So, while I haven't been doing much here at WA, (as usual) at least I have been busy doing some fractaling. I made this nifty 2010 calendar. Click on read more to see what's on the calendar. You can buy one here!
Some people just make you believe in ancient mummy curses. Has Jay Cutler ever traveled in the Middle East? No, seriously. Has he? He seems like the kind of guy who might take a leak in burial crypt. That would piss me off if I was a mummy.
Everything we know is wrong. Even that statement is wrong. (Before you try to figure out how both of those statements could be true, just remember that two wrongs do not make a right, okay?) The NFL never loses its ability to mystify. Or nauseate. You’re up, you’re down, you’re throwing up in your mouth. A week later you’re eating cotton candy with Megan Fox on your arm. Okay, that was a dream sequence. The vomit? That was real.
There is no fame in releasing UFO photos. I visit UFO sites all the time. All that happens is you set yourself up for the inevitable bashing from sceptics and non believers. So I figured, why bother. And as far as the media is concerned, well it's just more of the same.
I’m always puzzled when an NFL team or player is described as soft. I suppose there’s a sliding scale, even in professional football. Apparently, Tom Brady is a little too in touch with his feminine side.
It’s hard for me to see how recent military adventurism on the part of the United States has helped to make us safer or helped the people of Iraq or Afghanistan. If we were to judge these efforts in business terms, we would declare them to be failures. We would pull the products off the shelves and fire the people responsible. The election in 2008 took care of the latter but we have yet to deal with the former…
Here's some fresh Halloween horror for you, just to get you in the mood! I added some new ones and am keeping this sticky to the top of the page till Halloween. There's six or eight more if you mash the read more link. Don't forget to click to enlarge!
We know it when we see it. Call it poise, sangfroid, the right stuff, moxie, gully, the shiznit. We have a thousand words for it and no words for it. It just is. Even more importantly, we know it when we don’t see it.
I realize that I part with victory far more easily than I do with loss. The wins are over by Tuesday, the pigskin euphoria overtaken by errands, commitments, workplace drama. The losses hurt right up until the next game. They are markers of mortality, omens of apocalypse, a numbness in your left arm. The rest of us cannot possibly imagine what it is like to be a fan of the Detroit Lions. The anticipation must be more delicious than a deep-fried hot fudge sundae.
Is luck real? Is there some ineffable, capricious pheromone of fate that attaches itself to some but stands apart from others? Following the opening weekend of the 2009 NFL season, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was something more than the residue of design or preparation colliding with opportunity. Seriously, did the Denver Broncos prepare for the season or careen headlong into it?
Public rhetoric and the 2008 Arizona Cardinals notwithstanding, there are actually a few teams that know they cannot win the Super Bowl this year. Still, it seems like there are about 30 teams talkin’ Tampa. How crazy is that? I’m not a psychiatrist (nor do I play one on TV) but that’s at least 50% crazy. Yes, I’m talking to you, NFC North.
Well, the dust has settled, mostly, and NFL rosters are set. Sort of. Whatever. It’s time to look ahead to the 2009 season.
I've been lazy again. I get so wrapped up in things, I let other things go, and then get no-thing done! Well, I still get dressed and brush my teeth and such. And breath, things like that which are essential to sustain life. And I've been doing fractals... I uploaded the images at full resolution this time, (1440x900) so give them a little time to load...
Welcome to They Still Call It Football’s first annual Hateration issue! Why a Hateration issue? Well, as a Patriots fan, I’m looking forward to 2009 as it may be the first year for nearly a decade in which the Patriots will not be the most hated team in the NFL, and Tom Brady will not be the most hated player. (Are we bitter that haters in the blogosphere offered bounties on Brady’s knee for years and then it actually happened? Yes, yes we are.)
I’m sure Steelers fans and Colts fans and Chargers fans and Giants fans all feel like Patriots fans do. We can hardly wait for the regular season to start. Eagles and Ravens fans would like to debate my face with their fists for leaving their team off the list of mortal locks. Fans of upstarts like the Falcons are feeling pretty psyched, too. Wishful thinkers rooting for teams like the Texans and Saints point out that recent history tells us there will be six new teams in the playoffs this year. Chiefs fans? Please pinch yourselves now and remember that Belichick’s first year in New England the Patriots finished 5-9-0.
At times like these, it’s hard for liberals not to believe in a vast, right-wing conspiracy. Keep the people stupid and feed them fear, uncertainty, and dread, and you can pretty much get away with anything. I’m so paranoid I believe the conspiracy transcends political parties, religions, and nation states. The strong, the educated, and the wealthy have always preyed upon the weak, the ignorant, and the poor. Our fashion sense may have evolved, the plumbing is more reliable, but other than that, I don’t think we’ve changed all that much in the last four thousand years.
Favre is out (for now) and Vick is in (sort of). Tom Brady’s knee has already refused to comment on Tom Brady’s knee. As training camps open and the few remaining draft picks sign contracts, I am reminded once again that the Oakland Raiders took Darrius Heyward-Bey with the 7th pick in the draft. And all it took was $38.25 million dollars with $23.5 million guaranteed. It could’ve been worse. Actually, I take that back. I’m really not sure how this could’ve been worse. Some Pigskin Pundits and Bobbleheads rated Michael Crabtree the best wide receiver in the draft.
