What the Shed Looks At

Friday, May 28, 2010

Dick Riding Obama

Sorry for the spam, but I needed to push that cross dressing troll as far down the blog as possible. Honestly, you should know better then that James.

Pit Bulls Need Love Too

North Korean Animation

The sound in Barack Obama's head while making a speech...

YouTube Doubler


Pro-tip: Play both at the same time.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Perhaps...

Perhaps these thoughts of ours
will never find an audience
Perhaps the mistaken road
will end in a mistake
Perhaps the lamps we light one at a time
will be blown out, one at a time
Perhaps the candles of our lives will gutter out
without lighting a fire to warm us.

Perhaps when all the tears have been shed

the earth will be more fertile
Perhaps when we sing praises to the sun
the sun will praise us in return
Perhaps these heavy burdens
will strengthen our philosophy
Perhaps when we weep for those in misery
we must be silent about miseries of our own

Perhaps
Because of our irresistible sense of mission
We have no choice

- Shu Ting (translated by Carolyn Kizer)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

She asks are you cursed, he says I think that I'm cured...

Josh Ritter just put out a new album. If you are unaware of who Josh Ritter is, then this should be a treat. He is honestly one of the greatest lyricists of the day and is finally getting attention in the mainstream with his song "Changes" being featured on some godawful show on primetime network tv that a lot of people watch.

Anyways, he has put out four albums and he is consistently getting better with every album. His latest album is called "So Runs the World Away".

Some choice songs:

Lantern



Give me light for my lantern
Give me light for my lantern give me light
Be the light of my lantern, the light of my lantern, be the light
I need the light in my lantern, light in my lantern tonight

It's a hungry world out there
Even the wind will take a bite
I can feel the world circling
Sniffing round me in the night
And the lost sheep grow teeth
Forsake the lambs and lie with the lions

Where the living is desperate
Precarious and mean
And getting by is so hard
That even the rocks are picked clean
And the bones of small contention
Are the only food the hungry find

Where the thistles eat the thorns
And the roses have no chance
And it no wonder that the babies
Come out crying in advance
And the children look for shelter
In the hollow of some lonesome cheek

And the sky's so cold and clear
The stars might stick you where you stand
And you're only glad it's dark cause
You might see the master's hand
And you might cast around forever
And never find the peace that you seek

For every cry in the night
Somebody says, "Have faith!"
"Be content inside your questions"
"Minotaurs inside a maze"
Tell me what's the point of a light
That you have to strike a match to find?

So throw away those lamentations
We both know them all too well
If there's a book of jubilations
We'll have to write it for ourselves
So come and lie beside me darling
And let's write it while we still got time

So if you got a light, hold it high for me
I need it bad tonight, hold it high for me
Cause I'm face to face, hold it high for me
In that lonesome place, hold it high for me
With all the hurt that I've done, hold it high for me
That can't be undone, hold it high for me
Light and guide me through, hold it high for me
And I'll do the same for you, hold it high for me

I'll hold it high for you, cause I know you've got
I'll hold it high for you, your own valley to walk
I'll hold it high for you, though it's dark as death
I'll hold it high for you, and then gets darker yet
I'll hold it high for you, though your path is blocked
I'll hold it high for you, through the thieves and rocks
I'll hold it high for you, keep you safe from harm
I'll hold it high for you, until you're back in my arms


The Curse



He opens his eyes
Falls in love at first sight
With the girl in the doorway
What beautiful lines
How full of life
After thousands of years
What a face to wake up to
He holds back a sigh
As she touches his arm
She dusts off the bed
Where ‘til now he’s been sleeping
Under miles of stone
The dry fig of his heart
Under scarab and bones
Starts back to its beating

She carries him home
In a beautiful boat
He watches the sea
From a porthole in stowage
He can hear all she says
As she sits by his bed
And one day his lips answer her
In her own language
The days quickly pass
He loves making her laugh
The first time he moves
It’s her hair that he touches
She asks, “Are you cursed?”
He says, “I think that I’m cured.”
Then he talks of the Nile
And the girls in bulrushes

