Trois couleurs.

Trilogy? Not exactly.

Just got finished watching the last of Kieslowski's "three colors trilogy." I actually ended up watching them out of order, watching Rouge first, followed by Bleu, ending with Blanc. And I must say, of all three, White is my favorite. Why? It actually has more than a few moments of humor. It has a plot. It has twists. It has an air of fantasy, but a grounding in emotions with which one can relate. I wasn't waiting for something to happen, because things were happening. The same obsession to detail that Kieslowski brought to Red and Blue (and, I gather, his other films as well) he brought to White. But as I was watching it, I wasn't consciously aware of that obsession. Which is good.

Expanded "while" would be appreciated...

My legal writing professor once suggested burying bad news in dependent clauses is a good way to avoid looking incompetent (i.e. your research missed something important) or sleazy (i.e. you were hoping to capitalize on your opponent's incompetence). For example, "Although the Supreme Court is silent on this issue, the majority of circuits came down in favor of my case." Or, "While the babysitter you hired turned out to be a three-time convicted child molester, there's a complimentary bottle of wine on the way." See how the good news becomes the focus of the sentence? Nifty.

Why am I telling you this? I've come to realize that one of the biggest problems I have with Bush and his goons is the absence of the "while." Instead of telling you about the pederast looking after your children, he'll just mention the bottle of wine. Which makes him look alternately incompetent or sleazy. Which makes me not want him in office anymore.

All this goes towards saying: cast your vote for Michael Badnarik on Tuesday. And unless you live in New Hampshire or Oklahoma, he'll be on the ballot, so you don't even have to remember how to spell his name!

Joke.

They called it puppy love...
But how was I to know the bitch was underage?

Bush: "Kerry" Is Osama Bin Laden in Rubber Mask

If you had to guess, what would you say John Kerry's face is made out of? If you said skin, you'd be dead wrong. You should have said rubber. How do I know that is what you should have said? Because Bush said so. And then some. Enjoy.

Square Hectare

Conversion between the arcane English system of weights and measures to the sensible metric system is fun and funny. Especially since the English system has so many humorous names, like "hogshead" and "barleycorn."

My friend Jeff suggested I find out the conversion rate from hogsheads to "square" hectares. I set about to do precisely that, until realizing that a hectare is a unit of area--hence two-dimensional--while a hogshead is a unit of volume--hence three-dimensional. Which means even if there were a standard definition of precisely how large a hogshead is (it depends upon the fluid in question), the conversion just plain wouldn't work. A "square" hectare would be a four-dimensional concept. Think of it as a space 100 meters long, wide and deep that lasts for 100 meters of time. Which doesn't make any sense.

But, just for fun, I thought I'd convert a hogshead of ale into cubic meters. And the result? There are approximately 4.89 hogsheads in a cubic meter. Isn't that neat?

Gollum.

I think I just realized why "Gollum" (the Tolkien character) is so named. In Jewish mythology, there is this creature called a "golem" made out of clay (or stone) that is animated by a piece of paper in his head that says, "G-d is truth." [I think that is right. I'm a little rusty on my Jewish mythology.] Gollum, while he retains a bit of Sméagol, is basically a shell, animated only by the power of the ring; he is a twisted golem, given life by Sauron rather than G-d, but a sort of golem nevertheless.

And for my next trick, I'll bite the head of this chicken and take a bow.

New story...

Al-Zarqawi's Collection of Heads Grows. I tried not to be too tasteless too soon. So maybe in the process it became unfunny as well. I tried.

Achewood

There was a time when I read Achewood religiously. Because it is funny and because it comes up with (or at least introduces me to) such clever lingo. I decided to dip into the archives recently, just for a chuckle, and came across this gem where Roast Beef says he's going to "get a little puzzled on some brew." I'm going to try out both the line and the mental state this evening at Karaoke night.

New Story

Another new story, entitled Local Man Elicits Laughs By Mispronouncing "Nefertiti". Enjoy.