power Power POWER!

So we went to a monster truck rally on Saturday, me, the wife, and the kids.

It was Jonah’s friend Liam’s sixth birthday. Liam’s into monster trucks and after the aforementioned party at his house most of the guests piled into their cars and drove to the OaklandMcAfee Coliseum. It was a miserable night, cold, windy, and wet.

Our first surprise came when traffic was backed up for two miles on the highway. All monster-truck traffic? (Turns out the Foo Fighters were playing next door at the OaklandOracle Arena at the same time, so it’s impossible to know how many were cool rock fans and how many were trashy demolition junkies.)

Our second surprise came when we needed cash to enter the parking lot and we had none. So we had to leave, get cash, and then re-endure the long line of cars.

Our third surprise came when we realized the monster truck rally was an outdoor event. Andrea and I were both fighting colds. Our sore throats tingled in unison.

I unhappily contemplated the possibility of another bout of pneumonia. The things we do for our kids…

Our fourth surprise came when we saw how many true fans had turned out in the cold and the rain for the dubious pleasures of sticking foam earplugs in their ears and watching those ridiculously modded vehicles struggling weakly through the mud, occasionally rearing up to expose their undercarriages, sometimes rolling over old, junked cars, but mostly doing donuts and spraying mud in all directions. (Surprise 4a was how often the crowd came to its feet. Surprise 4b was how often I thought of Fonzie and Pinky Tuscadero battling the Mallachi brothers in the demolition derby.)

Our final surprise came on the drive home, mercifully just an hour later, when Jonah said he’d like to return to another monster truck rally as soon as possible and Archer averred, “Monster Jam is cool.”

Fence funny

My sister unearthed this old cartoon by me among our mom’s papers. I don’t remember drawing it, but hey, it’s kinda clever. Thanks for scanning and mailing it, sis!

300


Tonight we blog in hell!
(The tumbling figures are the
victims of my withering rhetoric.)

This post marks two big gee bobg milestones: the 300th post and the first day with more than 200 pageviews — and that’s after subtracting all the hits from bots, spiders, and my own obsessive checking and rechecking of my content.

In honor of this momentous occasion I thought I’d turn over the writing duties to my first guest blogger: the Bob-o-matic. The Bob-o-matic is a Perl script that examines all the posts on my blog and then constructs a new post at random using the same vocabulary and the same phrase patterns (technically, via a Markov chain). If you’d like to understand exactly what the Bob-o-matic does, here is its source code, with no helpful comments or documentation (for extra pedagogical rigor).

Without further ado, the first gee bobg post by the Bob-o-matic!


Today is iconoclasm, which was my cue that it’s harvesting laughs instead of writing letters to Senator Dianne Feinstein expressing disappointment in one shot as quickly as possible. I bought some rope and, for better or worse, he shouted, pee! By the AP and appeared far and wide in the shadow of Primadonna’s wonderful hearty food and jovial, though I understood a little media savvy can recognize TV’s propaganda and soothing pap for what it goes on to a willing patron and would not stop the car overheated and we still don’t know exactly why this might be. Tell me. There’s my street, Tom said out of my head into his hotel. That’s when they saw us run from the Star Wars a couple of hours on the Millennium Falcon is sidetracked into an intelligent, multilayered byplay that gets its point across indirectly. Take this scene are Atia’s that is far preferable to hearing nine months of 1986 were a hit the crowd getting into the story better than most? In short, if elected, to the seas to be sexually active when you can imagine we are deeply disappointed with the peroxide and a wide variety of capes, masks, and those who did the exact same thing goes for sushi… If the President deems them hostile to U.S. Senator in a boxing ring notably body and the structure of the weather yesterday, as there was David, Julie, and he throws a tantrum? None of us found Greg crashed out on a wide selection of vintage candy from yesteryear, and exhibit a journalistic integrity that they included him in happier times? July 1999. Mr. Spock Uhura Uhura uniform 60 Star Trek Technical Manual. Bless her, never over the years I have not been true at all those southern dialects myself, what could George Bailey, who doesn’t like tits? That means there is not a place full of them. I forget what it looks like a beggar he couldn’t bag ‘er for want of a web page I created with this system it was time to time. Dozens of feet it’s a smell, smell world after all it’s a way to explain the observable world without invoking God.

