S.KRAUSE

Vitreous Vitriol

Part 2

I will let you in on a little secret: my diaries are written by The Euphemism Generator.

You have got to love Romanian/Rom Pop ... especially as sung by 4’7” Adrian Simionescu.

Note for a few folks around here: if you don’t have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all.

Ah, Thursday afternoon. My phone bill came today. I know you care. Yes, you.

I did not get around to doing either the Mac installs or the PC work today due to an unexpected power outage. It took out the whole building (including backup power) and apparently several other buildings on campus. The Dept. of Information Technology was out of it, and the email servers were trashed for a while. I do not care about this. What I care about is that my uptime is gone ... 379 days (as recorded in yesterday’s diary). I therefore do not feel so bad about replacing that box with a slightly more powerful machine.

There is a conference going on this weekend. If you are in the Madison area, feel free to drop by. It promises to be both entertaining (a bunch of academics in one room—trust me) and educational.

As a continuation of my Spring-Cleaning-in-September program, I will be clearing out my bookmarks this afternoon. It might not be Fark-worthy, but what the hell.

No pancakes for me tonight
I might just have to try out some free recipes from the early 1900s. If you are hungry, you might want to consider browsing the USENET Cookbook. There are also plenty of recipes from mod.recipes/alt.gourmand. If you get thirsty, you can consider which type of Earl Grey to drink. You might instead prefer a little Lasko beer. If Slovenia is too far away for you, there is City Brewery (LaCrosse, Wisconsin). You could then finish up with a little Turkish Delight for desert.

All in the Family
We can start with people who share my last name. Let us take Joshua Krause Studios, for example. Or Steve and Mike Krause in Glasgow.

No More Politics!
Given that his weekend’s conference is on Hitler, I should do the socially-conscious thing and throw out a link to anti-fascism.org. Pretty useless site. John Stanton and Wayne Madsen are more interested in “The Emergence of the Fascist American Theocratic State.” hitler.org is still a revisionist paradise in the guise of a “museum.” I enjoy contrasting marxism.org with marxism.com. Perhaps it is just better to join the World Socialist Movement or the Communist Party USA. More effective is the Death Penalty Information Center. Other folks keep going on and on about The Tragedy of the Commons. Let us not forget questions of (online) privacy. For that there is AntiOffline. [Note: You can read the German Constitution online.] By the way, you should probably test yourself against the F Scale.

Everybody and his/her pet cockroach seems to have a Mythology site.

I am still waiting for Battle Royale to be available at the video store.

Books
One of my interests is in making books. For example, I have instructions for making a paper bag book and for making blank books (and binding them), as well as a link to a page on book and paper arts for kids. makingbooks.com has some good resources, as does Don Lancaster’s “Guru’s Lair” (which won’t win any design awards). Perhaps you need to repair a book or bind a paperback by hand. The Capella Archive has some “TinyHelps” for Self-Printing books. Linux Gazette did a series on micro pubishing; it was popular enough that they did a part II and part III. Douglas W. Jones at the U of Iowa Dept. of CS has a good little bookbinding tutorial. Finally, there is “Practical Bookbinding” by Morris Lee King.

Language Stuff
Language sites can provide hours of shits and giggles. Witness Lojban “The Logical Language.” And let’s not forget Brainfuck. I didn’t have it bookmarked, but it would be a crime not to list Intercal. One can also check out the Constructed Language Listserv. And although tix insist upon Perl, I think that PHP is a wonderful tool. Other of you might be interested in the Quine Page (not to be confused with this page about Willard Van Orman Quine).

Pen, Pencil, & Paper
Let’s try Colorblind, which has a small gallery. There’s the Gallery of Dark Art, which I’ve linked to before, and the works of Joel-Peter Witkin. It would be irresponsible to forget fantasy artist legend Frank Frazetta. I’m rather fond of the art of the Hildebrandt Brothers. Mark Evans isn’t bad, but I’ll take Dave McKean anyday. Some people are a bit too much into all things furry. I find ASCII Art Farts much more satisfying. I bookmarked the Schatz/Ornstein Studio because it features the book Seeing Red: The Rapture of Redheads. Lost America is also worth your time. There are other cool pictures on the web. For example, one of the most fascinating exhibits is hosted by the Library of Congress.

“Comics”

• Dr. Fun
• electric sheep comix
• A few classic Calvin & Hobbes strips
• The Parking Lot is Full
• explodingdog
• Neil Swaab (creator of Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles, for example)
• Eaveston
• The Editorial Cartoons of Clay Bennett

Circuit City
Here I’ll start with bootdisk.com (for your DOS and Windows floppy needs). Here at UW-Madison we have a site licence for SecureCRT, which provides for my Win32 SSH needs. A few years ago I was wondering how to set up either DHCP or PPP on a DOS box and came up with a few resources, including one for Connecting from a DOS-system using TCP/IP. Another time I came across some NT Server in the Enterprise Notes. And there’s always Beamspot Unix, which provides all sorts of Unix-related information/fun. Rute (Rute User’s Tutorial and Exposition) still seems to be online. Steve Parker has a Bourne Shell Programming Tutorial. At one point I was interested in the Ultima IV: The Dawn of Virtue site, as they promised a rewrite of Ultima IV. I was also a fan of The Bard’s Tale way back when, and it’s hard to complain about Wizardry either. New Breed Software says they make open source software for Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS, BeOS, Ataris, and PDAs. I have an interest in computer/OS history, and at some point bookmarked The GUI Gallery; on a related note, one can take a look at Windows 3.x Scheming Features & Themes. It’s still hard to be the old Apple IIe.

Another interest of mine is typesetting, text-editing, and word processing, and at some point I bookmarked a page on RTF-Tools. I spent some time learning about LaTeX Graphics. Impressions is a Madison company that produces books and journals. They have a few interesting articles on XML and PDF.

A topic related to my current computer work in the department is converting old PCs into standalone X Terminals. The more Mac-oriented among us might instead prefer the Info-Mac archive. Others might be interested by MenuetOS.

Some of my computer interests are Linux-specific. I had a bookmark for Vector Linux. There is also LERT (Linux Emergency Relief Team). DistroWatch.com supposedly keeps track of the various distros available. I love Debian, and was pleased to hear of the DEbian MUltimedia DIstribution (demudi). Linux Journal keeps a list of Groups of Linux Users (GLUE). If you’re putting together a gateway/router, you’ll likely be using multiple ethernet cards [another link]. One problem I faced was trying to get multiple 3c509 cards to play nicely together [another link]. Oskar Andreasson has a few useful tutorials and such on his site.

Getting your Wires Crossed
Last year we moved into a new house (rented) and we got DSL from TDS. However, I needed to wire the house with Cat-5.

• Low Voltage Home Pre-Wire Guide
• Adding Electical Wiring
• Circuitry
• Home Wiring Ideas
• Phone Man’s Advice for Wiring your Home Phone Lines
• Can Your Home Wiring Handle the Load?
• Telephone Wiring
• Home Wiring

Math ... because it rocks

• The Fractal Geometry of the Mandelbrot Set (pretty good explanation/description)
• The Golden Mean (come on, it’s related to so many neat things in math)
• The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdös and the Search for Mathematical Truth. (one of my favorite mathematicians)

He who laughs last ...
Everyone loves Cruel Site of the Day. Missouri Trailer Trash is almost as much fun as FUGLY, The Camel Toe Report, Baiting.org, and Wasted Chicks. For the German-speakers out there we have ZYN! (Satire & Cartoons). You should know the story of George P. Burdell. The faithful cannot pass up Landover Baptist Church. Remember that Betty Bower is a Better Christian Than You and that God Hates Flags [remember: Now it’s time for Jesus Dress Up, and don’t forget the Jesus of the Week]. The curious of course want to know how Mohammed vs. Jesus turned out. And help the guy out, Jesus is seeking a loving woman. Make money on the Internet—Sell your soul to Satan. You might want to become and ordained minister in the Universal Life Church (“100% Legal & FREE For Life”). And don’t forget to study the Acts of Gord. Other folks might instead prefer TechnicalVirgin.com (“Everything Butt!”). RinkWorks provides hours of entertainment (such as the Dialectizer. Its cousin, pornolize.com, is also worth a visit). If this isn’t enough for you, just visit The Keepers of Lists or the Bud Dwyer Fan Club. Either that or you should check out the Institute for the study of the Neurologically Typical. I think tix and Buggy were involved in the creation of this LEGO porn [not to be confused with Concentratin-Camp-LEGOs]. If you just want a trip back to the “good ol’ days” of the 50s, then try out lileks.com. It’s one thing for babies to die ... it’s another to do this to them. Is it sick, or is it funny? Sort of like the Down Syndrome Dolls. If these testimonials can’t get you to read Chick tracts, what can? [and visit the Luciferian Liberation Front for some anti-chick-tracts] You might not think that there would be humor to be found in The Economist’s Style Guide, but you would be mistaken. Very mistaken.

