Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Malaysian Sunshine Empire vs. The Sunshine Empire of Florida







When I began writing this blog I initially called it The Bold New Blogger Of The South, which was a reference to the phrase that still adorns the badges of the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office. It was commonly used to refer to Jacksonville by people who lived there in the '60's and by no one since. So I changed it to The Sunshine Empire, because my home state of Florida is called The Sunshine State. Little did I know that there is a capital investment company in Malaysia called Sunshine Empire. I noticed that visitors to this site have been coming from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. To those of you that are looking for an investment company and not a blog from the States, then I say welcome and please check us out. Please comment and let us know what you think. We'll be happy to talk about how much the Petronas Towers kick ass. For those in Singapore, we want you to experience the fury of our sweltering sunny state. Check out our videos of American Football with giant men in space suits beating the shit out of each other. We here at THE Sunshine Empire would like to give our hearty thanks to Sunshine Empire and all it's employees. Keep up the good work, and treat the name with pride. Seriously, don't fuck it up.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

The Tick Gets a Moustache

Iran and The Military

American Scientific Advancement

Monday, February 26, 2007

Technology

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, I am conflicted. I am obsessed with gadgets and technology. I am still amazed when I pay my insurance bill with a quick cell phone call and talk to a robot to do it. I have 7 days strait of digital entertainment on my ipod, and more than three days of stand up comedy in the palm of my hand. I even liked somewhat the hands free cell phone feature with the cord in the ear if I was in the car, but I have had enough. Those bluetooth earpieces make me shudder. Memo to all of you. Just because you have some gadget jammed in your ear with a fancy blue light does not make us all think you are important as all get out. If you just start talking to no one in the middle of the produce section at Publix (Ralph's for you west coast people) you are not with it, you are just faux psycho. Looking like Uhura from Star Trek does not have everyone thinking you are at the cutting edge, we just want to slap the shit out of you. In my neighborhood I saw a man with a bluetooth in one ear, and a handset in the other. I wanted to run him over, and if I hadn't been drinking I would have. Its just as bad as those who wear their cell phones on that obnoxious holster bullshit. You have a cell phone asshole, big fucking deal. Four year olds have cell phones now. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist. My cell phone goes ring ring like phones used to. But I can't help feeling that the technology is still amazing. I have to slap myself out of that feeling.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Fortunate Son

Academy Awards Live Blog

Ok, it's not really live, and I'm not really paying attention. An assortment of things have struck me thought. I am happy that Little Miss Sunshine has won some awards. I was with my sister and she was watching the pre-show show on E, with pan-sexual tool Ryan Seacrest. Every single person he spoke to no matter who it was, was treated to at least 17 mentions of American Idol before he got to the movie stuff. "So when are you going to come on Idol Mr. O'Toole?" They have basically taken everything that makes up a typical football game broadcast and applied it to the Oscars. They had people with telestrators in the pre-broadcast. Betting lines, and half naked women. It's all there. Clint Eastwood was drunk. I still hate Jodi Foster. And sadly, Don Knots is dead. Whatever may come, I've lost my appetite for celebrity in general.

The Worlds Worst Kidnapper

If you look closely you can see the voice of Sponge Bob Squarepants as the second newscaster. This is a classic.

A Night At Eclipse

When DJ Black decides to leave your town for bigger and greater things, you make sure that you are there to see him off. Whoever DJ Black is. I don’t really know. In all reality when you are done playing trivia and drinking beer watching basketball you need a diversion, and that’s when you go to see DJ’s at Goth clubs. Now I have a particular soft spot for girls all in black, in gigantic leather boots and wearing tons of white makeup. Biggus Rickus does not share my fondness for the darker ladies, but we were invited by an old friend to see her up there so we set off. We arrived, purchased our beverages, and took a perch overlooking Eclipse. Eclipse is a small establishment that holds a goth night every Saturday night in Avondale. As we realized that our long lost friend had become long lost, we took up the role of Statler & Waldorf from the old Muppet Show. While gothic girls can be among the most original and stunning beauties that walk the earth, the men in this subset don’t live up to that level. They all wear one of the following; gigantic baggy pants with an assortment of buckles, mesh undershirt, black shirt. They are great people, but they don’t get as flamboyant as a Trent Reznor or whoever the lead singer of Sisters of Mercy is. One near us was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and ran out to an empty dance floor and started dancing with two glowing balls like he was one of those sad little women that do the rhythmic gymnastics in the Olympics. But the ladies are where Biggus and I departed company. I think the women there where right out of my dreams, and to Biggus they came from nightmares. To each his own, but they aren’t for my friend from Rome. Sometimes though, a woman attempts to be so unique, that she travels back around from dark back to fourth grade innocent. For some reason there was a woman carrying around a stuffed monkey. No explanation. Stuffed monkey. This Rickus could not get past. “What the fuck is up with the monkey?”
“I don’t know”
“No really, what the hell is up with the damn monkey?”
“I don’t know”
“I can’t stay in this place. We need to leave.”
And with that, our evening was over. Another night at Eclipse.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Fox Attacks