Here's some more fractal image madness for you. I am still suffering from a nasty case of writers block. Although I am still writting music and doing some Apophysis work. These fractals are for the most part abstracts. I see some things in some of them, but most of them defy description for the most part. The one shown in the teaser though looks like a bird to me, a tortured bird that looks like it has flown through hell. Ergo, the "Hell Bird" title.
What have we done? What is this planet coming to? What a world, what a world. This is more on my recent 'Acting Stupidly' observations. A Missouri Burger King manager told a woman she could not eat in the restaurant with her barefooted 6 month old baby. When the woman put socks on the baby to try to placate the manager, he threatened to call the police if she didn't leave. Good grief. Tell me this didn't really happen...
I kind of wish I had gone to college. Someplace like the University of California, Berkeley or Harvard. Then I could simply claim I acted 'stupidly' when I got arrested for disorderly conduct or imprisoned for crossing over a contries border illegally. I'm sure my higher education would even have taught me how to act indignant about it in a properly 'stupid' manner...
Something woke me up. I know there was a sound or something, because I never wake up in the middle of the night. Never. I sleep like a dead man. That's why my girlfriend quit staying here, said she didn't like sleeping next to a corpse. A glance at the darkened alarm clock tells me the power is off. I grab my watch off the night stand but I can't make out the time. Did I mention it was dark?
My mind is in a gutter. As soon as I find out what gutter and where, maybe I can post something a bit more meaningful. Until then, you'll just have to be satisfied with some more "I see Faces." And the occasional Prospect Highway MP3. By the way, Obama invited me to the White House to sit in on the Gates meeting too, but he couldn't import my brand of beer, Genesse, from New York. He said they didn't allow toxic waste in the White House. Well then I said, "How about Busch Beer?" and he hung up on me. Go figure...
The NFL would like us to believe that every team in the league has a 1 in 32 chance to win the Super Bowl. Every year. That’s right. The Lions and the Raiders will vie for the Lombardi Trophy next February. It’s that "any given Sunday" thing. And maybe on this Sunday or that, the Raiders do beat the Steelers or Colts or Patriots; the Lions could beat the Giants or well, yeah I wouldn’t actually be surprised by a Detroit win over any other team in the NFC. Where was I? Oh, right. Any given Sunday. It’s a small data sample. That one in a million only has to be this one given Sunday out of a million given Sundays. After going 0 and 999,999, I suppose that 1 win would be mighty sweet. So, Lions fans have got that going for them.
I can't seem to get the media module to function as designed so at this point in time I have to embed audio. If I ever get the damned thing fixed you may be able to download the audio files.
I have to say, this is one of the few times I have been disappointed with Obama so far. I don't know how you can say the Massachusetts police officer 'acted stupidly' when he arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, without calling the very well educated and well regarded Mr. Gates stupid as well.
There is nothing the police officer could have said or done to convince Mr. Gates he was only doing his job. Because it was Mr. Gates own house, he (Mr. Gates) instantly came to the conclusion that the visit by the police officer was racially motivated, a black thing...
frac·tal (fr²k“t…l) n. A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractals are used especially in computer modeling of irregular patterns and structures in nature.
Apophysis is the fractal program I used to create these images. It's fun stuff if you've wondered how people have created some of the unusual desktop wallpaper images you've seen all over the internet and probably on your friends computers too. This photo essay consists of images I've made with Apophysis that look like faces. The "I see Dead People" title is a rip off of a line in the movie, "The Sixth Sense" where the boy tells Bruce Willace that he sees dead people. But instead. "I See Faces!"... Click on the read more to see some weird stuff...
In an effort to make it seem I am less pathetic than previously assumed, here is a song. While this is not brand new, it is fairly new. On this one I wrote the lyrics and music. Tewa sings, the rest is me.
Just doing some testing here. This is an image made with Apophysis, a fractal program. Kind of looked like a ghost thing breathing out vaporous death! Click the thumbnail for larger view.
My mind is like a wet sponge. I have all this stuff inside and the sponge won't let anything out. I'm going to get something posted even if it is mindless. I have the big head syndrome. How can I have such a big head that is so full of emptiness?
See what I mean? I either have a big empty head, or a head with a sponge in it that soaks up all the ideas I have and is to stingy to let them out.
The dead are with us always. They suffer or benefit from our narrow view of their reputation. We don’t know who they really were any more than we truly know the living, even those closest to us. We all have secrets. Some are trivial. Some would cost us friends, family and our livelihood if revealed. The dead have already left those things behind. They have taken with them all that they have; the dates that define the limits of their existence, their name, and a brief epigram. Loving Father.
I’m actually watching the NFL network’s "Greatest Game" series, reliving – at this particular moment – the 1970 Baltimore Colts season of redemption. I’ve got stories about third round draft picks being signed, the first PED suspension of the season, a Madoff-lite story of bilked investors that features several highly compensated individuals in the New Orleans Saints employ. Really? Shady business dealings? In New Orleans? Huh. Wait a minute. Drew Brees doesn’t have a financial advisor? These stories are my pigskin nicotine patch?
