A visit to the dark house

Another preview for the Zombie Lincoln Hypothesis, for those who can't wait a minute longer:

Victor looked quickly over his shoulder as he stepped into the alleyway. It would be scandal enough if a colleague recognized him in this part of town, but if he were noticed stepping into a such a dank, dead-ended passageway such as this, in his well tailored suit and expensive shoes, surely someone's curiosity would be aroused. Thankfully, there was no one on the street sober enough to be paying him any attention. He carefully counted three dumpsters, cursing under his breath at the fact that they always seemed to be overflowing with some new and disgusting filth, and poked gingerly at the boarded over door in the shadow of the third with his shoe. There was nearly silent whirring, and what had appeared to be a knot hole retracted. Victor hesitated, then braced himself as he placed his pinky-finger into the hole. He withdrew it quickly, but not before he felt the prick of a tiny needle. Moments later the door opened, and Victor stepped forward into an unlit hallway, which sack into pitch darkness as the door behind him closed. Victor began walking slowly forward, until he heard a second door close behind him, and a voice say "Please, Mr. Abrams, have a seat."

Victor sat, and a different voice said "Well Mr. Abrams, we'd love to know how you found our contact, but that can wait. You say you have urgent information about the recent... problems, that have occurred in Washington and Springfield?" Victor peered into the dark as the man spoke, waiting for his eyes to adjust and said "Yes, and I know about the attack near Charleston." This was greeted with several beats of silence, then "I see. Information on that last event has been difficult to assertion, even for us. Tell us what you know." Victor's eyes were not adjusting, it seemed the room was completely blacked out. Victor stared in the direction of the voice and slowly moved his hand into his pocket. "I can't give you that information for free...", a second voice cut him off "Money is not an object. We will determine how much your information is worth, but we can assure you, you will be well compensated." Victor turned his head sharply, as this voice seemed to be to his left, and above him. "I don't need your money, I want a promise. I don't want you to try to kill him." "We cannot promise that we will not kill. If a man needs to die for this nation to remain safe, we must do it" the first voice said. "Oh, I think you misunderstand me" said Victor, "I don't want you to _try_ to kill him. You wouldn't be able to, not at this point, but the trying will make him angry, and will make things much harder for all of us." A third voice spoke, from Victor's right: "You don't mean..."

"Yes" Victor said, as his fingers tightened around his phone, "Its him. Zombie Lincoln is back."

He whipped out his phone and depressed a key, flashing what he knew to be a dim light, but one that was blinding after the absolute darkness. The room was small and square, with only one door, behind him. There was no sign of the men he had been talking to. In fact, the room was empty, with bare walls except for a vent near the ceiling, where Victor thought he saw a whisp of smoke disappearing, but it was gone before he could find an application on his phone that was bright enough to show it clearly. Not wanting to spend another minute in the strange place, Victor shoved the door behind him open, walked quickly down the hall way, which was a unadorned as the room he had been in, and longer than he had realized, and slipped back into the alley. He walked back past the dumpsters and out of the alley, his pace increased as he looked around vainly for a cab to take him away. He hoped he had done the right thing, because it was begging to look like this time, Lincoln's plans were bigger than he could handle without help.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and the Zombie Lincoln Hypothesis

A lot of people have been asking me recently: Have you heard of the new book and/or movie by Seth Grahame-Smith (who could do to lose a few of those last name letters), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter? To which I must respond: Yes I have. And then they ask: did he rip off your idea from the Zombie Lincoln Hypothesis? Or are you two collaborating? Are you going to finish that? Did you steal the idea for ZLH from him? This is the only true answer to those questions (anything you read in US Weekly is a lie):

We have not spoken about our super-natural Lincoln projects, although I think it is safe to assume that I appeared to Seth in a dream, at least once, but possibly several times. That being said, we are both basing our stories on TRUE FACTS, so it is possible that there will be some common details. I don't think that there will be too much overlap, as it appears that his story is set during Lincoln's first lifetime, and ZLH deals with the modern day.

If you have any questions, please direct them to Seth and I jointly, ideally in a written form that appears in our dreams.

Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?

The Zombie Lincoln Hypothesis

Scene 1, outside of Grant's Tomb, before dawn, a shaky image as if by hand-held camera.

