room, the cord slips off the doorknob and the daughter lands on her face, breaking her nose. Father pulls on the back of the daughter's hair to let the dog give the girl a few more grinds, then he grabs the dog and pulls the two of them out of the Daughter's dialated holes. The dog now whimpers and in frustration it crawls in front of the Daughter's face and with paws limp, it rolls over to tap it's glistening dog penis against her chin. The daughter blindly pulls the dog penis into her mouth and begins working it, the barbed chapstick glossing her lips with a liberal coating of her own gutstink. The father goes to the son and inserts his penis into the boy's rectum. Reaching around to grab the penis, he uses it to administer a brutal cock slap to the Mother's piss covered face, cueing her to begins sucking the boy off in earnest. The Dreidel song rises a full octave as the boy quickly applies a liberal coating of fish shellac to her sweating, drooling lips. The dog cums. The daughter stands up, drooling and zonked on the rush of blood into her brain. With the extention cord dangling around her lividly bruised neck she wanders over to the area where the rest of the family is piled in a Naked Abu Ghirab like heap of sweaty fluids. Standing above the pile, the daughter spreads her legs and fists herself with both hands. Moaning, she ejaculates female lubrication all over her Father's ass and spins to arch the clear thick liquid over the entire group, splashing all. Mother is a drippy cum soaked hag with her infant spinning in her ass like a boat propeller and as she smiles, another tooth falls out of her face into the pile of piss, cum, baby spit, common household items and drug balloons littering the space between her knees . . . and now to top it all off, the baby starts crying. The daughter stops releasing lube on the pile and grabs the infant. She removes the strap on from her mother's dribbling, shit-flecked ass and takes the baby out of the harness. She pats the baby on the back and hugs it, saying soft things to calm it down while the mother backs away from her son's penis and rolls onto her back. She spreads her legs and the daughter holds the infant child like Superman, making a wooshing noise as she rams the child's head into her mother's cunt. Mama squirms as her pelvic lips go rubbery around the infant shoulders, her face flushing with excitement as the child cries and struggles, the daughter continuously shoving until the child pops in like a cork, it's feet protruding to make the mother's vag look like a stretched out sea anenome trying to digest a guppy. The father pulls out of his son now and squats over his wife. Pulling his cheeks apart and making ambulance noises, he grabs the child's feet with his own gaping anus. Now using an amazing degree of muscular control, he kegels the child into his own orifice and stands up. The child's head pops out of his mother, his bluish face gasping and wrinkling into a mask of infantile agony as it's weak legs do it's best to hop out of this sack race. The father, now visibly excited by the kicking against his prostate, squirts the child back into his wife. The wife squeezes the child back into her husband's anus and now a wicked game of ping pong forms, with each volley getting more and more violent. Finally, the Mother rips a queefing blast that sends the infant entirely into the Father's ass. He twists around and stares at his smiling wife with shocked and pain maddened eyes as his guts kick and boil with the intruder's smothered wrath. Hopping around the room, he pulls at his anus and digs his entire hand in there like he's going through a purse for a roll of life savers. Withdrawing his hands, the baby's crown appears in his dialating ass and then explodes out of his slimy cannon barrel in a spray of shit and blood, his infant's bluish toe snagged in the folds of Daddy's prolapsed rectum. The limp child dangles there like an air freshener as the Father shakes in a palsied crouch, vomiting up a steaming rib dinner and side of baked beans. The limp child falls to the floor like a cat turd and the older brother runs over to it, making ambulance noises. Pinching the infant's nose, he begins performing mouth to mouth recessutation. The mother gets up and crawling on her hands and knees, she pushes her face into her Hubby's reversed asshole and begins felching that uncooked pile of corned beef, her nipples lactating with excitement. Meanwhile, the daughter collapses into a lotus position and roots around in the pile of slimy household items. She picks out one of the drug balloons and squeezes some heroin paste into a spoon. Without bothering to cook it, she ladels the mixture across the rash on the inside of her thighs and smears it around while singing a rapidly slurring version of Rod Stewart's "Do ya think I'm Sexy?" and the dog licks her pussy. The infant child begins kicking and squirming and the teenage boy gets up. With a spastic burp, he coughs up a grey mixture of his Father's diarrheatic stink and the infants semi-digested breast milk all over his sister, his mother and the family dog. The dog shits a pile of Alpo between the daughter's legs and runs to the center of the room, yelping and chasing it's own tail as the Daughter stares numbly at her situation. The father starts to dry heave at the smell of his Son's recycled discharge and coughs up a runner of bile. In his extremity, he farts and as the stink shoots through his extruded colon, his wife gets a lungful and vomits out the remains of a club sandwich and her daily dose of valium, which conveniently forces the prolapsed rectum back into her husbands ass like a rolled up party favor, the digested valium conveniently numbing the pain. The baby is weakly crawling away from it's situation now and the Father scoops it up and gets to his feet. The rest of the Family also gets off the carpet and stands there where in unison, they say "TA DA". The agent stares at the family and looks thoughtfully at the Father. "Well, that's quite an act you have there. What do you guys call yourselves?" The father beams a winning smile at the agent and his family and says "The Aristocrats." </div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- African Driver Ant</h1> <p>Mike_C — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:40:40 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/2c5a0d24-aca6-4185-afa3-ebb0cc9ed0bd"> </a> <div>Have