Welcome to the 11 Jan 2000 archive of Stream - you can click the planet to the left to get back to Jimbo's World if you're lost.

I'm afraid that due to an unfortunate arrest, Keith McNally will not be updating Smile tomorrow.

For those of you too lazy to click the link, it would seem that "The Black Panties Bandit", noted for robbing Canadian convenience stores with a pair of black women's panties over his head to conceal his identity, has been apprehended, finally.

I guess it's just me, Jimbo, and Erik now. 

Due to the Christmas holidays and my crack-smoking habits (just kidding, motherfucker, shut up), The Conscious Beast was updated way late.  Y'know, like, today.  Just now.

But from now on, if TCB or Smile are late, it's Baldie's or Keith's own damn fault, since they've got file access to their own directories now.   And if CPF will ever update HNNWF! again, I'll set an account up for him too... hint hint Erik, you story-stoppin' mofo.

Hundreds of Nigerians arrested, facing flogging for talking to members of the opposite sex - but religious authorities complain that the law is still not being "implemented properly" by police.  (No, they're not calling for leniency.)

An unmarried 17-year old girl is sentenced 100 lashes for getting pregnant, and 80 more for claiming that men slept with her - Gee, I wonder how those wacky Nigerians thought that baby got in there?   Pressured by the court to disclose the name of the baby-to-be's father, Bariya Ibrahim Magazu admitted to having had sex with three different men, one of whom, she reasoned, must be the father.  Unfortunately for Bariya, turns out that under Islamic law, she's therefore guilty of slandering the men, since she could not produce four corroborating witnesses.  Another 80 lashes for you, chickie!

It's not uncommon for large, strong men to be so damaged by 20 lashes that they cannot walk unaided for a couple of weeks afterwards.   30 has been known to be fatal.  Bariya will be receiving her one hundred and eighty lashes sometime in mid-February.

Stupid Nigerian Tricks #1
Stupid Nigerian Tricks #2

Mommy, I don't wanna study wiccanism anymore.

An online friend of mine is currently all flustered because she's discovered that her dad checks out pr0n on the family computer.  All I have to say to her is this, just be glad Daddy-o isn't getting his porn from this place!  Now that's disturbing. (the link is relatively safe to click, it's just an online catalog)

 

One of the things that frightens me about old age is that, while not everyone grows particularly forgetful or addled or mentally helpless as they grow old... everyone does gradually lose their ability to learn new concepts.  This is, of course, a considerably more frightening prospect today than it would have been a hundred years ago. After all, the Industrial Revolution might have gotten the ball rolling as far as radical changes in how the world worked, but it still took a solid century or so to really get the ball rolling.  And in a way, it hit today's most-senior citizens harder than it will us... frankly, I don't know whether to pity them for the way they got blindsided, or envy them for the blissful ignorance they enjoyed during their youth. We know how rapidly the modern world changes - we've become accustomed to medicine, electronics, computers, and even mechanical engineering revolutionizing themselves every few years.  To us, it's just the way life is... after all, we've seen the problems that a radically-changing world imposes on our elder relatives for all our lives, so we can nervously anticipate the same loss-of-touch-with-reality for our own distant future.  But consider, if you will, the expectations that today's 80-somethings must have had when they were young... If you were 80 today, you would've been born in 1921.   By the time you were ten, in 1931, electric lighting was common (though not universal - rural areas often were not wired for electricity), the automobile had been around for 30 years (and even had an electric starter!), and both radio and television were well-known if not always household objects.

• She can spot a five cent error on a lunch check for four.   • She can scan 20 Bingo cards and find every G-13 in less than 10 seconds.   • She has no fucking clue what       means.

By the time you were 30 - in 1951 - things still hadn't changed a whole hell of a lot, really.  There had been a world war.   Movies had gotten more popular, and they had sound now.  Electric power and the automobile had become universally used throughout the country, rather than just something some folks had.  The television had also become a commonplace device - if you didn't have one, you at least knew plenty of people who did.  In music, big bands were starting to fall by the wayside, with more emphasis being placed on smaller groups like quartets - and rock'n'roll was rumbling on the horizon.

