…just what is it that you do at work, Tacit?
And speaking of work…
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Tag Archives: pictures
Fragments of Dragon*Con: Images
Fragments of Dragon*Con: James Randi
One of the hilights of this weekend for me was meeting a personal hero of mine. His name is James Randi, and he’s a stage magician, founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and the adversary of quacks, fakers, charlatans, and frauds of all kinds.
I first got hooked when I read his book Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions, first published in 1982. It’s a scorching indictment of all sorts of phonies, fakes, and frauds, from so-called “psychic” and sometimes petty thief Uri “spoon-bender” Geller to “psychic surgeons” who pick the pockets of the desperate and gullible with a handful of chicken guts.
For many years now, Randi has offered a Million Dollar Challenge–a cool one million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate any psychic, paranormal, or otherwise outside the realm of conventional science under controlled conditions. The person making the claim, be it telepathy or dowsing or homeopathic “medicine” or precognition.
A lot of folks who claim to believe in these things don’t much cotton to the notion of actually testing them, and as a result there’s all kinds of objections to the challenge, ranging from “it’s impossibly biased” (in reality, it is the person who claims the ability or phenomenon, not the James Randi Educational Foundation, who designs the test and describes what constitutes a success) to the idea that Randi is somehow “anti-psychic” and his mere presence interferes with “psychic” abilities (Randi is never present at any of the tests, and he is not even informed when the tests are scheduled or where they take place) to the claim that the Foundation will always cheat to skew the results (the Foundation does not run or administer the tests; all tests are administered by a third party, often a university, that both the claimant and the Foundation trust).
In short, this guy has spent a tremendous amount of time and energy over the last couple decades in the thankless task of opposing fraud, gullibility, anti-intellectualism, ignorance, and credulity that poison and corrode reason and attack the foundation of post-industrial society. It is hard to overstate my admiration of this man; people of reason everywhere owe him a debt of gratitude.
Wen I first met him at Dragon, I had a sewing machine under my arm. That’s a whole different story, and one I shan’t go into in this post.
From the Department of the Bleedin’ Obvious Department
Spotted this when I was shopping a couple of days ago. Yes, the grocery store has a “toys” aisle. No, I don’t know why either. (Something to keep the kiddies out of Mom’s hair while she shops, perhaps?)
Anyway, take a look at the advertising copy on this toy. Liteup Wheel Lights Up!
…err, as opposed to doing something else, for example. Like, I dunno, invading France.
A liteup wheel that lights up. What ever will they think of next? Tautological cat is tautological.
First sights
The very first thing I saw when i opened my eyes this morning.
Taken from the camera in my cell phone, which I leave next to the bed at night; it’s my alarm clock, too.
From the “You Can’t Make This Up” department…
I just got back from lunch at a popular seafood chain restaurant called Joe’s Crab Shack. There are public restrooms in this restaurant; the restrooms are down a hallway. A sign helpfully points the way.
However, the sign does not say “Restrooms” on it. Instead, it says…
Well, see for yourself.
It’s CATURDAY!
I woke up this morning with the kitty Liam nestled next to me. The instant I was awake, so was he, making even more of a pest of himself than his usual pesty self. He promptly started crawling all over me, licking me, biting me, and generally just being cute as hell.
So, being the indulgent man I am, I not only didn’t kick him off the bed, I picked up my cell phone and started snapping pics like crazy.
Fragments of the Weekend: Pincushion Porn
Tuesday night, dayo and I came in from a walk in the park and curled up in front of the TV to watch some of Tristan Taormino’s porn. I had mostly packed for the return trip, but left the box of needles out, seeing as how we hadn’t played with them yet. dayo also had a shiny new purple aluminum cane that needed a proper christening, as well.
The porn was simple, as porn most often is. A group of porn stars in a house for a weekend, a bunch of cameras, no plot or script; reality TV applied to fucking. I still had sulenda‘s marks on my body–still have them now, as I write this, in fact–and that seemed somehow appropriate. We put on the porn, refreshing in its lack of fake tits, and I curled up behind dayo with the needles.
“One! One needle in your flesh! Ah, ah, ah!” I’ve been told I’m very Count von Count in most things, particularly in most things related to sex. Go with what works, I suppose.
Clicky for pic after fifteen needles; no blood, but might be triggering for some folk anyway
Why yes, Tacit, please DO show us what’s on your counter!
It’s been sitting on my counter since I moved. Yes, I swear there is a reason for it. The stuff in the bowl is barley. Yes, I swear there’s a reason for that, too.
Waking up
Every night, when I go to bed, the kitty Liam usully follows me and falls asleep on the pillow next to me. It’s really heart-meltingly cute, and would be even cuter if he didn’t have the habit of waking up at three o’clock in the morning and tearing around the apartment, or fighting with one of the stray cats around here through the sliding glass door onto the patio. (At least I assume that’s what they’re doing. Maybe they want to be friends, I don’t know. Regardless, they bat at each other through the glass; it’s about as noisy as a handful of marbles tossed into a blender.)
After the requisite “wake Franklin up in the middle of the night,” Liam comes back to bed and curls up on the pillow again until morning comes.
Morning brings with it sharp teeth. The cat, you see, usually wakes up before I do, and morning is his “pet me” time. He lets me know it’s “pet me” time by biting my nose until I’m awake, then biting my nose until I pet him.
Come to think of it, we have kind of a dysfunctional relationship, he and I. He badgers me into giving him attention, and I provide it.
I open my eyes each morning and see, blurry and out of focus, cat teeth right in front of my face. I can’t help but think this is the last sight of many a small prey animal throughout history, and that if I were small enough for him to eat, he would no doubt make me into an hors d’oeuvres in a heartbeat.
I keep my cell pone next to my bed, so this morning, when Liam woke me with his customary “Pet me! Pet me, hyooman, or I shall rip the nose from your face and devour it before your very eyes!” routine, I snapped some phone camera pics so you, too, can see what I go through every morning.
Notice how he grabs my face with his paws. This is so he can prevent me from moving my nose away.
His teeth and claws are very sharp. Weird, it is, that we as a species enjoy sharing our homes with small predators.