I'm so disappointed in Frank
red hot stinkfinger action
Boong-Ga Boong-Ga....and I quote:
The object of the game appears simple, you have to jam a big plastic finger up someone's rear end. Why? I have no idea.
Built into the cabinet is a bent over backside, and on the screen in front of you appears the expression of the person as you shove the finger inside. The harder you shove the finger inside, the more points you score.
From the brochure:
"This is a fun game of spanking the people that make your life miserable. When you spank the character that you choose to punish, the face expression of the character will change as they scream and twitch in pain. The funny face expressions will make people laugh and relieve stress."
Riiiight. Well in any case it has made me laugh. Although I don't understand why they call it "spanking", since you're actually shoving a finger in someones butthole.
"Characters include: Ex Girlfriend, Ex Boyfriend, Gangster, Mother-In-Law, Gold Digger, Prostitute, Child Molester, Con Artist."
Compare and contrast to Slap the Raver (requires flash)
I hate you, Dan Savage
"You've found it, the only hardcore male animal fur suit sex web site. This is the stuff you have heard of, but never been able to get your hands on."
Via www.theavclub.com where Mr. Savage says,
"There's something about the combination of big-eyed, human-sized mascots/plushies with decidedly unfurry pink human dicks sticking out of their crotches that... well... I don't mean to judge or anything... and I don't want to cast furries in a bad light or anything... but, Christ Almighty, I've had some trouble sleeping at night. Fair warning: Anyone going to Disney World in the near future shouldn't go to fursuitsex.com until well after their vacation."
tomorrow I will dress for success
EASLEY, S.C. (AP) -- Students who violate the dress code at Easley High School are given something new to wear: T-shirts with the words "Tomorrow I will dress for success."
The other side of the shirt reads, "Today I did not meet the SDPC dress code policy for proper attire," with the letters standing for the Pickens County school district.
Easley High Principal Betty Garrison said the shirt saves time. Students who broke the code in recent years could wait up to an hour for parents to bring a change of clothes, she said.
Students can still call home for a change of clothes if they don't want to wear the shirt, Garrison said.
"To me, it's a very positive statement. The T-shirt is dull gray. It has black lettering. We intentionally selected something that would be low key," she said.
Many dress code violations involve clothing that features profanity or items illegal for students to have, such as beer or marijuana. Another problem area is the ban on midriff-baring shirts, tank tops and those with narrow spaghetti straps.
Pickens County trustee Shirley Jones said she has gotten "an enormous amount" of phone calls from parents upset about the T-shirt policy. One parent, Randy Newman, said, "I think the T-shirt is good if they make the kids wear them who need to wear them."
DNA Lounge: Wherein Celebrities are Boxed.
Photos from the EFF party on thursday are up now. This was a benefit for EFF's Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression and their Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. If you don't know who the EFF are, they're essentially the legal division of the free software world. They're a donation-funded organization who oppose bad laws and organize legal defenses for hackers and other internet users who find themselves victimized by corporate lawyers.
So, we threw a little party to raise some money for them, and it went great! Lots of people showed up. At around 11:30, a few folks made speeches about why we were there. Wil Wheaton's speech was really good, and you can read it on his web site (he posted it that morning, and just after he started in, someone in the audience shouted, "we've already read it!")
Apparently he was on TechTV talking about this earlier in the day, but I missed it: if any of you happened to tape that, I'd like to see it! (They seem to have a video clip of it on the site, but it's in some Windows-only plugin format that I can't play, since I live in a Microsoft-free world.)
Sherri Steele gave the background on the whole Barney thing. ("Yeah, why Barney?" you might be asking, "isn't that kind of 1996?") In case you don't know, the Barney lawyers started sending nastygrams to everyone who did a parody of their annoying purple property, and they send such a lawsuit threat to the EFF themselves, because for a while, EFF was mirroring a zine that included a parody of the Barney song. EFF's reply to this nonsense was part of the genesis of their Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.
Then the boxing match!
Barney "The Cretaceous Killer" Dinosaur and Wil "The Crusher" Wheaton enter wearing towels around their necks, doing the usual pre-match mugging. Rocky Theme. Barney Theme. The referee calls them out and gives them the rules: no ear-biting, no nose-rubbing, no tail-humping. Much cheering, much booing.
Round One! Barney refuses to fight! He shakes his head, he asks for a hug! Wil pops him one, but feels bad, and tries to make peace. Of course Barney hits him, Wil goes down! Barney kicks him! Bell sounds! "We Will Rock You" plays.
Round Two! Blows traded, Barney goes down like a preacher's daughter! Some lovely lady on the balcony tosses Wil her panties. Wil grabs Barney by the tail and swings him around. The ref breaks them up. The fight continues. Barney's down again! Barney's lawyers started running around handing cease and desist letters to the audience! (I didn't manage to save a copy of one of those, but they said, basically, "stop making fun of our client!") Barney gets up at the seven count. Bell sounds! "Rock and Roll" by Gary Glitter plays.
Round Three! Not long after the round starts, Barney's thugs hand him a light saber! Hot franchise-on-franchise action! Wil tries to defend himself using a big plastic penguin (the Linux mascot.) Then John Gilmore, dressed in a bathrobe (which I gather was supposed to be an Obi-Wan Kenobi costume) appears and provides him with his own light saber.
And Barney is down for the count! Barney is beheaded! Barney's lawyers pick his pockets and run. Bell! "Eye of the Tiger" plays. The crowd goes wild.
Wil's parting words: "Finally Wesley Crusher has come back to San Francisco!"
get thee behind me, part 2
MARIETTA, Ga. -- The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force the Cobb County school board to remove disclaimers on evolution from thousands of middle and high school textbooks.
The suit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, just one day before the board was to discuss whether teachers should be allowed to teach faith-based ideas along with evolution as explanation for the variety of life.
The stickers, placed in new science books this month after requests from parents opposed to evolution on religious grounds, say evolution is a theory, not fact, and should be critically considered.
Jeffrey Selman, the father of an elementary school pupil, initiated the lawsuit. He said placing advisories in science texts is an attempt to inject religion into public schools.
"It singles out evolution from all the scientific theories out there," Selman said. "Why single out evolution? It has to be coming from a religious basis, and that violates the separation of church and state." [...]
"What it does is promote the establishment of creationism in public schools," Manely said. "Why are they singling out evolution? Because from a creationist's standpoint, they don't have a problem with the theory of gravity."
<LJ-CUT text=" --More--(45%) ">
Some parents in the county feel differently.
Acworth resident Bruce Horacek, whose children graduated from Cobb schools, said students are not being told of the faults in evolution. "You cannot prove or disprove that evolution or inert materials created the diversity we have," he said. "Evolution and creationism are both philosophies."
The issue appeared before the school board in March, when several dozen parents asked that alternatives be taught. They presented a petition signed by 2,000 county residents, demanding accuracy in textbooks.
The board adopted the labels, which say: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
School board chairman Curt Johnston said the concerns of the community need to be considered in Thursday's meeting.
"The whole purpose of this discussion is to try to clarify what can be taught and what should be taught," Johnston said.
Similar debates have occurred elsewhere.
Ohio is considering state science requirements that would allow teaching of alternatives, including intelligent design. Kansas adopted standards that struck references to evolution, then reversed that stance after a new state board was elected in response.
In Georgia, Clayton County put evolution disclaimers in its science books in 1996, but has since removed them. Alabama put stickers on all biology books about the same time.
get thee behind me!
School drops 'Satans' as team nicknameDEVILS LAKE, North Dakota (AP) -- Satan has been banished from Devils Lake.
High school teams here no longer will be known as the Satans, the school's nickname for nearly 80 years.
The school board unanimously voted Monday night to immediately drop the nickname and mascot and start the process of finding a new name to represent its athletic teams.
The 5-0 vote brought applause, hugs and a few tears of joy from an audience that favored change.