you ever seen the beer elf in action? In the suburban western world, the Beer Elf is more renowned than the Tooth Fairy and Cupid combined. It is also more feared. The 'not-nearly so fantastic' elf waits for the weakest moment in this nights activity and slobbers it's victim with magic marker, mascara and glitter paint. The drunk that remains oblivious to tinkering might wake up with their hand glued to a half-filled beer can, their eyes shaded blue and white and hair teased into a chiquita banana doo, a flag in one hand and "God Hates Fags" stenciled across the forehead in permanent marker. The victim wakes up, hungover and twisted, ignorant until staring in the mirror and seeing the extent of damage. It is an ugly sight, almost indescribable, and one that comes with the nauseating awareness that no place is safe, even in the company of friends. This is the heartbreak of the Western Elfing. In Equatorial Africa, a layabout drunk or African gutterpunk well pickled on last night's excess wakes up to a more active and malignant form of elf; the blind killing machine that is the African Driver Ant. These slow moving dwellers of the African Rain forest destroy human beings that have been giftwrapped by fate: a state of complete oblivion, old age, infancy or injury. Drunks and opium addicts fit this bill nicely and any that find themselves nodded out in the path of an ant horde can expect to wake up with thousands of ants slashing their way across every available surface of flesh, the wickedly sharp mouthparts drawing blood with each tiny bite. A standard colony of these ants can have numbers upward of twenty million, representing a total biomass of 30,000 hungry and purely carnivorous lbs. This cloud of slicing pain crawls and engulfs the prey searching for soft, succulent flesh and inevitably finds it on the wet lips and nostrils of their breathing feast. Ants that find this soft flesh and easy pickings release formic acid, letting the others know where the most nourishing bits are easily accessed. Once this happens, the ants begin inexoriably migrating into the lungs and esophagus. By the time it comes to this point, the victim probably has been rolling around in a sea of pain and darkness for a few minutes, every inch of exposed skin covered in blood and tiny cuts that have grown together to form ulcerating surface wounds. The soft eyes are the first to go, a sea of ants crawling under the eyelids, breaking up the thin skin and carrying it away. With the lungs and bronchials invaded, the prey now drowns on snipping thousands of razor sharp mandibles that are already packaging the flesh into morsels for the queen ant and her brood. The lungs rapidly flooding with blood and fallen ants, the human weakens; the madness of these DT's giving way to an ever darkening dream where thousands of living needles become background noise to a growing weight. Choking, it lays twitching on the forest floor, arms and legs pumping instinctively as this bum go through death throes, now slowing as the ants continue to eat, gain access and release scent for the others to follow. In a few minutes it's all over. Once driver ants make a large kill, they must put in some time to break up their prey. A large hoarde can skeletonize a human in about four hours, the muscle and soft parts carried away in scoops for the good of the queen and the future generations of larvae. Any inedible human remains of a Driver Ant attack usually end up looking like the cover art from an old Exploited T-shirt. It may not be a good way to go but in some ways it seems an honorable one, a sort of quick form emphesyma. For some, it's certainly a more spectacular way to go than just succumbing to TB after a lifetime of picking shorties out of the gutter. If the driver ant lived in Portland, it probably would be killing more people than cigarettes. It is number one on Africa's food chain and it is our official predator of the week until March 29, 2006. </div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- The candiru catfish.</h1> <p>Mike_C — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:04:23 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/92d57f2e-9d65-4507-9219-22531fcfa476"> </a> <div>The candiru catfish lives on blood. It is a pencil thin transparent animal that grows from one to six inches in length and lives much of it's existence crawling through the muddy bottom of Amazonian rivers and tributaries. With it's gill spines and teeth, it spends most of it's time attaching itself underneath the gills of larger fish. There it inflates it's gill spines and lodges itself within, rasping away at the delicate membranes and drinking it's fill until the host goes belly up and the candiru, now gorged, swims down to the bottom or off in search of other prey. Now, here's the good part. The candiru catfish, being blind and somewhat primitive overall, relies on it's refined sense of smell to find sources of food. Like the shark, it can follow the trail of blood in the water. In addition to tracing blood, the candiru has urinophillic tendencies which allow it to follow the trail of urine to it's prey -- any prey of any size Primitive and blind as the candiru is, it's lust for blood often allows it to confuse the opening of the human penis or vagina for a juicy fish gill. Wired as it is, the candiru often makes a quick and fatal decision to swim upstream in it's search for a blood gorged membrane upon which to feed. Due to it's small size, a woman may not see the fish as it enters until it well hidden, therefore she may end up feeling the pain of a candiru infestation without knowing why. A man is not so fortunate for on him the urethra is the front door. Because there is no intermediary space to check in bags, the initial shock of pain is usually accompanied by the sight of this wriggling fish crashing the gates. With advance warning, this unfortunate man -- possibly the most unfortunate man in all the world -- begins crying and vainly trying to grab the wriggling tail fins of the catfish as it inches it's way up his urethra to the blood source. At this point, two things prevent successful removal of the fish: one being the slick coating of mucus filming the fish body; the other-- The same mechanism that allows the candiru to attach to the gills of a maniacally swimming fish opens up like an umbrella within the urethra. Barbs