Just because.

Please watch this:



And read this:

'Muslims & Buddhists: Get Out!' Says Preacher Applauded by Santorum

Then said country decided to build a big highway system. It cost a ton, but it connected the country and enabled both commercial and private transit on an unprecedented scale. Commerce boomed, industry boomed, personal freedom of travel boomed. As with anything, there were bad effects mixed with good -- certain shipping industries suffered, populations and land values shifted, some communities were disrupted (becasue they were in the way, or because people left for newly accessible locations), carbon emmissions were increased (though it was still not the major cause of such) and a lot of people now  needed cars because they lived in communities accessible only by the highways. But for those interested in freedom of transportation, it was on balance pretty much win. 

[Aside: This actually happened!]

Fast-forward fifty years. Someone notices that the highway system near him, due to the way it was engineered, takes a tortuous route to get to his favored shopping center. Hell, he thinks, if I could just drive straight there instead of having to stay on the paved roads, it would take only half the time. He begins railing to anyone who'll listen that the highways are an infringement on his constitutional freedom to travel, that we should all just have ATVs and make our ruggedly individual way where we want to go -- and we could all afford them, too, if we weren't paying for this bloated highway system.

A lot of do people listen, because who hasn't fantasized, sitting in traffic, about cutting across the divider and going wherever the hell you want?

Over the next 30 years, the growing anti-highway movement manages to continually restrict funding for the highways. The highways start to fall apart, which the anti-highway movement points to as further evidence of the failure of the highways -- why, they say, we can keep our local streets in better repair than this! (And to those whose local streets are in even worse repair, they say that this is because of all the money being wasted on the highways.)

When the highways are at last reduced to decrepit, hard-to-use eyesores rotting across the country, and people are free to tear up the countriside in private tanks that cost a fortune in rapidly-dwindling gasoline, they are pointed to one last time as the great failure of cenrtalized transportation management. 


Whattaya think?

OP: "Hey, I just got the new Teleportrix X3, and I love it, but I notice there's a minimum range of 20 miles. I want to use it to get some milk from the supermarket a mile away. I used to do that with my old Teleportrix Mundane all the time, why did they put in a minimum? Is there a workaround/way to change the setting?"

Commenter #1: "Well, the X3 it has a minimum range, but it has unlimited maximum range. Easily worth the trade-off, IMO! :)"

OP: "Yes, it's a great feature, but I still need to get to the supermarket a mile away. Why did they put in a minimum range? I don't see what the one has to do with the other."

Commenter #2: "But with the unlimited range, you can go to Wisconsin for your milk!"

OP: "I really just want to go to my local supermarket."

C#1: "Why are you afraid of teleporting long distances? Maybe you'd feel better teleporting in a tin foil hat! :P"

OP: "I'm not afraid of teleporting long distances. I love the unlimited range feature. But I'd also like to be able to teleport to my local supermarket. Isn't there any way to change the setting?"

C#2: "This post makes no sense. Why would you buy an X3 when all you want to do is teleport a mile away?"

OP: "I don't just want to teleport a mile away. I teleport to my job on the other coast three times a week, and I visit my family in Toronto several times a month. Plus, sometimes I like to go ot the Grand Canyon for a few hours. But I'd also like to go to my local supermarket. I honestly don't understand why they took my ability to do so away. It makes no sense."

C#2: "Well I seriously doubt anyone put a gun to your head and made you buy the X3. The minimum range was right there in the end-user agreement. It's ridiculous to expect Teleportrix to put in every trivial feature ever user anywhere asks for."

C#1: "What's your problem with Wisconsin? They have enough troubles right now."

OP: "No one put a gun to my head. And I like the X3. I like the unlimited range, and the attractive case. But I'm not asking them to include a feature, I'm asking why they took away a function that had always been there. In fact, I'm not even asking that, I'm just looking for a way to go to the supermarket."

Commenter #3: "Why don't you just use your old Mundane for your supermarket and the X3 for everything else?"