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Bitches Part 2

Monday, February 19, 2007

In the Afternoon

East Coast vs. West Coast

Hunter On People

"It seemed normal enough, at the time, just another weird rainy night
out there on the high desert....What the Hell? We were younger, then.
Me and the Judge. And all the others, for that matter....It was a
Different Time. People were friendly. We trusted each other. Hell, you
afford to get mixed up with wild strangers in those days -- without
fearing for your life, or your eyes, or your organs, or all of your
money or even getting locked up in prison forever. There was a sense
of possibility. People were not so afraid, as they are now."

Hunter S. Thompson
"Fear and Loathing in Elko"
Rolling Stone #622, January 23, 1992

TSE Super Gothic Underground

Ladytron

TSE Remix, DJ Dutch spinning

My good friend B. Rickus has quite an affection for DJ's. He loves 'um. But I ask this question, is there a song out there that even the most delusional DJ would look back in aghast and say, "heavens no you can't remix THAT song"? Do they have limits? I don't quite share the visceral fear that some of my compatriots do. That being said I watched an interview of Norah Jones. Not my favorite artist, but I would say she's a talented singer. She spoke of being approached for one of her jazzy slow songs that apparently was popular on TRL for five seconds. That says it all for me. I found I was the only person who did not know that she is Ravi Shankar's daughter. I think the late Mitch Hedburg said it best, "I remixed a remix, and it was back to normal."

Saturday, February 17, 2007

SPF

Friday, February 16, 2007

The Middle East

With the only exception being Israel, why isn't one solution to the violence being discussed when it comes to the middle east. Why shouldn't there be a push for a Pan-Arab democracy across the Middle East? We seem to be willing as a nation to push into the impossible dream shit. Let's go all the way. The West always views them as one contiguous culture anyway. Just put them together and just sink or swim. I think they'll would do fine. They'll chafe badly with Israel there, but they'll do alright. When you throw them in the water I think they'll swim fine. But having our blood and treasure spilled while they're paddling in the wade pool of Democracy hardly seems fair. God Bless America.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Synesthesia

I was reading I-am-bored.com and they had an article on Diseases that can give you super human powers. One of them was called Synesthesia. I have included a bit from Wikipedia.com on the subject.



Synesthesia can occur between nearly any two senses or perceptual modes. Given the large number of forms of synesthesia, researchers have adopted a convention of indicating the type of synesthesia by using the following notation x → y, where x is the "inducer" or trigger experience, and y is the "concurrent" or additional experience. For example, perceiving letters and numbers (collectively called graphemes) as colored would be indicated as grapheme → color synesthesia. Similarly, when synesthetes see colors and movement as a result of hearing musical tones, it would be indicated as tone → (color, movement) synesthesia.

While nearly every possible combination of experiences is logically possible, several types are more common than others.

[edit] Grapheme → color synesthesia

Main article: Grapheme-color synesthesia

How someone with synesthesia might perceive (not "see") certain letters and numbers.
How someone with synesthesia might perceive (not "see") certain letters and numbers.

In one of the most common forms of synesthesia, grapheme → color synesthesia, individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as graphemes), are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color. While no two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., A is likely to be red) ( Day 2005; Simner et al. 2005).