In New York he is laid
In a glass-covered case
He pretends he is dead
People crowd ‘round to see him
But each night she comes ‘round
And the two wander down
The halls of the tomb
That she calls a museum
Often he stops to rest
And then less and less
Then it’s her that looks tired
Stayin’ up asking questions
He learns how to read
From the papers that she
Is writing about him
And he makes corrections
It’s his face on her book
More and more come to look
There’s families from Iowa
Upper-West-Siders
Then one day it’s too much
He decides to get up
And as chaos ensues
He walks outside to find her
She’s using a cane
And her face looks too pale
But she’s happy to see him
As they walk he supports her
She asks, “Are you cursed?”
But his answer’s obscured
In a sandstorm of flashbulbs,
Rowdy reporters

Such reanimation
The two tour the nation
He gets out of limos
He meets other women
He speaks of her fondly
Their nights in the museum
But she’s just one more rag
Now he’s dragging behind him
She stops going out
She just lies there in bed
In hotels in whatever
Towns they are speaking
Then her face starts to set
And her hands start to fold
And one day the dry fig
Of her heart stops its beating

Long ago on the ship
She asked, “Why pyramids?”
He said, “Think of them as
An immense invitation.”
She asked, “Are you cursed?”
He says, “I think that I’m cured.”
Then he kissed her then hoped
That she’d forget that question.

Another New World



The leading lights of the age all wondered
amongst themselves what I would do next
After all that I've found in my travels around
the world was there anything left?

"Gentlemen," I said "I've studied the maps
and if what I am thinking is right
There's another new world at the top of the world
for whoever can break through the ice"

I looked round the room in the way I once
had and I saw that they wanted belief
So I said "all I got are my guts and my God
and I paused, and the Annabel Lee"

Oh the Annabel Lee, I saw their eyes shine,
the most beautiful ship in the sea,
My Nina, my Pinta, my Santa Maria,
my beautiful Annabel Lee

That spring I set sail as a crowd waved from shore
and on board the crew waved their hands
But I never had family just the Annabel Lee
so I didn't have cause to look back

I just set the course north, and I studied the charts
and towards dark I drifted towards sleep
and I dreamed of the fine deep harbor
I'd find past the ice for my Annabel Lee

After that it got colder the world got quiet
it was never quite day or quite night
and the sea turned the color of sky
turned the color of sea turned the color of ice

Till at last around us was vastness,
one vast glassy desert of arsenic white
and the waves that once lifted us sifted
instead into drifts against Annabel's sides

And the crew gathered closer at first for comfort
But each morning would bring a new set
of tracks in the snow leading over
the edge of the world till I was the only one left

After that it gets cloudy, but it feels like
I laid there for days and maybe for months
But Annabel held me the two of us happy
just to think back on all we had done

We talked of the other new worlds we discovered
till she gave up her body to me
And as I chopped up her main sail for timber
I told her of all that we still had to see

Then the frost turned her moorings to nine tails
and the wind lashed her sides in the cold
I burned her to keep me alive every night
in the loving embrace of her hold

And I won't call it rescue what brought me back
to the old world to drink and decline
And pretend that the search for another new world
was well worth the burning of mine

Sometimes at night in my dreams
comes the singing of some unknown tropical bird
and I smile in my sleep thinking
Annabel Lee had made it to Another New World

Yeah sometimes at night in my dreams
comes the singing of some unknown tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep thinking
Annabel Lee has made it to Another New World


Change of Time



I had a dream last night
I dreamt that I was swimming
And the stars up above
Directionless and drifting
Somewhere in the dark
Were the sirens and the thunder
And around me as I swam
The drifters who'd gone under

Time, love
Time, love
Time, love
It's only a change of time

I had a dream last night
And rusting far below me
Battered hulls and broken hardships
Leviathan and Lonely
I was thirsty so I drank
And though it was salt water
There was something 'bout the way
It tasted so familiar

The black clouds I'm hanging
This anchor I'm dragging
The sails of memory rip open in silence
We cut through the lowlands
All hands through the saltlands
The white caps of memory
Confusing and violent

I had a dream last night
And when I opened my eyes
Your shoulder blade, your spine
Were shorelines in the moon light
New worlds for the weary
New lands for the living
I could make it if I tried
I closed my eyes I kept on swimming

(rough seas, they carry me wherever I go)


Here are his for albums for download.

Golden Age of Radio

The Animal Years

The Historical Conquests of...

So Runs the World Away

Asshole Mario

I can just feel the frustration sometimes. If you stick with it you will see him solve each level.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

This has got to be bullshit.

Tea Party is not a grass-roots movement.