OP: "Thanks, but I have limited space in my apartment, and would rather just have one teleporter that can take me where I want to go. Especially since I see no reason the minimum range was ever added in the first place!!"

C#3: "Well you don't have to bite my head off. Lot of luck finding help with that attitude!"

C#1: "Yeah, why are you even on an X3 forum if you hate the X3 so much? Fucking troll."

 She doesn’t think she’s beautiful,
except on the very best of days
when a threesome of accomplishment,
compliment and endorphins
gives her courage to look into the mirror without filters.
She’ll admit to sexy, grudgingly,
if bolstered by makeup and corsets
and other accessories.
But anyone can be sexy, she reasons madly,
and sets the stage for the jest that's to come.

It’s not much of a stage; just a box
about yae tall by wide by deep,
but she gains it, and confidence follows
though she doesn't admit why
(what the box is and she’s become).
But then the goddess plays her joke,
and slides around her,
visible to all but the one she rides;
the priestess gogos on,
blind to the divine radiance
that blinds in turn all who watch
and worship at her tiny altar.

Across the room dance the elegant dolls
against whom she measures
and finds herself wanting,
regardless of the hungry eyes
that turn from them to her
to sate themselves on her porcelain curves.
From behind her eyes, the goddess winks,
and we share the tragic comedy of this madness:
that she knows what effect she has
when she dances, when she breathes,
when she leans
to place her perfect, painted mouth
by an ear to speak over the music.
She knows full well what that does,
and takes some pleasure,
but feels she’s played a clever trick.
(A trick of delight.)
They don’t know what she really is,
she tells herself
(and the irony stuns small birds for miles).

When the night's done, she steps down,
the goddess withdraws
(just enough that we can look away),
and she goes back to her image of herself.
She checks her mail, and messages, and posts,
and finds among them this.
She dares suspect this paean is to her
but takes refuge in silly modesty
until she reads one more line
and sees what the clever boy did there;
then she admits, and smiles.

 Okay, this needs some talking about. You've probably all read the case of the Texas cheerleader who was removed from the team for refusing to cheer her rapist, and that it the school's action was upheld in court. You've probably also read that last month she was ordered to pay the school's legal fees.

Most people reading this know me. You know I'm a feminist, a big anti-rape person, and a rabid fan of free speech. You know I'm aware of the rampant blaming of the victim and physical and political violence against women.

But people need to find another cause. Because this is not a case of that.

I posted it on my Facebook initially, decrying it like everyone else. it didn't help that it was Texas. But recently I had to take a closer look, because sometimes passion really is not better than reason. Here's what I noticed:

1) The girl was not "forced to cheer"; she was voluntarily a cheerleader, and the job of a cheerleader is to cheer the school's team. As far as I have read (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the school did not attempt to "silence" her in any other way.

2) Her rapist was a part of the school's team and, at the time -- and this is key -- had not been convicted of ANYTHING.

3) As a cheerleader, in uniform, at a game, she was literally a mouthpiece of the school. For her to refuse to cheer him was tantamount to the school expressing its opinion of his guilt.

The school, as far as I've read (and please correct me if I'm wrong) made no effort to silence the girl other than removing her from cheerleading duties after she refused to cheer for that one student (and understandably so).

Now. What in your opinion SHOULD the school do in such a situation? Allow a student to -- in an official school position, mind you, as much as if she were writing for the school paper -- express a yet-unproven charge against another student? I really don't think so.

One does not have a right to be a cheerleader; I see no grounds for a lawsuit, and that's what the court said. So the school was not required to pay the $35,000 in legal fees, and, if they -- as I maintain above -- did not act wrongly, why should they?

Now people are jumping all over this in the same knee-jerk fashion that I originally did. But it's a bad idea. They're foaming at the mouth about an imaginary injustice, saying things like "She should take it to a higher court!" when that would only find the same way and get her further into debt.

Time is illusory. Therefore, so is continuity.

