All Hail Evangelical Agnosticism

That's right. Well, technically, it only could prove to be right at some indeterminate point of time in the future (or, possibly, past, provided time travel is ever invented). And all that because I had to take a potty break.

Seriously though, it occured to me that should I ever win the lottery despite never playing, that would be a sign from on high that my faith in the possibility that there might or might not be a god(s) and it doesn't really matter so much as long as one tries to do reasonably right is entirely correct.

Therefore, were this to happen, I should use my winnings to found the Church of Evangelical Agnosticism and convert people to the belief in not believing, but not ruling out, either.

Well, technically, merely the belief in not believing, because totally ruling out god(s) the way atheists do is merely another form of belief until such a time as the non-existance of any and all gods is conclusively proven.

I think the message here is "can't we all just get along". What with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, Christian fundamentalist warmongering presidents of certain nations and Atheist fundamentalists going about flaming anyone who actually has faith in something on various Internet forums, I guess this might just be the counterweight to Fundamentalism At Large that this world needs about now.

So All Hail Evangelical Agnosticism!

The greatest of examples: iPhone

It's offical as of today: I think the iPhone is great.

As an example.

For example, do you think a product must be good if it has a huge fan base? Well think again - the iPhone is a great example of a mobile that's all hype, no action. Well, some action obviously, but SOTA cutting edge technology? I doesn't even do UMTS yet, and without UMTS, no HSPA. I haven't had a chance to try one yet, but the mobile browsing experience can't be SOTA, and that's that.

So, how about people being willing to invest time and energy to prove something can be hacked? Well, the iPhone had it's jailbreaks... time and again... and they happened bloody quickly for the most part. Which technically proves that the product is mediocre at best from a technical security point of view.

Why am I noting this`? Because there's no escaping the iPhone hype and I had to deal with that one professionally. And it proved a great example of how all the hype, all the fan club and all the tech geeks hacking just don't prove it's actually a good product from a technical pov.

Thus, as far as I'm concerned, hype, fan club and hackers don't prove that for any other product, either. They haven't for, say... Safari... okay, this is turning into Apple bashing, so... err... Windows. Okay, I'm not sure that actually has fan clubs these days (eat your heart out, Billie boy!). Ah well, you get the idea.

So, product in question: Roomba. That robo-vac has a nice littly fan club, but tech geeky gadgets always do, so that proves diddly squat. My SO says there's books on hacking it on Amazon, which technically just proves it can be hacked. So I tell my SO, there there, look at the iPhone... fan clubs and hacks don't actually prove anything.

And for only the second time, I'm really happy the iPhone exists (the first time was finding that the term iPhone is almost a guarantee for hits within the context of a headline... but that's another story).

P.S. I may have labelled this "iPhone, Emperor Microsoft, Vacuum Cleaners", but I only now notice the implications. All I'll say regarding that is Adam Copeland, because that should completely confuse the hell out of pretty much anyone.

Some semblance of internet

Yay, some semblance of internet at last. HSDPA may not be a prime choice for anyone looking to download complete bizzare shit hentai anime movies (or Disney ones, for that matter), but it is good enough for blogging.

Now all I need is some semblance of inspiration, such as... uh... bizarre shit hentai anime... no. Disney... uh... they're going to be doing 3D animated movies next year. Or was it this? And what exactly do I care?

That reminds me, the Witchblade anime isn't half bad. Not exactly hentai, granted, but reasonably bizzare shit. Of course, ignorant as I am of what passes for culture in japan, I am inclined to believe "reasonably bizzare shit" might be what "anime" means. (Okay, so I don't watch the ones aimed at pre-teen girls much [i.e., at all], so here's seriously hoping those would prove me wrong.)

What comes to mind is that after a month of no derangement (at least none made available to the general, not giving a shit about it public), I really should announce my being back in business with some sort of cool line.

"I'm back, and I'm back on crack."

Err, no. But I guess I did watch too much TNT back in the glory days of the Monday Night Wars. Not that I expect anyone who actually reads this to really know what in hell I'm going on about.

No, it's not MMA.

Yes, it has something to do with wrestling.

I guess Holly's racer gimmick would qualify as... and the West Texas Rednecks did sing about... still, cars don't really have anything to do with it.

Definitely not MMA.

(Does it show one of my two regular readers is interactively contributing here?)

The Monday Night Wars were not "some sort of wrestling event", no.

They weren't "a wrestling event", either.

Not really, but the degree of my boredom or notsoboredom is of no consequence to the Monday Night Wars any more today than it was when the Fingerpoke of Doom happened.

(Tell me, how bad is getting a transcript of half a conversation?)

Quit critizing my (lack of) spelling and get back to the Monday Night Wars (yes, technically, that would require Wells to give you the blueprints for that time machine).

