ABC admits that the television coverage of Howard Dean around Iowa-time was basically bullshit. And that Diane Sawyer is a soulless clockwork whore.
Gee whiz, I never would have suspected that. Not even a little bit. Not at all. Television, distorting and misrepresenting? You jest, sir or madam (as the case may be). Or so I would have said to you, right up until this here very moment right now, when my faith in the truthful healing power of television was forever shattered. I am a scarred man.
(That was sarcasm.)
It's just a shame they didn't, you know, bother mentioning this before New Hampshire.
Wait...This can't possibly be real. This is some kind of bizarre joke? Right?
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
But whitehouse.gov...The domain doesn't lie...
Yeah. This is just damned weird. Damned, damned weird.
He's high, isn't he? I would swear blind the only rational explanation is that Bush is high as a freaking kite in this.
THE PRESIDENT: I need some ribs.Q Mr. President, how are you?
THE PRESIDENT: I'm hungry and I'm going to order some ribs.
Q What would you like?
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever you think I'd like.
Q Sir, on homeland security, critics would say you simply haven't spent enough to keep the country secure.
THE PRESIDENT: My job is to secure the homeland and that's exactly what we're going to do. But I'm here to take somebody's order. That would be you, Stretch -- what would you like? Put some of your high-priced money right here to try to help the local economy. You get paid a lot of money, you ought to be buying some food here. It's part of how the economy grows. You've got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?
Q Right behind you, whatever you order.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm ordering ribs. David, do you need a rib?
Q But Mr. President --
THE PRESIDENT: Stretch, thank you, this is not a press conference. This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady's business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?
Q Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?
Q Ribs.
THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.
Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?
Q An answer.
Q Can we buy some questions?
THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people -- they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.
Q Do you think it's all going to come down to national security, sir, this election?
THE PRESIDENT: One of the things David does, he asks a lot of questions, and they're good, generally.
(Via one of these guys.)
First, entertainment: dead whales can and do explode. Watch yourself. Oh! I know! Perhaps all those weapons of mass destruction that aren't in Iraq are hidden inside the bodies of sea mammals! On Mars! Yeah...That has to be it.
Second, a pointless observation: I'm thankful that I wasn't born in the Middle Ages. If I'd lived past infancy, I probably would've become a monk. The constant sodomy would've been okay, but how much would it have sucked when the Church finally set me on fire? A lot. That's how much.
Third, despair. Teflon Tony is still Prime Minister of the UK, the Hutton Report was a tremendous let-down, and, as the Flaming Lips sang, evil will prevail. It's hard to imagine a lamer and more unsatisfying end to the inquiry...Once again it's all lick, lick, lick the testicles of the Powerful. Authority figures should never be given the benefit of the doubt. They should be relentlessly criticised and second-guessed and suspected at all times. Or else they'll squash us like bugs. Hutton should've gotten at least a little crosser with the government; gosh knows there are grounds enough and then some. But no. No, no. All we get is that insufferably assy jackass Alastair Campbell strutting around like a giant cock ejaculating insufferably assy smugness everywhere he goes. Oo, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
So good old authoritarian Tony Blair still reigns with his iron fist, and iron heel, and other iron things as well, except for his heart, which is very much not iron but weak and frail flesh, now clotted and sick with his accumulated evil and no doubt soon to explode much like that poor whale.
Not that the US looks any rosier right now. We are still living on the very mouth of Hell, from which horrid daemoniackal beasts like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld crawl with fiendish plots to drag all of Earth down into their nether pits of hellish torment. And there is no Buffy to save us. I had such high hopes for Howard Dean; he would've been a great Buffy. He actually had the guts to make true statements, like that capturing Saddam Hussein didn't make America any safer. Which any fool can see is true. Even the Homeland Security people. Remember the Orange Alert thing? Damn right you do. But Dean looks pretty much dead now; first Iowa, then New Hampshire, now it seems his campaign is somehow, bizarrely, insanely, out of all that shimmery green cash it had raised, and his polls have plunged, and he's apparently sacked that Mr Trippi who masterminded his great leap to frontrunnerdom...It's a right dog's breakfast, and no mistake. And my new love, Wesley Clark, hasn't been capturing the spotlight as he should...Those were the two candidates I had real enthusiasm for. Because they didn't vote for the Iraq war. Or the Patriot Act. They didn't bend over, like the vast majority of the Democrats in Congress, and allow George Bush's pustulent, unlubricated dick to violate the tenderest, delicate buds of the American ideal. As an extremely cross and worried man filled with a sick disgust at the future this administration is carving out for what, for better or for worse, is still my country, that counts for a lot.