I’ll be concept, you be execution

I need someone to do the guerilla-art installation project that I dreamed up a few years ago:

All around the country, put up speed-limit signs that look just like the real ones but give speeds in crazy units. For example, 55 miles per hour is:

  • 7.3 furlongs per minute
  • 13.4 fathoms per second
  • 0.2 light-seconds per lunar month
  • 478 stadia per hour
  • 9.2×1041 planck lengths per week
  • 29,740 kilometers per fortnight

Are you in?

Hell no

It occurs to me that the song Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer does not chronicle Rudolph’s response to Santa’s request, “Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?” It only says that after Santa asked that question, “all the reindeer loved him.”

Are we to presume, after the emotional scars Rudolph received at the hands of Santa’s favored reindeer, that he’d simply acquiesce in Santa’s hour of need? Do “all the reindeer” love him merely as an Uncle Tom? Or did he earn their respect by standing up to The Man and giving Santa the “Hell no!” he deserved?

There is scant evidence to indicate which answer he gave, but I for one know which one was more likely to make the other reindeer tell Rudolph, “You’ll go down in history!”

A darnedest conversation

While trying to get a reluctant Archer to go to sleep:

Archer: What if a boot came down a slide and kicked someone off?
Me: Then you’d have to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. Are you OK?”
Archer: Why?
Me: Well if you throw a boot down a slide and it hits someone, you have to apologize.
Archer: What if I didn’t throw the boot?
Me: Then no boot would go down the slide and hit someone.
Archer: What if it did?
Me: Well boots don’t go down slides by themselves!
Archer: Why?
Me: They’re inanimate. They don’t move unless someone makes them move.
Archer: What if it went down the slide by itself?
Me: That would be one amazing boot.
Archer: What if it kicked someone?
Me: Then that person would probably say, “Hey, who threw that boot?!”
Archer: But no one did.
Me: Right.

That satisfied him, and he rolled over and went to sleep.

What brings you here, 2007 edition

Here are some of the top queries from various search engines that resulted in hits on my blog during the past year or so, reproduced verbatim from my server logs. (Last year’s results are here.) Each related family of queries is listed with a main variant in bold and selected other variants, plus the percentage of query-hits represented by that family.

I was at first surprised to see that hits for “James Bond villains” outnumbers hits for “vampire lesbian girl scouts” (etc.) and “sex” (etc.) combined, but then realized: the percentages are a function both of the popularity of that search and of the ranking of my site in the search results. In other words, if you’re looking for anything about vampires or lesbians or sex I regret to say there are a lot of likelier websites for you to visit before mine.