Looks like she's at a loss for words (I don't get that very often)... but that's okay. I guess she didn't follow Nitro back in WCWs heyday. (Or the period when Russo did to it what he is now trying to do to TNA, either.)

Yes, Russo did Nitro before WCW folded. They called him in to run the ship aground.

Enough. I have some semblance of internet. It may not be good enough for foll bizzare shit hentai anime movies, but there must be some sort of...

wrestling...

available.

The horrors of moving

Well, most obviously, there's the matter of internet access. I still have it - back where I used to dwell. In my new abode, it's not happening yet - "thanks" in no small part to Telekom Austria, who apparently don't have the faintest clue where their own technical installations in the building are. That gives Leitungen verlegen an entirely new meaning...

Then there's damages. I've lost one row storage space, which means I have even less of an idea where to put all my books and the like than I had originally planned. But it could be worse, I could be Plastic Man in JLA: Heaven's Ladder, "My Stuff!" Mine is all still there. Mostly. I think. Probably. Well, at least I do still have my comics.

Of course, then there's the horror of not assaulting the poor, innocent minds of my faithful readers. (All two of them, judging from the amount of poll participation.) And there'd been so much good stuff in the last four weeks I fiugred I really should start taking notes... (Maybe one for a new year's resolution I can actually keep about 0:30ish on January 1st, 2009).

One was Amy W(h)inehouse not going to the Grammies. The US government not allowing a pop star into the country because she's a drug addict? I was mortified. How could Republicans treat a celebrity like a normal human being? There was much whining and five grammies for poor Ms W(h)inehouse. On the bright side of not much internet access, I can immediately compare with this weeks BRIT Awards. Apparently, with no government banning Amy from attending, there was no need to turn the BRIT Awards into the pro-junkie-pop-star political pseudo-statement the Grammies were. Now I'm left wondering who exactly drew a line and how much the cocaine cost...

Weekend news and trivia

Why? Because. Read it and *bleep!*

DataPortability:
Personally, I use a Hotmail e-mail address for my Blogger Login, so please don't ask me how open the Web really is. Big Brother Google and Emperor Microsoft know [insert Palpatine's theme here], I presume (or maybe they're at a loss, too?). Anyways, check out http://dataportability.org/ for a group that's striving for a barrier free web. Big Brother and the Emperor have recently graced them with representatives, so either they're brilliant or... [insert Vader's theme here]

Climate/Weather:
A TV newscast on today's heavy storms in Styria informed us that heavy storms hadn't just hit pretty much all of Styria, but it's capital Graz, too. Apparently, some consider this in some way surprising. Presumably, they expected the storm to obey the 50 kmph speed limit for traffic within city limits, or something...

Sports:
At Saturday's alpine skiing downhill race in Chamonix (French and site of the first Olympic Winter Games back in 1924), the Austrian downhill racing team suffered a devastating loss as no fewer than seven countries had racers placed ahead of their best race. Including, as it were, Austria itself. Yupp, coming in fourth was Rainer Schönfelder, a slalom racer and six ranks ahead of Austria's best downhill racer.

Everyday Madness:
Here's proof of the very first "ten second anal probe" in Google (click to enlarge, just in case anyone that can't figure that out by themselves reads this):

This flu is shaping up to be a good flu!

No, I haven't lost it. I've only seen the headline in a national newspaper that happens to bear the same name as the country, which informed us that a member of the Austrian People's Party...

Okay, hold on there. For those of you that think People's here is the same as in a People's Republic (possibly because they actually listened to some of the dross the Governator spouted back in '04), let me set this straight.

The Austrian People's Party, or indiginously Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP), is a Christian social-democratic party, which means they uphold Christian values by taking from the poor and giving to the rich, social standards by securing their pensions at the expense of everyone else's income and pension, and the spirit of democracy by doing whatever the hell it takes to get into and stay in power - up to and including installing a regime in the early 1930s that was scant better than the Nazis that followed. Sort of like Republicans basically, just less gung-ho.

Anyways, back to the headline, which informed me that the first fatality of this year's influenza epidemic was an ÖVP politician. If the virus could hit a few more of them, there might yet be hope for actual social, democratic, and possibly even Christian values. Definitely shaping up to be a good flu!

Losing it

No, I'm not talking about that photo story with renowned bondage porn star Ashley Renee. (Yes, I am a living repository of useless knowledge. I know, I should've started contributing my wisdom to the internet years ago.)

Porn reminds me, did I mention the Playboy Store has not yet commented on whether it does control the governments in the UK, Germany and Italy as I was forced to suspect about two blog entries earlier? (All hail King Torg!)