When you were 50 - in 1971 - things had begun to change a bit, but still not really so much.  Rock'n'roll had been big for about 10 years now, and you'd gotten used to (whether or not you actually liked it) hearing electric guitars quite a ways back - though disco was starting to throw you for a loop now.  The TVs were mostly color instead of black and white.  You could record stuff on tapes, as well as listen to it on records.  Cars had gotten quite a bit faster than they used to be, since the overhead-valve design replaced the flat-head design in motors.  Maybe you'd heard the word "computer", but it probably didn't really make any serious impact on you.  "Electronic" was a buzzword, but all it really meant to most folks was that radios and TVs were starting to get much less bulky.  Probably the most amazing thing at this point is the fact that nowadays girls can keep from getting pregnant just by taking a pill.  Things were noticeably different, but you could still get by if you got time-warped here from 1931.

So there go your first 50 years... some culture shock if you went straight from 1931 to 1971, but really, you could deal.  Things were quite a bit faster and looser, but they were still the same things.

We all know what's happened by the time you hit 1991, though... now Grandpa has to deal with computers everywhere, absolutely everything is electronic, suddenly all the best stuff is made in Japan instead of America, you can go for weeks without operating a dial or a mechanical button but there are little electronic touchpads and "pushbuttons" that don't actually push anything everywhere, popular music has broadened out from rock'n'roll through rap, heavy metal, dance, rave, techno, alternative, progressive, and all sorts of other stuff, kids not only have computers, they even have their own specialized home video gaming devices... shit is just getting nuts.  (My own grandfather could never understand - I don't just mean didn't like, I mean could not understand - why people played video games.  He tolerated my love of them, but would often helplessly remark "they're just little lights.  Why does anybody want to pay money to do things with little lights?")

Now, of course, we've hit 2001 and damn near everybody in the country has at least spent some time on a network of millions of computers spanning the globe, most new cars are, quite literally, impossible to do any serious work on without a fully-equipped garage, people actually possess satellite-linked Global Positioning Sensors in their upscale vehicles, Internet dating is not only more widespread than genital warts, it's getting closer and closer to being considered respectable, people are genetically engineering everything from bacteria to corn to goats to do amazing things, the Human Genome Project itself is very nearly complete, the technical knowledge requirements for survival have gotten so steep that even the military will turn you away if you don't have a high school diploma...

And the pace of change isn't slowing down, it's speeding up.  So far, I'm holding up admirably... but then, I'm still not quite 30.  I fear old age... I fear not being able to understand life.

Wish me luck, fuckers... wish us all luck.  We'll need it.

...and speaking of Scandanavian men who like to wear funny hats, Smile is updated today!

Has it occurred to anybody else that the date today is 01-01-01?

That's kinda spiffy.

Okay, enough of that, I'm gonna go play Baldur's Gate 2 now.  As Minsc would say, Butt-kicking for goodness!

These men are the group that is destined for Viking.

Now, when most folks think of Vikings, they think of "Viking" in the narrow, milieu-restricted sense rather than the sort of universal sense I've laid out here - they're thinking purely of Scandinavian part-time pirates in 800 AD.  Let's think of those particular vikings for a moment:  They were men.  They were, with a few exceptions, rather large men.  They wore moderately expensive armor (do you have any idea how much a chain shirt was worth in 800 AD?), often as much as a status symbol as an actual tool for getting their Viking work done.  Those same sets of armor were often tacky in the extreme - jesus christ, antlers on your helmet?  What the fuck were you thinking?   "Work" consisted of invading other people's homes, and over any objections they might raise, taking the goods that they had produced away from them and back home again.

Now let's look at the modern age for a moment... let's look at... in-home salesmen.

They are, overwhelmingly, men.  They are, with a few exceptions, rather large men.  They wear moderately expensive suits... often as much as a status symbol as to help them get their real work done.  Those same suits are often tacky in the extreme - jesus christ, buddy, who the fuck told you that bright yellow striped tie goes with that dark pin-striped suit?  "Work" consists of going into people's homes - generally as a result of telemarketing, in which the goal is to secure simple permission to send one of these guys out, whether the homeowner is genuinely interested in the product or not - and, again, to overcome any objection the homeowner might have to investing most of their discretionary income on whatever the hell our protagonist is trying to get them to sign for.

Do we see a pattern here?

But all of this is actually kinda beside the point - well, it's helping you to understand the point, at any rate.  The classical Viking of old dreamed of a place his spirit could go after death, when he could do what Vikings loved to do - get together and swap tales of Viking glory in a smoky, drafty-ass lodge full of various roasted animals, his peers, ale, and tavern wenches.  Only, since this is the PERFECT Viking hall that he goes to when he's dead... well, the lodge is bigger than the ones he and his fellows ever had, the animals are larger, fatter, and better-roasted, the ale gets him even drunker, and the wenches are all not just available by force, but actually willing.

