“GOOD GOD, MAN — WHAT HAPPENED?” “Well, I was on the freeway, and my car stalled right in front of a hurtling semi. Fortunately, the orchestra changed tunes at exactly that moment and distracted everyone.” “What orchestra?” “See?”
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Aside
HAPPY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR APPRECIATION DAY! In our case, that would be those wonderful folks at sonic.net, whose founders we’ve known since they built Santa Rosa Junior College’s first dialup Internet host as a class project in 1993ish and without whom there’d be no The Metaphorager (among others). O Gallant Knights of the Cables Etheric, Slayers of Spam and Kibitzers of Kludge; Nobly-born Fighters Against Tedium, Keepers of the Causeways Electronic and Guardians of the Never-Ending Taskmasters. (szhhhhwip) I salute you. Keep the toasters flying!
Rethinking “Privacy”
RECENTLY, ONE OF MY FAVORITE blogs switched their commenting software from one which featured anonymous “handles” to one which can also link readers under their real names. It has caused me to rethink what I thought I took for granted…
What I Stand, For
HAVING JUST RECEIVED ORDERS FROM Fearless Leader to define my principles in 106 characters or less and then disperse them yea seedlike to the multitudes, I replied as follows: Clearer thinking. Don’t litter. Say “please” and “thank you” and mean…
Huh.
THIS IS ONE OF THOSE blog posts where the writer tries to predict, dreads to inspire, hopes to distance himself, and wonders if.
When The Troll Sweats, Bottle It
IN THE STARS MY DESTINATION, Alfred Bester imagines a world peopled (in part) by a cast-off group of future savages who chant scientific formulae during their religious rituals. “Quant Suff!” they chant, in abbreviated imitation of “sufficient quantity.” “Quant Suff!”…
The Color Of Metaphor
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT (in addition to these words) is, according to thecolorof.com‘s rendering engine (still in beta!), the color of “metaphor.” (The color of “metaphorager” is, alas, invisible to normal eyes.) The website evidently layers keyworded images into…
Ol’ Thinkypants’ Question For The Producers
“WHEN DID ART BEGIN TO be about purging one’s personal demons instead of making people smile, wonder or otherwise get over themselves?”
Am “I” The Only One?
IN THIS ELECTRONIC ME-FIRST age, it is both rare and a point of honor never to begin a blog post with “I.” (Nitpickery note: I mean the word and concept, not the letter. Yeesh.) Not that I’m not tempted —…
Aside
YESTERDAY, I POSTED A COMMENT to BoingBoing asking people to “Google ‘deconstructionist face-bullhorn’ (for) … where I stand on the whole horned-rim/hornrimmed/modern-equivalent-of-John-Lennon’s frames issue.” So far, 22 people have. Whee! (This post’s title is taken from a phenomenon well-known to after-hours Renaissance Pleasure Faire folk, whereby those standing at the bottom of the little valley need only howl once to provoke a full-throated choral reply from a horde of unseen collegial up-valleyites. And it never failed.)
Slake The Bitterness
FOR MY NEXT TRICK, I will attempt to adapt 1st-century Judaism for 21st-century Americans. Yesterday, the 17th of Tammuz, marked the 1,941st anniversary of the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Romans (and the 2,597th anniversary of the same action…
Why “Carmageddon” Didn’t Happen
THEY SHOULD HAVE CALLED IT “Carpocalypse.” %$#@!ing publicists.