That seems to be the Taoist, or sometimes Buddhist (the dubbing kind of switches back and forth) lesson to be learned from Shaolin vs. Evil Dead and it's -- sequel? Prequel? I'm not quite sure -- Shaolin vs. Evil Dead: Ultimate Power!

(For the form's sake, I'm including this warning that there will be spoilers, but I honestly can't recommend highly enough your not caring.)

Shaolin vs. Evil Dead actually doesn't start out bad. We open on some (presumably) Evil Dead, hopping menacingly toward a house of frightened... householders. (Chinese vampires, for those of you not in the know, traditionally hop. It's a whole subgenre.) However, almost immediately, we have the cultural rug pulled out from under us, and are switched to a scene of similar-looking but docile hopping undead (called "zombies", and acting a bit like them) under the control of a monk. We discover that

A) he's considerately leading them back to their graves so they can rest in peace
B) they’re hopping because he makes them do that so they won't cause trouble (though they seem to be under his direct control and stand around like cordwood when not doing anything else, so what’s the point?)
C) the classic zombie pose, arms outstretched, is also the priest’s doing, so they won’t bump into the ones in front of them
and
D) the priest has until now left his two bumbling assistants/acolytes/novices/whatever/sidekicks completely in the dark as to what he does and why, apparently so that they can have clumsy expository dialogue in the opening scene (which is how we learned B and C).

Okay, so far so good. The basics are covered: Evil (or at least unpleasant) Dead, and what is clearly a Shaolin monk.

Except that it soon becomes clear that Shaolin Temple has nothing to do with this. In fact, the priest, as has been indicated, spends the majority of his time as a Taoist, though he does significant Buddhist duty as well. (Presumably he got his Wiccan phase over with in high school.)

It doesn’t take long for the bumbling sidekicks (one a grown man, one a kid) to scare up trouble (see what I did there?) with their characteristically buffoonish insistance on eating. (Notice how action heroes, east or west, are seldom hungry. They seem to eat only out of grim logical necessity.) They find a restaurant and start gulping down noodles; only the priest’s tingling Tao Sense (which, honestly, kind of make sense) alerts him to something wrong. An incantation shows him the true nature of the haunted village; the other diners are rotting ambulatory corpses! And the Bumbling Sidekicks (hereafter refered to as “BSes” to avoid wear and tear on my keyboard) are eating not noodles, but… worms!

Our heroes are immediately Heisenberged, as the zombies immediately launch a shambling assault; though capable of at least rudimentary kung fu, they still move at a snail’s pace. Also, the illusion of warm, maintained earth tones fades to an appropriate creepy greenish-blue. Looks like there are Evil Dead after all.

They try to settle this with good old fashioned kung fu -- and the action’s not bad -- but they soon need ot start using ore magic, sucking otheir sould out with magic “soul egg” stones. In classic zombie fashioned, though, they’re overwhelmed by endless waves of undead, until they’re saved by two mysterious figures in black, who do the ame sort of kung fu/soul egg stuff, only at Vampire Lestat speeds.

The two are only mysterious for about a minute because as soon as the underad are eliminated, the priest (who, incidentally, wears awhite) refers to the newcomer as “brother” and admonishes him for having “tortured” the souls he collected. (I didn’t see a lot of difference in technique, except that he did it at range.) It’s made clear that “brother” is not just a term for another monk, because the stranger bristles at the term and makes it clear that he’s some sort of prodigal son, and all full of teenagey bitterness about having been passed over as head of the clan, blah blah.

Man in black (MIB) is, in fact, one of the better characters at this point. He has a terrific bad-guy face: handsome and brooding, streaks of gray in his hair, with a villain beard and awesome scowl. Hi black outfit is cool, in the best kung fu movie tradition. He, of course, has a non-bumbling sidekick (No-BS), who happens to be a good-looking female in a similarly ornate outfit. Anyway, he makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the good duys, who he then spends the rest of the movie following around.

