bbot's blog

Continuing the theme of blocks of text written by someone else, these rants by Brian Clevinger, author of the celebrated 8-bit Theater, among other things. Lacking a proper, civilized blog, he instead utilizes the commentary space after each comic to rant at length. Discard the comic, which, shorn of context, can only baffle; and instead feast upon the bile beneath. Here, he speaks at length of a Sandwich.

If you ever have the misfortune to eat at the Home Turf Sports Grill at the Cleveland Airport, do not, under any circumstances, order the Roasted Turkey Sandwich.

I'm serious.

If there is a gun cutting grooves into the skin of your temple, take your chances with the bullet. Your skull may very well deflect it. If the safety of loved ones hangs in the balance, make what final peace with them as you can.

[...]

The sandwich, I'm saying, was something of a let down. But at least it was accompanied by a pile of hot fries. Fries that were, unfortunately, made without flavor. But that's fine, because there's ketchup. But, no, somehow that served to bring out what can only be described as an anti-flavor -- an experience mathematically identical to ordinary flavor moving backward through time.

But, at least, there would be one final refuge -- a glass of Coke to obliterate all evidence of the culinary disaster. Coke is effectively industrial cleaner with a pound of sugar mixed in, so it was more than up to the task. This place had already proven beyond all doubt how incredibly cheap and half-assed it was. There's no way they actually have their own fountains. No, Home Turf just pours you half a can and charges you quadruple the price of the whole thing. Coke in this form is as fundamental a particle as one may find even within the codified strata of franchise dining. A Coke on the moon is a Coke in Florida is a Coke in Cleveland. One need merely to pour it and gravity does this part for you.

There is, in short, no way to ruin a Coke.

Unless you pour a Diet Coke.

Here, he remarks upon the habits of Roofers.

Do they cull roofers from asylums? "Doctor, I need a score of men who fear silence like the reaper himself. Silence is to be a bane to them. Their tormented souls should only know peace whilst enthralled in the most tumultuous of dins. The Big Bang itself should be as a pin dropping when these men go to work. Supply me with a rabble of such mad fiends and your rewards will pale all the riches of Earth and heaven!"

Brian and Jerry have probably influenced my writing more than is healthy.

Paul Graham writes some pretty wacky stuff, but sometimes he gets it exactly right.

One of the most remarkable things about the way we lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is. All adults know what their culture lies to kids about: they're the questions you answer "Ask your parents." If a kid asked you who won the World Series in 1982 or what the atomic weight of carbon was, you could just tell him. But if a kid asks you "Is there a God?" or "What's a prostitute?" you'll probably say "Ask your parents."

The conspiracy is so thorough that most kids who discover it do so only by discovering internal contradictions in what they're told. It can be traumatic for the ones who wake up during the operation. Here's what happened to Einstein:

"Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies: it was a crushing impression."

Looks like the OLPC project is busy collapsing into a giant, fiery ruin.

In retrospect, of course, the progression was obvious. At first, you heard all sorts of great things about how innovative it was, and how it was going to change the world. Then they started hemorrhaging people, and Nicholas began acting increasingly bizarrely. Oh well.

I have been waiting for a second generation cheapbook for quite a while, money in hand, be it an Atom-based eee pc or the next generation OLPC, but it looks like we won't be seeing another laptop out of the OLPC crew. Progress marches on however, and the cheapbook industry is by no means dead. Not Long Now.