my.bicycle

Labels: comic

• Change everything that’s grey into blue.
• From now on, everyone wears red shoes.
• Make everything happen at midday or sunset.
• Replace gun textures with banana textures.
• Turn all cars into pink convertibles that wobble and only do 15mph.
• If you get 100 of anything, a little tune plays.
• Instead of saying “crew” say “your buddies.”
• Instead of saying “hood” say “zone.”
• Make the female characters something other than prostitutes.
• Make the black characters something other than drug dealers.

What I want is to have my novels published the way I write them, and that can be difficult in traditional publishing. Those who read them in search of body functions will be disappointed; there’s not that much. Some readers refused to read the Xanth novel The Color of Her Panties because they said there was a bad word in the title. I refuse to cater to the limitations of such folk. My ChroMagic series is an example of my integrated approach. It’s not about body functions, but where they are relevant, they are there. It’s about as simple as that.

• Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
• When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.
• To prove it isn’t that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.
• The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

While listening to the President denying its use, I find myself thinking about American torture. And I ask myself, "At what point does a tortured man 'break'? Is it the moment when he hears his twisted arm snap behind his back? Or is it, perhaps, the moment when he sees the frayed electrical cord draw blood from his beaten skin? Or maybe it's when he feels the creeping dread of pain promised after hours without sleep, squatting on a cold cement floor, hearing the sound of footfalls moving menacingly down the hall?"

These questions are not born of morbid curiosity. Rather, these are practical questions, the banal stuff of present day American politics and policies. Because, despite the President's pale claims to the contrary, the American government does, in fact, condone the use of torture. The President himself makes this clear when he promises to veto any bill that "makes it illegal to practice the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment" of people. And certainly his Vice President makes no apologies for the American use of torture, when he bluntly says, " Sometimes you gotta play rough."

So, why does the American government use torture? When I consider the question, two possible answers occur to me: 'dark logic' and 'madness.'

In the 'dark logic' answer, torture is not so much a means to an end as it is, in fact, the end itself. Consider, no one in the Bush administration truly believes that torture yields timely or even useful information - nor would they care if it did. The only true value of torture - a value well understood by thugs like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Saddam Hussein and now George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - is that torture terrifies people. Lots of people. It creates a deep, lasting, irrational fear of national authority: a fear felt both by the enemy abroad and by citizens at home. And, historically speaking, it is disturbingly effective.

But the 'dark logic' theory suggests that the Bush administration is rational - albeit darkly rational. And, frankly - and let's be honest here - there's not enough evidence of 'rational behavior' in the Bush Administration to support this. The other, more plausible, reason for the existence of American torture is this: 'madness.' (read on)
—Steven Laffoley,
The Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken: Why Torture Makes Perfect Sense to the Commander-in-Chief (danger army)

Labels: nsfw

Labels: games

I also meet people at E3 and various other conferences. I go to these conferences and I enjoy myself, but I’ve noticed that very few people actually talk to me. It’s almost as if there’s a giant bubble around me or I’m completely invisible. Wherever I go, the crowd splits or I’m not seen at all, and someone comes running into me, knocking me over.

I’ll try and wave at someone and get no recognition. I’ll walk up to someone and say, ‘Hey, what’s the PvP like in this game?’ The presenter will look at me in shock for a minute, whisper to a friend and then attempt to explain to me what PVP is. I know what PVP is; otherwise I wouldn’t have asked the question.
—The Escapist: OMG Girlz Don't Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1

Labels: games