Sorry, I know I’ve been posting more videos than ever recently. My right wrist has gone fucky yet again, fuckier than normal, even. So I’m in a brace and working and writing less, damn it all. And this too shall pass and things will be back to normal. But for now it is simply harder to stop and write out an entry.

Not that I have much to say, anyway. Found one of my old friends (Vlad) the other night and grabbed a drink with him. That was insanely cool. Turns out he lives only a short hop away from me, so we’re planning dinner. So I can meet his daughters. Yikes!

Ticketmaster cracked me up this morning by sending me an auto-reminder. “Oh hai! You have Tom Waits tickets for this weekend.” I know they are auto-generated but part of me was wondering if there was any chance in hell of “Oh SNAP! I got Waits tickets? I totally forgot!”

Yeah, no.

I’m reading, for the record, The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company right now (and it isn’t as good as Chronicles of the Black Company but that still puts it above a lot of things.) followed, probably by British Summertime by Paul Cornell (the one what wrote some Dr. Who, as well), which is described thusly: “The lives of five people collide: a woman who can read anything, from body language to the shape of a city; a pilot from the future; a spy; a killer; and a head without a body. The end of the world is coming, and only they can stop it. Their journey reaches back to the days of the New Testament, and forward to the end of time.”

Plus a bunch of review books I need to get back to.

Anyway. Enough for now. More later.

All right, that looks like fun…

Kinda shaming when your ball girl is better at this than most of the team, no?

Edit: The ball was already foul and staying that way so there was no problem with her going in to make the catch, for those wondering.
Edit the second: I am hearing this is a commercial, or from one at any rate. For Gatorade in fact. Still fun. Just not, you know, REAL.

George Carlin dies at the age of 71 of heart problems. He had just won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Carlin was a comedian of… oh fuck this. You know who he was.

You know:

He’ll be missed.

Hello internets! I make this for you!

I don’t know what they’re singing to. I don’t know what music was on when they did this. I don’t care. I don’t care at all. And neither will you.

Now edited to add the full video with sound and so on!

(via Phoenix Mars Mission): June 19, 2008 — Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

“It must be ice,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. “These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can’t do that.”

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” when Phoenix’s Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Also early today, digging in a different trench, the Robotic Arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer.

The Phoenix science team spent Thursday analyzing new images and data successfully returned from the lander earlier in the day.

Studying the initial findings from the new “Snow White 2″ trench, located to the right of “Snow White 1,” Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, said, “We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench.”

——————–

So they found ice on Mars. But they didn’t say what kind of ice. I mean:

Could be any one of them!

Last night was a night filled with many things. There were fries with infinite dipping sauces, ugly ball gowns on display, driving and, well, stuff. But there was also black light miniature golf. Yes, yes there was.

This place was in a mall. A mall that had been frozen in time. It was like a Romero set waiting for actors. Long fake stone floors and walls with darkened shops and no sense of life. It smelled of stale A/C, like there weren’t enough people to stir the air for the system. The whole place was a testament to man’s will to push forward … and then get the fuck out of dodge leaving only the occasional limping store behind.

The Mini-Golf was in an arcade that had few games and fewer customers. Then we stepped inside the golf course. Boy did we.

Do you remember when you were a kid and learned that the Injuns (hey when I was a kid they were Injuns mostly and only sometimes Native Americans) used every part of the Buffalo? I remember this lesson very well. I remember thinking that was simply silly. There were parts you just didn’t have a need for, didn’t want and couldn’t possibly be of use. Thank God I am not of the Tribes, I tell you, because, obviously, I was wrong and the Native Americans were right. Not a shocker, I know.

The Mini-Golf place was built in the 90s and I realized, very quickly, as we stepped into its maw that the designers must have been Native American, or at least had learned the lesson, because they used every part of the 90s in their construction. The walls were spray painted with murals that belonged on jean jackets. Seascapes and dolphins and blue whales with tripped out smoky water and sweeping vistas. Jungles with pandas (one of which looked like a tapir with a panda suit on) and drooping trees and greens and yellows and reds. Those gave way to space scenes full of 90s wonderment. It was every denim jacket you had lusted over, every van you thought was superslick, all that and more.

The course itself was more of the same. The rug was done up in a pattern that looked like those old NY Giant parachute pants that everyone wore for about five minutes. The course was painted in the same colors and patterns.

All of it, of course, made neon by the black light.

The music was 90s top of the charts. Consistently. You walked in there and you were trapped in the land that time forgot. It was a little slice of insane, in the middle of abandonment. And really isn’t that where the 90s belong?

Mini-Golf itself was priceless. When I used two hands on the club I managed to hit balls so off and fucked up that they would often end up bouncing to land behind me or right off the course. When I pimped it out and used on hand on the club I was getting the occasional hole-in-one. I was accused of golf-sharking. And then of being special needs when it came to aiming a golf ball. And back and forth. But that’s how I roll, yo.

There was no bowling. My right wrist is fucky and I injured it once this month already. We decided to not go for #2 and held off on the bowling love. Next time. Still, mini-golf alone was enough to last me a while in the fun department. No irony, no “so lame it’s cool” bullshit. Just pure good fun.

Using every part of the 90s.

Yuen Biao has always been an amazing gymnast and martial artist. Here is about 6 minutes worth of clips. They vary in all sorts of ways but sound warning they do vary widley in volume as the thing plays so you prolly wanna bottom out the video and just watch it. Very worth watching. Around the 5 minute mark, for the lazy, he pretty much stops being human.

Tonight I am going both bowling and blacklight mini-golfing. Process that a second. I’ll wait here while you chortle. ‘Cause yeah.

The thing is … the last time I played mini-golf was something like 10 years ago and it was 4am and the lights were off and we didn’t have clubs so we all took the field and played soccer with a tiny white ball and full-contact. I doubt this will be that. The last time I bowled was also many many years ago and I got beaten by a five year old.

So tonight oughta be interesting.

At least there will be a good story tomorrow.