According to this article, the Tea Party movement was seeded by lobbyist think tanks. Specifically Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity.

As much as Glenn Beck would have you believe the Tea Party is organized by normal individuals in an organic fashion, in reality it is funded and promoted by special interest groups. I guess this will shock nobody seeing as Fox News is a special interest group, but I though I would just point this out in case you guys were looking for more ammunition when confronting the occasional wild teabagger. Not that they would believe anything that doesn't stick with their dogma.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Roman Empire aids in advanced particle physics experiment!

I think it's absolutely mind blowing that technology builds its self up in such unpredictable ways.

http://news.discovery.com/space/ancient-shipwreck-to-aid-ghostly-neutrino-search.html

I've read about the advantages of ancient materials before, but this was a find of a lifetime.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

You suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!


Ugh, I was going to do a whole writeup on the gulf oil spill, but friggen Youtube is down! Crazy shit. Anyway, It'll have to wait until tomorrow.

The Gulf Oil Spill

Here is a decent video explaining the cause of the oils spill off the gulf coast.


BTW, why are we going to Al Jezeera to get a straight explanation?

The Associated Press reports the underwater rupture has grown to 210,000 gallons per day.

The oil spill rivals the size of Florida and can be clearly seen from space.

Also, someone managed to capture the rig's final moments as it sinks to the bottom, complete with the Coast Guard putting up a token effort to contain the inferno.

Today I heard someone on NPR claim that there is a real danger of a further rupture on the wellhead. This could potentially result in the leak to continue for several months. This will likely be far larger then the current worst spill in history. Be sure to note how each side in the Gulf War blames the other for this catastrophe. He who wins the war gets the most space in the Wikipedia article.

Also, there is talk that BP disregarded safety regulations and such. The good old Profits before safety mantra we've been hearing about lately.

Boy the universe does like to shit on Louisiana doesn't it? I just hope some Texans get their chance to experience this wonderful little ecological upper deck as well. I think they need to stew in some hydrocarbons to get the big picture of what we are doing to the world. I bet they will go home and bath in turpentine and call it a cost of doing business. Fuckers. I hope they prove me wrong.

Heres to the State of Arizona - Robert Erickson



Here's to the state of Arizona,
Mexico's land stolen through conquest, war, and lies
If you walk her scorching deserts, nameless bodies you will find.
Whoa the border walls and ICE agents have hid a thousand crimes,
The calender is lyin' when it reads the present time.
Whoa here's to the land you've torn out the heart of,
Arizona find yourself another country to be part of!

Here's to the people of Arizona
Who say the folks up north, they just don't understand
And they tremble in their shadows of the racist minuteman
The sweating of their souls can't wash the blood from off their hands
They smile and shrug their shoulders at the murder of a man
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Arizona find yourself another country to be part of

Here's to the cops of Arizona
Theyre stomping on your rights with racial profiling galore
They're asking you for papers as they knock upon your door
Just like the Nazi soldiers they wont just stop with 10 states more
Behind their broken badges there are racist pricks and more
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Arizona find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the laws of Arizona
A xenophobic scheme to take your civil rights away
While the Constitution is drowning in an ocean of decay
Lets track immigrants with microchips, I've even heard them say
Will we ever see reform or will the dems just run away?
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Arizona find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the government of Arizona
In the sands of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down
And criminals are posing as the sheriffs of the towns
They're hoping no one sues them, when their stopped for being brown
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Arizona find yourself another country to be part of

Rhythm and tempo are a bit off but with the lyrics I feel like a nag bitching about the tempo.

Sam Harris is a kinda cool dude.


clicky

This is Sam Harris. He is a kinda cool dude. He got a bachelors degree from Stanford in philosophy and then got a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. He wrote a book entitled The End of Faith and subsequently put out a response to criticism of it entitled Letter to a Christian Nation. He co-founded the Reason Project and has been interviewed three times on Point of Inquiry, the podcast of the Center for Inquiry which you should listen to even though the host is kinda douchey.

He has had a series of columns published in the Washington Post's On Faith section. He has done a whole bunch of other things like argue with theists and write stuff about brains and whatever but now you have to read about him because I'm not typing anymore.

But here's a video.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

I had to post this



That Amber is a real freak.

TED talks again

I have been watching TED talks for a while but hadn't seen this one before. Steve Wolfram is a fucking genius.

Followers