etscape Gray, circa 1996, in Full
Effect, yo.
etscape Gray, circa 1996, in Full
Effect, yo.
What is this nonsense?Nihilism for Dummies is a "weblog" that looks at, in rough and compressed fashion, current events from a decidely pseudo-nihilistic point of view. This is not meant to be "high-minded" or "insightful" - it's mostly just an online journal of thoughts and notes. I don't really pretend to be one of those "bloggers," who are busy pretending to change the online media world. I'm just a guy who writes for the amusement of the occassional visitor. If you came here looking for good, old-fashioned information on nihilism, you are just plain out of luck. But, you can read this amusing Primer on Nihilism over at blogspot. Quote of the Day:(or longer, if I don't change it)"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies." British MP George Galloway to Senator Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota Obligatory Stupid Tracker!Going back to this tracker, temporarily. Still, though, please actually take a minute to mail me if you wander in here and tell me what you think. It can't get better if I do this in a vacuum. Unless, you know, it's one of those Dyson vacs - cause those are sweet. We've got one, you know...
And this week's best referral link:i fucked jennifer Wilbanks crazy Places I hang:Asheville Rock Messageboard: be warned, most posters not from Asheville, most discussion not serious. Quiet Zine's Messageboard, for the Sylvawheeans out further west. Good group, odd metal/indie split. This City Can Burn: They will tell you they are not emo. |
Recent Doodoo: Paris Hilton != Hot (I've lost my appetite for large burgers!) -- International Space Station: A nice place to visit, but do you want to die there? -- CNN=Carries No News? -- The Door to the House Of God apparently will kick you -- She ain't crazy! -- Smart shopping carts -- Christian Businessmen! Mission Accomplished! By 2009! This time, they mean it!
After what seems like slow going for a few weeks, we get some funny stuff
from CNN and the Bush Camp today. Well, ok, it would be funny if it
weren't all so backwards. Let's start with this brilliant headline that's
on CNN right now, even as the President is giving a news conference:
Now, that is some great news coming from Cheney. Especially since the war has been over since May 2004, hasn't it? Or when was that? Who knows anymore? The point is that these guys really are just making shit up at this point, claiming that the insurgency is going to decline when it has been doing anything but decline in the first half of 2005. But, when you have serious problems in all areas of your policy I suppose you have to make things up here and there. After all, Cheney was "offended" by the recent Amnesty International report about American detention centers - a report which the President called "absurd" just a few minutes ago. Sigh. It's enough to make your head hurt. Not hot? Last week's annoyance was the continued presence of the abominable Hotel Heiress in my peripheral vision. I want to meet the people behind Paris Hilton - the handlers, the PR, the agents, the whatnot and the mucky-mucks. I want to know how they decided that such a hideously unattractive and mentally stunted piece of spoiled human could possibly be thrown at the American public as anything more than yet another in the "Special Olympians People Are OK Making Fun of File" (cf: Ashlee Simpson). Recently, dear Paris is in the news for appearing in the latest "Big Ass Burger Ad that Makes you Ill" from Hardee's/Carl Jr's. Hell, the ad hasn't even aired at all here in the east, to my knowledge. So I had to waste valuable bandwidth watching it online. You know what I found out? Paris Hilton is still ugly and I still don't think a burger that big is a Good Idea. What disturbs me more than the idea that people find Paris "hot," is that they find this commercial to be "soft core porn." Come on, now, Miss Melissa Caldwell of the Parents Television Council surely you have seen enough porn to know that people have to actually expose some part of their body to get even a "soft core" designation. Surely you aren't jealous of the Queen of Pop Culture Poop? Then again, this is the same group of people headed up by Brent Bozo...um, I mean, Brent Bozell. Brent himself is not hot, either, and usually comes off as just another head-up-his-ass conservative who doesn't want anyone to have any fun. Bozell is one of those blockheads who, even if he has a semi-good point, makes it sound unbearably stuffy. Where is the Middle Ground, America? Where? The absolute worst part is that I just don't have any desire to eat a burger that size anymore. I used to love great big hamburgers. With cheese, even. However, after a couple of years of the most disgusting commercials ever made (thank you, Hardee's/Carl Jr's) I am almost a vegetarian. Ok, I'm not, but I could be. NFD Weekend Edition II: Electric Boogaloo I wish my digital camera hadn't finally given up the ghost and gone over officially to the Pile of Broken Things. (note to self, buy new cam soon and post pics of the Pile!) I wish this for two reasons; first, it makes it hard to take pictures - being without camera and two, it made it real hard to take pictures of my recent and horrific experience with Poison Ivy. Most people, no matter where they are or what they call it, know exactly what I am talking about. Well, here's the story. I am not smart. I did some yardwork last weekend in shorts, around Ivy, and didn't wear long sleeves or gloves the whole time. That wasn't the bad or stupid part, though. I escaped punishment for one day, because I came straight inside and showered and scrubbed pink. This mistakes came Monday, when I went back out in those same clothes, without washing them. And the button had come off the shorts, meaning a lot of testicular adjustments and other messing about. By Monday evening, I had the beginnings of nice welts on my wrists and forearms. By night, I had something in the corner of my eye. By Tuesday morning, I was a bit messy. Well, maybe not truly messy, but durn close. My eyes never swelled shut, but remember those crotch adjustments I told you about? Yea, somethings we just do not talk about, even on the Internet, OK? But, hey, I am smarter now for having been on steroids and anti-histamines for a week or so. Yep, that's right. Much smarter. Fuck the yardwork, kids. Nature is beautiful just the way she is! Now if only the damn rashes would go away. The irony of all of this? I'm the one on meds and Miss "Go to the Doctor" is the one Googling homemade cures for her three little bumps. Bother. NFD: Weekend Edition More and more people keep getting here via Google and so, again, I must apologize to anyone who has come here looking for some deep material on the concept of nihilism. Sorry, I don't believe in "deep material" or "concepts" or "nihilism." Again, if you can't get the joke then you should probably just stick to whatever brand of misanthropy you have been subscribing to and leave it all alone. Also, many props to my one regular reader (you know who you are) and his recent status of "engaged." You will soon find out what that term means. "Sorry, guys, I can't come over. I'm engaged in something else." I have another semi-regular reader who insists that I should not change the name or general theme of this site. She knows who she is as well and she should know that the fastest way to get me to do anything is to tell me not to do it. Hahaha. Of course, lethargy and laziness work against me on this one, I've been swearing to completely overhaul this site on the average of about once a month since I started. I'd like to pretend that there was more to say, but since my audience really is primarily composed of sad little goth kids using google to figure out what nihilism is, I suppose I'll stop there. Maybe one day I, too, will be featured on CNN's "Inside the Blogs." And then, I will shoot someone. Pregnant teen banned from HS graduation; shows up anyway, walks and announces her own name To all of those who hoped that the passing of John Paul II would possibly bring the Catholic Church a little bit closer in some ways to the nineteenth century, we have this touching story for you. Alysha Cosby, a senior at St. Jude Educational Institute in Montgomery, Alabama was told she would not be allowed to walk in her high school graduation because she is pregnant. Instead, she showed up at graduation anyway and walked across the stage, announced her own name and walked off, mostly to cheers from her classmates. The father of her baby was, also a senior, was not asked to sit out graduation. The school cited "safety reasons" back in March when it told Alysha not to return to campus and I am guessing that she finished her classwork at home. Someone should play "She Floated Away" by Husker Du in honor of this young lady. ISS: International Slum Station? So, let me see if I have all of this correct. NASA, in response to the loss of Columbia a couple of years ago, have implemented a whole slew of safety measures to guard against losing another space shuttle. In fact, those measures recently grounded the first launch since the Columbia loss when ice was discovered forming on some fuel lines on Discovery - which had all ready set some kind of record for longest launch prep time ever, thanks to the new safety rules. In the meantime, we are told that our brave astronauts - and they are brave, don't get me wrong (I won't even go into a fucking airport, much less get on a plane) - could possibly take refuge on the International Space Station. The ISS is a "rock solid and reliable" station, so they say. Meanwhile, Atlantis would have been prepped to go and retrieve them. Is everyone following this so far? Good, because I have thought about all this and it still escapes me. So, let's say that we have a full shuttle crew aboard the ISS. Remember, ISS is a "rock solid" place for the shuttle to go to, should something happen to prevent them from attempting re-entry. Yes, that is a link to one of my own comments on slashdot about this topic and it is where I first started trying to figure out NASA's odd logic on this. At the time, it had just been reported in the news that the ISS was facing something of a food shortage, since the previous crew had apparently gotten the munchies quite often and just not bothered to tell anyone about it. Thus, the current crew is short some food, but NASA swears this is not a problem. So, if shortage of food isn't a problem, it must because all the