I have a grudge against Iowa. A new one, I mean. Besides the ones I hold due to growing up there. I am giving Iowa baleful glares from afar for voting for the candidates who weren't my favourites and spoiling all my glorious Deany dreams.
At this point, I am officially tired of the primaries. I know this is going to sound petulant and childish, but if the nominee isn't going to be Dean and it isn't going to be Clark, then I don't particularly care which of the serious candidates gets it. Fundamentally, I don't much care what any of their policy proposals are, so long as they involve not being Bush. There isn't all that much variation between them, all more or less centrist, and it isn't as if, faced with an implacably hostile, mean-spirited, and vicious Republican majority in Congress, any of their progressive proposals would make it through in any case. There are, as I see it, precisely two goals one should realistically have for a Democratic president right now: stopping the Republicans from doing any more damage, and rallying the troops to achieve a more equitable balance of power in Congress in some future election, at which point we can finally realistically hope to start moving forward again in a systematic rather than piecemeal way. The President will have to be a fighter, willing to go head-to-head with Tom DeLay and endure relentlessly partisan abuse in large segments of the media. Think the Clinton impeachment meets the Al Gore campaign. That sort of treatment.
Which is not to say that the Johns Kerry and Edwards aren't up to it. I hope they are. They probably are. I just wish they'd make me feel a little more confident. I wish I could be sure that they get it.
Have I mentioned that I never watch television? (I get my Buffy and so forth on DVD. And things like Diane Sawyer's Howard Dean interview online.) I realise that this means I will never, ever fully connect with most of the American voting public. And so I have not the remotest, faintest clue which of the candidates is most likely to connect with the public and win an election. And so my opinions really mean nothing at all, and you shouldn't be reading them. In fact, you should forget you ever saw this. You should erase your memory at once with mind rubbers. It is the only way.
Oh well. At least there's still Canada. (Eat it, Tories.)
Today's word is toque. A toque is what foolish Americans would call a 'stocking-cap', or related forms of head-shrouding. I wore one myself, today, after getting up in a manner some might dub 'extremely late', so that no living person would be forced to endure the sight of my limp and unwashed hair. It is a good toque, black and warm, with a little Canadian maple leaf embroidered on it. Also 'CANADA' in big cursive letters. I bought it in, of all places, Canada. If you can imagine that. I was told that this toque made me look dark and mysterious; I immediately felt like David Boreanaz. For about five seconds. Then I remembered I'm not tall, not muscular, not manly, and not on television, which broke the spell. But those were five sweet seconds. And I owe it all to the toque.
In other, not-even-vaguely-Buffy-related news (unless Premier Gordon Campbell is actually some kind of immortal, vicious vodka-vampire)...
Oh, look, yet another scandal for the reigning BC Liberals. Imagine that. Same old story...Resignation, denying any wrong-doing, blah blah blah, foul stench of brimstone and corruption. That'll teach them to privatise railroads. And stew babies.*
*Note that there is no evidence that the BC government does stew or wishes to stew babies.**
**Yet.
So I was reading Electrolite this morning, and what did I find but this: General Wesley Clark is on the cover of The Advocate.
Did I wake up on Parallel Earth again? When I leave the house, will everyone have an eyepatch?
And look at him! He looks confident and relaxed, and with his overshirt hanging vulnerably open he's even vaguely sexual. This man has some great big shiny platinum-inlaid, diamond-studded brass balls. Most of the Democrats have courted the Gays to some extent or another, with their civil union proposals and so forth. Dean, of course; and I think Kerry, if I'm not completely on crack; Gephardt with his lesbian daughter; probably the rest (barring maybe Lieberman; though who knows, maybe him too?)...But that is all very manly courting and supporting.
(Thought: perhaps one thing that drew me to Howard Dean originally was the way he reminds me of Giordano Bruno, a pugnacious, sometimes abrasive little man spouting uttermost heresy.)