The movie kind of meanders plot-wise after this, as we’re shown multiple examples of the priest laying the dead to rest and freeingtheir sould for reincarnation, and the counterpoint of the bad guys being awesome but, well, bad guys, the man in black getting crueller and crueller while his No-BS seems to get increasingly uncomfortable with this but stays with her master anyway.

Sidekick subplots provide some distraction: an amusing one where the kid gets possessed from having swallowed a spirit egg, and attempts to hide this from his master (which seems kind of like a doctor’s assistant getting a nasty infection and going to great lengths to hide it from the doctor), and a less amusing star-crossed lover story between the No-BS and the adult BS.

It isn’t long before the MIB to have his Kick the Dog Moment, summoning a spirit that just wanted to be laid to rest, so he can publicly kill it to impress some villagers, then control the village kids with magic. Fortuntely our priest reveals his bad-guyness (followed by a cool, if not particularly sensible scene of kid-on-kid violence in magic kung-fu chess) and the village turns their back on him.

Things go predictably bad when the bad-guy steals a treasured gem from the village, thereby releasing a super-powerful demon, which he temporarily seals away. Eventually it breaks loose starts killing people, and comes after him for the stone that had imprisoned it. (I don’t get that part. Were I him, I’d want that stone as far from me as possible. But whatever drives the plot at this point.)

Shit really hits the fan when the badass MIB becomes posessed by the badder-ass demon, becoming an Ultra Badass Big Bad that all the heroes, with the No-BS (who we know by now is really a good guy in her heart, just the victim of misguided loyalty) have to fight.

So they start to fight, and… the movie ends.

Wha? Yes. Out of nowhere, actiuon stops and credits start rolling.

But that’s okay, you figure, because right behind it is Shaolin vs. Evil Dead: Ultimate Power! Clearly the Ultra Badass Big Bad (UBBB) is the Ultimate Power in question, and the movie will pick up where the first left off. That is entirely reasonable, and completely wrong.

In fact, Ultimate Power seems to be a prequel, and spends the first 10 minutes dealing with MIB’s heroic kung-fu master parents. One thing I immediately noticed was a distinct lack of Evil Dead. Or dead of any kind, except the regular sort of dead that happens when people kill one another. It seems the mother is pregnant when poisoned by a throwaway over-the-top villainess. She sacrifices her life to give birth to their son, but we learn the baby is still carrying the poison -- apparently a moral poison, which may turn him evil – which may cause it to grow up evil.

The father overcomes his own poison via a potion, long enogh to raise the child (which makes me wonder why he needed to have been poisoned in the first place), and teach him his “Ice Heart” technique, which might allow the son to overcome the poison in his beins… somehow (we don’t know, because it’s never mentioned again until the very end).

The child is put in the care of the who is kid version of the good-guy priest from the first movie, who is admonished to treat him as a brother.

Unfortunately, all the kidness and wisdom doesn’t take, and the MIB is revealed to have been pretty much an asshole from the beginning. There’s a sort of the Anakin/Obi-Wan thing, only if Anakin’s childhood were never shown and he were always a complete prick who never had any respect for Jedi wisdom, and Obi-Wan were really, really wishy-washy.

Since we already know what happens – the MIB is passed over for leadership of the clan in favor of the priest, and leaves all butthurt – it is unnecessary to draw it out over the next hour, but we’ve got a movie to fill. When he finally leaves, he steals the clan’s treaures, including the map to the hidden Magic Sword, which, in combination with the clans unhidden Magic Sword, will make him super-powerful. With those, he then starts killing the leaders of all the other clans, for no discernable reason (there’s a suggestion it’s to start a war with his old clan, but that doesn’t seem to happen). The priest, meanwhile, has gone into seclusion to learn the clan’s Code of Leadership, which is apparently something he’ll need in order to keep the MIB from ruining everything. (Really? You’re already in a monastery. How much more seclusion do you need?)