A Japanese woman is posing with the landmark when suddenly there is the sound of shattering marble, and a plume of dust and rock debris appears from the tomb, a car alarm goes off. The woman runs behind the view of the camera, which briefly loses focus and then returns to the tomb entrance, where there is no longer any motion. The camera approaches the source of the sound, along with several joggers. A gapping hole in the stone structure is revealed. The camera swings (as if its holder has heard a sound, unrecorded by the film), and a brief glimpse of a large figure moving jerkily and swiftly through riverside park is seen briefly, before the recording ends. Zoom out to reveal a large flat screen television showing the still-image of the last shot in the corner of a local news story wondering if the event was a terrorist attack or simple vandalism. A tall, thin man turns the TV off with a remote, spins his chair to pick up a phone on a large ornate desk, in what is revealed to be a well appointed office with views high over a large city.

The man speaks:

“The plan must commence. He's out.”

End Scene

Coming Soon

Look for a preview of my next screen play, The Zombie Lincoln Hypothesis", coming soon.

Back like Craker Jack

That title would be better if Cracker Jacks, or better yet crackerjack were in some way making a comeback, but to the best of my knowledge, they are not. On the other hand, I've finished my summer law firm job and have much more time/inclination to fill portions of the internet with my ramblings. If you're hoping for the deep dirt on what I was doing, you'll have to look elsewhere. If you're hoping for snide comments about walrus angst, this is the place.

Other than working this summer, I've also had foster kittens, who are either adopted yesterday or will be tomorrow. More on this later, or in an edit.

(Note: This was a lie)

I'm afraid not/I'm a frayed knot

I've noticed that many of my favorite jokes a dirty, but I don't think the one where the rope gets kicked out of a bar and tries to muss up its hair/unravel itself is.  I'm not going to assume it isn't though, so I warn you that there may be some mildly dirty jokes appearing in these pages.  Later I'll tell you about the penguin who had car trouble.  

Remember last week/a few posts ago when I said I was going to write every day?  Of course you don't, you either don't exist or you're reading this sometime far in the future and already know I didn't keep that promise.  Well, I'm going to try to get posts up every weekday or five times a week with posts on weekends, whichever comes first.  That way I can use loopholes and arguments about the week starting on Sunday/Monday/Thursday to cover up the fact that I will surely fail at that goal as well.  Just wanted to warn you.

I do love that Blogger has a tab that says "Monetize" up top, which makes everyone want to write awesome stuff that eventually gets tons of readers and results in more ads saying "Google pays me 1700 dollars a week to work at home, want to learn how?"  I should note, the answer to those questions tends to be "I get paid to perpetuate fraud on trusting internet users by claiming to be paid to work at home when in reality I'm being paid to perpetuate the fraud that I'm being paid, which I realize is all very circular, but send me a check and I'll show you how you can do the same thing."  Its very complicated, but hey, so is working for a hedge fund.

Here is a list of links that I've bookmarked, but that are probably not of any use to you: Copyright class wiki, Columbia Law School Lawnet, Columbia University Directory, Westlaw and LexisNexis.  I said I'd go over the things I do on the internet, but I think these are probably not of interest to people not in my particular position.  The first one is just notes/info for a class I'm in (there are no laptops allowed, so having the typed notes on there is useful), the second is how we log into CLS to get things like grades, seat reservations, course sign ups and materials and things like that and the third is just a way of looking up peoples Columbia e-mail addresses if you know their name (or vice versa).  The last two are the two competing legal research companies, which probably would be interesting to people, but for the fact that they cost money and require a log-in (unless you're a law student, in which case they're free to get you addicted).  You probably also aren't interested in the NY Public Library page or the CU Move page, but I may talk about those later.  Get ready for the future, when I'll list some other favorite websites of mine, only I'll discuss them.  

So, this penguin who works for government services in Antarctica has been saving up for years to take a vacation and see the United States.  He buys a ticket on a ocean liner (link NSFWwithsound) and heads up to Boston (penguins can't fly, its an inner ear thing), and makes his way down through the North East corridor seeing all the sites.  He catches a game at Fenway, goes to the top of the Empire State Building and sees the Statue of Liberty, goes to Independence Hall (and posts pictures of himself standing by the liberty bell, pretending to ring it, on his facebook page), and tours all the monuments, museums and government buildings in DC.  He wants to check out California too, so he rents a car and starts driving cross country.  He stops in Chicago, but then continues on, as he discovers that the middle of the United States is pretty boring for a penguin (since they're not that interested in grain).  He was driving through Arizona when the check engine light came on and he noticed the car was running a little roughly with some white smoke coming from the exhaust pipe.  He pulled off at an exit and luckily arrived at a little strip mall with a mechanics shop almost immediately.  The mechanic waved him in, told him he'd look at it in a minute, and suggested he go down the street to and get himself something to eat while he waited.  The penguin walked outside and saw a Diary Queen and decided to try ice cream (he'd never tried it before, they only have Italian ice in Antarctica.  Ice cream is kind of like polar bears that way).  He ordered a vanilla cone, not wanting to be too adventurous his first time getting ice cream.  He got his cone and went outside and discovered how difficult the coned ice cream experience is when you have flippers and a beak.  He finally managed to get most of it down by just smushing the cone into his face, although he got the ice cream all over his face in the process.  He was looking around for a napkin or something when he saw the mechanic waving him in.  He walked inside as the mechanic closed the hood and wiped his hands on a rag and said "Dude, it looks like you blew a seal..."

The Soul Question: Do you have it?

This question is directed at Killers lead singer Brandon Flowers.  The man clearly states "I [or I've, he doesn't state that clearly] got soul but I'm not a soldier" in All These Things I've Done.  He then proceeds to inform the listener that "I never had a lover, I never had soul" as well as disclaiming having had a good time, or getting cold/gold in Bones.  Well I say, pick a side.  We're at war.  War with terrorism.  And most of all, we're at war with ourselves.  And, following the logic of Stephen Colbert, you have to pick sides when you're at war.  

I guess my point is, if it turns out Flowers really didn't have soul, does that logically mean he was a soldier after all?  Or did I just BLOW YOUR MIND?!?

I actually don't have much to say today, so I'll let you know more about a website you have have stumbled upon if you've been following the links I squeeze in all over the place.  The site is Icanhascheezburger.com, and it features lol cats, an internet breed of the kitteh that generally speaks with poor syntax but manages to say amusing things.  These pictures have existed since 1905, and have expanded to include other animals.  There are associated memes, like walruses searching for buckets, which I may have referenced before.

The great thing about the site is combines humor with adorableness, giving insecure men and ironic girls an excuse to look at cute little kitties, as well as leading to some excellent genuine creative expression.  

Seriously, some of them are funny, and if you are aware of lol cats you'll be more hip to the younger crowd.  And some cats are too awesome not to want to impress.  

Isn't it Ironic?

Isn't it ironic that the answers to almost all of the questions in Alanis Morissette's hit song are properly answered in the negative?  Do most people think that usually turning 98 causes you to not win the lottery?  I would think that the assumption would be that the older you are, the more likely you are to win, since many states (including my home state of Pennsylvania) run the lottery to benefit their older citizens.  What would be ironic would be if the old man had realized he'd won, decided to go and buy himself some really good health insurance (instead of that Canadian style stuff Obama wants to give him) and while just outside the health insurance store, he got hit by a bus.  And the bus was full of hipsters wearing secondhand Air Supply shirts.  Although I have to admit, finding a black fly in your chardonnay is ironic, since everyone knows black flies only drink, swim in and die in red wines.  

But really what I want to talk to you about, is music.  In a way.  I was sitting in my copyright class today (featuring Tim Wu, probably the most entertaining Law Professor I've ever had, and in a much better way than the usual 'the plaid of his bow-tie doesn't match the golf shoes he forgot to take off' sense), and we're talking about the Napster case.  Before you (and yes, I'm aware that there is no "you" at this point, feel free to look at any of my other Walrus Ennui jokes) stop reading for fear of some legal summary, this class topic just reminded me of the by-gone era where music sharing was widespread.  I'd also like to take the step of pointing out that any descriptions of my past actions in this archived and discoverable public speech should be assumed to be false.  I know the RIAA has stopped suing people, but nothing is forever.  

I remember in high school thinking that it was strange that older people tend to not be into new music, but rather just listen to the music that was cool when they were teens/early 20s.  I thought, this will never happen to me.  I'd never stop listening to the radio, and I'd keep getting new music.  

Star wipe to now, and all most worst fears (which is to say, my worst fears that directly relate to continuing to keep up with popular music and discover new bands/music at that same high rate I did in high school) came true (parenthetical continuation: my worst fear probably involves bee-aliens attacking Eagles training camp at Leigh, or just a swarm of wasps).  I pretty much don't listen to the radio unless I'm at home and happen to be driving (and even then, only if I don't have my ipod and NPR isn't playing anything interesting).  I don't even listen to Internet radio or Pandora or any of those things.  I do buy new music occasionally, but most of that is small bands I already like.  

But!  I don't think this is because I'm old and uncool (I was never cool, and rarely young).  I think there is another factor in my (and my generations) case- free music from Napster and its Morpheus/Kazaa/Bit-torrent/etc. children.  Hypothetical me didn't even use Napster (I came late to the party, not because of my strong moral stance as a 16 year old), and got a large portion of my free/copyright violating hypothetical music from programs that simply abused iTunes to rip songs from other users whose music I could play over whatever networks I was on.  Still, I (and people of my age) (hypothetically) got more music than I could listen to in any sort of reasonable time, almost all of which was the popular (not necessarily pop, but common none-the-less).  This "filled my tank," as it were, and I haven't had nearly the incentive I used to have to get new songs to put into my brain.  This might have happened naturally, though purchasing more and more music, but it would have almost certainly have happened more slowly, and given my cheapness/poorness I would have continued to listen to radio (partially out of necessity) for much longer.  

This leads me to my conclusion: there is a god of coolness transfer, that works in mysterious ways to make sure most old people are uncool, possibly to prevent older men from interfering with the attempted mating of younger men.  I admit that this idea of a "god of things" comes from the Wuvian universe, in which there are gods of things like copyright, economics, and possibly Yoda fighting R2-D2.  This god provided this brief spurt of unlimited music deliberately to prevent people like me from keeping up with Vampire Weekend, thus keeping the world in its proper place.

Also, maybe the god just wanted to kill the music industry.

And finally: what kind of drugs would the Pillsbury Doughboy even be able to get high from?

Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its if the homeless man he's fighting has some sort of weapon

Did I work too hard to think of a non sequitur title to this post?  I like to think so.  That's just part of the challenge I brought upon myself by deciding to start every blog post with an unrelated title and a pithy little paragraph about it.  I have to say, this got meta fast...

The real reason this is showing up on my non-existent hypothetical reader's RSS feed so soon after the prior entry is that: 

a) That entry was actually mostly written/thought out a while before it was posted, but I cleaned up the draft just now, 

2) I promised myself I'd write once a day, and since it took me a single day to fall behind I edited my promise to have the same number of entries as days that pass, so I need two today to make up for not writing on the Sabbath, and 

D) I'm writing this paragraph now, just after posting the last topic, and I didn't take into account that it may take me a while to write all this, making my observation above inaccurate.  

First I'm going to tell you a little about my goals for this, both to give no-one a preview of the future and to give myself something to remind me what I wanted to write about.  Ideally I'll come up with something interesting to comment on every day, but realistically you can expect two stock types of entries.  The first will be a focus on something on the internet I enjoy/am interested in (although probably not news stories, like lots of blogs do).  For an example, see the previous post about podcasts, and look forward to a future one about webcomics.  The second stock entry will be a (occasionally true, but most likely exaggerated in a way that was intended to be humorous but then backfired dramatically) description of something about me, or a theory I have, or a plan or an idea, that I consider relevant to me as a person.  Examples include descriptions of my preferred super-powers, my theories on Brett Favre and WWII, my carrot top related internet hobbies or the following paragraph.

Finally, I'd like to relate an idea I have had that should be useful to people from my original area of the world, Philadelphia.  It has been reported to me, and I've occasionally encountered, people who, upon leaning of a Philly area hometown, ask if the Philadelphian knows Will Smith.  While many would answer "no, you moron, almost 6 million people live in the Philadelphia metro area, and less than 50 of those people are Will Smith, so the odds of knowing him are pretty low" I've got a better solution.  You need to answer, with a straight face, that you used to know said Mr. Smith, and in fact played basketball with him on occasion.  You then tell them, you got in a fight with him some years back, and after that never saw him again.  

I call that "stupid question" jujitsu.  

We like the moon

Another thing we (by which I mean I) like is having post titles that have absolutely nothing to do with the entry.  Maybe that will be my stichk, along with post-modern walrus angst photos (of which there is currently a dire lack).  Which is my way of saying, don't expect this to be a post about strange creatures singing about their preference for near earth celestial bodies [link is NSFW, at least if your volume is on].  

I've discovered that I like podcasts, especially in the context of exercise.  Which is to say, I listen to a number of podcasts, which helps me not be bored while working out in contexts where I can't use my hands to hold printed material.  The point is, listening to a podcast is more entertaining than music and less likely to result in library fines due to torn sweaty pages than a New Yorker.  I mean a book.  This is likely not interesting to you, unless you are someone like me who has enough free time and motivation to ramp up my working out but didn't have enough to do while I did it.  Perhaps more interesting to the hypothetical you, is that I'm now going to recommend the podcasts I enjoy, so if you have a long commute, a music player near your shower a boring mindless job or just don't like music, you're set.  (All of these are most easily gotten through subscribing on iTunes, but I'll link to websites because linking makes me feel more useful).  

Penny Arcade (the webcomic, which you can read here later to learn more about) podcasts- This includes two podcasts, the first of which is Downloadable Content, which is just a recording of the session in which the two authors go over ideas and discuss things, usually with lots of crude humor and references to both lunch and video games.  These come out at random intervals.  In theory they could come out as often as thrice (as in three times, not the band or a word meaning "not comparable"), but in reality they are not predictable.  Their time varies a lot too, from one that barely got into double digit minutes, and some that last upwards of an hour.  

The second manages to make a podcast about writing a video game referencing webcomic seem cool, being a recording of a Dungeons and Dragons game played by the authors of Penny Arcade, as well as the guy who writes PvP and in the second incarnation, Wil Wheaton.  Its also full of on the edge of vulgar humor and so fourth, but probably requires at least a vague interest in fantasy/nerdery/wiki style story-telling.  When they come out, they come out weekly, and there has been two iterations, giving a few months of listening each time.  Usually a little less than an hour of listening.  

Sports podcasts- This includes two podcasts, both from ESPN.  The first (and more famous) is the B.S. report, which is Bill Simmons/The Sports Guy's podcast which is like his articles, in that it is loosely linked to sports, sometimes funny and sometimes boston-centric and sometimes a bizarre insiders view of the hollywood writer/Jimmy Kimmel orbit world.  Read some Simmons columns first, and then if you like them and have the free time, the podcasts are probably worth giving a listen.  Often among the most intellectual of the podcasts.  These come out somewhat randomly, but usually once a week or more often.  They tend to be around an hour.  

The second, and more sports-centric is the Dameshek podcast, which is a national radio style sports show with lots of sound effects, gimmicks, great spoof songs and then more gimmicks.  Dameshek is another Kimmel circle guy, and a Pittsburgh homer, but still usually an entertaining listen.  It comes out daily (M-F), and ranges from 40 to 80 minutes, and pretty consistently appears around dinnertime on the east coast.

Other podcasts- These two shouldn't be lumped together really, but in my mind and play order they are, mostly because they're not time sensitive.  The first is the (new-ish) Adam Corolla podcast which is Corolla's (of Loveline, the Man Show, etc. fame.  And this is teh interwebs, so I can list two things followed by an etcetera, and there is nothing you can do.) project created by the fact that his radio show was canceled, but he continues to be paid for the rest of the year unless he gets another job.  The show is pretty vulgar, but sometimes funny and often an interesting look at the guests (mostly comedians) he has on each day.  It shows up daily (generally in the morning), M-F, and is pretty consistently very close one hour.

The final podcast I listen to is the Car Talk podcast which is just that weeks NPR cartalk show, in which the two MIT-educated mechanics from Cambridge, Mah (their fair city), take calls about car-repair and make jokes about everything.  Really if you need to know more about cartalk, it should be easy to find.  This one comes out every Saturday, and is a little less than an hour.  

So, those are the podcasts I listen to.  This probably would have been more useful for me in a hypothetical future with flying cars and someone other than me reading this stuff, but if you do stumble upon this someday, feel free to suggest other podcasts I'd be interested in.  But I think we can all agree that if the podcast is about angsty post-bucket walruses, I'll probably find it before you do.