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Messages - Doktor Howl

#1
Zoom meeting today.  I left my camera on by mistake.

Sally (NOT her real name):  "Hamish, your camera is on and...what the hell are you doing?"

Me:  "I am dancing the Macarena."

Sally:  "Why are you dancing the Macarena?"

Me:  "It's part of my fitness routine."

Sally:  "But there's no music.  How are you doing that?"

Me: "The music has been loaded in my head since 1992.  It's like Bios. If you reboot me, that's the first thing that comes up."

Sally:  "..."

Me:  "Can we get on with the meeting?"

Sally:  "Turn your camera off."

Me:  "I'm stung."

Sally.  "Off.  Camera.  Now.  Fucking."

Me:  "This is all normal, Sally."

Sally:  "That's not my name."

Me:  "Maybe in the sidereal universe it isn't.  But in the Hamverse it is."

Sally:  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Me:  "Nothing wrong with me. Nothing wrong with me."

Sally:  "..."

Me:  "Something's got to give."

Sally:  *hangs up*

Me:  "Let the bodies hit the floooooooooooooor!"
#2
Apple Talk / 23 years on. (One Shot Blog Thing)
October 30, 2024, 03:40:01 PM
PD turns 23 in a couple of months, and due to this on-brand anniversary, I thought I'd make a few comments for posterity, mostly because only posterity will see them.  If anyone else does, please forgive a little self-indulgent wankery.

PD started in December in 2002, and was for the first year about as busy as it is now, led by long-forgotten figures such as Poib, Vertaine, Velvet Jesus (one of the nicest young ladies I have ever met, albeit briefly).  The end of the first period of PD was charicterized by "secret mods", mods reading people's PMs and then passing on gossip, etc.

Then, by means which have never been properly explained, ECH took over, and the heathens were vanquished.  The new order came along just in time, as in 2006-2009, the golden age of PD occurred, with the arrival of the East Coast Spags, led by Professor Cramulus, Richter, Suu, and a couple of hundred others.

Late stage PD consisted mostly of people - including and especially myself - trying to keep a dead golden age aiive.  Oddly enough, this period was also when the vast majority of content was generated (There was plenty of content during the golden age, but it was more structured and aimed at evangelism (Golden Apple Seeds, the newsletters, etc).  This all ended in October of 2015, during The Incident, which caused 3rd degree butthurt to everyone involved.  As Eris would have wanted.  Troy?  We gotcher Troy right here, pal.

This board, as it exists today, is the end product of Discordianism. 

A year ago tomorrow, a "friend" told me about the other board.  I have no idea if this is true, because I never tried checking.  I consider the fact that I was never even tempted to check a personal milestone.  If something like this had come up in 2015, I'd be a white-hot ball of butthurt, and I'd have obsessively contemplated some kind of revenge, because at the time I wouldn't have been able to let it go.

Happily, I haven't been exposed to a narcissist in those 9 years, and my general mental health has improved accordingly.  As such, I find myself happy that I have not had any inclination to see if this alleged "other board" exists, or who is on it, or whatever.

This is because, it turns out, with a few exceptions, that the late state crowd was essentially a pack of losers.  People who had been doing well, or at least getting by, but who later left massive craters on their surroundings. 

One person drank themselves right out of their career.

Another lost his job and never really got back on his feet.

The Misery Princess, who turned everything she touched into shit.  Nuff said.

One (the above-mentioned narcissist) crawled so far up her own ass that she insists that her sycophants have to ask permission to speak with her.  That's hilarious all by itself, but what makes the others losers is that they agree to do this.  It's one of those things that makes you laugh out loud and at the same time cringe so hard you suck your jeans right up your arse.

There are of course some exceptions. 

ECH has a lovely wife and family, and is enjoying life more than should be possible.  Out of everyone here, he showed the most personal growth.  He's a fine example of a father, a good man, and I am better for knowing him.

Faust is also living the dream, in much the same way, but not in the manic "WE'RE HAVING FUN SO SUCK IT" manner as ECH.  He's the quieter type, a more recognizable family man who has kept this jalopy running far past its expiration date.

Cain remains a man worth paying attention to.

Also, though I am not flouncing, I consider this board to be a combination scratch pad and museum, so I guess it's finally time to set the record straight on the stories I wrote in first person.  I had set this out in MSY #1, but it was lost when Syntax's board went down.

Millions of Screaming Yahoos was, as I mentioned in the first episode, a combination of truth, fiction, and Tuckerization.  The story about the girl and the dog and Bud and crazy Steve was true, almost verbatim.  Everything else was a combination of other people's stories or outright fiction.

The part of that one story omitted my wife, to whom I have been married for 32 happy years.  Maria never existed.  She was a character my wife invented and sometimes voiced.  The Maria character was basically the inverse of my wife, who isn't a brawler or a criminal, but does have a truly wicked sense of humor on occasion. 