Now’s where it starts to get weirder. In the first movie, I got the idea that the MIB was steadily progressing down the path of darkness to the point of irredeemability, but in this he goes Vader right from the get-go, summoning spirits of darkness to make him super-powerful (which involves a pretty cool makeup job that makes him look rather panther-like).

While he’s doing this, the priest has worked out that he can use five elemental stones to make a magic tower that might cure his brother of the poison. He makes that, and figures his “brother” will show up. Which he does, pretty much right then. Apparently he happened to be in the neighborhood.

They set up the magic tower and start “fighting” – apparently their spirits are pulled into other, elemental planes, because their bodies just stand there. The elemental planes are, for the most part, well disigned, wit minimal CGI (good, because it sucks where used) -- apparently when one or the other wins, they move to the next plane.

Priest and MIB seem to be evenly matched. This is where the Ice Heart finally comes into play, and turns out to be rather literal: the priest freezes the bestial MIB in a huge block of ice. He then somehow sets the MIB’s true self free, and he comes out without makeup and fangs, though they move to the next plane and continue fighting anyway.

Unfortunately, MIB’s power play seems to have had the side effect of waking up a graveyard full of hopping vampires -- in the same scene that opened the first movie!  These converge on the tower from all directions, with only the adult BS to fight them off. Fortunately, he’s already been imbued with the priest’s power – which you can apparently hand off like a set of keys – so he can do cool stuff like multiply himself. Note that this iis pretty much all the Evil Dead we see in this movie.

Now in what seems to be the Plane of Wood, the MIB still won’t listen to reason, so the priest pulls out his trump card. Which is basically a note form the MIB’s father saying “Aggression achieves nothing. Life and death are one.” Now, I can’t believe the father never said this before, but for some reason, the MIB totally gets it this time, and becomes a good guy again, and agrees to team up to fight his “evil self” that’s trapped in the ice. Which conveniently, at that moment, breaks free and enters their plane as a giant phallic wood pole that drives MIB through the floor.

Back in the real world, the No-BS (who’se gotten an Evil Hottie makeover with skimpier outfit) joins the vampires in attacking the BS. Not sure why; looks a bit like she’s being magically controlled. This seems to be borne out when BS blasts her with a forehead bolt in the way the priest did to imbue him with his priest powers, only to have her wake up and start fighting on his side.

Back in the alternate plane, the priest and now-good MIB are fighting the phallic log containing the evil self, which is carrying the MIB downward. They get the brilliant idea to break it open the log, instead of simply getting off of it and letting it plummet downward. Well, they musty know something. So they both break it open, and causality along with it.

The evil self come out, and looks to be… the demon from the end of the first movie! You know, the one that hasn’t happened yet? It re-possesses the MIB (guess he didn't make his exorcism payments, hahaha!), making him the UBBB again, just as the vampires bring down the magical tower by throwing themselves at it like it’s a giant bug-zapper. The UBB now takes th stone he was looking for at the end of the first movie (which, again, has not happened yet) and apparently becomes unstoppable, heralding the end of the world. Priest says, “We’ll need a miracle!” when, lo and behold, a metor appears in the sky.

The priest has just enough time to get the BS and No-BS tied to a floating paper lantern, which carries them sto safety (apparently he supercharges it) just as the meteor strikes, turning priest, UBBB, and vampires into ashed.

Cut to the BS and No-BS waking up on some grass as the credits start to roll.

The kid BS has been nowhere to be seen this whole movie, presumably because they haven’t run into him yet. Which apparently now they never will, because the main characters are dead.

Now, there are a number of ways you can go in a time travel plot. You can do the Heinlein thing where you can’t change the past because you didn’t. You can do a Butterfly Effect, where you go back, then return to where you left off, only to discover the results of your actions upon history. You can to the Back to the Future, where you can change the past and then have to put it right to avoid paradox. You can do a Terminator, where you go back into the past, only, and you can change it from that point on, and somehow causality is never a problem.