life support systems are working properly, right? Well, as it turns out, this is also wrong. ISS just lost its primary oxygen generator. A replacement isn't scheduled to go up until August. But that's ok, says NASA, they have five months of air. But, and here's where it gets tricky, what if Discovery had launched? And what if they had problems and managed to dock with ISS? Instead of two guys on the station there are now nine. Five months air just got a lot shorter and the food issue is still there. Plus, now they are all waiting on Atlantis to show up? Where's Atlantis? Possibly grounded because it too failed a safety inspection? I grew up a child of the Eighties. I thought that space travel was amazing, fascinating, and worthwhile. Now I just wonder if maybe we shouldn't just sell NASA off to Richard Branson or just stop pretending that we have a space program. I mean, these people break things. A lot. And it costs a pile of money every time they do. Still, no cure for cancer. No moon colony. Just robots on Mars falling into holes. Oh, and a war with no end in sight. Oh well. Nothing says fucked like this "investigators say the man came into the 85 year old woman's house naked except for a stocking on his head." That's from a real news report, no shit. Thursday. Bloody Thursday. By that, I have decided that if today doesn't shape up nicely, then I am going to spill some blood. I will, too. I have some stored up in the fridge and the lid is loose. Do not push me. Bastards. I don't think there's even a person in the news today that I can take a cheapshot at, thus ending my idea of "Cheapshot Thursday." I mean, I could put a picture of Michael Jackson up, but honestly, how easy is that?
More dinosaurs unearthed!!! Scientists were thrilled this week to annouce that they unearthed yet another dinosaur from Earth's past, long thought extinct. That's right, kids, the Rolling Stones will tour again this summer. At $100 a ticket, what is not to love as the Bad Boys of Rock continue their forty year struggle to "stick it to the man"?
Like I said though, these guys were the posted children for rebellion in the mid-Sixties. Now, they are just posters. Look at those bony frames. Can anyone recall what happend to the last aging Brits that tried to tour the States one too many times? I'll give you a hint: The bass player dropped dead before the first show. And nothing says rebellion like having good backing. In this case, Ameriquest. Here is part of their brilliant reasoning behind being a sponsor for this tour. "With music that appeals to a wide spectrum of the American public, the Rolling Stones offer Ameriquest a broad platform to strategically communicate our brand, our services and our positioning as, 'Proud Sponsor of the American Dream'" The American Dream? You ignorant fucks, the Stones are British. Waynesville meets the Internet, no one wins Note: As I was writing this up tonight, the pastor in question, Chan Chandler, stepped down as Pastor of East Waynesville Baptist, apparently followed by a number of his supporters. I guess what my dad said is true, "Son, every Baptist church you've ever seen is the result of one Baptist pissing another Baptist off." In light of the recent press coverage of the "excommunication" of nine members of the East Waynesville Baptist Church, the small town of Waynesville has suddenly been introduced to something it might not have wanted to really know about. How an Internet forum can suddenly become a focal point for every asshat with a cable modem. Like me! In some ways, Waynesville's forum is (from what I have read) a textbook case of the old adage "Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics..." I won't finish that sentence, because it's one of the few internet flames that I think might actually cross some sort of line. Remember, I don't make fun of Ashlee Simpson, either. Besides, everyone knows that the really backwards people live on a different local forum, the forum over at the Asheville Citizen-Times. Go check it out if you want a good cross-section for what passes as "thought" in the Big City of A-town. Return of the Referral Link! A referral link is the URL that refers a user to a site. Here, perhaps, is the best one yet. http://www.google.com/ search?hl=en&q=+Jennifer+Wilbanks+tits&btnG=Google+Search and no, I did not make that up. Someone wanted to see that woman's breasts and it landed them here. Let's hear it for Google's bizarre algorithms! (NFD is currently the #14 link). Cable News Network Still Fails to Deliver News It was with much horror and angst that I listened to Brooke Gladstone interview new CNN president Jonathan Klein (approx 7 min, streaming) on the NPR show "On The Media." Wait. That isn't quite right. I was laughing my ass off while Gladstone ripped Klein a new one over his repeated assertions that his network's coverage of the Batshit Bride was within the realm of what he promised would be "more hard news" when he took over CNN five months ago. A truly brutal interview. Go listen to it while you keep on reading here. From the interview:
BROOKE GLADSTONE: --is the lesson here that cable news simply operates at
a level of inertia and entropy that no one can change, that you throw
blanket coverage at a story that really doesn't merit it?