This will explain why I never showed any interest in anyone I met at meet ups. 

I was never a cop.  I was never a thug in the employ of a crooked judge (Judge Richardson DID exist, and I knew him well, but he spent his entire career running a traffic court).

The Sasol stories (the infamous ball mill, for example) were 100% true.  That was one of the best times of my life, despite the aggressive stupidity. It was 8 years of hilarity and doing things that had never been done before, and it is one of the few times of my life for which I am nostalgic.

The brain flukes were real, and I look upon that 6 years of my life as a preview of hell.

The PM replies were entirely fabricated.  Sorry for pulling the vinyl back.  I HAVE received some hilarious PMs from crazy people, but not that many, and only 6 of them ever made it to the list (they did, however, inspire the idea, which was then given the Johny Carson treatment).

Shitpocalypse was real, and in fact just happened again as predicted, this time in Moscow.

The Billy stories are about 80% true.  He and I made the rest up, riffing on the things that did happen.

I do work on robots for a living these days, and have been since 2019.  I'm doing okay.  Shit, my life is brilliant right now.  I drive to work in an ancient Lincoln with the radio blasting in The City of Eris, I have a lovely wife and two grown kids I'm very proud of. 

And who could ask for anything more?
#3
Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only
October 30, 2024, 02:43:10 PM
Quote from: QuestionsTheSoil on October 30, 2024, 02:23:11 AMI feel guilty as an artist. Once told a friend I was disappointed that the only real way to make a living as an artist is digital nsfw commissions because I enjoyed/am better at fine art, but got told that fine art never existed and that it was all holier-than-though "religious lady" paintings.
I know it's true and I'm being narcissistic or classist or whatever, but it still hurt me for some reason.
I just want to make art without being complicit to the system that's actively hurting it. 

Art is inherently subjective.  It has no intrinsic value except that which people assign to it.

"Fine art" just happens to be a collection of things to which certain people attach value.  Also, your friend has apparently never even looked at the genre, because half of "fine art" is salacious as hell, violent as hell (Hollafern), or a massive put-on job (Mona Lisa).

And that's not even mentioning Hieronymus Bosch, who painted things you haven't even had nightmares about yet.

Stop worrying about what art is and go make pictures.  Everything else is wankery by people who took art degrees without actually being the sort of people that make art themselves.
#4
Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only
October 24, 2024, 03:42:19 AM
Quote from: Faust on October 23, 2024, 11:07:09 PMThe second time wasn't as bad for me but it lasted way longer, left me wrecked for weeks instead of a few days

I was sick for 3 days but stayed hot on the test for a week and a half.
#5
Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only
October 21, 2024, 03:15:30 AM
Quote from: Chelagoras The Boulder on October 20, 2024, 07:15:58 AMSorry to hear about you having the plague, Dok.



Better now.
#6
I have nothing to say.  I mean, I do, but I've said it all before.  Donald Trump shat himself at a rally and mumbled "I'm sorry, Momma."  This actually happened, but it's nothing new.  His opponent, while at least human, has a laugh that sounds like screeching roadrunners.  It is now a legal requirement in several states that a woman bleed out and die to demonstrate that she needs an abortion.

I have nothing to say.  Eris is stomping around all over the world in big shitty boots.  Plagues and large-scale conventional wars are not newsworthy.  It's just another day.  Designating a safe escape route for civilians and then targeting that route with artillery is the norm.  I can sit and watch Russians get blown into scorched bits on telegram, but I don't bother.  And I won't bother until the next album comes out.

I have nothing to say.  If you don't own a house now, odds are you never will.  The four remaining grocery conglomerates are gouging us, and the five remaining news conglomerates are blaming the president because the grocery conglomerates buy advertising and the president doesn't.  And we just accept that, because it's normal.

I have nothing to say.  The discordians all realized what kind of rabbit hole they were in and fled to the safety of their own delusions.  The Church of the Subgenius is composed of scared old folks who want everyone to settle down and stop being so loud.  Even the Mormons have become surly.  Nobody wants to make jokes, because they are afraid that they will be the punchline.  The world is coming to an end, and I'm stuck in Tucson.

I have nothing to say.  I'd like my lawyer now, please.
#7
Apple Talk / Re: Tales from the Cutting Edge
October 18, 2024, 06:07:25 PM
Things my boss said this morning:

"No, rescue doggies do not go BRRRRRRT."

"Your proposal was one paragraph long, with a 60 page appendix.  What the hell is wrong with you?"

"That's not a flowchart, that's a map of hell."

#8
Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only
October 11, 2024, 05:18:20 AM
I'm in a good way right now, in most things.


