I hate awards shows, especially the Oscars.

You used to be so much fun.

But that clip is awesome.

I loved awards shows (especially the Oscars) when I was a kid. They seem so calculated and all about money now, not about celebrating art. Maybe they were like that when I was a kid and I just didn't notice.

Also, it seems like people used to talk about the Oscars for maybe the two weeks leading up to it. Now it feels like it's turned into a four month Oscarthon season. How can they expect me to care for that long?

Also, I apologize in advance to Armsmasher for the vein in his forehead that will probably pop from being reminded of this clip's inclusion in the Whitney Biennial.

celebrating art

I have no idea what you're talking about. It's about seeing what people are wearing, who's had bad plastic surgery, and who manages to provide the night with its one or two moments of genuine emotion or dignity.

4 - I'd be fine with that, if we didn't have to listen to people blather on and speculate about what people will be wearing, who will have appeared to have had bad plastic surgery, and who will provide the night with those moments for four freakin' months beforehand.

I knew what the link would be as soon as I read "Helen Mirren."

6: Ditto.

I knew you'd know what that link would be as soon as you read Helen Mirren. Do you have the same reaction to seeing her that I do?

When are the Oscars, again?

Well, I do also think of things like Prime Suspect and The Long Good Friday (so good), but sure!

I don't mind any link that brings me to Milla Jovovich, so I clicked it.

Man, I also hate award shows! It's going to be awkward for our roommates when we elope and take all the partitioned dinner plates.

8: Yup.

Also, you didn't tell me that Ben w-lfs-n was on Beauty and the Geek.

I wish all Dame Commanders of the British Empire had been as willing to take their tops off in their youth. Julie Christie! Diana Rigg! Agatha Christie! (Mirren is so, so amazing in The Long Good Friday.)

Yes, it is Dame Helen Mirren, thank you very much, and thanks to Wikipedia. Dudes are "knighted", what is called when the Queen conks a Dench with her mighty scepter? Mirren is descended from a Russian emigre, trapped in London by the Bolsheviks. That could give me an excuse...never mind.

I first remember Mirren in Excalibur as...as...Morgaine! She had nude sex with her brother, Arthur. I had a crush on Guinnevere, Cheryl...something.

Hey kids, I'm back in town -- 'd I miss anything? Becks, your video got flagged as inappropriate by the YouTube user community, so I can't watch it. Something to do with naked slaves?

OMG, I read "Becks, your video got flagged as inappropriate by the YouTube user community" and, for a second, thought "your video" meant my video and that there was a video floating around of us all getting drunk last night and was a little bit panicked.

Last night would have definitely been flagged as inappropriate by any user community.

It's from Caligula, Clowny.

Also, you didn't tell me that Ben w-lfs-n was on Beauty and the Geek.

Say what now?

It was Cherie Lunghi as Guinnevere.

I have watched the entirety of Caligula. I wish I hadn't. It is only funny in the beginning.

Looking up Mirren at IMDB, she was in an art-film in 1969 titled Herostratus, which inspires me...never mind. The movie has little to do with the historical character, who of course everyone here knows, but in looking it up a Bridget St John (also Malcolm Muggeridge!) is in the credits, with little more information. There was a Bridget St John who released some folky albums in England around 1970. Must google.

A contestant on the show bears a resemblance to you (so Saiselgy and I each noted). The question remains: beauty, or geek?

"When he gets bored, he wants someone to play with."

-- Ben w-lfs-n on BatG

Speaking of reality show contestants who resemble w-lfs-n, Marcel is still going strong on Top Chef; but I think he has at most two more episodes left in him. My money for the final winner is strongly behind Michael.

Oh, not the gets played with when bored guy! Hell, I'm one of the first to give Ben crap but he's way cooler than that dude.

My feelings on watching Caligula were that I wasn't happy to be watching it, but then I was glad that I had watched it. I would not be remotely surprised if most people did not share that feeling.

Fuck you, Clown! The final three will be Elia, Sam and Cliff.

bears a resemblance to you (so Saiselgy and I each noted)

I'm given to understand that the same crew says that I look like Snuffleupagus, so take heart, Ben.

Based on this site one of them appears to resemble Armsmasher.

Since I don't know who they're talking about, I'm not too insulted, ogged. But thanks for caring.

I disagree with the first sentence of this post. It seems to me that even if the Oscars deserve hatred, every other award show that vaguely resembes the Oscars deserves even more hatred.

Nice scooter, Smasher.

26: That's hilarious. Is that because (IIRC) Snuffleufagus is invisible? Or because he's hairy?

I thought it was because he has a huge nose.

Arthegall knows what I mean.

I have to agree with 29. What award show is less unbearable than the Oscars?

You're a beautiful geek, w-lfs-n.

Last season's Beauty and the Geek winner was an art critic.

Shit, the BatG site gives away who lost this week. I haven't watched it yet! (Of course, the people of color are the first to get the boot.)

32: Well, in any case, I'm not sure those two should be throwing stones. At least not until they SHAVE!

Here

Oh-tee-oh-aitch, w-lfs-n appears to be playing a strange opening.

Will you stop giving stuff away!!

41 to whom? I'm talking about last season.

I just downloaded the last season!! Now you've ruined EVERYTHING!!!

Spack -- you apparently haven't noticed that Michael's food keeps getting better with each episode where for each of the other contestants, his/her food keeps getting worse or stays the same.

OH NO! Last season was really good! It's still worth watching!

You've ruined The Wire for me, if that means anything.

40: my opponent seems to have four bishops.

You've ruined The Wire for me, if that means anything.

It does; I feel better.

His game is so hyper-modern, it's surreal.

He's got ways to go before he's better than Sam, Elia or Cliff. I take your point on Sam, but Elia's been consistently on top the last few episodes -- she was only on the verge of elimination in ep 9 because she was on the losing team, not because of a personal flaw -- and Cliff is still arguably the best chef on the show.

Whatevs. I have obvious biases in favor of the fat guy from the Central Valley.

BTW -- anybody care to help me brainstorm how to give notice to my boss tomorrow? I want to stay on good terms with him, especially because I am entertaining fantasies of persuading him to forgive $5000 the company has reimbursed me in tuition costs and which I technically owe them if I leave before 2 years from now. (Which, tomorrow is indeed fewer than 2 years from now.)

I have no advice, but I wish you luck.

Thanks.

What ben said.

Okay, thanks, can people who have ever been employed also chime in?

Blunt, abrupt, and upbeat. "Phil, I came in to tell you that I'm moving on to X Co.; 1/28 should be my last day, although we can probably work out a couple of extra days if you're really stuck (if it's true that you're at all flexible). I'm really excited about this opportunity -- I think it's the right direction for my career (specifics if you've got them). You know, working for you has been great -- I've really developed in my time here, and it's made it possible for me to advance myself in all sorts of ways."

You're leaving, you're delighted about your new job, and you're grateful to him for molding you into a new-job getting machine.

BEYOND SENSUALITY
THERE IS SEXUALITY

Fuck you, clown. I've been employed.

BEYOND SEXUALITY
THERE IS STANDPIPE BRIDGEPLATE

Is that from Gia?

Sorry Ben, for some reason I thought you were still in college. Thanks LB, that helps change my reference frame a little -- every time I had pictured the conversation it always started with me saying something like, "I accepted a new job offer, I'm giving notice now" and waiting for Randy to say something -- but if I move directly into talking points then that would defuse any potentially angry reactions and move Randy past the point of WTF, I had no idea the Clownae wasn't going to be working for me for the long term.

The preview for next week's BATG seems to have w-lfs-n enjoying an erotic slumber party with two of the beauties

Plus if you're extra jolly, it makes it harder for him to turn the tables and get angry. It's an occasion for great joy--why would any decent person bring up unpleasantness, such as repayment of $5000? Why, not your boss, he's a decent fellow! And so on. I think this has been done to me, come to think.

I'm anti-BATG erotic slumber parties. The point of this exercise is to teach them the skills they need to meet girls, not to provide them with pity/boredom/whatever sex. They need a hand-up, not a hand-out!

"hand-up" s/b "hand job"

BEYOND...

A classic of the genre.

Thank you.

67 to 65.

My remote just died. This isn't funny.

They need a hand-up, not a hand-out!

What's this from? Someone kept saying this to me over the holidays. Also, I'm surprised that you like/love BATG. I thought you were anti-cringe, and I assume that BATG is all about the cringe.

69: Mine's been cranky for months. We call it the proximate.

To 66 too, I guess.

I have just drunk a delicious jasmine.

My remote, people! My remote!

My kingdom for a remote!

For want of a remote a thumb atrophied

This is horrible. On the bright side: new remote!

Mein gott. Becks, please post the NSFW Flophouse vid from last night before ogged starts talking about his bowel movements.

I used to have a setup whereby I could control various things on my computer (mostly the audio player) by remote. The reciever was hand-crafted in Italy. But I never use it any more, because my computer's in my room and my room is not very spacious.

I would have thought that you, SCMT, would understand. I loved my remote, and it was good to me. Now there are three...things lined up next to me on the couch.

Didn't you once try to get me to ask that woman out, Ben?

It seems that I did.

I know how you feel, ogged. My Brookstone vibrating pen-clock-headphones just gave up the ghost, and it hurts real bad.

You know that ogged is going to get some 500-button monstrosity that doubles as a phone as a replacement.

I assume you have tried new batteries, Ogged?

Are you talking about the TiVo remote or another one?

Actually, I bet someone has hacked up a bit of hardware and some software for either phones or ipods to make them work as remotes. In fact I know that it's been done for ipods.

Yes, I've changed the batteries. It's dead, I tell you.

It was this one, young Ben. So sweet. I guess I'll upgrade. My remote was my one luxury purchase when I moved in here. Ah, the memories.

Ogged's next remote will have no buttons and he will control it with his mind.

So... this is something to replace the remote that comes with your television? Huh. Why would you want to do that?

That would be bad, because I get confused a lot. I'd end up watching the Home Shopping Network for hours.

$150 for a remote!!! Is that with the "Virtual Blowjob" button?

Ogged's next remote will have no buttons and he will control it with his mind.

His Indian manservant, in other words.

Is that with the "Virtual Blowjob" button?

The Virtual Blowjob models are around $90. For $150 you get Actual Blowjob.

$150 for a remote!!!

I said it was a luxury purchase, but dude, I really want this one. And you can pay a lot more for a remote, you know.

Do you really find interacting with your electronic devices that complicated, ogged?

What are you asking me, impertinent Ben?

ogged, those aren't safe to use without a flared base. I'd try a more reputable brand.

You're only supposed to put them in halfway, rube.

Aren't you just complicating your life in the guise of its simplification?

As opposed to using four remotes? No, these remotes are actually quite simple. (Seriously, they're very good.)

Scenario: you're chewing gum, and I sneak up behind you and strike a gong. Startled, you swallow the gum. Do you see where I'm going with this?

That's why they have that nice "peanut" shape, SB.

102 is unsatisfactory as a response to

GONG

So first you claim it doesn't matter that they don't have flared bases, and now you claim that they do have flared bases. Which is it, ese?

I said it was a luxury purchase, but dude, I really want this one.

I can't even imagine. You can buy a universal remote at any Rite-Aid-like store for $10. Of course, it won't go with the handmade furniture.

To whom is 104 addressed? (If to me, please re-read.)

You can buy a universal remote at any Rite-Aid-like store for $10.

I went there first. At the time, none of the simple ones supported my DirecTV Tivo. Maybe they do now, but I'm not going back.

You can take the boy out of Iran....

True enough.

Whom other than you would anyone here address as "ese", ogged?

That was a mystery to me, Ben.

You can take the boy out of Iran....

Yes, I was about to comment on the familiarity of a few of those remotes.

Let me lay out my thought process, ogged, so that you might better instruct me as to where I went astray this time. First, Mr or Ms Plate told you that the impedimenta 9for such they are, if only you knew) you covet are unsafe, because not flared at the base; you pooh-poohed Plate's concerns, explaining that one doesn't put them all the way in (thus leading me to think that you were accepting that they don't have flared bases, but claiming that did not matter). Later, you adverted to their peanut-shapedness, in doing which, I thought, essentially saying that they do have flared bases.

Hence my comment. I'm sorry to have let you down; I know that I've been doing that more and more lately. I only hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me once more.

I forgive you, noble Ben. What you need to understand is that 98 and 102 are making essentially the same point, with only the explicitness increasing from one to the next: 98 alludes to the shape (narrow in the middle, therefore subtly flared) without mentioning it, while 102 openly calls attention to the shape.

Yes, I understand now. When I look back on my self of twenty minutes ago, I hardly recognize him—so foolish.

Verily, what you describe is merely the state of being human.

Our estate is a mere pittance, ogged, and yet how jealous we are of it!

So much truth in the words of one so young; doubtless your soul long wandered ere it came to dwell in you.

Ogged and w-lfs-n are about to re-enact a scene from Caligula, I see.

it'll probably involve something with a flared base, too

Sound more like they're about to enact The Eye of Argon.

I support ogged in his universal-remote-having-ness. The rest of you are losing precious F5-clicking time. And you smell. Bad.

Let the record show that ogged was the first to say "ere".

I just don't have anything that can be controlled by remote, so.

You told me the Real Doll came with a remote. Can it not be controlled?

What would be the point of operating a Real Doll while distant from it?

125: Terrifying the neighbors' kids?

125: Or so you can join your brethren emo boys?

your brethren emo boys

This might be the most insulting thing ever said to me on this site.

I tried.

Ben,

I want you to know that
I miss you, I miss you so.

Matt,

Auf jeden weißen Zettel möcht ich's schreiben:
Dein ist mein Herz und soll es ewig bleiben.
Ich möcht mir ziehen einen jungen Star,
Bis daß er spräch die Worte rein und klar,
Bis er sie spräch mit meines Mundes Klang,
Mit meines Herzens vollem, heißem Drang;
Dann säng er hell durch ihre Fensterscheiben:
Dein ist mein Herz und soll es ewig bleiben.

Ben,

Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Our jaded, wise pimples mocked his writings:
Then is my rental vehicle the only unseemly gossip.
He mocked my sighing Ainu jungle prince,
But that, um, slapped the worldly carribou around,
But, um, she slapped with mitts my mighty sword,
Mitts my rental vehicle's volume couldn't handle;
Then blood-, no, hell-daggers came shooting across the fence:
Then is my rental vehicle the only unseemly gossip.

Matt,

Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again!
Go hungry and cold like a wolf,
Go wade like the crane:
The palms of the hands with thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan,
You'll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,
But you will walk like a man!

We've been outclassed.

So it seems.

Remote ordered, haters. And the $250 one I was coveting was marked down to $150, so I got that. Fuck you, Peter Singer! Screw you, African children!

I just wanted to say that I wandered in on the last five minutes of Mirrin playing Elizabeth I, and her performance in those five minutes--during which she barely spoke--made me think again about everything I know about women in power and the Elizabethean period; but now I am compelled to note that ogged is a pawn to his electronics.

Ignore me, JM.

That damn Ogged is making me want a new remote.

You should get one.

Unfortunately, at the moment a new remote is going to have to get in line behind some books I want and reloading supplies.

I'm sick of all these threads about beautiful actresses' most sexually explicit performances being hijacked by discussions of consumer appliance accessories. When will spring return to our land?

Yeah, shouldn't we be talking about programming languages or something?

I'm all for some spring dude. It's 19 degrees outside right now.

We could talk about the awesomeness of hunting wild hogs, and idiots who damn near shoot their friends when the hog charges them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoL2XblqOWE

We could talk about that, yes.

Check it out. Now the pigs will be easier to see.

It appears the Taiwanese have the edge in the all-important fluorescent green pig war between Beijing and Taipei.

Well: the deed is done. They took it pretty well considering the nightmare scenarios I had played out in my head. Looks like I will have to repay the tuition; this is not the end of the world. That's a weight off my shoulders.

According to Voltaire, Karl XII of Sweden hunted bears with a spear. He was probably the worst king Sweden ever had, but his life was dramatic.

150: Probably the best outcome you could have expected -- it's hard to imagine that handling it better would have resulted in forgiveness of a 5K debt. (This is too late for haggling, I think, so it's not really advice, just a thought: that's the sort of thing where you might, not unreasonably, have asked for reimbursement from your new firm. "Coming to you is going to cost me 5k; while I'd like to work for you, it'll be difficult if it's going to cost me money up front. What can you do for me?")

152 -- yeah, actually I did that, and the new firm is giving me some money as a signing bonus -- I had an idea I would be sneaky and pocket the bonus (or rather, use it to add to my car budget) but like I say it's not a biggie.

(And when I say "I did that" I mean, I used almost exactly those words.)

You hard-nosed negotiating stud, you.

150 -- now that you've done it (congrats, btw), we should talk about programming languages.

Specifically, I was in the shower when it occurred to me this morning that you can think of Unfogged as a programming language -- the threads are the programs.

Think about it! The genius of the Unfogged system is the numbered comments (I know this has been pointed out before), along with a readership that picked up on the value of substitution ("s/b"). In the style of Scheme -- every comment is an expression, and the value of every expression is a comment. There is no 'abstraction' as such, with bound vs. free identifiers -- any word or phrase becomes an identifier which can be substituted for, but that's okay.

Now all we need is a system for numbering the posts as well -- URLs are too cumbersome. And then a thread can proceed by "calling" the comments of other posts, but with appropriate substitutions (arguments) to make them topical. You'd only have to write a fixed-point-combinator-comment once, and you could use it from anywhere. Perhaps you'd probably also need a reasonable convention for parentheses, to keep things semi-clear.

What do you say, Unfogged sysadmins? Number the posts?

155 -- My wife, she is the hard-nosed one -- I leaned on her heavily for negotiating advice and compulsion.

IM IN UR SHOWERZ
CONSIDERING UR SITEZ

The posts are numbered. This one, for example, is #6049. We just don't keep individual entry archives.

Get out of my shower, Smasher. You'll make me late to work.

Fuck you, Peter Singer! Screw you, African children!

What you should really do is take a picture of yourself with your remote, a blown up copy of the receipt, and about a hundred McSomethings. Then send copies of the picture to the African kids along with a note explaining that while you feel for them, your money had "other priorities at this time." A nice touch would be to end the note thusly: "I'd love to send you the McSomethings, since otherwise I'm just going to throw them away. But, unfortunately, there's no real way to do that. Oh, well."

(Like for her to say, "Well it would make me a lot more comfortable with the transition if you'd call up and explain the situation, and ask for some money up front" made it a lot easier for me to do that and sound confident about my need for their assistance.)

No, I know the posts are numbered -- so are the comments (I think my 156 is #469295). But I'm talking about a "public" numbering system, separate from whatever the internals of the site use to generate the URLs. If the comments weren't separately numbered, people wouldn't use their database IDs (I assume that's what they are) to reference other comments; the unfogged threads got richer as soon as people realized that the "fake" numbers were useful. You wouldn't even have to back-number all the old posts -- just start giving the new ones arbitrary IDs,or something.

Anyway, 156 is mostly in jest. It was fun to think about though -- made me laugh out loud, when it first occurred to me.

I recommend the McGriddle, with Tobasco sauce.

made me laugh out loud

You've an odd sense of humor, my friend. Similarly, I really should be old and dignified enough not to laugh at something like this, but it turns out I'm just not.

Otoh, 'smasher demonstrates (at the end of the thread of doom) how one can operate in a comment-system-without-numbers. Just assign a number, and proceed as normal. (Smasher is the Blog Gödel!) I'm not sure the crazies will understand what's going on though.

By the way, apostropher: thank you for that whole Obama-is-the-antichrist thing. I spent an hour reading it this morning, and it's genius.

156 gives me the loin in a serious way. A warning, however: in days unknown, someone will unearth an archive and find a series of references that read, for instance:

6041:249 - "the eagle" s/b "my Aunt Millie"

Who's to say an obscure, ultra-conservative and woefully repressive religion isn't going to be founded out of something like that? I just want you to know the genesis of a dark future before you lead us there.

Didn't Nostradamus also number his prophecies, or something? Alls I'm saying is, the Unfoggetariat need only extend its hand and take the power which has been offered to it.

And 167 is exactly what I was thinking of... once people start commenting in this way, then we can start to write comment compilers, which take the original thread and reduce it to its "real" content (actually, I suppose that would be an evaluator, not a compiler).

I suppose we'd have to be clear on the semantics at some point, right? Specifically, I'm thinking call-by-name vs call-by-value. Otherwise, what would an expression like:

((6049:167 "249" s/b "6") "the human skin" s/b "New" )

mean? Is it a runtime error, or a dumb joke? Also: currying.

a runtime error, or a dumb joke?

These are hardly mutually exclusive categories. Just sayin'.

6049:23 - "crap" s/b "handjobs"

Also: isn't it poor programming style to include the thread number when you are referencing a comment in the current thread? I would certainly generate a warning if I saw somebody doing that.

(If I were the one writing the compiler I mean.)

(F "Y" s/b (X "Y" s/b X))

(6049:173 X s/b 6049:173)

bacon

(6049:174 X s/b 6049:175)

Now... I'm pretty sure that's probably wrong, and doesn't calculate the comment that I want it to. It also depends, as I said, on the semantics of substitution.

Also, working it out a bit revealed to me that the lack of an abstraction operator (lambda!) is definitely a weakness.

But nonetheless.

173 - 177.

The vertabrae are precisely the kind of semi-independent cells I'm talking about here, apostropher.

Wow. I never thought I would have the opportunity to use "Courtney Love" and "soliloquy" in the same sentence.

Armsmasher's assignment of numbers to comments in the Obama thread is not fully autonomous, because he used "6" to refer to what actually was the sixth comment. Break free of the physical structure!

Clownae passed up a chance to trash his old boss for a possible $5,000 which never materialized. A Charlie Brown moment. There's a lesson in risk assessment and game theory here.