"It's hard to stand up and cheer for the Satans," said Kellie Karlstad, a parent of three and the junior varsity girls basketball coach. "It's not an appropriate name for children."
Supporters of the change said the Satans nickname had brought division and a negative image.
"As far as finding one positive for keeping the nickname, I can't," board member Julie Schemionek said. "I believe in tradition. But sometimes, traditions need to be changed."
School Board Chairman Kevin Regan, a Devils Lake alumnus and athlete, said he had not been bothered by the nickname.
"I always thought it was a natural fit that the mascot for Devils Lake would be Satans," he said.
DNA Lounge: Wherein photos are presented.
Photos from sunday's Nina Hagen show are up now. That show was just amazing. She's one of those people who is fascinating because she's so Unlike Others -- it seems like her show is mostly just, her being her. Watching her cook dinner would probably be almost as captivating as watching her sing with her band. It was a great show: she'd go from operatic highs to that scary devil-voice she does in the blink of an eye, the whole time mugging and being generally Nina Hagen-like. If you didn't see this show, do not miss her the next time you have the chance! I would not steer you wrong on this one.
It was, of course, a wonderfully odd crowd. The majority were fairly uncategorizable freaks, but you could tell that even the most normal-looking people there were still the weirdest people at their day job.
She has some quite devoted fans. The first two folks in line were a couple who had traveled from Texas to see the show -- they showed up to start waiting at 3 PM. We also got faxes at the club addressed to Nina from people who couldn't make it to the show, but felt the need to write her a letter!
Then tuesday was the Pete Rock show. The headliner was just a dj and didn't impress me, but the opening acts were very cool: hip hop isn't usually my thing, but I always appreciate any display of skill, and these folks had it. The best bit was these two guys called Soulati and Infiniti who did the best beatboxing I've ever heard: it was just two guys with two vocal mics, and they sounded exactly like djs. I had to watch them for a few minutes before I believed there wasn't a record playing too, because it was hard to believe that those sounds were coming out of human mouths: "that's a drum machine! That's scratching! That's a record spinning backward!" But no, it was all done with voices.
It starts at around 10:50 in the archives if you want to check it out. Though it sounded more convincing in person than it does in the archive: I guess the subwoofers helped.
Then wednesday was the Impotent Sea Snakes show, which was just about the farthest possible thing from what we had on tuesday: basically it was 80s metal plus a skanky fetish performance. Well, I think the photos speak for themselves. It was certainly an... interesting... show. An impressive amount of work went into it, and it was amusing to watch. But I understand it was supposed to be erotic. Alas, it just about made me never want to have sex again. "Yes," this show told me, "sex is dirty, and not in a good way!"
After the show was over, some dumbass, who had just gotten thrown out of the club for, I dunno, being a dumbass (I think he threw a beer bottle or something), decided that as he was walking away from the club, he'd throw a punch at the plate glass window next door (the former pizza place, currently closed for remodeling.)
He broke the window, and sliced his hand open. Then he panicked and started running. So our security chased him down, wrapped up the fountain of blood coming out of his hand, and called the paramedics. So he went to the hospital, and then to jail.
Of course, this left the restaurant with no window. And Georgia, the new owner, is already in the desert for Burning Man. John has keys to the place, so we called him to have him bring them down (dragging him away from his girlfriend's birthday party!) He went a step farther than delivering the keys, though: he managed to round up plywood and a circular saw at 3AM! Here's John and Lucci patching the window.
There weren't too many people at the Sea Snakes show, but there were enough that we came out a little bit ahead -- that is, until we suddenly found ourselves needing to pay for a window. Factoring that in, we lost money on the show. Thanks, dumbass!
Also, her notification of liquor license application (which had been taped to the window) got lost in the shuffle, so we also had to send someone down to the ABC to do the paperwork dance to get a new one...
Then on thursday, the following night, was our EFF Benefit, with Wil Wheaton versus Barney Celebrity Boxing. It was great! But I'm tired now, and will write about that later...