No-one would ever mistake Howard Dean for anything less than Dead Butch, for example. He's no metrosexual. Kerry, too. The man reeks of heterosexuality. Lieberman's sure as spitfire not going to march in any Pride Parades. They're macho, macho men. Wesley Clark, being a general and all, could very easily outdo them all in testosteronic excess. But no. Instead we get this vulnerably ambiguous cover shot. Certainly Clark has no craving for dick, and this is not to suggest otherwise. But he's being subversive. All coy and playful-like, opening himself up to say 'Hey, lookie here; I'm all yours.' It's not telegraphing merely a willingness to work for us (us, the Gays) and with us, but to be pals with us, too. 'Come to a barbecue,' his eyes are saying, and his shining white teeth. 'Flirt with my son. I'm comfortable with that. No, I won't make out with you; but I'm flattered.'
Also, he looks mad crazy hot.
That man is totally photogenic. The camera loves him. Remember when he tore that FOX anchor a new asshole? Just think of him doing that to Bush...
I am going to run out and buy a copy this afternoon. I want to read this. And I want to vote for Clark. It's crazy. We'll see if this lasts, or if it's just the heavenly light glinting off his teeth blinding me...I'll keep you posted.
(He has a tax plan, you know. And look at those teeth!)
Until Monday's Iowa caucuses, I'd forgotten John Edwards even existed.
I'm still not sure how much I care.
It's time for some sleaze! Everyone loves sleaze. I present it to you now in the form of two music videos.
Here is Jonny 'The Gay Pimp' McGovern's 'Soccer Practice'. Everyone loves a dirty gay soccer team.
And for the less homosexually inclined, here is Benny Benassi's 'Satisfaction'. It features jiggling ladies with power tools.
In case you hadn't heard, Lord Black of Crossharbour, the right-wing Canadian media baron who gave up his citizenship to sit in the House of Lords like an overstuffed gilt throw pillow, has been sacked as non-executive chairman of Hollinger, International; which corporation is now sueing the bejeezus out of him for naughtily looting loads of cash from the company while he ran it.
Here is the story, from:
Gosh...This just seems to have hit the newsosphere in the last two hours or so. It is fresh and fragrant, like new bread.
I don't much like Conrad Black, in case you hadn't guessed. I feel a very personal animosity towards him for treating his Canadian citizenship, something some of us would kill (or marry) to have, so cavalierly, so he could wear funny wigs and watch an ancient institution slide into irrelevance and decay.
I know that Bush's space initiative is basically a PR stunt and a bunch of hot air blowing from his imperial anus, and unlikely to come to pass, and awfully short on real details or plan-ness anyhow, and on those grounds it's not worth getting myself too upset about. But it's gone too far now.
It seems that NASA has cancelled the next mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, replace failing gyroscopes, and install new instruments. In the light of the Columbia disaster, before sending shuttles to Hubble, NASA would have to install some new safety features, so they could inspect themselves in orbit if something went wrong. NASA had already budgeted in that money, but now the HST is not in keeping with the 'new direction' given to NASA by our Fearless Leader. So there will not be any further servicing missions. And the telescope will in all probability cease functioning several years earlier than planned.
Science is now PR's bitch. Which, I suppose, should come as no surprise.
(UPDATE: The Toronto Star also reports on this. The mini-paragraph on the 'dark force' is just embarassingly poorly done, and I apologise for asking you to read it.)
It is an open question whether or not the President of the United States is borderline retarded. A case could be made either way. Who among us is in a position to truly judge? Perhaps he is a genuine moron. Perhaps he is actually quite wily in his way, only spoiled and lazy. What can be said for certain is that he is self-consciously ignorant, does not care that he is ignorant, and doesn't attempt to rectify his ignorance. He is President. There are thousands and thousands of highly-qualified people in every conceivable discipline who would be only too happy to offer him explanations, or answer his questions, or what-have-you. He wouldn't even have to do much, just sit and not pick his nose. But he chooses not to ask or listen. The man has consciously decided to avoid knowing things. This is extremely apparent in his statements on his Bold New Space Initiative.
As I've mentioned, I like space. Astronomy is hot and sexy. So are propulsion systems. The ion drive on the Deep Space 1 probe made me all tingly. So I want to like space programmes. I do.