on the ends of these gills dig into the urethral wall and as one can imagine; there is probably a frantic, horrifying tug o' war between this pain-maddened human and what is essentially a kidney stone with a brain. Predation ensues after the battle is lost and as the little fish disappears into the penis, the choice is inevitably reduced to which sort of excrutiating ordeal you choose to make of your end. A man thus afflicted in the wilds of the Brazillian Amazon must either do the castration or let the fish continue to creep in. Within minutes, the time for making decisions is over. Now free of resistance from the outside world, the fish wriggles and digs it's way up this scented golden trail until it finds candiru Vahalla. This is the wall of your bladder; the blood engorged membrane of all the candiru's primitive hopes and dreams. Ignorant of the screams and mad dancing going on in the outer world, it positions itself and begins slashing away with spines and teeth at everything within reach. Blood pours out of every opening the candiru makes and if the slashing attack of the candiru breaches an artery, the human prey be it woman or man, will suffer the swift agony found in an uncontrollable bleed out. Considering the source of entry, this will most likely not be a pretty way to die. If the candiru doesn't die of drowning in an excess of food, it will earn it's reputation as the Vampire Fish of Brazil. Happily it will live in there, spreading perotinitis throughout the human host due to the close proximity of open wounds to the muddy waste output of a fish that is suckling and shitting out your own digested insides. Life for the Candiru doesn't get any better than this. As an interesting aside, the candiru is a well regarded and documented predator found in several works of subversive literature. William Burroughs thought well enough of the candiru and the experience it provides to use it as an illustrative tool in several books and spoken performances. In fact, it was this very same candiru that was used to defeat the Steely Dan II in 'Naked Lunch', "And Steely Dan II?" "Chewed to bits by a famished candiru in the Upper Baboonsasshole..." "And don't say 'Wheeeeeeee!' this time." . . . because that's obviously just something you wouldn't say to a urinophillic creature that drinks blood. For this and other reasons, the candiru catfish is both our official predator and inside joke for the week. Enjoy!</div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- The Chimpanzee</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 22:38:07 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/e231d414-e8ed-4669-bda1-5b46144bbfb3"> </a> <div>In the modern world, where chimps share the house with humans, chimps dress as humans dress and are trained to mimic human behaviors. They star in children's movies, they clown around at the zoo and stalk around in oversized diapers that the civilized humans make them wear. So in some ways, it's only fair that chimps jipped by the establishment go bad. The shit throwing monkey we're all familliar with is usually a kid. Mature chimpanzees in the wilds of Uganda will steal human children from the edge of the forest. These naive children brainwashed by G-rated movie depictions of the chimpanzee are not recruited as potential Tarzans. In actuality, the gruesome fate these unfortunate children suffer may be the archtypal reason behind such nightmares as the booeyman, another long armed semi-human with horrifying strength. The children swiped by wild chimps are usually found by tracing the path of severed limbs and guts as chimps usually tear off arms and legs prior to consuming the rest of the child. This is what many humans consider a pet! And for a time, chimpanzees can be, just as a two year old toddler is a sort of pet. Separated from their bretheren, chimps can even become acclimated to the human world and their captors due to their immaturity. When considering the type of person that would choose a chimp as a pet, the spector of sexual maturity in an animal so closely resembling a human child can seem disturbing to say the least. The human/ chimp relationship must be destroyed, with all the Disneyesque bounds of naivete shattered. In enduring the boredom that must inevitably follow, it's understandable that a day must come when this brutal predator of the forests must explode out of it's diapers, tailor designed three-piece suits and tu-tu's and do what comes naturally. And the natural state of a mature chimp on the attack is the state of a demon spawned of the most demented bar-fight imaginable; an unthinking, bloodlusting machine fueled by pure ritualistic malice whose sole objective is to humiliate, dominate and kill their chosen victim in the worst way imaginable. When clinging to the chest and shoulders of their chimp or human prey, chimpanzees gnaw off the face and chew into the skull with zombielike strength and equivilent mercy. Eyes and testicles are unerringly targeted for removal. Hands that rise to defend these soft parts of the body are shorn of fingers or simply wrenched off at the elbows. Any body parts removed are either consumed or spit into the screaming faces of their victims. In a recent case, two chimps attacked a man because he didn't provide enough cake at a birthday party. In the course of the attack which followed, the injuries were so varied that the list was broken up and separated between articles. In the typical manner of chimp attack, all of the man's fingers were bitten off. Most of his face was chewed off and all of his testicles were removed. Half of the man's ass was ripped from the victim's body by chimp hands. The chimps tore off the man's foot and bit through the skull into his brain. When one chimp was finally shot, the other chimp was so gleefully dedicated to doing more damage that he actually dragged the body down the road to continue the fun. Chimps share 96 percent of our DNA. The number of genetic differences between humans and chimps is ten times smaller than that between mice and rats. The chimpanzee is our official predator for the week of March 14, 2006 for more info: http://www.primates.com/chimps/drunk-n-disorderly.