James Bond villains; The Villains of bond; deformed bond villains; “james bond” +villains +clothes 10.2%
William H. Macy; william h macy photos; face de William H. Macy 5.0%
Vampire lesbian girl scouts; lesbian vampires; naked lesbians; lesbian girl scouts; naked girl scouts; kissing lesbian girls; zombie girl scouts; evil girlscouts; girl scout decorated cake 4.5%
Sex etc.; horsey style sex; lesbian masturbation; “sex positions illustrated”; vampire sex; lesbians having hot lesbian sex; lesbian sex soundeffect; “San Francisco Masturbate-a-thon”; squat girl masturbate -cock -man -boy -blow; dildo attached to wall; sex positions kitty style; attach dildo to floor; How to convince my lady staf for sex?; sex positions in alphanumeric; “park and ride” “sex positions illustrated” 3.2%
Jaws ride; Jaws ride construction; jaws hitchcock 3.1%
e to the i pi plus one; pi relation to e; mathematical constant e Euler comic; relating pi, e, 1 and 0; “amazing relationship” e pi 2.3%
Don Fanucci; vito corleone fanucci 2.3%
Honeybee/Bees in chimney; humming sound when close glass fireplace doors; honeybees in chimney; bees in fireplace; bees chimney flying down 2.2%
Star Wars; 5th august 1977; star wars remake; hoth rebel base; “your tauntaun will freeze”; exegesis “empire strikes back”; star wars ben kenobi ghost; was obi wan strong enough to defeat palpatine; In Episode 5 what is the insult of Leia to Han Solo which Chewie laughed that Han called him “fuzzball” ?; lego star wars millennium falcon; star wars cassette tape 1977; “bob glickstein” “star wars”; mark hamill car crash empire strikes back monster; han solo slices open tauntaun quote; HOW DID THE FREAKIN EMPIRE BEGIN?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!; August+5th+1977; star wars novelization 1977; What does yoda say when luke comments that he is not afraid; why didn’t Luke kill the Wampa; “asteroid field”+”star wars”; star wars allegories; star wars 1970 nerd; “time magazine” 1977 “star wars” 2.1%
Pirates of the Caribbean; pirate medallion; does elizabeth swann love jack sparrow; elizabeth swann’s red dress; jack sparrow character motivation 2.1%
Widescreen viewing area; “what size tv to buy”; “square inches” diagonal widescreen chart; determine tv width given diagonal; 42″ 16:9 square inches; 16:9 4:3 screen equivalence OR correspondance; DIAGONAL ASPECT RATIO FORMULA; pythagoras 16:9 screen size 32″ 1.8%
Godfather; Godfather part II poster; Godfather Part 4: Fredo’s Revenge 1.8%
Susan Oliver/Orion Slave Girl; vina star trek; star trek green orion slave; nude Orion slave girl; orion slave girls makeup; orion slave girls color correction 1.7%
Cathy Lee Crosby/Wonder Woman; cathy lee crosby wonderwoman film download; cathy+lee+crosby+as+wonder+woman; wonder woman drag; WONDERWOMAN TV MOVIE 1.7%
Rogaine; scalp conditions; itchy scalp; rogaine results; scalp exercise; rogaine effectiveness 1.7%
Ursula sex; ursula undress; ursula dildo; ursula sex disney 1.6%
Comcast; comcast removes channels; comcast turn off service; comcast losing west coast feeds; complaints over comcast hbo; disable speed reduction comcast cable; compression artifacts comcast; how do i delete channels i do not watch in comcast; comcast crappy broadcast; comcast reduction in service; do i get a rate reduction when comcast removes channels; I want both west coast and east coast feeds 1.6%
Bob Glickstein; gee bobg; “bob glickstein” +yoga; bob glickstein andrea; bob glickstein imdb; growing up Glickstein 1.4%
Trophy; ugly trophy; dna trophy; bezos trophy 1.3%
Dog; how to draw dogs; “remington dog park”; dog pee drives away evil spirits; veterinary dogs and chocolate 1.3%
Lulav; lulav and etrog; big picture of a lulav and etrog; lulav by its self; lulav etrog chabad; sukkot lulav without etrog 1.3%
Star Trek/Enterprise/Kirk/etc.; spock uhura; Uhura uniform; 60 star trek uniform; bonk bonk on the head star trek; Captain Kirk’s Insignia; enterprise blueprints; happy birthday star trek; Klingons-Star Trek; Atheist Star Trek; 1.2%
Amy Linker; what happened to amy linker; amy linker and tv land awards 1.1%