A grapheme → color synesthete reports, "I often associate letters and numbers with colors. Every digit and every letter has a color associated with it in my head. Sometimes, when letters are written boldly on a piece of paper, they will briefly appear to be that color if I'm not focusing on it. Some examples: 'S' is red, 'H' is orange, 'C' is yellow, 'J' is yellow-green, 'G' is green, 'E' is blue, 'X' is purple, 'I' is pale yellow, '2' is tan, '1' is white. If I write SHCJGEX it registers as a rainbow when I read over it, as does ABCPDEF."[2]

[edit] Music → color synesthesia

In music → color synesthesia, individuals experience colors in response to tones or other aspects of musical stimuli (e.g., timbre or key). Like grapheme → color synesthesia, there is rarely agreement amongst synesthetes that a given tone will be a certain color, but individuals are internally consistent. Tested months later, synesthetes will report the same experiences as they had previously reported.

Color changes in response to pitch may involve more than just the hue of the color. Lightness (the amount of black in a color; red with black may appear brown), saturation (the intensity of the color; candy red is highly saturated, while pink is almost unsaturated), and hue may all be affected to varying degrees (Campen & Froger 2003). Additionally, music → color synesthetes, unlike grapheme → color synesthetes, often report that the colors move, or stream into and out of their field of view.

Booker T in the TSE

Sense

" The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 - 1832)

Iraq Intelligence

The Politico

I sometimes feel that I am alone in my political nerd-dom. Some people will pass a man or woman on the street and see similar features to a movie star or recording artist. "Hey look, that guy looks like Mr. Roper from Three's Company." I always see politicians. "Hey that guy looks just like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee."

"what?"

If you do follow Washington like I do then check out a site I have just discovered and have placed in my links section. The Politico is widely discussed in the blogging world and it is a great source for all sides of political view and also unbiased reporting as well. They will list a group of favorite other blogs and have in the same sentence Talking Points Memo and the NRO Corner. Add this site to your favorites, since the American Presidential Election process takes more time than most marriages these troubled days.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

When Men Really Drank

This man could party. Non-stop. 24/7. 365. 366 in a leap year.

More Than Meets The Eye

When I was a young boy living in Jacksonville in the mid '80's there were two things that pleased me, He-Man and The Transformers. As we grow older and Hollywood runs out of ideas we get treated to live action versions of some favorites. I still don't feel clean after having watched most of the Scooby Doo movie. Of course one exception being the Masterpiece that is Masters of the Universe (real people He-Man as my Dad calls it). I heard rumor of a new Transformers movie. I honestly thought it was going to be a feature length version of that abysmal Beast Wars Transformer cartoon that came out about ten years ago. Well, turns out I was as wrong as I was when I screamed for Fred Taylor to be benched in the '97 Florida-Florida State game.



(he went on to score four touchdowns)

Monday, February 12, 2007

American Lion

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt

Brian Posehn on US - Iraq relations

Biggus Rickus speaks on the finer side of men dressed as sharks.

10:53 AM
Biggus: Ye Olde Biggus Rickus blog has been updated with more DJs.

me: I liked your comment on mine
10:54 AM
Biggus: I was fairly creeped out by that video, for what it's worth. 10 minutes

11:05 AM
me: I just liked it for the shark in a suit throwing money in the air

I like to mix in a music clip

Biggus: What was the tentacles coming out of the TV supposed to represent?
11:10 AM
me: the liberal media
11:11 AM
Biggus: And the general in garters?

me: Madonna

as in Madonna Ritchie and not the Virgin Mary

Biggus: Ah, so it's a very clever take on the music industry and how it is so wrapped up in appearance and how lawyers will rip you off because they're assholes.
11:12 AM
me: except my dad

Biggus: Whatever.

me: but his son is an asshole if that helps

I talk like an athlete when I refer to family members

Biggus: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree though.
11:13 AM
me: I refer to my father when talking to my mother as "your husband", my sister is "your daughter"

they call me the "milkman's boy"

11:14 AM
me: I also like refering to professions that have been outdated by history

like Milkman

Biggus: Maybe you're the buggywhip manufacturer's son.

me: although the character Milkman Dan is one of the funniest in the comic strip Red Meat
11:15 AM
I'm proud of my blacksmith Dad

Biggus: Whatever neanderthal.

me: come on you've got some more
11:16 AM
Biggus: You're probably the offspring of a rape by a longbowman after the siege of Gwaltney.
11:17 AM
me: I used the pronunciation of neanderthal as, "nee-ander-tall" which is correct with Cindy the other night, and she tried to correct me

Thank you, lets trust the History major on this one

Biggus: That doesn't sound correct.
11:18 AM
I've never heard it pronounced so. 7 minutes

11:25 AM
me: oh it's correct, trust me
11:26 AM
not in common American vernacular, but in the scientific community it is
11:30 AM
Biggus: Fuck the scientific community.

me: I know you've had that sentiment for quite a while
11:31 AM
what with your cold fusion in the bathtub and all

Biggus: Not really. Just when it comes to outlandish global warming predictions.

me: is there a landish global warming position?
11:32 AM
Biggus: Yeah, any that aren't predicting hugely dire consequences.
11:33 AM
me: have you not noticed that winter never started?