And just as Vikings have changed, so have their meeting practices - the Vikings of today still get together in big lodges and swap stories, and there's still plenty of roasted animal and ale and wenches to go around... but these days, they don't want a drafty old lodge in the middle of a fucking blizzard, by god, they want a resort.  Beaches.  Sand.  Suntan lotion!

But they're still Vikings... and it's still, quite recognizably, Valhalla.  And it's real!  Want proof?

Mouseover here to see Valhalla, and mouseover here to hide it from polite society again.

Merry Christmas, motherfucker!

Btw, it wouldn't be Christmas if there wasn't something in the stocking... not even Santa could keep Keith from updating Smile today.   Go get some.

First, I'd like to wish you all a Merpy Chriskwaanzukkah.

Second, I'd like to bitch about my family for a little while.

On Christmas Eve, it has been our tradition to go to church as a family. However, certain life changes have come about in my life in the last couple of years. No, Keith, I'm not gay--calm down.

I am an atheist.

And they know this. I told my parents I was an atheist in either September or November of 1999. In December last year, I worked on Christmas Eve to get out of the ceremony. One would think the parents would get the idea.

Flash forward one year--I'm still an atheist. Christmas rolls around.

Dad: Oh, and Rob--make sure you keep Christmas Eve open for church.
Me: Dad, I'm an atheist, and I wouldn't feel comfortable going.

Silence.

Dad: [a faked blase attitude] Oh, okay, well that's fine. If you don't go, we'll just have to return all your presents.

WHAT the FUCK is THAT? Am I still five years old or something? Fortunately, I know how to call a bluff.

Me: Okay. That's fine.

Then the guilt trip started.

He's like a record player.

So, basically, I sold out and I'm going to church on Sunday. A compromise--I'll go, but I will not sing any songs, I will not pray any prayers, and I will not light any candles.

The modern Christian church is an ugly little fucker.

Haunted Ninja Nun Walrus Fuckers! - Episode Three was posted late last night.  Enjoy.

Oh yeah, and there's even a snazzy new Haunted Ninja Nun Walrus Fuckers! index page now - no more directory browsing for you, ya little fucker!

That's right, kiddies... pull up your chairs, because for the first time in the history of the Internet, a man is eating Tamarind on camera for your edification.  Wh00t!

For those of you who don't know what "tamarind" is, the fine folks over at www.bad-candy.com have been calling it the worst candy on the face of the planet for several years now.   It's gained something of a cult following status at this point, kinda like japscat... only (marginally) less unhealthy.  It's been described as having a consistency "like road tar in your mouth", and tasting "salty, sweet, sour, and like old fish."  Wow!  Gotta get me some of that!

Well, Keith M got himself some Tamarind last month so's he could see what that stuff was all about... and discovered the folks at bad-candy weren't bullshittin.  The stuff was so horrid, he wished afterwards that he'd set up a tape recorder so we could listen to his actual agonized screaming and mouth-rinsing, as opposed to the stream-of-consciousness dictation his buddy took down.

AHA... fuck an audio tape, I thought - time to go buy a webcam!

What follows is the first ever video record of one man and his tamarind.  Enjoy.

Tamarind, baby... tamarind.

Look for a series of three videos sometime tomorrow.

God... the horror.

...and speaking of impotent Canadians, Smile is updated today!

... so I often find myself doing really retarded things to pass the time.  Like embarking on a search for the most hideously bad music I can find on Napster.

Dear ghod did I ever outdo myself this time... I found "David Hasselhoff - Flying On The Wings Of Tenderness."   (Entertainingly enough, a guy calling himself "LordDangerous" had it.   LordDangerous, huh? ...riiiiiiiight.)

Frankly, I was damn near as nauseated as I was at the infamous ep-sample.avi. (do not, do not, do not click that link if you don't know what I'm talking about.   I'm serious.  I already told you it's more disgusting than David Hasselhoff's music, don't fucking test me, okay?)

Over at www.gwbush.com, I found the mp3 of George W Bush's statement (mp3, 221K) that cost him any chance of my vote.

It boggles my mind and disturbs me to no end that an arrogant little bastard like Bush can raise a pointed middle finger at the majority of Americans, can make such a stupid statement and STILL get elected. Now, if algore.com was a parody site, and Al Gore had said that algore.com should be illegal, I would vote for Bush--despite his ties to the Religious Right and his pro-life stance.

However, it wasn't Al Gore who said it. It was President-elect Dubya.

I simply don't see how anyone can see Bush as anything but the purest kind of evil.

(In unrelated news, Chapter 4 of The Conscious Beast is up.)

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