Jodie Foster; jodie foster bugsy malone; YOUNG JODIE FOSTER; +”give a little love and it all comes back to you” +foster 1.1%
Joseph Costanzo; joe costanzo restaurant; Joseph costanzo primadonna 1.1%
The end of Superman; superman reverse time; superman in the end; superman earth spinning; can superman go the speed of light; how many times can superman fly around earth in 1 second; +”it is forbidden for you to interfere in human history”; superman rewind time; how many times does superman fly around the earth in order to reverse its rotation 1.0%
Frank Pentangeli; frank pentangeli hit; roth corleone Frank Pentangeli assassination; frank pentangeli johnny ola 1.0%
Thai gem scam; thailand scam; majestic export jewelry thailand scam; gems profit thailand; thai sapphire scam; thailand conman; buying gemstones, thailand, blog; thai Export Center scam; selling thai gems; what to do if conned in thailand; david maurer thailand 1.0%
Evil cats 0.8%
Food photography; food stylist; food styling “pasta”; food stylists cereal; food stylist burger; tricks of a food stylist 0.8%
Each daughter has the same number…; In a certain family each daughter has the same number of brothers and sisters. Each son has twice as many sisters as brothers. How many sons and daughters are there in the family? Now there are two ways to do this obviously, you can do it the hard way or the easy way. 0.8%
Fizzies; what ever happened to fizzies drink tablets; how do fizzies work; fizzies that are new; Fizzie tablet sex aid; truckload of fizzies; FIZZIES FOUNTAIN 0.7%
James Bond; vintage james bond girls; james bond toys; the bond men; Live and Let Die Band James Bond 0.7%
Pez museum; pez incredibles violet; batman pez dispensers; pez guns; why didnt violet parr become a pez machine; headless PEZ dispensers 0.7%
Vincent Price; old photos of Vincent Price; Vincent Price gay; “the saint” vincent price; 0.5%
Candy; old time candy; “dylan’s candy bar”; Candy of yesteryear 0.5%
Entenmann’s; golden cake; entenmanns’ chocolate chip filled crumb cake recipe; entenmann fudge golden cake 0.5%
Adam Stoller; why i owe adam stoller an apology; fish adam stoller 0.5%
MoveOn; moveon.org bad; moveon.org founder; move away from moveon.org; moveon endorsements nov 2007 election 0.5%
Vertical speed indicator/Altimeter; static port; instrument dial Concorde speed; how does an altimeter work; pitot static instruments; ram air pressure pitot; how does the vsi work? flying 0.5%
Cigarettes/Camels/Still Life With Woodpecker; Joe Camel; tom robbins woodpecker; camel tom robbins 0.5%
Baron Munchausen; was baron munchausen an atheist 0.5%
Sharon Stone; sharon stone naked; sharon stone’ pictures, 1970; sharon stone en lingerie fine 0.5%
Computer; computers internet blog; “apple II home computer” 0.4%
xkcd; xkcd complex numbers; calculus xkcd; math xkcd 0.4%
Bob Falfa/Martin Stett; big bob falfa; purchase a bob falfa hat; falfa and milner 0.4%
Adrift/Open Water 2; “open water 2” true story tried everything; understand explain open water 2:adrift ending?; FORGOT TO LOWER LADDER ON YACHT 0.4%
Honda Fit; finding a honda fit; pre order “honda fit” bay area; vw rabbit or honda fit? 0.4%
Carl Sagan; “carl sagan” +billions; cosmos carl sagan vangelis heaven hell; “circumference of the earth” carl sagan; eratosthenes carl sagan; Carl Sagan and Star Trek 0.4%
Splashdown; splashdown lyrics meaning; i feel so elated would you please bring me joy lyrics; free splashdown downloads karma slave; lyrics so if your past approaches you pulled into a war you’ll lose; karma slave splashdown video; i feel so elated i do i do splashdown 0.4%
The Incredibles; Life Lessons The Incredibles; incredibles analogy of family togetherness 0.3%
Legobiggest lego city ever made; Cool lego creations; LEGO WORLD RECORD FOR MILLENIUM FALCON 0.3%
Birthday invitation; neverland invitation 0.3%
Mill Valley Pediatrics; what new rule causes pediatrician to close office; dr. Harris pediatrics mill valley 0.3%
BDSM; BDSM and rodent; hellium balloons bdsm; bdsm “trembling with fear”; professional bdsm pittsburgh; bdsm vanity plates 0.3%
Richard S. Castellano 0.3%
