Nathaniel Eliot

• 08:37 #WorldAidsDay is today. AIDS is free; no coupon codes, no specials. Make sure you find out how to get it -- THEN DON'T! #red #
• 09:19 Who's the real enemy? US Military deaths so far in 2009: 144 in Iraq, 297 in Afghanistan, and 334 suicides. bit.ly/6xL34Q #
• 11:29 Manhattan Project: Totes wnted 2 b ther : bit.ly/7bcpha #
• 13:34 OH from the kitchen: "With sufficient care you can totally recycle corn, peanuts, and poppy seeds." #checkplease #
• 17:13 -photo- 18th Dynasty, recently discovered (in my house, anyway):
  
  ...and I hear that the symbolism is quite naughty. bit.ly/78UGw6 #

One step closer to "speak once, hear everywhere" technology. Thanks, LoudTwitter.

• 09:54 I guess you can turn your twitter red in support of World Aids Day by using #red #
• 09:58 Listen up party people, there is a toxic batch of bromo dragonfly NOT 2cbfly, but mislabeled as it, going around. tr.im/GjuI #
• 10:00 You should always check Erowid and be responsible while altering your brain chemicals. Know what the hell you are doing to yourself before. #
• 10:10 @sandro My days of "trips" and being an international party person are WAY over, but I am still connected to that scene. #
• 10:12 Reading the Erowid experience reports makes me happy my party people days are well behind me. #
• 11:51 @datn We are not human. We are dancer. #
• 14:07 @baconsalt Finally got around to trying my free test sample of Bacon Ranch Dip. The taste was surprisingly not overpowering and also smokey. #
• 14:08 @baconsalt It was quite delish. Tho that first whiff when you open the package is a little chemically scary, it was, once mixed, quite nommy #
• 15:45 @Knownhuman It was changed because they couldn't trademark Scifi since it was already a word. They had to make up a word they could own. #
• 20:00 You always hear about Pavlov's dog, but what about Pavlov's penis? I believe I have coined a phrase. Urban Dictionary here I come. #
• 20:05 @Maab Oh yeah, I guess I should define it better. #
• 20:07 I should add this caveat. Pavlov's penis, the phenomena, actually has nothing to do with dogs or any animals for that matter, just saying. #
• 20:11 Or I guess it could. If that's what floats your boat and makes the sailor salute. #
• 23:14 @stephzadu DnB night at Plush? *sigh* Sometimes I miss going out. #
• 23:17 @stephzadu Who's spinning? #
• 00:48 I like all of the words in these sentences. All of them. #
• 01:12 @stephzadu No, it makes you classy. #

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http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091201.html

Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star.

Hey, decided to prioritize the work they actually pay me for this week, but now finally posting the good, the bad and the oddball of Thanksgiving weekend.

The good -- A very good time had Thanksgiving day, which the_dark_snack and I spent at veronica_rich 's place. We ate so much I felt like Mr. Creosote, then we watched DVDs of the "Dead Like Me" movie, "Wanted" (fun specialFX gun-pron) and "The Proposal" which was quite good for a rom-com (Sandra Bullock and Betty White, how could you go wrong?).

Also good, we went to "A Beef & Boards Christmas" on Saturday and "A Very Phoenix Xmas" Sunday. Both were surprisingly good. I posted a double-review here.

The bad -- heard from the folks back home that the younger brother of one of my high school classmates (making him in his late 30s I think) died after his body was ravaged by H1N1. So now I know someone who died from the "swine flu." We weren't close, even as kids, but it does give me pause.

The oddball, and aren't we glad it didn't get "ugly" -- on Saturday I went with Snack and friendstephen to a small local gun show (hence the icon). Just for the heck of it I wore my Obama T-shirt (from Moveon.org, no less). A couple of people noticed, mostly they laughed. One said I had big balls to wear that there, and I pointed out that this guy was the reason the shows were going so well. Snack said it would have been better if I had been passing out acorns.

This was the second time recently I went along to the gun shows (Stephen is the one into firepower, Snack mainly admires the knives tho she has an eye on a couple of the handguns). Especially at the really big event, the Indy 1500 Gun & Knife Show, I couldn't help but notice who these shows appeal to: in ascending order, it's sportsmen and outdoorspeople, veterans and military collectors, but especially the paranoid. I'm a big supporter of the Second Amendment and individual rights, but I don't at all feel the need to prove that by owning a Kalishnikov or three.

By the way, have you seen the TV show "Lock and Load"? I love it. And 2nd Amendment supporters should like it too -- as it humanizes gun owners. Men, women, teens, young, old, those people are folks just like us. And the host is all about safety and responsibility, even while making a sale or having fun on the range.

Sorry about the digression. Had been meaning to post about that for some time.
Anyway, that's what's been going on with me...

http://defectiveyeti.com/2009/11/30/3925/

http://defectiveyeti.com/?p=3925

I just went for a bracing winter bicycle ride and am now hella braced.

