Kernal

What is it about the word “kernel” that tempts people to spell it “kernal?” This seems to be one of the most commonly misspelled words I’ve seen in the past few years. It’s so common in fact that sometimes it seems like it’s misspelled more often than it’s spelled correctly. But why just this word? Why isn’t “computor” also a common misspelling, or “memary” or “motherbored” or anything else? Why just “kernal?”

A P.S. to a piece of old email I just happened on:

BTW, the Command, clover, or splat key was originally called the “feature” key. The symbol is used on European maps to denote features, except in Finland where it means “campground”.

Atlantis

My blackness is deep.
How deep?
Deeper than Atlantis.
Deeper than the sea floor, travelled by the mantis.

– X-Clan

Gidget

If you’re in doubt about angels being real
I can arrange to change any doubts you feel
Wait till you see my Gidget
You’ll want her for your Valentine
Your gonna say she’s all that you adore
But stay away, Gidget is spoken for
You’re gonna find, that Gidget is mine

Listen!

Bum Fights

Just got a spam formatted exactly like a porn spam, which led to a site formatted exactly like a porn site, except it’s not about porn, it’s about watching homeless people beat each other up — ebumfights.com. “It’s a train wreck you can’t turn away from!” “Angry and drunk? Wanna fight?”

I swear we’re headed for cultural implosion.

Liberace Stalker

So last night there’s a message on the machine from a woman who is “very concerned” about some “untruths” on Birdhouse related to Liberace. I assume the call is from someone at the Liberace Foundation contesting my claim that the photos I have posted there are used with permission (they are).

Called her back today and it turned out to be the wife of a one-time Liberace impersonator who has been stalked by a rabid Liberace fan ever since doing a rousing impersonation in Nevada once. I have a page : The Best of Birdhouse Mail, on which I had posted an email from someone claiming to have witnessed the living reincarnation of Liberace. Turns out the email was from this stalker dude, and the wife just wants to do all she can to protect her husband from the stalker, including not giving him air time. Of course, the email has been up there for five years, so it’s kind of late, but I thought she made a good case. Not a big deal, I took it down.

Perhaps I need a raccoon penis bone amulet to protect me from the kooks. Or a conference bike I can use to better understand them. Perhaps I shall meet them at the most beautiful motel in America.

Fried Huge Caterpillars

Plowing through my spam trap and thought I saw a subject line “Fried Huge Caterpillars.” Had to stop and read that one. Turned out to be “Friend, Huge Pillar Candles,” which is almost but not quite as surreal, inverted by my partially dyslexic brain. I swear, sometimes my appreciation for the absurd and my mild dyslexia are a match made in heaven… what Dali called “the paranoicritical method” – rather than correcting the frequent small perceptual mistakes we all make, Dali cultivated this technique of allowing the brain to run with these sorts of errors for pure entertainment or surrealist value. I seem to do this quite naturally. Amy is sometimes unsure whether I actually didn’t perceive something correctly or whether I brushed against a misperception and unconsciously encouraged it to flourish just to flustrate conversation, or for a laugh. The funny thing is, when she calls me on it, I’m not sure either.

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

The 2002 results are in! My fave:

“The professor looked down at his new young lover, who rested fitfully, lashed as she was with duct tape to the side of his stolen hovercraft, her head lolling gently in the breeze, and as they soared over the buildings of downtown St. Paul to his secret lair he mused that she was much like a sweet ripe juicy peach, except for her not being a fuzzy three-inch sphere produced by a tree with pink blossoms and that she had internal organs and could talk.”

Ben Brown gets on board with the Switch campaign. “What am I going to do with a parallel port?”

Cuba Underwater Megalithic Research

Off the coast of Cuba, at a depth of 2,200 feet (700-800 meters), a 20 sq. km area of white sand, punctuated by great granite monoliths, possibly structures. Granite is not native to Cuba – the nearest granite deposits are in the center of Mexico. This could be a land mass that sunk around 15,000 years ago, but no one has a really good explanation at this point.

“They (megalithic stones) are very unique structures. They really are not easy to understand and I do not have any easy explanation for them in a natural geological process.”

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Funny how I can talk about music I don’t like with my friends easily enough and all is well, but when I do it on LJ it upsets people, or comes off wrong, or gets misunderstood, or something.

Update: Reactions caused by the 100 Albums list are being tallied at QuickTopic.

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“Nothing is as it seems.”

“Oh yeah? Well, how do things seem?”