There’s plenty of flash—and other—animation on the web:

• Pulp Phantom
• Imperial Dogs
• Weebl’s Stuff and Weebl and Bob
• Just Say Go!
• Hi-HO!
• Spank the Monkey
• fhqwhgads (and here)
• Fuck Her Gently (by Tenacious D)

We’ve Got the Beat ...
Google is all you need to find sites about Rammstein, Kenny Rogers, Natalie Merchant, the PetshopBoys, Timna Brauer and Elias Meiri, and others.

Life is too short ...
Who wants to be reasonable all the time? Wackos, conspiracies, esoteric “knowledge” ... it’s all online. There are the Knights Templar taking over the world (with the help of those satanic Masons) and lost civilizations in Antarctica waiting to be de-iced. Others argue that Troy was Atlantis. Other people go a bit overboard with the whole earth goddess crap. If that’s not enough for you, there’s always Erich von Daniken and his Chariots of the Gods craziness. I’m waiting for a FOX special on “Pseudoscience and Relgion Mix.” Luckily, there are others out there to keep track of and combat all the pseudoscience babble floating around the Net. Personally, I’m rather fond of the Priory of Sion Hoax. While we’re at it, why don’t we Debunk the Ice Age?

Traveling
If you need a place to stay when you visit Vancouver Island and Victoria, I might recommend Marigold House Bed & Breakfast. That the mother of one of my friends runs it in no ways influenced my recommendation. You can get rail information at The Man in Seat Sixty-One. A friend pointed out a neat place to stay the next time I am (or we are) in Hungary.

What a tangled web we weave
If you have a website, it probably sucks. Perhaps you need to study Art and the Zen of web sites. You should learn how to use Cascading Style Sheets. Learning to use the proper lists can also be beneficial. One can also check out the Easy HTML tutorials by Vortex Design.

