• I just got flamed in a Private Message: "your a douchebag".  Me thinks heez a iddiot. #

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Test test.

Wow.  That was fast, even by today’s standards.  Was it a work in progress that he took a few nights to add on a chapter and call it “finished”?  Maybe that explains the 2/5 stars it is receiving.  It’s at the top of the NYT Bestsellers List as I write.  Note that this is the “Who Killed Kurt Cobain?” scoundrel.

• Whoever thinks cats cannot tell time needs to meet Sebastian who reliably wakes me at 04h44. #
• I feel like I have welder’s flash, but I haven’t been welding, using my UV lamp, or spending time in direct sunlight.  Odd.  And: ouch. #

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• I don’t know comics at all, but I presume the article title “Prepare your Na’vi holes!” is not as dirty as it sounds. #

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• “there is nothing more difficult than satirizing our rotted political culture” –Glenn Greenwald, http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ #
• No one gets the Taliban problem. Taliban ambassador suggests they have right to defend themselves. You think? “http://twitter.com/clanmackay/statuses/2790146740″>#
• No one gets the Taliban problem. Taliban ambassador suggests they have right to defend themselves. You think? PRI) #
• Gmail keeps putting mcgees.org notices in “Spam”. “Not spam” doesn’t train it. I need a “Not. Fucking. Spam. Idiot.” button. #
• The tension between “guilty” and “pleasure” for me with “Californication” is such that if one were to slip momentarily I’d be decapitated. #

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PayPal just sent this email:

Many of you asked us to make tracking your PayPal Debit Card cash back simpler. You got it.

Starting August 1, 2009, the cash back earned on your PayPal Debit Card transactions will be combined into a single deposit and paid monthly, rather than after each transaction, making your record keeping easier.

Your cash back rate won’t change.

OFFS.  Thanks, PayPal!  It was so frustrating, having to do things like withdraw my balance at regular intervals to invest it.  Or, for that matter, leave it in my PayPal money market sweep account and accrue interest on it every day.  Thank you!  This way you can have the interest on my money, and I don’t have to worry about it!

Your cash back rate won’t change.

Yes, assholes, it will.  Daily compounding and monthly compounding are different.  That’s why you’re doing it.  And for that matter:

Many of you asked us to make tracking your PayPal Debit Card cash back simpler

No, we didn’t.  We asked you to please give us back the running ledger that let us know whether our cash back had posted without downloading a comma-separated history file.

• Medical text suggests snorting capsaicin for migraines. ohhhhh-kay. I think I’ll pass on that one, thanks. #
• Too much bestiality spam! So by reflex, I almost deleted a free subscription offer to “Horse Illustrated”. Don’t want it, but not the same. #
• (Now I sit back and see what followers that last tweet gets me.  In advance: yuck.) #
• “Illegal Alien” by Robert Sawyer is not one of the best novels I’ve ever read, but may be the best I picked off a shelf completely at random #
• If you are willing to test my Google Voice #, and if it’s free 4u: +1 77-333-MCGEE.  If you get voicemail, please leave a message. Thanks. #
• RT @davidjmcgee Instant Breakfast is back: http://instantbreakfast.tumblr.com/ #InstantBreakfast #humor #snark clanmackay says: Read. Funny. #

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It is rapidly becoming apparent that the surname “McGee” has achieved a definable meaning in colloquial English, as a post-modifier.  I, Joshua McGee (recreational lexicographer; possessor of the surname “McGee” since 1978; and owner/maintainer/founder [1999 - present] of mcgees.org [website and related merchandising] wherein the token “McGee” appears several sigma beyond its incidence in the average website), assert that I am a competent authority on the usage of “McGee”.  I offer the following:

The construction is “Noun/Adjective McGee”, where Noun/Adjective is capitalized to construct a standard Western two-token name, fancifully consisting of a putative “given” name and the “surname” McGee.  In such contexts, the resulting name is applied to an individual, and the meaning is roughly “epitomizing noun/adjective in an unflattering manner”, or the closely-related “tending to be identified or recognized as noun/adjective to such a degree that nothing else is apparent or relevant.”

Examples:

1. Tits McGee: “A nickname for a woman with good sized boobs.” (appears in Urban Dictionary [retrieved 2009]; similar colloquial usage in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy [film] [released 2004])
2. Spandex McGee: (presum.) “A woman who wears a large amount of the fabric Spandex unflatteringly” (appears in Twitter [website], user overfab [posted 2009])
3. Fatass McGee (uncapitalized in original): (presum.) “An extremely obese individual / An individual about whom only obesity is noticed” (appears in Twitter [website], user theazn1 [posted 2009])

It should be noted that:

1. the use of “Fatty McGee” as a generic term for an individual presumably meeting certain (currently unknown) characteristics in the work of monologist and comedian Jon Stewart (b. 1969) is incompletely understood, and is deserving (in this editor’s opinion) of further study, and that
2. historic application of this to the fictional character “Fibber McGee” in Fibber McGee and Molly (radio and [later] television program airing prior to 1961) leading to the conclusion the character was so named because he “prevaricates to an unseemly degree” or “prevaricates in such a fashion that little else is noticed”, seems, with current data, unwarranted

I was at a Magic: The Gathering tournament — has to be years ago, now — and the subject of owning original artwork came up.

