Monthly Archives: September 2004

On the subject of bribes

So I've been trying to come up with a decent reward for people who've been using the BME/extreme submissions page… I was thinking about doing a BME/extreme-only shirt that isn't for sale (so if you see someone with one you know they're probably the real deal), maybe something like this one based on Aubrey Beardsley's illustration Examination of the Herlad.

If I do something like this, it will be retroactive for everyone who's used the new form to submit an experience with pictures. So if this sort of idea inspires you to help out, let me know so I can decide whether or not to go ahead with it (or something like it).

Some emails

Just got this funny letter from Mistress Kang… Wish I'd know about it when I was writing the article, it would have made a perfect cover shot!

Subject: SLUTTY TATTOO ;-)

Hi!

I just read your article about the generalization of tattooed chicks being slutty. I have 4 tattoos, my first was when I was 19 of a butterfly over my waxed patch of pubic hair and my last tattoo was "SLUT" in heavy red lettering. I've attached a couple of pics, thought you might like. I'll try adding them to your site ;-)

Best Regards,
Jessy Kang

While I'm sharing emails here, I'll mention another that I just got that may be interesting to people reading this. Their prices are quite good (shockingly low to be honest; cheap enough that part of me thinks these are modern carved skulls) and they have some really gorgeous specimens in stock.
Subject: Skull sale

Hi,

I found your website on google search. We are a large wholesaler in Real Human Skull items. Please visit our website at https://www.tibetansecrets.com

We would like to have your website add our link and we would do the same to you. Meanwhile, we understand you were the expert in human skull business, would you point us to whoever may be interested in doing business with us?

Regards,

Kevin Lu, Ph.D.
Tibetan Secrets Itl.

Other than that I'm editing ball torture videos on one computer and processing images for an update tomorrow on another… Can I just mention something that really annoys me? Piercers that don't know the names of piercings. You'd be amazed at how many piercers send me mislabelled photos — especially when it comes to things like daiths and rooks.

Now, maybe I'm being the piercing equivalent of a grammar nazi, but I don't think so. I would not go to a piercer who doesn't know the names of the piercings. Sure, they might be a good piercer, but it means two things. First, it means that they haven't researched what they're doing and they're not up to speed on piercing literature (that is, they're operating on the dark). Second, and continuing on the same theme, because they don't know the terminology, it means they can't enter into a meaningful dialog with other piercers, which I think is very important.

It might have been excusable in 1994, but it's not OK in 2004.

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy my Corvette? If you want a great car to play with, Vettes of this generation come in starting at around $3000. They're very simple cars on the whole and are a great toy for beginners to play with. Not quite as great a beginner toy as a Beetle (awesome way to learn mechanics) but still suitable.

Democracy is dead

Jeffrey Dean was the head programmer of Global Election Systems. Jeffrey Dean had also spent time in prison for falsifying computer records, and in 2000 Diebold made him the Vice President of Research and Development and later bought his company.

Thanks to his work for them, by entering a secret two digit code — well known and documented at this point by hacker groups — you can “split” the voting records into a double set of books. To be very clear for a moment: there is no legitimate reason for doing this (and if there was a reason for doing it, it would be documented in their manuals, which it is not). I'll also add that this was designed to be done quickly — vote totals can be changed within six seconds. No paper trail is left (which is also by design). The code to produce the alterable double-books was added in the version of the voting software released Oct. 13, 2000, and has not been removed since.

To repeat: voting machines which will service a huge percentage of all votes in the US have been specifically designed to alter votes in an untraceable fashion.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy: "Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide".
- John F. Kennedy

I'm sure you are also aware that Diebold is a Republican-owned corporation and that its owner has said that his company is “committed to delivering votes to the President”. Up to $750 million dollars has been spent by Bush making sure these machines are installed around the country, and Congress has specifically blocked every attempt by every group to even be heard on the public record on this subject. Also blocked by Congress have been attempts to add paper trails to electronic machines or otherwise make them accountable.