Biggus: There was hardly a winter, so we're all going to die.

Why I need to own an Xbox

Ghostbusters demo

On the news of the week

I will not pretend to bore you with some retread Anna Nicole joke, but the entire legal battle that was waged for that poor old oil tycoon's money just seems creepy Shakespearean. Much like those stories in 7Th grade English class that are meant to impart a lesson on the reader. Like greed is bad. Something like a group of explorers discovering a cursed golden monkey. They all come home and end up killing each other over the monkey, and the monkey wins in the end. Kind of like that, just with a robo-bimbo and a 900 year old man, and fried chicken.
Our culture watches 100 hours of this coverage and then criticize the media for putting it on. I think it's just war weariness. We've reduced ourselves to watching a British man berate teen girls on TV for fun. But my favorite part of whenever something like this Anna Nicole thing comes up is seeing the panel of guests on Larry King. He will switch from interviewing a President, to a panel with former wrestler and Surreal Life all star cast member China Doll. "Tonight, King Abdullah of Jordon, and tomorrow night Screech from Saved by the bell will share his thoughts on the Middle east and President Ford's passing." God Bless America.

A Day in the Life

Monday, February 05, 2007

Reading ones destiny

"Events of the past two years have virtually decreed that I shall wrestle with the literary muse for the rest of my days. And so, having tasted the poverty of one end of the scale, I have no choice but to direct my energies toward the acquisiton of fame and fortune. Frankly, I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me."


(Hunter S. Thompson, to Mr. Arch Gerhart, January 29, 1958)

Lewis on CSPAN

Rickus's new ring tone

Ground Rules for '08

Having been in my short lifetime a registered republican, a registered independent, and a registered democrat. So I think despite my passionate views on a wide array of subjects, I a bit of an expert on politics. So my posts so far are an effort to do one thing, crack every candidate on both sides. I feel this is my duty, despite who my dog in the race is. My favorite so far is Chuck Hagel, and the worst I can say so far is that most liberals romance with him is misplaced. Despite his clashing with Bush over the conduct of the war he's nowhere near even Rudy Guliani when it comes to moderation. He is a conservative of the first order, and that is really not what they want out of him. If you do not see something pointing out some hypocrisy of every candidate, they I just haven't found it yet. If I don't mention Bill Richardson's lying about being drafted by MLB then it's just that I view it as sad grandstanding not rising to the challenge of meeting the hypocracy quota for a standard Presidential campaign. That's the wonderful thing, we long for the humble outsider. Yet we have put demands on the process that only the most pompous of egotists can survive. God bless America.

All the benifits of '08, all wrapped up in '07 caramel goodness

How many different positions on the war in Iraq has Hillary Clinton taken?

Lovebirds

Sunday, February 04, 2007

On Computers

"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do."
Ted Nelson

David Letterman vs. The Today Show

On McCain and Edwards

I posted the critical piece earlier on McCain because I have to admit I still carry a grudge for. He portrays himself as a maverick, and he is nothing of the sort. I was ready to vote for him in the 2000 primaries had Bush not ended it before hand. But I have to say I was struck from the other side as well. I just watched a clip from Meet The Press with John Edwards. He has done what appears to be a brave thing in admitting that he feels his Iraq War vote in the Senate was a mistake. As if he was some kind of passive voice in the war movement in late 2002. Tim played a clip of him and make no mistake about it the war was the best thing we could do and he almost looked ready to go into combat himself. It seems to me his only explanation is weakness. Either he was too weak to stand up or too weak to stick with it. He still just impresses me as a face, although I did go to see him speak during the 2004 election at Metro Park and he seems like a really good guy. I just cant expect a man with six years in the Senate would be able to be leader of the free world. I think that gives me equal time.

TSE 2008 Preview Series