The Sudden Curve

About Face - a holiday reading pick

We know it's raining. STOP WHINING! It always rains on made-up yankee gubmint holidays. That's because there is some justice.

(( And why is it that only some gubmint workers (the non-essential ones) get the day off anyway? The tiny minority of useful apparatchiks are on the job. We might think to suggest that every drone out there with today off should just not bother coming back in tomorrow ... but that would be un-patriotic - hmmmpff.))

Uhmmm, what was this post about again? Oh YEAH, A BOOK.

Here it is - great reading for the day. David Hackworth's:

About Face is a very good read. The narrative flows without meandering and without autobiographical, navel-gazing-into-my-soul B.S. to wreck the story. Once started you'll be quite happy it's raining because you won't want to put this book down. There is nothing bowlderized in About Face. This is a battlefield memoir not a screenplay or a campaign promise. Everyone too young or too intellectual to have experienced Korea or Viet Nam and is today blathering about war and peace on the internet and hasn't read About Face should be hit over the head with it a few times (hey, might as well -they won't read it anyway).

Amazingly enough, David Hackworth, the old, brown shoe soldier turned correspondent, turned author is still in the line everyday at his invaluable website. There you'll find honest, tough, and remarkably well-informed reporting you won't get from any "embeds." Hack makes more sense than anyone in the Pentagon, which is saying something considering that Hackworth's been shot in the head about seventeen times.

Hey - his fiction books are pretty good as well - but we'll save those for another rainy day.

Fire good,

Fire is our friend.

Smoke good,

Smoke is our friend.

Beer good,

Beer is our friend.

Grilling good,

Grilling is our friend.

The above artzy-montage was brought to you by Memorial Day Weekend (What?? That just doesn't sound right. How can this be a day and a weekend? Shouldn't it be one or the other - somebody call Hallmark .... )

Another Resource Company Scandoil

Can you believe these evil petroleum barons? They AREN'T CHARGING ENOUGH! How dare they lower their prices???? The STATE decides on the oil price not the market!! What are they trying to do - c-om-p-e-t-e?? Egads!

You can read the whole story over at Swanson's to learn what is going on up there in the great state of Minnebraska or wherever in the midwest this is happening.

posted by tom novak, editor who says that Murphy Oil earned $1.05 per diluted share in the first quarter of '04. Yeehaaa - that's up .10 per/share! ~ not that that's ever more important than toeing the soviet line.

BEWARE THE EARTHLINKS

HOO YAAH!

Iffy's back on the internet.  After battling what I now believe to have been a mysterious Martian anti-DSL particle beam propagator for the past 10 months, I am finally free of its evil effects!  Or so it seems.

Free at last, Free at last, thank Gawdamighty I'm Free at last! 

Free to pay almost double the cost for access to various communication and content signals than I ought to have to pay, but at least everything works now.  I can watch "Mars Needs Women" on satellite, and surf the net at warp speed via cable connection.

   
         

I used to have only cable service, for both television signals and internet access, but I got angry with the cable droids when they couldn't figure out how to offer the programming I wanted, and not offer the programming I didn't want.  I ditched them and switched to satellite.  Satellite is fine for TV, except when it rains real hard.  Cable was fine for internet, but they wouldn't offer cable for internet only, so I hooked up with DSL.  To complicate matters, I couldn't have kept my email account if I had stayed with cable because the cable company switched ISP's.

Simple solution I thought was to switch my connection to DSL and keep it with the same company that was my previous ISP with the cable company.  That ISP goes by the name Earthlink.  Note the similarity of that name to the term "Earthling".  I should have been suspicious from the outset.  The evil Martian bastiges who call themselves "Earthlinks" were never able to provide me with reliable internet access, though their billing systems remained flawlessly functional. 

Whenever I called to complain, the Martian "earthlinks" would set upon me with multitudes of sickeningly polite, quasi-english speaking tech support wizards located somewhere over in Raunchypur (anyone recall the moovie "Rains of Ranchipur"?) or Mumbai judging from thier accents. These wicked minions would delight in sending me outside in a lightening storm to crawl up a ladder and check the phone line, or have me run all over the house looking for a phone plugged into a jack that had no DSL filter on it, or repeating ad nauseum the exercise of turning off the modem, shutting down the computer, turning  the modem on, rebooting, etc. etc. etc. repeat as necessary.  That last process was occasionally successful, in the way that pulling on slot machine levers is occasionally successful.  Just enough reward to make you actually consider trying it again even though your better instincts tell you to empty a magazine of .45 auto into the friggin DSL modem and get on with life.