“I have the original art for Detonate,” I offered.

“I can do you one better,” said another player.  He’s the guy who always thinks he can do one better.  He’s the guy who wears Gatorz sunglasses, but can’t actually see through them, so he props them up on his forehead and squints down under them at his cards.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him finish higher than fourth-to-last.  “I have the original art for Hymn to Tourach!”

“Oh!” I said, intrigued.  “The one with the people holding hands in a circle?”

“No, the van Camp!” he cried.

“The one with the wolf head?” I asked, trying to not be too obvious with incredulity.

“Yeah!” said the guy gleefully.

Internally: “What, you couldn’t afford Stasis?!  That’s the second-most-ugly piece of Magic art in existence.”

Externally: “Good, hope you enjoy it.  I’m quite happy with mine.”

How to build the Apollo guidance computer for $3000.  It cost NASA $150,000.

Actually, that’s misleading.  The $3000 pays for vintage hardware.  The computing power is rounding error in modern terms.  The people who wrote Firefox probably wouldn’t bother to hand-optimize 1Mhz out of the program’s operation.  [Fill in Microsoft joke].  Put another way, this is approximately the same amount of computing power my laptop uses to look at Internet porn on its own, while I’m drinking Sulawesi coffee in another city and it’s powered off.

20 July 1969: The first manned moon landing.

25 years later: A comet crashes into Jupiter.

Another 15 years later, to the day: Another comet crashes into Jupiter.

Why do I get the distinct impression that this is First Contact, and clever beings in the Kuiper Belt are shaking their two-apiece heads in wonderment and saying, “Really?  They missed that?”

I have it on good authority that they will go back in time to insert geniuses to write the best music of a decade (something called “grunge music”), and insert a genius to write the best indie stage productions of a decade (something called “the best indie stage productions of a decade”), all on 20 July.  And when this still fails to impress us, they will send the rest of the Kuiper belt to hit our little planet.

I have it on good authority that they will feel sad about it, though.

L’esprit d’escalier is one of the most useful French terms to know.  It successfully predicts that a slow wit, a few hours, and a blog can turn someone into Cyrano, albeit a still-slow-witted one.

So, usually I’m not that fast.  Today I was.  A commentator on NPR was discussing Bagram Airfield, where, notoriously, prisoners were tortured to death (fuck “allegedly” and “arguably”) in 2002.  They were beaten, hung by their arms, and subsequently died.

“You know, the Bush Administration talked a lot about another guy who was beaten, hung by his arms, and died,” I said.  “They also used it as an excuse to hate the Jews, and they started praying to the guy.  How did they not know this would produce martyrs?!”

(Ha!  See that?!  My nose is pointy, and I got a cheap wisecrack out of illegal war, torture, and religious persecution!”)

If this will indeed be my phone number for life, it’s not possible to do much better than 77-333-MCGEE.

You are cordially invited to call that number, even though the chance that I will answer it, upon reflection, approaches zero very quickly.  Time-shifted voice.  Yum.

(As late as 2000 C.E., a commentator on NPR stated, with Republican-level confidence, that no telephone operator would ever “throw in” long distance “for free”.  At the time, I thought “You’re out of your mind.”  If you are one of the benighted without free long distance today, however, allow me to say “I’m sorry” and “I invite you to move to 773land (Chicago?) to call my vanity number without toll charges.”)

• Social networks are made of “people”, and I don’t like “people”. I keep  saying this and expecting people to stop following me. They don’t. #
• Using Facebook only while drunk seems like a good idea, until the next morning when you discover you can’t conjugate “to be” intoxicated. #

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Niall was asked about cabbages, and what they were.  Niall responded: “They are green vegetables that my Daddy likes to make jokes about.”

And I do.  It’s after Hofstadter: “This sentence contains cabbage six words”, from, I think, Metamagical Themas.  In college, where bizarre sentences abound, I would say, “Wow, that’s random.”  “Cabbage” became a superlative: “Wow, that’s cabbage-random.”

So I joke about cruciferous vegetables.  But I don’t, like, eat them as my sole dietary staple.  So where the fuck does this sulfur come from?

I was warned before I got a trailer that “my toilet would stink”.  But not until the temperature topped 90° (Centigrade, seemingly) and I left a septic tank to ferment, did I really understand that comment.  Unholy shit.  What the hell?  Where is all this sulfur coming from?  I am trying to think of how to snip-and-bind this sulfur, but I’m really lousy at stoichiometry, and there are probably “Enzyme tablets” or “Chemical toilet additives” or some such that a Google search will easily turn up.  But I wanted to post first, because Vedder was right.  Wanna join the club?

I just got a BBC Audio book, through PaperBackSwap, that is label(l)ed “Complete & Unabridged”.

I can think of numerous poems, symphonia, etc., that could be listed as “Incomplete but Unabridged”.  The X-Files episode Redrum and the film Ronin, if their closing voice-overs were removed, could be considered “Complete but Abridged”.