This case would seem like one of those last, except for one thing: It’s NOT A TIME TRAVEL MOVIE! There is NO apparent reason for the demon at the end of the first movie to appear where and when it does, much less to do something that would keep it from ever having been released.

So. You’ll have a fun time if you can ignore little things like this (or if, like me, you enjoy things like this). I’ve also read that the dubbing and subtitles don’t match; I didn’t have access to the subtitles, so I wouldn’t know for sure, but it sounds likely.

A friend in Portland, OR had posted a Facebook meme. ""I want you to lie about how you met me and post it here.That's right. Just make stuff up...and make it good."


 I hadn't been doing burlesque for long, but one of the people who'd gotten me into the scene was doing a tour of the PNW, and convinced me to come along, have fun. I was just expecting to follow her around to shows, meet some people, have some beers.

I guess in the back of my mind, I fantasized that one of the scheduled performers wouldn't make it (would I have really brought my sequined speedos "just for rehearsal"?), but I didn't think it would actually happen. I guess it was Fate that Fanny Tastic suffered that horrible body-glitter reaction right after my third Cuervo; had it been sooner, I'd never have offered to take her place.

It was a tough crowd; other than my music, there were only my friend's obligatory hoots and whistles to be heard. I almost cracked and fled the stage. My fault, I guess, for deciding on a Klaus Nomi-themed act set to Venus in Furs for my debut number (I'd naively thought that the addition of ostrich feathers would mainstream it enough).

And then I spotted you. Alone in the sea of faces, your wry grin, the glint in your eyes, told me that you'd gotten it. Suddenly, the whole banal world didn't matter. Suddenly, I one with Klaus. And Venus.

My art vindicated, I never needed to get on stage again.

1) It's official: Labyrinth > The Dark Crystal

2) Always carry your own Cuervo, because if there's one drink they don't have, that will be it.*

3) When I pay $25 to see something, I am capable of being whatever orientation I have to be at a given moment to get my money's worth.

4) So THAT'S the connection between the cowardly lion and the A Team theme.

5) I have a deep-seated aversion to wearing out my welcome, to the point where it;s often a struggle to hang around for more than pleasantries. The more people are around, the greater the impulse to leave so they can get on with their business.

* So far this has never applied to Lucky 13 Saloon... but watch for a knife switch.

Went running today. Didn't go as far as I'd have liked. Had two moments when I thought I might have pushed a little too far too fast, and the second time I listened. Alright. i'll get back into it over the next week. Didn't eat overly unhealthily either, though I could have done mroe from the veggie end of the spectrum. I still have to go to the park to gt a new rec center membership, but they're closed tomorrow. Maybe I can go Monday, though I really do have to get to the DMV as well. (Lost my wallet Christmas-Eve Eve).

Didn't drink any tequila today, but the goal was just "more" not a daily intake.

And now I'm writing. I don't know if this will take 10 minutes, but it'll come close.

So I introduced the girls to roleplaying games today. "Storytelling game" I called it (didn'y use dice or a system). I had them each come up with a list of three elements they wanted in the story:


GRACE:
Dragons
Kids
Spirits

EVE:
One world full of pink
One world full of purple
Spirits

So I had them play themselves, set it in their school, and then swiped a bit off of X *(from Clamp), and has two sets of dragon spirits -- pink dragons from the pink world, purple from the purple world -- coming through to our world and fighting over it. The thing it, they're possessing the bodies of Grace and Eve's classmates -- they can only manifest their dragon forms when sensitive people (Grace and Eve) are present, and not at all when anyone else is (except one another).

They started out bored, as the game was basically them being in school, and they get enough of that. After I got to the part where the pink dragons had explained that they were inhabiting their friends bodies, and more or less threatening them into siding with them, I cut it off -- at 11:30, eek! -- and they whined and begged me not to stop.

They hate cliffhangers of any sort. Ha!

Also gave me the opportunity to make fun of their teachers and school administration, which we all appreciated.

Ugh. Gotta hit Kinkos and army-navy surplus tomorrow. Night, all.