(above: Iffy protests the Earthlinks)

Finally I realized that I would not outwit the clever Martians-cum-Earthlinks, and their powerful anti-DSL particle beam propagator, so I did what I should have done a long time ago.  I emptied a magazine of .45 auto into the DSL modem and called the cable guy.  So far so good. I now seem to have reliable internet access, only to find out that in order to slip the shackles of the evil Martian-Earthlinks, I will have to pay a penalty for early withdrawal.  These Martians in disguise are foul creatures!  They sell you something that doesn't work, and make you pay for it while they torture you with the expectation that it might someday work, and then if you get wise to them, they charge you a penalty!  Stay away from Martian Internet Service Providers!  Especially the ones that masquerade as Earthlinks.  I will go ahead and pay their stinking ransom so that I can keep my "earthlink" email addess, but the foul taste of Martian cyber torture will not leave my craw for a very very long time.

(above:  Martians/Earthlinks using DSL disruptors and laughing at Iffy)

The only encouraging thing out of all this is that apparently one marketing genius at the cable company has come to the realization that if they provide what people want, and only what they want, they will get more customers.  The lack of marketing sense in the communicaton industry makes me wonder whether the Martians have been systematically debraining their marketing people, rendering most of them profoundly stupid.  I guess one at Charter Communications must have slipped through the net.  They now offer only internet access without the TV service.  And it's fast and reasonably priced!!! 

Cautiously, I wade back into the cyber goo.  ONWARD!

(above:a busy Iffy in the newly Mars-shielded TSC laboratory, back online and working on ... on...  on whatever that is he thinks he's doing. HEY! WTF?)

posted by IFYA, editor who has finally experienced the wrath of The Angry Red Planet

Come on along and listen to, the lullaby of geeeeeeehod!

The latest and greatest hits from "Osatchmo" Bin Laden and his Orchestra now broadcasting *LIVE* 5 times a day from Hamtramck. and coming soon to a mosque near you!

posted by tortuga tommy, editor who has a few requests for that band

A Hubble's Eye View

Of Saturn, taken March 22, 2004.

posted by ROBO, editor at running rings around things

Red Beans and Ricely

Geezum! Summer is early on and it's gonna be a hot one. We got us a million red-eyed bugs from Mars hatching allover and a million red-eyed leftist pundits blogging for dhimmitude.

What do we say about all this?

Well, we say, La- Ti - Da!

Seasons will change but when it comes to boot-scooting and dirty-boogieing to great Tex-Cajun R&B we can always depend on:

Forget the mumbling rappers and the tevee singing contests, and the reality shows and those adolescent pop divas and go over and listen to her tallness tell you all about Sad Songs and Sudden Danger. And when the whigger in the Sentra starts thumpin' some crap at the stoplight, hit the remote and blow 'em away with blistering 'Nawlins stride pianer from:

posted by tortuga tommy, editor who's gone Crawfishin'

It's A Night at the Opera

(below : happy reviewer enjoying the Opera environment)

Even More Iraqi Prison Abuse!!

Canned

As expected, for his latest anti-american, documentary film extravaganza, Mikey Moore has won the big prize from the French Frogs. While we are big fans of the historical Franks, this current bunch isn't exactly Chanson de Roland material.

... and so, the rift between the "intellegentsia" and the rest of us widens. As the huge success of Mel Gibson's movie The Passion ably demonstrates (not to mention LOTR). Of course, when it comes to those international tax-trough-hog's prize awarding choices there is some question of the veracity of their judgement. For example:

(Above: Nobel Peace Prize recipient at right shown with a future sure winner)

posted by NOBODY, editor who never wins nuthin'

Going to be at the Bathtub?

posted by tortuga tommy, editor corrupted by the filthy class of '86.

Environmentalists really are whacky

And they will never, ever, never shut up. While about to post the nifty skeeter poster below, we noticed the "likely caused by global warming" blurb inserted into it. Jeeee-uus! Thus instantly turning it from what was useful information to meaningless political propaganda suitable only for wrapping the jewfish we powerheaded 25 fathoms below the oilrig this morning.

BTW, what the enviro-nazis aren't telling anyone is that according to Ronald Bailey the latest revised projection of the significance of global warming based on current satellite data is a rise in temperature of one degree celsius in the next century. OMIGOD! HAAAAAAAAEEEEELP!

So instead of that tripe we'll showcase this:

Woooohoooooo!

posted by tortuga tommy, editor at battling the manichaean multiverse

Call For Help, R.I.P

The last episode of Call for Help will air tonight on Tech Tv.