All in all, a good laugh. Breaking news! Local (to me) church excommunicates Democrats! Ordinarily, I wouldn't care so much about this kind of story. Except today is a slow news day and all, so here it is. A local Baptist church excommunicated nine members and another forty left in protest. Their "sin" was to either support John Kerry openly or not support Dubya enough. Members say they were told to "repent, come forward to the altar and pledge support to the President and the Republican Party." Now, like I said, I would ordinarily just skim over that like I would any other story that deals with crazy church people or political bickering. But this story has both, and it illustrates a point I like to make: Church and State should never mix. Yes, as a smart person I realize that there is always gray area in these issues - but this is not a particularly gray area. I've seen some of these folks on the local newscast about this mess. These aren't what you would call radical people. They are mostly older and you can just see the heartbreak and anger in them over being asked to leave a church that I am willing to bet some of them have spent literally decades helping build and grow. Still, if I were them, I'd say "Good Riddance" to the small-minded arrogance that threw me out. Just like the small-mindedness in Georgia I talk about below, I think the Pastor of that church should be called out into a spotlight and held accountable for his actions. Maybe it is time to change the name of this blog after all. Just random babbling Well, I have proven again that I am unable to keep my own unofficial schedule correctly. I had made a personal promise to myself to provide a Monday-Wednesday-Friday fix on this site, and now it's Friday and I have nothing to show for it. Plus, I am getting hauled out of town over the weekend (Mother's Day - wh00t) so there likely won't be anything up on Monday morning, either. The only good news is that, the further West people are, the more up to date this appears. Perhaps it is time for a few tidbits, then. Titbids! Place your titbids... The press is still on about the Runaway Bride (see below), although no one seems to know why. I only know one person who even cares. And I think that is because she secretly wishes she had gone jogging the night before she married me :) In Georgia, the Moral Majority is sweeping in to clean up an "alternative music dance party" almost before it gets started. That is bad enough, but the fact that they are trying to ruin the couple who own the nightclub and break up their family is another. Red State Morality? I don't think so. In other "Yawn, I knew this all ready" news, some Biblical Scholar has found proof somewhere that the infamous "Mark of The Beast" referred to commonly as the number 666 is likely a mistranslation of 616. No shit. I heard about this when I was 17 at a Bible Camp, for fuck's sake. Give me a break, folks. The Book of Revelation is about as relevant to the rest of the New Testament as the Book of Mormon. Oh, shit, did I just offend the Mormons, too? She ain't crazy, everyone Loves Her! Today is cheapshot day at Nihilism Headquarters. In fact, I might make every Thursday cheapshot day. Probably won't be any shortage of odd and wonderful people to poke fun at.