I am hereby amused by the phrase, though, and your contributions are courted.

On KROQ yesterday, I heard something that sounded eerily like Avril Lavigne doing metal: a bratty, thin voice that wraps tightly around hard r sounds as if intending to snap their necks, heat-shrinked over distorted power chords.  Any ideas?

• Valid-seeming East Coast employer seeks Oracle/OO engineer for applications for child abuse investigators.  I can’t go, but contact me if… #
• Specifically: It’s Florida, 6 mos., and it’s for mobile computing for investigators of child/adult abuse. #
• My mom’s Father’s Day gift from Niall: a pedicure. Niall, in ten years: “Fuck, that’s funny.” Me, today: “I wish I could afford a pedicure.” #

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BeaverRepel.  WTF?  Is this anyone’s #1 problem in life?  Can I live in that world?  I got there through a Google Adwords link from a search that I assure you had nothing to do with repelling beavers (don’t even try, Bob Mike.)  At least the phone spammers guess reasonably correctly that I might have an expiring auto warranty.  That’s a huge net being cast for people in beaver danger.

I’ve just been nominated as a hero and asked for a superhero name.  I’ll ask for your contributions, but if I stop a bank heist by masked ne’er-do-wells, don’t expect me to squirrel any scratch away for you as compensation.

Woman too loud during sex: will show up in the dock.  Exercise for reader: If the headboard banged against the wall 1984 times, would she have been let off (ha)?!

(Alternate joke: “We said ‘The privacy of your own bedroom, nitwit!!’”)

(Alternate bizarro fact: the word ‘sex‘ gets mcgees.org banned at U.S. K-Mart internet kiosks.  So as long as I’m banned anyway, “Eat shit and die, you motherfucking corporate cunts!”  Or something.)

I think I need a secret blog.

A season or two ago on one of my favorite television shows, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”, there was a discussion about bloggers and privacy that I wish I remembered verbatim: “They value privacy,” it maybe said.  “They respect openness.”  Except the original was better.

I’ve been blogging for the better part of a decade, from before most people had encountered the words “web log”, yet alone “weblog” or “blog”.  About halfway-through-ago I was talking to someone about what I chose to blog; he rephrased it as “the Joshua you want to be to other people.”  And there’s truth in there.  Stuff gets left out, and it’s stuff that would not get left out of a blog for strangers.  I’m fine writing about difficult, embarrassing, even incriminating topics that I think might help someone (or effect catharthis).

But I know too many people who read mcgees.org.  I have friends, family, and, worst of all, acquaintances who subscribe to the site, so honest medical posts, or posts about my early exposure to and experiments with ———, or sexual proclivities (“the only normal people are those you don’t know well,” a wise person said), or that last night I ——— “———” on my ——— because ——— are kind of off-limits.  I’m not really afraid of alienating readers — as I have said in more-or-less circumspect ways before I don’t really like people — but I have acquired, for instance, a devoted following among opposing counsel.  So, to opposing counsel: “Hi!”, “Fuck you!”, and all that — and to the rest of you, “sorry”.

Never the twain need meet, though.  Yes, an astute subscriber found me through an unlikely path today, from a Metafilter post, through a chain of MeFi comments, through to another site where I discussed sleep paralysis and ———.  I have my “Presence” bit on the sidebar, through which a brave spooky Internets ninja could track me down and slice my throat in my sleep (but but not in a fun way), but I would not have included this link to make things easier for non-geniuses.  And the cheapest way to have a secret blog (over which I had 100% control) would be to run it off of the same server as mcgees.org, so someone sufficiently diligent and intuitive (but not necessarily brilliant) could probably find it.

Why the secret blog in the first place?  “To help people” is the stock answer, but not the honest answer.  The honest answer is “diary”.  I’ve heard of devices such as pens and paper, but I would rather digitize this and put it on servers with (presumed) infinite data retention.  So now I stare at my “cottage”, and stare at my cat, stare at my knapsack, and stare at my arm, and wish “if only I could…”

• bleeding #
• Detoxing from social networking and NOT MISSING IT. I’ll keep x/posting mcgees.org to Facebook. If y’all wanna read, go for it. I be outz. #
• And: I’m using a WP plugin to create a digest of my 140s for mcgees.org. I used to question: thought deserves post? Now: wait for 23h59, yo! #

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You know that special beautiful tinkling sound that fine Austrian lead crystal makes when it shatters, differentiating it from, say, a Coke bottle?

Do you know that extra-super-special beautiful tinkling sound that $200 wine decanters, which you were going to sell on eBay, make when you step on them in sneakers?

Damn.  Aargh.  I need to clean my fucking floor.

• RT @TheJudestr “Huh?”: Best. Contextless. Tweet. Ever. #

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• Testing from within Gwibber #
• I’m done with facebook now, I think. #

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• http://bit.ly/nHex #
• This test is being made through twit.el as a test. #
• Testing linking: twit.el -> Twitter -> Facebook, then Twitter->mcgees.org? Thanks for patience.  Next: a tweet loop.   #
• Second test: direct from Twitter -> FB? #

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