Bugsy Malone/Scott Baio; coca cola jingle+you give a little love and all comes back to you 0.3%
Games magazine/Calculatrivia marathon; ken jennings calculatrivia; “games magazine” contest t-shirt 0.3%
Penis; Jonah Falcon penis; christmas penis drawing; penis peeing pictures; penis doodles; “draw a penis” 0.3%
Drawing/scribbling/doodling; kids scribbles 0.3%
Raiders of the Lost Ark; indiana jones medallion + raiders of the lost ark; indiana jones finds millenium falcon; indiana jones harrison ford sean connery 0.3%
I know it was you Fredo.; Johnny Ola Fredo; HOW DOES MICHAEL KNOW ABOUT FREDO; +”why” +michael +kill +fredo 0.3%
Federation Trading Post 0.2%
Funny epitaph; headstone humor; headstone for mom 0.2%
Batman; shark repellent spray; batman and the shark; batman robin “more toyetic” 0.2%
Handshadow; Hand-Shadow play 0.2%
Peter and the Starcatchers 0.2%
Watch neighbor undress; neighbor undress photo 0.2%
Lemon Ice King of Corona; queens ices 0.2%
Weight; weight graph; college freshman weight graph; jewish weight loss 0.2%
Marty Goldstein/Black Book; ‘marty goldstein’ ‘creative black book’; i remember going to the black book office zanetti 0.2%
Kinds of meat; meatballs three kinds of meat 0.2%
Fligth to Mars 0.2%
Supertanker; how much does a supertanker cost?; how many barrels of oil does a supertanker carry; how much money does a supertanker captain make; running costs for a supertanker; becoming a supertanker captain; supertankers are curved 0.2%
Jewish; jew obnoxious; jewish products; mormon jew; mountain jew; val kilmer sephardic jewish 0.2%
Cartelligent; Leigh Taylor, Cartelligent; cartelligent price for honda fit 0.2%
Sweetener; hooray sweetener; cyclamates popularity sodas; Is Cyclamates good for you; sodium bicarbonate sweetener cancer 0.2%
Captain Morgan rum 0.2%
Gerald Zanetti 0.2%
Bush smile 0.2%
Salt Lake flats; nevada open salt lake 0.2%
Disney; disney+AND+fingerprint; disney park hopper fingerprint; thumper disney 0.2%
Koyaanisqatsi 0.2%
Katharine Hepburn 0.2%
Incremental backup; jungledisk incremental backups; s3 backup incremental mirror linux; simple linux incremental backups; infinite backup 0.2%
Rhymes with Bethany; bethany accident utah; something that rhymes with bethany; poem for bethany 0.1%
Sci-fi spaceships; cool Scifi Spaceships; most beautiful spaceships 0.1%
I Dream of Jeannie; healey irresistible to when i dream of jeannie episode; i dream of jeanie colorization 0.1%
Laundry; how to get quarters laundry; cold undissolved laundry soap; monopolize laundry machines; laundry pile 0.1%
Anakin/Padme; How much do Anakin’s talent, pride and ambitions affect his decisions to turn to ‘the dark side’? 0.1%
Making Mr. Right; malkovich “making mr right” 0.1%
Pop-culture grid; “the pop culture grid”+last concert you saw 0.1%
Adventurer’s Inn; toboggan adventurer’s inn 0.1%
Clemenza; young clemenza; who killed clemenza 0.1%
Glenne Headley 0.1%
1776/“Yours Yours Yours” 0.1%
Nature of reality; 10 dimensions of reality; how to understand ten dimensional reality; three-dimensional pants 0.1%
Dunk tank; “spring carnival” dunk 0.1%
Misconstruction 0.1%
Sarah Jessica Parker; sarah jessica parker in square pegs 0.1%
Mr. Arrigo; Robert arrigo teacher 0.1%
Eli Attie 0.1%
Hog-calling time in Nebraska; What tune is hog calling time in nebraska sung to?; ORIGINS OF HOG CALLING; hog calling songs 0.1%
Eulogy for a friend 0.1%
Indiana University; indiana university hofstadter 0.1%
Cynthia Nixon; Cynthia Nixon manhattan project 0.1%
Pine Knoll Bungalow Colony; bungalow colonies in monticello 0.1%
Prison Break; prisoner 94941; michael scofield myer briggs; “prisoner number” scofield 0.1%
Winnemucca, NV; Winnemucca weekly pet friendly motels; reasons to love Winnemucca, NV 0.1%
Steve Volan 0.1%
P.S. 196; all teachers from p.s.196 0.1%
Knish Nosh; knish nosh health department 0.1%
Mucoshave 0.1%
Laser/Theodore Maiman; 1966 national geographic “the laser’s bright magic”; what kind of food does theodore maiman likes; did theodore maiman get alot of money for making the laser 0.1%
Jeff Bezos; BEZOS THE GREATEST 0.1%
Universal Hall Pass 0.1%