One interesting thing about rides this late in the year is that you find yourself simultaneously sweating profusely and chilled to the bone, a condition that otherwise only occurs if you (a) have contracted hypothermia or (b) are reading a Stephen King novel while fireside.

It was especially difficult to ride so soon after the Thankgiving, as my legs, which used to contain muscles and bone, are now packed with four days worth of pumpkin pie filling.

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http://www.selvedge-drygoods.org/pages/products.aspx?id=103&p=577
These hats are patterned after medieval helmets!!

So here's my actual update-

This morning I went to the dentist.
It wasn't terrible, but I don't enjoy it really.
She was nice. I like Castle Dental South, they're all nice
and my dentist is awesome. Very awesome.

After work I went to the gym, stretched, biked for 30 minutes,
I tried to run in my moccasins- FAIL.
They're too slippery on the bottom. Back to the almost fitting five-fingers.
I got in about 2 or 3 minutes of running, walked another couple and gave up.
I went back to the bike for a while.
Then I did 65 pushups- since my shoulder injury healed up,
65 crunches, 30 leg lifts and 30 oblique crunches, both sides.
A little more stretching and I was done.

Did a painting of an abused woman.
I started it at work but finished it at Kerbey Lane Cafe.

I also photographed it at Kerbey.

It looks pretty rough all blown up like this.
It's a 2.5 x 3.5 painting like my other wee ones.
I'm not sure I captured her sadness quite enough.

I'm aching now for more pictures to paint.

Anyone going to Church Night tomorrow night that wants to learn how I do portraits?
I'll teach you. But then again it'll be really cold...I guess we'll see.
Lemme know if you're interested.
I could also do it somewhere else, some other time.
Somewhere with a heater...

Via Spiny Norman at Making Light, I give you...

The Adventures of Li'l Cthulhu.

• 23:45 Our flt to Bangalore is 2nite @alaw and i seeing Delhi 2day. Saw the Taj Mahal yesterday enjoyed viewing it from across river too... #
• 23:47 .@pwheat it is such a small world I met the systems guy from recovery.gov here and lead from songbird too :-) #
• 23:48 .@pwheat and to top it all met @thekaryn that does OS w NPO and loves idea of #codeathon maybe will participate in SXSW #crisiscamp #

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Cowboy motorist helps Mass. troopers lasso 2 cows
When two Connecticut-bound cows escaped onto a busy Massachusetts highway, a cowboy stuck in the traffic jam came to the rescue. State police say the man, wearing a Western hat and boots, lassoed each of the 500-pound heifers who were wandering on Interstate 91 South in Springfield Tuesday morning. Troopers shut down the highway for about 30 minutes as the man helped load the animals back into the trailer that was carrying them to nearby Enfield, Conn.

El Nino likely to last until May
The weak to moderate El Nino weather system in the tropical Pacific Ocean has strengthened considerably and could create droughts and floods around the world until May, a U.N. agency said Wednesday.

The Tao of Programming

Well, this explains a lot: US did not expect to stabilize Iraq
American troops did not expect to play a role in stabilizing Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, a key adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday. David Manning, who served as a Blair's top foreign policy aide before being appointed ambassador to Washington in 2003, told a British inquiry into the Iraq war the American military did not believe peacekeeping was their responsibility. "The American military thought that they were fighting a war and when the war was over they were expecting to go home," he said.

U.S. Christian Right Activists Pushing Death Penalty for Homosexuals in Poor African State

Mysterious 'Saddam Channel' hits Iraq TV
Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein. The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution. No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel.

Twists and turns snagged missing pilot case
Saddam Hussein was telling the truth, this time. The United States just didn't believe him. So it took the most powerful military in the world 18 years to find the remains of the only U.S. Air Force pilot shot down in an aerial battle in the 1991 Gulf War. Michael Scott Speicher's bones lay 18 inches deep in Iraqi sand, more or less right where a group of Iraqis had led an American search team in 1995.

A new report says that Americans Toss Out 40% of All Food.
The study finds that about 40 percent of all the food produced in the United States is tossed out. I disapprove. That said, if someone tried to feed me this, I'd toss it out too.

For those of you who have been Twilight-Centric recently: Here's a report on Why Breaking Dawn must be made into a movie. It's worth reading.

The Well Heeled Anthropologist explains to non-Americans Why Americans say "Happy Veterans Day". It may be enlightening for some of you.

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If no less a man than Ray fucking Bradbury said he had to write a story a week for the better part of a decade to unlock his magnificence, then so shall I proceed. Even though, come on, I'm not gonna be Ray Bradbury.

My latest batch of rejections have been essentially, "We couldn't find anything wrong with it, but it's not for us." Which is, as it turns out, frustrating on a whole new level (it's the literary equivalent of "It's not you, it's me"), but at least I make progress. I'll keep sending out, and counting those eighty-four rejections I've gotten since Clarion, and keep pounding the keys.

Because, hey, man. Ray fuckin' Bradbury. He's tattooed on my soul, which I think is staggeringly appropriate.

( Maybe NSFW )