Let's face it. You snapped. You went tits-up before the open bar even opened! In fact, the only person more Batshit than you is your loopy-ass fiance, who keeps insisting, "There is nothing wrong! She loves me, I love her! I still want to be married to her!" I don't know. Maybe it's just me. But isn't this just the backdoor into the twenty-first century? I mean, smart shopping carts? I want flying cars that run on trash, dammit! "Christian Business" - Is it either? Discuss. I had a chance the other day to browse a most interesting magazine. It is one that you likely will not find in the Supermarket - in fact, I was inside a Christian bookstore at the time. Don't ask me why I was in a Christian bookstore, it isn't relevant to this piece. Suffice it to say that every once in awhile you have to go undercover and check this shit out, and make sure that your liberal friends aren't just feeding you bullshit for their own amusement. The magazine in question is called "Business Reform" and that seems innocent enough on the surface. Hell, it could even be a magazine published by hippies. But, one glance at the cover and I knew this was anything but a touchy-feely affair. The cover featured the word "Gay" three times. Three. I browsed what I could, before the watchful eyes of the clerks sussed me out. Then, it was back here to the compound for the rest of the research Now, when a list like "Top Ten Gay Companies" is printed, maybe that is one thing. Surely, these folks have absolutely as much right as pro-gay groups to publish a list of companies that they don't want to support. They might even have a right to publish the other list on that page, the "Top Ten 'Anti-Gay' Companies." The reasons that these companies are on the "Anti-" list range from the frothy ("actually rescinded the domestic partner benefit policy that the company had put into place during his [Ross Perot's] absence") to the banal (They've done nothing, to the best of our knowledge, to support the GLBT cause in any significant way" - Wow, truly a good reason). And, still, I don't really have a problem with this list. Nor do I have a problem with the piece called "The Gay Revolution." Even though the fear and hatred dripping out of this piece is obvious, it is also laughable. Well, to a straight guy it is. I would hope that gay people could laugh at these imbeciles, too. But they probably can't. Last, but not least, is the article "God, gays, and business" and, wow, is it the capstone of the trilogy. Everything falls into place in this one line: "Simply put, your business, given to you by God, should never benefit from, or help promote the institutionalization of any sin." Strong words. Strong words, indeed, and quite frankly it is hard not to believe that the person who wrote them is dead serious about that ideal. Well, ok, then. I wonder, though, if he or any of the subscribers of this magazine have contractors in Iraq? If they do business with any number of overseas companies that run sweatshops? Do they have a concept that no one is innocent? Because they surely have no concept of anything that Jesus said in their own "Good Book." Here's an example of something Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Jesus also tore up the moneychangers in the Temple, so I wonder what he would do with a bunch of stuffed suit guys who make money and talk about how wonderfully devoted to Christ they are. Sure, the author of this last piece uses those examples to make his point, but it looks to me like he is wildly offbase and trying to use them before they can be used against him. My advice to everyone: Ignore these people. They are sadder and more sick than you can even imagine. Lives that filled with hatred are destined to fail. Too bad people like this seem to be in charge of a lot of companies these days. Infamous Midday Updates! For those of you who compulsively reload this site throughout the day, here is a midday update:
The world is still fucked up. That is all. Look for some actual content tomorrow, in the Wednesday edition. Hey, this town I live in has a paper that only comes out three times a week, why should I show them up? Crazy lady stresses out, costs me a fifty! Yes, I predicted a bad end to the runaway bride. Yes, I was wrong. It happens. I have been known to eat it once in awhile. I am more upset about losing money on the bets. Oh, I'm kidding. I am not so cynical that I would bet on other people's misfortunes. I mean, you know, not Big Money. That's it. Hope you had a great May Day. |
Oh, fuck it. It's easy. And I am just not above easy
today. No, indeed. It is a foul time and full of uncertainty and unease.
Sure, a dapper Mr. Culkin testified that he spent time in bed with
Jackson but it was all in good fun and he was never touched
inappropriately is all fine and good. Then again, Culkin was more or less
his own person by the age of nine. For all we know, he molested Jackson. I
wouldn't doubt it. He's molested every film he's been in since the first
Home Alone, hasn't he?
Now, you tell me. Which is
scarier, the Michael picture or
these sixty year olds? They are twice my age, and kids half my age are
already plotting how to get to their shows. Why? Because they are "cool,"
in the words of one young fan at their recent pep rally in New York to
make the annoucement. Well, cool or not they must be at this point
wealthier than the new Pope. Keith Richards, bristling at a reporter's
asking if they were "doing it for the money" replied, "You can have the
money." Dude, you should have gotten that in writing.
I ain't
crazy, my momma loved me! Sure, whatever, Ms. Batshit.