However, it's pretty clear that Bush does not like space. Read his remarks. There's no substance. The plan he puts forth is objectively pro-Saddam. Or at least ethereal. And it's pretty clear that actual scientists and engineers did not have a whole lot of input. We have yet to establish that there is, in fact, any significant amount of water on the Moon; the Lunar Prospector found some indications that there could be, frozen in eternally-shaded craters near the poles; but when the probe was crashed into the surface, Earthbound observers did not find any signs of water kicked up by the impact. And more recently, the Arecibo radio telescope found no evidence of large quantities of ice down to a depth of about 6 metres. This doesn't mean that water isn't there, in some form, and it doesn't mean that it isn't extractable. But it doesn't mean that it is there, either. Until we know more, planning a permanent Lunar outpost is just silly. Without hydrogen (and water) available locally, we'd have to ship water from Earth. Water is heavy. Water is horrifically expensive to lift into orbit. It would be a Very Bad Thing, in short. Yet the President goes on about processing rocket fuel from Lunar soil, and firing off missions to Mars...When these don't make practical sense. Either he didn't ask, or he chose to ignore what he was told.
And this venture would suck money away from real science projects. Putting people on the Moon is flashy, it's glamourous, it's potentially utopian, but it isn't good science, and I'm pretty sure the President didn't bother asking about that either, or, again, decided to ignore it.
So it seems all the time and money spent on the International Space Station is being declared officially a waste...Which it was. But no more so than this project. The cost is excessive, the goals idealistic rather than practical, the science payoff limited, the effort disproportionate.
The Shuttle's hypothetical successor has extremely loosely and poorly thought out specifications; like the Shuttle, it seems destined to try and do too many things, and so do them all disappointingly and expensively. It isn't good engineering to try and use the same vehicle for every mission. Again, it seems like no-one bothered to ask.
Bush doesn't give a shit, it seems, so long as it makes for good sound bytes.
You need more blasphemy in your life. I can tell.
And here are the original IRC logs to the Bible; you didn't know the Word of God was originally delivered in the form of an online chat, did you?
Now you, too, can behold the Apostles saying 'Fo shizzle.' As God intended.
Also, I have had Brian Eno's 'Here Come the Warm Jets' playing in my head all day long, and it refuses to stop.
To make a long story short, my desktop computer exploded on Saturday. Sort of figuratively, of course. Having seen the future in a dream, I had ordered a laptop pre-emptively. This lovely Dell Inspiron arrived Monday morning. It's all pretty and blue. It is serving me remarkably well, but I have lost about my last month's worth of e-mail...So people who have e-mailed me recently should try re-sending whatever it was. Unless it was porn spam.
In particular, Derek Robinson, I've lost your e-mail address. And you don't seem to have put it on your website, you silly person. Hopefully you'll see this in the near future...
But the greater crisis is over. You may go back to your normal lives.
...Wait. Bush is still president. I spoke too soon. You may continue to panic.
The Vancouver Sun is reporting that one of the aides targeted in December's RCMP raid on BC legislature offices, Dave Basi, had a hand in the financial fun bucket of drug-smuggling, and may indeed have 'breached the public trust' in some unspecified but undoubtedly thoroughly naughty way during his involvement in the deal to privatise BC Rail.
Also, some stupid bastard in my apartment building has left his laundry sitting unchecked and unheeded in the washing machine for the last four hours. Whoever you are, I want you to know that I don't like you at all. Not even a tiny bit.
The obvious conclusion here is that capitalism is objectively pro-crack.
As perhaps you may have heard, America's Fearless Leader, the Son King, may soon propose a glorious new scheme to send Americans to the Moon once again, as a warm-up to a manned Mars expedition. It is rather appropriate, given what a space cadet the miserable failure is.
Sources involved in the discussions said Bush and his advisers view the new plans for human space travel as a way to unify the country behind a gigantic common purpose at a time when relations between the parties are strained and polls show that Americans are closely divided on many issues."It's going back to being a uniter, not a divider," a presidential adviser said, echoing language from Bush's previous campaign, "and trying to rally people emotionally around a great national purpose."
It's also stupid. And I'd say the same thing if it were proposed by a President Dean, or a President Clark, or a President Nimoy rather than a President Bush.
Now, don't get me wrong. Unlike certain people, I have no objections to manned space flight in theory. I like the idea. I'm sufficiently interested in the hardware involved that, in my younger days, I nearly went into aerospace engineering. I consume a lot of science fiction. Space probes fill me with pleasure. My picture of the ideal future involves things like solar power satellites, asteroid mining, and permanent habitats at L5. Ideally speaking, I would be a total space freaknut.
That being said, it's still stupid.
This Gregg Easterbrook character, who is apparently famous, or reputable, or something, has already pointed out that such a venture would gobble up cash like a maddened thing that gobbles. And he isn't wrong. I guess Easterbrook isn't the gaseous universal prat I'd taken him for. Who knew?