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/325chimp1.shtml http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/demonicmales.htm </div> </article> <article> <h1>Official Predator of the Week -- Naegleria fowleri</h1> <p>Mike_C — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 03:14:17 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/aa2c0edd-dffd-4e90-a9ee-765cd41e4774"> </a> <div>Naegleria fowleri is technically not 'a' brain amoeba so much as the 'premier' brain amoeba of record. Like most amoebas, it basically goes through life as a single-celled sack of fluid gelatin surrounded by a greasy membrane. This Amoeba lives mostly in freshwater lakes and ponds and at times, is found in heated swimming pools following transfer through bird waste or vector insects. By encapsulating themselves into cysts, brain amoebas can endure harsh environmental conditions such as drying or extreme cold, essentially allowing them to lie dormant anywhere at anytime. When plunked into warm water, these amoebas come alive in a way similar to sea monkeys and quickly gain the equivilant awareness of college students vacationing in Ft. Lauderdale. Now in reproductive phase, Brain Amoebas maniacally creep around the pond or swimming pool until they locate a food source, usually the inside of a host’s nostril. Once there, it instinctively travels down the path laid out by the olfactory nerve until it seeps into the brain. Here, the Brain Amoeba uses it's enzymes as a fake ID to get past the blood-brain barrier and now as it enters the club, the real fun begins. Surface proteins activate to tell the Brain Amoeba where the best food sources are and now baited, it wanders along like it's following midgets to a girls gone wild video shoot. At each location, the amoeba drools proteins in a way reminicent of a bulemic salivating in the shadow of a buffet line. These proteins cut holes into cells closest to the amoeba and as the contents of these neurons leak out, the amoeba grabs all the nutrients it can stuff into it's greasy membrane; quickly converting human memories and neurological functions into holes filled with plasma, nitrogen waste and more Brain Amoebas. The resulting infection triggers the immune response. The immune response has all the effectiveness of a teaspoon of salt added to five gallons of chicken broth. Mitotically splitting Brain Amoebas laugh at your antibodies and internalize any that attach to it's surface. If by chance, some complement proteins are able to bypass the amoebic surface while it's gorging itself on your neurons, the amoeba simply collects them in one area of its membrane, forms a ball and sends it off as a little balloon. The shed membrane acts as a decoy to attract phagocytes, reducing the body's elite repuplican guard to fussy housewives as the amoebas continue to attack the brain like Led Zepplin attacks a hotel room. As you can imagine, this is extremely harmful to the brain and the person trying to answer the phone or suck down a cup of coffee. A tingly feeling is usually a harbinger for primary amoebic meningo-cephalitis, a condition of leaking cerebrospinal fluids accompanied by seizures, dementia and mercifully, death within hours. Mortality rate of N. fowleri infection stands at 97 percent, with infected corpses garnering extra crematorium expenses to destroy encysted amoebas and amoebas freely leaking out the ears and nose to search for new sources of food. Of the 'lucky' 3 percent who survive the onslaught of the Brain Amoeba, few will ever play tennis again. The Brain Amoeba is the official predator of the week until March 8, 2006</div> </article> <article> <h1>Official predator of the week -- The Leopard Seal</h1> <p>Mike_C — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:54:52 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/73bb192a-6499-4c6f-a6ec-1542af13d7a0"> </a> <div>A solitary predator of Antarctic waters, leopard seals share the top niche with killer whales in the antarctic food chain. In their disposition toward humans, Leopard Seals seem to have more of a serial killer feel about them than the orca. In this case, the serial killer lives in sub freezing waters, can weigh a thousand pounds and achieve a size of thirteen feet from it's reptilian head to it's tail flipper. Why serial killer, you say? Leopard Seals have the disturbing habit of being one of the only animals to actively stalk humans. They will attract the curiosity of nature shows and divers and once a rapport is achieved, will suddenly attack. Consider the photograph that accompanies this edition of predator of the week. This picture is taken from the point of view of a man who is an instant away from suffering deep lacerations about the face and neck. OK, maybe not serial killers; maybe just a hungry animal with the good sense to exploit stupidity. They seem to be able to eat anything that lives in Antarctica except the Orca. This diet includes penguins, fish and other seals. They are cannibalistic as well; probably a good reason they remain solitary. A fun fact about Leopard Seals: They will drag penguins up to the surface and flail about until the bird's skin is removed. Divers finding penguin skins floating around are advised to get out of the water as soon as possible. In their more agro incarnations, Leopard Seals will attack inflatable boats. They also have the annoying habit of grabbing people walking on the surface of ice floes by lunging out of holes, sometimes even choosing to crash through the surface of thin ice; latching on to animals, human or otherwise, with enough tenacity that it often takes another human repeatedly stabbing the animal in the face before it has sense enough to let go. Only one actual fatality resulting from a Leopard Seal attack has been confirmed. However, considering that this is Antarctica we're talking about, the seals seem to be making the best of limited opportunities. The Leopard Seal is the official predator of the week until March 1, 2006</div> </article> <article> <h1>This is a test</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 03:08:23 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/fc66b6f0-3ad0-4951-83e7-24e5c5f370c8"> </a> <div>This is a test of the Free Association system. Do not be alarmed -- this is only a test. **PREDATOR OF THE WEEK** http://www.free-association.net/index.php?option=com_associations&task=displayAssociation&id=180 **HAPPYLAND DESIGN TEAM INC.** http://www.free-association.net/index.php?option=com_associations&task=displayAssociation&id=165 **THE ARISTOCRATS** http://www.free-association.net/index.php?option=com_associations&task=displayAssociation&id=192 **THE DOZENS** http://www.free-association.net/index.php?option=com_associations&task=displayAssociation&id=190 </div> </article> <article> <h1>EMBARASSMENT IN ZAADS FORCES MAN TO BITE HEAD OFF CHICKEN</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:21:27 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/c3cff91f-dc91-4865-920d-88d8a2f0c086"> </a> <div>Yes it's all true. Due to censorship (2257) and draconian measures toward the use of posted material (TOU Paragraph 5), I was (and still am) one of the migrant Tribe dispora. As one dissatisfied, I have become open to getting sucked into new internet communities offering an alternative. Zaads was one of the first available and seeing this as both a new forum and a valid protest against Tribe changes (rather than whining), I signed on. Now a few weeks later, I am making my attempt to have my profile deleted from Zaads. I do not want it de-activated, I want it erased completely. To make my reasons clear to Brian (philosopher of Zaads) I am offering them in the format provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as a darker reality to Zaads claims of nutritional value. ***40 MPH FRONTAL OFFSET CRASH RATING -- It seems like the idea of a site completely open to all information is appealing to those who would actually desire to save the world. From a philisophical point of view, it gives you a preemptive glimpse of what the enemy of the world is doing. It also allows for debate on who the real enemy is. For example, consider what you want to save and what you want to eliminate in the world. Do you want to eliminate death? Sorry but that's a no can do. Death is gonna happen no matter what so you might as well face it, be it the laughing plasticized flesh of Icky Bob or the cancer that eventually takes you; confront the reality of it as an appetizer prior to the main course might provide at the very least, hints on the objective you're saving or alleviating the world of. For this reason, it was probably an unwise decision to cut the rubberized dead guy. First off, he's rubberized, so cutting him isn't going to make him bleed any. Secondly, his specific art is meant to warn living, fragile and unknowing humans that there are perils to walking into helicopter blades, getting sucked into jet engines, or sticking your hand in the chop saw. By trashing Icky Bob, the guy that willingly throws himself into the blades, you have eliminated our crash test philosopher. Not only that, you have shown how one man (and a dead guy at that) can change your world. Look at what's happened to your site; you've spun back into your shell and become totally reactionary. What a horrid reaction, so blunt and absolute and yet, so beyond any strategy for world saving. As a result, you reveal a core philosophy that has failed on several important specs. ***CRUMPLING TO THE MAN CRUMPLE ZONE- blind subserviance to an single paradigm will delegate any group into herd bond status. The need for credit without philosophical substance will be easily directed into movements which have nothing to do with saving the world at all. However the illusions will be nice as Apollonian structures of white can be adapted to prison environments with fresh coats of white paint. Oxygen starvation is an acceptable result of poor ventilation as Zaadsters have learned to suck harder to clear the resin out of their collective bongs rather than implement use of the standard wire coathanger. This esoteric method of bong clearing apparently is an inner ring pilate required to obtain a higher state of being through Zaads strict interpretation of Konthidumy Yoga. With a disciplined approach, circular breathing is achieved in even novice accolytes, which in turn encourages the mitochondria of the cells to increase implied nutritional value of rice, tofu and rice and tofu by-products. The end result: 'Nirvana' and a 'virtual party' for all. Heightened bliss with illusionary Diyonisyian overtones will inevitably enlighten the active Zaads poster due to light's contrast with unconsciousness. Rest assured, the burgers The Man serves will be entirely made of soy. ***SIDE IMPACT PROTECTION -- a system of hypocrisy and rigid blinders is employed for the protection of Zaads potential. Zaads crime is moving in next to Starbucks to sell Starbucks coffee without offering a different product and serving day old scones as 'fresh' is wrong. Why even try to sell a fresh alternative to tribe and begin pitching a flat earth society as a 'switch' to your 'bait' -- especially when you enter a discussion that is contesting community flagging and censorship of any information. This is wrong and I, in the capacity of my high office as sales tsar of HDT, declare that you must become more saavy. Intolerance of assholes and their philosophical stance is a crime. Assholes are extremely valuable in discussions in that they tend to say something totally outrageous and make you decide why you're against it or how something is wrong and yet you choose to continue an action. Assholes, in their clumsy bids to prove they are right, superior, or unique, often promote awareness of what exactly is wrong with their argument. If anything, these poisoned seeds will make you aware of all the details of a situation by contrast. Rather than censor these voices, you should aspire to battle them in debate. This is the core of the philisophical battle for truth and if you're unwilling to play the game with everyone, you're biasing the truth. That's wrong. Furthermore, Zaads is automatically assuming a posture of negativity by not having enough faith in people to decide what's right and wrong for themselves. That's not only wrong, it's cause for great offense, both to intelligent people everywhere and also to those who are wise enough to fight with heart. Intelligence, awareness and an ability to fight with heart is something which the promoters of Zaads has shown to lack in their recent actions, showing behaviour contrary to the mission statement. ***(2/01/06) BLINDERS INSTALLATION AS AMENDMENT TO ZAADS WHIPLASH PROTECTION -- Since I am posting on Zaads, I am in honorarium, a creature of light. Therefore, all Zaadsters should take everything I say as the gospel truth from here on. By agreeing to the one time agreement to expand my self potential, all you Zaadsters should rest assured that I take your truths to heart and in firm voice and loud manner say 'namaste', for we, united, are the saviours of the middle and flat earths and hereby entitled to the bennies of Zaads capitalism. ***HEAD RESTRAINT RATING -- There is zero wiplash tolerated on Zaads. Conflicting statements will be evaluated for growth potential. As there will be no conflicting statements allowed, there will be no recoil or shock awareness. Any snap advertised on the network will be absorbed by Zaads passive aggressive system of restraint. This system has shown an extremely high protection against whiplash injury due to extreme denial when Zaadsters discover the bloody walls of the slaughterhouse that is critical thinking. The action of rolling the eyes when facing this pneumatic hammer is actually one of the common pilates practiced by the Gurus of Zaads 'konthidumy' yoga network. ***REAR IMPACT PROTECTION -- You are not a philosopher if your strategy hasn't a basis in reality. By limiting the information available to your network, (or any network) you cant the playing field and narrow the view of the world, severely crippling your ability to fulfill the mission statement -- unless you are actually planning to save the flat or middle earths from destruction. If this is the case, please mention that your network is saving the world of Hobbits and end the confusion inheriant in Zaads extremely broad (and seductive) mission statement. Of course, there is a philosophy of denial and many philosophical systems (including the Bush administration) incorporate this philosophy of limits to some degree. However, one of these group posting systems such as Tribe or Zaads can beat any of those games by providing information on what was missed, either through their own thinking or through links that each member finds important to their own personal view of the world. A good philosopher, when confronting this system, always samples from all available information and all disciplines in order to build a better mousetrap. A good philosopher also understands there are limits on the amount of time to find the sources. Having a network that provides information freely allows more time for philisophical debate and tough questions -- hopefully leading to 'informed' debate and 'truth'. With the Zaads network setting limits based on Brian's ego (though considerable), Brian loses philosopher status and automatically becomes a sales rep for leveling the playing field in the group mind. This leaves a site filled with blind acceptance and more importantly (to promoters and salesmen) bland entertainment. Keep in mind, there's nothing wrong with being a salesman. Hell, a lot of the best advertisers are philosophy majors. However, in your enthusiastic bid to save the world; remember that time forces you to prioritize the type of new world you're selling. Consider the following situation as one seed of awareness -- HDT statisticians, in concordance to world market values have made adjustments on the price of time. For every one bedroom/ one bath condo bought for the speculative value and investment potential, the average investor probably kills 2000% - 5000% more african children than bullets. As a result, those who buy into this investment potential are trapped into a time and space killing strategy due to mortgage demands and a concurrent mental adhesion to the workplace. Any Zaads world saviors who have bought into this ponzi scheme can look forward to finding little time to save the world and must get forced into expanding this power through meditation and sucking crystals for an hour each day. Then, with the fifteen minutes of free time, they'll spend it talking to fellow crystal suckers on Zaads about how they smashed the psychic barriers on who hold the power to actually change worlds (power companies, oil barons, arms manufacturers, etc.) with love transmissions. Inflation in occult systems marketeers is forcasted to rise dramatically through successful implimentation of the program as well as exploitation of quantum mechanic theory (just believe! Please!). The end result of implimentation of Zaads marketing strategy will be an overall devaluation of psychic currency. Of course, this statistical evidence may run contrary to Zaads mission statement to 'Save the Earth' and is expected to be proven unethical in 40% of Zaadsters due to the sarcastic phrasing and implications of this message. Therefore expect all crumple zones to be excoriated into something rigid and intolerant of impact and structural abuse. For example, those Zaads trips you are currently brokering a-la Club Med via Zaads http://brian.zaadz.com/blog/2005/12/zaadz_business_model_aka_how_we_re_gonna_make_money. As a response to the BIG BIG BIG (REALLY BIG!) plan that Brian offers, we members of Happyland Design Team Inc. would like to offer 'completely gratis' a package for $2,399 which consists of airfare into Somalia or Ethiopia. Once there, tourists will have all of their credit cards removed, and achieve 'cash liberation' through Zaads close association with the political travel junta of the week. Those on the Zaads package tour will then wander the slums of these African villages and towns for two weeks to get the feel of the locals and soak up the atmosphere. Once the two week deadline is up, Zaadsters will go back to the airport, where they will be advised they must stay an additional two to ten days, a time when they can soak the rays and get some much needed sleep. Visiting the embassies of your local township is allowed, however; Zaads trusts that all members of the tour will abide by the honor system that is integral to Zaads mission to 'save the world' tour packages. Disclaimer: Due to rear impact issues, and the ability to run like a hypothetical chicken with it's head cut off when faced with adversity, we in the offices of HDT project the text of the link on Zaads definition of capitalism to change drastically or be deleted entirely. ***DICKENSINIAN CRUMPLE ZONES -- Zaadsters can hereby expect a visit from the world view ghosts of Sex, Drugs and Putrifaction in a bid to wrest complete anarchy into the collective unconscious of Brian Inc. However, the extremely ticked off ghost of Rock and Roll was unsubbed due to topic restrictions and refusing to modify naughty lyrics. As a last minute bid for solvency and a market edge, the official Zaads ghost of Rock and Roll will be played by the tuberculoric cough of Tiny Tim. -- SUMMATION OF ZAADS SAFETY OVERALL -- Zaads is a 100% safe. As a result of this rating, Zaads will accomplish none of it's stated goals and become one of the lesser lights in the world of the internet. The cult of personality that is Brian will struggle to achieve maybe fifty thousand members due to it's Starbucks marketing gimmick during a weak moment in Tribe's existence and like a jackal, Zaads will scurry from this injured elephant while Beta Lions and Hyenas continue to circle in for the kill. Brian, please try to keep all of this in mind once you Zaadster of the group hive get the site up and running. And as for those who are working on their own discussion sites, including the administrators of Tribe -- remember that you too have been warned. Thanks for your time, Mike C. Sales Tsar -- HDT Incorporated PS: Brian, please delete my Zaads account.