No Room Left in Hell

2002-09-19T13:52:00.000Z

2002-09-06T10:13:00.000Z

What!?!?
A woman in Texas is suing Wal-Mart for the payout from a life insurance policy the company took out on her now-dead husband. Sick but true, and apparently not uncommon and not limited to Wal-Mart or Texas (in fact the practice is explicitly illegal in Texas, but Wal-Mart thought it was okay because the policies were taken out out of state). They're referred to as "dead janitor" or "dead peasant" policies, or more officially as "corporate-owned life insurance policies or COLIs for short."
"Companies routinely take out secret life insurance policies on the lives of their low-level employees and collect thousands of dollars when they die. The families never know the policies are in place and typically receive none of the money. "
Christ almighty, it's impossible to be cynical enough in this world.

2002-09-04T09:36:00.000Z

2002-09-03T11:28:00.000Z

The Beaufort Scale of Domestic Squalor

2002-09-02T14:30:00.000Z

CrashBonsai
CrashBonsai is the creation of John Rooney, an artist who is torn between the desire to create and destroy. Recently, he has been making bonsai plants, and combining them with model cars and trucks which he has creatively smashed and melted, to create "CrashBonsai," little living car crash sculptures.

2002-08-14T08:29:00.000Z

I'm planning to go to Belfast for a couple of days' Perl courses, so I've spent a little time looking for accomodation, etc., and found Steve's Pub Guide - A guide to Belfast's bars.
These are reviews you can use, a great antidote to the Time Out fashion brigade.
"Beaten Dockett - A truly shite pub on Great Victoria Street, overshadowed by the Crown and Robinsons which means you can always get a seat in here."
"Europa - Enjoying a bomb free stint at the moment..."
"Garfield Bar - Bring your own chair to this Lower Garfield Street hole. DHSS welcome - no cash, goods in exchange are accepted."
"McEnenys - Also known as the Gravediggers Arms on the Glen Road. The name says it all and they don't have a glasswasher. "
"Meadows Tavern - Boucher Road's sassiest bar - total dump. Flak jackets required especially when dealing drugs. Only go if you have friends in low places. Hangout for Cancer victims."
"Queen's Bar -- Can't see the appeal of this place myself... Gets quite a sophisticated crowd and rave reviews but I think it's total shite."

2002-08-12T10:45:00.000Z

"Target Practice" by Robert Anderson, from "Pulp Western"

2002-08-12T09:10:00.000Z

Bush Memorial Dollar Bill
"A memorial for those lost during the events of 9/11/01. Retail selling at $19.99 per piece. Great gift ideas for mom, dad, family members, friends and co-workers. Every American should have one. "

2002-07-31T09:54:00.000Z

Luff's Hardware by Stephen Powers
And R.A. Miller and Jimmie Lee Sudduth and Donna Collins: my favorites from The Garde Rail Gallery, "a Seattle gallery dedicated to outsider, self-taught, and folk art, focusing on artists from the Northwest, Southeast, and beyond."

2002-07-23T16:33:00.000Z

Educational Archives, a collection of old educational and industrial films on DVD, including an Optional "Classroom Experience" audio track with the clackety-clack of the film going through the sprockets.
Educational Archives Volume Four: On The Job "Films include Shake Hands with Danger, The Grapevine, Promotion By-pass, The Trouble with Women"
Educational Archives Volume One : Sex & Drugs "Films include: LSD:Case Study, Narcotics:Pit of Despair, Social-Sex Attitudes in Adolescence"
Educational Archives Volume Two: Social Engineering 101 "Lunchroom Manners, Soapy the Germ Fighter, The Outsider, Manners in School, Shy Guy"
Educational Archives Volume Three: Driver's Ed "Films include: Last Prom, Joyride, The Bottle and the Throttle, Safety-Belt for Susie"

(Reviewed in this week's The Onion AV Club)

2002-07-22T09:34:00.000Z

More Hoosier nostalgia: Lost Indiana
"the discarded shells of what Indiana is no longer." Oooh.
I didn't know they'd torn down Market Square Arena, site of Elvis' last concert (below).
(What's he doing, looking for his car keys?)

2002-07-22T09:22:00.000Z

Chris Crawford: Mr. Y and one of his cats.

"Mr. Y is 87 years old and has lived here since childhood, when his dad bought the already old farmhouse. He's never told me why the house has been allowed to decay so terribly. Mr. Y was a farmer, as was his father. He never married or had children."
From Abandoned Places, Indiana, "abandoned houses and other interesting places in Allen County, Indiana and surrounding areas in northeast Indiana."

2002-07-19T12:19:00.000Z

I hardly ever go out in London.
All the pubs are packed full of beautiful young people shouting and text messaging on tiny mobile phones.
Getting a drink inevitably involves a long wade through the shoving crowd at the bar and a long wait while the beautiful stupid bar staff serve everyone but me.
Even if there were a decent place to go it would close at 11:00, and even if it did stay open late the Tube stops at 12:00.
Much easier just to stay in.
Which makes me wonder what's the point in being here but leave that aside for now.
If I do ever go out, at least there are some colorfully named pubs to choose from.
Here are some of my favorites, all real, none ironic so far as I know. (Okay, except Filthys but I actually like Filthys, they do readings a couple of nights a week and Shane McGowan used to drink there.)
Bishop's Finger
Blind Beggar
Bung Hole
Chopper Lump
City Flogger
Crusting Pipe
Crutched Friar
Dirty Dick's
Filthy McNasty
Grave Maurice
Magpie and Stump
Monkey Puzzle
Mucky Duck
(I am the Only) Running Footman
Water Rat

2002-07-19T08:37:00.000Z

Jayzus Aitch Christ on a bicycle.
Just when I thought it was safe to start thinking about writing again.
Just when I'm miserable enough to start writing about being miserable again?
Anyway the other night Susie confronted me with an old notebook. I'd half forgotten I was keeping any old notebooks. Why the hell would anyone keep old notebooks full of embarassing teenage rants? The one Susie was keenest on was a rant about my father, who sounds just like me circa now.
Which is just fucking great.
Like I'm not already painfully aware that I'm turning into my father in all the least attractive ways -- drinking, overweight, solitary, too much television.
Alright already, I don't need reminders from my embarassing teenage self to know all that, I'm living it.
And just looking at those pages was painful, and made me despair of ever trying to write.
Although here I go again, so... so I don't know what.

2002-07-18T09:06:00.000Z

Amazon Light is nice:
http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon

"Amazon.com has opened up their catalog via XML over HTTP and SOAP, as well as offering an XSLT service that will transform the XML based on your remote stylesheets. This is much more open and configurable than their last effort at delivering XML. They are giving away developer's kits, free developer's tokens, and have a few existing examples here (some games, a light interface to Amazon, a relationship visualization and others): http://associates.amazon.com/exec/panama/a...per/resources.html/

"Caveat - I am an Amazon employee, and one of the examples is my own (http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon - a google-ified Amazon), so take this as you will. However, I'm no shill - I did not work on this project, I'm just a webdev in another part of Amazon that thought this was pretty cool stuff, worked on my project in my spare time, and thought others might like to see this new set of Web Services as well."

2002-07-15T09:36:00.000Z

Tetris! Tetris! Tetris!
Threats to delete Tetris (Tetrix, actually, a "jive ass" free clone) off the home pc are my main weapon of persuasion against my girlfriend. It's great.
According to Slashdot, Tetris is 17 years old yesterday. It was originally created in June 1985 by Alexey Pazhitnov at the Moscow Academy of Science's Computer Center. Want to know more? Read the complete history.

2002-07-04T13:59:00.000Z

Interview with Abel Ferrara (and co-producer Frank DeCurtis), about his new film R-Xmas:

Is R-Xmas a true story?

AF: Well, that’s the joke. Is any story true? We accepted it as the truth, even though it changed every day.

FD: It’s her perspective on it. It’s what she remembers. How true is that? And she’s aspiring to be a writer.

AF: And she hadn’t written a thing. That was the funny thing. She said she was going to sue us, with the Writers Guild. Well, you have to write to be in the Writers Guild. You can’t be in the Writers Guild just for talking.

It’s not the Talkers Guild.

AF: They should have that! The Talkers Guild! Twenty dollars membership–and we only pay medical for the neck up.

2002-07-04T12:30:00.000Z

I love egg
Especially Korean egg.

2002-06-28T09:43:00.000Z

Love Katie

2002-06-27T16:15:00.000Z

Right about now I ought to be in Branson.
It's family reunion time, but I rsvp'd no: it's really for the family with family. Almost all of my siblings and cousins have kids now and they'll all be there.
Many years ago we had a family vacation in a cabin on a lake near Branson. I was an awkward teen uninterested in anything but being left alone and reading.
I grumbled through Silver Dollar City, a gold rush themed amusement park that seemed a poor distant cousin to the big parks like Six Flags (not that I would have shown enthusiasm for any theme park, no sir!).
I cringed and rolled my eyes through The Shepherd of the Hills, a cheesy yeehaw outdoor-theatre piece of Christian allegory.
The rest of the Ozarks region is actually really beautiful,

2002-06-27T13:47:00.000Z

"Donald Rumsfeld Soundbite of the Week" archive, from a weekly radio news program.

2002-06-27T12:18:00.000Z

2002-06-27T12:07:00.000Z

2002-06-27T09:49:00.000Z

2002-06-27T09:36:00.000Z

Ideal in these troublesome times:
A 3-Dimensional Pilgrimage to the Holy Land -- The Millennium Album
The Best Gift for Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere
Over 200 pages
Over 400 3-Dimensional photographs
We are taking you on a journey to the Holy Land.
You can travel without leaving your armchair.

2002-06-27T09:22:00.000Z

Kinder Surprise.
A chocolate egg with a little plastic toy inside.
The chocolate is nice and the toys aren't bad either.
I'd never seen them before I came over here, and now I know why: apparently they can't be sold legally in the US ("Under the 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, candy that contains "embedded nonfood items" can't be sold commercially here unless there's a "functional" value, like the stick on a lollipop."), but some guy is selling them over the internet, and making a living at it. The bastard.

2002-06-26T15:52:00.000Z

The Dolphin Fair
"a Fine Array of Amusing Attractions..... And all the usual Impedimenta of Gaiety will abound. But Chief among the Diversions will be presented the All England Beard Contest to discover the most magnificent Beard in Britain".

2002-06-26T09:56:00.000Z

Should you quit your job?

2002-06-25T15:55:00.000Z

This spring has been very strange here in LimeyLand, the locals indulging themselves in an orgy of officially sanctioned, overripe, sentimental nationalism and royalmania, from the death of the Queen Mother -- a green-toothed gin-soaked doddering old dear beloved by all for no apparent reason -- to the Queen herselves' Golden Jubilee celebrating 50 years on the throne by giving the country a 4-day weekend and inviting Brian May around to play on the roof:

...along with the most bizarre collection of musical "celebrities" ever assembled.
And Jubilee weekend coincided with the start of the World Cup.
I am not a sports fan at all but I did get a little caught up in all the excitement.
Because the World Cup is hosted by Japan and Korea this year, matches start as early as 7:30am London time.
Because English football fans consider it their God-given right to watch football in pubs, the government relaxed the country's 19th-century licensing laws, allowing pubs to open for the early matches.
Which is how I found myself kicking off Jubilee weekend by drinking Guiness and John Powers before I was even really awake, watching Ireland play Cameroon on a big-screen tv in a filthy old-man pub.

2002-06-25T12:39:00.000Z

Cynthia the robot bartender

2002-06-25T12:23:00.000Z

"In a set of rooms in Pimlico, London, against a background of Baroque fugues played on a harpsichord, the depravity of society has been observed very closely. Plans have been drawn up for a sartorial and moral revolution. Archives of pamphlets from the first half of the twentieth century were consulted to map out the necessary areas of guidance: such as courtesy, tailoring and personal grooming. Barbers across the land were canvassed for their opinions on the problem areas within today's hairstyles. Doctors, apothecaries and psychologists were asked to diagnose the ills posing the gravest threat to contemporary society. Finally, the stairs leading down to the street from the rooms in Pimlico creak under the impeccable footsteps of... The Chap."

2002-06-25T10:15:00.000Z

I am an American living in London.
I came over here in 1998 to work, and to make the life of a certain young woman a living hell.
England is a funny old country, still backwards in many aspects but surprisingly advanced in others.
For example, you can search Parliamentary proceedings online.
Not that you'd want to.
Although it is surprising how often the term "buggery" comes up.

2002-06-25T09:11:00.000Z

I am testing posting by posting my first post.
This is a test.
Do I need to use tags for linebreaks?

The title of this weblog is taken from the tagline of Dawn of the Dead:

When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.