Anyway, I wasn't talking about losing the thread, either, so where was I? Oh, yeah, I hadn't even really started before somehow drifting off into the only topic that matter on the internet. (What's the current statistics of what portion of it is useless, porn or useless porn? I bet Big Brother Google knows. Yeah, silly to be using Blogger, isn't it?)

Right, as I was looking to say, I think I'm losing it. More so than usual, that is. I was getting of one tram, and saw another rounding a corner. When I had gotten off the first tram, the second tram was standing in the nearest station. I swear, it must've had about ten seconds to get from where it was when I started that step before I completed that selfsame step. Which means I must've been quite literally out of touch with reality for those ten seconds.

I suspect that I finally suffered one of those fabled alien abductions, but the after-effects of my diarreah were rather too apparent when they decided to get on with the anal probing. So they wound up doing nothing more than a preliminary ten second anal probe and then dumped me right back where they had gotten me from.

Here’s a useless piece of trivia: This will be the very first Google Search result for the exact phrase “ten second anal probe”. How do I know? Well, I checked whether this has happened to anyone else before. (They should've gotten Ms Renee instead... there'd have been money in that, I guarantee you. The Porn Is Out There, and all that.)

Obviously, it hasn’t. I may be losing it, but I had the first ever ten second anal probe.

I'm shitting me...

Seriously, you don't want to know. I just felt the thought of your straining you gray cells by trying to imagine what exactly I'm getting at with a headline like that might make me feel better in light of the fact that... as I said, you don't want to know.

I can tell you though the end product of diarreah that's bad enough can have about the same consistency as, a look rather like that of and approximately the same temperature as a good cup of hot chocolate.

See, I told you: you don't want to know. That's the problem with people: They never listen to a word you say.

Are you shitting me, Bunny?

Okay... so the Playboy Store's answer to:

I must admit, now I'm curious. Could you provide details on what restrictions are imposed by Austrian authorities that do not exist in the UK, Germany, or Italy?

is:

They are their own country with their own political and governmental ways that we do not control. We apologize for any inconvenience.

No kidding! So there hasn't been any new Anschluss to Germany? And there's no such thing as similar foreign trade policies within the EC, either, I bet. But much more interestingly, does that mean the Playboy Store does control the political and governmental ways in Germany, Italy and the UK? Damn, they're more dangerous than Scientology!

Did I mention Scientology after a good decade or so seem to finally have given up on sending me their hogw-- I mean, incredibly interesting information brochures. All Hail King Torg!, or whatever he is called, or death unto him, I'm sorry, I seem to have failed indoctrination, after all. So, did I mention that?

I can't help it, my being an agnostic was preordained. Hey, even my name is Thomas - doesn't that prove it? And I won't believe there is no god(s) without concrete proof, by the way - up yours, atheists!

Anyways, don't forget: the Great Old Ones are out there - Cthulhu, Hastur, Tsathoggua, even Elvis!

Funny, Bunny!

So, I decided to ask the Playboy Online Store whether they ship to Austria. Here's the reply:

We regret that we can not fulfill requests for products to be shipped to your country. The Playboy Online Store, and Playboy Enterprises, Inc. have no control over product restrictions and censorship imposed for import of Playboy products into foreign countries.

Well, I'm not aware of restrictions or censorship that would keep Playboy magazine out of the country (my subscription usually arrives on time), and I really, really wonder what exactly the restrictions are we have in Austria that they don't have in countries the Playboy Online Store ships to like Germany, Italy or the UK. (The latter, as far as I know, is rather more restrictive when it comes to pornography than Austria.) So, I asked them about these restrictions. I wonder what reply I'm going to get to that.

Personally, I suspect the problem is really more along the lines that the average Playboy Bunny wouldn't know what continent a country as small as Austria is on, let alone find it on a map.

Wow, aside from the fact that it is about the wonders of globalization at not work and that I'm going to claim I was hoping to buy the "Playboy - 50 Years of Cartoons" book as a birthday present for my girlfriend right about just a second ago, this post is a totally non-odd, sane rant.

We apologize for the convenience.

A hot enterprise

I have a business idea. Well, not technically a business idea, more of a marketing gimmick for a business. A restaurant, even. An you read it first here on the Vortex, because "you read it first here" is another one.

Anyways, hot foods. Forget jalapeno ratings or whatever on restaurant menus. Rate the heat in a way that'll get the men to prove they're real men or die trying (well, not technically die, but close enough): with pictures.

Like, the bland tastelessness that is a big chain hamburger won't get 0 jalapenos, it'll get "Mother Goose": not hot at all. A little spicier gets "Hillary Clinton": anyone should be able to handle that. Next would be "Britney Spears": Some people actually call that hot, but it's really pretty tasteless.

