cybrpunk.com

Experimenting with ads

Since I’m having to rebuild the site once again, I thought I’d try out some ads.  Not exactly sure how it works yet, but I think I have some showing.  They look like crap and I’d prefer images instead of these cheese text ads.  But oh well.  Maybe I’ll figure out a better way to do it.

So, apologies in advance if you are mortally offended by the presence of ads.  It’s just an experiment at this point.  We’ll see what happens.  Just understand that those ads are the only things I have on here right now.  I have never been paid to talk about any of the things I’ve blogged about.  That just creeps me out.

Funny Farm is on TV

Ah… good movie.  The Green Mile was on before that.  Our TV’s HDMI port is having problems after getting the remote sensor repaired.  We get video but no audio from the DVD player.  Sucks.  And the technicican didn’t know how to fix it.  So it’s going to be a few more days till it’s fixed.  *sigh*  At least he spoke enough English to communicate most of what he wanted to say.

Theme madness

Now… if I could only find a theme I actually liked….

If you’ve noticed a new theme coming up each time you arrive here then you’re not alone. Sorry for any confusion. I’m still looking for my new alternative to K2. And so far… nothing. So I’ve downloaded the RC4 version from their nightly builds and see how it looks.

CRAP.
I just realized that all my pictures that I posted are broke.  *sigh*  I guess I need to go fix that too.

Monkey condoms

Everything in Japan can have cute characters stamped on them to make them more appealing. Everything. I believe monkey condoms are a good example. Why? Because translating Japanese to English is hysterical. Make sure you scroll down to the pictures of the individual condom wrappers and read the translations and the little blurb that goes with each one. This is mandatory. Happy make the best click now.

In semi-related news: people have had sex in space.  How freaky is that?

Started writing again

I started writing again the other day. No, not on the zombie series. [Well OK that's not entirely true.  I did do a little work on The Killing Fields at lunch today.] This is another new story line. Something along the lines of a children’s book. For adults. Because of all the blood and death. You know… for kids. *swivels hoola-hoop*

Yeah OK so there usually isn’t a whole lot of blood and death in kids books so this would obviously not be the correct classification. I was just thinking of something light-hearted like Jumanji and Night at the Museum mixed with something a little more disturbing like Hellraiser and The Relic with maybe a bit of Cthulhu mythos influences to spice it up a bit. I probably won’t finish it just like everything else, but you never know. Maybe if things settle down at work after I get back from the States, I can try and concentrate on writing more often. Maybe some more drawing too. That would be nice.

If any of my readers is a police officer, especially one that’s been on a murder crime scene, and wouldn’t mind me asking them a few procedural questions through e-mail, send me a message @ cybrpunk 13 @ gmail dot com. Your country or state of jurisdiction is not important to me so don’t let that stop you.

Re-writing history

There is a famous quote by someone who may have been Winston Churchill (or maybe not, you’ve read about my history aptitude already) that says something to the effect that “History is written by the conquerors.” It’s an interesting phrase that only seems to have any meaning once you really look into history (like I have since school… kinda.) Rome wrote the history of the world after it conquered a decent portion of it and labeled all other nations as barbarians and heathens. But were they? The North won the US Civil War and from then on the North is seen as the “good guys” and the South is seen as the “bad guys”. But is it really that simple? The French have never really done much of anything and yet they are historically seen as this great nation . Well there goes that theory. Unless of course the French write history books. Hmm… never thought of that….

Seriously though, have you ever talked to someone from another country about US history or European history? It can be… enlightening… to say the least to hear what they’ve learned. Do you think Japanese schools teach the same history lessons that schools in the States do? Do you think their textbooks cover World War II the same way as the British books? Talk to a Korean about their history and you find out how many times they were invaded and taken over by pretty much everyone. I don’t remember that from school. Talk to the Chinese about slavers and wars that devastated them for long periods of time. Nope we only learned about how great Abraham Lincoln was - year after year after year. I wonder what the history textbooks would have said about Lincoln if the South had won?

Things I didn’t know

There’s a lot of useless crap floating about in my brain and I regularly stumble through Wikipedia to expand that clutter. People have called me a know-it-all but that is hardly the truth. I just know a lot of random stuff. Sometimes I just make educated guesses and every now and then I make shit up right on the spot. I try and avoid that last practice as much as possible because it annoys the hell out of me when other people do it.

So here’s something I didn’t know: In 1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky. That’s from the “On this day…” section of Wikipedia for today.

Now I happen to find this fascinating. First of all the fact that heart transplants did not exist prior to the birth of disco. I find that disturbing on many levels. Second that it happened in South Africa. In school in the States the only time you ever heard about anything historical about South Africa it was something bad. I had the distinct impression that South Africa was the seat of all evil in the continent of Africa when I was a schoolboy. Little did I know it was much farther north. They never taught us about sociopathic warlords in my little po-dunk school. We never learned anything interesting…. Although I did get to see the movie Shaka Zulu so I guess that was something.

Anyway…. Here’s another fun fact from “On this day…”: In 1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California, USA.

I have no idea what a Jovian moon is (and I refuse to click the link) but this is still odd. Did you know that not only did San Jose, California exist in 1904 but it had been around long enough to have an observatory? Me either! I was under the impression that nothing but mining/ghost towns, gold mines, indians, Emperors of the United States, cactus and petrified trees were the only thing in the western United States prior to Hollywood. Obviously my schooling (or possibly my attention span) was lacking during history classes. Whatever it was, it seems that there were other cities than San Francisco before the St. Louis World’s Fair (where ice cream cones and Dr. Pepper were introduced!).

History can be fun if you’re bored and have an Internet connection. It can also show you how little you really know about the world.