found_drama

Today’s Real Life is a classic.  Freakin’-A – - don’t I feel like this every day?

[tag]Nam June Paik[/tag] passed away yesterday at age 73. The world mourns the passing of a true genius. His legacy lives on in video installations and robot families everywhere.

Saw this yellow/black Poe stencil featured over on Beyond the Beyond.  It’s cool. Check it out!

[tag]Exxon-Mobil[/tag] reports 2005Q4 as being one of record profits. $10.7 billion in profits.

Revenue rose 20 percent to $99.7 billion as rising demand and hurricanes lifted prices for oil, natural gas and gasoline. Full-year revenue was $371 billion, pushing Exxon Mobil past Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as the largest U.S. company by sales. The average U.S. profit on refining crude into gasoline and other fuels widened to a record of almost $11 per barrel processed.

And all this time I thought that the pinch of the supply side would cut into profits. How naive of me… Now that I have this straight: just gouge, you can make up any cover story you want and report record earnings.

Remember: That’s a profit bigger than Russia’s economy.

Suburbia.  An impending apocalypse.  Stockpiling food.  Organizing.  Family members missing.  A wife that is unfamiliar and isn’t fit to be called partner.  Adopted daughters.  A missing son.  The house is too big an unfamiliar.  Cardboard boxes won’t do it.  There’s looting.  Protect yourself from the looting.  Ride that out and you’re still not safe.  But one thing at a time.

Open note to all those working on the “[tag]social software product[/tag][s]” of “[tag]Web 2.0[/tag]” (or are otherwise pre-gaming for [tag]Zeldman[/tag]‘s hypothetical [tag]Web 3.0[/tag]):

[tag]Semantic equivalent[/tag]s in tagging apps.

I don’t think this is anything remotely like a new idea but SERIOUSLY please make your applications smart.  And by “smart”, I mean that if you’re going to include ways of tagging [fill-in-the-blank plural nouns] have the app be [tag]semantically aware[/tag].  Tags of “Rome” may generalize associatively to “Italy”; “sexy” and “erotic” may generalize synonymously; see where I’m going with this?

Via Boing Boing: [tag]Sliwinski[/tag] at [tag]In Newsweekly[/tag] reports on [tag]Blizzard[/tag]‘s roundabout discriminatory policies re: [tag]World of Warcraft[/tag].

The response from Blizzard was, “While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a ‘GLBT friendly’ guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to ‘be temporarily suspended from the game.’ However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning.”

!?!?!?

At first this may seem outrageous, inexplicable, inconsistent, ridiculous, and out-of-the-clear-fucking-blue. But a little more digging into the FAQs in Blizzard’s advertising collateral does reveal some clues to help illuminate their statements. Observe:

Q. I’ve heard that Blizzard doesn’t allow GLBT-friendly guilds in WoW. Is that true?

A. Have you eaten a Guacamole, Lettuce, Bacon, and Tomato sandwich? Gross!

Q. I think you’ve got the wrong interpretation of that acronym. Now, seriously: true or not?

A. Oh, we see what you mean now. We cannot openly encourage that kind of behavior as it will cause the 15-year-old Hordes to induce a deluge of “p4wn3d qu33r!” and “Faggoty Fag Fag” comments that are in clear violation of our Terms of Service. As we cannot afford the loss of that much monthly revenue, we’ve been forced to assume another approach.

Q. By not allowing folks to advertise their guilds as tolerant and cooperative?

A. Now who’s jumping to the wrong conclusions? In order to maximize inter-guild tolerance and cooperation, we’ve found it best to leave that queer shit in the real world. Besides, once an Orc reaches level 5, their primary food source is gay Gnomes. You wouldn’t want to spend all your time being chased by Orcs, would you?

Q. But if gay characters aren’t allowed, what do 5th level Orcs eat?

A. By now you’ll have noticed that certain races and classes are inherently queer to some degree. Orcs and Trolls can be found eating Night Elves (whom everyone knows are gay by default).

Q. So even if I don’t “advertise” myself as GLBT, I can still play a gay character?

A. Absolutely! As mentioned above, all Night Elves are gay by default and upon reaching level 20, Dwarves and Gnomes obtain access to the “Tunnel Bathhouse” area. Characters of any race can also pursue classes and professions that have the queer taint to them as well! Observe the inclusion of such classes as Priests and professions such as Leatherworking. Be cautioned, however, that we’re not taking any more requests for the addition of the “Bard” class – - that’s so gay D&D…

Q. Given that the above is public knowledge, wouldn’t you argue that it has the same effect as simply but discreetly advertising your guild as GLBT-friendly?

A. Look, just drop it OK. If it matters that much to you, we’ll just eliminate everything except the Undead race and rename the game “World of the Asexual Zombie Shit Pile”. Happy now?

I’m on the [tag]St. Mary’s[/tag] campus and they’ve recently installed a new outdoor theater. The theater reminds me of that famous one from [tag]Central Park[/tag] except that this one is partly underground. I’m there to witness a dress rehearsal of some student-written play (or perhaps the writer was a graduate, I cannot recall). A friend of mine has been cast in the lead role and while I’m watching, his boyfriend has been sitting with me, occasionally making remarks and asking me questions. They’re both a couple years younger than me (which makes sense because they’re both seniors). Somewhere in the midst of all this, I notice that gravity has stopped functioning properly and I’m capable of pushing myself up into some major jumps; not quite flying but close enough. At one point, the boyfriend asks if I’d come with them on a trip to [tag]Mexico[/tag]. They’ve got several other folks coming along as well. They’re trying to get a package rate. I ask him how they plan to get to Mexico: hasn’t it been blocked off for some time now? He agrees that the quarantine has made it difficult to see the sites but it’s certainly not impossible. We would drive down to this private airport in Florida. From there, we take a flight to South America and then Mexico is just a quick car ride and a one day hike away. I tell him that I’m interested (because I don’t want to hurt his feelings) but inside I’m trying to think of a way out.

“Teaching Math” through the ages…

Fafblog! presents, in the continuing War on Terror: the Department of Baby-Eating:

Q. How many non-terrorist babies would it be acceptible for the president to accidentally eat in the course of enforcing a rigorous terrorist baby-eating program?
A. First of all, the president would never ever eat a baby unless it was reasonably suspected to be affiliated with possible terroresque program activities. Second of all, do we really wanna start tyin the president’s hands when he’s tryin to protect everybody from jihadist babies? They could be Islamifying our country’s drool supply as we speak!
Q. Sir, I demand the immediate establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Baby-Eating!
A. Just til we win the War on Terror, of course!
Q. And with our sophisticated baby-eating technology we should be taking the Terrorstani capital of Fearlamabad any day now!
A. Of course! But the actual occupation could last quite some time, you understand…