Anyhow, as Easty notes, this project is also bad science. Any Lunar outpost liable to be approved would be a less floaty version of the International Space Station: hideously expensive, troublesome to maintain and support, scientifically sort of useless, and an unspeakable sinkhole sucking away wodges of cash from real science programmes. And basically a pork project to blow dollars up the arse of the aerospace industry, just as the ISS is partially there to keep Russian engineers building space hardware rather than, say, long-range ballistic missiles for naughty, naughty countries who mostly hate gays.
And why might George W. Bush endorse a Moon base or Mars mission? Either he's a science illiterate surrounded by advisors who are science illiterates, or it's a blank check for aerospace contractors.
I'm thinking a little from Column A, a little from Column B.
Sometimes NASA makes me so angry...Some day, manned spaceflight will be a wonderful, practical, useful thing, supplying our planet with clean, inexhaustable power, wacky new zero-gravity industrial products, new frontiers to orgasmify the human spirit, and somewhere to send people we don't especially like having around, like Lance Bass. But that day is not today. There is very little up there worth doing in the near future that machines can't do for us for a fraction of the cost, and without the risk of blowing people up and dumping their ashes somewhere horrid like Texas. There isn't a science payoff to sending people up. There isn't an industrial or real technological one, without some kind of unimaginably mega-huge attempt to build full-scale Lunar mines, orbital factories, and all manner of not-immediately-practical offworld infrastructure. People are fat and moist and gassy. Machines are slick and efficient, and don't need air, or magazines, or innovative zero-g toilets. Machines don't bitch about being sent on multi-year missions that force them to miss several seasons of Angel. They're just better.
As they stand, the Space Shuttle and the ISS just should not exist. Nor should this crackpot Moon scheme. All that money could be spent to much greater effect developing a reusable launch vehicle that doesn't suck. And sending more probes to Uranus.
I have a burning desire to probe Uranus.
I want to know more about its curious moon Miranda, goddammit.
This is nothing but a slime-encrusted ploy to exploit idealism for partisan political purposes ('uniter' my ass) and pork, and I for one am miffed. Miffed, I say!
I'm not normally big on dancy music, but the Vengaboys' 'To Brazil!' is rocking me pretty firmly right now. It is, indeed, based off of the ditty in the film. I like the whistly bits in particular.
In the words of the great W. H. Auden, 'Son-of-the-bitch!'
(This news story includes possibly the greatest picture of Bill Gates ever taken. It's very Mr Burns.)
Last night, Seattle was touched in several inappropriate ways by what some are calling 'The Storm of the Millennium'. In a terrifying display of the raw ferocity and power of Mother Nature, the streets of Seattle were viciously fisted by two whole inches of snow. And the city was cruelly felched by temperatures very slightly below freezing. We awoke today to a nightmarish hellscape of very limited accumulations of snow. Panic ensued.
I learned today that Seattle is full of dumbasses who have no idea how to handle even very mild winter weather. The buses were all shot to buggery. There were no schedules; routes were re-routed, arbitrarily; roads were closed; abandoned cars littered the streets. The University, however, insisted that it was still business as usual, so I boldly went where no bus had gone before, and managed to catch one. Which became stuck in the snow behind a parked car about halfway to campus. We had to physically push the car out of the way, and then shove the bus sideways to free it. At which point rumours began circulating that the University had decided to cancel classes after all. But I pressed on; I had a moral duty, as a TA. I swore a solemn oath. I finally got to the U about an hour after I'd left home. Undergraduates were running amok, giggling and scampering and having snowball fights, and sledding down steep, snow-crusted streets on stolen lunch trays, plywood, garbage can lids, and pieces of Astroturf. I managed to discover that the University, shortly after I left home, decided to cancel all classes from 12.30 onwards, which meant that one of my sections, to which I was now 15 minutes late, was still on, while the other was axed. By this point, I expected the first class to have gotten bored and gone home. It's what I would've done. Bizarrely, they were all still sitting there, docile as lambs. They're freshmen. They don't know any better, I suppose. Fuck it, I thought; I sent them all home, quiz be damned. It seemed only right and fair.
On the way home, the bus got stuck again. Actually, a lot of buses got stuck. 10th Avenue was littered with the corpses of 9's. Like mine. Honestly, between campus and Broadway I saw six stranded buses. Including mine. So I walked the rest of the way home. Because it is, objectively, pretty nice outside. It isn't very cold, there isn't much wind to speak of, and there really isn't very much snow. I didn't even need my warm, fluffy, Canadian cap. As soon as Seattlites see this unnatural white substance falling from the heavens, they shriek and gibber and panic and fear the wrath of their heathen gods. I can only conclude that Seattlites are a soft and weak people, ripe for conquest by the nomadic warrior tribes that stalk the frozen corn-tundra of my native Iowa.
