Talking Techno Turkey

First day of my extended Thanksgiving vacation. I'd planned to dedicate the time to projects of some import.

The Gods of Perversity and Irony, however, have different plans.

For a while now, my main PC has been fussy about booting up. Resetting to previous saved points have mostly addressed the problem. Over the weekend, the PC decided that was just not acceptable.

I backed up most of my data and believed I'd addressed the problem. I woke this morning intending to get the rest of my data backed up then see if I could make progress on the projects while trying to analyze what's up with my PC.

The PC refused to boot.

Okay, I tried the system recovery disk I'd made.

Nope. Didn't like that at all.

Ooookaaaaaay. Fired up the laptop (which I'm currently on and has its own unique form of fussy behavior) and did a little research. I have a Dell, so of course I wasn't sent the Windows installation disk with the PC. Why would they make my life easy? So I have no easy way to make a bootable USB. Crap.

A little more research revealed the hidden partition drive where there's a fresh Windows install. I could use that. Potentially I could wipe the PC completely and reinstall fresh. Yeah... that's a nuclear option.

So now I've gotten it booted through the hidden drive and am running diagnostics. I'm not convinced the hard drive is failing, but I've been wrong before. I'm pretty sure it's a software corruption. I'm loathe to wipe and reinstall, but it may come to that.

The timing is not the greatest, but I've got lots of time off, so I guess it could be worse.

And to the Gods of Perversity and Irony: that wasn't a challenge. Fuckers.

Best. Advice. Ever.

Today's "Worst Case Scenario" calendar offers a tip I feel all of us should pay heed:

How to Survive If There Are Children in Your Corn

1. Cull.
   Widen your rows so that the children are more visible as they wander among the corn.
   
2. Spray.
   Liberally hose the cornfield with holy water, which has a proven effectiveness against demon children.
   
3. Fence the perimeter.
   Enclose the perimeter of the field with barbed-wire fencing, topped with crosses to repulse further infestation.
   
4. Raze the fields.
   Burn the existing stalks and let the field lie fallow for a season. When replanting, rotate the crop of corn with soybeans instead; resume planting corn the following season.
   
5. Flee.
   If children reappear when you next grow corn, immediately abandon your field, your home, and your town, leaving behind half-drunk cups of coffee, open magazines, and tumbleweeds slowly spinning through the dusty streets.
   

My own editorial to this important advice: substititue your own symbols of faith, as needed. The soybeans really ought to drive out most demonic infestations. Demon kids hate soy. You might consider liberally adding in some broccoli as well.

Temper Tantrums and Faux-controveries

Apparently a bunch of people are offended that Google's main page paid tribute to the birthday of labor leader Caesar Chavez instead of Easter.

Nice tantrum, Twitter-heads! I'm sure Jesus would have been down with you getting all outraged over the arbitrary date of Easter (which changes every year) instead of honoring a respected labor leader who helped people who could not otherwise help themselves.

I'm sure Jesus really gives a rat's ass about what's on Google's main page (or Bing's or whatever). 'Cause clearly the Internet would be of utmost importance to him after being gruesomely executed by Romans.

Sweet FSM, people... seriously? Get a fucking grip!

Happy Pastamas!

May the blessings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster be with you and you be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

In a good way. Unless you're one of those people who really likes bad touches.

I've got BBotE in my blood and will soon join family units in family stuff.

The only downside to life is the damn eye problem I have making me incapable of wearing contact lenses. Gah. Oh well. No need to dwell on the little things.

Oh, and for those of you celebrating Pagan stuff, joyous Yuletide and belated Happy Winter Solstice.

And Merry Xmas to those into that sort of thing. I made it 'till the 22nd before I got hit with "The Little Drummer Boy". So close...

Tick-tock goes the nutter clock

According to the frothing masses of the Internet, tomorrow is the doomsday of the Mayan calendar running out of time-units or somesuch crazy.

Are you ready for zombies/aliens/earthquakes/Rapture/lizard people/comets/asteroids/chainsaw-wielding monkeys/Cthulhu?

I really wish I'd gotten that Apokatana.

I'm regretting not being more proactive over the pending apocalypse and hedging my bets a bit. Would have been nice to learn from those folks who thought the Rapture was upon us not too long ago and offer to take material possessions off of the hands of folks expecting Mayan snake gods to snack on us before the weekend.

With all the NRA folks buying up guns out of fear of talks of (likely never-to-happen) gun control in the States, I suppose it's too late to stockpile and build a bunker.

I'd have to learn to shoot. Probably too late for that too.

I'm not worried. I've been touched by His Noodley Appendage and look forward to an afterlife of beer volcanoes and strippers.

Christianity - updated (or down-dated or side-dated)

Because nobody has the visionary genius of Sinfest. Nobody.

Best way for Christianity to recruit from the nerd pool.

What I've Learned Today

The Japanese pantheon apparently has a god of evil.

His name is Amatsu-Mikiboshi (天津甕星, "August Star of Heaven"). Wikipedia claims he's both the god of evil and the stars, specifically the pole star (Polaris).

Sounds like the Japanese beat Lovecraft to the punch by eons.

I must thank In His Likeness for expanding my theological education.

Arigatou gozaimasu!

One Way of Looking at It

SMBC's take the Rapture.

Makes sense, when you think about it.

Religion of Spirits

Ten gods of beer

Beer Church

(via my friend V)

Finding Spirituality

I'm not a terribly-religious person, save for a healthy respect I've got for the Great Old Ones and the Flying Spaghetti Monster (ARR!).

After reading io9's mystery archeology article I think I've found a deity to worship.

Yeah, that's right. I'm talking about the Sumerian Goddess Ninkasi, Goddess of Beer.

I notice there's places of worship already established for her.

I'm disappointed and a tad ashamed it's taken me this long to discover her.

I'm thinking of renaming my Stein of Science to "the sacred vessel of Ninkasi" or something along those lines.

I'm allegedly a writer. I can probably come up with something that sounds okay.

Gulpo

Hee, hee, hee