Click here for more info (more)    (2000 FL flash)

This is a very big deal and you should take it seriously. Read those documents and search for more and you will see in very clear terms that the previous election was likely rigged and this next one definitely will be on a massive scale — why do you think now over a dozen members of Congress have begged the UN for election observers?

You now know that this is a President who is willing to lie the nation into war, killing thousands and thousands of people. Do you really think lying about election results is a big deal to these arrogant assholes in comparison?

Well then

So the Republicans would have you believe that the official record stating that Kerry was thrice a hero for America is a lie and a joke. Bush on the other hand is far more valiant as a draft-dodging drunk… Oh yeah, and one that deserves six months in military prison. Click the picture.


I <3 MY UNIBROW

Let me guess. This isn't going to make the US news like the Swift Boat BS has been for the last month, and it's certianly not going to hit the news this week.

PS. Poor people trading food for weapons is sad.

Good morning to you

I've always had problems with addiction. If I've done it, I've probably been addicted to it — a variety of drugs, food, alcohol, sex, porn, collecting of various kinds, body piercing, and so on. When I've been wealthy they've spiraled out of control and when I've been poor I've restructured my life to keep feeding those addictions — by becoming a drug dealer, by getting a job at a piercing studio, whatever…

Breaking most of those addictions for me comes from making rules (or by integrating the addiction into my success plan by building a “reward system” to fuel them). I really realized this when I cured some of my food addictions when I started eating vegan. Now, I didn't actually become vegan because of this, it was just a happy accident — to be honest, I'm not convinced that any compassionate person could continue in a meat-heavy lifestyle after reading a book like The Food Revolution. But that's not what this entry is about so I'll stop myself from preaching on that — in the case of my caffeine addiction (which also upsets my stomach) I try and make rules linking it to particularly productive work days (Monday and Tuesday are really long days for me for example).

I wasn't going to have a coffee (by coffee I mean six espressos in a giant cup) this morning but I saw something in my parking garage that made me go back down with a camera… and after that I couldn't stop myself from continuing on for that elixir I crave so much.

The dude with the parking spot in front of one of mine must have made some enemies in the last little while, seeing as something got most of his tires slashed. I have my suspects. It's kind of an eerie thing to walk past in the morning… but I guess I'm showing my pathetic anthropomorphism of the automobile right now since it didn't phase me one bit when Rachel walked out of our back door and tripped over a dead guy with his guts all over the sidewalk (yes, the stain is still there months later).

While I'm talking about vehicles, I was thinking about people on bikes. I don't have US or Canadian numbers in front of me, but I wanted to show you these numbers on what air pollution in various cities equates to in terms of daily cigarettes smoked. These numbers represent how many “cigarettes” you'd have to smoke a day to equal the damage done to you simply by breathing the air in these locales.

London UK - Marylebone Road - 30 cigarettes per day
Glasgow - 44 cig/d (indoors is 15 cig/d)
Bath UK - 46 cig/d
Oxford UK - Average/year 61 cig/d, peak of 185 cig/d

The cleanest testing city in the UK is Aberdeen. If you live there it's the equivalent of smoking only 5,000 cigarettes a year. Now, the reason I mention bikes is that the curbside numbers for air pollution are approximately three times as high as those indoors (and a modern air conditioned car also does air filtration, so the stinky bastards inside the cars don't even get to enjoy their own pollution). Picking a city out of my ass, let's imagine for a moment that NYC is about as polluted as the cleanest city in the UK. If that is the case (and I suspect it's actually dirtier), then riding your bike daily in NYC would be the equivalent of smoking 15,000 cigarettes a year, or a two-pack-a-day habit.

To put it in different terms, on a health level, people who ride their bike in the city are doing themselves far more long-term damage than good.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I haven't commented much on the RNC, it's because you'd have to be a goddamn idiot to buy anything from Bush at this point, and I have zero trust in any of the NYC media on the subject — at its simplest, when one paper claims under 200,000 people were at the protests and another claims over half a million were there, you eventually realize they're all just professional liars. The word “professional” means they're being paid.