This came to me from one Timothy Dewey Dewey. It is republished here with his permission:
Dear King of Kings,
I have weild the evil synth axe of the Roland ax-1 and sold myself to the demons of hades (kinda like how Arthas sold he’s people out when he took the blade of frostmourne out even though he didn’t really need it.). My skin has grown a greyish color due to the evil powers of the axe! (or from the fact I live in my mother’s basement). I knew I had power within my hands but then I realized something, I have no idea how to play a keyboard or a Midi-controller for that matter. Ive been to your site for ages and ages (which is about 10 mins or so, I really dont remember because my mother was yelling at me to dust the cat and milk the pigs) and discovered that even though you are now a follower of the light, you once followed the wicked ways of the keytar. Clearly after reading one paragraph of your site, I am ready to call you my sensi and wish if you could offer me guidance of playing a keytar with links of how to play one and advice from your own experience, or if you cant offer me any of those, just send me a link to the goatse instead. I’m sorry but I have to log off now because my computer (which is made of wood and uses the Jeff-k version 40 system) is about to go offline due to the chickens that power it by running are dead.
Ta Ta.
Thanks, Timothy, and get well soon!
What is the “goatse” that he refers to near the end of the email? It’s the infamous goatse.cx site, home of a picture that first became famous through Slashdot.
You really don’t want to see it.
But your curiosity is now piqued.
It is not safe for work. In fact, it’s not safe for anything, really. You life will be no poorer for your not having seen it.
The subject matter of the photo is vile. The human anus was never meant for such things.
Please note that you have been warned.
Aren’t you sorry you clicked that link?
Hence the mad flurry of postings. Enjoy!
My experience with Artifical Intelligence is limited to a single third-year course at Crazy Go Nuts University where we did classic AI programming in Nial, a pretty nice programming language designed by my first-year computer science prof, really relaxed dude and lord god king of arrays, Michael Jenkins. Perhaps it’s why I cannot comprehend AI-Wheel, some kind of AI application:
Speaking as a user interface programmer with a modicum of tact, I’ll simply say that the user interface “has room for improvement”.
I am, of course, assuming that the “AI” in AI-Wheel means “Artificial Intelligence” and not “Acutely Incomprehensible”.
If someone could please tell me what this software is for, I’d appreciate it.
It took me a while to post this, but I thought I’d save it for National Accordion Awareness Month, which is drawing to a close. Big thanks to Stacy “less art” Wong for sending this snippet from the America 24/7 photography project my way!
Luella Barber Wygant, 81, of Millcreek, Pa., plays the accordion for her dog Mitzi. “If I couldn’t play music, I might as well be dead,” said Wygant, who has been playing the accordion since she was four years old. She plays seven instruments and taught her husband how to play the bass viola. “Young people don’t give a damn about the accordion. All they care about is guitars and drums,” said Wygant whose favorite song is “I’m In The Mood For Love.”
I give a damn, ma’am. And so do a number of kids who were at the Om Festival last weekend.
When asked if I believe in God, I usually answer with “Well, something got me through University.” At the engineering variety show night at Crazy Go Nuts University, I let them read my transcript as part of the between-act banter.
I accept the possibility that Jeebus might just have been a literary creation of some Israelis who got really high on ergot mold. He’d still be a good role model even if fictitious: after all, I count MacGyver, Encyclopedia Brown, Ferris Bueller and Columbo as my heroes too.
Let’s just say that Pascal is my bookie. And how can you disagree with a message that boils down to Bill and Ted’s credo, “Be excellent to each other”?
In spite of this, Christianity’s had a little bit of an image problem for a while. Some of the blame goes to the Americans. Don’t get me wrong: Americans are by and large wonderful people — at least part of my ancestry is American (I have blonde-haired blue-eyed blood relatives in Dayton, Ohio). Anyone who lives outside the U.S. knows that the Yanks have an incredible talent for becoming parodies of themselves. Had the Pilgrims been Buddhist, our friends to the south (as we call them in Canada) would’ve made even a guy a cool as Siddhartha Gautama look just as silly (and hey, lots of Western Buddhists are hard at work closing the silliness gap, particularly this chump).
Some of the blame goes to Creed. Their music makes me want to convert…to Devil worship.
But some of blame goes to a lack of good merch.
You can get really good Hindu T-shirts and Buddha pendants, but aside from some nice cross medallions, what do Christians have? Crap like this. (Admittedly, I’d be sad if Jack Chick stopped; he’s funny, even if unintentionally so.)
At least, until now.
X[alt]Gear sells some pretty cool stuff. Okay, maybe I won’t take notes in church like the suggest, but the notebooks seem pretty cool. The T-shirt designs are pretty nice, and unlike the Mormon prom fashions, they’ve got girlie Ts (“for Jesus’ girlz”, no less!). But the best thing — so good that I’m placing an order, seriously — is the ASCII art “Jesus fish” surfer dude neck thingy:
I realize that I’ve probably firmly entrenched myself in the Uncool Camp with this blog entry, but that don’t confront me none. I am, after all, an accordion player.
A tip of the hat to Kathy “Relapsed Catholic” Shaidle for pointing this one out.
The story behind the “Jesus Fish”.
Landover Baptist. Funny, funny reading.
Blogs:
While searching for some images of AC/DC guitarist Angus Young, I stumbled across a page where a guy — based here in Accordion City, no less! — has created scenes of one of Rock’s greatest bands…in Lego:
