Peg Leg Pirate with a Perched Parrot o' Pestilence

Questions? Ask me.



"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty." -Eugene McCarthy

"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." -Dale Carnegie

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Nov. 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007
So it goes.

"Do you know what a Humanist is? I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.

We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That's my favorite joke."
-- From 'Knowing What's Nice'by Kurt Vonnegut
November 6, 2003

"When you get to my age, if you get to my age and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, 'What is life all about?' I have seven kids, three of them orphaned nephews.
I put my big question about life to my son, a pediatrician. Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad:'Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.'" - K.V., "A Man Without A Country"

"The highest treason in the USA is to say Americans are not loved no matter where they are, no matter what they are doing there." -Kurt Vonnegut

"Bergeron's epitaph for the planet, I remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the Grand Canyon for the flying-saucer people to find, was this:

WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT
BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP

Only he didn't say 'doggone.'"
-Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar." - Edward R. Murrow

"We cannot defend freedom around the world if we abandon it at home." - Edward R. Murrow

"A government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away." - Barry Goldwater

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

"Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have." - Penn Jillette

"I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to "God" are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate." -George Carlin, Brain Droppings

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.-Plato

The Zen Philosopher Basho once said: A flute without holes is not a flute. A doughnut without holes is a danish. -Ty Webb, Caddyshack

I changed the business. I am often called the wheel that Rock rolls on as long as people are dancing apart to the beat of the music they enjoy. -Chubby Checker

A library is full of stories of supposed truimphs, which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm. It is unfair to youngsters particularly to leave them wholly unprepared for monster screw-ups and starring roles in Keystone Kops comedies and much, much worse. -Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." - Charles Bukowski

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." -Friedrich Nietzsche

our work makes pretty little homes
our work makes pretty little homes
agenda suicide. the drones work hard before they die
and give up on pretty little homes.
-The Faint, Agenda Suicide

"Don't knock masterbation, it's having sex with someone I love." - Woody Allen

I thrive best hermit style
With a beard and a pipe
And a parrot on each side
- Björk, Unison

Quote me as saying I was misquoted. - Groucho Marx

Be good and you will be lonesome. - Mark Twain

The same things which helps one person toward the cultivation of his higher nature are hindrances to another. The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another it is a distracting burden which suspends or crushes all internal life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain and their operation on them of different moral and physical agencies that, unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should tolerance, as far as the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to tastes and modes of life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of their adherents? - J.S. Mill, On Liberty

Let us endeavour to live so that when we die, even the undertaker will be sorry. - Mark Twain

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"The reason I do photographs is to help people understand my music, so it's
very important that I am the same, emotionally, in the photographs as in the
music. Most people's eyes are much better developed than their ears. If they
see a certain emotion in the photograph, then they'll understand the music."
-Björk

"This record (Vespertine) is very much about inventing your own paradise, but underneath your kitchen table, so it's very secretive. It's sort of about being on your own in your house with your laptop and whispering for a year and just writing a very peaceful song that tiptoes. It's all about reaching those euphoric highs and those ecstasy moments, but with no outside stimulation. All it takes is inside you. I'm quite aware it's an artificial paradise, so it almost went Disney at times — you know, when you see pink Bambi jumping about? Those types of things. I don't think there are very many pink Bambis on Homogenic. Vespertine is sort of a winter album for me. I think Homogenic was very summer, very hot, burning desert. Maybe 'cause I did it in Spain; it might be something as simple as that. But this one's like ... those days when it's snowing outside, and you're inside with a cup of cocoa and everything's very magical. You're euphoric, but you don't speak for days 'cause you don't want to."
- Björk

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I've wasted hours of my time at these wonderful websites:

News sites:
Daily Rotten News -Disturbing and Odd news stories, updated daily!
Anime News Network -Best Anime news site I've ever seen. Simply amazing. Insightful articles and reviews of anime and manga titles.
Evil Avatar - Wonderful gaming news resource.
1up! - Another excellent gaming news source.
Slash-dot -News for nerds.
Weather Underground - An excellent site for up to date weather information all across the US. In no way related to the revolutionary communist group of the '70s.

Bands I like:
Bjork's official Website -No explanation necessary.
The Cure's official website -Also, no need to explain.. though it is rarely updated, it's good for the biographies and song lyrics. :)
Garbage's official website
The official website for HIM!

Webcomics I frequent:
Penny Arcade -Aside from livejournal and dailyrotten it's the first site I hit in the morning at work. Stellar gamer webcomic!
Scary Go Round -Hilarious webcomic about the residents of Tackleford, England. Dinosauruses and Krakkaghars included! I am indeed Ryan Beckwith. :)
Perry Bible Fellowship - Do NOT let the name fool you. This is one of the best webcomics I've ever read. Has nothing to do with Bibles or Fellowshipping.
Red Meat - From the secret files of Max Cannon... wonderfully twisted and fantastically funny comics. Milkman Dan always cracks me up.

Interesting miscellany:
WIUX LP 100.3 FM: Pure Student Radio! IU's Student Run Radio Station, I have a show on early Friday mornings 2am-4am EST. Stream us! :)

The Homestar Runner! - One of the funniest sites I've ever been to. Strong Bad and the Teen Girl Squad are the main draws to this site. Lots of funny flash cartoons. Highly recommended.
Rotten.com library -a wealth of informitive articles on all sorts of interesting topics like weird cults, medical malpractice, the dangers of Corn, and even Dr. Phil.
The Gaping Maw -musings and insights brought to you by your friends at Rotten.com.
NNDB - An ever-growing database on everyone in the world. Think Wikipedia, albiet more person focused.
Yahoo! Games -I play Euchre here a lot and sometimes Canasta as: barkingsquirrel09.
Something Awful - Very funny site; the Weekend Webs, Fotoshop Fridays, and Comedy Goldmines alone are enough to make this site worth visiting.
Rotten Tomatoes and Hollywood Bitchslap - Two great movie review sites.
Internet Movie Database -The end-all-be-all tome of movie info.
The Smoking Gun -Site owned by courtTV. Celebrity mugshots and interesting court happenings celebrity or not.
The All Music Guide The most amazing and comprehensive site for any information regarding almost any band in musical history. Complete discographies, and sometimes a history of the artist. Try an obscure band if they were publised on a label they'll be here. I go here whenever I'm looking for info on an artist or band. You'll be fucking amazed.


Bjork is all full of love!