Seems strange that the old man will be gone ... Here's to hoping they find a new location for the instant geek factory sooner rather than later.

posted by Robo, editor who would cry now except that he'd rust

Time for a *NEW* Florida Real Estate Boom

Forget those stupid Condos and the golf courses and the ranch houses with the plastic flamingos in the front yard and put in about a thousand of these waterfront developments in the gulf:

Isn't this pretty? And practical. It's one of the places where we are considering moving the TSC offices

Next we can go shopping for local Gulf-coast refineries. Oh, what? There aren't any??? Oh gee, and who's genius idea was that? Algore? Jimmy Bluffert? Sheesh.

posted by tortuga tommy, editor who asks if oil rigs are so darn bad howscome that's where all the fish are? Hmmmmmmmmmmm?

It gladdens the heart

to see a wonderful pixture like this:

and here you can read the story about the scalawag.

But it's saddening to the heart o' Dixie that, these days, Southern politicians come in only two flavors, scalawag and carpetbagger.

We're thinking of starting a write-in campaign nominating General Lee to be the next imperator of yankeedom.

posted by tortuga tommy, editor who thinks having a 440 c.i.d. is way more impressive than a Yale sheepskin.

Bugs of MARS ATTACK(s)! Part 2

Oh, okay Poindexters. So you are all out there laughing about how we are seeing black helicopters and alien saucers and Elvis over just a few bugs, uh?

Weeell, if Bugs of Mars were invading (and we aren't saying positively that they are just now ) do you really think that they'd be out in the open brain-sucking teenagers at Drive-In Theaters and being taken to our leaders and stealing women and blasting everyone to bones with Atomic Death Rays?

Of course N-O-T!

They'd start small and sneaky-like. Maybe seeding the planet with worms and bugs and viruses and algae and red-eyed cicadas at first to change the environment and soften us up . Just like in David Gerrold's classic War Against the Chtorr series. Most of the people in the story didn't think it was anything to worry about either - oh no, not until the first plagues struck ...

Posted by ROBO, editor at always wearing a tin hat

Go Grok your Bookself

Which Heinlein Book do you belong in? Find out with this fun quiz

Bugs of MARS ATTACK(s)! North America

"Ack Ack! Submit, puny humans or we will destroy you!"

Okay, the big-headed scientists in charge claim they are only cicadas - but we aren't too sure about that!

Like, what else would National Geographic say? That there really are Bugs of Mars invading this summer? Hummpffh, not likely! Remember all the trouble Orson Welles got in when he tried to warn the nation the last time? Those nature-weinies aren't about to risk tenure and their cushy grants for that - no sireee.

Below: one member of Brood X hatching... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!

What's next? The Deadly Mantis???

posted by tortuga tommy, editor who is wondering how these things taste in gumbo.

The good, the bad and the media

Flying into Lost Angeleeze ...

Bringing in a couple of keeeeze.

Uhm -err, ah Whoopsie! Forget that line (Arlo Guthrie didn't have to deal with zero tolerance or John Ashcroft) ... but anyway, don't check our bags, Pleeeeazee, Mr. Customs Maaan!

Hi everybody, we've arrived.

\

( editors Supreme Uber Junker and Tortuga Tommy at the controls of SC-1 flying west of Bermuda discussing who forgot the GPS manual as the compass spins wildly.)

Well almost.

We are currently winging our way east out of the sun and headed home aboard SC-1, our custom tri-motor goose. But we forgot to mention a week or two ago that the entire editorial staff of The Sudden Curve would be headed off on another supreme uber junket east of Sumatra and West of the Hebrides.

(editors Bob Wallace, Slim and Iffy relaxing and ordering dark 'n stormys in SC-1's spacious passenger compartment somewhere over The Slot)

We did leave NOBODY in the offices, but the spectral nitwit didn't post a single thing or answer the phone for two weeks. Must have been sweeps week. Next time we'll hide the teevee remote before we leave.

And then, of course, editor Humberto Fontova had to miss this flying junket to stay behind in his swamp slaving away on his upcoming certain-to-be-a-bestseller book to be released this fall about Cuba. And we can't wait.
Although rumor has it that he did manage to get out and celebrate Cinco de Mayo last week.
As this candid pixture at right seems to suggest. We'll wait for the police reports before we corroborate or make snarky judgemental ethnic jokes.

Speaking of offices, this junket was a search for new commercial office space for our ever-expanding editorial staff (those additional barstools take up a lot of room). Because of the huge growth in readership of TSC in the last few months (thanks all nine of you out there in the blogosphere - you know who you are!) we've outgrown first the basement, then the garage and even the Bourbon Street Location (it didn't work out so well - too much noisy politicking going on at all hours of the night). In a search for suitable digs we tri-motored from location to location past the "here be monsters" legends on all the charts and we looked at a lot of real estate. We'll be putting some of it up for viewing, later. After we land ... take the dust covers off the furniture and delete all the spam we know has piled up.

Updates to Follow.

posted by ROBO, editor who should have been piloting all along since he has a custom trans-sat uplink built into his software (but those fatheads never let me have any fun) - darn it!