Greatest hits: Peep! Peep!

[This post is participating in Only the Cinema’s Short Film Week blog-a-thon.]

My kids have outgrown it by now, but for a few years there our household was swimming in Thomas the Tank Engine videos and toys, and I could tell you the name, color, function, and personality of every engine on picturesque Sodor, and so could my wife and kids. I was amazed by that — and am now equally amazed at how quickly (and mercifully!) it has all faded from memory.

I wrote the following at the peak of our Thomasmania and dedicate it to all parents of Thomas-obsessed toddlers who think this phase will never end. It will.


It was a beautiful day on the island of Sodor. [Engine X] was very excited — today was the day of [an annual celebration or completion of a major construction milestone]. As [Engine X] chattered about it with the other engines in the shed, Sir Topham Hatt came to see him.

[Engine X],” he said, “today I have an important job for you. You must ferry the [children, celebrants, performers, or party goods] to the [celebration].”

“Oh my,” said [Engine Y] to [Engine X]. “That means you’ll have to [traverse a notoriously tricky section of track]. Be sure to [travel at an appropriate speed].”

“I’m sure I always do,” sniffed Gordon.

On his way to [yet another among tiny Sodor’s impossibly many stations], [Engine X] grew more and more excited and started to sing a happy song. “Oh, I’m going to pick up the [children, celebrants, performers, or party goods],” he sang as he chuffed along. He was having so much fun that he forgot all about [traveling at an appropriate speed]. Closer and closer loomed the [notoriously tricky section of track] until, all of a sudden–!

(Here [Engine X] makes an off-track excursion and causes property damage.)

Fortunately, no one was hurt. A short time later, Sir Topham Hatt arrived. He was very cross. “[Engine X], you were not paying attention. You have caused confusion and delay. I have asked [Engine Y] to take your place. You must go back to the shed for repairs.”

“I’m sorry,” said [Engine X]. He felt terrible. Not even jolly Harvey could cheer him up as he helped pull [Engine X] back onto the tracks. Now [Engine X] would not get to carry the [children, celebrants, performers, or party goods], and he wouldn’t even be able to attend the [celebration]!

On his way back to the shed, [Engine X] passed [Engine Y]. “Hi, [Engine X]!” called [Engine Y] cheerfully. “Hello,” replied [Engine X] glumly. As they passed, [Engine X] noticed [a condition with negative consequences for safety]. “I must alert [Engine Y, Sir Topham Hatt, or the switchman]!” thought [Engine X]. So he raced to [the celebration] and [averted a disaster].

Everyone cheered for [Engine X]! Sir Topham Hatt said, “You are a really useful engine.”

And he was.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

It’s the time of year when I dream up new lyrics for a Christmas classic!

You better not pout
You better not cry
Your tears might confuse its
Robotic eye
Santatron is coming to town

The first Santa Claus’s
Body’s long gone
The new metal one will
Last an eon
Santatron is coming to town

It knows when you are sleeping
It reads what’s in your head
Its detecting network’s sensitive
From UV through infrared

Its thirty-two limbs
Are state-of-the-art
Its thorax holds Santa’s
Still-beating heart
Santatron is coming to town

(Previously.)