Miscellany

• BigZoo supposedly has some good phone rates.
• Ever wonder which companies own what? Try: Who Owns What. Then you can visit Media Whores and get an “unbiased, in-depth look at the astonishingly vast myriad of whores who call themselves ’journalists.’”
• Learn about the 15 Largest Earthquakes in the United States.
• I don’t care how you have your keyboard setup, but you might want to check out these three myths about qwerty.
• I always find True.Origins vs. Talk.Origins amusing. Creationists are so funny sometimes. Don’t you love silly people? You also have to love the Christen-Front für Tugend, Sitte und Moral.
• For the literary-minded here there is a link to The Evolution of Susan Sontag
• The MIT OpenCourseWare project is still online.
• Scientology likes to promote their “Ron the Poet” site--I prefer Ron the Nut and Ronald L. Hubbard.
• Speaking of which, who the fuck is Clifford Pickover?
• Don’t forget the Museum of Hoaxes.
• Everyone loves Vlad the Impaler ... there are lots of stories about him.
• Kevin Alan Brook wrote a book titled The Jews of Khazaria.
• There’s also the Merovingian Dynasty to consider.
• TK421 is at her post ...
• BookCrossing is a pretty neat idea.
• Somehow I ended up with a link to Hermenaut, a journal of “philosophy and pop-culture,” called by some “a scholarly journal minus the university.” Judge for yourself. I haven’t made up my mind yet.
• Demon Magazine presents: How to Discuss Blowfish With Your Child.
• Triplets And Us is a grew resource for—among other things—80s prime-time TV schedules. Yes ... you want to look, *don’t you*?
• It’s not quite Goggle, but it is kartOO.
• Very Important Information: the Comprehensive Muppet Listing.
• Equally useful is the Philosophical Lexicon. Take this definition, for example:
  ricoeur, v. To interpret all philosophical questions by means of a limited range of insights and themes. Hence ricoeursive procedure, a recipe for generating infinite philosophical insights from a very limited subset thereof. “The Tractatus proceeds ricoeursively.”
• If you’re looking for something a bit more “serious,” then check out the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• The Internet Archive created the Wayback Machine.
• Global View International is a funky little Buddhist place out in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Yeah—close to the House on the Rock and all the Frank Lloyd Wright stuff.
• If you need to set up a mailing list, you can use Coollist.com.
• I want to this picture of the Apple snail on one of my webpages.
• Semiotics for Beginniers is a neat site. One can also read from the Semiotic Review of Books (e.g. “Can Pictures Lie?”)
• My favorite question from the World Question Center is: “Why do we continue to act as if the universe were constructed from nouns linked by verbs, when we know it is really constructed from verbs linked by nouns?”
• Don’t forget your ancient medicine.
• I think this page of Facial Hair Styles is worth a visit.
• Cancer is not pretty.
• Take care of your Crocodile (e.g. learn how to sex your croc).
• I’ve heard the call—you want more Movie Monologues and Tijuana Bibles.
• Learn a bit about April 30--Walpurgis Night.
• 2think.org has a few book reviews. One can also peruse John’s Book Pages, Ed’s Internet Book Review, and Kaedrin Books.
• Is Dead Girls worth reading?
• Taty
• HyperPhysics
• Are you recovering from Mormonism? I’m not, but I find it amusing anyway.
• It’s not just virgins that boys in South Africa are raping in order to cure or avoid getting AIDs.
• I think I’ve forgotten my username and password for Radio Free Tomorrow ... nope ... found them. I don’t have an account at Write On (“the art and craft of writing”).
• While you’re at it, take a peek at the Self-Publishing Hall of Fame. iUniverse is another self-publishing / print-on-demand site.
• One of my favorite topics is that of conjoined twins.
• The Personality Project can fulfill all your pop-psychology needs. If that’s not enough, take the Dead Russian Composer Personality test, or any of the ones at theSpak.com.
• Sometimes you just want to know what is wrong with the picture.
• For those who want to know more about the song, I present The Annotated “American Pie”
• Despite all its faults, Nick Lowe’s “The Well-Tempered Plot Device” is still worth reading.
• A Rape in Cyberspace or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society (by Julian Dibbell).
• The World of Bevery Cleary
• “Here, have a dollar, in fact no brotherman here, have two ...” (and more lyrics/verse)
• The Word Detective is your friend.
• Remember ZOOM? There’s also the Electric Company MP3 Archive.
• Let Leo Tolstoy answer the question, “What Is Art?”
• How much do you know about the World of Traditional Zoroastrianism?
• Annie Laurie Gaylor is Madison’s favorite (and *loud*) atheist.
• The Scum Manifesto—it speaks for itself.
• This leads one—naturally—to the original “Scoop on Poop.”
• The question for you: Female or Shemale? Can you tell? This is similar to Gay or Eurotrash the game.
• One person even put his Class Notes for J.R.R. Tolien’s Middle-earth online.
• I also have an interview with Sheri Tepper (and another, along with a bibliography summary and some reviews)
• Bondage Tape looks cool—Jackhammer Jesus is cooler.
• Generate an automatic complaint letter.
• Care Bears ... curse of the 80s or hardcore porn?
• Douglas Hofstadter not only writes cool books, he also has a webpage.
• Somehow I ended up with a bookmark to TotL.
• How can you not like more puppy pictures?

Stuff I didn’t write
If you’re tired of reading this shit, you can always peruse this collection of unpublished short stories and poems. There are lots of other “artists” online, such as the brownflower creative group and asdf. McSweeny’s provide a lot of stuff to read. Free. Baen Books has some free stuff, too. Then there are a bunch of German poetesses to check out. There are also all of Grimms Fairy Tales to read [another link]. The Paradise Lost Study Guide has the complete poem as well as essays, summaries, etc. “The Wake” has information about Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. If that’s too “traditional” for you, just visit the Chomskybot. If you’re really into Terry Brooks, you can check out The Terry Brooks Experience and the Shady Side of Shannara. And if you just want a long list of “children’s literature,” we’ve got that, too.

Whatever: just Fuck the Skull of Jesus. It is priceless.

My bookmark.htm file is much smaller now.

—20 September, 2002

[ Part 1 | Part 2 ]