</div> </article> <article> <h1>If the last blog was too hard to read</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:36:17 GMT</p> <div>Go here . . . http://gitmoland.blogspot.com/ It'll be easier on the eyes.</div> </article> <article> <h1>"New Tribe is It!"</h1> <p>Mike_C — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 23:48:53 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/983f04a5-10ff-4d5e-a23b-a9992a57f106"> </a> <div>Yes there are some big changes in tribe. Tribe has changed it's format to something that is in some ways not only ugly but worse than ugly, giving the participant a vanilla so inhumanly cruel on 'human' eyes that the eye cannot remain on the page long enough to recognize a difference between ugliness and beauty. Why would they do this? For answers, look at what happened to coca cola following the change in formula. The classic coke merchandising 'event' was essentially a version of the bait and switch reworked, a sort of bait and switch . . . and "switch" again. In the classic bait and switch, a mark is lured in with the promise of getting something for an ideal price only to have it changed to something else once there. Timeshares and Fitness Clubs often work this sort of gambit along with those mailers saying 'come pick up your prize' that were so prevalent in the 80's. In Coca-Cola's case, Coke in a 'bonehead' move switched it's formula to sweeten it as a response to Pepsi's taste-test ad campaign. The end result of this was a product so terrible that it caused unanimous revulsion, revulsion to a point where the mark is not only perfectly happy with the original product that they were previously overlooking, but clamoring to the point of threatening activism and boycotts. Given the period of protest and consumer loss, Coke's return to the original formula . . . essentially made the old thing 'new' again . . . but with important amendments. 'Coca Cola', no longer being sold as 'New Coke' or simply 'Coke'. As a result of the **failure**, 'Coca Cola' becomes 'Classic Coke' and the consumers express gratitude not only for having the old coke back; the consumer is empowered by the fact that their 'taste' and their grass roots campagn made a difference. As a sort of marketing guy myself, I can almost grin and think of the brilliance of such a campaign if it were applied to Tribe. Think about it. 'Coke' actually got free ads for new 'Classic Coke' from the scandal and the newness of the marketing campaign made Pepsi have to scramble for damage control and up their ad output to compensate for the shift in the cola war. Furthermore, the marketing formula (or marketing scam) could never be used again because it would immediatly get recognized as a scam and a manipulation of the consumer base. As an end result, Pepsi was fucked both coming and going: the ads for 'new coke', the backlash and the return to 'classic coke' being like what Reagan's Star Wars program did for the Russian Military even if they were throwing the money into junk. Throwing money into ads makes the competitors compete . . . but Pepsi's staying the course was ineffective at drawing the press. Bad decision making by Coca-Cola actually created the press, the bad jokes on late night talk shows transformed into constant TV time. The backlash actually became the 'free' advertising that won the day for Coca-Cola, with the end result forcing Pepsi to shift to youth marketing as a result of the damage. Tribe might be doing the same thing and they would be pretty cagey if this were so. In this case, it would be to hide the new formula already in existence. After all, the repression of community flagging and the new TOU phrasing *were* already a major change to the formula of Tribe. To take away from the more adult arguments on censorship, Tribe has changed the format to something that in blinding the eye would camoflague the content. Perfect! Then they will switch it back and all the dumb comments about successful 'beta' testing will go by the wayside and tribe will have their old tribe back with a new found solidarity within the 'classic' formula of community flagging and perpetual license. But then I looked again, really looked at the layout, and thought as a marketer. Then listened a while to the comments being posted by designers . . . and my smile turned upside down. Soon I knew from looking at the format that this was not about pleasing the old tribe consumers at all. It actually isn't even about bringing in new people to post entries on threads. In fact, there will be no switch back to the old product at all because Elliot the designer didn't actually fuck it up. Elliot was simply following the orders given by a philosophical shift in management. In the old tribe format, you could insert ads into the threads and they would basically be ignored because the format was so bordered and sectioned out. Even without 'Mozilla', the average person could screen out the ads because they were blocks that were distinctive enough from the content of the threads. The design drew the eye to the threads because the old format made that content a priority. The **new** tribe format has no lines to draw the attention of the eye because it was specifically designed that way. The text is small and runs the entire length of the page because it 'is' hard to see. If your eye follows the line of text from one entire expanse of white to the other, you end up finding the only lines on the page, which are the 'ads'. The actual 'pain' of the white screen