EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the planet, something like this pops up.

I will never look at ducks in the same light again. You dirty, dirty bastards.

“Curse you, evolution!”

I’ve ben reading and enjoying David Wong’s work for a while, but frankly I think this is his masterwork. It encapsules in one neat little capsule theory the reasons why we as a race can be so tolerant of some things and so intolerant of others.
I’m not like this of course. And neither are the 150 people I know.

Faithful reader and fellow Sick Puppy Clive has pointed out this little gem from The Onion’s AV Club. Dammit, all my Vonneguts are in boxes under the stairs. I think I may have to go Kurt-mining…

We were in Malmö this weekend, as part of an informal gathering of Scandinavian friends. Clare and I are honorary Scandies, and we wear our horned hats with pride. It was a real blast, and we discovered some whole new taste sensations.
Salted liquorice, for example. Sounds dreadful, but the light salting brings out the savoury aspects of the flavour, bouncing the aniseedy flavour around the mouth in a deeply intruiging way. There are tons of different kinds, including a hot version, which when ground and added to Korskenkova vodka becomes this stuff. Syrupy, aniseed flavoured grain alcohol. It has a certain something. A cough syrup sort of something.
Now, add that to Bailey’s. You have the danger-packed thrill-ride that is the Grandma’s Slipper.
You now have sweet and salty, creamy and spicy, boozy and boozier, all in one mouthful. It’s like Scandinavia in a shot glass; slightly odd, not what you’d expect and huge amounts of fun.
Why Grandma’s Slippers? They’re soft and they smell funny.
Malmö is a lovely city, full of open squares ringed with cafes and bars, some beautiful old architecture mingled in with cool bits of modern sculpture, and a river running through it. Tons of cinemas too, gratifyingly, and mostly showing arthouse and independent films as opposed to the usual Hollywood tosh.

But it’s a city that’s gradually changing. New developments with a clean, open feel are sprouting up as part of a public works programme by the bay. A major landmark here is the Turning Torso, which reminded me a little of the Burj-al-Arab in Dubai, or indeed the Spinnaker in Portsmouth. It’s the tallest skyscraper in Scandinavia.

No, the sections don’t move independently. If they did, it would be the cause of the highest incidence of motion sickness in Scandinavia.
Clare and I had a blast this weekend. Props and shouts to all the Lashers we met. Good people all.

This is just the finest piece of autobiography I’ve read in a long time, and of all places it’s appeared on the Something Awful forums. Bruiser has his own voice, a nice line in avoided obscenity, and the deftest of touches with smileys. Funny, atmospheric, and at one point crack-your-heart-open moving.
Start here, and scroll on through. The stories finally end on page 24 of the thread, and it’s worth the trip. The SA goons are already talking about making a screenplay out of this. It’s a film I’d gladly go see.

(via linkbunnies. Good catch, guys.)

In the light of yesterday’s nightmare in Virginia, I’ve been musing on the problems facing a country which seems content to allow hormonal, confused teenagers access to semi-automatic assault rifles. Blame has been attributed already to slow response times of campus security to the threat, and by veteran campaigner Jack Thompson to video games.
To me the solution seems obvious. Guns are an inherent part of American culture, and to remove them would be constitutionally untenable and impossible to accomplish even if a sweeping law could be passed. There are simply too many guns out there.
Therefore, America should make a virtue of the fact, and ensure that everyone has a gun. From the age of ten, it should be illegal to be out in public without a holstered and visible weapon. There is already a strong market for ladies guns. It would surely not be difficult for an enterprising manufacturer to come up with sidearms designed for the pre-teen. (EDIT: my bad. It’s already happening.) And just think, how many tragedies could be avoided in the future if a gunman, gang-banger or armed robber is faced with an instant and unexpected armed response. Imagine. A guy tries to hold up a 7-11. He waves his gun in the clerk’s face. then he hears the sound of a round ratcheting into a breech behind him.
Grandma’s got her Glock out, and baby, she is ready to roar.
It’s the ideal solution to a problem that is spiraling out of control. I for one see absolutely no downsides to my proposal.
I call it Peace Through Firepower. God Bless the Second Amendment.

Kurt Vonnegut has died.
Not entirely unexpected (he was 84 after all, and has looked at death’s door for the last 5 years, frankly) but still utterly rotten news.

…and no, that’s not an excuse to have another Creme Egg.

Oh, now this is interesting. Leo at Lifehack throws out some ideas on how the netsavvy geek can run his life just using Google Apps. This is increasingly how I’m running things at Casa de la Verdad Fea. I’m a one-stop kind of a guy, and Google keeps throwing out the kind of applications that I can pick up and use straight away. One minor tweak to his recommendations: I use Jack In The Box’s Google Apps Widget to get to my stuff. F12, baby!

NASA have reported that they now have concrete evidence of the presence of water on Mars. The astonishing evidence has been posted here.

(a little lax in posting. This should have gone up on Sunday.)