They're called plows, people. They aren't rocket science. Jesus H. Balls!
In less than a year, we foolish Americans will elect a president. It should not surprise anyone to hear that I am not planning to vote for Bush. I'm pretty keen on Howard Dean, Ninja Warrior, but the bottom line is that I'll vote for anyone who gets the Democratic nomination, even if, as looks increasingly less likely with each passing day, that person is not in fact Howard Dean. I'd even vote for Holy Joe Lieberman if he were the nominee fielded against Bush, and I find Lieberman to be a sanctimonious ass. This leads me to wonder: what sort of person or entity would have to seize the Democratic nomination to make me even consider voting for Bush? This question is obviously not very interesting if I think about living people or historical figures; obviously, I'd vote for Bush over Osama bin Laden, or Hitler. There are trivial and uninteresting cases. So let's not think about that. Instead, let us wonder how George Bush would stack up against imaginary villains from science fiction and fantasy.
1. George Bush vs. Darth Vader
I'd have to go with Vader because he's not a hypocritical chickenhawk.
2. George Bush vs. the Master
Advantage: the Master.
3. George Bush vs. Saruman the White
No contest. I'd vote Saruman.
4. George Bush vs. Mayor Richard Wilkins III
Even if he did transform into a giant snake and eat me, the Mayor would still have my vote.
5. George Bush vs. the Borg (or Cybermen)
Honesty really is the best policy. Vote Borg.
6. George Bush vs. L. Ron Hubbard
Okay. This time, I'd vote for Bush. Happy now?
(What do you mean, L. Ron Hubbard was real?)
I am the greatest genius the world has ever known.
...
Okay, that might be going a bit too far. But I'm still pretty slick. Over my winter break, I've been working on moving my Dream Log over to MovableType, so I can do neat things like cross-reference them and sort them by theme or motif. And it'll make updating easier; before, I've been going through and coding in each and every one by hand. (Which isn't all that bad, just a lot of cutting and pasting, really, once I have the text in mind.) I switched over to stylesheets at some point, and have meant to go back and update all the old entries to use them too, but that would be a lot of work. And I mean a lot. So what the heck, I said to myself, why not move everything to MovableType and enjoy uniform formatting and quick, painless font changes?
So far, it's going pretty well, all except for the main index page, which I don't like. I'll do something about it soon.
There was one little hitch, though...When I'd done everything manually, I'd used a different background image for all of my dreams that'd involved Canada. Because I like Canada. As you may have gathered from the way I talk about it constantly. (Converts are always the most zealous.) But how could I make that work in MovableType? All the entries would use the same template. I had a special Canada category set up; could I insert if-then statements into my template using MovableType data? The answer, I learned, was 'No.' But there was a way! A way almost supremely adapted to my filing system. The primary category I'd assigned to each entry was the year, since that's how I'd filed them back in the Olden Days. So it wouldn't be unreasonable to copy my original stylesheet a few times, and name the copies after these yearly categories. Then I could very cleverly switch the primary category of my Canada dreams from their year to Canada, and make the years secondary. Then I could build a new and different Canada stylesheet. And--now here's the clever bit--I could go into my Individual Entry Archive template, and change the link to the stylesheet from the original stylesheet's name to
<$MTEntryCategory$>.css
When an entry is built, it'll look for a stylesheet with the same name as its primary category. Genius!
Of course, I find that someone else has already thought of this. But who gives a fig? I'm still a genius.
Behold. Here is a regular entry. Here is a Canada entry. Taste the difference.
I became rapidly obsessed with this robot arm game. All those joints!
It's snowing again. It's not as creepy this time. It's even nice, in a way. To watch. The flakes are big and fluffy and slow enough that one can watch them flow and swirl individually beneath the streetlights; one can almost see the integral curves they trace. They're naked-eye mathematics. And pretty, too; I'm not totally soulless. Like tiny butterflies. (The snowflakes are like tiny butterflies; I'm not, so much.)
Perhaps they'll shut the city down. It's a good thing I stocked up on frozen pizzas.
My New Year's resolution for 2004 is to replace at least 7% of my frail organs with eternal metal and plastic substitutes.