Admittedly, I haven't quite made up my mind yet as to who to use for "spicy", "hot", "real hot", and "too hot to handle", but I think it's pretty obvious why I think it'd be a good concept to draw in liberal yuppies (as customers) as well as the local Chrsitian right (when they can't find anything better to get all riled up about).

Ergonomical and ecological

I remembered! Two of those gems were the "ergonomische Kopfpolster" (ergonomical pillow) and the "ökologisch korrekte Ellbogenwärmer" (ecologically correct elbow warmers), both of which of course referred too...

Well, I am a man, and if you can't figure it out based on that hint, you likely should be going back to reading your Disney comics instead of this.

Anyways, it turns out that when you think about it, they're of course not ecologically correct, after all. I mean, that carbon footprint is a whammy! The production cycle started when life turned aerobic, so that's a trail across the millenia, and the constant environmental impact of breathing throughout the operational cycle of a human being is considerable, too. They're still biodegradable, so I guess there is an ecological upside to the ergonomische Kopfpolster after all...

Still, if you're still looking for a new year's resolution, how about dropping dead to reduce your impact on our fragile environment?

That means you, Georgy boy!

Babelfish does Blog Posting

There is something worse than my brain. It's called Babel Fish, and it's definitely not the immensely useful quirk of nature described in the works of the late Douglas Adams. (Which - the works, not the fish - incidentally had me writing oddities in a style so vaguely resembling that of Adams that everyone seemed to think I was emulating Pratchett before I even knew who that is.)

I'm not going to miss an opportunity like this. I dare you to actually read the transcripts of selected posts in Deutsch!?!?, my blog dedicated specifically to helping along monolingual Anglophonic superiority by totally, utterly destroying the sanity of anyone unfortunate enough to also understand German.

Using an American-made weapon of mass destruction, too.

Oh yeah, Saddam, Osama, anthrax, car bombing, Al-Quaeda, broccoli. Now come get me, ECHELON!

New year, new beginning

Right. At 0:30 this morning, I blew my first new year's resolution right out of the water and into the stratosphere. And I kept going strong (or is that wrong), which brings me here. Oh yeah.

But let's start at the beginning. The resolution, even. Real simple stuff: To keep my brain from spout random thoughts that are fairly logically self-consistent, but not enitrely sane and possibly unsuited for conventional reality (Okay, maybe not that simple stuff.)

Now let's turn the clock to 0:30 this morning. This would be a good chance to learn German if you haven't already, by the way, because I'm rather bilingual and in my Everyday Madness, you'll have to deal with it, too. Seems fair to share the burden.

"Du brauchst eine neue Grafikkarte, damit es nicht so ruckelt", sagte mein Gehirn (via Mund) zur Zerebralparetikerin. (The last one being a word that even the German speakers might not understand without looking it up. That seems fair, too. I did already blow that resolution, mind you.)

I'm sure if a simple hardware upgrade could fix the effects of cerebral palsy the way a new GPU fixes halting graphics on the latest really cool looking 3D game (but not how lame the gameplay is), she'd go for it, too.

I kept going strong the rest of the day. If you can't imagine what I meant by "Die Neujahrsglocken läuten lassen" adressed to my girlfriend, in the interest of decency I won't help you figure it out. (There's something still to do today...)

Here's a thought that very actively is criss-crossing my mind right now, "Wenn ich bloß noch wüsste, was für einen Schrott mein Gehirn heute alles schon produziert hat." There must have been a half dozen gems today and I wind up only remembering the two that came to me when I was actually, for once (well, for rarely, technically, but that just doesn't have the same ring, necklace, and anklet), TUI (thinking under influcence).

No, wait, that first one was before the three cocktails. And i hadn't even had any Sekt, Champagner, Prosecco, Perlwein or other stuff that could qualify as a traditional midnight drink to celebrate the fact you actually need a new calender, again, because the last one after 365 days of fault-free service turned totally useless in the blink of an eye just like whatever subscription-based anti-virus solution may be protection your computer, but not your brain. Yes, I was perfectly sober for the Grafikkarte. What a relief!

See, that's why I opted for a new resolution earlier today (when I though some unforgetable junk I already completely forgot). I need to go into blogging to preserve my Everyday Madness for friends, family, posteriority and genereally just anyone I can get away with inflicting it upon, because I want to see your minds cringe at the thought of what I think, too.

If anyone has a digital audio file of a suitably insane laughter, please let me know. I might actually remember to include a link here or in the occasional (likely) odd (for sure) post. Otherwise, "Bwa-ha. BWA-HA. BWA-HAHAHAHAHAH!"

2008 is shaping up to be a good year, because I'm finally latching onto the internet bubble eight years after it has burst.