Except that I fucking have Covid again.
#9
Or Kill Me / Re: Breaking Point
October 08, 2024, 02:41:39 AM
Quote from: Majeh on October 05, 2024, 02:07:49 AMThen I was right the first time with my thread below, nothing doing to change Mr. Bones' Wild Ride, we were born here and we will die here. I'll get back to doing my shit and ignoring the rules that I think I can get away with ignoring. No sense playing by the established rules if those who set them aren't, I just have to keep my head down when I flip them off.

Sometimes I fall prey to the delusion that things could change, it's comfortable enough, gives me hope enough at times when I need some. The rest of the time I'm busy dancing the dance of Grandfather Nurgle and enjoying the entropy as we all sink on the ship we built together. The slow procession of decay is, at times, too slow for my liking. Still, such is the whim of the Grandfather and Eris herself, though she strikes me as one who is far more in line with Slaanesh. I make a point to only follow the mad gods, as the world itself is mad.

Um.  40K is a work of fiction. 
#10
Or Kill Me / Re: Breaking Point
October 04, 2024, 11:41:03 PM
Quote from: Majeh on October 04, 2024, 10:00:03 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on October 04, 2024, 07:29:31 PM
Quote from: Majeh on October 04, 2024, 04:57:57 AMThe massive problem with collective action in today's world is the massive oversight that the FBI, NSA, and CIA have over our lives.
Hell yeah. Beats blaming ourselves.
I mean, sure, ignore the very real very police state bullshit world we live in and, yeah, I guess it would be all our faults that we were born in the worst fucking timeline with shitty access to resources. :roll:

Note, I never said anything was impossible, but the reality is reality and if we ignore the very real road blocks ahead of us it becomes a one way ticket to having them steam roll us while we try to make any changes. If you have something to add that will grease the wheels of progress, I'm all ears.

Dude, the CIA is not spying on you.  They don't even know you exist.  They have no interest in your "subversive" ideas. 

Your phone IS spying on you, but it's for Amazon and Meta and Blackrock.  They DO have an interest, because they would like to sell you things with your subversive ideas printed on them.

You're paranoid, but you're not paranoid enough.  You worry about all the wrong things, and you are frustrated because The Man is supposedly in the way of you doing things that were largely ineffective way the hell back in the 1960s when the best they could do was listen in on your home phone.

Now you can't drive to the drugstore without being tracked by half a dozen OLRs, and ANYONE can track you with the phone you increasingly can't live without.

They - Amazon, Meta, the 4 remaining owners of all the major grocery stores, whatever - own the ball AND the ball park.  You can do "collective action" all day long, and nobody will care.  Unless you go overboard, in which case you can work for above said megacorps for $0.50/hour in a prison call center so you accumulate good time towards release.

The chance to overturn The Man came and went in 1960.  And, sadly, you can't lure your crush into bed by hollering about the revolution like you could in the good old days.

Eris never promised you freedom.

Eris never promised you good choices.

Eris only pointed out that you can still have a good time, that is, if you're serious about havin' a good time.

Or you can worry about shit you can't change.

That brings up a question:  Who are you trying to save? You can't save the rubes, because they LIKE this shit.  You can't save the poor, because you yourself lack the resources to do so.  You can't even save yourself, because you are part of the system you are bitching about.

Collective action.   :lulz:   You're already doing it.  Just not the way you imagined.




#11
Apple Talk / Re: Tales from the Cutting Edge
October 04, 2024, 07:34:52 PM
I am at the moment taking a break from the voice programming for the doggie thing.

I chose a little girl voice to tell the victim that "help is on the way."  I thought it would be awesome to have them all say it at exactly the same time.  And it was.

Buth then I tried putting them 1/2 second out of sync with each other, and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.

Success is always nice.
#12
Or Kill Me / Re: Breaking Point
October 04, 2024, 07:29:31 PM
Quote from: Majeh on October 04, 2024, 04:57:57 AMThe massive problem with collective action in today's world is the massive oversight that the FBI, NSA, and CIA have over our lives.
Hell yeah. Beats blaming ourselves.
#13
Quote from: chaotic neutral observer on October 01, 2024, 07:57:20 PMThat is not the light at the end of the tunnel.

No, that's just daylight reflecting off the company president's buttocks, as he moons us while he prances off to exercise his stock options.

I believe that it is a matter of flawed perspective.

The light at the end of the tunnel IS sunshine, but you're seeing it from the bottom of a well.
#14
Quote from: Pergamos on August 16, 2024, 08:05:44 PMYes, that's exactly my point.  We've got two options, both of which support genocide, to the point of arming the folks committing it, and sending troops to help make it happen.

I gotta ask, who promised you good choices?  :lulz:
#15
Quote from: Mandelbrot Slapper on September 14, 2024, 01:36:24 PMThere is a viable anti genocide candidate. It's Jill Stein.

 :lulz:  :lulz:  :lulz: