Mail bag

Updated 6:25 p.m. EST — read it again!

I’m just a Catholic accordion-playing boy trying to do his good deed for the day…

Meryl wrote to say that she thought this little thing I wrote last week was funny:

At one point in the article, Dr. Al-Jalahma states that during Purim “the Jews wear carnival-style masks and costumes and overindulge in drinking alcohol, prostitution, and adultery.”

That’s not Purim, you moron, that’s Mardi Gras!

Being an affable fella from the tropics gives me a hate-on for hate lit, and a Catholic upbringing and schooling to made me familiar with all the Christian holidays, especially those that involve boozing and loose women. Being Catholic has other bonuses, such as that guilty feeling that makes sinning that much more fun. And being allowed to eat cheeseburgers, rare steaks and mu shu pork. And the schoolgirls. Oh, the schoolgirls.

(Of course, if you’d like to go out with this wonderful accordion-playing guy, religion isn’t a major factor. I was even tempted one by this really cute Satanist in Kingston, but I figured that she’d end the date by turning me into a human sacrifice.)

Double yolkiness

On Monday, I wrote about “Super Bon-ee” double-yolk eggs, on whose carton was a guarantee that at least half the eggs would have two yolks. It looks as though I’m not going to call the “Super Bon-ee” folks demanding a free carton this time; out of a total eight eggs we’ve used so far, seven have had double yolks.

George Lewis wrote to me and confirmed my suspicion that you could test eggs for double yolks by examining them under a bright light. Here’s what he wrote about the time he worked at an egg farm in his early teens:

the place i worked was not technically current, a pretty small shop compared to standards i guess–but they had a “dark room” that was part of the process of taking eggs from chickens and sending them out in boxes. they came throuugh on little rollers after they were washed/cleaned, and in this dark room, lights underneath the rollers/eggs lit up the eggs, so bad eggs could be spotted, chips/cracks in the shell could be spotted, etc… this also makes clear the eggs with doulbe-yolks. the place it was at was pretty small time, so whoever had that job just picked out the double-yolkers by hand and set them aside, and they were packaged/crated later.

in bigger shops, i’d bet they do it strictly by weight, but not 100% sure on that. double-yolks kick ass.

They certainly do. Delicious, golden, creamy, cholosterol-laden-but-who-gives-a-crap ass. In honour of the wonder of double-yolkers, here’s the Chinese pictogram for “double happiness” in two golden circles.

I think I’ll listen to Egg Man by the Beastie Boys right now. Oh, yeah and the Beatles’ I Am The Walrus, too. Goo goo g’joob.

It’s time to pimp-slap Big Content and their stupid laws

If you haven’t heard yet, there are all kinds of terrible things being done in the name of copyright:

• The Church of Scientology has been (mis)using copyright law to silence their critics for a long time. In their latest attempt, they managed to scare Google into removing Operation Clambake, a Scientology-debunking site, from their database, claiming that by reprinting portions of their sacred texts, they were violating copyright.
• Senator Fritz Hollings, a Hollywood pawn who’s received over a quarter-million dollars in campaign contributions from Big Content companies, has proposed a bill making it illegal to sell electronic gear without built-in copy-prevention devices. (I know they like to use the term “copy-protection”, but Big Content is represented by greedheads who don’t even like the idea of people making mix tapes.)
• In less than two months, Big Content will have forced a law that would price all but the most monied Internet radio broadcasters out of business. But once they’re gone, you’ll be able to subscribe to the record companies’ pay-for-subscription based Internet radio services…

What can you do? My pal Cory e-mailed me a very good suggestion:

Join the EFF!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation are — to borrow a phrase from Babylon 5 — the last, best hope for freedom in the digital age. When the law (or the big corporate interests who thinks laws should be set up to suit them) and technology collide, the EFF is there fighting for freedom:

• They helped set the precedent that e-mail cannot be subject to search and seizure withou a warrant.
• They fought for the right of people to publish information about encryption.
• They spoke out against the draconian Communications Decency Act.
• They’re now fighting on behalf of the Norwegian teenager who wrote some some software so that he could play DVDs on his Linux computer (current U.S. laws say it’s illegal to reverse engineer something designed to prevent copying, which he needed to do to crete his DVD-playing software).
• And now that Big Content is trying to set ridiculous limits on what you can and can’t do with your DVDs, CDs and video recorders (they’d like it if your video recorder erased those X-Files episodes you recorded after a while so that they can sell you DVDs of those same episodes), the EFF are in your corner.

Support the EFF!

Legal Notice (update Friday March 22, 6:25 p.m. EST)

I just got this “Cease and Desist” order from George:

“Big Content” is copyright © 2002 george scriban. the unauthorized use of Mr scriban’s copyrighted material is prohibited under the DMCA, jackass.

regards,

george scriban

The judges rule that Tina wins

The divine Miss Tina, guitarist and vocalist for local glam-punk band Fresh Meat (who appeared at Indie Incubation) writes:

Dear Joey,

I’d like to draw your attention to the fact I won the bottle shoving contest [the one that took place at last week’s Kick Ass Karaoke — Joey]. And you can see here all the contestants are trying really hard, but only one is victorious.

(That’s Lindi on the left and Tina in the middle. All right, I declare her the winner. I also plan to dress up as a beer bottle this Hallowe’en.)

Love, Love,

Miss Tina.

Like Tina and the Highlander say: “There can be only one!”

I’m quite certain that none of my friends — well, with the exception of Rob — would ever have ended up in a Norman Rockwell painting.