is to draw the eye to all parts of it for a relief, for any darker fields and since the color of the text blends in with the white . . . the eye is once again drawn to where there are lines and color, the only place being the 'ads'. Amount of clickthru from one step to another again exposes the viewer to more 'ads'. Essentially what you are seeing is a captive market strategy tested to it's limit. Tribe relies on participation from it's members and the exhilirating feeling that such exhibitionism creates. In this new format, Tribe is dimming the lights down on the exhibitionism of the text (you the members) by brightening everything up to a torturous level and removing all contrast. Everything as a result is now exhibited equally -- except for the ads. The market is still participatory and as such, will bring in a new audience to post and watch the response but here is where the dividing line will be between old tribe members and new ones. New tribe members will hook up and buy because they have no other choice. This is the prototype for 'all' new chat room formats because it is a 'smart' way to sell ads and clickthroughs. Expect similar changes across the board from Friendster to Orkut as a result. Old tribe members will learn from this experience and their protests and these threads (including this one) that participation doesn't necessarily mean making a difference or getting to the truth at the heart of an argument. Their participation will still be there but it will drop off. Resistance will become more evenly toned, and the brightness of the thoughts expressed will be dimmed not only in color and contrast; but in taste and philosophy. The gambit is this . . . if there are more looks at the ads then the strategy wins. If there are less looks due to customers eyes rebelling against the design, then it will fail. Less looks are actually incorporated into the model and probably was the only thing gauged during the beta test. In this case, less logins probably equaled the same number of looks at the ads so Tribe Inc proceeded with the change (despite 90% disapproval from members) Again, this is not to detract from the arguments against the wording of the new TOU or community flagging. The changes were not made with the participant in threads or the audience in mind. The only reason the changes were made was to sell more ads. So in conclusion, yes the new format of tribe sucks and it sucks for all the design flaws listed above. But to clarify beyond just insult to the designers, it's the reasoning behind the change that sucks beyond all measure.</div> </article> <article> <h1>Paragraph 5 of TOU -- watch for copyright violations</h1> <p>Mike_C — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 23:14:15 GMT</p> <a href="http://people.tribe.net/mike_c/blog/30bed5c6-ecb7-476d-9f36-c3b22edda457"> </a> <div>This blog entry is going through revisions as the debate rages. If some of it has the feel of being incomplete -- you're right. The source of all the trouble resides in changes to the wording of Paragraph 5 of the Tribe 'Terms of Use' (TOU), revised 12/20/05 >>We do not claim ownership of the content you post or otherwise provide to the Service. However, you hereby grant, and agree to grant as an effect of posting or otherwise providing content, the following license: to the public, a license for personal non-commercial use; and to Tribe, a perpetual license to use, copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify any and all content that you post on the Service. You represent and warrant that you have not granted and will not grant any rights inconsistent with this license." So now that tribe has reorganized the TOU, one has to start to wonder how ownership is redefined according to the contract, or more succinctly: what is ownership worth? From this, it is simply that ownership is only worth the amount of effort which you put in to defend it. The artist won't defend it. If they do, they are no longer an artist as inspiration becomes tied up with struggle. Art becomes conflict. The only way to properly defend against the policy is to withdraw from the forum. Will this reveal what is missing from Tribe. Probably not immediatly. In the long run -- perhaps. As a small effort, before redundancy takes over, I should say that there are several problems with this clause in the TOU (besides the fact that it will keep artists and writers from advertising their work). Some of the loopholes I have found in the contract. 1. Any alt can come on in and post work that may be copyrighted and anyone on Tribe Inc. can come in here and capitalize on 'modifying or performing' said work -- all without the say of the original author until that author discovers said content in a commercial or the cineplex. The way the clause is worded, any fool or script reader in Hollywood can post copyrighted material through tribe as a way to launder content and liability. 2. The clause needs to have a 'specific date' on it so that material posted before it went into effect has 'grandfathered' protection from modification or performance. Tribe members, alts or agents of tribe members must have the right to delete any posts or halt usage on materials submitted prior to the change in TOU, otherwise Tribe Inc. is opening itself to all sorts of potential liability. 3. Rights to distribute should be electronic rights only since this is the medium that Tribe currently uses. All other forms should be off limits. Also postings should be given 'one time rights' only with the content reverting back to author once the post is made. These three are suggested to limit the liability and potential lawsuits that Tribe may receive in modifying or performing (ie. using) copyrighted material. All of these potential situations should be taken into account when you revise Paragraph 5. A possible schematic to look into can be found here if you're looking for a base (for tribe or your own website). http://creativecommons.org/text/ In the meantime, it's best to stay informed of changes at Tribe and make sure all bases are covered. If you have work posted in Tribe that you want to retain ownership on, it's best that you remove the content. If the work is hidden within threads, talk to the moderator of the tribe and odds are they will remove it. If you aren't up to date, the odds are you might be in for a rude awakening.</div> </article> </main></body></html>